Banquets Banquets Author Elise Curtis Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Elise Curtis, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

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This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Food Recipes Social Order Literature and the Arts Masques Music Published file. Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Added desc to figure, corrected author listed in sourceDecs. Added image and image citation. Added date, pubPlace, and publisher tags to sources Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Elise Curtis Elise Curtis

Elise Curtis was an Honors student at Utah Valley University.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
An image of the banquet scene from Macbeth Act 3, Scene 4, with Lady Macbeth gesturing for the guests to depart. Printed by Charles Sharpe, 19th century. Image courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library. ART File S528m1 no.104 copy 1. CC-BY SA 4.0. An image of the banquet scene from Macbeth Act 3, Scene 4, with Lady Macbeth gesturing for the guests to depart. Printed by Charles Sharpe, 19th century. Image courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library. ART File S528m1 no.104 copy 1. CC-BY SA 4.0.
Overview

Banquets 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.

Setting

Banquets 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.

Food

The 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.

Dessert Banquets

Elaborate 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. The first course of the collation featured candied fruits and nuts, confections made of marzipan (sweetened almond paste), and sweet or spiced biscuits. The second course served both savory and sweet foods, including roasted meats, meat pies, breads, and cakes. The third course of the collation also featured both sweet and savory foods but added fresh fruits and aged cheeses.

Recipes

Recipe 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.

Entertainment

Besides 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.

Social Arrangements

People 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.

Generally, 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.

Examples of Banquets in Shakespeare

In 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.

In 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.

Key Print Sources Richardson, Catherine. Shakespeare and Material Culture. Oxford University Press, 2011. Segan, Francine. Shakespeare’s Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook. Random House, 2003. Thirsk, Joan. Food in Early Modern England: Phases, Fads, Fashions 1500–1760. Hambledon Continuum, 2009.
Key Online Sources Above/Below the Salt - Words and Phrases That Come from the Dinner Table. Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-histories-dinner. Alchin, L. K. Old Elizabethan Recipes. Elizabethan Era, 2017, https://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/old-elizabethan-recipes.htm. Bramley, Anne. In Shakespeare’s Plays, Mealtimes Were A Recipe For Drama. NPR, NPR, 18 Apr. 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/18/474409705/in-shakespeare-s-plays-mealtimes-were-a-recipe-for-drama. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Interlude. Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2 Mar. 2012, https://www.britannica.com/art/interlude. Schmidt, Steven. What, Exactly, Was the Tudor and Stuart Banquet? Manuscript Cookbook Survey. Aug. 2019. https://www.manuscriptcookbookssurvey.org/what-exactly-was-the-tudor-and-stuart-banquet/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.
Image Sources Sharpe, Charles William. The Banquet Scene in <title level="m">MacbethAct III, Scene 4 from the Picture in the Possession of Frederick W. Cosens, Esq. Folger Digital Collections, 2018, https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img28073.