Charles-Chees-art - 2/27/02 "Charlemagne's Cheese: a study in the un/reliability of sources" by Tangwystyl. NOTE: See also the files: cheese-msg, cheese-goo-msg, Cheese-Making-art, cheesemaking-msg, cheesecake-msg, dairy-prod-msg, research-msg, cattle-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu () Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Charlemagne's Cheese [long] Date: 4 Sep 1999 20:31:44 GMT Organization: University of California at Berkeley Charlemagne's Cheese: a study in the un/reliability of sources. There was an interesting thread recently on cheese in period: what varieties were used when and where, and what sort of evidence we have for this. In the course of the thread, it was mentioned that Charlemagne was (according to his biographer Eginhard) fond of Brie and blue sheep's cheese, and was supplied with significant quantities of both. Further information was provided that the proximal source of this information was Anthea Bell's translation of Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat's "History of Food". (I'm working from a screen-print, so I'm afraid I've lost the names of the posters involved.) The relevant quote from Toussaint-Samat is as follows: "After the fall of the Roman Empire ... the monks of the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries, thanks to whom the population did not starve to death entirely during the Dark Ages, were the pioneers of the new cheese-making industry of medieval times. If the chronicles of Eginhard, Charlemagne's biographer, are to be believed, it was in one of these monasteries -- probably the abbey of Vabres near Roquefort -- that the Emperor, another lover of cheese, was given a sheep's milk cheese veined with mould. Much to his surprise, he liked it. He made the prior promise to send two crates of this cheese a year to Aix- la-Chapelle, thus nearly ruining the poor community. Charlemagne was equally enthusiastic about the cheese of Reuil in Brie. A man of discernment, he pronounced it 'one of the most marvellous of foods', and requisitioned two crates of this cheese as well, to round off his dinners at Aix." Toussaint-Samat is an entertaining and engaging writer, full of detailed anecdotes -- the sort who enables you to enjoy yourself thoroughly while learning something. The problem is, you just learned something that ain't so: that's not what the biography says, and it wasn't Eginhard who said it. There are two contemporary biographers of Charlemagne. Eginhard is the better known and was a member of the emperor's circle. The other biography is by the anonymous "monk of Saint Gall", sometimes identified with Notker the Stammerer. Eginhard's work contains no mention of cheese (that I could find, but it's a fairly short work and I read through the whole of it). The monk of Saint Gall's work contains an anecdote about cheese that is clearly the source of Toussaint-Samat's assertions, but just as clearly overlaps them very little in content. The anecdote makes up chapter 15 of the first book of the work. I here give A.J. Grant's translation, with relevant vocabulary from the original Latin included in brackets. "In the same journey [as mentioned in chapter 14 -- the location and course of the journey are not specified] he came to a bishop who lived in a place through which he must needs pass. Now on that day, being the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of beast or bird; and the bishop, being by reason of the nature of the place unable to procure fish upon the sudden, ordered some excellent cheese, rich and creamy [optimum illi caseum et ex pinguedine canum -- a more literal translation might be 'excellent ... oily and whitish/grayish-white'], to be placed before him. And the most self-restrained Charles, with the readiness which he showed everywhere and on all occasions, spared the blushes of the bishop and required no better fare: but taking up his knife cut off the skin [erugine -- apparently 'tarnish' in a literal sense], which he thought unsavoury [abhominabili -- more literally 'abominable'], and fell to on the white of the cheese [albore casei]. Thereupon the bishop, who was standing near like a servant, drew closer and said, 'Why do you do that, lord emperor? You are throwing away the very best part." Then Charles, who deceived no one, and did not believe that anyone would deceive him, on the persuasion of the bishop put a piece of the skin [eruginis illius partem -- lit. "that tarnished part"] in his mouth, and slowly ate it and swallowed it like butter [in modum butyri]. then approving of the advice of the bishop, he said: 'Very true, my good host,' and he added: 'Be sure to send me every year to Aix two cart-loads [duas carradas] of just such cheeses." The bishop was alarmed at the impossibility of the task and, fearful of losing both his rank and his office, he rejoined: 'My lord, I can procure the cheeses, but I cannot tell which are of this quality and which of another. Much I fear lest I fall under your censure.' Then Charles from whose penetration and skill nothing could escape, however new or strange it might be, spoke thus to the bishop, who from childhood had known such cheeses and yet could not test them. 'Cut them in two [incide ... per medium],' he said, 'then fasten together with a skewer [acuminato ligno -- 'a sharp stick'] those that you find to be of the right quality and keep them in your cellar for a time and then send them to me. The rest you may keep for yourself and your clergy and your family.' This was done for two years and the king ordered the present of cheeses to be taken in without remark: then in the third year the bishop brought in person his laboriously collected cheeses. But the most just Charles pitied his labour and anxiety and added to the bishopric an excellent estate whence he and his successors might provide themselves with corn and wine." The immediately following chapter begins, "As we have shown how the most wise Charles exalted the humble, let us now show how he brought low the proud." This is pertinent in understanding the purpose of the telling of the cheese incident. We can now compare the details of the original with the retelling in Toussaint-Samat. The first thing to note is that the single cheese incident in the biography has been multiplied (perhaps miraculously like the loaves and fishes) into two different, but parallel, cheese incidents. supplier of cheese S. Gall: bishop of an unspecified region T-S #1: a monastery, probably abbey of Vabres near Roquefort T-S #2: Reuil in Brie (another monastery implied?) nature of cheese S. Gall: oily (creamy?), whitish or grayish-white, with a white interior and a 'tarnished' exterior that at first appears 'abominable' but is judged to be the best part of the cheese T-S #1: a sheep's milk cheese veined with mould [sic] T-S #2: unspecified (but readers have clearly interpreted the passage as referring to the type of cheese modernly known as Brie -- and this may have been the author's intent) other aspects of the cheese S. Gall: the cheese is tested by being cut open, after which it is fastened back together with a sharp stick; the cheeses are collected during the course of the year and then shipped. T-S #1: no mention of this aspect T-S #2: no mention of this aspect Charlemagne's opinion of the cheese S. Gall: considers cheese a dispreferred alternate to fish for a fast day; after sampling, agrees with the bishop that the unsavory-looking rind is "the best part" T-S #1: a lover of cheese, is surprised to like the moldy cheese T-S #2: equally enthusiastic about this cheese; quoted as pronouncing it 'one of the most marvellous of foods' amount supplied S. Gall: two carts T-S #1: two crates T-S #2: two crates frequency of supply S. Gall: every year T-S #1: every year T-S #2: unspecified difficulty involved in procuring the cheese S. Gall: difficulty in identifying cheeses of the same type and quality, they must be "laboriously" tested and collected; fear of displeasing the emperor in this T-S #1: provision of cheese nearly ruins the "poor community" T-S #2: no difficulties mentioned We cannot know if the interpretations are Toussaint-Samat's own or if he has taken them from intermediary sources -- he remains silent on that point. (He appears to decline to provide citations for much of any of his material. We are lucky, in this case, that Eginhard's name gave us a clue to the actual source of the material.) To me, the most plausible explanation would be that he has worked from two different intermediary sources, each of whom claimed Charlemagne's cheese as identical to their own local specialty and affixed details to that effect to the story. At any rate, he has either been an extremely uncritical user of secondary sources that involved a great deal of invention, or he has been an enthusiastic inventor himself (including the invention of the quote attributed to Charlemagne). From the description in the original, some cheese in the general brie/camembert family would certainly be consistent with what we know: i.e., a soft, "oily" white interior, and a "whitish or grayish-white" exterior that can be removed with a knife, appears distasteful, but is actually quite tasty. The interpretation of the cheese as a blue sheep's milk type (e.g., a roquefort-type) would appear to be inspired by the bit with the skewer. That is, some intermediary source may have fastened upon the process of cutting the cheese open and piercing it with a skewer, then storing it subsequently before consumption, as the origin of a bluing process. The major conceptual problem with this interpretation (setting aside that blue/sheep cheeses cannot really be described as "oily/creamy" and one might balk at describing their interior as "white") is that Charles ordered the bishop to supply "just such cheeses" [talibus caseis] as he had just eaten. The cheese he had just eaten had not undergone the cutting and skewering. If the cutting and skewering produced a blue cheese, then the bishop would be supplying cheeses radically different from what Charles had requested. In summary, we see an original text, which actually supplies useful details about the nature of the cheese being described, but which has been rendered functionally useless in the secondary (and presumably tertiary) sources by over-zealous interpreters who (possibly in a spirit of local chauvinism) have added details and specifics to the bare facts until we cannot know truth from invention. Fortunately, in this case, the original is fairly easy to identify and access, but in all too many cases of this sort, we are left with intriguing but de-contextualized assertions of the sort that fill Toussaint-Samat's book, of which we _must_ be skeptical (because cases like the above happen all the time in books of this sort), but which we have no way of verifying. It's an object lesson in why one should never stop at tertiary and secondary sources, and why one should be _extremely_ wary of sources that don't tell you where they got _their_ information. It may be wrong. Tangwystyl Bibliography Grant, A.J. 1926. Early Lives of Charlemagne by Eginhard & the Monk of St Gall. Chatto & Windus, London. Einhard. 1972. Vita Karoli Magni: the Life of Charlemagne. Trans. Evelyn Scherabon Firchow & Edwin H. Zeydel. University of Miami Press. Latham, R.E. 1965. Revised Medieval Latin Word-List. Oxford University Press. Lewis, Charlton T. & Charles Short. 1907. A New Latin Dictionary. American Book Company. Monachus Sangallensis (Notkerus Balbulus). 1918. De Carolo Magno. Fehr'sche Buchhandlung, St. Gallen. Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne (trans. Anthea Bell). 1987. A History of Food. Blackwell. ********************************************************* Heather Rose Jones hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu ********************************************************* Edited by Mark S. Harris Charles-Chees-art 5 of 5