Honey in Medieval Europe: Skeps, Mead and Church Candles

Skeps and the peasant beekeeper

The classic medieval hive was the skep, a dome-shaped basket of coiled straw or woven wicker plastered with mud and dung. Skeps sat in bee boles, niches in garden walls, or on stands under shelters. Harvesting often meant killing the colony with sulfur smoke, so beekeepers chose which hives to harvest and which to keep for the next year.

The wax economy

Historian Alex Sapoznik, writing for the Economic History Society, explains that beeswax candles were required for the Mass, and demand grew as worship became more elaborate. In England, wax made up about half the running cost of major chapels, and in parish churches it was the most expensive single item apart from the building and bells.

Forest beekeeping

In Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Germany, forest beekeepers called bartnicy or Zeidler carved cavities high in living trees for wild bee colonies, then climbed with ropes to harvest honey and wax. Their rights were protected by law and guilds. Forest beekeeping still survives in parts of Poland and the Ural Mountains.

Monasteries and bees

Monasteries kept bees for wax candles and honey, and monks copied ancient texts on beekeeping. The bee was praised in Christian writing as a model of hard work and purity. The Exultet, sung at the Easter Vigil, includes praise for the mother bee that made the candle's wax.

Mead and honey drinks

Mead, fermented honey and water, was drunk across northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia, the British Isles, Poland and Russia. Variations included metheglin, spiced mead, and braggot, made with malt. Our what is mead guide explains the drink.

• Mead: honey and water
• Metheglin: spiced mead
• Braggot: mead with malt
• Melomel: mead with fruit

Honey in medieval food

Honey sweetened gingerbread, spiced cakes, fruit preserves and sauces for meat and fish. Medieval cooks loved sweet-sour flavors with honey, vinegar and spices like pepper, ginger and saffron. Honey glazed roast meats at feasts. Our article on honey holiday baking traces gingerbread and lebkuchen from this tradition.

Laws about bees

Medieval laws addressed who owned a swarm that flew onto a neighbor's land, how hives could be protected from theft, and how much tax was owed in honey and wax. Irish Brehon laws included a section called Bechbretha, Bee Judgments, dealing with bee stings and swarms.

Folklore and telling the bees

In England and elsewhere, families practiced telling the bees: informing hives of births, marriages and deaths, sometimes draping hives in black for mourning. People believed offended bees might leave or stop producing honey. Swarm charms, spoken verses to settle swarms, survive from Anglo-Saxon times.

Honey and medieval medicine

Medieval herbals included honey in many remedies, often mixed with herbs, wine or vinegar as oxymel. These ideas were based on ancient theories rather than science. Our article on the history of honey in medicine explains more.

Sugar arrives

Cane sugar reached Europe through trade with the Islamic world and became more common after the 15th century, especially as plantations expanded in the Atlantic. As sugar became cheaper, honey lost its place as the main sweetener. The Reformation in some regions also reduced demand for church candles.

Medieval legacy

Skeps remained common until movable-frame hives spread in the 19th century. Mead is enjoying a revival. Gingerbread, honey cakes and honey-glazed meats on holiday tables carry medieval traditions forward.

A medieval-inspired honey table

Serve dark bread, aged cheese, roasted nuts and Raw Buckwheat Honey, harvested in New York State, whose malty flavor recalls medieval spiced honeys. Buckwheat was itself a common crop in medieval Eastern Europe.

The takeaway on honey in medieval Europe

Honey in medieval Europe sweetened food and mead, while wax lit churches and drove a major rural economy. Peasant skeps, forest beekeepers and monasteries produced it, until sugar changed Europe's sweet tooth.

Honey prices and trade

Honey and wax were taxed, traded and paid as rent. Manor records show tenants owing landlords set amounts of honey each year, and towns held markets where honey was sold by the gallon or barrel. Wax traveled further, shipped from Baltic forests and the Slavic lands to the cities of Flanders, England and Italy. Honey in medieval Europe was therefore both a household food and a commodity that linked distant economies.

Women and medieval beekeeping

Records and art show women tending skeps alongside men, especially on smallholdings, where bees were one of several household incomes along with poultry and dairy.

Taste a medieval favorite

Try Raw Buckwheat Honey or Raw Wildflower Honey for spiced cakes and glazes. Save with a 3 jar or 6 jar pack of any honey, and orders over $50 ship free. Visit our shop.