In 1491, Queen Anne, Duchess of Brittany, in order to obtain permission from the Pope to eat butter in Lent, represented that Brittany did not produce oil, neither did it import it from southern countries.  Many northern provinces adopted necessity as the law, and, having no oil, used butter; and thence originated that famous toast with slices of bread and butter, which formed such an important part of Flemish food.  These papal dispensations were, however, only earned at the price of prayers and alms, and this was the origin of the troncs pour le beurre, that is, “alms-box for butter,” which are still to be seen in some of the Flemish churches.

[Illustration:  Fig. 97.—­The Manufacture of Oil, drawn and engraved by J. Amman in the Sixteenth Century.]

It is not known when butter was first salted in order to preserve it or to send it to distant places; but this process, which is so simple and so natural, dates, no doubt, from very ancient times; it was particularly practised by the Normans and Bretons, who enclosed the butter in large earthenware jars, for in the statutes which were given to the fruiterers of Paris in 1412, mention is made of salt butter in earthenware jars.  Lorraine only exported butter in such jars.  The fresh butter most in request for the table in Paris, was that made at Vanvres, which in the month of May the people ate every morning mixed with garlic.

The consumption of butter was greatest in Flanders.  “I am surprised,” says Bruyerin Champier, speaking of that country, “that they have not yet tried to turn it into drink; in France it is mockingly called beurriere; and when any one has to travel in that country, he is advised to take a knife with him if he wishes to taste the good rolls of butter.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 98.—­A Dealer in Eggs.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut, after Cesare Vecellio, Sixteenth Century.]

It is not necessary to state that milk and cheese followed the fortunes of butter in the Catholic world, the same as eggs followed those of poultry.  But butter having been declared lawful by the Church, a claim was put in for eggs (Fig. 98), and Pope Julius III. granted this dispensation to all Christendom, although certain private churches did not at once choose to profit by this favour.  The Greeks had always been more rigid on these points of discipline than the people of the West.  It is to the prohibition of eggs in Lent that the origin of “Easter eggs” must be traced.  These were hardened by boiling them in a madder bath, and were brought to receive the blessing of the priest on Good Friday, and were then eaten on the following Sunday as a sign of rejoicing.