The three sections of its title describe how the great family of the Percy earls of Northumberland, and their household of 160 men, ate at Wressle Castle and Leconfield  Manor in the early years of the Tudor kings, where the food and drink came from and even how much it cost. Every day’s menu was recorded, what was eaten when, from the earl in his castle to the children in the nursery and the stablemen in the yards. Over the Twelve Days of Christmas, the food was even grander, as feast followed feast with elaborate ceremonies, music and plays. Beverley was a source of food and wine for the Percies and other great families, and the Northumberlands visited to watch with the merchant guildsmen from their ‘ castles' the medieval mystery plays (38 different plays in all, played on wagons rumbling through the town from dawn till dusk) and the great religious processions of St John’s shrine.