One bowl, two eaters: medieval eating habits in the ‘babees’ books'

Starting from the idea of food-sharing as something unique to the human race and defining our experience of sociability, this paper analyses a unique form of literary production in late medieval Europe: the so-called “babees’ books”, or courtesy books, or books of table manners. They are fairly short texts, addressing “yonge babees”, “lytill children” or sometimes just one little child called by his Christian name, generally male and of aristocratic lineage. The purpose of these text appears to be to provide the basic elements of genteel education: though they often begin with a prayer or an invocation to God, the focus seem to be on social behaviour and one of the most important themes is a discussion of the meal. It is easy to see why this event should be central to the treatises: a meal fuses natural animal behaviour with social ritual, and a person may be defined by his or her attitude towards a meal. My close reading of some English instances of the genre will highlight the social aspects of eating in late medieval society.