Poultry in Medieval and Post-medieval Lithuania

While most people consumed red protein from cattle, sheep, and pigs, the remaining protein came from game birds and poultry. It is well documented in historical data that poultry was a part of the elite‘s staple diet in medieval and post-medieval Lithuania. However, it is difficult to speak about the largest part of the medieval city—not the rulers, but the ruled ones, i.e., the peasants and their meat consumption and poultry supply chains. The focus of this article is solely on domesticated and wild birds used for food along with their subproducts. The term “poultry” covers such birds as ducks, turkeys, guineafowl, geese, peafowl, pigeons and scarlet macaws (Serjeantson 2009). Medieval cities kept chickens, ducks and geese for their eggs as well as their meat. Poultry was usually considered a food of higher status on the old continent. In this article, I will explore the scale of poultry consumption, the relationships between producers and consumers, and other aspects of poultry in medieval and postmedieval Lithuania, using both zooarchaeological and historical data. All the material is sourced from nine cities: Vilnius, Kaunas, Kernavė Town, Alytus, Palanga, Klaipėda, Jurbarkas, Trakai and Molėtai and was dated from the 13th to the 20th centuries.