Food and Power in Early Medieval England: Rethinking <i>Feorm</i>
Tom Lambert|Samantha Leggett
ABSTRACT It has long been accepted that royal households in the pre-Viking period subsisted on annual renders of food, sometimes termed feorm, from free peasantry. This model support is historiographically fundamental, sense it built into foundations much current thinking not just economics kingship, but its origins, and process ‘manorialization’. article argues texts which are conventionally read as references to these general-purpose food supplies fact concerned with feasts. apparent when we scrutinize both content lists – so dominated by animal protein be inconsistent stable isotope evidence for elite diet examined our companion contexts documentary feorm (in Latin) pastus. The concludes a review potentially far-reaching implications this finding.
Anglo-Saxon England|Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh)