DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52059#0072
[ 7° ]
romances that if a gallery be full of pictures or hang-
ings, he will tell the stories of all of them that are
described.”1 2
7. Manners and Habits.
Dr. Furnivall has given, in his Babees' Book, numerous
and very interesting particulars concerning the manners,
especially at table, of the upper classes at the close of
the Middle Ages. In the old treatises on courtesy
printed in his volume are very many precepts which,
though they were probably useful and necessary when
the books were written, seem extremely superfluous and
ridiculous to our modern mind ; it is, therefore, sur-
prising to find so many of them in books written 200
or 300 years later.
In J. Gailhard’s book, The Compleat Gentleman
(1678 and 1684), we meet with the following odd
directions intended for young noblemen and gentle-
men1 who are going to France :—P. 67 : “ Forks
are a neat invention, therefore to be used to avoid
greasing hands, with laying them upon the meat
The young gentleman is requested “ to make clean
his spoon before he puts it in the dish, after he
hath taken it out of his mouth. Sometimes,” the
author says, “ I have seen gluttons, and a rude sort of
people, who, as soon as a dish is set down upon the
table, snap all they can out of it, as if they were afraid
to want and starve ; . . . . then leaning one or both
1 Quoted by Mr. Sidney L. Lee in a foot-note on page 69 to his
edition of Lord Herbert’s Autobiography.
2 The author says he had been tutor abroad to several of the
nobility and gentry.
romances that if a gallery be full of pictures or hang-
ings, he will tell the stories of all of them that are
described.”1 2
7. Manners and Habits.
Dr. Furnivall has given, in his Babees' Book, numerous
and very interesting particulars concerning the manners,
especially at table, of the upper classes at the close of
the Middle Ages. In the old treatises on courtesy
printed in his volume are very many precepts which,
though they were probably useful and necessary when
the books were written, seem extremely superfluous and
ridiculous to our modern mind ; it is, therefore, sur-
prising to find so many of them in books written 200
or 300 years later.
In J. Gailhard’s book, The Compleat Gentleman
(1678 and 1684), we meet with the following odd
directions intended for young noblemen and gentle-
men1 who are going to France :—P. 67 : “ Forks
are a neat invention, therefore to be used to avoid
greasing hands, with laying them upon the meat
The young gentleman is requested “ to make clean
his spoon before he puts it in the dish, after he
hath taken it out of his mouth. Sometimes,” the
author says, “ I have seen gluttons, and a rude sort of
people, who, as soon as a dish is set down upon the
table, snap all they can out of it, as if they were afraid
to want and starve ; . . . . then leaning one or both
1 Quoted by Mr. Sidney L. Lee in a foot-note on page 69 to his
edition of Lord Herbert’s Autobiography.
2 The author says he had been tutor abroad to several of the
nobility and gentry.