Para1Banquets were hosted in Tudor and Stuart times at the royal courts and at the homes of the wealthy to celebrate events and individuals. They offered a chance to eat extravagantly prepared food and ample drinks. Music, pageants, theatrical performances (including the elaborately costumed performances known as masques), acrobats, and dancing provided entertainment. Banquets were featured in the literature of the time, including more festive representations in Shakespeare’s plays like The Taming of the Shrew and more sinister examples in plays like Macbeth.

Para2Banquets often took place in the great halls of castles, large rooms that could hold many invited guests. The word banquet is derived from the word bench, which was the common seat that people used to eat at the tables. Elaborate food in many separate courses was served for eating and as part of the entertainment, such as a roasted peacock that then had its tail feathers included in the presented dish. Instead of wooden dishes or trenchers made of bread, expensive buffet plates were used to serve the dishes so the food could be admired first, then be dished out by servants to individuals. The more tiers on these buffet serving dishes, the higher the rank and wealth of the host of the event.

Para3The food at banquets was served in multiple courses throughout the night. The dishes focused on various animal proteins, including beef, venison, poultry, pork, and fish. Vegetables were considered a more common food, so they were not featured much at celebratory banquets. Ironically, this meant that poorer people who likely never attended a banquet had a healthier diet than those of higher in social rank. Because of the social status of vegetables and legumes, the rich tended to focus on meat products, breads, and desserts. The last course of the meal was often wine or another alcoholic beverage such as mead, a fermented honey drink. Just as we toast to someone today, early modern English banquet guests drank to their honored guests or others.

Para4Elaborate multicourse meals with many sweets also become popular as a type of banquet in the 16th century, since sugar from the labor of enslaved people on Portuguese and Spanish plantations in South America made this once scarce commodity much more common. Tudor and Stuart banquets often featured a type of multi-course dessert known a collation. Based on Italian recipes, the collations may have had as many as 12 dishes (one for each month) served over three courses.

Para5Recipe books began to be published in the 16th century but were not in the structured format that we use today. Recipes were written out as running text, so the ingredients were included with the actions of the recipe, if they were included at all. Recipe authors assumed that cooks needed some instruction but not detailed discussion of cooking techniques. Ingredients and portions of ingredients were often assumed or glossed over. Measurements were often compared to non-edible items like musket balls or handfuls.

Para6Besides the food, ample entertainment was also provided to the guests at banquets. Dramatic interludes would often be performed at these gatherings. Later, masques, an elite form of theater featuring spectacular costumes and members of the court performing some scenes, became popular in the Elizabethan era. Masques were more likes sketches, brief plays designed to create wonder or pay tribute to an event, such as a wedding or a military victory. They were sometimes included in between the larger acts of a full-length play. The interludes would be performed by both professional actors and amateurs alike. These interludes often featured some sort of debatable idea or symbolic message that amused the audience. Music was performed extensively in banquet hall by singers and instrumentalists. Drums, recorders, and other wind instruments, as well as viols (the precursor to violas annd violins as we know them) were among the instruments.

Para7People were separated by rank at banquets. The tables were organized so that a raised table in the center or one end of the hall would hold the lord and guests of honor. The nobility sat at the head of the table and room, and each person had a rank until the very last seat at the tables. Because salt was placed along the table in shallow dishes called cellars rather than shakers, this is where the phrases above the salt and below the salt come from: if someone sat above the salt or at a position higher than where the salt cellar was placed, they were of high social position. If they sat below the salt, they were of an inferior social ranking.

Para8Generally, banquets were thrown to honor a specific guest. Banquets were also held to impress certain guests, celebrate marriages or betrothals, and commemorate military victories or diplomatic alliances.

Para9In the first line of Macbeth Act 3 Scene 4, the title character recognizes the politics involved in banquets: You know your own degrees; sit down. He references the places that each person is required to sit, and that it is so commonplace that the potential seating chart confusion is quickly glossed over. The scene revolves around Macbeth being distracted in the banquet by the ghost of Banquo, the man who he just had murdered. Banquet guests were expected to engage in lively conversation, and to have an outburst like Macbeth’s was considered rude and would have been concerning. As today, the social norms around banquets were ruled by etiquette. As Lady Macbeth tries to have the guests leave, she feels compelled to tell them to not leave by rank, but to just leave.

Para10In the final scenes of The Taming of the Shrew, a banquet provides the setting that allows the characters to have a conversation that sums up the play’s themes. After the meal is over, the women go into the parlor to chat. After being summoned in turn by their husbands to resolve a debate about who has the most obedient wife, Katerina gives her famous speech about women’s duty to men, causing some characters to win or lose bets with each other. The banquet hall is used to display Petruchio’s victory over his wife, revealing in the play’s action the symbolic role that banquets held in early modern culture.