Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/49

 and Sentiments. are helping themfelves with their hands. Forks were totally unknown to the Anglo-Saxons for the purpofe of carrying the food to the mouth, and it does not appear that every one at table was furniflied with a knife. In the cut. No. 19 (taken from MS. Harl. No. 603, fol. 12, r°.), a party at table are eating without forks or knives. It will be obferved here, as in the other piftures of this kind, that the Anglo-Saxon bread (Jdaf) is in No. 20. Anglo-Saxons at Table. the form of round cakes, much like the Roman loaves in the piftures at Pompeii, and not unlike our crofs-buns at Eafter, which are no doubt derived from our Saxon forefathers. Another party at dinner without knives or forks is reprefented in the cut No. 20, taken from the fame manufcript (fol. 51, v°.). The tables here are without table-cloths. The ufe of the fingers in eating explains to us why it was confidered neceffary to wafh the hands before and after the meal. The knife (cnif), as reprefented in the Saxon illuminations, has a peculiar form, quite different from that of the earlier knife found in the graves, but refembling rather clofely the form of the modern razor. Several of thefe Saxon knives have been found, and one of them, dug up in London, and now in the interefting mufeum collected by Mr. Roach Smith, is reprefented in the accompanying cut. No. 21.* The blade, ot rather singularly labelled "a Roman razor!" Mr. Roach Smith always suspected fleel
 * There is one of these knives in the Cambridge Museum, which has been there