Etiquette from the 14th Century

Only squirrels hoard nuts… diners should not take more than a few when they are served at a dinner – “only… take two or three nuts when nuts are on the table.”

Ancient Table Etiquette

Some of the ancient table directions are very quaint. You are told, for instance, not to eat much cheese, not to leave your spoon on your platter, not to play with your knife or roll your napkin into a cord or tie it into knots, only to take two or three nuts when nuts are on the table, and not to get intoxicated during dinner time. The “Boke of Curtasye” also warns people not to play with the cats and dogs while at table.—Correspondent for Chicago Herald, 1892

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

Chaucer and “Fingers of Courtesy”

From Chaucer’s “Parliament of Fowls,” circa 1381-1382 –In the 14th century, forks were not in use . At the time, those who exhibited good manners at the table, ate with the thumb and first two fingers. These were called, “the fingers of courtesy.”

Table Manners at the Time of Chaucer 

were of a Decidedly Primitive Character

Table manners at the time of Chaucer were described in a lecture by Kenneth Base, author and poet, in “A Holiday in London in the Days of Chaucer.” Etiquette in those days (the latter half of the fourteenth century) demanded that meat should be held between two fingers and a thumb of the left hand, and no more, if one was to be received in polite society. After soup, pike roasted in claret and favored with strange and varied spices was eaten. Then followed partridge, roasted with saffron, cloves and ginger, and jam tarts and jelly. It was the custom to change the cloth with the courses, and one read of one feast in which each new cloth was scented with a perfume appropriate to the dish. In Chaucer's day, the bath in construction was not unlike a miniature pulpit, and a bouquet of sweet scented herbs was hung over it for the stream to draw out their refreshing qualities. -Healdsburg Enterprise, 1922

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