Medieval Cheeses

Cheese was known to the ancient Sumerians four thousand years before the birth of Christ. The ancient Greeks credited Aristaeus, a son of Apollo and Cyrene, with its discovery; it is mentioned in the Old Testament.

In the Roman era cheese really came into its own. Cheesemaking was done with skill and knowledge and reached a high standard. By this time the ripening process had been developed and it was known that various treatments and conditions under storage resulted in different flavours and characteristics. The larger Roman houses had a separate cheese kitchen, the caseale, and also special areas where cheese could be matured. In large towns home-made cheese could be taken to a special centre to be smoked. Cheese was served on the tables of the nobility and traveled to the far corners of the Roman Empire as a regular part of the rations of the legions.

During the Middle Ages, monks became innovators and developers and it is to them we owe many of the classic varieties of cheese marketed today.

Cows were milked from May to Michaelmas (Sept. 29th), each cow giving enough milk for seven stone of cheese. Ten sheep could give milk which when turned into butter and cheese was equivalent to one cow. Sheep were milked throughout the spring and summer but not after the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (Sept. 8th).

The best answer for what cheese in medieval times might have been like is from a book called Food and Feast in Medieval England. Here then is a sample of what that book had to say: "Cheese was available in four main varieties: hard (probably of a cheddar type), soft (or cream cheese), green cheese (a very new soft cheese [basically a brick of compressed curds]) and 'spermyse' (cream cheese flavoured with herbs)."

This list includes cheeses that were known during the Middle Ages & Renaissance, along with some 17th century varieties and a few modern cheeses that are acceptable period substitutes.

Beaufort
Brie

Brie cheese was already considered a delicacy in early 14th-century England, as we may see in the fact that Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II, sent a special gift to one of her ladies of wild boar meat and Brie cheese in January, 1312; see The Household Book of Queen Isabella of England, ed. F.D. Blackley and G. Hermansen (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1971), pp. 132-3

Camembert
Cheddar - first recorded use is in 1500.
Comté
Cottage
Emmenthal
Farmer's - similar in both taste & texture to Medieval cheese.
Glouscester - first recorded use is in 1697.
Grana - first recorded use is in 1200 (similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano and Grana Padano)

Grana originally described a type of hard cheese from the Po Valley (Valle Padana), Northern Italy, with a distinctive granular texture (the word "grana" in Italian means "grain"). Created by monks nearly 1000 years ago as way to preserve the surplus milk their herds produced, they invented a cheese that could withstand the test of time. The two best-known examples of grana-type cheeses are Parmigiano-Reggiano and Grana Padano. The two cheeses are broadly similar, with the difference that everything that the former is, the latter is less so: less crumbly, less sharp, less grainy, etc.

Gorgonzola - first recorded use is in 879.

Gorgonzola (Italian pronunciation: [ɡorɡoˈdzɔːla]) is a veined Italian blue cheese, made from unskimmed cow's milk. It can be buttery or firm, crumbly and quite salty, with a "bite" from its blue veining. Gorgonzola has reportedly been produced in the town of the same name since AD 879, acquiring its greenish-blue marbling in the eleventh century. However, the town's claim of geographical origin is disputed by other localities.

Gouda - first recorded use is in 1697.
Gruyére
Maroilles
Mozzarella
Parmesan - first recorded use is in 1579.
Port-Salut
Reblochon

Rewen, Rowen, Ruayn - Autumn cheese, made after the cattle had fed on the second growth. This was apparently a semi-soft cheese, but not as soft as a ripe modern Brie: one period recipe says to grate it. It appears to be the same cheese called fromage de gaing in France. The term 'ruayn cheese' occurs in several old manuscripts including Cury 1390 where it is an ingredient of Loseyns.

It may refer to cheese made with Ruayn - or Rowan - Grass, the second growth of grass or crop of hay in a season (OED) in the manner of Fog Cheese. Fog Cheese: Old term in Suffolk and Yorkshire for the distinctively flavoured cheeses made from milk of cows fed on "rank strong grass", most probably the 'Yorkshire Fog' grass Holcus lanatus. (Moor 1823).

Or it may be a variant of Ruen Cheese: Soft cheese made using rennet (Huswife 1594) - see below

Original Receipt in Huswife 1594; Mistresse Drakes way to make soft Cheese all the yeare through, that it shall be lyke rowen Cheese. TAKE your milke as it commeth from the Cow, and put it in a vessell til it be cold, then take as much faire water, and set it on the fire, when your water is warm, put so much of your water is warme, put so much of your water in that milke as wil warme the milk. Then take a spoonefull of runnet and more, and put into your milke and make your Cheese, and put it into a faire cloth, and so put it into the presse, & turne it in the presse often, and wype it with faire clothes as often as þe turne it.

Brie - one period recipe says to grate it. It appears to be the same cheese that in France today is called fromage de gaing. See: Tart de Bry
Ricotta - for Platina's recipe for ricotta cheese, see: Recocta.
Romano
Roquefort - first recorded use is in 1070.
Spermyse - soft or cream cheese flavored with herbs.
Stilton