Renaissance table manners were crude, to say the least. Dining etiquette included no spitting across the table, or picking ones teeth.

By today’s standards, Renaissance table manners were somewhat…lacking, to say the least. As in Medieval times, diners shared communal dishes, digging in (literally) with their hands. There were no serving utensils, and no silverware. What we think of as “fine manners” (eating with a fork, no burping at the table) did not become fashionable until the 1600s. Those who did exert some type of dining etiquette could expect to be labeled a pretentious snob.

Early Renaissance Table Manners

Through the 1400s, food was served in a long trencher. Wealthy households would have some type of metal trencher, perhaps silver or pewter. Middle class homes would have a metal or wooden trencher. The very poor may have substituted a hollowed out loaf of bread in place of wooden trencher. People would eat from these trenchers, scooping out food with their fingers, and using bits of bread to sop up juices and broth.

However, the Renaissance was not entirely without table manners. There were a few rules of etiquette that were expected of diners, dating back to medieval times including:

• No spitting across the table.
• No dipping meat directly into the salt dish.
• No picking ones teeth with a finger or knife.

Later Renaissance Table Manners

It was not until the mid 1500s that individual plates and forks were introduced to diners. Henceforth, the common trencher, a staple at European tables for nearly a thousand years, slowly disappeared (though it was probably for the better). People still ate in their kitchens, if they were a peasant or merchant. The wealthy took their meals in the main hall of their estates. Dining rooms would not become popular until the 1700s.

Renaissance Dining Schedule

Despite popular myth, during the Middle Ages it was common for most people to eat three or four (sometimes five) meals a day. Breakfast would be served around nine in the morning, followed by dinner (what we think of as lunch) at either noon or one o’clock in the afternoon, and finally supper at nightfall. During that late 1500s, the very wealthy began eating their supper much later, in order to accommodate nightly entertainment. By the 1800s, almost all the social elite of Western Europe were eating dinner at 11 o’clock at night, following an evening at the theatre!

During this same time, service ala Francaise –The French Style of Dining- became fashionable. (What aspect of the French doesn’t become fashionable at one time or another?) This new dining concept included the idea of specific courses. A typical Renaissance dining schedule would go as follows:

• First Course- Soup and appetizers, usually doused in some tangy sauce modern day gourmets would find absolutely repulsive.
• Second Course- Roasted meat- a large bird decked out in its original feathers- accompanied by salads and other side dishes.
• Third Course- Fruit- It isn’t called dessert until later on, as that term was deemed vulgar (but apparently putting a dead peacock or swan on display during dinner wasn’t).

Suggested Reading

• Life During the Renaissance
• Popular Renaissance Foods.

Sources

Hart, Avery and Paul Mantell. Knights and Castles. Charlotte, VT: Williamson Publishing, 1998.

Sider, Sandra. Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe. New York: Facts on File, 2004.

Sonnefeld, Albert. Food: A Culinary History. New York: Columbia University, 1999.