Diet and Health in Early Modern England and Italy
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Diet and Health in Early Modern England and Italy A Comparative Study of the Theoretical and Practical Understandings of Humoral Principles Giovanni Pozzetti Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History SEPTEMBER 2018 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2018 The University of Leeds and Giovanni Pozzetti 2 Acknowledgements This work was supported by the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), through the University of Leeds. The WRoCAH network I’ve been lucky to work with, Cultures of Consumption in Early Modern Europe, has been fundamental in shaping some of the ideas included in this thesis. I am deeply grateful to Helen Smith, Iona McCleery, Phil Withington and Tania Demetriou for their comments and feedback over the years. Jose Cree and Annamaria Valent have been incredible colleagues in this PhD venture, and together we shared triumphs and tragedies: I owe you a pint. I am grateful to my examiners, Iona McCleery and Sandra Cavallo, for the opportunity I have had to benefit from their advice and expertise on the subject. My supervisors, Alex Bamji and Cathy Shrank, went well beyond their duties as supervisors, in offering me constant support and motivation. Their efforts have always been relentless, to say the least. I have been incredibly fortunate to be able to benefit from their professional expertise and kindness. In these years spent at the University of Leeds, I have had the fortune to become friends with some great people: Sabina Peck, Claudia Rogers, Lauren Mottle, Sarah Gandee, Lucy Taylor, Francesca Petrizzo, Claire Martin, Hannah Coates and Jack Noe: thanks to you all. You made my years spent rowing on The Despair much more bearable. I would like to thank all the people in the School of History who have contributed, in many different ways, to this endeavour: Stephen Alford, Sara Barker, Kate Dossett, John Gallagher, Cathy Coombs, Will Jackson, Emma Chippendale, Joanna Phillips. I often think of those who first instilled in me the passion for historical enquiry: Alessandro Arcangeli, Alessandro Pastore, Federico Barbierato and Luca Ciancio. Thanks for putting so much passion into your teaching and for being the most open and willing professors a student might ever wish for. Anna Gialdini, Michael Walkden, Allen J. Grieco, Rebecca Earle, Steven Shapin, Sasha Handley, Elaine Leong, Malcolm Thick and Sara Pennell all contributed in different ways to this project. I am deeply in debt to them all. I also wish to thank the 3 archivists in the State Archives of Modena and Mantua for their professionalism. Needless to say, every mistake contained in this thesis must be solely attributed to its author. Deborah, Steven, Yogesh, Priya, Jacopo, Enrico, Ilva, Giada, Carlotta, Luca and Paola: you shaped my life here in the UK and at home in a plethora of different ways. I keep learning from you all each and every day that goes by. I thank you for that. Callum Gomersall and Enrico Reo have listened to many of my complaints in these years, although in drastically different ways. Thanks to you both. My deepest gratitude goes to my family at home. Thanks for all the love, the support and the encouragement that you gave me throughout these years. I know that whatever comes next, you’ll be standing there, cheering for me. Giulia, I have no words to express my infinite love and gratitude for having you in my life. I can only imagine your efforts in having to deal with me during this PhD. And yet, you never fail(ed) to make me a better person, every single day that goes by, whether you’re close by or far away. This work is dedicated to you. 4 Abstract This thesis examines the assimilation and application of humoral medical knowledge in early modern Italy and England. By focusing on food and drink consumption, it seeks to examine how medical advice was expressed in printed health regimens and how it was applied in eating habits. The comparative aspect of this research aims to break down the homogenisation of the reception of humoral medicine in early modern Europe that is pervasive in studies of early modern medicine. This project focuses on four sets of ingredients, and it aims to re-evaluate the medical significance of food and drink. Historians have focused on the social and cultural meanings of food in the early modern period. I investigate understandings of how food was considered to be a source of nourishment for the body rather than placing an emphasis on food as a tool of social demarcation. This thesis fits into a recent revisionist strand of scholarship that aims to re-shape our understanding of differences in dietary habits amongst different social strata. This work combines a range of approaches to investigate the everyday experiences of individuals, families, cities, polities and nations with food and drink, from a medical standpoint. The study encompasses a range of modes of eating, from everyday meals to banquets, and argues that well-known and common ways of consuming foods were rooted in humoral theory. Sometimes the application of medical advice to food habits was unconscious. This thesis will argue for an implicit presence of humoral medicine in food consumption in early modern Italy and England. Well-known and enduring combinations of ingredients that defined important traditions of the culinary cultures of both Italy and England were both the result and the vehicle of applied medical knowledge. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................... 3 Abstract ...................................................................................... 5 Table of Contents ......................................................................... 7 List of Abbreviations..................................................................... 9 List of Figures ............................................................................ 11 Introduction .............................................................................. 13 Food, drink and early modern medicine ............................................... 14 Historiography ..................................................................................... 23 Sources and methodology ..................................................................... 29 Structure .............................................................................................. 37 Main arguments ................................................................................... 40 Chapter 1 Herbs, Roots and Fruit ................................................. 45 The evolution of the garden .................................................................. 48 Climate and temperaments in Italy and England .................................. 54 The salad: manipulating herbs, roots and fruit ...................................... 60 Cooking and dressing herbs and roots ................................................... 67 Consumption in the household ............................................................. 71 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 86 Chapter 2 Meat ......................................................................... 91 Meat consumption and social status in Italy and England ..................... 91 Medical notions of meat ....................................................................... 96 Beef .................................................................................................. 105 Mutton ............................................................................................... 110 Cooking and consumption .................................................................. 114 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 126 Chapter 3 Wine ........................................................................ 129 Alcohol in early modern Europe ......................................................... 129 Wine-drinking in early modern Italy and England .............................. 131 Wines in early modern Italy and England ........................................... 137 Medical literature on wine .................................................................. 141 Wine consumption, labourers and the household ................................ 157 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 167 Chapter 4 Dairy Foods .............................................................. 171 Dairy foods in the early modern period .............................................. 171 Milk, or the essence of life .................................................................. 175 Posset and capi di latte: liquid dairy in Italy and England ..................... 187 The ‘medical’ popularity of cheese ..................................................... 192 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 203 Conclusion ............................................................................... 207 Bibliography ...........................................................................