[Sca-cooks] Runners/longieres instead of napkins?

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

OK, so here's an actual picture:
http://www.wga.hu/art/b/bouts/dirk_e/lastsupp/0altar1.jpg
   
Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament  (1464-68)
St Pieterskerk,  Leuven  
http://www.wga.hu/tours/flemish/bouts/
The image in the middle is of the Last Supper and the diners in the  
foreground are clearly using this. I imagine the fact that the diners at the  side 
aren't is simply an artistic choice.
 
 
This is one of two references from Snodgrass' Encyclopedia of Kitchen  
History:
http://books.google.com/books?id=D7IhN7lempUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Snodgra
ss-Kitchen+History&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6AHPUZXxC-X5iwLJ_IDwAQ&ved=0CDEQuwUwAA#v=on
epage&q&f=false

The  other is to the 10th century Codex Egberti. Presumably that image 
would be of  the Last Supper, but the only ones I can find from that text show 
nothing like  that.
 
https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Egberti%20last%20supper&um=1&ie=UTF-
8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=1gXPUbj8JqTtigKm4IGgBQ&biw=1280&bi
h=899&sei=YAbPUef4Eam4igKg_YHoAg#imgdii=_
 
And in fact most images of the Last Supper do not show this, leaving me to  
wonder if this is one of those cases of a food historian taking an 
exceptional  reference and drawing too broad a conclusion from it.
 
Snodgrass more specifically says that the hands were wiped on the doublier, 
 but this only refers to a folded over tablecloth and again I had yet to 
find a  reference to anyone specifically using this to wipe their hands.
 
 
Jim  Chevallier

Comparing early and late medieval food in France
_http://www.chezjim.com/food/pre-v/comparisons.html   

 
In a message dated 6/28/2013 9:36:27 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
agora158 at gmail.com writes:

>>  "The main cloth was, in French, the nappe, and the sanitary cloth was  
>> properly the longiere or  'runner';"


_ (http://www.chezjim.com/food/pre-v/comparisons.html)