Manuscripts and cookery books
in Medieval Europe
The elite classes of 13th to 16th century Europe, shared a common culinary culture, out of which sprang around a hundred cookery books in Spain, Italy, England, France, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
The cookery books of the Medieval period were written in different languages: Latin, Arabic, French, Danish, Catalan, English, German, Dutch.
We have classed those texts written in Tuscan, Venitian, or other dialects as "Italian". In Spain, some books were written in Catalan and others in Arabic.
Manuscripts and books classified by country or by language
The most ancient texts, such as the Sion manuscript, have come down to us in the form of rolls or books of parchment. The parchment was usually made from the skins of stillborn animals (calves, kids, lambs), tanned and cut to the required size. This demanded an enormous amount of preparation, and for this reason, parchment was expensive and scarce. The copyist, who was often a monk, originally used an ink made from cabbage juice, copper sulfate (cupri rosa or couperose) and oak gall, all cooked in gum arabic with the addition of beer or wine.
Later, manuscripts were established on paper made from rags of linen, hemp and cotton. This technique was invented in China in the 2nd century. The Mongols later exported it to Damas and Bagdad from the 8th century onwards. In 1250, paper was manufactured for the first time in Europe in Fabriano, near Ancona (Italy) but it wasn't until the middle of the 14th century that paper mills began to spread throughout Europe.
In the 13th century, the copying of books became more widespread, leaving its monastic origins for the more profane world of the professional copyists. Although Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450, the production of copied manuscripts and printed books continued in parallel for a certain time. The first printed cookery books seem to be the Kuchemaistrey printed in German in 1485 and the Viandier de Taillevent printed in French around 1486. De Honesta Voluptate et Valitudine, a book on dietetics with recipes, written in Latin by Platina, was printed back in 1480.
Platina, De Honesta Voluptate (1st page, detail)
copy of the incunabulum of 1480
Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividale del Friuli
published by the Societa Filologica Friulana in 1994
Books printed before 1500 are called incunabula.
Text : Marie Josèphe Moncorgé. Translator: Ian Bailey
Belgium
- Le Vivendier (1420-1440)
- Lancelot de Casteau (1585)
Denmark
- Libellus de arte coquinaria (1300-1350)
This manuscript in Danish was for a long time wrongly attributed to the Danish doctor Henrik Harpestraeng, who died in 1244.
One manuscript, dating from around 1300, includes 25 recipes and the second, from 1350, proposes 31 recipes. According to historians, these 2 texts were taken from an unknown French manuscript.
Complete text in Medieval language: The so-called Harpestreng cookbook (13th century) - Das sog. Harpestreng-Kochbuch (13. Jh.) Codex K: ed. M. Kristensen, Harpestræng, København 1908-20, 194-199.
France
around 1300
-
3 manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris:
- Enseingnemenz qui enseingnent a apareillier toutes manières de viandes
- Liber de coquina
- Tractatus de modo preparandi et condiendi omnia cibaria
- Manuscrit de Sion
Afterwards
- Le Viandier de Taillevent (around 1380?)
- Modus viaticorum preparandorum et salsarum (around 1380-1390?)
- Le Ménagier de Paris (1393)
- Du fait de cuisine (Savoie, 1420), Maître Chiquart
- Le recueil de Riom et la manière de henter soutillement (around 1466)
- Platine en francoys (Lyon, 1505)
- Livre de cuysine tresutile et proufittable (1542)
- Le livre des confitures de Nostradamus: ...façon et manière de faire toutes confitures... (Lyon, 1555)
- Thresor de santé (1607)
Germany
- Daz bûch von gûter spîse (1345-54)
- Diz buch sagt von guter Spîse (1345-54)
- Kochbuch Meister Eberhards (early 15th)
- Guot ding von allerlaÿ Kochen (1460)
- Büchelein von guter Spîse (1470)
- Hie sagt der maister von allerlay kochen (1469-73)
- Hienoch findestu wie man kochen... soll (15th)
- Von Speiß zu kochen (15th)
- Kuchemaistrey (1485)
- New Kochbuch für die Kranchen (1545)
- Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin (1553)
- Ein new Kochbuch (1581, Marx Rumpolt
- Ein Köstlich new Kochbuch, Anna Wecker (1598)
Great Britain
England
- Manuscrits anglo-normands (mid 13th)
- Doctrina faciendi diversa cibaria (1325)
- Ancient Cookery (1381)
- The Forme of Cury (1390)
- Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books ou Harleian
- Liber cure cocorum (1422-71)
- A Noble Boke of Cookry... (15th)
Italy
- De re coquinaria, Apicius, collection of recipes from ancient Roman cookery, published throughout the Middle Ages.
- De quinquaginta curialitatibus ab mensam (13th)
- Antidotarium Mesuae (13th)
-
4 cookery books from the 14th century:
- Il libro della cocina ou Anonimo Toscano
- Il libro per cuoco ou Anonimo Veneziano ou Anonimo Veneto
- Anonimo Meridionale
- Frammento di un libro di cucina del secolo XIV
- Registrum coquine (around 1430), Jean Bockenheim
- Libro de arte coquinaria (around 1450), Maestro Martino
- De honesta voluptate... (around 1470)
- Anonimo Napoletano (late 15th)
- Recipes of the cook Antonio Camuria (1524)
- Banchetti... (1549), Cristoforo da Messisbugo
- La Singolar Dottrina (1560), Domenico Romoli
- Opera (1570), Bartolomeo Scappi
- Epulario et segreti vari (1602-1623)
- Brieve racconto... (1614)
Netherlands
- De Keuken van de late Middeleeuwen (1490-1520)
- Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen (~1514)
- Eenen nyeuwen coock boeck (1560)
- Eenen seer schoonen ende excellenten Cocboeck (1593)
Portugal
- O Livro de Cozinha da Infanta D. Maria de Portugal (late 15e - early 16e)
Spain
Andalousia
- Kitâb al-Tabîkh ou Anonyme Andalou (early 13th)
- Fudalat al-Khiwan (1238-66)
Catalonia
- Libre de Sent Sovi (1324)
- El libre del coch de la Canonja de Tarragona (1331)
- El libre de ventre
- Com usar de beure e menjar (1384)
- El libre de totes maneres de confits (15th)
- Libre del coch (around 1477), Robert de Nola.
Switzerland
- Du fait de cuisine (Savoie, 1420)
The only copy of Maître Chiquart's cookery book is kept at the Bibliothèque cantonale du Valais in Sion. A transcript of the manuscript, by Terence Scully, was published by the journal Vallesia in 1985.
The B.IN.G. foundation, Bibliothèque Internationale de Gastronomie, conserves a heritage of nearly 4 500 ancient books on gastronomy, from the late 13th to the late 19th century. Headquarters in Sorengo, near Lugano.
