[Sca-cooks] Tableware

[Terry Decker]

>I wonder if trenchers were specifically used for feasts.  When they
>served more people than usual and didn't have enough of the plates
>that would be normally used.  People didn't bring their own feast gear
>in period.

Actually the rich and powerful travelled with full baggage trains and often
their own cooks.  They would be served on their personal tableware and
linens by their own servants and room would be made in the kitchen for their
cooks.

Since the illustrations often show trenchers being presented to the highest
ranking nobles, they are certainly not being used to fill in where there
were not enough plates.  Also, the handbooks on serving and etiquette
provide very precise instructions on how trenchers were to be prepared and
presented.

>
>Using trenchers doesn't make that much sense for everyday meals.
>Its better to wash and reuse a plate, but makes a lot of sense for
>feeding a large number.
>
>Ranvaig

You need to keep in mind that dining in a great household was a ritual as
well as a meal.  It was a display of the wealth and power of the head of the
household and was meant to create a sense of community among the members of
the household.  Trenchers served to demonstrate wealth and piety.  Only a
wealthy and therefore powerful house could afford the expense of using bread
for plates, which were taken up between courses and given to the poor as
alms.

Originally trenchers were just small round loaves sliced in half, as shown
by an illustration in an early 12th Century copy of Gregory's Moralia, but
by the late 13th Century they were being squared and presented to the table
in an increasingly more elaborate ritual.

A comparison of accounts between the 13th and 16th Centuries show a decline
in the expenditures for bread, suggesting that trenchers moved from being
used at every meal to being used primarily for pomp and ceremony.  For
example, Dembinska comments that in mid-16th Century Poland it was common to
use bread trenchers on fast days.

Bear