Le Grand observes, that the table napkin is comparatively a recent introduction, and that he could find no evidence clearly establishing its ancient use[1]. 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[2]."
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[3]. Piers Gaveston, the profuse minion of Edward the Second, had four, of silver, "for eating pears[4]," and John, duke of Britanny, used one, also of silver, to pick up "soppys" from his pottage mayhap[5]. 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[6].
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
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Add. MS. 4712, fo. 3 b.; see also the "boke of Keruvnge."
- ↑ Lib. Gard. 25 Edw. I., A.D. 1297.
- ↑ Fœdera, sub anno 1313. "Trois furchesces d'argent, pur mangier poires."
- ↑ Dom. Morice. Hist. bret. Preuves, 1, 1202. "Item, ij. petits gameaux, et une forche d'argent à trere soupes." A.D. 1306.
- ↑ Vie privée, tom. iii. p. 179.
