It’s one of the quintessential “medieval” images: a kingly figure sits at a long table, chewing the meat from a drumstick with his mouth open and tossing the bones on the floor for the dogs before taking a big gulp from a goblet, the wine spilling down his beard.
Because medieval people ate with their hands, there is a common idea that they had no table manners at all. But if we take a moment to think past the stereotypes, a few things become immediately evident. The first (and perhaps most obvious) is that we modern people eat with our hands on the regular. We may eat less messy things sometimes, like sandwiches and hot dogs, but we also eat foods whose messiness is legendary, like tacos, ice cream cones, and – yes – chicken.
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The other thing we might notice is that people across the world don’t like to eat with people who are messy, dirty, or free with their bodily functions. We like to wash our hands before we eat, we like napkins, and we definitely enjoy a good presentation, as the endless variety of modern cooking shows attest. Taking these things into account, it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that medieval people liked these things, too.
British Library MS Royal 10 E IV fol. 108v
One of the places where we can learn about the expectations medieval society held around table manners is in instructional manuals for children. The Book of the Civilised Man (Urbanus Magnus) is a treatise on manners attributed to Daniel of Beccles, written in the late twelfth century for the edification of “untrained boy-clerks”, and it’s filled with the type of behavioural rules that parents across the world still teach their children, like “sit up straight”, and “do not put your elbows on the table” (although Daniel elaborates, “you may do so at your own table, but not if you are visiting another”). Following in his footsteps is the anonymous author of the Boke of Curtasye, a fourteenth-century version of Daniel’s advice translated into English with some edits. One last book which gives us an idea of medieval dining is Le Ménagier de Paris, a fifteenth-century advice book written by a much older husband for his teenaged wife. While just a small sample of the many courtesy books created in the Middle Ages, these three give us a peek into what was expected of medieval people at the dinner table.
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Diners were expected to wash their hands before they ate and napkins were to be provided. It was considered very rude to wipe your mouth or hands on the tablecloth or on your clothing, a rule that is especially practical considering that medieval people wore the same clothes regularly – napkins are much easier to wash and to replace than an entire garment. Linen was also very handy, according to both Daniel and the author of the Boke of Curtasye, in the event that you’ve blown your nose into your hand and need somewhere to wipe it. Luckily, linen could be sent out to laundresses for cleaning.
Daniel insists that a well-set table should include “knives, salt, bread, and beverages” and should always be dressed with a tablecloth of the best quality the host can afford. “One can have a meal without a table,” he declares, “but not without a tablecloth.” Le Ménagier tells his wife that “decorative greenery” is an important and elegant touch.
Fondation Martin Bodmer 78 fol. 4v
The table would also be laid with spoons for eating soupier foods like pottages and puddings. They were meant to be wiped clean with a piece of bread rather than just being tossed down on the tablecloth or wiped on a napkin, according to Daniel and the anonymous English writer. The quality of spoon you were given at a meal was an indicator of both the wealth of the host as well as your own status at the party. Because spoons could therefore be very valuable, Daniel feels the need to remind boys it’s rude to steal them.
Medieval people tended to share a plate and cup, so many of the recorded rules for good etiquette involve making the dining experience of your partner a pleasant one. This included giving them the best morsels, and being fair in portioning them out. As Daniel says, “Do not cut pieces of meat that are too small or too big compared to your tablemates’ portions.”
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BNF Français 343 fol. 31v
Food was meant to be eaten with dignity, if not reverence. Daniel insists that diners, “Place a small morsel in your mouth and chew it politely” and goes on to say,
Do not sip your drink when you have food in your mouth, and do not talk when you have food in your mouth. A diner should not take so large a bite that he is completely unable to speak, if he were addressed.
The Boke of Curtasye pulls no punches on this front, saying that a person who stuffs his face looks like an ape. Chewing with your mouth open is also a no-no, according to this author, as a well-mannered person should not eat “with grete sowndyng” (great sounding).
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Not only did scarfing down food indicate bad manners, but it was also indicative of gluttony. According to Le Ménagier, the gluttonous person “eats his food greedily without chewing and gulps it down in great chunks. Scripture says of Esau … that he ate so rapidly that he nearly choked”. Not only was taking small bites and chewing your food virtuous, but in a time before the Heimlich maneuver, it could be lifesaving.
British Library MS Harley 3448 fol. 2v
Although medieval Europe did not have germ theory, its dinner guests were definitely against double-dipping. Daniel says unequivocally, “If you have already taken a bite of a piece of bread, do not dip it into the sauce again.” Likewise, no one should dip their food directly in the communal salt dish, says the Boke of Curtasye. This is a “vice”.
A person might feel the need to clean their teeth sometime during the meal, but the Boke of Curtasye insists that this is not done at the table, especially not with a knife, straw, or stick. It’s better to save this personal grooming for later, and perhaps to use one of the handy-dandy combination toothpicks and ear spoons that have been found by archaeologists.
While there may be dogs and cats around the table, no one is to pet them while eating. Although they may be expecting scraps, Le Ménagier tells us, “at the end of the meal, [servers] will bear through the hall two or three large containers in which to toss the large scraps, such as sops, cut or broken bread, trenchers, meat, and similar things; as well as two buckets for disposing of and collecting the remnants of soup, sauces, and liquids.” These leftovers could be used later to feed animals, or, as Daniel says, “the needy”.
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The end of the meal signalled another round of handwashing before sitting back, or in the case of a dinner party related by Le Ménagier de Paris, “grace, and retiring to the drawing room”. The Boke of Curtasye reminds us at this point that it’s impolite to spit in the washbasin. “Once the guests’ hands are dry,” Daniel adds, “they should not clean their teeth with the towels.”
While some of the rules laid out in medieval instructional books may seem self-evident, anyone who interacts with children knows that sometimes things need to be spelled out. In showing us the ways that children should not behave, these books reveal that medieval dining habits were much less messy and much more appetizing than many in the modern world may assume.
Danièle Cybulskie is the lead columnist of Medievalists.net and the host of The Medieval Podcast. She studied Cultural Studies and English at Trent University, earning her MA at the University of Toronto, where she specialized in medieval literature and Renaissance drama. You can follow her on Twitter @5MinMedievalistor visit her website, danielecybulskie.com.
By Danièle Cybulskie
It’s one of the quintessential “medieval” images: a kingly figure sits at a long table, chewing the meat from a drumstick with his mouth open and tossing the bones on the floor for the dogs before taking a big gulp from a goblet, the wine spilling down his beard.
Because medieval people ate with their hands, there is a common idea that they had no table manners at all. But if we take a moment to think past the stereotypes, a few things become immediately evident. The first (and perhaps most obvious) is that we modern people eat with our hands on the regular. We may eat less messy things sometimes, like sandwiches and hot dogs, but we also eat foods whose messiness is legendary, like tacos, ice cream cones, and – yes – chicken.
The other thing we might notice is that people across the world don’t like to eat with people who are messy, dirty, or free with their bodily functions. We like to wash our hands before we eat, we like napkins, and we definitely enjoy a good presentation, as the endless variety of modern cooking shows attest. Taking these things into account, it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that medieval people liked these things, too.
One of the places where we can learn about the expectations medieval society held around table manners is in instructional manuals for children. The Book of the Civilised Man (Urbanus Magnus) is a treatise on manners attributed to Daniel of Beccles, written in the late twelfth century for the edification of “untrained boy-clerks”, and it’s filled with the type of behavioural rules that parents across the world still teach their children, like “sit up straight”, and “do not put your elbows on the table” (although Daniel elaborates, “you may do so at your own table, but not if you are visiting another”). Following in his footsteps is the anonymous author of the Boke of Curtasye, a fourteenth-century version of Daniel’s advice translated into English with some edits. One last book which gives us an idea of medieval dining is Le Ménagier de Paris, a fifteenth-century advice book written by a much older husband for his teenaged wife. While just a small sample of the many courtesy books created in the Middle Ages, these three give us a peek into what was expected of medieval people at the dinner table.
Diners were expected to wash their hands before they ate and napkins were to be provided. It was considered very rude to wipe your mouth or hands on the tablecloth or on your clothing, a rule that is especially practical considering that medieval people wore the same clothes regularly – napkins are much easier to wash and to replace than an entire garment. Linen was also very handy, according to both Daniel and the author of the Boke of Curtasye, in the event that you’ve blown your nose into your hand and need somewhere to wipe it. Luckily, linen could be sent out to laundresses for cleaning.
Daniel insists that a well-set table should include “knives, salt, bread, and beverages” and should always be dressed with a tablecloth of the best quality the host can afford. “One can have a meal without a table,” he declares, “but not without a tablecloth.” Le Ménagier tells his wife that “decorative greenery” is an important and elegant touch.
The table would also be laid with spoons for eating soupier foods like pottages and puddings. They were meant to be wiped clean with a piece of bread rather than just being tossed down on the tablecloth or wiped on a napkin, according to Daniel and the anonymous English writer. The quality of spoon you were given at a meal was an indicator of both the wealth of the host as well as your own status at the party. Because spoons could therefore be very valuable, Daniel feels the need to remind boys it’s rude to steal them.
Medieval people tended to share a plate and cup, so many of the recorded rules for good etiquette involve making the dining experience of your partner a pleasant one. This included giving them the best morsels, and being fair in portioning them out. As Daniel says, “Do not cut pieces of meat that are too small or too big compared to your tablemates’ portions.”
Food was meant to be eaten with dignity, if not reverence. Daniel insists that diners, “Place a small morsel in your mouth and chew it politely” and goes on to say,
Do not sip your drink when you have food in your mouth,
and do not talk when you have food in your mouth.
A diner should not take so large a bite that he is
completely unable to speak, if he were addressed.
The Boke of Curtasye pulls no punches on this front, saying that a person who stuffs his face looks like an ape. Chewing with your mouth open is also a no-no, according to this author, as a well-mannered person should not eat “with grete sowndyng” (great sounding).
Not only did scarfing down food indicate bad manners, but it was also indicative of gluttony. According to Le Ménagier, the gluttonous person “eats his food greedily without chewing and gulps it down in great chunks. Scripture says of Esau … that he ate so rapidly that he nearly choked”. Not only was taking small bites and chewing your food virtuous, but in a time before the Heimlich maneuver, it could be lifesaving.
Although medieval Europe did not have germ theory, its dinner guests were definitely against double-dipping. Daniel says unequivocally, “If you have already taken a bite of a piece of bread, do not dip it into the sauce again.” Likewise, no one should dip their food directly in the communal salt dish, says the Boke of Curtasye. This is a “vice”.
A person might feel the need to clean their teeth sometime during the meal, but the Boke of Curtasye insists that this is not done at the table, especially not with a knife, straw, or stick. It’s better to save this personal grooming for later, and perhaps to use one of the handy-dandy combination toothpicks and ear spoons that have been found by archaeologists.
While there may be dogs and cats around the table, no one is to pet them while eating. Although they may be expecting scraps, Le Ménagier tells us, “at the end of the meal, [servers] will bear through the hall two or three large containers in which to toss the large scraps, such as sops, cut or broken bread, trenchers, meat, and similar things; as well as two buckets for disposing of and collecting the remnants of soup, sauces, and liquids.” These leftovers could be used later to feed animals, or, as Daniel says, “the needy”.
The end of the meal signalled another round of handwashing before sitting back, or in the case of a dinner party related by Le Ménagier de Paris, “grace, and retiring to the drawing room”. The Boke of Curtasye reminds us at this point that it’s impolite to spit in the washbasin. “Once the guests’ hands are dry,” Daniel adds, “they should not clean their teeth with the towels.”
While some of the rules laid out in medieval instructional books may seem self-evident, anyone who interacts with children knows that sometimes things need to be spelled out. In showing us the ways that children should not behave, these books reveal that medieval dining habits were much less messy and much more appetizing than many in the modern world may assume.
Danièle Cybulskie is the lead columnist of Medievalists.net and the host of The Medieval Podcast. She studied Cultural Studies and English at Trent University, earning her MA at the University of Toronto, where she specialized in medieval literature and Renaissance drama. You can follow her on Twitter @5MinMedievalist or visit her website, danielecybulskie.com.
Click here to read more from Danièle Cybulskie
Further Reading:
The Boke of Curtasye: An English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, edited by James Orchard Halliwell (London: The Percy Society, 1841).
The Book of the Civilised Man: An English Translation of the Urbanus Magnus of Daniel of Beccles, translated by Fiona Whelan, Olivia Spenser, and Francesca Petrizzo (New York: Routledge, 2019).
The Good Wife’s Guide: Le Ménagier de Paris, A Medieval Household Book, translated by Gina L. Greco and Christine M. Rose (London: Cornell University Press, 2009).
Top Image: UBH Cod. Pal. germ. 339 fol. 27r
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