The day before her coronation, she processed through central London, a route from the Tower of London to the palace at Whitehall, waving to her adoring subjects, receiving speeches and gifts at various stops along the way and watching pageants on various biblical and classical themes. The procession was serenaded between every stop by flourishes of trumpets, fifes and drums and the ringing of bells from every bell tower. All of the two days of pageantry had deep roots in tradition.
The service at the banquet also had a long history. Noblemen proudly served the monarch at table. One would begin the services by dressing the monarch, in the morning, and receiving the night-clothes and bedding for his or her service. Another would present the basin for the monarch to wash his or her hands before the banquet. The ewer and basin became the presenter's personal souvenir. Nearly every article associated with the ceremony went to a nobleman or woman who did humble service for the monarch on his or her great day. The noble families who held the grants for these services guarded them jealously for generations.
Among the many traditions relating to the banquet was the presentation to the monarch, by the lord of the manor of Addington, of three servings of a dish called “dillegrout” (in the earliest records, diligrunt). The Encyclopedia Metropolitana informs us that the accompanying petition allows for blood to be added to dillegrout. It would then be called “malpygeryn”.1 The first to hold the manor from the king was Tezelan,2 the cook for William I (the Conqueror). The dish was probably a favorite of William and symbolic of the cook's expected service throughout the reign.
The Encyclopedia Metropolitana has tracked down the next steps in the ensuing history of the manor and the dish.
Bartholemew Cheney is said (Mag. Rot. 18 Henry III., Surrey) to have holden Addington by the service of finding a Cook to dress such victuals in the King’s Kitchen as the Seneschal shall order.3
The romance of the largess of the crown to award lands for a favorite dish at the coronation banquet is tempered with this. But reality can have its own attractions.
This was in fact only executing the office of Cook by deputy; and his son-in-law William Aguillon (Harl. MSS. 313. f. [23.a.]) held it by the service of making hastias, as the record expresses it, in the King's Kitchen on the day of his Coronation, or of finding a person who should make for him a certain pottage called the mess of Gyron, or if seym (fat) be added to it it is called Maupygernon ; the seym in another Record is called vnguentum. Sir Robert Aguillon (Placit. Cor. 39, Henry III. m. 33. and Esch.4 14 Edward I.) held it precisely by the same Service, and the dish is mentioned by the same name, viz. Le Mess de Gyron,...5
As is so often the case, so much information has only raised a host of questions.
The office was held under Edward III by one Thomas Bardolfe. A William Bardolfe served the dish at the coronation of Richard II. For this reason a recipe called “Bardolf”, in the Antiquitates Culinaria, has long been thought to be the best candidate for the dish.
418 Bardolf. Take almond mylk, and draw hit up thik with vernage6, and let hit boyle, and braune of capons braied7, and put therto; and cast therto sugre, clowes, maces, pynes, and ginger, mynced; and take chekyns parboyled, and chopped, and pul[l] of[f] the skyn, and boyle al ensemble, and in the settynge doune from the fire, put therto a lytel vynegur alaied (mixed) with pouder of ginger, and a lytel water of everose, and make the potage hanginge (thick), and serve hit forthe.8
While it cannot be said with certainty, dillegrout appears to be an demotic English spelling of de la grout, grout suggesting a highly popular Northern European grain and fruit pudding (Danish rødgrød; Norman gruyt?). The modern version of the Danish dish reads vaguely like Bardolf with two key differences: it contains grain instead of meat or chicken and the wine is generally substituted by fruit juice. It is a grain and fruit porridge liberally doused with sweet fruit juice.
Rather than grain, Bardolfe shows chicken finely minced together with brawn9. Dillegrout being a coronation dish, most particularly, the brawn would in early centuries have come from the head of a boar — a thing considered the ultimate delicacy.
There is more. If blood can be added yielding malpygeryn, then malpygeryn is a black (or blood) pudding. Dillegrout, by extension, is a white pudding — not at all a soup or stew as many claim. It totally fits the description. It is a white pudding made from capon minced together with boar brawn, parboiled chicken, and a range of sweet herbs and wines boiled down until it takes the “hanginge” consistency of a white meat pudding.
It also bears pointing out that dillegrout was likely made differently in different periods and places. It could have begun as a rich, sweet grout, and become, in Richard's time and/or court, a white pudding.
Beginning with the coronation of Richard II, the service appears to have become a ritual payment for holding the manor of Addington. The holder was neither called upon to cook for the monarch nor to supply a cook. No subsequent record of the presentation of dillegrout seems to have been discovered until the coronation of Charles II, in 1661. It was presented “by right” by Thomas Leigh, the then holder of the manor. The Leigh family had held the manor since the early 16th century but no record of their service during a coronation has been discovered before this date.
A Coronation Chicken was served for the big day of Queen Elizabeth II that could possibly be a distant descendant of dillegrout. As for Elizabeth I, I am not aware that antiquarians have ever uncovered the menu for her coronation banquet.
Variant spellings: dillegrout, diligrout, dilgerunt, dilgrunt, maupigyrnum, maupigyrnun, mawpigeroun, malpigernoun, malepigernout, girint. gyroun, geranit, gerout, gerount, le mess de gyron
1Encyclopedia Metropolitana (4th ed., 1845), XIX, 767. “si apponatur sanguineum, adonques il est apelle Malpygeryn.” (Hist, of Great Britaine, book ix. ch. Xiii.) No primary source citation is given.
2Tezelan] the record may actually read Tezeleu
3Ibid.
4Esch.] Exchequer
5Ibid.
6vernage] a mix of sweet wines
7braied] bray: to crush or grind fine
8 Warner, Richard. Antiquitates Culinariae (1791), 84. Taken from “A collection of recipes in English cookery, from a MS. in the library of the royal society, Arundel collection, No. 344, p. 275–445.”
9braune of capons] another matter about which one can only guess. Some say that the reference is to chicken breast.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
A History of the Tudor Parlor. October 8, 2022. "The parlour appears in the sixteenth century to have been a room the particular use of which was in a state of transition."
- Exploring Medieval and Tudor Stuffing. November 14, 2021. “The recipe gives an excellent description of how the hole to the cavity was closed.”
- Feast of St. Michael, September 29: Beginning of the English Year. September 29, 2019. "Those who have read my “Thousand Years of English Terms” may recall that the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (a.k.a. “Michaelmas”), on September 29, marked the beginning to the English legal and business year."
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
A History of the Tudor Parlor. October 8, 2022. "The parlour appears in the sixteenth century to have been a room the particular use of which was in a state of transition."
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