Late medieval Elite's Diet on the Example of the List of Expenses of the Zagreb Bishop Osvald Thuz from 1481 and 1482

Stingl, Sebastijan. (2018). Late medieval Elite's Diet on the Example of the List of Expenses of the Zagreb Bishop Osvald Thuz from 1481 and 1482. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of History. [mentor Grgin, Borislav and Azinović, Bebek, Ana].

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Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to analyze late medieval elite's diet on the basis of the list of expenses of the Zagreb bishop Osvald Thuz from 1481 and 1482. Besides the payments to craftsman, soldiers and other servitors, on the list are written sums spent on the purchase of, for example, material used for building of the cathedral, textile, candles, food and other supplies. Over 10% of the total amount, according to the bishop's list of expenses, was spent on food, spices, salt, wine and on the salaries of cooks, bakers and food servitor. The highest sum was spent on fish, among which stands out buying expensive sturgeon during the visit of Jan Filipec, bishop of today's Oradea (lat. Varadinum) in Romania. Due to distance from the Adriatic sea and the demanding mountain route to the continent, we assume that the bishop mainly ate freshwater fish. Beef was commonly used and it was sometimes even prepared for the poorest on the bishop's expense. Small ruminants, primarily lamb as we assume, were bought on special occasions. Although the sum spent on the care for the pigs is among the highest on the list of expenses, there is not a single mention of pork. However, we believe that, because of the importance of the feudal rent, cured meat during cold winter months and fat used for cooking, pork, cured or fresh, was most frequently consumed by the bishop. Poultry was mentioned only once, alongside vegetables, fruits, and nuts. The most frequently bought dairy product was butter, which was probably used for the making of sweets and cakes, alongside honey. Around 1% of the sum written in the list of expenses was spent on spices, primarily on pepper and expensive saffron. Salt, which was probably imported from Adriatic, was often delivered for him by boatmen in Dubovec. During Lent and other fast days, bishop's cooks used olive oil. We assume that bishop mostly drank white wine, which he acquired through the feudal rent alongside pigs and grains. There is also a table with the percents of analyzed animal bones from late medieval settlements in Croatia, which helped the author to come to the final conclusions about the diet.

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