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The awarding of a flitch of bacon〔A flitch is the side, or a steak cut from the side, of an animal or fish. The term now usually occurs only in connection with a side of salted and cured pork in the phrase 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. ==Whichnoure== 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".〔Walpole, p.81 (footnote).〕 The couple are required to produce two of their neighbours to witness that the oath is true.〔Percy, p.176.〕 The oath that was to be sworn by the couple reads, Hear ye, Sir Philip de Somervile, lord of Whichenoure, maintainer and giver of this Bacon, that I, (''husband''), syth I wedded (''wife''), my wyfe, and syth I had her in my kepyng and at wylle, by a Yere and a Day after our Marryage, I would not have changed for none other, farer ne fowler, richer ne powrer, ne for none other descended of gretter lynage, sleeping ne waking, at noo time; and if the said (''wife'') were sole, and I sole, I would take her to be my wyfe before all the wymen of the worlde, of what condytions soevere they be, good or evyle, as helpe me God, and his Seyntys, and this flesh, and all fleshes.〔Ainsworth, pp.viii-ix.〕 The winning couple are escorted away in a grand ceremony with "trompets, tabourets, and other manoir of mynstralcie". Although this is a valuable prize, it does not seem to have been claimed very often. Horace Walpole, who visited Whichnoure in 1760, reported that the flitch had not been claimed for thirty years and that a real flitch of bacon was no longer kept ready at the manor. A replacement, carved in wood, was now displayed over the mantle of the fireplace in the main hall, presumably in order to continue to meet the conditions of the original land grant.〔Walpole, p.81.〕 Walpole is quite taken by this tradition and mentions it in several letters to his friends. In a letter to the Countess of Ailesbury (Lady Caroline Campbell, daughter of John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll and widow of Charles Bruce, 4th Earl of Elgin and 3rd Earl of Ailesbury but by this stage married to Hon. H. S. Conway), Walpole with tongue firmly in cheek berates her for not having come to Whichnoure to claim the flitch: "Are you not ashamed, Madam, never to have put in your claim? It is above a year and a day that you have been married, and I never once heard either of you mention a journey to Whichnoure." Describing the location and explaining why the flitch no longer gets claimed, he writes "... it is a little paradise, and the more like an antique one, as, by all I have said, the married couples seem to be driven out of it." Walpole concludes, "If you love a prospect, or bacon, you will certainly come hither."〔Walpole, pp.81-82.〕 An anonymous humorous piece appeared in Joseph Addison's ''Spectator'' in 1714 purporting to explain the rarity of the flitch being awarded in terms of the poor quality of the applicants. The writer claims that the source is the ''Register of Whichenovre-hall'' but the truth is that the piece is almost certainly entirely fictitious. The first couple to claim, according to this account, were at first successful, but then had the flitch taken away from them after they began to argue about how it should be dressed. Another couple failed when the husband, who had only reluctantly attended, had his ears boxed by his wife during the questioning. A couple who applied after only their honeymoon had finished passed the questioning but since insufficient time had elapsed were awarded just one rasher. One of only two couples to be successful in the first century of the tradition was a ship's captain and his wife who had not actually seen one another for over a year since their marriage.〔(''The Spectator'', no.608 ), 18th October 1714 from Joseph Addison, ''The works of Joseph Addison'', Vol.2, pp.403-404, Harper, 1842.〕 As well as to married couples, a flitch of bacon was also given at Whichnoure to men in the religious profession one year and a day following their retirement.〔Brand, p.180.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Flitch of bacon custom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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