Introduction

Consumption is a social dimension that can shine a light on the daily life of people of the past. Consumption can take many forms, but in order to address this dimension, this chapter will analyse the act of eating. As Hull and O’Connell have already stated, eating is like breathing: humans must do it regularly; however, unlike breathing, there is usually an element of choice involved in consuming food. In this sense, discussing diet makes possible the discussion of how Anglo-Saxons ‘“ate” their culture on a daily basis’. As Lee points out, food and status are very close in hierarchical societies. The analysis of eating can shine a light on daily life. Addressing daily experience is not new to Marxism. Edward Palmer Thompson's great work presents the importance of daily rituals and activities on the processual making of class. The objective of the current chapter is to recover this process of daily consumption in order to better understand class reproduction. The main hypothesis is that eating procedures and rituals are an essential part of the reproduction of the aristocracy, both material and symbolic.

Eating habits also represent a link between inter-class exploitation and intra-class phenomena. The inter-class relations are presented both in terms of the surplus acquired by the aristocracy and the labour required so that this surplus can be processed and consumed. The intra-class phenomenon is linked to the habits and rituals of the aristocracy and its internal hierarchies and transformations.

The trajectory of this chapter will address the botanical and faunal evidence of archaeological assemblages and what they can reveal about Anglo-Saxon England as a whole, in order to put Northumbrian data into perspective.