FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
TABLE CLOTH
Excerpted from Montagne, Prosper. 1961. Larousee Gastronomique. The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York.
is a piece of linen used to cover the table for meals. The table cloth has a long history and goes back to the early Middle Ages.
Up to the fifteenth century the table cloth was very wide and was folded in two so that it could be turned over. It was then known as the 'double cloth'. From this period, fashion decreed that table cloths should be of single wideth. They were often damascened or embroidered.
The table cloth played an important role in feudal ceremonial. It was perfectly acceptable for persons of different rank to dine at the same table, and it was usual for the master to take his meals with his servantsw, but the host's place alone had the distinction of being covered with a cloth, which set him apart from the others present at the table. If the table was entirely covered with a cloth then the master's place was singled out from the rest in being covered with a special napkin.
It was not permitted to take food or drink from the cloth set before a person of superior rank, except by formal invitation.
When a nobleman received one of his vassals or a nobleman of somewhat inferior rank, while permitting him to eat off the same cloth, he would be careful to to preserve the social distinctions by having a small napkin set under his trencher.
One of the greatest affronts which could be levelled at a knight was to cut the table cloth to his right and to his left, to indicate that, having offended against the laws of chivalry, he was no longer accepted in the company of his peers.
Until the end of the fourtheenth century, when the individual napkin had not yet come into use, the table cloth was covered with a 'runner', a very long narrow strip of linen laid along the edge of the cloth, which was used by the guests to wipe their fingers and mouths.
It was in the sixteenth century that table linen came into general use. At court, as in the homes of great noblemen, in bourgeois establishments, as in every hostelry, the tables were covered with cloths and each diner had his own napkin.
When Francis I, after his captivity in Spain, came to his good city of Bordeaux, Moreau de Villefranche tells us: 'Meats of all kinds in great abundance were served at tables covered with table cloths and napkins.'
At this period, luxury was carried so far that napkins were changed several times during a meal. The author of L'Isle des Hermaphrodites, a pamphlet directed against the court of henry III, wrote: 'Afterwards, they brought him another napkin on a plate, for these were changed after each course, and even more often, as soon as a spot was noticed by anyone,' Since it must be admiteed that at that period even persons of the greatest refinement (among them the minions of the King) ate somewhat uncleanly, it would seem that this lavish supply of napkins was not altogether pointless.
Even among the middle classes, this custom of changing napkins frequently during meals persisted for a long time. Montaigne noted and deplored the fact: 'I regret that a habit which I first saw practised by kings, should now have become widespread, so that our napkins are changed after each course like our plates.'
In the sixteenth century, the napkin which, in the fifteenth century, was merely placed on the shoulder or left arm, was tied round the neck to protect the fine muslin collars worn at that period. As the operation of knotting the two ends of the napkin was not an easy one for the diner to undertake himself, it was necessary to seek assistance from a fellow-guest, from which sprang the expression 'making both ends meet.'
It was at this period that table napkins began to be folded in different ways. This custom, however, was soon abandoned, but was to be adopted once more ab out three hudnred years later, for, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was popular for a time. in the sixteenth century, it was fashionable to fold napkins 'in the shape of divers fruits and birds.' It was also customary to perfume napkins and table cloths with rose water and other essences.
At this period table cloths were also treated in various ways to make them more decorative. They were goffered in different patterns and pleated like the ruffs worn round the neck. The author of L'Isle des Hermaphrodites tells us, in this connection, that a table cloth 'was pleated in such a way that it clsoely resembled some undulating river ruffled gently by a light breeze.'
Table linen which, in earlier centuries, was enriched with embroidery, often of gold or silver thread, completely changed its appearance in the sixteenth century. Its main decorative feature was that it was woven (by craftsmen known as telleirs and tisserands) in such a way as to incorporate designs in the weave of the fabric itself.
It was at this period that damascene cloths and napkins began to be woven in France at Rheims and in Normandy, especially in the Caen area. These were as beautiful as those which had been made hitherto in Flanders and Venience.
It was a man called Graindorge who, it is said, had the idea of weaving chequered patterns and flowers into table linen. His son Richard made damascene cloth with human figures, animals and other designs. Finally, Michel, Richard's son, founded several factories for the production of damask table linen, so that its use spread throughout the kingdom.
