Fasting and Feasting in early Britain

There are two things British people are excellent at: feasting, and making themselves miserable. When the Christian faith took hold of the Britons, the early church found their ideal customers. For the next thousand years or so, the church was going to influence how and when the British ate their bacon, and briw. (stew)

Initially Christianity was a minor cult (like the LaRouche movement) that a few Romans brought with them to Britain. It didn’t gain much traction until the dark ages. (About the time the early church took up celebrating Christmas, and assorted feast days that allowed people to OD on cake and meat -the backbone of British feasting.) It was also about the same time that England was going through a lot of upheaval. The Romans had left town, there were a number of small kingdoms that had a cast of assorted rulers, -who came and went like a jinxed restaurant with 5 chefs in one year, there were regular invasions from people who came from northern Europe; and like a child who has gone through a chaotic family break up; it was open to just about any attention. The church presented itself as being like a hip youth group leader who said you could have tattoos, skateboards and be into Jesus. “Vikings are cool. Have you listened to Stryker?”

They borrowed rituals from a number of belief systems; and as its original dude was Jewish, they appropriated the holy days to suit their needs. Like the same old diet with new marketing, early Christianity tried to mark itself as different from the Jewish faith, because they fasted on two different days. When it came to the introduction of Lent, (fasting for many weeks -a tradition held by pagans in the east) it was pretty easy for Christian Britons to give up most food as there was nothing to eat in the early Spring. Well into the 19th century the vast majority of people in Britain were effectively starving a few times a year while waiting for a harvest to come in. There also wasn’t a lot of variation in diet. You could ask someone, “What’s for the main meal?” The answer would be pottage -for the next thousand years, if the harvest didn’t fail. Otherwise everyone was forced to live on weeds and an alleged deity’s mercy.

Leeks were a popular food during Lent, and just like Karen in accounting saying her bullshit salad is really filling, people would say that leeks had a lot of meaty flavor. British people tell themselves a lot of lies when they are suffering. Go to any church fete and everyone will say nice things about that crumbly lemon drizzle cake decorated with grainy jizz-like icing.

The flip side of that coin was that when it was time to feast, people did not hold back. It was the time to eat bread, butter, eggs and most importantly: meat. It was still a fucking pagan affair. Kill and roast a few animals, party like Keith Richards and Lord Byron, and then give thanks to a deity for not making the harvest fail that year so people don’t have to eat that shitty hippie bread no one likes.

The divide between pagans and the newly converted was deepened when Augustine of Canterbury was sent out from the head office to re-organize and bring sales numbers up in the north-western territory. (because Pope Gregory I thought the Celtic church was going rogue.) As more unified control came over it England, it was deemed that only skanky unsaved pagans ate horse meat. Many members of the clergy felt meat should be avoided, believing it incited lustful feelings; because nothing turns a person into a sex maniac like boiled mutton. The faithful were encouraged to have more fish days. People found ways to work around these limitations as explained in an Anglo-Saxon riddle:

The oppressor of vice forbids a feast on Frige’s Day

(the priest says we may not eat meat on Friday)

I take my ship-bow of words to his sea wolf

(So I go down on his Mother)

her twath tastes of the whale’s way

(She tastes of fish)

Blessed gale brought by breaker of sins

(thanks for the good idea Augustine)