5,079
edits
Changes
no edit summary
As for Wierzynek, Longinus gives us only his surname. A merchant family of this name, one of Cracow's most affluent and influential, used to live in the city for centuries. Its progenitor, Mikołaj Wierzynek, arrived in Cracow from the Rhineland, or what is now western Germany, at the beginning of the 14th century. And of course his name wasn't really Mikołaj Wierzynek, but Nikolaus Wirsing; it was only years later that his descendants Polonized the German surname to ''Wierzynek''. He served as member of the city council of Cracow and later as a mayor of the nearby salt-mining town of Wieliczka. He was even named Pantler of Sandomierz, but it doesn't mean he was actually responsible for the royal pantry whenever the king was in that city; it had already become a purely titular office, although a prestigious one and reserved for the nobility. So how did a Rhenish merchant become a Polish nobleman? We don't know for sure, but there were basically three options to achieve this status: ennoblement, naturalization and imposture. Whichever it was, Wirsing was certainly a man of means who enjoyed a high level of the king's trust – in other words, an ideal candidate for organizing a great banquet designed to wow the emperor and other monarchs, and to glorify Casimir the Great's kingdom, which was just making its debut as a serious player on the international stage.
There's only one but: Pantler Nikolaus Wirsing died in 1360, that is, 3–4 years before the banquet. So if it wasnhadn't been him who threw the most famous party of medieval Poland, then it must have been one of his family members. His family grew quickly after he had settled in Cracow, but, out of a number of Wirsings residing in Cracow in 1364, historians have been able to identify one who could have been responsible for the feast; it was the pantler's son, Nikolaus Wirsing Junior, who, like his father, served as a Cracow councillor and, unlike his father, isn't known to have accomplished much else. Hence the conclusion that Junior held the banquet, perhaps in his own house, but did so in his official capacity as a representative of the city and spending money from the city's budget.<ref>S. Kutrzeba, ''op. cit.''</ref>
It's commonly accepted that Wirsing's banquet took place during the third of the meetings mentioned above – the one of September 1364. This one took the top place in the number-of-crowned-heads-in-one-place category, which surely stirred people's imagination. But if sources confuse this summit with the imperial wedding of May 1363, then you can imagine just as well that Wirsing's feast was part of the multi-day wedding festivities. Especially if you remember that Longinus compared the value of Wirsing's gifts for Casimir to that of the bride's dowry. Although, after all, if Wirsing did had done such a good job as a wedding reception manager, than why couldn't he repeat his own success during the political summit a year and a half later? Perhaps there was more than just one "banquet at Wierzynek's"?
== Tourist-Gastronomic Establishment ==
}}
It's better than nothing, but still rather generic – bread, wine, fish, various kinds of meat – but no word of specific dishes or recipes. Which is not surprising after all; mind you, de Machaut wasn't personally present at the feast. Even if he 'd based his poem on a first-hand account of the event – either from King Peter himself or from a member of his retinue – he must have guessed the culinary details himself. And he simply guessed what one just could have expected at a royal feast – that is, on the one hand, various meats aplenty, which is what inhabitants of northern Europe liked best, and, on the other hand, bread and wine, the attributes of Christianity and Mediterranean civilization. And of course fish, as any banquet longer than three days must have covered some lean days.
De Machaut wrote there was no point asking for further details of the feast, as grandeur of such scale couldn't be put into words anyway. Still, I'm going to try and imagine what kind of dishes may have been served on King Casimir's and his visitors' table. Unfortunately, no Polish recipes from the Middle Ages have survived to our time, but we do have Czech recipes, which are worth looking at. Why? Because, firstly, the most important guest was Emperor Charles, ruler of the Czech-speaking Bohemia who resided at the Hradčany Castle in Prague, so it makes sense that some Czech recipes could have been included in the menu to honour him. And, secondly, the Poles generally looked up to Czech civilization, which stood much higher than their own at the time.