Medieval Food & Feasts
What people ate in medieval times: bread and pottage for ordinary people, grand feasts for the rich; no forks, eating with hands; the great hall as the centre of castle life
What a learner can do afterwards
- Describe what ordinary people ate most days (bread, pottage, vegetables, ale)
- Explain how a feast in a great hall was different from everyday meals
- Name one surprising table manner from medieval times (no forks, shared cups, food thrown on the floor)
The lesson
Most people in medieval times were poor. Every day, they ate bread and pottage. Pottage is a thick vegetable soup. They often drank ale instead of water.
Imagine a feast in a castle's great hall. Servants carried in many meats and pies. Everyone ate with their hands. There were no forks yet.
People shared cups and plates with others nearby. Some threw food scraps on the floor for dogs. This was normal then, not rude.
Everyday food was simple bread and pottage, but feast food in the great hall was rich, plentiful, and eaten by hand.
Watch it
Where it sits
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Where this leads
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8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.