Food and feasting

Dr Rob Payne, College Archivist

There has been a tradition of communal eating on the site of Jesus College since c. 1150. To mark the opening of the new kitchen, our Archivists put together an exhibition that traces the histor y of food and feasting from the time of the Prior y of St Mar y and St Radegund to the present day It celebrates the Hall as a place to socialise, create friendships, and as a setting for the intellectual exchange of ideas, none of which would be possible without those who buy, cook and ser ve the food. This ar ticle gives a small taste of the exhibition, which you can read about in greater detail on our website blog.

The Nuns’ Refectory

The medieval prior y of St Mar y and St Radegund was established c. 1150 and was situated on this site before the foundation of the College on 12 June 1496, when Henr y VII issued Letters Patent to Bishop Alcock of Ely authorising him to suppress the nunner y of St Radegund and to use its proper ty to found a College. The College Hall is still located in the same position as the nuns ’ refector y: above a butter y and cellars which is now the new kitchen During the medieval period, a bell would have summoned the nuns to meals in the refector y and they would have ritually washed their hands at a laver located in cloister walk. During the meal, a nun read spiritual texts from an elevated pulpit whilst the others ate in silence. The nuns were seated according to seniority, with the Prioress and senior nuns seated on a raised dais at the eastern end, similar to a High Table

The College Archives hold several account rolls from the time of the Prior y of St Radegund that give researchers an interesting insight into the day-to-day lives of the nuns. The account roll shown below is the earliest of the accounts that is known to sur vive. It covers the years 1449-1450 and contains information relating to all aspects of life in the Prior y including a detailed record of amounts spent on food The list of food purchased by the nuns includes bread, beer, the flesh of cows, pigs, sheep, veal, piglets, chicken, fowl, lambs, butter and fish.

Everyday eating in Hall

Once the College was founded in 1496 the tradition of communal eating continued with students taking their meals together in Hall However, the experience was not the same as it is today. In the 16th Centur y, dining in Hall was obligator y for all – a quasi-monastic occasion with grace and Bible readings, followed by modest conversation (during which nobody was to be ‘noisy, wordy, quarrelsome or abusive’) Anyone who dared to speak in any language other than Latin was to be rebuked ‘with moderation’ and that rebuke was to be received by the of fender ‘with patience and mutual charity’. College members were also warned to ‘abstain from tippling and drunkenness’

The earliest statutes of the College (1515-16) provided for one Fellow to act as Seneschal with ‘knowledge and super vision in the purchase, preparation and laying out of all victuals’. Food for Master and Fellows was not to cost more than 14d a week, for ‘boys and other Scholars’ 8d; but things improved on festival days, and at Christmas ever yone got to feast on boar

The 17th Centur y Stewards’ Account Book, shown above, contains a list of Fellows, their meals and notes of prices of items such as butter, sea-coal, charcoal and sugar

Food quality

In the mid-nineteenth centur y the food generated horrified protests at a number of Colleges including Jesus Ar thur Gray (Master 1912-1940), who was an undergraduate at Jesus in the 1870s, claimed that Hall was ‘deadly cold’, that ‘bleeding bullocks hear ts’ were ser ved twice weekly, and that ‘frozen gravy and caterpillars supplied with the vegetables were principal constituents in our diet’ (Ar thur Gray, ‘Some memories of 50 years ’ , The Chanticlere: Lent Term 1922, p 11) We are all delighted how much the food has improved in quality since then!