sheep-lambs-msg - 3/7/20

Medieval sheep and lambs. Breeds. Raising them.

NOTE: See alos the files: livestock-msg, The-Sheep-art, wool-clean-msg, wool-hist-msg, wool-clean-msg, lamb-mutton-msg, rabbits-msg, spinning-msg, felting-msg.

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Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 16:33:34 GMT
From: "Kirsten Garner  at  Archaeology" <KGARNER at hsy1.ssc.ed.ac.uk>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Sheep breeds

> I am unfamiliar with modern sheep still shedding.  I had not realized they
> would eventually shed (I have heard of sheep not being sheared and having
> coats develop for a year and half before sheared).

Up here in Scotland, the Blackfaces on the hills start shedding out 
in May/June. I'll admit though that down south (Shropshire, where I 
worked for a year), the sheep tend to be of a breed (Clun) that hold their 
coat longer and they *were* sheared in June (I remember this very 
very well....didn't know that if you flipped a sheep on its back it 
didn't realize it could flip itself back over and it wouldn't really 
struggle all that much. :) 

Julian


Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 17:32:03 GMT
From: "Kirsten Garner  at  Archaeology" <KGARNER at hsy1.ssc.ed.ac.uk>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Sheeop breeds

> I believe sheep in the Middle Ages were sheared in
> June/July, well after the January/February lambing

Just in case there's anyone out there who's really interested in the 
management of domestic sheep, lambing in Jan/Feb is not technically 
correct.  (Sorry...just caught this). When lambing takes place is due 
to where you are (latitude) and how high you are (above sea level). 
Jan/Feb lambing in Britain is only in the south. Lambs born then up 
here would die within a few hours. As you go farther north, the 
lambing season goes back. Here (Edinburgh/Borders valleys), it starts 
around 1st April. In the Borders hills, it's around 15th April. And 
in the Highlands things only start happening around 1st May. There 
simply isn't the warmth nor the grass to support them around here in 
January or February. 

This would also go towards the availablity of meat. You wouldn't have 
lamb until mid-April at the earliest in this area of Scotland. 

Julian


From: kellogg at rohan.sdsu.edu (C. Kevin Kellogg)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Animal breeds in period?
Date: 2 Jul 1997 20:17:04 GMT
Organization: San Diego State University

Elizabeth A. Anderson (eanderso at acs.ucalgary.ca) wrote:
: I am looking for documentation on animal breeds in northern
: Europe in period - especially sheep. My background is in medieval
: studies, and I know a lot about the medieval English wool trade,
: but I've no clear idea what breeds of sheep contributed to the
: success of the trade. Lincolns? Leichesters? Romneys? Of course,
: the Merinos in Spain did help bring about the end of the English
: trade, but that is late in period - and there weren't any Merinos
: in England at the relevant period.

        Check out <URL: http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep>.
They list the Wiltshire Horn, Black Welsh Mountain, Cheviot,
Gute, Icelandic, Manx Loaghtan, Shetland, Soay, and Welsh Mountain 
Badger-faced as period breeds.  They have extensive bibliographies
and lots of interesting information.

Avenel Kellough


Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 07:52:09 -0700
From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: Lamb (was Re: SC - New Job)

Hi all from Anne-Marie

Brighid asks us:
>Actually, there seem to be very few period recipes for lamb, although
>there are many for mutton, and quite a few for kid and calf.  I would
>surmise that this is because adult sheep of both genders are productive,
>in a way that goats and cattle are not.  Anyone who is wise in medieval
>animal husbandry wish to comment?

in my sheep raising experience, most of what comes to your average butchers
counter is "lamb" that is pretty close to a year old, which makes it
suspiciously mutton like in my book. (its cheaper to raise one big sheep
for a longer time than a bunch of little sheeps for a shorter period of
time. Only one worming, only one tail docking, only one ear tagging, only
one dehorning, only one...you get the idea)

as for the usefulness of sheep vs cows and goats...the gestation period for
sheep is the same as goats, as well as the fact that goats and sheeps tend
to have multiple births, while cows do not. Male cattle can be used to pull
plows, wagons, etc. your logic that you eat the useless boy goats and boy
cows while keeping the boy sheeps for wool makes some sense, though why
keep a boy sheep who can only make wool when if you eat him (yum yum!), you
cna keep his sister who not only can make wool but can also make milk for
cheese and more baby sheeps.

Methinks part of it is that most of our cookbooks are English, ie land of
wool. If we look at Spanish sources and others from warmer climes, we see a
larger porportion of goat, I bet.

- --AM


Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:44:30 -0500
From: Heitman <fiondel at fastrans.net>
Subject: SC - Re: Lamb

At 10:06 AM 5/26/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Actually, there seem to be very few period recipes for lamb, although
>there are many for mutton, and quite a few for kid and calf.  I would
>surmise that this is because adult sheep of both genders are productive,
>in a way that goats and cattle are not.  Anyone who is wise in medieval
>animal husbandry wish to comment?
>Brighid

Actually, I would look at it in a different text.

The number of kid and calf recipes would result in the preponderous number
of people keeping a single adult cow or goat. Remember that these are
milking animals, and as such, need to calve or kid regularly to insure the
production of that milk. If the milk animal doesn't have the correct
internal hormone level, the milk dries up. In period, before the scientific
intervention of drugs, the standard way for these animals to get that
hormone level was to have a baby that needed suckling. NO animal will give
milk until that infant is born (or those hormones are made present
artificially).

Combine that with the basic necessity that marks a limit on the number of
animals an individuals acreage could support, if the milk was what was
desired, why keep the infant? It would only endanger the future life of the
mother by consuming the food supply of the parent after it is done
suckling. Note that most veal and kid is defined by an age at which sucking
has ended.

Sheep, on the other hand, are kept in large numbers, require large tracts
of grazing and penning land, and lambs go fairly quickly from suckling to
grazing. We do NOT seek the milk from sheep, but rather the wool. I do not
know of any instance where a single sheep was kept for its wool production.
A single cow or goat kept for its milk production is still common today.
And that one animal would be kept until it was too old to calve again. Then
a single new animal would be purchased.

In sheep farming, the herd is culled at least once possibly several times a
year, depending on breed and wool harvest, with up to half the flock being
sold. Prices for wool and for mutton will also work towards deciding which
gets sold, the inside or the outside. This culling usually takes place
after the spring clipping, significantly after the lambing season.
Generally, it is the older sheep which demonstrate a loss in wool
production or may not make it thru the next season, followed by other less
productive or healthy animals. The lambs are kept to replace these animals.

Then again, compared to cows and goats, how much faster does a sheep reach
maturity? This might also make significant difference in what gets sold when.

IOW, calves and kids are killed because they have already done their task
and most people had a parent. Lambs got slaughtered only because there is a
small market for lamb, and were kept by a relative few. Finding period lamb
recipes would therefore, IMO, be proportionally harder to find.

One also might look at what the definition of "lamb" is. I recently helped
cook a feast in which "leg of LAMB" was served. I expected to be dealing
with a (max.) 5-6 pound bone in piece of meat. These averaged 10-12 pounds
each. Sounds more like a Mutton Shank to me. But several butchers from
different places quoted the same weight expectancy. Still tasted delicious
(and NO, there was no mint- sauce, seasoning, or jelly.)

Franz
Calontir


Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 19:24:17 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Lamb

Franz wrote:
>Combine that with the basic necessity that marks a limit on the number of
>animals an individuals acreage could support, if the milk was what was
>desired, why keep the infant? It would only endanger the future life of the
>mother by consuming the food supply of the parent after it is done
>suckling. Note that most veal and kid is defined by an age at which sucking
>has ended.

So is lamb in many countries. And they were - still are, in many cases -
either slaughtered or weaned as soon as possible, so their mothers can be
milked. Here in Iceland, they were usually weaned at 4-5 weeks, and had to
fend for themselves in the mountain pastures until they were slaughtered at
4-6 months. Anything older than that wasn´t - and isn´t - isn´t considered
lamb around here.

The taste of a male lamb will change markedly somewhere between 6-8 months,
unless it is gelded. This is called "taste of ram" here and most people find
it unpleasant. So a male lamb was either killed or gelded before it reached
that age, unless it was to be kept for breeding. Besides, lamb was usually
considered inferior to mutton (unless perhaps very young spring lamb).

In France, according to the Larousse Gastronomique, the oldest lambs that
you can buy are grazing lambs, 6-9 months of age, 30-40 kilos. I´m not sure
but I think lamb in Britain is usually not more than 9 months old.

>We do NOT seek the milk from sheep, but rather the wool. I do not
>know of any instance where a single sheep was kept for its wool production.

Maybe not, but around here many poor people had only two or three ewes and
kept them both for milk and wool production, and also for the meat - mostly
as mutton.

>In sheep farming, the herd is culled at least once possibly several times a
>year, depending on breed and wool harvest, with up to half the flock being
>sold. Prices for wool and for mutton will also work towards deciding which
>gets sold, the inside or the outside. This culling usually takes place
>after the spring clipping, significantly after the lambing season.

That is true when the sheep are kept for their wool only but when the ewes
are milked, it would make no sense to cull the flock shortly after the
lambing season. Here, sheep were hardly ever killed outside the
"slaughtering season" (October-November). Most of the male lambs that had
survived the summer were gelded; some of the female lambs were used to
replace old or unproductive ewes; the rest were killed.

>IOW, calves and kids are killed because they have already done their task
>and most people had a parent. Lambsgot slaughtered only because there is a
>small market for lamb, and were kept by a relative few. Finding period lamb
>recipes would therefore, IMO, be proportionally harder to find.

Well, there may be another reason. The following is a quote from A Gourmet´s
Guide by John Ayto:
"In Anglo-Saxon times one ate simply sheep ... In the late thirteenth
century, however, in what might be interpreted as the first instance of
French oneupmanship over the gastronomically illiterate British, the Old
French word moton was drafted into the language, introducing for the first
time the possibility of a distinction between the live animal and its flesh
used for food. (In fact mutton was from early on used for live sheep as
well, and this continued until comparatively recently; and the distinction
from lamb as the flesh of young sheep does not appear to have developed
until the seventeenth century.)"

Nanna


Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:00:22 EDT
From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com
Subject: Re: Lamb (was Re: SC - New Job)

>From the Meat Department at the UF School of Animal Science:

Veal and Lamb are only Veal and Lamb as long as the animal is milk-fed.  If
you pen them up and feed them milk from a bucket and they don't graze, they
are Veal and Lamb.  If they are free range beasties, they will not be Veal or
Lamb once the mother begins weaning, which can begin as early as 3-4 weeks of
age.  It is not recommended that exclusive milk feeding be continued past 12
weeks of age, for the health & well-being of the animal.   If you exclusively
milk feed much beyond  12 weeks, you will have yourself an animal which is
not going to develop the muscle tissue necessary to walk, graze, or breed.
The decision is the farmer's as to whether that animal will be turned loose
to grow up, or be removed from the herd.  By the time it's 12 weeks old, most
birth defects and breeding weaknesses will have evidenced themselves and the
farmer will know exactly what to do with said beast.

Now you know why the animal rights folks get so up in arms about the beef
industry.  Big ranchers will often milk-feed calves for up to six months,
waiting for the market prices to be "right".

However,  this is now.  In the Middle Ages, I suspect that Veal and Lamb
recipes were specifically designed for the small number of herd culls which a
good husbandman would separate and slaughter early in their lives due to the
same types of birth defects and weaknesses the breeds still have today.  And
it would only be on large farms with fairly large herds of the same breed of
animal.  The local villagers who kept a cow would probably cook their culls
in the same recipes they used for older animals, just didn't need to cook the
meat as long.   Medieval cooks didn't watch a clock to determine "doneness".
They would constantly check the dish for doneness by other means.

Wolfmother


Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 10:14:04 -0700
From: "Kirsten Garner" <kgarner1 at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: RE: Zooarchaeolgy

> Yes there is the Rare breeds Trust (assn or similar) I've seen them about
> but most of what I've spoken to suggest Soay Soay or Soay !

And I just fell right into that trap. :) I'm an Iron Age zooarchaeologist by
trade, so that's where my first thoughts jump too when someone asks me about
ancient breeds. :) For those of you who don't know, the Soay is an "ancient"
breed of sheep with dark brown, fairly wiry hair. They're also fairly small
and goat-like. All the big Bronze / Iron Age "living history"
reconstructions have them around somewhere.

> Looking at Zooarchaeolgy books Romans had a white woolly sheep and by
> medieval times the sheep illustrated are bot soay the hair to wool ratio is
> all wrong & so on. When compared to textile finds, Therefore Soay whilst I 
> accept was still in existance was not THE be all and end all I feel.

There was a wonderful woman on here a year ago who sent me a wonderful paper
on sheep and wool in the medieval period. Is she still around out there? :)

> Butser publications are quite interesting, but on their web page it suggested
> Shetland sheep in Iron age Britain which contradicts other suggestions that
> this was a scandinavian breed type brought around 1000 years ago to this
> shore.

Interestingly enough, this was something I was meant to work on from the
genetic level whilst I was in Edinburgh. The project never started,
unfortunately, but the idea was to build up genetic profiles to
once-and-for-all determine the origin of the Orkney/Shetland sheep.  I'm
inclined to believe they are Scandinavian in origin.

> There are some good books on the drover trails , I read an
> article recently re this subject

We had one running though the farm in Scotland (north of Peebles) - it was
still there, plain as day. :)

Julian ferch Rhys


Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 11:23:15 -0700
From: "Kirsten Garner" <kgarner1 at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: RE: Sheep

Alright - here's what I've found so far on the sheep question. :)

As far as period breeds, look to the Icelandic (for that area of the world
as they didn't really come out of Iceland, and that's what's kept the breed
so pure), Welsh Mountain, Cheviot, Hebridean / St. Kilda, Manx, Shetland,
Wiltshire Horned, Old Norfolk, and Scottish Blackface. Cotswold and Romney
should be used with caution as they have both been "improved" since period
(Romney with the non-period Leicester). On the Scottish Blackface, there has
been considerable breeding effort put into increasing the length of the
wool - in early period, the wool of this sheep would have been shorter.
There's not been any OOP out-crossing that I can find to lengthen the wool -
just selective breeding within the breed.

As always, comments and more info gratefully received. :)

Julian ferch Rhys

PS: Oops! I forgot the Ryeland in that litany of sheep breeds.


Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 03:18:53 -0400
From: Melanie Wilson <MelanieWilson at compuserve.com>
To: "INTERNET:sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu" <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Soay Sheep

>What is "Soay", please?  

A primative type os sheep, found in the Northwest islands of Scotland &
paraded out for THE sheep of the past despite the fact the textile evidence
dosen't add up to it

Mel 


Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 06:24:11 -0700
From: Curtis & Mary <ladymari at cybertrails.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Zooarchaeolgy

> Yes there is the Rare breeds Trust (assn or similar) I've seen them about
> but most of what I've spoken to suggest Soay Soay or Soay ! Looking at
> Zooarchaeolgy books Romans had a white woolly sheep and by medieval times
> the sheep illustrated are bot soay the hair to wool ratio is all wrong & so
> on. When compared to textile finds, Therefore Soay whilst I accept was
> still in existance was not THE be all and end all I feel.

From some of my readings the Karakul sheep may be the first domesticated
breed. I don't remember how long back, would have to figure out which
pile of stuff that info is in.  Karakuls are fat tailed desert sheep,
with long straight wool on adults, but the kids have soft curly pelts
and are known as 'Persian Lambs' Today, even in their native range they
are not pure, having been bred to other breeds to try and get more sheep
faster.  In the US they are considered a rare breed, I think there are
only about 30 people listed with registry here as members.  In their
native ranges they were used for wool, meat, milk. Their wool is what
"Persian" carpets were originally made from.

Mairi, ATenveldt


Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 06:31:02 -0700
From: Curtis & Mary <ladymari at cybertrails.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Zooarchaeolgy

Elizabeth Barber addresses some of this in her book "Prehistoric
Textiles"....there is no way on earth anybody can spin normal Soay
hair!  It is extremely short and coarse, more like deer than sheep.

Mairi, Atenveldt


Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 06:14:03 -0400
From: Melanie Wilson <MelanieWilson at compuserve.com>
To: LIST SCA arts <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Sheep & goats

I have found a ref  suggesting that the white faced Dartmoor is the closest
longwool breed to those of the post roman breeds, they still have horned
males. Long curly wool, somewhat coarse 250-300 mm staple, yield of 5-9 kg.

The Herdwick is great from its colouring but I can't find any history as
yet.

Welsh mountain breeds it is claimed discended from tan faced sheep in
southern Britain in the middle ages (although most ms I've seen show white
faces)

Orkney & shetland types seen OK after Viking period for Scotland crofters
Other viking descendents are multi horned Hebradian & manx longhorn. So if
you are a viking get a sheep with lots of horns!

The Bagot goat can be traced to the 14th C when it was brought to England
by returning Crusaders!

Jacob came from middle east via Spain introduced to Britain 16th C as
ornamental sheep.

Mel


Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 02:07:55 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Fat tailed sheep

>If anybody else knows more about them including where one might find
>representitives of the breed today, please let me know.

North Africa, especially Tunisia, Egypt, many regions in sub-Saharan Africa,
Turkey, most of the Middle East, Arabia, central Asia, Mongolia, western
China, northern India, and several other places. Around 25% of the world’s
sheep are fat-tailed, according to The Oxford Companion to Food. There are
several hundred breeds, and they seem to originate around the 4th millenium
BC.

Nanna


Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 21:53:17 -0600
From: "Mark S. Harris" <stefan at texas.net>
Subject: SC - Period pig info

From "The Year 1000" by Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger:
page 58 -
"Mutton was not a particular delicacy, Wulfstan's memorandum of estate
management described mutton as a food for slaves, and pork seems also
to have been considered routine.

The relatively small amounts of fat on all these meats would be viewed
by modern nutritionists with quite a kindly eye. Saturated fat, the
source of cholesterol with its related contemporary health problems, 
is a problem of the intensively reared factory-farmed animals of recent
years, with their overabundant "scientific" diets and their lack of
exercise. All Anglo-Saxons would have been shocked at the idea of
ploughing land to produce animal feed. Ploughland was for feeding
humans. So farm animals were lean and rangey, their meat containing
three times as much protein as fat. With modern, intensively reared
animals that ratio is often reversed. 42"

That footnote is:
42   Hagen, Second Handbook, p93.

The Bibliography has:
Hagen, Anne, A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production
and Distribution.  Hockwold-cum-Wilson: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1995.

This pretty much echos my thoughts on the situation.

Ann Hagen has quite a lot to say about Anglo-Saxon pigs and their
raising. I will quote some of her info in another message.
- -- 
THL Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net


Subject: [Stellararts] Re: [medievalanimals] have some sheep.....
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 08:11:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Marcus Loidolt <mjloidolt at yahoo.com>
To: apprentice at egroups.com, stellararts at egroups.com

I thought some of you fiber people might be interested
in this list of sheep breeds. Some of these are quite
rare, but at least they still exist! Think of all
those breeds which 'modern' technology has helped to
eliminate in the interest of uniformity!

Johann

--- Raven Kaldera <cauldronfarm at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Here's my sheep list thus far. Again, use it as you will. If you find 
> inaccuracies eventually, change it. But it's a start. I want to go 
> through all the breeds this way if possible and then
> see what turns up for deeper research....
> 
> Supposedly Medieval Sheep Breeds (according to their
> breeder societies)
> 
> Bergamasca - 15th century Italian
> 
> Black Welsh Mountain Sheep - Wales, supposedly Dark Ages
> 
> Border Leicester - descended from indigenous Scottish border sheep
> 
> Bundner Oberland - Germany, descended from Stone Age Turf Sheep
> 
> Cheviot - Scotland, mentioned 1372
> 
> Dartmoor -Devon, England, descended from Bronze Age Heath Sheep
> 
> Finnsheep - Finland, goes back to 12th century, descended from wild mouflon
> 
> Gentile di Puglia - Southern Italy, 15th century
> 
> Gute - Gotland, Sweden, primitive in unbroken line, first mentioned 1292
> 
> Hebridean or St. Kilda - came w/Viking invaders to Hebrides in 900's
> 
> Icelandic - Iceland, brought by Vikings in 900's
> 
> Istrian Pramenka - Slovenia and Croatia, medieval times
> 
> Jacob - ancient Syria, through medieval Spain, if pure; most are not
> 
> Karakul - 13th  century Persia
> 
> Manx Loaghtan - Isle of Man, dark ages
> 
> Mouflon - ancient unimproved breed, 26 countries have herds, once 
> ranged all over Europe
> 
> Old Norwegian - Norway, at least 3000 years old
> 
> Pommernschaf - medieval Pomerania
> 
> Racka - medieval Hungary
> 
> Rhoenschaf - Germany, 15th century along the Rhine
> 
> Romney - Kent, England; Elizabethan era
> 
> Scottish Blackface - 12th century Scotland
> 
> Shetland - brought to Shetland Islands by Vikings in 900's
> 
> Skudde - medieval East Prussia
> 
> Soay - ancient British from Celtic Roman era
> 
> Speigel - Germany, 16th century
> 
> Steinschaf - Germany, Bavarian Alps, dark ages
> 
> Walachenschaf - 13th century Romania
> 
> Wiltshire Horn - Tudor England


Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 07:52:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Marcus Loidolt <mjloidolt at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] PETA and sheep, and of course chickens!!
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Johann von Metten habst schriebten:
There are ancient and medieval breeds of sheep that
are still around and unchanged by modern agriculture,
the Shetlands, Icelandics, San Jacinto, and others
give us a good window into the materials the ancients
had to deal with.
Yes, there are a few breeds of modern sheep that do
not shed their fleece very well, I do believe that all
of them will shed, just not very efficently to
maintain good health.
Goat tastes about as much like shep as it does
antelope or deer, I know that goats and antelope are
closely related, and I suspect to the same degree with
sheep and deer.

I will agree that this is probably not the best venue
to discuss PETA and its effects on society, but if you
wish you may take it to
medievalanimals at yahoogroups.com
where I'm sure we will more effectively discuss the
problem.

As many of you may know, I raise old breeds of poultry
(Chickens, geese right now. so do some of my
apprentices, were a regular Medieval Ag Consorium!

May all your flocks and fields be fruitful in the coming season!
Appreciate your farmers and butchers!

Johann von Metten OL
medieval poultrier


Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:02:03 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Lamb (was Re: lent, wine, indulgences, de
	Nola)
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Sheep are the general animal.  Rams are adult males.  Ewes are adult
females.  Lambs are young sheep of either sex.  Mutton is the meat of 
the sheep.

According to the OED, lamb first appears in written English in 725.  That
would make the appearance Old English  (Anglo-Saxon), a derivative of Old
Teutonic.  The meaning is "young of the sheep."  A cursory examination of
the OED doesn't show any reference in cooking.

Mutton's earliest reference in the OED is 1290 and is in reference to food,
but not in a cookbook.  Since Old French dates from the 9th to the 16th
Century, earlier references are probably in Latin rather than English.
Earliest meaning is "flesh of the sheep, used as food."  The common usage is
"flesh of a mature sheep."  The OED does not precisely define the common
usage in the 13th Century.

Sheep are "ruminant animals of the genus Ovis."  The earliest written
appearance in English is 825.  It is Old English derived from Old Teutonic,
where the origin is believed to be prehistoric.

I would point out that lamb and sheep are both of Anglo-Saxon derivation,
while mutton is of Norman-French derivation.  The cookbooks we have are
written for noble households and date from after 1100, when Middle English
came into common use.  Middle English is Anglo-Norman and the use of the
word mutton rather than lamb or sheep is probably an artifact of the Norman
French of the ruling class.  It may be that mutton did not have a clearly
defined age implication at that time or it may be that lambs were too
valuable to waste as food.

Bear


Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:32:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re:[Sca-cooks] Lamb (was Re: lent, wine, indulgences, de
	Nola)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

--- Terry Decker <t.d.decker at worlnet.att.net>
wrote:
> I would point out that lamb and sheep are both
> of Anglo-Saxon derivation,
> while mutton is of Norman-French derivation.
> The cookbooks we have are
> written for noble households and date from
> after 1100, when Middle English
> cme into common use.  Middle English is
> Anglo-Norman and the use of the
> word mutton rather than lamb or sheep is
> probably an artifact of the Norman
> French of the ruling class.  It may be that
> mutton did not have a clearly
> defined age implicatio at that time or it may
> be that lambs were too
> valuable to waste as food.
>
> Bear

According to "The Story of English", this
relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Norman words
shows the class distinctions after the conquest.

All the AS words [sheep, cow, pig, deer] show
that the Saxons were the caretakers of the
animals.

All the Norman words [mutton, beef, pork, venison]
show that the Normans were the eaters of the
animals.

Huette


Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 12:31:35 -0800 (PST)
From: Honour Horne-Jaruk <jarukcomp at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 32, Issue 33
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

>> Supermarket lamb is about six months old at slaughter.
>> Until the 1920s or so, such meat was labeled "young
>> mutton". Lamb was originally  an animal under three
>> months old. At that age, the flavor is so mild that a
>> fat-free piece can't always be identified as lamb in a
>> taste test, even by professional chefs.
>
> I tend to disagree with you. Although the butcher definitions have changed,
> species are considered juveniles until they reach sexual maturity, which in
> the case of sheep, doesn't occur until 9-11 months.

Actually, most domesticated sheep
breeds have begun puberty by the end of their fifth
month; many have completed it. It's standard breeding
age which is 9-11 months.

> A 6 month old lamb, then,
> would still be sexually immature, and therefore still a lamb.

Unfortunately, you are incorrect on two counts. Aside
from the above, the culinary definition of lamb was an
animal still at least partially nursing; that's never
the case with 6-month-olds.

> Wethers would
> have reached sexual maturity (have to be sexually
> mature to be castrated conveniently)

Most sheep are castrated at two weeks or less. Even
surgical castration is done at three months.

> and are the most frequent sheep on our
> table, since keeping the
> ladies allows one to both have more babies, and
> wool.

Wethers have by far the finest wool, since there's no
hormonal problems or pregnancy-induced malnutrition.
By the end of our period, some flocks were
ewe-and-wether only, kept solely for their wool. The
practice became even more common in the 1700s.

> Rams, like any other
> intact male, tend to be strong flavored and much
> tougher than ewes- a function of their testosterone.
> Phlip

Absolutely. Rank as a tank. Some died "in harness", so
to speak, but others were slaughtered for dog food or
to be sold to the poor.  But nowadays, "lamb" of six
months of age is considered the most cost-effective
compromise between minimum "rankness" and maximum
carcass weight. It's just that lamb recipes in our
period of study were intended for what are now classed
as 'baby' or 'weanling' lamb. (By the way- their
'weanling' was six weeks; ours is up to twelve.)

Yours in service to both the Societies of which I am a member-
(Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk, R.S.F.
Alisond de Brebeuf, C.O.L. S.C.A.- AKA Una the wisewoman, or That Pict


Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 21:11:12 -0400
From: Patrick Levesque <petruvoda at videotron.ca>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] A few more words on lambs
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Just to add to the amount of date we were gathering on the topic...

Olivier de Serre, in "Theatre d'Agriculture et Mesnage des Champs" (1600)
mentions about lamb that they leave their mother around the month of April
(around 4-5 months old - page 319) and are castrated on the month of March
of their second year (around 15-16 months old - page 323).

Castration seems the important point indicating whether an animal is young
or more mature. He doesn't mention it for lamb specifically, but things get
interesting in his chapter on veal. Young veals or bulls are to be castrated
at 1 1/2 year of age (les veaux ou taureaux seront parvenus au point d'?tre
ch?tr?s... - p.290) - he subsequently calls these castrated animals "boeufs".

So even though there appears to be a certain laxism on terms in period, it
seems that castration is what would differentiate younger farm animals from
the more mature ones.

The more so, I'd add, that older animals used for food are generally those
that have given a few good years of hard work, or of wool - they are
fattened in their last summer to be butchered in the fall.

Petru


Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 23:36:36 -0700
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <dailleurs at liripipe.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A few more words on lambs
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

And I know when I was on the farm, we would have kids hit the ground
from mid Dec on through the summer, depending. When a sheep or goat
cycles is dependant on day length, and proximity to a male, as well as
other things. But they go into season almost year round, at least in my
experience.

--Anne-Marie


Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 09:13:40 -0400
From: Patrick Levesque <petruvoda at videotron.ca>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A few more words on lambs
To: "jenne at fiedlerfamily.net,	Cooks within the SCA"
	<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Exactly - For the Languedoc region, at least. De Serres also states that
ewes (is this the right word for female sheep?) could give birth after a 5
month pregnancy, allowing the possibility of a second lamb around 6 months
later (June July).

Will get you the exact page number and edition this afternoon.

Petru

On 22/05/06 01:30, "Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise"
<jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> wrote:

>> Olivier de Serre, in "Theatre d'Agriculture et Mesnage des Champs" (1600)
>> mentions about lamb that they leave their mother around the month of April
>> (around 4-5 months old - page 319) and are castrated on the month of March
>> of their second year (around 15-16 months old - page 323).
>
> Ok, so you are saying that the lambs in that time and place were  
> born in December-January?
>
> I'm collecting information on period sheepherding for a friend, and it's
> interesting to hear such a radical difference from our modern sheep, who
> give birth in February/March.


Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 13:29:23 -0400
From: Patrick Levesque <petruvoda at videotron.ca>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A few more words on lambs
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

As promised:

"Ceux qui ne tirent de leur brebis qu'une ventree chacun an, leur donnent le
belier environ la mi-Juillet; afin d'aigneler dans le mois de Decembre, leur
portee estant de cinq mois. Mais pour avoir deux aigneaux en mesme annee,
serons empreigner nos brebis dans les mois d'Avril & d'Octobre, dont
naistront les aigneaux en Septembre & Fevrier."

From "Le Theatre d'Agriculture et mesnage des champs, par Olivier de Serres,
seigneur du Pradel." Paris, 1600. P. 318. I do believe it's the first
edition, I'm unaware if it was subsequently reprinted, and how many times it
would have been.

"Those who only get out of their ewe's only one pregnancy each year, bring
the ram to them around mid-July, so that they give birth in December, their
pregnancy being around 5 months. But to have two lambs in the same year, our
ewes will be impregnated in the months of April and October, and the lambs
born in September and February. "

(I'm not familiar with breeding terms in English, so the translation may
sound a bit unusual - don't hesitate to correct the language if  
necessary).

On 22/05/06 09:13, "Patrick Levesque" <petruvoda at videotron.ca> wrote:

> Exactly - For the Languedoc region, at least. De Serres also states that ewes
> (is this the right word for female sheep?) could give birth after a 5 month
> pregnancy, allowing the possibility of a second lamb around 6  
> months later (June July).
>
> Will get you the exact page number and edition this afternoon.
>
> Petru


Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 09:56:13 -0600 (CST)
From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" <pixel at hundred-acre-wood.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] suet Vs. fat

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011, V O wrote:
<<< A friend of mine who has done some research into this mentioned in a discussion we had about middle eastern cooking, that this breed of sheep (fat tail) mentioned in this type of cooking is no longer around.? So, would it be the same from a modern breed of sheep?? Does anybody know if that breed 'is" still around, or would it be just something available in the country or local area where they still are??

Mirianna >>>

We had this discussion almost exactly a year ago--there are several breeds of fat-tail sheep still around. From Phlip's post on the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat-tailed_sheep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakul_(sheep)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awassi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhead_Persian
http://www.sheep101.info/sheeptypes.html
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/heritage_breeds/65309/2

And from Urtatim's post:

"There are quite a number of fat tailed/fat rumped sheep breeds, which
appear to have originated in Central Asia. Some of them have tails
that when dressed (!!) weigh 5 lbs. Here are photos of a few
displaying their fat tails (or rumps) There are many other fat-tail
breeds besides these:

the Altay
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/altay/index.htm

the Balkhi
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/balkhi/index.htm

the Baluchi
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/baluchi/index.htm

the Hasht Nagri
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/hashtnagri/index.htm

the Moghani
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/moghani/index.htm

the Ujumqin, a Mongolian
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/ujumqin/index.htm

the Waziri
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/waziri/index.htm

The Han, one of the most extreme
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/han/index.htm
(note that while it is in "China", the region is one of
Turkic/Central Asian culture):"

Margaret FitzWilliam


Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:02:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Honour Horne-Jaruk <jarukcomp at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Mutton

--- On Thu, 4/28/11, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
<<< We have at least one
recipe that specifies mutton, for which we've used lamb, and
I wanted to see how much difference it would make so I
looked up local halal butchers. Yesterday I picked up two
pounds of meat (including the bones--I got about 1 1/4lb of
meat out of it) at about $8/lb, which struck me as
expensive. When we made the dish, we didn't notice any
change in taste at all, which set me wondering whether the
mutton was really mutton.

-- David/Cariadoc >>>

    Actually, what you were sold probably was mutton. Under US law any sheep, any age, can be sold as lamb. The only thing the producers care about is the age at which the muscle growth-to-feed ratio starts falling off. For obvious reasons, they push that limit to the last quarter hour.

    The situation is made more complex still by the fact that much of our lamb comes from Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, any sheep that has no permanent incisors is still lamb. In New Zealand, the first incisors may be present but not yet touching.

  However, all these standards involve ages at which a sheep from our period of interest would be considered mutton. (By the Australian standard, "young mutton"). The important factor for our purposes is that sheep as young as six months old are already exclusively grass-fed and producing sex hormones, and it is those two factors which make sheep meat mutton.

    In our era lamb was an animal either exclusively or primarily milk-fed - four to eight weeks old, preferably under six weeks old. The taste is much, much more delicate; it's even more obvious than the difference between real veal and beef. The chances are quite high that the vast majority of SCA cooks have never used, or even tasted, real lamb.

    I happen to be allergic to mutton. I can, however, eat small amounts of milk-fed lamb. There's that much difference.

Yours in service to both the Societies of which I am a member-
(Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk, R.S.F.
Alizaundre de Brebeuf, C.O.L. S.C.A.- AKA Una the wisewoman, or That Pict

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	sheep-lambs-msg	Page 2 of 18