Christmas in Tyrone 1397 with the House of Néil, a description by Count Ramón de Perelhos from Tarragona:
The king was in state on Christmas day and all his clergy and knights and bishops and abbots and other great lords.
With the king there were about three thousand horses and also many poor folk to whom I saw the king give great alms of beef.
And moreover they are the most handsome men and fairest women that I have seen in the whole world. And moreover they never sowed any corn nor do they have any wine but all their food is meat and the great lords drink milk for their nobility and the others meat broth and water; but they have enough butter for all their livestock is oxen and cows and fine horses.
On Christmas day, according to what my interpreter said and certain others who could speak Latin, when the king holds his great court, his table was merely a great quantity of rushes spread out on the ground and they placed near him the finest grass they could find to wipe his mouth with and they brought the food on two poles just as they transport grape buckets at the wine harvest: you can imagine that the squires were badly dressed.
Animals ate only grass instead of oats and holly leaf which they roast a bit because of the prickles on it. And let that suffice for the customs because I wish to say no more of them.
The king received me well and sent me an ox. In all his court there was neither bread to eat nor wine to drink, but as a great present he sent me two small flat loaves as thin as neules which bent like uncooked dough; they were made of oats and looked like earth, as black as charcoal but really tasty.
