Henry VIII and Lenten Fasting

A fast meal served to Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon in 1526 included a first course of soup, herring, cod, lampreys, pike, salmon, whiting, haddock, plaice, bream, porpoise, seal, carp, trout, crabs, lobsters, custard, tart, fritters and fruit. – “We have a lot of mistaken ideas about how the Tudors ate. They didn't gnaw chicken greedily and throw bones on the floor, and there were no dogs fighting over scraps under trestle tables. In a well-conducted house, the dogs - except for little spaniels - were exiled to kennels. Table manners were strict and refined. Knowing how to cut your bread and what to do with your napkin was an infallible social signal that separated a gentleman from an oik, and every young noble learned to serve at table and to carve.”–Writer, Hilary Mantel

Lenten diets began to be phased out in England after Henry VIII's break with the Roman church in 1534. Four years later, the King issued a proclamation that the nation need no longer observe the Lenten fast, because, he was informed, of a scarcity of fish. Fish - a permitted food, as we have seen - had previously been abundant, at least on the King’s table, during the many fasting days of the Church calendar. A fast meal served to Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon in 1526, for example, included a first course of soup, herring, cod, lampreys, pike, salmon, whiting, haddock, plaice, bream, porpoise, seal, carp, trout, crabs, lobsters, custard, tart, fritters and fruit. 

This was followed by a second course of soup, sturgeon, carp, perch, eels with roast lampreys, shrimps, tarts, fritters, oranges, apples and baked eggs. The meal may have followed Church doctrine to the letter, but it was hardly a fast. During Lent the King’s servants were on the whole served a healthier but unvarying diet of brown bread (known as ‘cheat’), ale, herrings and salt cod. Fresh fish was always available for the King at Hampton Court Palace from the breeding ponds alongside its south gardens.— From “At the King’s Table,” by Susanne Groom

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