Episode 126 of the Renaissance English History Podcast was all about Sugar in Tudor England. How did our Tudor friends use sugar?
Books and Sources
Sugar: The World Corrupted. From Slavery to Obesity.
James Walvin.
Luxury Arts of the Renaissance
By Marina Belozerskaya
The Art of Confectionery Ivan Day
https://www.historicfood.com/The%20Art%20of%20Confectionery.pdf
Watch:
Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zSyjyLAWWM
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Rough Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity. This is Episode 126, and it’s about sugar in Tudor England. If you’re like me, you’re one of the millions of people who are trying to watch their sugar intake. In the past decade, more and more research has come out about how addictive sugar is, and dentists have found that kids in England have the same rate of tooth decay now as in the 17th century.
So what is the history of this oh-so-addictive sweet white powder, which we seem to want to put everywhere? Did our Tudor friends use sugar? Most people have heard the stories about Elizabeth I’s rotten teeth because of her sweet tooth, but what about our other Tudor friends? Also, I’ve done a number of other episodes about food and sumptuary laws, which you might find interesting, and I’ll link to them at englandcast.com/sugar. Remember, englandcast.com/sugar.
And before we get started, I want to remind you about Tudorcon. We’re about three months away from the world’s first ever Tudorcon, and I can’t wait to hang out with you, and 100 of our new best Tudor friends, in Lancaster PA on a gorgeous weekend in October to learn from Tudor experts, see a musical, hang out and dance to period music, and more. Englandcast.com/tudorcon2019 for more info.Â
Since ancient times, sugar has been seen as a medicine, good food, and even something holy. Look at the promises in the Bible about the land of milk and honey. The first major interaction between Western Europe and sugarcane, though, was during the Crusades when people discovered that they had a taste for it. But it was costly, mostly due to the lack of technology with processing the sugar. One of the household accounts of Edward I show a purchase of over 2000 pounds of various kinds of sugars in one year alone, including that used for medicine. But this was extraordinary, and most ordinary people would not have had the ability to purchase sugar like this.Â
By the 14th century, sugar was becoming popular and normal in the wealthy houses. In 1319 an Italian trader carried 100,000 pounds of sugar into England, for example. In the 14th century more sugar was imported into Sandwich, in Kent. Further north, it was a popular import in Boston, Lincolnshire from Amsterdam and Calais. Devon also imported it, and by the end of the 14th century a London grocery shop was selling sugar.Â
But what really made sugar take off was the Portuguese broke the Italian monopoly on sugar as they began to cultivate it in the Azores. Soon there was competition and newer players in the sugar market. Add to that more understanding of how sugar could be used not just in foods, but also as a medicine, and even as an art form with a confectionary, and the sugar market began to take off.
In the 16th century we see the emergence of candy makers, and those who were experts in molding, and making specialist confectionary treats from sugar were in most major towns. And we see tooth decay on a scale never before seen. Medieval skulls show little in the way of tooth decay. Molds made from Pompeii show no decay. But suddenly in the 16th century teeth start decaying.Â
The Earl of Northumberland, for example, ordered more than 2000 pounds of sugar in one year in the late 16th century. Henry VIII had his own confectioner expert, who was in charge of cooking with sugar, and any kind of sweet dessert foods. Hampton Court even had its own bakery just for sweets, and recipes began appearing that used a great amount of sugar. They would use the sugar in sauces, or sprinkled on meats directly.
It’s interesting to note that it’s generally the women of the household who manage the confectionary directly. The ingredients were expensive, and you needed special tools to work with them, and that couldn’t always be trusted to servants. Also, there was the healing properties of sugar, which often the women would oversee in the home.Â
One Middle Eastern remedy for fevers were small amounts of pulled sugar. These became known in England as alphenics, or pan sugar. We still use their desendents whenever we eat a sweet throat lozenge. One medieval Arabic remedy ground a sugar powder with pinenuts, almonds, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, liquorice and starch, was still being prescribed in 17th century England “for such as those who have Coughs, Ulcers and Consumptions of the Lungs”.
Sugar had warming properties, and were believed to help with digestion, and this is the root of why we eat it for dessert today. During the medieval times, at the end of a large banquet, there would be the void, when you ate sugar coated seeds and drank a sweet wine, in order to close your stomach.Â
As the availability of sugar grew during the 16th century, there were more choices for this void, and it grew into a sugary sweet dessert buffet by Elizabethan times. The course still held a medicinal use – marmalades were valued for their soothing effects on the stomach, and people believed it was incredibly important to close your belly with something sweet, the equivalent of our antacid or indigestion tablets. One recipe took powder from three types of peppers – white peppers, black peppers, and a long pepper, and mixed ginger and sugar, and, taken with honey after a meal, it was an antidote to indigestion. Sugar was essentially seen as something that would expel all the ill humors in the body.
Yet another use of sugar was in artistic work, to show off wealth and status. Arab sculptors had commissioned displays of sugar confectionary works to mark special occasions. In 1412 a traveler in Egypt wrote of a mosque built of sugar. Europeans would take these same ideas, and customize them for their audience. Honey continued to be used, but sugar began to take over in the royal households.Â
When you mixed gum and resin to sugar paste, you could make gorgeous sculptures that were bonded and could be used in molds, and almost any shape. You could also paint the sugar, or even coat it in gold, making it shimmer with sweetness. Cardinal Wolsey was particularly interested in these.Â
In 1515 Thomas Wolsey became a Cardinal, and to celebrate he ordered a display of churches, gardens, birds, beasts, and a chess set, all of sugar. And In 1527 he treated French ambassadors at Hampton Court to over 100 sugar sculptures in just the second course. These included a castle, St Paul’s Cathedral, people dancing and fighting, birds, and a chess set, which he gave the visitors when they left, in a specially designed case. You can see drawings of these sculptures in the show notes for this episode at englandcast.com/sugar.
It wasn’t just cardinals who were going all in on sugar sculptures, though. In 1503 the new vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford ordered a sugar sculpture of all eight towers of the University. In 1526 Henry VIII hired seven cooks to create a sugar banquet at Greenwich – there was a dungeon, and a manor with swans, as well as a tower and chessboard, covered in gold.Â
Sugar had four main food uses – to sweeten food, to preserve fruits and vegetables, and to mold into decorations. The rise in cookbooks during this time period made it even more possible for recipes and ideas of how to use sugar to spread faster than ever.Â
In terms of preserving, The Greeks and Romans used honey to preserve fruits, and Arabs discovered the ways to use sugar syrups to keep fruits edible. During the medieval period, these processes gradually spread throughout the Mediterranean, and would have been picked up by the Crusaders. By the early 15th century England was importing citrus fruits preserved in syrup, and by the Tudor period people were making it themselves from imported raw lemons and oranges. The preserved fruits were known as “wet suckets”, and were an important item at the banquet course, their bright colors and coatings of syrup bringing festivity to the table, reflected in special Venetian glasses.Â
Although there were various methods, the fruits were usually poached first in water and then boiled gently for a short time in a thin syrup. They were steeped in this initial syrup for a day or two, which was then drained off and boiled again. In England this process was repeated a number of times until the fruits had absorbed the saturated syrup completely. The finished preserves were stored in glasses that which were sealed with writing paper dipped in brandy, or bladders tied on with string.Â
Most wealthy people bought their sugar through London, but as sugar became more available, and cheaper, it was available even in the small provincial towns. By the mid 17th century, even the very smallest towns had shops that sold sugar, and it was beginning to lose its cache among the wealthy.Â
But when sugar was at the height of its popularity in the court, everyone tried to get on the sugar bandwagon. Queen Elizabeth is famous for having had terrible teeth, the result of her sweet tooth without any proper dental care. Those stories of her teeth are likely exaggerated – there is only one record of her having had a tooth pulled, and it’s true that during her later years foreign dignitaries found her words difficult to understand, something that was blamed on her tooth loss and pain. But it also could just be that she was getting old. Either way, it is true that having blackened teeth was a status symbol, showing off that you could afford sugar – so it’s clear that people understood at least a casual link between sugar and bad teeth. There was actually a Tudor fad for less well off people to blacken their teeth, just to make it seem as if they were wealthy enough to buy sugar.Â
Even children were introduced to sugar from a very young age, so sugar was often used as gifts to kids. As today, where it is linked to romance – boxes of chocolates at Valentine’s Day, for example, romance was also attached to sugar. There is one story of Elizabeth I attending Kenilworth Castle, home of the Earl of Leicester, and arriving to confectionery hanging from the trees. The idea was for a gentleman to take the confectionery from the tree and present to the lady he was courting.Â
In England, the history of sugar is linked with that of coffee, and tea, both of which are imports that became popular a century after Henry VIII. Once British people went into their first coffee shop, in the mid 17th century, or had their first Indian tea leaves, the success of sugar became inevitable. If you then add in the labor on the sugar plantations in the Caribbean from slavery, the history of sugar becomes murky, and much more complicated. In 1625, the English seized Barbados, set up sugar plantations and started importing slaves from Africa. By 1700, 50,000 slaves were being worked to death, and sugar prices dropped 70% and sugar became a commodity available to everyone. Once tea and sugar became staples as well, which happened by the 18th century, sugar’s fate was sealed.Â
But during the Tudor period, at least in England, we see this little rush of excitement about sugar. While the prices definitely were helped from the exploitation of African slaves by Portugal, the English themselves weren’t part of that exploitation directly yet. Sugar hadn’t yet been ingrained and inextricably linked with mass cruelty and genocide. Â
And you can get in touch with me through the listener support line at 801 6TEYSKO or through twitter @teysko or facebook.com/englandcast.
[yet another advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave a rating or review on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.