... rape of the city, he was impressed with the great variety of available foodstuffs, reporting that even the people of the countryside ate wheat bread and meat. A favorite was the fried tail of ... merriment were the food- related behaviors of medieval holy women who fasted to achieve that holiness, and made miracles Faith and Foodstuffs 89by multiplying food, giving food to the poor, ... tens of thousands of water mills (according to the Doomsday Book, England alone had 5,624 of them at the time of the Norman Conquest) and then, beginning in the twelfth century, the power of...