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‘A THIN TRYM TRENCHER TO SERVE FOLKE AT FRUTE’

PAINTED TRENCHERS

AND THE

THEATRE OF THE BANQUET

_____________________________________________________

PENNY STREETER

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

ART HISTORY MA

COURSE: ART AND ITS OBJECTS: DINING CULTURES

No. 848V4B

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‘A THIN TRYM TRENCHER TO SERVE FOLKE AT FRUTE’

PAINTED TRENCHERS AND THE THEATRE OF THE BANQUET

INTRODUCTION

In the collection of the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum are eight small, thin circular

wooden platters, approximately 13.5cm in diameter, painted and gilded on one side with

varied stylised designs of fruit, flowers, scrolls and strapwork, with biblical quotations

around the edge and in the centre. (Figs. 1-3). Originally from a set of twelve, they are

unpainted on the reverse and date to approximately 1600CE. These small trenchers or

roundels are typical examples of those used from around the mid sixteenth to the mid

seventeenth centuries to serve special sweetmeats and sugared fruits to guests at the

‘banquet’ course held at the conclusion of meals in prosperous English households.1 The

dessert was placed on the unpainted side, and once the food was consumed the diner would

turn the platter over to find the painted and gilded images and texts, which could be

discussed amongst the guests for the entertainment of the company. When displayed in

museum cases these objects may be seen simply as aesthetically pleasing artefacts to be

admired for their visual qualities.

This paper, however, argues that they functioned as much more than practical and

decorative objects and were in fact part of the essentially theatrical construct of the banquet.

Contemporary accounts confirm the trenchers were used to present special sweetmeats,

fantastical in appearance and fashioned in the form of trompe l’oeil fruits, flora and fauna,

intended to delight the guests and create a sense of theatricality. The painted and gilded

images and written texts, often biblical or moralising but sometimes bawdy, were intended

to provoke discussion, encourage conviviality and provide prompts for story-telling. In

this, as Alfred Gell describes, they had agency since as described here they both addressed

1 Both circular and rectangular trenchers are found: for the circular objects the terms ‘trencher’ or ‘roundel’ appear to be interchangeable.

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the diner and compelled him or her to further action.2 Within this lively entertainment,

moral concerns could be conveyed. In 1531 the humanist Thomas Elyot set out the

principles by which those intended for high office should conduct themselves. Among

these precepts, Elyot advised the householder that ‘his plate and vessels would be engraven

with histories, fables, quick wise sentences, comprehending good doctrine or counsels’ so

that at his table ‘they who do eat or drink, having those wisdoms ever in sight, shall happen

with the meat to receive some of them’.3 At the same time, when combined with the

experience of taste, smell and touch intrinsic to dining and also with speech and music,

these texts completed the sensory spectacle of the banquet.

To contextualise the trenchers the paper discusses the development of the banqueting

course itself, its rituals, settings and the specialities served. Source material for the painted

designs is considered, placing them within societal concerns. Drawing on contemporary

sources and secondary material, the paper argues that understanding these decorative

objects can help towards a reconstruction of the ephemeral spectacle of the banquet as

theatre within elite dining cultures of the time.

THE BANQUET

Medieval feasts traditionally concluded with a ceremony known as the ‘void’ at which,

while servants cleared away the main meal and prepared the hall for dancing or gaming, the

host would retire to a separate more intimate space to be served wafers and hippocras,

sweetened wine spiced with ginger and cinnamon.4 John Russell’s Boke of Nurture,

c.1460, describes how this should be done: ‘Thenne uprysing, servitours muste attende to

avoyde tabills, trestellis, formys and stolys, and to redresse bankers and quyssyons’ and

favoured guests might be invited to join the householder: ‘Thenne it moste be sene yf

strangers shalbe brought to chamber’.5 Cherries and other fruits might be served in summer

or ‘such neweltees as the tyme of the yere requereth’, ‘or ellis grene ginger comfetts’ in

2 A. Gell, Art and Agency: an Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998). 3 T. Elyot, The Boke named the Governour, [1531], (London: Hernaman, 1834) p.107. 4 C. A. Wilson, Ed,‘Banquetting Stuffe’, The fare and social background of the Tudor and Stuart banquet (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986), pp.11,13. 5 J. Russell, ‘Ffor to Serve a Lord, VIII. Of the Removal of the Table’ in The Boke of Nurture [c.1460], reprinted in Meals and Manners in Olden Time, Ed by F. J. Furnivall (London: Early English Text Society, 1808), p.356.

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winter.6 Spices and sweet wines were consumed in the belief that their medicinal digestive

properties aided digestion following a heavy meal, and because they sweetened the breath.7

By the fifteenth century sugar was widely available both to the wealthy and to the

prosperous ‘middling sort’ and became the most significant item to conclude the meal,

valued for its perceived medicinal and preservative qualities as well as its taste.8 In

addition to the medieval spiced wines and wafers, sugared fruits, sweet gingerbread and

marchpanes were now served. These expensive imported ingredients made clear displays

of status and power and Russell insists they should be ‘of the beste that may be had, to the

honor and lawde of the principall of the house’.9 By the Tudor period the term ‘banquet’

had generally ceased to mean the complete magnificent repast and come to signify instead

this small course of special delicacies at the conclusion of a feast.10

This emphasis on sugar is evident from Gervase Markham’s The English Huswife, in which

instructions are given on, amongst many other essential skills, the ‘Correct Ordering of

Banquets’. Markham insists that ‘you shall observe that marchpanes have the first place,

the middle place, and last place’ and gives recipes ‘to preserve, conserve, candy, and make

pastes of all kinds, in which four heads consists the whole art of banqueting dishes’.11

Another popular sweetmeat was sucket, made from ‘the parings of lemons, of oranges, of

pomecitrons, or indeed any half ripe green fruit’ candied in sugar syrup for which Markham

gives detailed instructions.12 Sucket could be eaten dry or wet and required the use of a

special ‘sucket fork’, with two prongs at one end and a spoon at the other. These were

valued possessions: for example in 1463 John Baret, a prosperous clothier of Bury St.

Edmunds in Suffolk bequeathed several items of cutlery engraved with religious quotations

and my ‘silvir forke for grene gyngor’.13 Such specialist items, together with the decorative

6 Russell, ‘Ffor to Serve a Lord’, p.356. 7 Wilson, Banquetting Stuffe,17-18. 8 Wilson, Banquetting Stuffe,13-14. 9 Russell, ‘Ffor to Serve a Lord’, p.357. 10 S. Mueller, ‘Early Modern Banquet Receipts and Women’s Theatre’, in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, Ed by Cerasano, S. P., M. Bly, H. A. Hirschfeld (New Jersey: Farleigh Dickinson, 2011), p.124. 11 G. Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues which Ought to be in a Complete Woman [1615], Ed by M. R. Best, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986), p.121. 12 Markham, The English Huswife, p.121. 13 S. Tymms, Wills and inventories from the registers of the commissary of Bury St.Edmunds, Commissary Court, Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, Sudbury, The Will of John Baret, 14 p.40, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SCUIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA40&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false[accessed 26.3.2012].

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painted wooden trenchers, were reserved for serving these special items at the banquet, thus

contributing to the spectacle.14

Surprise was essential to the theatricality of the banqueting course, as recipe books indicate.

John Murrell’s A Delightful Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, ‘whereby is set

foorth the secrete misteries of the purest preserving in glasses and other confrictionaries, as

making of breads, pastes, preserves, suckets, marmelates, tartstuffes, rough candies, with

many other things’, gave instructions for making such spectacular delights as marzepan

snakes, frogs and roses.15 Murrell explains how to colour sugar paste with conserves and

fashion it into ‘some prettie shape as you thinke best’ to deceive the guests. Fruit, for

example, can be made as realistic as possible: ‘If you put a stone betwixt the two halfes, [it]

will shew like a Plum, you may keepe cherrie stalkes drie for the same purpose’.16

Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswife’s Iewell of 1597 gives a recipe for paste made from

‘fine white sugar’, lemons, white of egg and gum tragacanth, to make ‘all manner of fruits,

and other fine thinges’, including edible plates and dishes.17 As part of the performative

element of the banquet, Dawson suggests ‘At the end of the Banket they may eat all, and

breake the Platters, Dishes, Glasses, Cuppes, and all other things, for this paste is very

delicate and saverous’.

Markham too sees the banquet as the occasion for theatre and fantasy. The foodstuffs

served here are about spectacle: the guests have already eaten so the sweetmeats are less

about hunger than about amusement and entertainment. Markham’s ‘Ordering of Banquets’

instructs his readers to use his sugar-paste recipes to make some items purely for visual

delight: ‘when they go to the table, you shall first send forth a dish made for show only, as

beast, bird, fish or fowl, according to invention […] and this will not only appear delicate to

the eye, but invite the appetite with the much variety thereof.’18 Once the sweets had been

consumed the trenchers were turned over and the painted images and texts revealed. Like

14 Although beyond the scope of this paper, similar objects were made from ceramics and silver, for example the 16th-century engraved silver-gilt dish by Roger Flint in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum No.M.55-1946. 15 J. Murrell, A Delightful Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen [1621], Ed by S. J. Evans (New York: Falconwood, 1990), title page. 16 Quoted in S. P. Cerasano, M. Bly, H. A. Hirschfeld, Eds, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England (New Jersey: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011), p.109. 17 T. Dawson, The Good Huswife’s Iewell, part I, [1597] reprinted in P. Brears, All the King’s Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace (London: Souvenir, 2011), p.81. 18 Markham, The English Huswife, p.121.

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these delicacies, the plates on which they are served are not all that they appear to be at first

sight.19

THE SETTING FOR THE BANQUET

The artifice of the food required similar fantasy in the setting for the banquet as it

developed from the medieval concept of the void, in which diners merely moved from the

table to another room to allow for preparations for dancing or gaming.20 Walking to some

specially designed space now became part of the anticipation and exclusivity of the

banquet. In keeping with the Renaissance concept of the garden as a spiritual and aesthetic

pleasure for the senses, this course should take place within a pavilion or natural bower at

ground level or with a view of nature from the height of a balcony or rooftop tower. The

sight and sound of water and scent of flowers added to the enchantment. The room or

building to which the guests withdrew might take various forms, from a garden folly of

several stories to a miniature pavilion, similar to the one shown in Fig.4. At Nonsuch

Palace near Ewell a three-storey banqueting house was constructed for Henry VIII on an

elevation near the palace to take advantage of distant views.21 In another part of the

grounds, within a walled topiary garden known as ‘the Grove of Diana’, was a pleasure

pavilion recorded as ‘the Banqueting House in the walks below the fountain, a timber

framed summer house’.22 In 1620 Robert Lyminge drew his projected ideas for a

banqueting house in the garden of Sir Henry Hobart’s Blicking Hall near Norwich based on

the Italian Renaissance designs of Sebastiano Serlio. (Fig. 5).

At Longleat Sir John Thynne specified to his architect Robert Smythson that on the roofline

of his new house eight small towers should be built, ‘and IIII to have lytle starres wonne fro

the roofe so as they may serve as banketting houses’.23 (Fig.6). When Hardwick Hall was

first built, guests retired to a Withdrawing Room before returning to the High Great

Chamber for dancing, but later could be entertained in one of six rooftop towers while

admiring spectacular views over the Shrewsbury Derbyshire estates, unavailable from any

19 The concept of food as entertainment in itself has continued to the present and is currently revived by chefs such as Heston Blumenthal. 20 J. Stead, ‘Bowers of Bliss: The Banquet Setting’, in C. A. Wilson, Ed, Banquetting Stuffe, The fare and social background of the Tudor and Stuart banquet (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986), pp.115,118. 21 http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/NonsuchPalaceGardens.html[accessed 23.3.2012]. 22 http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/NonsuchPalaceGardens.html[accessed 23.3.2012]. 23 T. Mowl, Elizabethan and Jacobean Style (London: Phaidon, 1993), pp.82-83.

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other viewpoint.24 Wherever possible, therefore, an important feature of the banquet was

the theatricality of the space where it took place and the delights of a garden setting or a

dramatic view of nature from the roofline of a great house.

TRENCHERS AND ROUNDELS

The setting of the banquet, then, was planned with care to appeal to all the senses, and the

refreshments were equally distinctive and spectacular. The objects on which they were

served to guests were also specific to this special part of the feasting and designed to appeal

to the eye and to the mind.

In The Arte of English Poesie (1589) George Puttenham explains that ‘short epigrames or

posies’ were once customarily inscribed on sugar plates such as Thomas Dawson describes

and given as parting gifts to guests, but later were painted on wooden trenchers.

‘There be altogether other like Epigrammes that were sent usually for new yeares giftes or to be Printed or put upon their banketting dishes of suger plate, or of march paines, & such other dainty meates as by the curtesie & custome euery gest might carry from a common feast home with him to his owne house, […] and neuer contained aboue one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better, we call them Posies, and do paint them now a dayes upon the backe sides of our fruite trenchers of wood’25 Puttenham does not record whether these inscriptions were painted on the sugar plates, but

possibly a mould was used to impress a pattern. This would fit with the custom of giving

wafers imprinted with names and dates as mementoes of special occasions to guests. A

wafering iron for this purpose is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

(Fig.7).

Trenchers and roundels are found with a variety of images accompanied by biblical

quotations and secular exhortations. Although not necessarily precise copies of prints,

many inscriptions and concepts appear to derive from emblem books, the defining

characteristic of which is not to depict actual events but to use the combination of text and

illustration to reinforce, with a light touch, contemporary moral, spiritual and political

precepts. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, emblems became widely used to

communicate cultural and theological concepts through visual images supported by short

24 Mowl, Elizabethan and Jacobean Style, p.162. 25 G. Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie [1589], English Linguistics 1500-1800: A Collection of Facsimile Reprints, Ed by R. C. Alston (Menston: Scolar, 1968), p.47.

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texts and witty epigrams.26 Henri Estienne, in The Art of Making Devises, states the

advantage of communicating ideas in this way since ‘it declares the matter more plainly:

For the Embleme is properly a sweet and morall Symbole, which consists of picture and

words, by which some weighty sentence is declared.’27

Emblem books were extremely popular: the humanist Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum Liber,

first published in 1531, was reprinted in one hundred and forty editions and the first printed

English collection of emblems was published by Geoffrey Whitney in 1586.28 In his

Proverbs, Epigrams and Miscellanies of 1562, John Heywood even makes the connection

between his book and trenchers:

‘This book may seem as it sorteth in sute A thin trym trencher to serve folke at frute But carver or reader can no way win To eate frute thereon, or compt frute therein.’29 Such emblemata were not only read in printed form but widely used as source material for

designs on domestic items such as painted hangings and murals.30 Elyot recommended

such ‘images containing histories […] with the circumstance of the matter briefly declared,

whereby other men in beholding, may be instructed, or at the least ways to virtue

persuaded’ should be applied wherever possible to domestic furnishings.31 Tara Hamling

has shown that religious imagery was often to be found within private homes on domestic

items and embedded into the fabric of buildings in plasterwork or painted ceilings,

providing permanent exhortations against excessive worldly luxury.32 Several painted

hangings by John Balechouse with illustrated biblical texts survive at Hardwick Hall, for

example.33 (Fig.8).

26 H. Diehl, ‘Graven Images: Protestant Emblem Books in England, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol.39, No.1 (Spring 1986), p.49. 27 H. Estienne, The Art of Making Devises [1645], trans. by Thomas Blount, of the Inner Temple, London, to be sold at the Angell, Ivie Lane, Chap.IV, http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/henry-estienne/the-art-of-making-devises[accessed 11.3.2012]. 28 G. Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises [1586] Imprinted at Leyden, in the House of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, Early English Books Online ID99855134 [accessed 12.3.2012]. 29 J. Heywood, The Proverbs, Epigrams and Miscellanies [1562], Ed by J. S. Farmer (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), p.113. 30 See for example E. M. Thron, ‘Jaques: Emblems and Morals’, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol.30, No.1 (Winter 1979), pp.86-87. 31 T. Elyot, The Book named the Governour, p.107. 32 T. Hamling, ‘To See or Not to See: The Presence of Religious Imagery in the Protestant Household, Art history, 2007, Vol:30, No.2, pp.170-197. 33 A. Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints, 1558-1625 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press), p.279.

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It was intended that the reader should employ more than just vision in interpreting the

emblems. They should act as prompts to contemplation. In the subtitle to A Choice of

Emblemes and Other Devises, Whitney calls attention to the various ways in which the

emblems may be understood and enjoyed:

‘bicause herein, by the office of the eie, and the eare, the minde maye reape dooble delighte throughe holsome preceptes, shadowed with pleasant deuises: both fit for the vertuous, to their incoraging: and for the wicked, for their admonishing and amendment’ 34

Estienne, too, intended that interpretation of his emblems should demonstrate learning on

the part of his reader. While clearly intending them to be enjoyed, he suggests:

‘A Devise ought to be almost like Poesie, or rather as a thing nobly vulgar, in such sort that it may be understood without difficulty and with delight, not only by the learned, but also by all those, who (besides a good comon under standing) have moreover the knowledge as well of things naturall as artificial, and of the languages which we use in the Motto; It importeth not much if Idiots or gross Ignoramusses doe not at all conceive them, since such dainties are not intended for vulgar appetites.’35

Such concepts make it clear why emblem books were considered suitable sources for

designs for painted trenchers. The plates were for serving luxury delicacies, within the

rituals and conventions of the banqueting course. Once these items had been consumed,

guests would be called upon to read the text, which formed prompts for conversation and

entertainment, in the manner of a Christmas cracker or fortune cookie today. Linda Austern

states: ‘The emblem’s primary function is to tell the beholder ultimately what happens to

those who follow or violate the established social conventions’.36 As Michelle O’Malley

notes, Gell’s theories see works of art functioning as ‘active entities brought into being with

social missions’.37 According to Elyot, suitable texts on household items admonished

revellers who ‘else by superfluous eating and drinking would be idly consumed’.38

There may have been some tension between the entertainment and feasting and abrupt

introduction of such moral reminders. For example three rectangular trenchers in the

Norwich Museum carry sharp biblical comments about the feast in which the diner has just

participated, the dangers of gluttony and reminders of the necessity for charity to the poor.

34 Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises, title, Early English Books Online ID99855134 [accessed 12.3.2012]. 35 H. Estienne, The Art of Making Devises, Chap.XIII. 36 L. P. Austern, ‘The siren, the muse, and the god of love: Music and gender in seventeenth-century English emblem books’, in Journal of Musicological Research, 18:2, p.105. 37 M. O’Malley, ‘Altarpieces and Agency: The Altarpiece of the Society of the Purification and its ‘Invisible Skein of Relations’, Art History vol. 28, no. 4 (2005), p.418. 38 Elyot, The Boke named the Governour, p.107.

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A trencher possibly based on a print by the sixteenth-century German printmaker Virgil

Solis, illustrates the parable of Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16:19-34).39 (Fig.9). Before a

vision of Heaven and Hell, a wealthy family dines in luxury while a destitute leper lies

outside their door. The text reads:

‘This lazar pore on yearth had paine but after deathe hath Joy and reste The glotton riche had pleasures vaine and after deathe hath hell posessed’

This would have been a familiar tale preached in church sermons and considered a

particularly apt warning following a sumptuous meal. As Catherine Richardson points out,

there were tensions at this period between the Renaissance concept of ‘magnificence’ which

required an outward show of largesse on the part of the wealthy elite, and concerns that this

should not involve excessive spending. Reasonable prudence was considered a virtue.40

Since banqueting houses were often small, those invited to the banquet course would not

necessarily include all the guests at the earlier feast, so those who participated were

reminded of their own privilege and expected to remember those less fortunate.

Many texts, however, are clearly intended to amuse. A roundel from a set of twelve in the

Metropolitan Museum of New York (Fig.10) carries the inscription:

‘If thou bee younge, then marie not yett, If thou bee old thou haste more witt: For younge menns wives will not bee taught, And old menns wives will bee good for naught.’ Humorous commentaries on marriage and women were popular subjects in prints and on

trenchers, perhaps suitably for a raucous finish to the meal and indicating that Thomas

Elyot’s solemn strictures were not always taken seriously. A seventeenth-century print

entitled ‘The Unhappy Marriage’ claimed death was the only way a husband could escape

from ‘a brawling shrew’.41 The sixteenth-century roundel in Fig.11 carries a similar

sentiment:

‘Receive thie happ as fortune sendeth But God is that fortune lendeth Wherfore if thou a shrew haste gott Thinke with thiselfe it is thie lot’

39 B. Holdridge, Curatorial Assistant, Strangers Hall Museum, Norwich, personal communication 2.3.2012. 40 F. Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp.27-28. 41 S. O’Connell, The Popular Print in England 1550-1850 (London: British Museum Press, 1999), p.109.

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As can be seen from the images, decorations on trenchers were often quite feminine in

style, with flowers and decorative patterns, while texts were frequently anti-female and

satirical in tone, creating a tension between the two.

Several sets such as the Salisbury roundels closely resemble contemporary embroideries.

For example, a small stitched panel made for Bess of Hardwick includes similar motifs of

stylised fruits and flowers. (Fig.12). The trencher painter has used similar colours and

suggested stitching with dots and lines of paint. In addition, the texts have been spaced and

written in a manner resembling illuminated manuscripts, with initial letters in red and body

text in black, and guidelines still visible in places on the wood beneath the paint. (Fig.13).

It is not known who made any of the trenchers held in English museums, but it could be

suggested that more than one artist worked on them, possibly both a calligrapher and a

painter-stainer, perhaps in a workshop situation on a speculative basis. The Salisbury

roundels have been painted with care, infilled with tiny dots following the circular shape

and with detailed outlines to the fruit and flowers. Although there is now some wear in

places, there was originally considerable detailed gilding, possibly done in paint rather than

leaf.

Roundels were also decorated with pre-printed images and Malcolm Jones notes a London

print-maker’s 1654 advertisement for sets of prints for use in this way.42 Salisbury Museum

owns eleven of a set of twelve boxed roundels with pasted pictures of pastimes, strongly

resembling the British Museum’s prints of ‘the months’ based on Crispijn de Passe the

Elder. (Figs.14,15.) Certain images clearly lend themselves to sets, for example the

months, the Virtues or the Seven Deadly Sins.43 One set in the Victoria and Albert

Museum, the ‘Twelve Wonders of the World”, shows various stock ‘characters’ such as the

lawyer, the soldier, the divine, each with a satirical verse. Unusually, the author and

occasion are known: these were composed by John Davies for a New Year Party given by

Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset in 1600.44

A sixteenth-century set based on Aesop’s Fables (another popular theme though here

without texts) is in a private collection at Kentwell Hall, Suffolk. These may derive from

woodcuts, available as early as 1484 (Caxton’s Fables of Esope) and 1500 (Pynson’s

Fables of Aesop).45 Diners would be familiar with these stories and be expected to be able

42 M. Jones, ‘Print of the Month, May 2008’, website: British Printed Images to 1700, http://bpt1700.org.uk/research/printOfTheMonth/may2008.html[accessed3.4.2012]. 43 M. Jones, ‘The English Print’ in A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, Ed by M. Hattaway (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p.355. 44 Victoria & Albert Museum Archive Ref. MA/1/M915, Museum Nos.W.30-M.1912. 45 E. Hodnett, English Woodcuts 1480-1535 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), Figs.3,164.

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to decode the images and emblems before them. Relating these tales to others would show

what Castiglione described as sprezzatura, the essential ability of the courtier to

demonstrate accomplishments without apparent effort.46

None of these trenchers carry musical notation, but the texts quoted here for example are in

doggerel verse form, suggesting that diners recited or even sang them in turn. Flora Dennis

has investigated a set of sixteenth-century knives in the Victoria and Albert Museum,

inscribed with musical parts to be sung by groups of diners as blessings before and after a

meal.47 Dennis notes that other sets of objects such as maiolica plates were also used in this

way at this period.48 It may be speculated that verses on the roundels were not only to be

read but sung, perhaps employing traditional tunes too well known to need recording on the

plates.

The wood from which trenchers are made is of importance to their provenance, as several

sets in museum collections are recorded as made of sycamore. This raises questions over

their authenticity, since the first record of sycamore in England is found in Henry Lyte’s

Herball of 1578, and then only as a garden specimen tree.49 It was still unusual enough in

1635 that mention is made of a garden in St. Keyne in South-East Cornwall having

‘fourteen sickumers in the herb garden’.50 It is unlikely that recently introduced prized

specimen trees would be felled to make small artefacts such as trenchers, so several

implications must be considered.

Possibly they are made from some other wood, such as field maple (Acer campestre) which,

being closely related to sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) is impossible to distinguish from

visual appearance alone and difficult to identify with accuracy even under microscopical

examination.51 Even modern testing would probably cause some damage, requiring

removal of small pieces of wood, and since the trenchers average only 3mm in thickness,

curators would be reluctant to allow this. If they are sycamore, either the wood or the

platters themselves may have been imported. This is possible but unlikely when so much

suitable timber was widely available in England for making such small-scale objects.

46 B. Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, [1528], Ed by Daniel Javitch. (York: Norton, 2002), p.32. 47 F. Dennis, ‘Scattered knives and dismembered song; cutlery, music and the rituals of dining’, Renaissance Studies, Vol.24. No.1., 2010, pp.156-184. 48 Dennis, ‘Scattered knives’, pp.176-177. 49 O. Rackham, The History of the Countryside: The full fascinating story of Britain’s landscape (London, Melbourne: J. M. Dent, 1986), p.56-57. 50 C. Henderson, Essays in Cornish History (Oxford: Clarendon, 1935), pp.141-144. 51 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Identification of Hardwoods: A Lens Key, 2nd Edition (London: HM Stationery Office, 1960), p.19.

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If however they are indeed sycamore, the possibility must be considered that some

trenchers are later fakes, produced to satisfy the Victorian fashion for medieval artefacts.

By the nineteenth century sycamore was abundant throughout England and commonly used

to manufacture kitchen artefacts. Two sets of trenchers in the British Museum previously

dated to c1600 are now considered of doubtful authenticity by the curator based on the style

of their painted decoration, and may instead date from the nineteenth century.52

Despite these caveats, many painted examples are known from contemporary writers such

as Puttenham, though the merit of their poems is not always admired. Milton, for example,

deplores ‘a piece of sapience not worth the brain of a fruit trencher’.53 By the mid sixteenth

century gradual changes occurred in the composition of great households and therefore of

dining rituals and the roundels seem to have disappeared from use.54

CONCLUSION

How might such texts and visual images gain added emphasis by their application to an

object designed to function in the context of a meal, and as part of spoken or sung

entertainment? Liz James, for example, has drawn attention to the enhanced experience

achieved by Byzantine worshippers through the employment of all five senses, not just the

visual, comparing this to contemporary art installations.55 James argues that bringing

together ‘disparate objects and sensations, appealing not only to sight but to hearing, smell

and even touch’ requires active participation, so that ‘the spectator is required to be more

than a spectator’.56 Similarly, special objects used for dining are by definition part of a

ritual during which taste, smell, touch and the sounds of company, including discussion,

prayer and possibly song, combine with visual images and written texts to enhance the

sense of occasion.

Writing of elite dining silver, Catherine Richardson argues that such expensive pieces are

‘at one remove from the diner, mediated by servants and therefore lacking the kind of

tactile involvement’ that comes with handling and engaging with objects, particularly those

52 I would like to thank Dora Thornton, Curator, Renaissance Collections and Renaissance European Culture, British Museum, for drawing my attention to the doubtful dating of several objects in the Museum’s collection. Personal communication, 26.3.2012. 53 J. Milton, ‘An Apology for Smectymnuus’, in The Prose Works of John Milton, Vol.1, Ed by J. A. St. John (London: Bell, 1904), p.238. 54 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, pp.392-403. 55 L. James, ‘Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium’, Art History, Vol.27, No.4, 2004, p.524. 56 James, ‘Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium’, p.524.

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where text creates ‘vibrancy of the links between words, things and actions’.57 These small

roundels, however, were not at one remove but instead required active personal engagement

and examination as each guest handled the plate, turning it over and around to read the

inscriptions, examining the images and considering the implications as they did so. As

Flora Dennis notes, music too is intimately connected with the social aspects of dining.58 It

is not unreasonable therefore to suggest that the trenchers may have provided prompts for

song as well as recitation. Further research may provide more information on the

performative aspects of these objects.

The banqueting course as it developed from the fifteenth century was a piece of theatre in

every respect, from the carefully planned stage set of the banqueting house to the artifice of

the foodstuffs made not only to please the taste but to deceive the eye. To complete the

spectacle and engage all the senses of the participants in the drama a script was required

and this was supplied by the decorated trenchers, prompting each guest to begin the story-

telling and entertainment.

57 C. Richardson, Shakespeare and Material Culture (Oxford: Oxford, 2011), pp.164-165. 58 Dennis, ‘Scattered Knives’, p.177.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig.1 Roundels, or trenchers, 8 of an original set of 12, Museum Nos. SBYWM:1976.129, II, III, IV, V, VII, VVIII, X, XII, c.1600, wood with paint and gilding, unpainted on reverse, c.13.5cm diameter, c.3mm depth. Collection of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Photo: Penny Streeter. Courtesy of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

Fig 2 Roundels, or trenchers, c.1600, wood with paint and gilding, unpainted on reverse, c.13.5cm diameter, c.3mm depth. Collection of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Photo: Penny Streeter. Courtesy of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

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Fig. 3 Roundel, or trencher, Museum No. 129.1976.X. from set of 8. c.1600, wood with paint and gilding, unpainted on reverse, c.13.5cm diameter, c.3mm depth. Collection of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Photo: Penny Streeter. Courtesy of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Around the border: ‘ A good lyfe hathe the dayes nombered, But a good name endvreth ever’. In the centre: ‘He that geueth vnto the pore shall not lacke’.

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Fig. 4 Unknown artist, A Summer Banqueting House, Image from: Website of Epsom and Ewell History Explorer – Nonsuch Palace Gardens. http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/NonsuchPalaceGardens.html[accessed 23.3.2012]

Fig.5. Robert Lyminge, Design for a Banqueting House in the Garden of Blickling Hall, Norfolk, c.1620, drawing on paper. Image © National Trust: http://www.nationaltrustimages.org.uk [accessed 2.4.2012]

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Fig.6.

Jan Siberechts, A View of Longleat, showing Sir John Thynne’s rooftop‘banketting houses’, 1675, Oil on canvas, 111.8 cmx172.7 cm, Private collection. Image taken from Nicholson, Adam, The Gentry, (London: Harper 2011), p.71.

Fig.7. Wafering Iron and Wafer, 1481, Italian, cast iron, Victoria & Albert Museum. Image from: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102694/wafering-iron/ [accessed 2.3.2012].

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Fig.8. John Balechouse, The Conversion of Saul, (detail) c.1600-1601, painted cloth hanging, Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire. Image from: Wells-Cole, Anthony, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints, 1558-1625 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press), p.279.

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Fig.9. Trencher, late 16th century, wood, painted and gilded, Collection of Norwich Museum, Museum No: NWHCM : 1894.76.435.2 Image: Courtesy of Norwich Museum and Art Gallery.

Fig.10. Roundel, mid 16th century, oak and sycamore (?), painted, silvered and varnished, 12.5cm diameter. Image: website of Metropolitan Museum of New York, http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/120025861[accessed 3.3.2012].

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Fig.11. Trencher, 1550-1599, wood, painted and gilded, 13.8mm diameter. Collection of Norwich Museum, Museum No: NWHCM : 1894.76.434.4. Image: Courtesy of Norwich Museum and Art Gallery.

Fig.12. Embroidered Panel with Hardwick stag and monogram of Elizabeth Shrewsbury, 16th century, velvet, cloth of silver, silk and metal threads, 30x30cm. Image from: Santina M. Levey, An Elizabethan Inheritance: the Hardwick Hall Textiles (London: National Trust, 1999), p.65.

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Fig.13. Roundel, or trencher, Museum No. 129.1976.I. (detail) showing initial letters and guidelines for text, c.1600, wood with paint and gilding, unpainted on reverse, c.13.5cm diameter, c.3mm depth. Collection of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Photo: Penny Streeter. Courtesy of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

Fig.14. Roundel, from set of Pastimes through the Months, Museum No. SBYWM:1937.68, c.1600, wood with pasted and painted print, plain wood on reverse, c.13.5cm diameter. Collection of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Photo: Penny Streeter. Courtesy of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

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Fig.15. Roger Daniell, after Crispijn de Passe the Elder, The Twelve Months, January, 1620-1630, engraving on paper for pasting on trenchers, Height: 19.2xWidth: 13.5cm. Image from: website of British Museum : http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=1526484&partid=1&searchText=1870%2c0514.1157&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=2[accessed2.3.2012]

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Russell, John, ‘Ffor to Serve a Lord, VIII. Of the Removal of the Table’ in The Boke of Nurture [c.1460], reprinted in Meals and Manners in Olden Time, Ed by F. J. Furnivall, (London: Early English Text Society, 1808). Stead, Jennifer, ‘Bowers of Bliss: The Banquet Setting’, in C. A. Wilson, Ed, Banquetting Stuffe, The fare and social background of the Tudor and Stuart banquet (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986). Thron, E. Michael, ‘Jaques: Emblems and Morals’, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol.30, No.1 (Winter 1979), pp.84-89. Tymms, S., Wills and inventories from the registers of the commissary of Bury St.Edmunds, Commissary Court, Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, Sudbury, The Will of John Baret, 14 p.40, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SCUIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA40&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false[accessed 26.3.2012]. Victoria & Albert Museum Archive Ref. MA/1/M915, Museum Nos.W.30-M.1912. Wells-Cole, Anthony, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints, 1558-1625 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press), p.279. Whitney, Geoffrey, A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises [1586] Imprinted at Leyden, in the House of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, Early English Books Online[accessed 12.3.2012]. Wilson, C. Anne, Ed,‘Banquetting Stuffe’, The fare and social background of the Tudor and Stuart banquet (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986).

WEBSITES Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: for images of a set of 11 roundels bought from Edward Pinto: http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1965T2441.11 British Museum : http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=1526484&partid=1&searchText=1870%2c0514.1157&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=2[accessed2.3.2012] British Printed Images to 1700: http://bpt1700.org.uk/research/printOfTheMonth/may2008.html[accessed3.4.2012].

Early English Books Online: Whitney, Geoffrey, A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devise,s ID99855134 [accessed 12.3.2012]. Ebooks: http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/henry-estienne/the-art-of-making-devises[accessed 11.3.2012]. Epsom and Ewell History Explorer: Nonsuch Palace Gardens: http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/NonsuchPalaceGardens.html[accessed 23.3.2012].

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Google Books: Wills and inventories from the registers of the commissary of Bury St.Edmunds, Commissary Court, Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, Sudbury, The Will of John Baret, 14 p.40, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SCUIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA40&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false[accessed 26.3.2012]. Metropolitan Museum of New York, http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/120025861[accessed 3.3.2012]. National Trust:http://www.nationaltrustimages.org.uk [accessed 2.4.2012] Norwich Museum and Art Gallery: for images of the trenchers in the collection: http://www.culturalmodes.norfolk.gov.uk/projects/nmaspub5.asp?page=hitlist&mwsquery=(+%7BWhat%3F%7D+%3D+%7Bbanqueting+trencher%7D+)&filename=d%3A%5Cmuseums%5Cmodes%5Cp_deca2.mdf&submitButton=Show+hits[accessed 29.2.2012]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Image of wafering iron: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102694/wafering-iron/[accessed 2.3.2012]