Page:The forme of cury (1780).djvu/51

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[xxxv]

I must not omit my acknowledgments to my learned friend the present dean of Carlisle, to whom I stand indebted for his useful notes on the Northumberland-Household Book, as also for the book itself.

Our chief assistance, however, has been drawn from a MS belonging to the Editor, denoted, when cited, by the signature MS. Ed. It is a vellum miscellany in small quarto, and the part respecting this subject consists of ninety-one English recipes (or nyms) in cookery. These are disposed into two parts, and are intituled, 'Hic incipiunt universa servicia tam de carnibus quam de pissibus.'[1] The second part, relates to the dressing of fish, and other lenten fare, though forms are also there intermixed which properly belong to flesh-days. This leads me to observe, that both here, and in the Roll, messes are sometimes accommodated, by making the necessary alterations, both to flesh and fish-days.[2] Now, though the subjects of the MS are various, yet the hand-writing is uniform; and at the end of one of the tracts is added, 'Explicit massa Compoti, Anno Dñi Mlo CCCmo octogesimo primo ipso die Felicis et Audacti.',[3] i.e. 30 Aug. 1381, in the reign of Rich. II. The language and orthography accord perfectly well with this date, and the collection is consequently contemporary with our Roll, and was made chiefly, though

  1. ↑ It is pissibus again in the title to the Second Part.
  2. ↑ Nº 7. 84. here Nº 17.35. 97.
  3. ↑ In the common calendars of our missals and breviaries, the latter saint is called Adanctus, but in the Kalend. Roman. of (illegible text)oh. Fronto, Paris 1652, p. 126, he is written Audactus, as here; and see Martyrolog. Bedæ, p. 414.

not

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