Banquets: Table Furniture
Chris Meads, Banquets Set Forth: Banqueting in English Renaissance Drama. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press , 2001.“Lighter trestle tables” likely to have been used on stage. p. 44.
“The hauling of a table complete with properties must have seemed believable in line with the decorum of the age.” (p. 46)
“It would not have be at odds with contemporary domestic practice to have servants or sewers preceding the principals in order to lay out the banquet course inwaht could be taken to be a withdrawing room or designated banqueting space. As far as seating was concerned, it is not inconceivable to have characters carry in their own joint stool upon which to sit.” (p. 46)
Not all the scenes necessarily done the same way. Nonetheless, “A set of common properties and procedures does emerge from the surviving evidence, and ritual aspects of theatre, including visual or spatial quotation, are surely part of its power.” (p. 46)
A table
“furniture for the table” (p. 47), including:
the dish, “either as a trencher (an open dish) or a more elaborate covered dish. The trencher derived its name from the French word trancher meaning to slice … It was originally a slice of bread placed in front of each diner to act as a platter. ... They came to be small wood platters, sometimes with elaborately decorated faces, still placed before each diner. (47)
dishes could be specificed as covered dishes (48)
bottles or pottles, flagon (50)
for drinking: bowls, dishes or cups (50)
Summary list of table furniture, p. 53
Including a table cloth; also, “napkins which diners traditionally draped across the shoulder ready to wipe their fingers or lips.” p. 53. A table cloth would increase “the visual appeal of the table, by providing a background and highlighting the objects upon the table.” (p. 54) Cloth drapes could also turn the table into a discovery space (in The Tempest for example). p. 54.
“fetch the cleane diaper napkins from my chest” p. 53
From A Woman Killed with Kindness: “Enter 3 or 4 Servingmen, one with a voider and wood knife to take away all, aother the salt and bread, another the tablecloth and napkins, another the carpet. Jenkin with two lights after them.” p. 53
voider = scraps bowl (p. 54)
wood knife = broad wooden spatula, used to remove bits of uneaten food. (p. 55)
Role of the salt in the hierarchy of the table. “The appropriate places for the important and less important guests fell ‘above’ and ‘below’ the salt, such that it became axiomatic in English social practice.” The salt cellar was decorated and elaborate. “The presence of the salt at large, seated banquets concerned with social degree cannot be dismissed” even when the salt is not mentioned. Macbeth. p. 55.
LIGHTS: “either tapers upon the table or torches placed on the pillars or rear wall of the stage, could indicate the timing of that particular scene as the evening or the night,” even in outdoor performances or daylight performances. p. 56. Sometimes tapers are specified. p. 56. “Tapers in some form of holder must have been part of the table furniture for certain banquet scenes.” (56)
Summary, 56.
Lack of cutlery = people brought their personal knives, and ate with their fingers. 56.
For table service, he cites 1568 Book of Nurture.
Mead does not seem to count Romeo and Juliet or Shrew as banquet scenes.
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