The American Historical Review Volume 5 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DOCUMENTS /. Accounts of Star Chamber Dinners, Ax the close of the day's work in the Court of Star Chamber, the judges and clerk of the court and, on some occasions, the solicitor and attorney-general, dined at the public expense in the adjoining dining-room commonly called the Inner Star Chamber. This custom dated at least from the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. Among the Lansdowne collections in the British Museum are a number of manuscripts which throw light on the menus and expenses of these repasts and give some idea of what was regarded as a good dinner in the sixteenth century. Although at different times the Court of Star Chamber sat on different days of the wee)s until, in the reign of Elizabeth, Wednesday and Friday became the customary Star Chamber days, Friday seems always to have been a favorite day, and in glancing over the elaborate bills of fare of some of the " fishdays" a suspicion arises that a weakness on the part of the " Lords of the Star Chamber" for the products of the sea may have had something to do with the determination of the court days.' Lansdowne MS. I, Art. 49, is an account of the expenses of seventeen Star Chamber dinners " before Wolsey was Cardinal, 1509," to which is affixed, among other signatures, that of Wolsey as Bishop of Durham. The total cost of these dinners was 35 os. 5d. In Lansdowne MS. 69, Art. 6, is preserved " A note of the chardges of dynners of a fleshday and a dynner on a fishday in the Starre chamber" in the years 10, 13, 14, 15, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30 and 33 Henry VIII. The least expensive " fleshday" dinner, that of Thursday, July 4, 30 Henry VIII., cost 305. 7d., but on Monday, July 14, 14 Henry VIII., the expenses rose to 763. 4d., and on Monday, May 4, 26 Henry VIII., when the ambassadors of Scotland were gue...