Honors Final Project: Medieval Group

                To begin my blog on medieval times I need to mention A Knight's Tale . . . best knight movie ever!  We should totally show clips or the whole movie during our little medieval dinner/dance.  Speaking of dinner, the first thing I researched was food of course!  I found multiple websites that claim to contain authentic medieval recipes and had a lot of fun facts about what people ate back in those times.  In my studies I learned that the upper and lower classes ate very differently!  The wealthy class cared a lot about their spices and ate dishes that were highly flavorful, while the lower class ate more plain food.  Fruits and vegetables were always cooked because people back in medieval times thought that uncooked food contained diseases.  For banquets and parties the noble men would make all types of exotic dishes to impress their guests.  Aside from normal meats they would also eat peacocks, seal meat, or even whales!  I don't think we'll be having anything like that at our banquet!  One dish that the rich and poor both ate was a stew made of meats, vegetables, and bran called pottage.  All dishes for every social class were also accompanied by bread. 

                As far as dancing goes, there are two basic types from the medieval period: court dance and country dance.  The carole dance was one of the earliest and most popular dances in existence at the time.  This dance took place during Yule-tide or Christmas festivities and was danced in a circle, chain, or procession.  From my research I have learned that most dancing was first popular in France, then England, and then branched out into other regions.  Music was a large part of medieval life and was always a part of parties with different music for different events.  There were also many instruments used during this time, and different instruments would be used for certain occasions.  For example, bells would be used at Christmas time.  Music was played at dinner because it was believed to help with the digestion of food. 

                While many people think of chivalrous knights and romantic couples when discussing the medieval time period, the relationships were actually quite depressing.  Women were seen as property in the noble classes while it was the lower class that married for love.  During the 11th and 12th century passion was considered sinful, but those ideas slowly began to wear away as the rituals of courtly love became more popular.  Slowly men began to fight for the honor of their woman, and the courtly love became the source for the word "courtesy."