Medieval Dinner Service Etiquette

During the Middle Ages, the set-up of the tables, and table manners themselves, were very important. Diners were seated according to their social class at tables of varying heights. Reserved for members of the clergy or, if no clergy were in attendance, the highest in the social class such as the king and queen, were the highest tables. Steel knives, silver spoons, dishes for salt, silver cups, and “mazers.” Mazers were shallow, oftentimes silver-rimmed, wooden bowls that soups were drunk from.    

Medieval service, with its buffet-like courses of many dishes followed by a void at the close of the meal formed the basis of court dining protocol throughout Europe until the middle of the nineteenth century. More strictly defined rules for this kind of arrangement were imposed at the court of Louis XIV, leading to a modified form of medieval-style service known as “le grand couvert.” The pre-eminence of French cuisine during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to the adoption of this modus operandi at every other European court and it became internationally known as service à la française. 

A meal of this kind consisted of two courses served from the kitchen and a third course from the 'office' (pantry or confectionery), called le fruit or le dessert, rather than la voidée. Each course usually consisted of the same number of dishes arranged in perfect symmetry, though there was room for variation. A typical first course of an important meal à la française might start with a choice of four different soups (grosses entrées), accompanied by four hors-d'oeuvre, two fish dishes, four main meat dishes (relevés or grosses pièces), twelve side dishes (entrées) and four cold dishes (pièces froides). The second course would consist of a variety of roasts (rotis) and entremets (light dishes, both sweet and savoury). The third course or dessert was frequently laid out on a different table in a separate room and consisted of seasonal fruit, cheese, ices and confectionery.

Although service à la française was visually a sumptuous way of dining, it was wasteful and impractical and gradually started to be replaced in France during the early nineteenth century by service à la russe. This much simpler approach, in which the dishes arrived at table one after the other, rather than in two large mixed buffet-like courses, ensured that the diners could enjoy the hot dishes at the correct temperature and afforded plenty of room in the middle of the table for decorations. This custom was apparently introduced into France by Prince Kourakine, the ambassador of Tsar Alexander I, but did not become widespread until the Second Empire, when it was popularised by Urbain Dubois and Émile Bernard, chefs to William and Augusta of Prussia. 

Their remarkable illustrated book of recipes La Cuisine Classique (Paris, 1864) was the first work to fully explain service à la russe. Dubois was also responsible for its adoption at the English court through his Artistic Cookery (London, 1870), another lavishly illustrated work with sample dinners à la russe for royal occasions and ball suppers of up to 5,000 covers. Dubois also discusses service à l'anglaise, an English arrangement in which there were two separate courses served on the main table, with removes such as roasts and ham on a side table.— From “British Cutlery, An Illustrated History of Design, Evolution and Use”, York Civic Trust, 2001

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