Flitch (bacon)

The awarding of a flitch of bacon to married couples who can swear to not having regretted their marriage for a year and a day is an old tradition, the remnants of which still survive in some pockets in England. The tradition was maintained at Wychnoure until at least the eighteenth century but now remains only as a carving over the fireplace. At Little Dunmow in Essex a similar ceremony also survived into the eighteenth century. The tradition can be traced back to at least the fourteenth century at both sites and the Dunmow flitch is referred to in Chaucer. The awarding of a flitch at both sites seems to have been an exceedingly rare event.

The Dunmow tradition was revived in Victorian times, largely inspired by a book (The Flitch of Bacon) by William Harrison Ainsworth. Flitch trials are still held in modern times at Great Dunmow. A counsel is employed to cross-examine the nominated couples and attempt to show they are undeserving of the award.

There is evidence that the flitch of bacon tradition existed outside Britain in mainland Europe and some would push its origins back as far as Saxon times. Historian Hélène Adeline Guerber associates the origins of the flitch of bacon ceremony with the Yule feast of Norse tradition in which boar meat is eaten in honour of the god Freyr.

The manor of Whichnoure (now Wychnor Hall) near Lichfield, Staffordshire was granted to Sir Philip de Somerville in the 10th year of the reign of Edward III (1336) from the Earl of Lancaster for a small fee but also on condition that he kept ready "arrayed at all times of the year but Lent, one bacon-flyke hanging in his hall at Whichnoure, to be given to every man or woman who demanded it a year and a day after the marriage, upon their swearing they would not have changed for none other".

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Wikipedia