Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/178

 158 Hijlory of Domejiic Manners her, becaufe the young lady had conceived an atFeftionate feeUng for the vifitor. So, again, in the flory of the provoft of Aquilee, the provoft's lady, receiving a viiitor fent by her hufband (who was abfent), placed him at table befide her, to eat with her, and the reft of the party were fimilarly feated, "two and two : " — La dame premiere pajfi ft, Son hojle le% lui feoir fijl , Car mengier •voloit a-vec lu': ; Li autre furent dui et dui. — Mdnn Fabliaux, ii. 192. In one of the ftories in the early Englifli Gefta Romanorum, an earl and his fon, who dine at the emperor's table, are feated together, and are ferved with one plate, a filh, between them. The praftice was, indeed, fo general, that the phrafe " to eat in the fame diih" {manger da?7s la vieme ecuelle), became proverbial for intimate friendfliip between two perfons. There was another pradice relating to the table which muft not be overlooked. It muft have been remarked that, in the illuminations of contemporary manufcripts which reprefent dinner fcenes, the guefts are rarely reprefented as eating on plates. In fad, only certain articles were ferved in plates. Loaves were made of a fecondary quality of flour, and thefe were firft pared, and then cut into thick flices, which were called, in French, tranchoirs, and, in Englifli, trenchers, becaufe they were to be carved upon. The portions of meat were ferved to the guefts on thefe tranchoirs, and they cut it upon them as they eat it. The gravy, of courfe, went into the bread, which the gueft fometimes, perhaps always at an earher period, eat after the meat, but in later times, and at the tables of the great, it appears to have been more frequently fent away to the alms-bafket, from which the leavings of the table were diftributed to the poor at the gate. All the bread ufed at table feems to have been pared, before it was cut, and the parings were thrown into the alms-dilh. Walter de Bibblefworth, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, among other diredions for the laying out of the table, fays, " Cut the bread which is pared, and let the parings be given to the alms" — Tayllet le payn ke cjl par/e, Lcs hijeaus a V amoyne joyt done. The