four coverpanes decorated with a rebus, ‘of Damaske worke with hyndes edged w^ bone lace of golde’ .^2
Later in the century, Alderman Henry Milles had eight ‘coverpaynes of damaske with perelles [pearls]’ whilst Sir Thomas Offley had five ‘edged with gold and silver tassled’. Sir Thomas Ramsey, who like Offley had served as Lord Mayor, had twelve coverpanes of ‘damaske with knobs’. T h e numbers of ensuite coverpanes owned by these merchants were in striking contrast to the nobility who rarely had more than two or three matching coverpanes. This suggests that the merchants covered all the place settings with
coverpanes, unlike the nobility who emphasised differences in status by covering only those of the one or two principal diners.
At the end of the sixteenth century coverpanes began to fall out of use. Significantly, the Montague household book of 1595 does not mention coverpanes but instructs that after ‘the yeoman of my pantrye hath placed the saltes, and layde myne, and my wiles trenchers, manchettes [bread rolls], knyves and spoones’, the yeoman of the ewery should ‘coverre them with napkins’.^
d) Napkins
Inventories from the early fifteenth century often included just tablecloths and towels, but by 1450 napkins were regularly listed.^^ These could be owned in considerable
numbers: for example, the London draper, Thomas Gylbert had eight dozen diaper napkins, in addition to five diaper tablecloths, four long and one short diaper towel.^^ It is likely that the napkins were placed either upon the arm or the shoulder, rather than in the lap, a practice commended by Erasmus in his De civilitate monim pueiilium [On civility in boys] of 1530,
If a serviette is given, lay it on your left shoulder or arm . . . If you are offered something liquid taste it and return the spoon, but first wipe it on your serviette. To lick greasy fingers or to wipe them on your coat is impolite. It is better to use the tablecloth or the serviette.
When dining privately the king and the nobility may have ‘worn’ their napkins in this way, although this was not the practice when dining publicly. At the English Court in the early
4 2 M achyn (1846)*, 67. 1554 HYNDE. Other London merchants with fine coverpanes include 1533 PLYMLEY, 1536 STODLEY, 1554 WARREN.
4 3 1 5 7 4 MILLES, 1 5 8 2 OFFLEY, 159 0 RAMSEY.
44 Hope (1919), 130. ‘A Breviate ... of 1605’ still calls for ‘a fynne square clouth o f cambricke, called a coverpaine’. Banks (1800)*, 333, but none were included in the comprehensive parcel of napeiy transferred to Cranbome from Hatfield, by the Earl of Salisbury in 1609, Hatfield House, Box B/97. 4 5 In 1415, two Londoners Le Scrope and Gurmyn have just tablecloths and towels, Arcbaeologiay70
(1920). Sometimes a towel was draped across several laps as in Dieric Bouts’ Last Supper, painted 1465-8, see Baudouin (1957), 44-55, and Comblen-Sonkes (1996).
1484 GYLBERT.
seated at table with the cloth lifted by servants at either end and placed in his lap.^8 During dinner, a napkin was only given to the king when requested and returned after use, in the same way that his cup was filled and brought from the cupboard and returned there after he had drunk. The gentleman servant who waited on him had two napkins, one upon his arm for the king and another for his own use upon his shoulder."^^
The wearing of a napkin over the shoulder could directly affect its design. In 1528, a commission of damask table linen for the Order of the Golden Fleece was placed on behalf of the Emperor Charles V. It was to consist of three tablecloths and three dozen serviettes.
The designs were specified in considerable detail. The serviettesvfeie to be 2 ells (1.4 m ) long and 4 V2 quarters of an ell (78 cm) broad, with the Imperial arms encircled by the
Toison d"Orwoven at each end, but countercharged so that they appeared the right way up
when worn over the shoulder, *qui sont Tune contre Vautre afin que quand Ion serviroit à table les armes fussent toujours droites devant et derrière \
In the quotation at the beginning of this chapter, Olivier de La Marche, Maitre d*Hotel to Charles the Bold, reigning Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477, gives similar
instructions for placing the serviette over the left shoulder. Subsequently after setting the Duke’s place, the panetierwas told to *puis met sa serviette pendre à la neV. La Marche then describes the arrangements for washing hands and drying them on a serviette. These instructions highlight differences with England for it is clear that the serviettem Burgundy was multi-purposed, serving as napkin, coverpane and short towel (111. 3.4).^^
Napkins continued to be worn by men either on the shoulder or arm throughout the sixteenth century in England as illustrtated in the memorial portrait of Sir Henry Unton in the National Portrait Gallery, painted about 1596 (111. 3.5). By this time, however, there were gender differences for the ladies have them folded across their laps.
Napkins were made from damask, diaper and plain cloth. Generally they were 4 quarters or 1 Flemish ell in width, but are found in 3 quarters and very occasionally 4 V2 quarters of an ell, the width specified in the commission for the Order of the Golden Fleece. These multi-purposed serviettes^exe 2 ells long (1.4 m), much longer than English napkins which were generally about 1V2 ells ( 1.05 m). Even the very fine napkins woven with the Tudor arms which correspond to the entry in Henry VII’s inventory of 1547, ‘with the King his graces Armes crowned, with a garter’, are only a little longer (1.15m) (see 111. 9.16).52
4 8 BL Sloane 1494, 1519 Garter Feast, 63.
49 BL Sloane 1494, ‘Dyning abroad in State’, c.1500, 1 Iv. 5 0 Quoted in Calberg (1933), 12.
51 La Marche (1837)*, 585. 52 E315/160, 94v.
It appears from the inventory record that few banquet napkins were woven, although in 1561, Mary, Queen of Scots owned ‘six serviettis forbanquettis’.^^ Nevertheless, there are a few surviving examples such as those with a stock pattern of Queen Elizabeth that probably belonged to Sir Thomas Gresham (similar to 111. 9.2 0) They are much bigger than ordinary napkins being 1V2 ells broad (1.05 m) by 2 ells long (1.40 m). This was the size of the twenty-eight banquet napkins in the parcel of damask which also included eighteen dozen ordinary napkins, given by the States General in 1606 to Henry, Prince of Wales. 55 Examples of both types of napkins survive as well as similar napkins given to Henri IV (Ills 3.6 & 3.7).
Apart from the large temporary structures erected for major state occasions, banqueting houses were of modest size with limited room for both servants and cupboards, and were sometimes equipped with fixed furniture (111. 3.8). In contrast to practice in the dining chamber, perhaps the large banquet napkins were placed in the lap as protection against the sticky delights of ‘banquetting stuffe’ : preserved fruits, march-panes, and wet suckets. The banquet which provided an opportunity for conversation singularly lacking during the first two courses of dining-in-state was also an occasion to use the finest and most
fashionable plate, glass, majolica, and hardstone vessels and dishes. Much of this was to hand on the table, in contrast to the dining chamber where apart from the salt, the most magnificent plate was displayed on the cupboard. In such circumstances, it was appropriate that special napkins of the finest damask were woven.
é) Cupboard cloths
In England, throughout the Tudor period and beyond, cups and later drinking
glasses, were not placed upon the dining table but on a separate ‘bord’ or cupboard. When drink was required the cupbearer or another servant fetched it from the cupboard. After the diner was satisfied, the cup was returned to the servant who rinsed it and replaced it on the cupboard. William Harrison in The Description o f England traced this custom to the Ancient Greeks and explained that,
By this device . . . much idle tippling is furthermore cut off, for if the full pots should continually stand at the elbow or near the trencher, divers would always be dealing with them, whereas now they drink seldom, and only when necessity urgeth, and so avoid the note of great drinking . . .
5 3 Collection o f Inventories (1815)*, 150. 54 Mitchell (1997A), 55.
Interestingly, he then adds that this procedure is neither used at the lesser tables in great houses nor ‘in any man’s home commonly under the degree of a knight or esquire of great revenues
Inventories list a great number of cupboards among the furniture of halls, great chambers and dining parlours. They are of considerable variety, ranging from simple tables to cupboards in the modem sense of the word. Although their dimensions are rarely given, they clearly varied in size and splendour. During meals, these cupboards were covered with linen cloths. The napery holdings of the nobility, wealthy gentry and leading
merchants included cupboard cloths of damask and diaper, as well as of plain linen, which was sometimes decorated with embroidery and edged with lace or silk fringes. Dimensions of these cloths are given rarely, making it difficult to link the cloths to particular cupboards, in order to track changes in practice. Despite this, with the help of pictorial sources, an outline can be drawn of the trends in the design and use of cupboards.
A feature of fifteenth century miniatures showing great noblemen such as the Due de Berry at table is a cupboard with two or three tiers covered by a diaper cloth, on which are displayed magnificent silver gilt vessels (111. 3.9). The first tier, the working area of the cupboard, is noticeably wider than the tiers behind, which carry single lines of plate. Because of the cloth, the constmction of the cupboard cannot be seen. Perhaps in such cases the rear tiers were separate and simply placed upon a livery cupboard or table as illustrated, at a later date, in Li Tre Trattatipublished in 1639 (111. 3.10).
On great occasions, several cupboards of plate were provided, some of which were purely for display. Cardinal Wolsey’s Gentleman Usher, George Cavendish recorded that at the entertainment of the French Ambassadors at Hampton Court,
There was a cupboard made for the time, in length of the breadth of the nether end of the same chamber of six desks high, full of gilt plate, very sumptuous and of the most newest fashions .. . This cupboard was barred in round about that no man might come nigh it; for there was none of the same plate occupied or stirred during this feast, for there was sufficient besides.
This cupboard was purpose-built for the event but similar cupboards were a permanent feature in some chambers. In the painting by Bosch of The Marriage at Cana, there is a panelled four-tiered cupboard and in the Residenz at Munich a five-tiered example survives (Ills 3.3 & 3.11). In the ‘great dyning chamber’ at the Vyne, Lord Sandys had ‘a cubbord
56 Harrison (1587)*, 127-8.
5 7 Sylvester & Harding (1962)*, 72. There is a watercolour of another splendid cupboard which was built for a feast given for Phillip II of Spain, at the Castle of Binche, in 1549 - see Boogert & Kerkhoff(1993), No. 214.
of boardes with a deyse’ [dais]. He also owned two damask cupboard cloths, that ‘of small flowers’ being four yards long by two yards wide.^* This would cover a cupboard similar to that in the Bosch painting, some six feet wide and with four tiers.^^
The cupboard in Wolsey’s privy chamber was apparently smaller, for his four diaper cupboard cloths of ‘crosse diamonds’ were four feet eight inches wide and nine feet
long.60 The royal household issued Henry Fitzroy with six diaper cupboard cloths ‘for the Chamber’ in 1525 which were of the same length.6i Depending upon the height of the cupboard and the pattern of its steps, these cloths would cover three or four tiers. Multi tiered cupboards were not confined to the nobility, for in 1533 Robert Amadas, the royal goldsmith and Alexander Plymley, a leading merchant adventurer both had cupboard cloths of five or more yards in length.62 From the middle of the century, although a few
cupboard cloths of more than three yards in length are found, the majority are two or two- and-a-half yards. These may have been used with cupboards of the type shown on the right in the drawing of Henry VIII dining in his privy chamber (111. 3.2). Although the date of this drawing has been a matter of some debate, Simon Thurley has suggested that ‘the scene shown may be representative of the King’s dining habits in the 1540s’.63 The high cupboard of just two tiers is surmounted by an elaborate architectural canopy and is covered by a cloth which appears to be about two yards long.
In Germany early in the sixteenth century, it seems that a serving table near the dining table was used as well as cupboards against the walls (111. 3.12). This was the practice in England at the end of the century and there are a few indications that it occurred earlier. For example, at Leeds Castle in 1532, the furniture in Sir Henry Guildford’s parlour included,
ij syngle cobardes of waynscot joyned
j grete table of waynescot cont. iiij yerdes long good a square table with a foote of waynskot Joyned
a grete rounde table of walnot tree joyned with a large foote of the same carved with antique workes good with a chest in it.
It is likely that Sir Henry used this parlour for formal dining and the ‘Dynyng Chamber’ for more private occasions. The twelve-foot rectangular table in the parlour was described as
‘grete’, or wide. Among the napery were three damask and five diaper tablecloths, all
5 8 1541 SANDYS.
59 If used simply for display, handsome cupboards would not necesarily be covered with a cloth. This is presumably the case in the Bosch pmnting. However, if these were to be used for dispensing wine, a cloth would have had to be used. The three damask cupboard cloths in Heniy YIII’s inventory of 1547, which had probably belonged to the Duke of Buckingham, were also some four yards long by two yards wide.
6 0 1516 WOLSEY, 77.