The Reeve’s Feast

As the year drew to its end, usually in November but maybe in December, and sometimes even on Christmas Eve,  the reeve of a town or district would provide a feast for people in the area; I’m guessing it wasn’t all the people, so no doubt it was just a selected and honoured few in a larger township. The word reeve is originally Anglo-Saxon and he was a man with responsibility to the king for the running of a parish or area; in Norman times it was a similar position but with responsibility to the lord of the manor. It gradually evolved into a position like that of a bailiff or steward of a manor.

In Somerset from early times there was held the Reeve’s Feast, where people could eat and drink as much and as heartily as they liked until two large candles set either end of the table burned out. This was organised by the reeve on his own or his master’s behalf. Sometimes this was called King John’s Feast, or King John’s Pie as the centrepiece for the celebration would be a large pie, usually with a pastry figure on top if it. Apparently, in Curry Rivel it was a huge mince-pie…. mmmm, I love mince-pies!

There would be entertainments at the Feast; a tenant farmer would be the master of Ceremonies and mummers, traditional amateur actors, would arrive, as if by chance, to perform; they would apologise ‘sincerely’ for interrupting the feast, put on their show, then share the delights of the table! In Thomas Hardy’s ‘Return of the Native’ there is a scene concerning mummers… it is many years since I read it, maybe I should go back and reacquaint myself with it?

According to some history, the event actually was started by King John, which would mean it goes back nearly 800 years; and allowance was given for a feast on Christmas Day  of two wheaten loaves, as much beer as they could drink,  beef with mustard, chicken stew, cheese and also enough fuel to cook all this food (no gas or electricity then!) and the two candles.  A toast was drunk to a bread effigy of King John (did this transfer into the pastry figure on top of the pie in other areas?) In Curry Rival the tradition died out in 1868, when funds were collected in lieu for the food to provide for the less fortunate of the parish.