Arise Sir Loin!: Menu for 1617 banquet which gave birth to legend that King James I invented sirloin after knighting a joint of beef goes up for auction
- Menu lists 129 dishes spread out over dinner, supper and breakfast the next day
- The feast took place at Hoghton Hall, Lancashire in 1617 and required 14 staff
- Sirloin thought to have got name from French ‘surloynge’ meaning ‘over loin’
The menu for the 1617 banquet that gave birth to the legend that King James I invented sirloin steak after knighting a joint of beef has gone up for auction.
Legend has it that when James I dined at Hoghton Hall in Lancashire he was given a cut of meat so delicious that he decided to bestow an honour upon it.
The story claims that he announced to Sir Henry Hoghton and his guests: ‘Loin, we dub thee knight henceforward be Sir Loin! Arise Sir Loin.’
In reality, sirloin is said to have come from the French word ‘surloynge’, which combines ‘sur’ meaning above or over and ‘loynge’ meaning loin.
But the legend has immortalised the fifteenth century banquet and after the menu was discovered some 400 years later, it is set to sell at auction for £800.
The menu for the 1617 banquet that gave birth to the legend that King James I (pictured in a portrait) invented sirloin steak after knighting a joint of beef has gone up for auction for £800
The menu includes 129 dishes spread across dinner, supper and breakfast the following day
The gigantic meal covered Sunday night dinner (left) and supper (right) in Augsut 1617
The menu includes 129 dishes spread across dinner, supper and breakfast the following day.
King James, Sir Henry and their guests were waited on by 14 members of staff that served up three giant meals for them.
Beef was far from the only meat on the menu, with mutton, chicken, veal, turkey, rabbit, pig, pheasant, duck, deer, wild boar, quail and heron all included as well.
Among the extravagant offerings are ‘swan roast, one, and one for to-morrow’, ‘heron’s roast cold’, ‘curlew pye cold’, ‘hot pheasant, one, and one for the King’, ‘quails, six for the King’, ‘Meats’ feet’, and ‘Umble pye’.
Breakfast was also prepared for the following morning, August 18 1617
To satisfy the monarch’s sweet tooth pear tart and custard was on offer for desert.
King James and Sir Henry were accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham and the Earls of Pembroke, Richmond, Nottingham and Bridgewater that evening.
The menu is being sold by a private collector at the auction house Dominic Winter, of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, where it is expected to fetch £800.
It is titled ‘Notes of the diet of Hoghton’ and dated August 17-18 1617.
Chris Albury, specialist at Dominic Winter, said: ‘In August 1617 King James I and his retinue made a return journey from Scotland to London, progressing through the length of Lancashire. One stopping place was at the mansion of Sir Richard Hoghton.
‘It was at this feast according to one local legend that the King tasted a joint of beef so good that he famously knighted it, the beef loin henceforth being known as ‘Sir Loin’.
‘This is an exceedingly rare broadside and all that meat is enough to make one turn vegetarian!’
The sale takes place on March 4.
Legend has it that when James I dined at Hoghton Hall in Lancashire (pictured) he was given a cut of meat so delicious that he decided to bestow an honour upon it