[Sca-cooks] handwashing at feasts

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

Cool!  I have a couple of questions regarding propriety in a public
(i.e. feast) situation.  The DeNola and Rhodes quotes seem to imply that
a noble is served by his own man, but it's not clear if that's only in
his own home or in all situations.  Since a visiting nobleman would
bring his own man to wait upon him, might it be appropriate for him to
do this rather than his host's servents?  Do you know anything about
Mead's sources for his quote?  I see you note in the bibliography that
he's not a very reliable resource.  Would a highly ranking noble trust
his host's servents to present him with something like washing water
(i.e. it could be poisoned)?  While I see lots of primary evidence for
handwashing on a small scale (i.e. family, family and a few visitors,)
do you know of any primary references for offering it as a service on a
larger scale?  Or are we considering our feasts to be "family and a few
visitors," with the "few" part taken liberally due to the size of our
society?

I could probably think of more questions, but I have to run for a
birthing class...  This is a good start :)

-Magdalena

jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:

>To take my mind off the event this weekend (someday I will be involved
>with running an event without the feeling that somewhere, just out of
>sight, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are giggling maniacally and
>planning how to spend the book advance...) I've given myself a deadline of
>the end of next week for the first revision of my  article on Scented
>Handwaters at Feasts.
>
>http://www.lehigh.edu/~jahb/herbs/handwater.html
>
>So I'm putting it out for comments on this list. Criticism and comments
>are welcome.
>
>Among other things, I know I should probably include our experiences at EK
>12th night, and my notes that the courtesy books seem to emphasize
>handwashing AFTER the meal more than BEFORE the meal. Also, I can find no
>primary evidence for group handwashing stations... yet.
>
>-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
>jenne at fiedlerfamily.net OR jenne at tulgey.browser.net OR jahb at lehigh.edu
>"Are you finished? If you're finished, you'll have to put down the spoon."
>