Despite their high status, Anglo-Saxon royalty didn't regularly feast on copious amounts of meat and fish. Rather, these medieval rulers dined primarily on vegetables, just like the commoners they ruled over, according to two new studies.
In fact, social hierarchy did not have any bearing on the amount of meat consumed; both royalty and peasants chowed down on large amounts of meat only occasionally, the research revealed. It wasn't until the Vikings settled in what is now the United Kingdom in the ninth century and onward that meat became more common on the menu, the team reported.
The findings are based on the analysis of more than 2,000 deceased individuals from the Anglo-Saxon era, which showed no evidence of these people eating "much animal protein on a regular basis," Sam Leggett, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said in a statement, as well as an investigation into Anglo-Saxon records about food consumption.
