The usages of social life amongst our ancestors present us with several
interesting instances of their ingenuity in keeping before them the rule
of life by monitory inscriptions, or texts, placed over doorways, upon
walls, and upon articles in daily domestic use, thus making it "plain
upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it." We find this good
advice upon the curiously-ornamented Fruit-trenchers in fashion during
the sixteenth century. The only set of tablets, or trenchers, of this
description, rectangular in form, hitherto noticed, are in the
possession of Mrs. Bird, of Upton-cum-Severn. They are twelve in number,
formed of thin leaves of light-coloured wood, possibly lime-tree,
measuring about 5-3/4 inches by 4-1/2 inches, and inclosed in a wooden
case, formed like a book, with clasps, the sides decorated like
bookbinding.
On removing a sliding-piece, the upper tablets may be taken out. They
are curiously painted and gilt; every one presenting a different design,
and inscribed with verses from Holy Writ, conveying some moral
admonition. Each tablet relates to a distinct subject. These legends are
inclosed in compartments, surrounded by various kinds of foliage, and
the old-fashioned flowers of an English garden--the campion,
honeysuckle, and gillyflower--each tablet being ornamented with a
different flower. One trencher bears the oak-leaf and acorns, and the
texts inscribed upon it relate to the uncertainty of human life. Upon
the others are found admonitions against covetousness, hatred, malice,
gluttony, profane swearing, and evil speaking; with texts in which the
virtues of benevolence, patience, chastity, forgiveness of injuries, and
so forth, are inculcated.
The following are the texts in the centre, relating to inebriety, the
spelling modernized:--"Woe be unto you that rise up early to give
yourselves to drunkenness, and all your minds go on drinking, that ye
sit swearing thereat until it be night. The harp, the lute, the tabour,
the thalme, and plenty of wine are at your feasts, but the Word of the
Lord do ye not behold, neither consider ye the work of His hands." In
the four compartments of the margin: "Take heed that your heart be not
overwhelmed with feasting and drunkenness." "Through gluttony many
perish." "Through feasting many have died, but he that eateth measurably
prolongeth life." "Be no wine-bibber." The sides thus ornamented, were
coated with a hard transparent varnish; the reverse, which probably was
the side upon which the fruit or comfits were laid, is smooth and clear,
without varnish or colour. These curious fruit-trenchers were found
amongst a variety of old articles at Elmley Castle, Worcestershire,
about forty years since. They were exhibited during the Meeting of the
Archæological Institute at Winchester, in 1845, and brought to light
other sets of fruit-trenchers. One of these, belonging to Jervoise
Clarke Jervoise, Esq., of Idsworth Park, Hants, consisted of ten
trenchers, in the form of roundels, ornamented like those just
described, and inclosed in a box, which bears upon its cover the royal
arms, France and England quarterly, surmounted by the Imperial crown.
The supporters are the lion and the dragon, indicating that these
roundels are of the time of Queen Elizabeth. On each are inscribed a
rhyming stanza and Scripture texts. Thus, under the symbol of a skull,
is (modernized)--
"Content thyself with thine estate,
And send no poor wight from thy gate;
For why this counsel I ye give,
To learn to die, and die to live."
These roundels have been described as trenchers for cheese or
sweetmeats. Some antiquaries, however, consider them as intended to be
used in some social game, like modern conversation-cards: their proper
use appears to be sufficiently proved by the chapter on "Posies" in the
_Art of English Poesie_, published in 1589, which contains the
following:--"There be also another like epigrams that were sent usually
for New Yeare's gifts, or to be printed or put upon banketting dishes of
sugar-plate, or of March-paines, &c.; they were called Nenia or
Apophoreta, and never contained above one verse, or two at the most, but
the shorter the better. We call them poesies, and do paint them
now-a-days upon the back sides of our fruit-trenchers of wood, or use
them as devices in ringes and armes."
It was customary in olden times to close the banquet with "confettes,
sugar-plate, fertes with other subtilties, with Ipocrass," served to the
guests as they stood at the board after grace was said. The period has
not been stated at which the fashion of desserts and long sittings after
the principal meal of the day became an established custom. It was,
doubtless, at the time when that repast, which, during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, had been at eleven before noon, amongst the higher
classes in England, took the place of the supper, usually served at
five, or between five and six, at that period.[54] The prolonged
revelry, once known as the "reare supper," may have led to the custom of
following up the dinner with a sumptuous dessert. Be this as it may,
there can be little question that the concluding service of the social
meal--composed, as Harrison, who wrote about the year 1579, informs us,
of "fruit and conceits of all sorts,"--was dispensed upon the ornamental
trenchers above described.
In the Doucean Museum, at Goodrich Court, there is a set of roundels,
similar to the above, which appear, by the badge of the rose and the
pomegranate conjoined, to be of the early part of the reign of Henry
VIII. Possibly, they may have been introduced with many foreign
"conceits" and luxuries from France and Germany, during that reign. In
the times of Elizabeth, mention first occurs of fruit dishes of any
ornamental ware, the service of the table having previously been
performed with dishes, platters, and saucers of pewter, and "treens," or
wooden trenchers; or, in more stately establishments, with silver plate.
Shakspeare makes mention of "china dishes;" but it is more probable that
they were of the ornamental ware fabricated in Italy, and properly
termed _Majolica_, than of Oriental porcelain. The first mention of
"porselyn" in England occurs in 1587-8, when its rarity was so great,
that a porringer and cup of that costly ware were selected as New Year's
gifts presented to the Queen by Burghley and Cecil. Shortly after,
mention is made by several writers of "earthen vessels painted; costly
fruit dishes of fine earth painted; fine dishes of earth painted; such
as are brought from Venice."
Those elegant Italian wares, which in France appear to have superseded
the more homely appliances of the festive table, about the middle of the
sixteenth century, were doubtless adopted at the tables of the higher
classes in our own country, towards its close.
The wooden fruit-trencher was not, however, wholly disused during the
seventeenth century; and amongst sets of roundels which may be assigned
to the reign of James I. or Charles I. may be mentioned a set exhibited
in the Museum formed during the meeting of the Archæological Institute
at York, in 1846. They were purchased at a broker's shop at Bradford,
Yorkshire: in dimensions they resemble the trenchers of the reign of
Elizabeth, already described; but their decoration is of a more ordinary
character. On each tablet is pasted a line engraving, of coarse
execution, and gaudily coloured, representing one of the Sibyls.[55]
The common trencher which most of us have seen in use, was a wooden
platter employed instead of metal, china, or earthen plates. It was even
considered a stride of luxury when trenchers were often changed in one
meal. "And with an humble chaplain it was expressly stipulated," says
Bishop Hall, "that he never change his trencher twice." The term "a good
trencher-man" was then equivalent to a hearty feeder (Nares's
_Glossary_). Maple-wood, being soft and white, was formerly in great
request for trenchers.
Fosbroke remembered when no other but wooden dishes of this kind were
used in farm-houses in Shropshire. The general form of the trencher was
round; yet the _trencher-cap_ of our Universities has a square top.