[Sca-cooks] Knives - sharp side in?

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

I was getting ready for a class tonight at Viking, and the Class Manager had
set the table.  The Culinary School Manager came in and asked him if he had
taken Dining Room in culinary school yet, and proceeded to correct his table
setting.  In the process, I heard "in the middle ages they put it that way
to assure the other person you wouldn't stab them".  "What?" says I.  He
repeated: "the practice of placing the edge of the knife facing in towards
the plate dates from the Middle Ages, and it was meant to reassure your
dining partner that you were not going to slice or stab them".  He said he
was taught this in Culinary History at Johnson and Wales.  I said that I had
never run across that particular one in all of the dining etiquette books I
had read from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.  I thought I would run it by
here - anyone heard of this one?
I suspect this is more from Escoffier or Careme's time periods, and the term
"middle ages" is just being used to denote "in the olden times".
Christianna