Tudor food and eating

Food for the court

Meals were not just about eating. They were a display of the monarch’s power.

Exotic foods demonstrated wealth, while seating arrangements reflected the court’s hierarchy.

Photograph of the Tudor Kitchens owned by the Historic Royal Palaces Image Library

The Tudor diet

By Henry’s reign, the price of fresh meat had fallen sufficiently so that when it was available, the average Tudor family could afford it.

The century before, poorer families would have rarely enjoyed meat, eating a diet of stewed vegetables and pulses.

But the norm for ‘average’ people was stored or preserved meat – the luxury of the court was fresh meat.

Tudor courtiers enjoyed a much wide variety of food, with freshly, slaughtered, roasted meat every day and the luxury of being able to choose from a 'menu' of dishes.

Courtiers were served a menu of dishes containing around 5000 calories a day!

And if they [the nobles and many of their servants] do not have 20 varied meat dishes at dinner and supper, they consider themselves slighted.

Thomas Starkey, Oxford lecturer, c1529

Food and wealth

The variety of food available at court was staggering. Royal diners ate citrus fruit, almonds and olive oil from the Mediterranean.

Food was sweetened with sugar from Cyprus and seasoned with spices from China, Africa and India.

Did you know?

In Tudor times using exotic ingredients from distant countries was a sign of status.

King Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein the Younger, oil on copper, probably 17th century, based on a work of 1536. Purchased, 1863, National Portrait Gallery, NPG 157.

Food for a King

Henry's food was prepared, in a private kitchen, under the direction of the Privy Master Cook, John Bricket.

The King ate in his private rooms, away from the crowds but on more formal occasions he sat alone at a high covered table in his Presence Chamber, under the canopy of state. He chose from a huge buffet, sampling whatever took his fancy. Dishes included game, roasted or served in pies, lamb, venison and swan.

For banquets, more unusual items, such as conger eel and porpoise could be on the menu. Sweet dishes were often served along with savoury.

Only the King was given a fork, with which he ate sweet preserves. Forks were used to serve, cook and carve, but eating with them didn’t become popular until the 17th century.

Henry VIII, @ National Portrait Gallery

The Great Hall, looking east.
The hall was constructed by King Henry VIII to replace a smaller and older hall on the same site. It had two functions. First to provide a great communal dining room where 600 members of the court could eat in two sittings, twice a day. And secondly, to provide a magnificent entrance to the state apartments that lay beyond.

'Sit not down until you have washed. Don't shift your buttocks left and right as if to let off some blast. Sit neatly and still.’

Erasmus, De Civitate 1534

The rules of eating at court

Around 400 courtiers were entitled to two meals a day. A strict set of rules, drawn up by the Lord Chamberlain, dictated where diners sat and what they were entitled to eat.

Meals were served in the Great Hall or the Great Watching Chamber, twice a day at 10.00 and 16.00. Higher-ranking courtiers ate in the Great Watching Chamber; lesser ranks in the Great Hall.

For the lowliest servants there was little choice but lots of it. Food was part of their wages for being at court. A daily menu for ‘Maides, Servants, Children of Offices, Porters and Skowerers’ lists 2 meals of ‘Bread, Ale, Beefe and Veale, or Mutton’

Each meal had two courses served in messes – portions that would be shared between four people. Diners used napkins to cover their laps.

It was considered rude to finish everything at the table, not least because others depended on leftovers.

These were distributed to the ‘deserving poor’ at the palace gates.

Table manners were very important and considered vital if entering polite society. Dutch writer Erasmus published a book in 1534 with a list of instructions, among them: 'Sit not down until you have washed. Don't shift your buttocks...sit neatly and still.

In the Great Hall, diners would sit down under ‘Eavesdroppers’ – painted carved faces on the ceiling –reminding courtiers and servants that they shouldn’t gossip.