Food and Feast in Premodern Outlaw Tales

Melissa Ridley Elmes is Assistant Professor of English at Lindenwood University. Her research engages the literatures and cultures of the premodern British Isles and North Atlantic world.Kristin Bovaird-Abbo is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Northern Colorado. She teaches and researches medieval language and literature, particularly Middle English and Arthurian studies, with a particular interest in the effects of gender and class on the Arthurian character of Gawain in late Middle English romances.

• 1 Introduction 1MELISSA RIDLEY ELMES AND KRISTIN BOVAIRD-ABBO2 Grendel’s Eucharist: An Outlaw’s Last Supper 13ERIC R. CARLSON3 Food, Feasts, and Temperance: The Social Contracts of “Mete and Drink” in The Tale of Gamelyn 30RENÉE WARD4 Bread Without Onions: Winning the Crusades through French Cuisine in Honorat Bovet’s 1398 Apparicion Maistre Jehan de Meun [Apparition of Master Jean de Meun] 55SYLVIA GROVE5 Of Courtesy and Community: Food and Feasting in A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode 75SHERRON LUX6 The Preparation and Consumption of Food as Signifiers of Class and Gender Identity in Selected PremodernTexts and Examples of the Robin Hood Cinematic Canon 93LORRAINE KOCHANSKE STOCK7 “So Shall We Take Our Dinner Sweet”: When the Greenwood Consumes the Outlaw 127MARYBETH RUETHER-WU8 Robin Hood’s Poached Feasting in Context: Poor Knights, Disguised Kings, and Romance Parody in A LytellGeste of Robyn Hode 146MARK TRUESDALE9 The Poached Feast and the Kingly Blow: The Question of Courtesy in Late Medieval King and Commoner Narratives 169S. MELISSA WINDERS AND SARAH HARLAN-HAUGHEY10 Acting Out(Law): Feasts, Outlawry, and Identity Constructions in Two Shakespearean Comedies 199MELISSA RIDLEY ELMES11 Early Modern Fishing Practices and Seafood Culture in Robin Hood’s Fishing 222JASON HOGUE12 “Bread With Danger Purchased”: Hunger, Plenty, and the Outlaw on the Early Modern Stage 245MATT WILLIAMSON