Rozmital's account of the churching feast of Elizabeth Woodville will not be
of much use to you as far as the menu is concerned--he merely states that it
was a fine feast with many rich dishes but gives no details, let alone recipes!
He is primarily concerned to describe the richness of the ceremonial and the
fine points of etiquette--e.g., that Elizabeth kept the ranking noblewomen in
attendance upon her (including her mother the duchess of Bedford) kneeling in
her presence most of the time. Most historians who draw upon this account use
it to illustrate the growing ceremonial and ritual with which the Yorkist
kings surrounded themselves, a trend usually ascribed to emulation of the
sumptuous court of the dukes of Burgundy.
Cf. too the prescribed rituals for the queen's actual purification in the
*Liber Regie Capelle,* compiled under Henry VI for a Portuguese nobleman
and edited by Walter Ullmann among the publications of the Henry Bradshaw
society. (No menu details here either, but very helpful for the way in
which the ceremonial was conducted.)
In any event, I would wonder how typical of English purification feasts a
queen's menu might have been.
John Parsons
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