Food and Foodways

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The giving of leftovers in medieval England

Maria A. Moisà

To cite this article: Maria A. Moisà (2001) The giving of leftovers in medieval England, Food and
Foodways, 9:2, 81-94, DOI: 10.1080/07409710.2001.9962104

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07409710.2001.9962104

Published online: 30 Apr 2010.

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THE GIVING OF LEFTOVERS IN

MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

Maria A. Moisà
11 Chapel House
Woodland Grove, Leeds LS7 4HJ
Great Britain
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"Everything that should be on the table should be laid there, and the leftovers
of what has been laid should be given in alms." (Omnia apponenda sine dimi-
nutione apponantur; et de appositis totum residuum in elemosina cedat.)
Thus a Benedictine chapter defined the duty of reliquia almsgiving in the
community—not to keep food for a second meal but to give it away as alms,
that is to say, to the poor (Pantin 1931-37:37). This and other passages suggest
that the food given away was the same that the commensals had eaten, a matter
of surplus rather than anything unedible discarded. In feudal society, the giving
of this type of alms was preached and practised. (Alms, or eleemosyne, from
eleeo, to have mercy or pity.) The methods varied, this giving being gradated
and hierarchical.
The giving of leftovers or reliquia was compulsory in principle for eccle-
siastical institutions. Noble households followed this practice and included
it in their rules. The circulation of leftovers took place mainly through non-
market channels. Forms of charity are better known for the early modern and
modem periods than for the medieval centuries. There are hardly any studies,
and information is dispersed among a variety of sources, of which the most
abundant are ecclesiastical. Some of the giving by the rich was recorded,
because they kept household accounts and adopted regulations which told
them what had to be done. Documents reported expenditures for items that
had to be purchased in order to be given, and for amounts of grain which
could be allocated to almsgiving purposes. About the surplus food given
from the table to poor recipients, we only have rules, advice, records of
breaches of the rules, and a few descriptions.

81
 82 MARIAA.MOISA

For other social groups the evidence is practically inexistent, but we may
assume that almsgiving did take place. The duty to feed the hungry was, or
was supposed to be, preached by parish priests four times a year as one of the
seven works of mercy. The works of mercy were also often represented in
frescoes on church walls, presumably to persuade all church-going parish-
ioners. The Christian teaching was that even the poor had to assist others.
Precepts on almsgiving were frequently quoted by preachers though we
do not know with any accuracy what layers of the population they reached.
Confession manuals, which encouraged the practice, appear to have
addressed a fairly wide audience.
It can also be estimated that almsgiving in the sense of feeding the poor
took place mostly at non-documented levels for more obvious reasons. If we
accept that the upper class, which left records, amounted to 3 percent of the
population and the documented poor in need of help were at least 40 per cent
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of the peasantry, amounting to a third of the population (Dyer 1989: 11,30,

31, 33, 126) not counting the totally destitute who do not appear in the
records, it is difficult to conclude that the former group fed the latter. It is
more reasonable to assume that the impoverished 40 percent had to be given
a hand by the other 60 percent of the peasantry. The manor rolls say nothing
about this. To find some evidence of peasant giving we have to go to the
coroners' rolls and occasionally to other legal sources (Hunnisett 1961: 9,
10,64,72; Stenton 1937:234,237,245,247,282,302), where people appear
to die while begging locally. Much of this help, without which some would
not have survived, must have been given as a gesture of neighborly solidarity
and may have been handed out without any prompting from the church.
Given the limited variety of peasant diets, we may guess that what was given
was the surplus food from the table rather than food of different kind or quality.
Peasant food could include the produce of small gardens—cabbage, onions,
garlic, and fruit—on top of the amounts of cereals, meat and dairy products
recorded in the maintenance agreements. It varied according to the eco-
nomic strata, with a greater proportion of grain for the poorer (Dyer 1984:
266,270; 1998:59-Ä)). Less variety is found in the cases of theft in times of
famine, when dairy products vanished during the early stages and a greater
proportion of grain was stolen from poorer peasants (Moisà 1995:196).
The upper class behaved hierarchically. Some wealthy households organ-
ized daily or periodic distributions of food especially bought or cooked for a
crowd of begging people, like a rudimentary soup-kitchen. Others gave left-
overs. These, when given, were called alms and, as such, were surrounded
by some ceremony.
The model for this activity is found in monastic institutions' customaries
(consuetudines). The Rule of each order contained prescriptions on almsgiving
 LEFTOVERS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 83

and each house had particular customs: Most had an almoner in charge of the
distribution of food to the poor, who was expected to be "full of charity, mercy
and pity, help orphans and be a father to the poor" (Gransden 1963: 190). He
was supposed to collect the alms food daily; that is, he was in charge of the
reliquia or leftovers (Riley 1867-1869: II, 203; Pantin 1931-1937:1,37). The
orders, in their chapters, could modify the interpretation or the form of appli-
cation of the custom (Riley 1867-1869:11, 438-39). They organized doles
which varied from a few times a year to three times a week and which mostly
consisted of bread and herring or other protein such as bacon or cheese and
were the most serious contribution to alleviating the hunger of the destitute.
The royal household also organized distributions of food and collected
and gave away leftovers. Royal alms were meant for multitudes and also
required an almoner. An elementary royal almonry was in existence at the
time of the Constitutio domus regiae (1135-1139), where a bearer of the
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alms bowl (portator scutelle elemosina) is listed as one of the officials eating
in the house (Johnson 1950:131). By 1236, the Red Book of the Exchequer
gave almoners functions very similar to those of ecclesiastical almoners, plus
jurisdiction over the "quarrels and faults of the poor and lepers" (Johnstone
1929:156), an instruction which indicates a growing mass of claimants. The
Draft Ordinance of 1478 for the household of Edward IV stated that the
porter and several subordinates were to collect the broken meats of two dinners
in the hall plus those coming from the king's and queen's chambers, in order
to distribute them once a day to the poor at the gate, in the presence of the
underalmoner (Myers 1959: 204-5). In all large households the almoner
could be a chaplain, whose duty was to solicit, collect, and distribute alms
(Mertes 1988:50; Wade-Labarge I965: 64). As in other cases, the meaning
of "alms" was far from clear, but there is no doubt that a part of them went to
the poor.
The obligations of lay lords toward their poor were not that different from
those of the ecclesiastical lords or royalty (Johnstone 1929: 157). In some
cases, rules were drawn up following the monastic pattern or bishops' prac-
tices. The nobility had almoners who were in charge of dispensing alms.
They collected the reliquia and took them to the gate, where the crowd
flocked just as at the abbey gate. The lord or the lady, or both, had ecclesiast-
ical counsellors who advised them on this matter. Their household accounts
and rules make it apparent that they fulfilled some of their obligations
toward small groups of regulars, who may have been the same people on all
occasions, and that they collected and distributed the spare food from the
table (Woolgar 1992: passim).
The upper class overprovided. There was always more on the table than
could be eaten. The caloric value of the food put on the table has been calculated
 84 MARIAA.MOISA

many times. In the ninth century, when many continental customaries

were compiled, it reached 4067 calories at St. Germain des Près, 6575 at
St. Denis, and 4727 at Nôtre Dame de Soissons. The rations were overestim-
ated in order to be able to cope with unexpected guests (Rouche 1973: 300,
315). In post-conquest England there was no such "hunger psychosis"
(Rouche 1973:320) to justify the enormous calorie content but still guests could
eat out of the portions estimated for the monks in the refectory, unless they
were entertained by the abbot or prior. In fifteenth-century Westminster, a
monk would be allocated 4470 calories on a fasting day (Harvey 1993:69).
Household accounts are full of reports of superabundant meals. Bishop
Swinfeld's accounts for 1289/90 record the massive amount of food bought
for a party of eighty people (Webb 1854-1855: clxvii, 71; Henisch 1976:
53). This was not too much, however for behind every person sitting at the
table there were servants, and the "reversion" from the table went back to the
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kitchen, where the same meal would be eaten on a second turn. There were
also guests, often unexpected, for whom it was necessary to reckon a not
inconsiderable amount of food. Every large monastery or household had a
guest-house for those coming on horseback, while the gate-keeper catered
for those on foot. Besides, there was a flow of gifts of food from the table to a
number of upper-class acquaintances (Mertes 1988:108).
An example of overprovision is that of the pension of Philip Le Galeys,
retired abbot of Wigmore, who, in 1318, was allocated an enormous daily
ration: two loaves, two gallons of the best ale, and as much cooked food as
for three canons, to be shared with his companion and chaplain, who was
entitled to only one loaf and one gallon of the same ale. The abbot had two
servants, and for these no cooked food was allocated, only one and a half
white loaves and one gallon of second ale. It seems that there was overprovi-
sion for the abbot and chaplain and underprovision for the servants. The
abbot would have enough for a guest, the chaplain would eat his share and
the servants would be waiting to see what came back to the kitchen. Any left-
overs from the kitchen would go to the poor at the gate, or the abbot would
perhaps decide to send them directly from the table to the gate (Bannister
1908:100). In the late sixteenth century, Harrison described the functioning
of noble households, explaining that the apparent excess of food was neces-
sary due to the number of servants, and that the leftovers of these would go to
a great number of poor people at the gate (Furnivall 1877-1903: 145). This
observation can be applied to earlier centuries. How many people did
Le Galeys's pension feed? Perhaps several but, with the exception of him-
self and his chaplain, badly.
We have here a glimpse of the circulation of food which matches the way
all production was used. No part of the animals killed was wasted, all meat
 LEFTOVERS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 85

and bones were butchered and all by-products were used or sold (Grant
1988:162; Mertes 1988:98-99). What could not be sold was given to people
of inferior status, as payment or as alms. The portion of the last recipient varied
according to availability. Was it or was it not eaten at table? Was it a fasting
day? In the rare circumstances where it was prescribed that everything
should be laid on the table but only what was permitted that day sould be
eaten, the surplus could be considerable (Henisch 1976:29). Abbot Samson
would have his whole normal ration put in front of him on fasting days in
order to send the excess to the poor, presumably to have the surplus sent
directly to the gate, avoiding any diversion (Butler 1949:40).
The customs of a monastic house could determine that nothing was to be
given by the reliquia method. According to Martène, monasteries sorted out
the leftover/alms question by keeping most in the household. Crumbs would
be kept for weekend meals unless there were "any poor present" (Hale 1865:
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cv, cvii). So perhaps servants did not have any chance. If they ate special
food cooked for them, we do not know, for what happened in the kitchen was
seldom part of the customs or examined by the bishops in their visitations.
Most of the surplus consisted of bread; more in monasteries than in noble
households, where much meat was consumed. Even in this case, the custom
of eating the meat on top of trenchers of bread, which absorbed the fat and
the juices and were then discarded, ensured a good supply.
The reliquia were of different qualities according to their origin in one
part of the monastery or another, whether from the abbot's table, monks'
table, infirmary, novices' table, almonry, or kitchen. So when abbots
acquired their own separate dining room, with their own kitchen and cook,
their morsels were the best and could be allocated to privileged regular beg-
gars at the gate. There were, of course, many kinds of poor, from those
admitted to the monks' table or sheltered in the almonry to protégé regulars
to those elbowed out of any distribution.
Although we can reconstruct the doles of bread and ale through monastic
accounts, constitutions, and archaeological remains, for the actual collection
and disposal of reliquia we can only resort to customaries, to household
rules, and to some stories.
What did the almoner do to collect the table alms? Monastic institutions'
customaries determined the operation of the system. The reliquia were good
or bad and could be whole or minute pieces. Cesarius of Heisterbach (twelfth
century) left descriptions of how broken bread was collected and transported
to the gate in a basket, which could be done by any brother (Strange 1951:2
and 1 n.l). We do not know how the remains of dishes made of pulses or
grains (fercula) were collected in the alms bowl. To the collection of the
fragments whole portions would be added, basic monks' portions without
 86 MARIAA.MOISA

any of the usual extras or pittances, in commemoration of deceased monks,

for a while after their death or on the anniversary. These portions were many
if the institution was old and large. Ramsey abbey had to limit the rations to
one hundred in the thirteenth century. For the recipients, these additions to
the diet were significant because they affected the amount of leftovers avail-
able. Fasting times also had an influence on quantity, which would have
been entirely negative except that loaves were larger then. Absenteeism
from the refectory also worked in favor of the claimants, since it meant
uneaten portions (Harvey 1993:12-15).
Among the rules for lay households collected by Furnivall in The Babees
Book, The Book ofCurtasye (first half of the fifteenth century) gives norms
for the filling of the alms dish. The almoner lays it on the table and the carver
puts the first loaf into it. He then pares the other loaves. The carver places a
piece of everything as he serves, excepting those that had to be kept intact
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and sent as a gift. The scraps from the table were added to this dish. The
almoner keeps all broken food and the leftover wine, which included the
wine left in the lord's cup, presumably poured into the same container, since
no other is ever mentioned. He swears to give it all to those at the gate. Once
there, he should give the alms dish to the poorest-looking man and should
also ride around distributing silver (Furnivall 1868: 322-26). If a sixteenth-
century table-manners manual is anything to go by, methods had not
changed much in noble households after the Reformation. The Booke of
Nurture (1577) advises the almoner to put trencher and leavings in the voider
with the fragments of bread and a napkin and it is presumably from there that
the scraps travel to the alms dish. (Furnivall 1868:80,11.343-8).
The medieval method, taking into account the progressive sophistication
of table manners, may have consisted of fewer steps. The consuetudines give
little information about what the almoner actually did. But in one monastery
he was recommended to put on the table a sufficient number of bowls to keep
various foodstuffs separate, without mixing them, which is more than noble
households did. The customs could specify that the bowls had to be clean
(Gransden 1963: 190). In some places the alms bowl or bowls seem to have
been replaced by a small barrel held together by iron hoops, as described
in the Durham account for 1369/70—unaydriafacta et ligataferropropotu
colligendo in refectorio (Fowler 1898:1,209). In at least one noble house-
hold the rule for the collection of alms suggests that the vessel was of small
size because it was to be given to one man alone (Furnivall 1868:324).
When it was specified, the reliquia method functioned every day, in theory.
It cannot have been very important. The number of monks peaked at less
than eighteen thousand just before the Plague, and even taking into account
the portions of deceased monks, a large proportion of hangers-on and servants,
 LEFTOVERS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 87

(which Knowles [1975: 148] reckoned averaged 1.1:1 in male religious

houses), and a generous overprovision, it is unlikely that the leftovers could
have topped up the rations of more than fifty thousand claimants amid an
ocean of poverty which may be estimated at two million people (Dyer 1989:
4,119,124,126,180-81,253). Furthermore, it is impossible to calculate the
quantities of the hand-outs or their caloric content, let alone the amount each
person received.
The registers of late medieval bishops show that they were still trying to
enforce the duty of giving away the reliquia, as witnessed by the injunctions
. they issued after their visitations. They were not very optimistic about it. The
Whitby injunctions of 1363 estimate that a convent of its size (twenty
monks) should have produced leftovers for some twenty poor people, but it
only catered for two or three (Pantin 1931-1937:279-81).
Visitation injunctions are one source of information, though vague, about
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"alms fraud," that is, the diversion of leftovers before they reached the gate.
The injunctions censured monks for eating in private rooms rather than in
the refectory, which was considered to be in fraud of almsgiving. Taking
meals to dining rooms diverted their normal course from kitchen to refectory
to gate. The customaries only dealt with the collection of fragments from the
refectory. If the collection of alms was the same, in principle, for the guest-
house, the dining-rooms of the prior and others, to neglect such a collection
would not be a breach of the ritual rule as it would be in the refectory
(DuBoulayl991:57).
Other types of "alms fraud" included taking away food which ought to
have been on the refectory table (Riley 1867-1869: II, 438-39; Salter 1922:
26), or the leftovers of the meals (Salter 1922: 26; Fowler 1911: 84-85;
Bannister 1908:100-1), and selling them (Goodman 1940-1941:508,513;
Fowler 1911: 58, 85; Graham 1952-1956: 835; Riley 1867-1869: II,
438-39; Finberg 1969:226), or giving them to women (Bannister 1917:70),
children (Fowler 1911: 114, 129), relatives (Finberg 1969: 226), friends
(Fowler 1911:58,61), or guests invited to the refectory (Deedes 1915-1924:
338), or using it to pay workers instead of wages (Evans 1940: 55-56).
Nuns were found to use alms food to pay the servants (Goodman 1940-1941 :
515) and an abbess was depriving nuns of a meal while diverting alms to other
uses (Graham 1952-1956: 835). Main offenders were hospital brethren who
appropriated sisters' food and gave them the leftovers meant for the poor
(Fowler 1911:34). Diverting alms to relatives was allowed if they were poor
(Finberg 1969: 226). At St Mary's nunnery, Winchester, the injunctions
of 1309 instructed the sisters not to keep servants on alms (Deedes 1915—
1920: xxiii) and Benedictine chapters stated the same (Pantin 1931-1937:
10,37). At least one Benedictine chapter authorized almoners to keep their
 88 MARIAA.MOISA

staff on alms (Pantin 1931-1937: 257). Servants pilfered sisters' portions

at Mailing nunnery in 1298 (Goodman 1940-1941: 515 ff.) and sold food
in town (Deedes 1915-1920: xxii).
Monasteries and, to a lesser extent, other institutions, attracted clients
with whom they established various kinds of relationship. They could be
relatives of monks, permanently occupying the almonry, as in Norwich
Cathedral Priory (Cheney 1936: 112; Willis 1869: 143-44). They could be
choir or school children, who were considered poor so that alms, that is left-
overs from others' tables, could be given to them. There was a complicated
hierarchy in a large house, from the sheltered and preferred ones to those at
the gate, that was reflected, if not determined, by the circulation of food reli-
quia from table to table, to kitchen, or to gate. A glimpse of this movement is
caught in the Rites of Durham, which distinguish between hospitality at the
table (of the prior or guest-house) and almsgiving at the gate; between
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prior's, monks', and novices' tables and almonry children's table supplied
with the remains of the novices' meals (Fowler 1903: 91). At Westminster,
the song or grammar school children received the leftovers of the misericord
(Harvey 1993:68 n.102). The Rites, a nostalgic sixteenth-century account of
pre-Reformation customs, may be too late a document to give an accurate
view of the practices of the whole period, which must have originally been
much simpler. The regulations contained in customaries suggest a more direct
route from table to gate in earlier periods. Although kitchen servants are not
mentioned, it can be assumed that they waited for the reversion from the
table and found a place in this descending hierarchy too.
Servants were blamed for the disappearance of leftovers in lay households
also. In his Rules for the Countess of Lincoln, Bishop Grosseteste indicated
that the leftovers should not be given to servants (garcuns) or carried out of
the door (of the hall) or wasted in meals for servants, but they should be dis-
tributed among the poor, sick, and beggars (Oschinsky 1971:400-1). Some-
times, however, the reliquia were given as wages or perks. Servants'
pilfering of alms is generally not recorded, for it was a fault of a disciplinary
nature never taken to court, and probably well tolerated. It was not a breach
of any rule. It was sometimes called "mychery," which referred to petty food
theft Servants considered the diversion of any food a "custom" (consuetudo),
in modern terms a perk (Owst 1933: 365; Knowles 1975: 142). Employers
may have found such a custom cheaper than higher wages. It was not done at
the expense of the employer but at the expense of other, more destitute, poor.
However, in the royal Draft Ordinance of 1478, servants guilty of
"imbeselling of the almes" were to be penalized with loss of wages. This
embezzlement consisted in disposing of broken meats without authorization
from the almoner (Myers 1959:204-5). The Draft shows that several things
 LEFTOVERS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 89

could pass the gates unauthorized but does not tell us what happened to them
once outside the precinct.
Leftovers were also sold. To whom? In good or bad condition? The
Ordinance of Cooks of 1378 (Riley 1868: 426) stipulated that cooks ought
not to buy the surplus or waste from large households and a fifteenth-century
customary of the Southwark stews sanctions with a fine those brothel keepers
who re-sell bread, ale, meat and fish or other victuals (Post 1977:423). This
punishment suggests that they were doing it and that what the household
cooks were selling may have been not suitable and anyway was not for selling.
Like victuallers, cooks were liable to punishment for selling bad food (Riley
1861: cii). That street cooks were, as a consequence, poisoners, was almost a
literary topos; Jacques de Vitry in the thirteenth century, and Langland and
Chaucer in the fourteenth century, had bitter things to say about the trade
(Coulton 1956:322,328; Coulton 1963:115). In the sixteenth century, Tusser
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claimed that measly bacon was sauced and sold to passers-by (Tusser 1984:
45). Other poems, such as "London Lickpenny," describe what was sold by
London cooks at various spots, pies at Eastcheap being the most notorious
because they were prepared with unknown ingredients (Robbins 1954: 133
1.79; Carlin 1995; 38-39: Dyer 1989:198).
The poor were supposed to live on cheap commodities from regrators,
pedlars, and hucksters (Dyer 1989: 197-98), or from "black" markets where
there was no quality control (Riley 1861: 718-19). For this they gave
money—earned, stolen, or begged. The poor bought leftovers and other
second-rate things in small amounts, sold for halfpennies or farthings. The
Commons asked in 1393 for small coins to be minted for the sake of poor
customers who, having no halfpennies, would have to spend a whole penny,
and for the sake of almsgivers who would support them (Rotuli Parliamentarian
III, 319). Bread could also be bought for such amounts, for we know that
bakers baked bread at l/2d and 1/4 apiece (Sharpe 1899 H: 183; Dyer 1989:
253). Offal would also be sold cheaply (Dyer 1989:199) by intermediaries to
cooks (Tillotson 1988:166; Goldberg 1992:109,117; Fowler 1898:166,168).
Both good and bad food went to town in several ways apart from the
normal path visible in the accounts. One can gather from the urban regula-
tions that there was at least an attempt to keep in separate compartments the
good and the bad, the wholesome and the unwholesome, the fresh and the
second-hand (Riley 1861:718-19). These regulations were meant to protect
the well-off rather than prevent the sale of bad-quality stuff which could
be and was bought by poorer people. Much of this must have been waste
discarded from the kitchen rather than from the table.
One may wonder whether any pollution taboos applied to medieval leftovers.
There are no prescriptions on keeping the stuff clean, although one customary
 90 MARIAA.MOISA

recommends the using of separate bowls for different foods. But it was the
same food eaten by high-status persons, who had already taken care to avoid
the forbidden. According to dark-age penitentials only pollution by animals
and carrion—that is, animals strangled or killed by animals—implied some
taboo (Haddan and Stubbs 1873: II, 113). Carrion could only be given to
dogs and "bestial men" in the ninth-century Adomnan's Canons. There is no
mention of food pollution in post-conquest English penitentials. But in the
twelfth century, royal forest regulations started to require that carrion, now
including both animals killed by wolves or by poachers, as well as strangled,
should be given to hospitals. At the same time, urban regulations prescribed
that all food in bad condition should be destroyed, thrown away, or given to
the poor (Statutes 1763-1832: DC Appendix 25-6; Birrell 1982: 20-21;
Moisà 1997: passim; Riley 1861:600-5,607,686-89,712,715-17).
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Why low-status recipients should accept carrion, discarded meat, and

leftovers is never made explicit. It is possible that, as Goody says of India,
"the higher the original eater, the less polluted the leftovers" (Goody 1982:
126). The few food taboos left in medieval England were unimportant when
feeding the poor.
The reliquia system had its advantages and disadvantages. Leftovers
transferred high-status food to low-status people. As an addition to peasant-
style companagium (the food that goes with the bread, usually herring,
sometimes bacon and cheese), leftovers may have been welcome. They were
expected and noisily demanded by the beggars at the gate. Contemporaries
have told us of the din caused by the beggars (clamor pauperum) while
awaiting their turn perhaps for hours (Aston 1984: 57). From the point of
view of the donor, almsgiving was a form of waste disposal, for what could
not be consumed by people of one rank would be useful further down the
social ladder, without throwing anything away.
Detractors of the system were found among the same groups that generated
alms. Here and there, voices of support for the dignity of the poor were
raised. A fourteenth-century Dominican, John Bromyard (d.1352) and, in
1377, Bishop Brinton of Rochester indicted the reliquia practice and
claimed that it led straight to Hell (reliquiam vero praecedentem diabolo).
Givers were accused of parting only with what they discarded because it was
inedible: the rotten, the overripe, and the stinking (putrida, tenera,foetida),
that is, not what was prescribed. Givers gave the worst they had, forgetting
that many of those at the gate had produced the goods as laborers, as tenants,
or as parishioners paying tithes and had surrendered the food when it was
fresh. They now received the same goods in bad condition. The method was
considered giving the worst to those who had given the best, danti meliora
dare peiora...a paupere subdito accipere meliora,...et dare peiora
 LEFTOVERS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 91

ciborum... quae ipsi comedere nonpossunt (Bromyard 1576: "Elemosina";

Devlin 1954:1,196).
That the reliquia that came directly from the table were also the worst of
the food served is suggested by one complaint of hospital sisters, whom the
brethren fed on leftovers, so that when the dishes reached them all the best
parts had gone (bonitas tan in cibis quam potibus sit exhausta) (Fowler
1911:32).
In the hunger years between 1290 and 1325 and in some cases even after
the Plague, we can see bishops, in their visitations, concerned with the prob-
lem of the diversion of reliquia, which were used for many purposes other
than almsgiving. They were used to feed lay brethren or given in payment to
servants, so that the practice of taking them to the poor at the gate declined.
We have seen that only three people instead of twenty were fed by this
method at Whitby. Harvey reckons that already in the thirteenth century the
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distribution of leftovers to the poor must have stopped at Westminster (Harvey

1993:12,13). The greater abundance of food in fifteenth-century England as
a result of the decline in population must have contributed to the abandon-
ment of the practice well before the dissolution of the monasteries. But
apparently there was no diminution of the demand for leftovers, even if the
system was sometimes represented as degrading. In noble households the
distributions remained the rule and were accompanied by some ceremony,
although they may have become a token gesture, as were the alms given to
only one man in The Babees Book (Furnivall 1868:324).
It is possible to reconstruct approximately the travelling of the leftovers
down the social scale. We know that a pattern for the practice was estab-
lished in monastic customaries and was adopted by noble households. It did
not function smoothly and cannot have been of great help. The misuse of
reliquia benefitted friends and relatives as well as employers and supplied
regrators' trades, contributing to the circulation of food in bad condition and
the gradation of the market, while allowing some people to subsist, if
unhealthily. In feudal society, everything was put to use. One man's waste
was another man's food.

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