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Medieval Table Manners: The Messiest Myth?
- pbjtime 3y agoThe author implies that because there are presently certain social customs that it is logical to presume that these customs are inherent to the human condition. It is not logical to presume so.
- sethammons 3y agoI had not heard of taking small enough bites that you can always respond to a conversation; that seems such a small amount that I must be the ape they abstain from being.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gostsamo 3y agoWell, if your liege ask you something, you should be able to reply immediately. It would be impolite to make them wait for you to end chewing. I remember in some of the musketeer books described how Portos had cut a big part of a boar while dining with the king and when the king asked him something, he had to swallow the entire piece.
- JoelMcCracken 3y agoHuh, curious, I don't remember them ever dining with the king in the musketeer books.
- gostsamo 3y agoDon't have the text handy, but Wikipedia agrees with my memory: > His eating abilities even impress King Louis XIV during a banquet at Fontainebleau. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porthos
- eru 3y agoDid you mean to write 'liege'?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gostsamo 3y agoYep, sorry. Edited now.
- eru 3y agoNo worries, I just wanted to see whether you wanted to take a subtle swing at medieval power structures.
- gostsamo 3y agoI have a subtle issue with homophones. :)
- eru 3y agoI blame English orthography for these troubles. English orthography also leads to endless stigmatisation of people who mix up the spellings of "their", "there" and "they're" or "you're" and "your" as if they were idiots or can't "think properly". Instead of the reality that they just don't display the class marker of having been drilled in this idiotic aspect of the writing system.
- wongarsu 3y agoI guess that depends on the standards. I can talk with about half my mouth full, but doing so would be considered impolite by today's standards. At about a quarter mouth full I can push it into my cheeks to talk mostly unimpeded.
- bombcar 3y agoChipmonking is an important skill.
- foobarian 3y agoI was a bit surprised that a twelfth century source would refer to apes. Possibly the word meant something else first and was later used for big nonhuman primates?
- r13a 3y agoMedieval europeans were in direct contact with Barbary macaques. On top of African animals that were exchanged through Mediterranean sea since the Romans, Iberian populations, Christians, Muslim and Jewish had direct contact with macaques introduced by Maures.
- UncleSlacky 3y agoFrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology : "Ape", from Old English apa, is a word of uncertain origin. The term has a history of rather imprecise usage—and of comedic or punning usage in the vernacular. Its earliest meaning was generally of any non-human anthropoid primate, as is still the case for its cognates in other Germanic languages.
- inglor_cz 3y agoCzech "opice" seems to have a common root with "ape". The older version thereof was "op", even closer to "ape". So the origin might actually be Indo-European.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoYou don't need to look back to Proto-Indo-European for a word like this. Like many other words in Slavic, this Czech word is more likely a borrowing from Germanic prior to the merger of short *a and *o to /o/ in Common Slavonic. Indeed, I just checked and it is listed on p. 200 of Pronk-Tiethoff’s The Germanic Loanwords in Proto-Slavic, the modern standard reference for these matters.
- KineticLensman 3y ago> I was a bit surprised that a twelfth century source would refer to apes. The Roman empire extended into North Africa and they would absolutely have been aware of the wildlife. Hannibal actually launched an attack on the Romans that involved bringing war elephants across the Alps [0]. Subsequent readers of Roman authors would have known about the animals the Romans knew about, e.g. [1], which in turn made their way into medieval bestiaries (along with unicorns and a few others). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal%27s_crossing_of_the_Alps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal%27s_crossing_of_the_A... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiologus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiologus
- The_Colonel 3y agoIt says "A diner should not take so large a bite that he is completely unable to speak, if he were addressed." which seems very reasonable. I can speak while having a normal sized bite in mouth, although it's of course less than ideal and not polite these days. But sometimes useful for shorter utterances.
- ricardobeat 3y agoIsn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? If doctors weren’t washing theirs at the time, I have a hard time believing peasants would be doing so in the 1200s.
- sorokod 3y agoThey might be doing so as to not soil their clothes.
- _ea1k 3y agoHandwashing has a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text=The%20Talmud%20used%20the%20requirement,asmachta%20(a%20Biblical%20hint%2C%20rather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text...
- wongarsu 3y agoIt isn't unheard of. Jesus refused to wash his hands before eating in Mark 7:1-6, and some people were not happy about that: The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered to Him after they came from Jerusalem, and saw that some of His disciples were eating their bread with unholy hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the other Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thereby holding firmly to the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they completely cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received as traditions to firmly hold, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and copper pots.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
- caminante 3y agoIn summary, Jesus got called out for not washing, and then switched to an ad hominem instead of acknowledging? edit: See gjsman-1000's comment below for the missing context. It wasn't a shaming for lack of functional sanitation.
- beebeepka 3y agoDoes medieval refer to one or two countries?
- iamthemonster 3y agoIn the English-speaking world, "mediaeval" often ends up being a shorthand for "mediaeval English" in practice. The books references in this article are English. The vast majority of the world's population was not in Western Europe in mediaeval times but Indian and Chinese history of this period for example is rarely taught or discussed in such a mainstream way.
- spapas82 3y agoAn old greek proverb says "chicken and woman need a hand" (to eat the chicken and to pleasure the woman)
- geewee 3y agoCan you cite a source for that? Googling it only comes up with this particular comment.
- SapporoChris 3y agoI translated it to Greek and then searched. Not a great source, but a source. https://www.lexilogia.gr/threads/t%CE%BF-%CF%88%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B9-%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%84%CF%8C%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9-%CE%B7-%CE%B3%CF%85%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%AF%CE%BA%CE%B1-%CE%B8%CE%AD%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BD-%CF%87%CE%AD%CF%81%CE%B9.9991/ https://www.lexilogia.gr/threads/t%CE%BF-%CF%88%CE%AC%CF%81%... "The saying goes «το ψάρι, το κοτόπουλο και η γυναίκα θέλουν χέρι», i.e. "you should use your hand for fish, chicken and women". It is usually used as a joke, in a familiar environment, in order to urge someone, usually a man, who is reluctant to use their hands to eat fish or chicken, and stick to using their knife and fork, because they are embarrassed to eat with their hands. An attempt at a definition: "you can't eat fish and chicken unless you grab them with your hand, and you should also use your hands on (your) woman". It is a play with the phrase "βάζω χέρι", which means to grope, to feel up. Not very politically correct, I know :)"
- geewee 3y agoThanks!
- spapas82 3y agoHere's another source: https://www.paroimies.gr/paroimies.php?pid=3992 https://www.paroimies.gr/paroimies.php?pid=3992 (paromies/παροιμίες = proverbs) An older person told me that a lot of years ago when I was a child and was trying to eat a chicken thigh with fork and knife. Only understood the chicken part back then...
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- ycombinete 3y agoThis article felt like a strange place to see the idiom “on the regular”.