The rhetorician Arnobius, in his work “Disputationes contra Gentes,”
wrote that the pagans were wont to sanctify or hallow their tables
by setting salt-cellars thereon. For owing to the fact that salt was
employed at every sacrifice as an offering to the gods, and owing
moreover to its reputed divine attributes, receptacles containing salt
were also held sacred.
Indeed, the salt-cellar partook of the nature of a holy vessel,
associated with the temple in general, and more particularly with the
altar.[334]
Pythagoras said that salt was the emblem of justice; for as it preserves
all things and prevents corruption, so justice preserves whatever it
animates, and without it all is corrupted. He therefore directed that a
salt-cellar should be placed upon the table at every meal, in order to
remind men of this emblematic virtue of salt.[335]
The Romans considered salt to be a sacred article of food, and it was a
matter of religious principle with them to see that no other dish was
placed upon the table before the salt was in position.[336] A shell
served as a receptacle for salt on the table of the Roman peasant, but
at the repast of the wealthy citizen the silver salt-cellar, which was
usually an heirloom, was placed in the middle of the table; and the same
custom prevailed in England in mediæval times.
In a work entitled “Antiquitates Culinariæ,” compiled by the Rev.
Richard Warner, London, 1791, are to be found, reprinted from an old
paper-roll, elaborate directions for the preparation of the banquet-table
on the occasion of a great feast at the enthroning of George Neville as
Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York in the sixth year of Edward
the Fourth, A. D. 1466.
After the laying of the “chiefe napkin,” the officials of the king’s
household charged with such duties were directed to bring salt, bread,
and trenchers, and to “set the salt right under the middest of the cloth
of estate.”
Minute directions follow regarding the proper disposition of the
trenchers, knives, spoons, and bread, and their exact relations to the
salt, which was treated with special deference throughout the ceremony.
The Hon. Horace Walpole published an account of the formalities observed
at the “setting” of Queen Elizabeth’s dinner-table, as described by
a German traveler who was present on such an occasion. After the
table-cloth had been spread two gentlemen appeared, one bearing a rod
and the other having a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread. After kneeling
three times with the utmost reverence, they placed these three articles
upon the table and withdrew. Later in the ceremony came an unmarried lady
dressed in white silk, and a matron carrying a tasting-knife. The former,
having thrice prostrated herself, approached the table in the most
graceful manner, and rubbed with bread and salt the plates provided for
the guests. After this the yeomen of the guard, clad in scarlet, and each
with a golden rose upon his back, entered bare-headed, bringing a course
of four-and-twenty dishes. In the households of the English nobility a
similar custom prevailed. A rhythmical code of instructions to servants
of the fifteenth century required that the salt should always be the
first article placed on the festive board after the cloth was laid:[337]—
Tu dois mettre premièrement en tous lieux et en tout hostel
La nappe, et après le sel;
Cousteaulx, pain, vin et puis viande,
Puis apporter ce qu’on demande.
In the “Haven of Health” (Thomas Coghan, London, 1636) are these verses,
quoted from an earlier author:—
Sal primo poni debet, primoque reponi,
Omnis mensa male ponitur absque sale.
A curious little treatise, with the title “How to serve a Lord,”
specifies how the principal salt-cellar shall be placed:—
Thenne here-uppon the boteler or panter shall bring forthe his
pryncipall salte … he shall sette the saler in the myddys of
the tabull accordyng to the place where the principall soverain
shall sette … thenne the seconde salte att the lower ende …
then salte selers shall be sette uppon the syde tablys.
The custom of placing salt upon the table before all else is thought to
have originated in the ancient conception of this substance as the symbol
of friendship; and indeed no banquet, however elaborate, was complete
without it. The salt was, moreover, the last article to be removed from
the hospitable board.
It was as though our forefathers thereby intended that the guests, seeing
salt on the table, might realize that they were “invited in love and were
loved before they came;” and the fact that it was allowed to remain after
the other dishes had been removed might serve to remind them that while
feasts, like many other good things, come to an end, love and friendship
may be perpetual.[338]
Macrobius wrote, in the fifth century A. D., that the ancients did not
consider themselves as either welcome or safe at a banquet unless the
salt and the shrines of their gods were placed upon the table; the
former indicating a cordial greeting, and the latter being a guarantee of
protection.
The ancient “Boke of Keruynge” says: “Than set your salt on the ryght
syde where your soverayne shall sytte, and on ye lefte syde the salte set
your trenchours.”
Mediæval salt-cellars were often elaborate pieces of silver. In Paul
Lacroix’s “Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages” are
illustrations of an enameled silver salt-cellar with six facings,
representing the labors of Hercules, which was made at Limoges for the
French king, Francis I., in the early part of the sixteenth century. At
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England, is preserved an elegantly
wrought silver and golden salt-cellar which belonged to Matthew Parker,
who was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1558.[339]
In the “Art Journal” (vol. xxxix. 1887) is a description of the state
salt-cellar of Mostyn Hall, Flintshire, North Wales, which had been
recently discovered in an ancient chest. This magnificent piece of plate,
which bears the London date-mark 1586-87, is eighteen and one half inches
in height and of cylindrical form, surmounted by a vase, and richly
ornamented with groups of fruit, foliage, animals, and birds.
In mediæval England the chief salt-cellar was sometimes in the form of
a silver ship, thus suggesting both the briny deep and the craft which
sails thereon.