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Robert de Monte Pessulano two tuns of white wine to make garhiofilac, and one tun of red wine to make claret for him at the ensuing Christmas, as he used to do in former years. These sheriffs were very useful persons in those times, and performed many offices for our olden monarchs that would somewhat surprise a modern high sheriff to perform now, when he is only called upon to attend to the higher duties of his office, and becomes officially one of the first men in his county. Henry the Third, in his twenty-sixth year, directed the sheriff of Gloucester, to cause twenty salmons to be bought for the king, and put into pies against Christmas; and the sheriff of Sussex to buy ten brawns with the heads, ten peacocks, and other provisions for the same feast.
In his thirty-ninth year, the French king, having sent over as a present to Henry (whether as a New Year's gift or not does not exactly appear) an elephant—" a beast most strange and wonderfull to the English people, sith most seldome or never any of that kind had beene seene before that time,"— the sheriffs of London were commanded to build a house for the same, forty feet long and twenty feet broad, and to find necessaries for himself and keeper.
The boar's head just referred to was the most distinguished of the Christmas dishes, and there are several old carols remaining in honour of it.
" At the begynnyng of the mete, Of a borys hed ye schal hete, And in the mnstard ye shal wete;
And ye shal syngyn or ye gon."
The dish itself, though the "chief service in this land," and of very ancient dignity—probably as old as the Saxons,— |
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