Archaeological Journal/Volume 2/Usages of Domestic Life in the Middle Ages. The Dining Table (Part 1)

by Thomas Hudson Turner

USAGES OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

I. THE DINING-TABLE.

The object of this paper is to give a slight sketch of the economy of the dining-table during the middle ages, or to speak more exactly, during the interval between the Conquest and the sixteenth century. It would not be difficult to write an ample essay on the subject; there are abundant materials for its illustration; chroniclers and moralists, romancers and satirists have all touched upon it, and there are in addition most precise details in household and cookery books, of various periods. It is to be hoped that at no distant time we may have a work on Domestic Economy in general, worthy of the importance of the subject. The ensuing remarks may be of some interest to general readers, to whom they are addressed rather than to antiquaries.

The furniture of the table and its accessories underwent so little change during the long period alluded to, that it is not generally necessary to give an exact date to every statement. For a long portion of the same time the manners of France and England presented no great points of difference, and therefore apt illustrations may be taken with propriety from the literature or art of either country.

As the kitchen was usually beside the hall or dining-chamber, and sometimes opened into it^[1], a few remarks upon its arrangements will not be out of place. The fire was generally in an iron grate^[2] in the centre of the room, under an opening, or louvre^[3], in the roof for the escape of smoke. These grates were sometimes of vast dimensions. There is yet extant an order by King John for the erection of two furnaces in his kitchens at Marlborough and Ludgershall, each to be sufficiently large to roast two or three oxen^[4]. Contemporary writers tell us that John was a bon-vivant and something more, although it may be doubted if the best specimen of the cuisine of his time would tempt a modern gourmet.

The method of roasting at these grates is shewn in the Bayeux tapestry; the spit seems to have revolved above the fire^[5]. The profuse hospitality of the old time, when guests were often numbered by hundreds, rendered it necessary on great occasions to construct temporary kitchens. At the coronation of Edward the First, one of extraordinary size was built at Westminster, and from the builder's account, which is still preserved, we gain the unpleasant information that the boiled meats placed before the king's guests were prepared in leaden vessels^[6]; no Accum had then arisen to detect "death in the pot." The ancient batterie de cuisine was by no means extensive; a writer of the thirteenth century has enumerated the articles considered necessary in his time; among them the ladle, peculiar ensign of the cook,

"The cook is yscaldit for al his longe ladil,"

occupies a conspicuous place^[7], as well as the pestle and mortar.

It is not necessary to lead the reader through all the offices nearly allied to the kitchen; a good larder in ancient days was doubtless a pleasant apartment, especially a royal one, when the king held his Cour-plenière, crammed with herons, cranes, swans, and venison, in picturesque confusion, with lampreys and salmon from the Severn, and some exquisite morsels of blubber from the whale and porpoise.

The buttery was actually the cellar in which all liquors were kept, and in the sewery were deposited table-cloths and towels or maniples, hung on perches to keep them clean, and also to prevent the incursions of mice^[8]; knives, salts, the cheese chest, candlesticks, sconces and baskets.

We may now enter the dining or great chamber where the "sovereign" took his repast, the household eating in the hall^[9]. Many illuminations represent the floors of rooms paved with coloured tiles, although it is certain they were more frequently boarded and strewed with sand or rushes, dried or green according to the season^[10]; in summer sweet herbs were mixed with, rushes. If we presume the old limners to have faithfully represented the manners of their times, it was customary for guests to throw the refuse of their plates, as bones, &c. on the floor; two or three dogs grubbing about for such crumbs are not unfrequently introduced in ancient pictures of feasts. In the sixteenth century Erasmus described the disgusting consequences of this habit, then still prevalent in England; it had been condemned by native writers before him. It is almost unnecessary to observe that carpets did not come into general use, until a very recent period. They were first introduced in the thirteenth century^[11], and were certainly used in the royal apartments during the reign of Edward the Third.

The furniture of the dining-chamber was simple and scanty, consisting only of standing-tables, or tables on tressels, and wooden forms for seats^[12]. It is clear from numerous allusions in the old romance writers that the tables were removed after dinner; hence the convenience of tressels.

"Mès maintenant que mengié ont,

Et la table lor fu ostée."

Recueil de Méon, vol. i. p. 31.

"Whan bordes were born a doun and burnes^[13] hade waschen
Men mizt haue seie to menstrales moche god zif."

William and the Werwolf.

The table on the dais at which the entertainer and his superior guests sat was placed across the chamber;

"Sone the semli segges^[14] were sette in halle
The real rinkes^[14] bi reson at the heize dese
And alle other afterward on the side benches
And sete so in solas sadli ful the halle
Eche dingneli at his degre to deme the solhe." ⁠Ibid.

The dresser, (dressoir) now degraded to the kitchen, was once the chief ornament of the dining-room, and whatever plate the owner of the house might possess was arranged on it to the best advantage. It was placed either opposite the dining-table or at the back or side of the dais. The form of it varied; sometimes it is represented exactly like a modern dresser, but it generally appears as a tall square object with steps at the top (à degrès) covered with coloured cloth; at its base was a stepping-block, to enable the servants to reach any vessel that might be required. We still see china disposed above old-fashioned mantels, as in some of the rooms at Hampton Court, in the style that gold and silver plate was once exhibited on the dresser^[15]. Little notion is entertained of the great quantity of plate which our ancient sovereigns and nobility possessed. We may give as an instance, the articles forming the service of plate presented by Edward the First to his daughter Margaret, after her marriage to the duke of Brabant. It consisted of forty-six silver cups with feet, for the butlery; six wine-pitchers, four ewers for water, four basins with gilt escutcheons for the hall; six great silver dishes for entremets; one hundred and twenty smaller dishes or plates, the same number of salts; one gilt salt for the duchess's own use; seventy-two spoons; three silver spice-plates, and one spice-spoon. The goldsmith's bill for this outfit amounted to £284. 15s. 4d.^[16]

In the earliest illuminations tapestry or hangings appear behind the high table only at the back of the dais^[17], as in the engraving at the head of this paper, copied from a MS. of the fourteenth century; it represents the entertainment of King Arthur by the felon and disloyal knight "Cueur de Pierre," an incident in the romance of Meliadus de Leonnoys^[18]. These hangings were suspended from hooks fixed in the wall, an arrangement very perceptible in our illustration, and were taken down and carried with the owner when he removed from one residence to another. Towards the end of the fifteenth century we find numerous instances of the chamber being entirely hung with tapestry, or stamped and gilded leather; at this period the principal seat on the dais is in the form of a long high-backed couch with elbows^[19], covered with embroidered silks, although wooden forms still appear, appropriated to guests of inferior rank^[20]. It is possible the same sort of couch was in use much earlier, and it may have been identical with the "lit" or bed mentioned by the old romancers. In the tale of "La Mule sanz Frain," the lady of the castle receives Sir Gawain seated on a magnificent bed or couch under a canopy, and places him by her side

"Trestot delez li, coste à coste,
Lo fet séoir la damoisele."

Le Grand d'Aussy says, the custom of eating on a sort of couch, after the fashion of the ancients, still subsisted in the twelfth century; his statements are generally well founded, and entitled to respect, but it may be questioned whether the practice existed in England after the Norman Conquest, or indeed, for some time before that event. We find no instances of it in Saxon manuscripts: on the Bayeux tapestry there is a representation of a feast, but the guests are seated in the ordinary way; and Le Grand himself has cited an incident to prove that it was not known among the Normans. Robert duke of Normandy, father of the Conqueror, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; when at Constantinople he was much surprised to see the emperor and his attendants take their repast on the ground, having neither tables nor forms. This was merely the oriental custom, but the duke, finding it inconvenient, had a table and seats made after the French fashion, and they appeared so convenient to the emperor and his subjects, that they adopted and learned to make them^[21]. In some Saxon drawings, the dining-table is oval-shaped or round^[22], but its general form was oblong, as in the accompanying illustrations.

The use of white linen table-cloths may be ascribed to a very early period; they are represented in Anglo-Saxon illuminations. The fall of the cloth seems to have been studiously arranged; and in one instance it appears gathered up at either side of the table into a mass of plaits^[22]; this, however, is perhaps a singular example of the kind. We find Henry the Third ordering five hundred ells of linen for table-cloths, previous to the Christmas feast at Winchester in 1219^[23]; this was comparatively a large quantity, as linen was by no means plentiful at the beginning of the thirteenth century; six years before, in 1213, King John commanded the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset to buy him all the good linen he could find^[24]. At a later period, the fine linen manufactured at Rheims was in great demand for the table. The diaper of the same place was in use in the fifteenth century, but more commonly in the sixteenth^[25]. The dining-table being generally long and narrow, the table-cloth was sometimes of the same shape; the ends only fell over the board, which was left exposed in front; these ends were in some instances fringed with work resembling lace. It has been supposed that the cloth may have been laid on the table double, so that when one side was soiled the other might be turned up, whence the term "doublier," which occurs so frequently in the poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries^[26]. It may be remarked, however, that doublier frequently signified a napkin only, or perhaps a surnap; in the following lines a clear distinction is drawn.

"Quant lavé orent, si s'asistrent,⁠
Et li serjant les napes mistrent,
Desus les dobliers blans et biax,
Les salieres et les coutiax,
Après lou pain, puis lo vin
Es copes d'argent et d'or fin."

Again ;

"Quant mengié orent a plenté
Lors furent seijant apresté
Qui dobliers et napes osterent,
Et qui l'eve lor aporterent,
Et la toaille à essuier."⁠Le Chevalier a L'Espée.

Le Grand observes, that the table napkin is comparatively a recent introduction, and that he could find no evidence clearly establishing its ancient use^[27]. The word occurs in English inventories of the sixteenth century. The surnap was a cloth doubled and laid upon the ordinary table cover, before the master of the house. The arrangement of it was a matter of form. In "serten artycles" for regulating his household, made by Henry the Seventh, in 1493, it is ordered, "the server to lay the surnape on the borde and the ussher to drawe hyt and to make the pleyghtes before the kyng^[28]."

Having got the cloth on our table, we may take a glance at the implements provided to assist the process of eating; for many centuries they consisted only of knives and spoons. It seems extraordinary that an instrument like the fork, both useful and cleanly, should have continued out of use during so long a period; more especially as there are indications that it was known even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Our first Edward might have boasted the possession of one; it was kept among his jewels^[29]. Piers Gaveston, the profuse minion of Edward the Second, had four, of silver, "for eating pears^[30]," and John, duke of Britanny, used one, also of silver, to pick up "soppys" from his pottage mayhap^[31]. Le Grand says forks are mentioned in an inventory of the jewels of Charles the Fifth, king of France in 1379; this is the only instance he cites, and the passage in which it occurs, concludes with this admirable observation,—apparently up to the time when they (forks) came into use, the knife was employed to convey food to the mouth, as it still is in England, where, for that purpose, the blades of knives are made broad and round at the end! Yet there can be no doubt that, uncivilized as we may have appeared to the learned Frenchman, forks were used as well as knives in the year 1782^[32].

The consequences of the want of forks at table may be readily imagined. The carver who officiated served the company at the point of his knife, perhaps with the assistance of a spoon. In "the boke of Keruyng," before quoted, the following very necessary precepts are addressed to this household officer. "Set never on fyshe, flesche, beest ne fowle more than two fyngers and a thombe." Again; "your knyfe muste be fayre and your handes muste be clene, and passe not two fyngers and a thombe upon your knyfe." In a drawing of an Anglo-Saxon entertainment^[33] one of the guests holds a small fish in his hand, being evidently about to cut it up, but his attention is diverted by an attendant who has brought some roasted meat on a spit^[34], which he presents to him kneeling. At the other extremity of the table one of the company is cutting a slice from a spit held by a servant in a similar posture.

This illustration shews the antiquity of a custom which still prevailed in the thirteenth century, viz. that of placing an entire fish before a guest of distinction. The Chronicler of Lanercost narrates that Robert Grostête, bishop of Lincoln, reproved his seneschal who had given him a large sea-wolf and placed a small one before his visitor, the earl of Gloucester^[35]. The "boke of Keruynge" furnishes directions for helping fish, from which we may infer that at the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was no longer fashionable to take one in the hand for the purpose of carving; not that it is at all clear that our ancestors generally indulged in the mode of handling fish at dinner exhibited by the Saxon bon-vivant: at tables supplied with spoons as well as knives, there could have been little difficulty in getting through the fish-course without recourse to their fingers. T. H. TURNER.

1. See an elaborate illumination in MS. Reg., 14 E. IV. fo. 244 b, representing an entertainment given to the Duke of Lancaster by the King of Portugal. The cook stands at a window opening into the kitchen, and is serving out soup or pottage. The date of this drawing is the latter part of the 15th century.
2. Caminum ferreum. Fire-places against the wall are sometimes represented in the little paintings which occur in the Kalendars of Missals, under the winter months. Among other drawings in which it occurs we may refer to a curious miniature in a French missal of the fifteenth century, representing the master of the house seated at dinner on a form with a long rail at the back, to which is suspended a circular wicker fire-screen, exactly resembling those now in use. Douce MS., 80. fo. 1. It is clear from existing remains that flues were constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries, if not earlier.
3. Also called a ventaille. See Rot. Claus., p. 576.
4. Ibid., p. 52.
5. A very early representation of "boiling the pot" is engraved by Strutt. Horda &c., vol. i. pl. xvii. fig. 1.
6. Rot. Pip. 1. Edw. I.
7. Alex. Necham, "De nominibus utensilium," Cotton MS. Titus D xx.
8. Ibid. fo. 5. See also Wynkyn de Worde's "boke of Keruynge," 1513.
9. See the Northumberland Household Book. These names are frequently used, the one for the other, by old poets.
10. Rot. Claus. p. 95, et passim "de camerâ regis junchiandâ."
11. Household Expenses, &c. in England; presented to the Roxburgh Club by Beriah Botfield, Esq. Introd., p. ixi.
12. "In the Hall foure tables with formes, one counter, one cupboard, xx.s." Inventory of Sir Thomas Hilton, of Hilton Castle, co. Durham, 1st. Eliz. Surtees Society, Wills and Inventories, p. 183. See also the Surveys of Leckinfield Manor House, and Wresil Castle in 1574: Northumberland Household Book.
13. Men.
14. Men.
15. There are some of the best illustrations extant of the ancient dresser in MS. Laud, K. 100. Bibl. Bodl. This volume contains also two admirable pictures of presence-chambers in the fifteenth century.
16. Lib. Gard. 25 Edw. I.; A.D. 1297.
17. Strutt's Horda &c., vol. i. pl. xvi. fig. 1.
18. Add. MS., 12,228, fo. 126.
19. The corners being surmounted by gilded carvings like the poppy-heads on old church-seats; they were usually crests.
20. See MS. Reg. 14. E. IV. ffo. 244 b., 265 b.
21. Hist. do la Vie Privée des François, tom. iii. p. 153.
22. Strutt, vol. i. pl. xvi. fig. 1.
23. Rot. Claus., p. 409.
24. Ibid., p. 135.
25. Two diaper board cloths, one five yards long, the other four, occur in the inventory of Elizabeth Hutton of Hunwick, in 1567. See Wills and Inventories (Surtees Society) passim.
26. Vie Privée, vol. iii. p. 165.
27. He adds that people probably wiped their mouths and hands on the table-cloth, "as the English, who do not use napkins, still do." His work was published in 1782.
28. Add. MS. 4712, fo. 3 b.; see also the "boke of Keruvnge."
29. Lib. Gard. 25 Edw. I., A.D. 1297.
30. Fœdera, sub anno 1313. "Trois furchesces d'argent, pur mangier poires."
31. Dom. Morice. Hist. bret. Preuves, 1, 1202. "Item, ij. petits gameaux, et une forche d'argent à trere soupes." A.D. 1306.
32. Vie privée, tom. iii. p. 179.
33. Engraved in Strutt's Horda, vol. i. pl. xvi. fig. 1.
34. It seems probable that the "broches d'argent," or silver spits, mentioned in ancient inventories were brought to table with the meat.
35. Chron. de Lanercost, p. 44.