Ravitaillement et alimentation en Provence aux XIVe et XVe siècles by Louis Stouff (review)

102 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW emerges with somequalifiedpraise.The Kennedyadministration is alsoreevaluated , andO'Neill'sinterpretation is an excellent statement of liberaldisillusionment with themythof Camelot.The treatmentof Johnson ismoreambiguous . Eric F. Goldman's thesis of a 'tragedyof LyndonJohnson,' caused by character defects, isrejected. Instead,Johnson isseen asa manof greatstrength whose errors resulted as much from the men around him and the structure of nationaldecision-making asfromhisownfaults.Ambiguity markshistreatment of RobertKennedyaswell, thoughhe asserts that 'With his deathsomething precious disappeared from publiclife.' Qualifications and doubts vanish,howeverwhen he dealswith the electionof •968. EugeneMcCarthy emerges as a man virtuallywithoutflaw, while Nixon votersare castasvicioushardhats whorejoiced in the beatingof hippies. The treatmentof intellectuallife is more original and valuablethan his reviewof politics. For him, the twomostsignificant culturaldevelopments of thedecade werethecollapse of thedistinction between art andentertainment, and relatedto this,the riseof a counter-culture. It becomes clearthat he does notapprove of these changes, andregards theweakening of artisticandcultural standards as a major problem.He laments,'Logic seemed everywhere to be givingwayto intuition,and self-discipline to impulse.' One of hismajorcriticisms of liberalswastheir failureto upholdintellectualstandards. Eachregularchapterin thebookisfollowed by a 'profile,'threeto tenpages long, of peopleand institutions as diverseas Ralph Nader, sports,and the WarrenReport.The device isuseful, thoughtheprofiles varygreatlyin quality. The oneon Woman'sLiberationis surprisingly weakand uninspired, in view of O'Neill'sprevious publications on thehistory of feminism. O'Neill recognizes the difficultyin assessing the periodand says 'theerawas notall of a piece.'Hisconclusion, however, clearlyreveals thevalues andjudgment which dominatethe book: 'Romanticists scornedthe Americandream; materialists soiled herwayof life. Americawasbeautifulall the same.' In theabsence ofa competing account oftheperiod,O'Neill'sbookwill likely bewidelyused.Readers arewarned,however, that it isindeedwhat thesubtitle says:'an informalhistory.' KEITH CASSIDY Universityof PrinceEdwardIsland EUROPE Ravitaillement et alimentation en Provence aux x•v• et xv• si•cles. •.oms STOUFF. Paris,The Hague,Mouton, x97o.Pp. 5o7ß7•F. Recentyearshave seena resurgence of work on the problemssurrounding the production and supplyof foodstuffs and of humandiet in general, work which has been carried out on a more 'scientific' basis. One welcomes Louis Stouff'swide-ranging and thoroughstudyof thesemattersin later mediaeval Provence and the Corntatwith particularinterest. REVIEWS 103 The workisdividedintothreechapters. The firstdealswith vegetable foodstuffs .Sincethis age reliedsoheavilyon cereals,the major part is naturally devotedto thissubject. Stouffsurveys the typesof cereals grownin the region, the wayin whichtheywereturnedinto breadand changes in the composition of breadduringtheperiod.Aboveall, he considers problems of supply, which wereendemic andchronic,andthewayin whichthedifferentpoliticalpowers attemptedto overcome periodsof dearth.By contrast, far fewerproblems were metwithin thesupply ofwine.Despite poorlydeveloped techniques of vinificat . ion, overproduction seems to havebeena greatermenacethan the opposite. Finallyhesurveys theproduction of theoliveandof a widerangeof fruitsand vegetables. In lookingat foodstuffs of animalorigins, he devotes mostspace to butchers' meat.The regulation of the trade,whichposed manyproblems of hygiene and of price-regulation, is closely inspected, asis the butchers' profession and the placeof itsmembers in society. Undoubtedlythe chiefcontributionhereis the discussion of the question of whether,ashasbeenclaimed,the later fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies witnessed a risein meat consumption per head of the population. He produces some firm figures fromthe townof Carpentras which showthat thiswasindeedthe case.His figuresare far moremodest, however, thanthose produced bysomeGermanhistorians; the levelof consumption was stilllow by modernstandards. The chapterendswith a brief consideration of theconsumption of fishandof saltand spices. The thirdchapterismainlyconcerned with questions of individualdiet.This looksat developments overtheperiod,thusconfirming histheoryof an increase of meatconsumption at the expense of cereals, and especially at differences of dietatvarious social levels. Thisshows thateven if dietimproved in thisperiod, it stillremained unbalanced for themajorityof thepopulation - thisbeingthe case, forexample, evenfortherelatively well-to-do students ofthepapalstudium at Trets. This gloomyconclusion is backedby a consideration of the art of cooking; evenfor the aristocracy foodseems to havelackedvariety.Certainly thereisno signof theirbeinga distinctive Provensal cuisine at thistime.The increased useof oliveoil wasan innovation of the sixteenth century. In general, thevalueof thisbookliesin thebreadthof theinquiryandin its rigorous method,ratherthanin the originalityof itsconclusions. The mostinteresting studyis undoubtedly that of meatconsumption in fifteenth-century Carpentras. For thatreason, it is surprising that Stouffshould havepublished hisresults in Annales •.s½(I969), thusdetracting fromtheoriginality of this book.Moreover, wheretheinquiryisbroadened into thosesubjects whichhave generally receivedlessattentionfrom serious historians (cooking,mealsand mealtimes, the actualphysical settingin which mealstook place), the informationwhichStouffhasbeenabletogatherisoftenratherthin , a factof which he is very conscious. Nevertheless, he haslaid down the methodand it is to be hopedthat futurehistorians of the later middleageswill be ableto build...