The first English cheese discussion on digitalization, transcription –

The University of Leeds has digitized a 16th-century manuscript, the earliest famous English book on cheese. In fact, this is probably the earliest English paper in any kind of food. High resolution scanning and more readable PDF transcripts of the volume are now available on university websites for modern readers to enjoy.

The 1580s wrote “The difference between cheese, frustration, nature, quality and Goodness, name, quality and Goodness written by Pamflyt”, but it appeared for centuries of private ownership at the May 2023 auction and was completely unknown and unpublished. It sold for £45,000 ($60,000), thanks to a grant from the U.S. nonprofit library. “Pamflyt” then joined the University Library’s extensive collection of manuscript cooking and printed books on food.

The book is handwritten on the 112 Kraft page, with the gilded lion ramping on the center of the front cover and the back cover. The lion may be a heraldic reference to the Fisher family, as the former fly leaf contains a strip of “CLE” signature[ment] Fyssher, a member of parliament from Greater Parkington, Warwickshire, asked a friend to return the book to him after careful reading. The name of “Walter Bailei,” a professor of medicine at Oxford University, one of the doctors of Queen Elizabeth I, appears in the book’s third name. From the family of councillors in Bore Place, Kent.

It is unknown whether they or anyone else writes the book, but Willoughby seems to be the most likely candidate of the three, as it serves as a cheesemaking center in the Book of Kingsnorth near Ashford, Kent. Kingsnorth has no reputation for cheese at all, and Kent is not known for it, so it shows that the author has special local knowledge about the area. On the other hand, this work repeatedly cites the 3rd-century Greek physician Galen, whose anatomy and medical works based on four humor theories were the basis of Western medical thought until the 17th century. As a doctor, Bayley is very proficient in Galen’s works, leaving two of his works to Oxford. The paper also covers the medicinal use of cheese, including an uprising prescription for Galen calling for the application of rotten cheese and bacon fat on swollen joints in gout patients to break the skin and cause the swelling fluid to run out.

The elegant secretary of the manuscript was transcribed by Ruth Bramley, one of the 200 living historians at the 16th-century Kentwell Hall estate, who re-demonstrated the functions and events of the Tudor Society, creating immersive historical events for visitors to experience. She is a spinner and weaver, but she is good at reading 500-year-old handwriting during her work. Another living historian at Kentwell Hall has unique insights into this article, thanks to her hands-on experience in making Tudor cheese.

[Bramley’s] Tamsin Bacchus, a colleague at Kentwell’s Tudor dairy, commented: “Let me be passionate about Pamflyt’s author, when he found conflicting ideas in his learned sources, he turned to his contemporaries who actually knew the work: He tried hard to ask the country people, who had a hard time with him and him, and they were almost the same as his arguments.

“The debate about whether people can eat cheese on certain religious fasting days is surprisingly modern. Another suggestion is to use fish intestines to condense milk! Also feel assured to find what we know in actual practice in Kentwell, what we know from Kentwell dairy is hard to make cheese mercilessly maintain a good attitude (‘However, it calls it “worst cheese, for our British dynasty, when butter comes to market, Hit is Badde cheese.”