The calendar of various medieval cultures was marked by either fasting or feasts (the latter usually ended or began a period of fasting). The feasts often became much more, offering opportunities for the leaders of communities to display their wealth and generosity, and garner popularity by feeding the people, entertaining them, and showing their munificence by giving away wealth, too. These feasts became both the evocation of past paradises (such as the Garden of Eden), contemporary ones (the Land of Cockaigne), and future ones that could be achieved (or, at least, dreamed of).
Several of these feasts had origins stretching back into antiquity – often the celebration, recipes, and entertainments had long historical pedigrees; certain foods had to be prepared a certain way and the stories told in pantomimes and other entertainments were often age-old. Many medieval feasts continued long after the Middle Ages
