European 17th-18th C. Seating Etiquette

 ‘Eating together is a sign of friendship and equality, and yet people have always used the positioning of the “companions” as an expression of the power of each in relationship to the others.’ — The old Latin root word for “companion” meant to break bread with another person or people.

“A 17th century French print shows the well-marked squares on the tablecloth made by the linen press.” From Patricia Easterbrook Roberts,’ “Table Settings, Entertaining and Etiquette... A History and Guide”

Eating together is a sign of friendship and equality, and yet people have always used the positioning of the “companions” as an expression of the power of each in relationship to the others. Hierarchical seating arrangements make up one of the most intricate aspects of protocol, for placing guests at a table is a deeply political act. Where diners are not ranked, a political, or social and religious, statement is just as surely being made. 

A great and deliberate distinction is always created between meals that are formal and carefully structured, and those that are casual and relaxed. Intimacy can be fostered by “breaking the rules” (though one of the apparent paradoxes of social communications is that some level of formality must be maintained or relationship among dinner companions will be forfeited.) Seating arrangements are made to be rigidly adhered to, kept only in part, or rejected; in every case they are important.

Hierarchy at dinner is usually enforced when a group comes from a mixture of social backgrounds. we hear a good deal about what seems to us the outrageously discriminatory practices at medieval banquets. (One source of frustration for the scholars who research the history of medieval food is that the text of the period — and the Middle Ages are not unique in this — seldom describe the food served at a banquet in any detail; but they do make clear everything to do with precedence in the seating arrangements. This is because food was regarded as beneath literary consideration, whereas the seating was fascinating enough to be recorded.) 

Special guests and the host of the banquet sat at the raised “high table,” upon which stood a huge silver salt cellar, marking the place of the host or of an outstandingly important guest; the other people sat therefore “below the salt,” and the further away from it, the lower. The high-ups were deliberately given better food, and more of it.

Seventeenth-and-eighteenth century aristocrats in Europe, on the other hand, increasingly ate together in small groups, and would not hear of hierarchical seating; their host decided who would be a compatible group to invite, and guests sat down near the people they preferred. Tables were often quite small and, significantly, round. What had in fact happened at these “intimate suppers” was that the people who sat “below the salt” had simply been banished from the party.

During the course of two centuries, the lord of the manor had gradually removed himself, during dinner, from the side of his retainers, to eat with chosen companions in a room set apart from his great hall. It is easy— and so very modern— to be egalitarian once the lower orders have been placed in a totally different sphere, out of sight and out of mind, and certainly not invited to one's table. — From Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia