New Zealand Will Supply Historic “Dunmow Flitch”
NZPA—Copyright
LONDON. Aug. 21.. . When the ceremony of awarding the “ Dunmow Flitch ” is revived this year for the first time since the war the flitch of bacon, which, in accordance with custom dating back to the reign of Henry 111, is awarded to any married couple resident in the village of Little Dunmow. Essex, who can prove they have not quarrelled for one year and a day. will come from New Zealand. This incentive scheme for encouraging happy marriages was. according to tradition, established by Lord Fitzwalter, who held the manor of Dunmow in mediaeval times. It was then necessary for a candidate to appear before the Prior of Dunmow, the inmates of its convent, and an assembly of villagers to swear that he had not repented of his marriage or quarrelled with his wife during the previous 366 days. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the lord of the manor abolished the ceremony as a nuisance, but it was revived again in 1855. and was continued until the eve of the Second World War. The flitch of New Zealand bacon has been provided through the Commonwealth Gift Food Centre.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 27166, 23 August 1949, Page 5
Word Count
197New Zealand Will Supply Historic “Dunmow Flitch” Otago Daily Times, Issue 27166, 23 August 1949, Page 5
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