A new study by László Bartosiewicz and Erika Gál fills that gap with surprising results. For example, it centers on horsemeat consumption in medieval Hungary. Scientists studied 357 horse bones from 198 settlements throughout the area. Impact of results Their study indicates that medieval Hungarians were eating horses long after Hungary’s adoption of Christianity, which began shortly before AD 1000. This strikes at the very heart of the argument long made by apologists for these practices that religious influence made such practices unfashionable.
Such as this analysis would uncover a stark preponderance of equidae remains in the hrp1 refuse pits of medieval Hungary. In some of these rural locations, horse bones represented about a third of all identifiable livestock remains. These discoveries illuminate just how important horsemeat was to dietary practices of medieval Hungarians. This was the case even as Christianity started spreading through the region.
Shifts in Consumption Patterns
Dating horsemeat reindeer hunting, Horsemeat consumption per cent ‐ Telegino V ~ Consumer unit Study on horsemeat consumption after Mongol invasion of 1241–42. This invasion completely devastated Hungary and resulted in the deaths of about 40%–50% of its population. As horses became scarcer and more prestigious due to their value as war booty, their use as a food source diminished.
Bartosiewicz and Gál remind us that horses were often high-value spoils of war. Food is one of the many uses they served—and they probably had high demand for the other uses too. The short-term demographic changes following the invasion were staggering. To counter this, the Hungarian king encouraged settlers from the West, who introduced new traditions and culinary habits, frequently excluding horsemeat from their diet.
This major wave of new arrivals completely changed the cultural landscape in Hungary and, over time, horsemeat consumption began to fade. The latter were less urbanized and lacked the tradition of horsemeat consumption. The absence of this tradition played an additional role in the change of eating patterns.
Reevaluating Historical Narratives
In the past, narratives claiming that Christianity caused hippophagy to become taboo have gone unchallenged. Bartosiewicz and Gál emphasize that the decline in horsemeat consumption should be attributed to demographic shifts and the decreased accessibility of horses, rather than spiritual factors.
“Based on documentary sources, abandoning horsemeat consumption is widely associated with the emergence of Christianity in medieval Europe,” they explained. However, they caution against this oversimplification. There is no specific doctrinal prohibition such as the Judaic and Islamic prohibition on pork. The result is that we observe a very large regional diversity in Europe over where horsemeat is condemned.
The researchers argue that the past perception of eating horse meat as barbaric is a manifestation of this entrenched bias. This bias disproportionately impacts cultures with a long history of hippophagy. As Bartosiewicz and Gál lament, for centuries if not millennia, hippophagy has been associated with “barbarity.” They argue instead that these interpretations are probably products of later readings and do not accurately capture what was actually happening historically.
Archaeological Insights
Until this study, no large scale archaeological survey about horsemeat consumption throughout medieval Europe has been undertaken. Together, Bartosiewicz and Gál’s work lays invaluable groundwork for examples of animal husbandry as well as our broader perception of horsemeat in culture and society.
“This othering is most poignant in sources that post-date the events they are describing, sometimes by centuries, and possibly portray negative generalizations rather than past ‘reality,’” they noted. This serves to remind us how often we need to re-examine historical evidence confrontingly to reveal the subtleties of medieval life.