Pie Crust

To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies

(Sabina Welserin)

Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. Afterwards shape the dough as I have pointed out to you. Also reserve dough for the cover and roll it out into a cover and take water and spread it over the top of the cover and the top of the formed pastry shell and join it together well with the fingers. Leave a small hole. And see that it is pressed together well, so that it does not come open. Blow in the small hole which you have left, then the cover will lift itself up. Then quickly press the hole closed. Afterwards put it in the oven. Sprinkle flour in the dish beforehand. Take care that the oven is properly heated, then it will be a pretty pastry. The dough for all shaped pastries is made in this manner. :

http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/Period-Pies-art.html - several recipes for free-standing pie crusts.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/pies-msg.html - general discussion of medieval pastry, with several recipes.

In its most basic definition, pie crust is a simple mix of flour and water. The addition of fat makes it pastry. In all times and places, the grade of the ingredients depends upon the economic status of the cook. Apicius [1st Century AD] makes reference to a simple recipe for crust (see below). Medieval cooking texts typically instruct the cook to lay his fruit or meat in a "coffin," no recipe provided. Up through Medieval times, pie crust was often used as a cooking receptacle. It was vented with holes and sometimes marked to distinguish the baker/owner. Whether or not the crust was consumed or discarded is debated by food historians. Some hypothesize the crust would have been rendered inedible due to extreme thickness and baking time. Others observe flour, and by association flour-based products, was expensive and would not have been thrown away. Possibly? Pies baked in grand Medieval houses served two classes: the wealthy at the contents and the crust was given to the servants or poor.

"Pies and tarts...In the Middle Ages, these sweet and savory preparations baked in a crust were the specialty of patissiers--who had no other functions...We know that medieval cooks did not always have ovens, and they worked with patissiers, to whom they sometimes brought fillings of their own making for the patissier to place in a crust and bake. This explains why cookbooks intended for professional chefs were nearly silent about the ingredients of these pastry wrappings, but spoke only about consistency an thickness, and about the most suitable shapes...Still, medieval cooks might take a chance and cook a simple pie or tart on their own by placing it in a shallow pan, covered with a lid and surrounded by live embers, whose progress they had to monitor very closely...In effect, the pastry because an oven, ensuring moderate heat thanks to its insulating properties...So could it be that these pastry coverings were not necessarily eaten once they had done their job of containing and protecting the fillings?"

---The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, Odile Redon et al, [University of Chicago Press:Chicago] 1998 (p. 133-4)

Pie crusts are listed with their receipe respectively below in Apple Pear Pies.

Various Authors. “Stefan’s Florilegium flour-msg”
<http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/flour-msg.html>