ORNAMENTAL FRUIT TRENCHERS.
The usages of social life amongst our ancestors present us with several interesting instances of their ingenuity in keeping before them the rule of life by monitory inscriptions, or texts, placed over doorways, upon walls, and upon articles in daily domestic use, thus making it "plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it." We find this good advice upon the curiously-ornamented Fruit-trenchers in fashion during the sixteenth century. The only set of tablets, or trenchers, of this description, rectangular in form, hitherto noticed, are in the possession of Mrs. Bird, of Upton-cum-Severn. They are twelve in number, formed of thin leaves of light-coloured wood, possibly lime-tree, measuring about 5¾ inches by 4½ inches, and inclosed in a wooden case, formed like a book, with clasps, the sides decorated like bookbinding.
On removing a sliding-piece, the upper tablets may be taken out. They are curiously painted and gilt; every one presenting a different design, and inscribed with verses from Holy Writ, conveying some moral admonition. Each tablet relates to a distinct subject. These legends are inclosed in compartments, surrounded by various kinds of foliage, and the old-fashioned flowers of an English garden—the campion, honeysuckle, and gillyflower—each tablet being ornamented with a different flower. One trencher bears the oak-leaf and acorns, and the texts inscribed upon it relate to the uncertainty of human life. Upon the others are found admonitions against covetousness, hatred, malice, gluttony, profane swearing, and evil speaking; with texts in which the virtues of benevolence, patience, chastity, forgiveness of injuries, and so forth, are inculcated.
The following are the texts in the centre, relating to inebriety, the spelling modernized:—"Woe be unto you that rise up early to give yourselves to drunkenness, and all your minds go on drinking, that ye sit swearing thereat until it be night. The harp, the lute, the tabour, the thalme, and plenty of wine are at your feasts, but the Word of the Lord do ye not behold, neither consider ye the work of His hands." In the four compartments of the margin: "Take heed that your heart be not overwhelmed with feasting and drunkenness." "Through gluttony many perish." "Through feasting many have died, but he that eateth measurably prolongeth life." "Be no wine-bibber." The sides thus ornamented, were coated with a hard transparent varnish; the reverse, which probably was the side upon which the fruit or comfits were laid, is smooth and clear, without varnish or colour. These curious fruit-trenchers were found amongst a variety of old articles at Elmley Castle, Worcestershire, about forty years since. They were exhibited during the Meeting of the Archæological Institute at Winchester, in 1845, and brought to light other sets of fruit-trenchers. One of these, belonging to Jervoise Clarke Jervoise, Esq., of Idsworth Park, Hants, consisted of ten trenchers, in the form of roundels, ornamented like those just described, and inclosed in a box, which bears upon its cover the royal arms, France and England quarterly, surmounted by the Imperial crown. The supporters are the lion and the dragon, indicating that these roundels are of the time of Queen Elizabeth. On each are inscribed a rhyming stanza and Scripture texts. Thus, under the symbol of a skull, is (modernized)—
"Content thyself with thine estate,
And send no poor wight from thy gate;
For why this counsel I ye give,
To learn to die, and die to live."
These roundels have been described as trenchers for cheese or sweetmeats. Some antiquaries, however, consider them as intended to be used in some social game, like modern conversation-cards: their proper use appears to be sufficiently proved by the chapter on "Posies" in the Art of English Poesie, published in 1589, which contains the following:—"There be also another like epigrams that were sent usually for New Yeare's gifts, or to be printed or put upon banketting dishes of sugar-plate, or of March-paines, &c.; they were called Nenia or Apophoreta, and never contained above one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better. We call them poesies, and do paint them now-a-days upon the back sides of our fruit-trenchers of wood, or use them as devices in ringes and armes."
It was customary in olden times to close the banquet with "confettes, sugar-plate, fertes with other subtilties, with Ipocrass," served to the guests as they stood at the board after grace was said. The period has not been stated at which the fashion of desserts and long sittings after the principal meal of the day became an established custom. It was, doubtless, at the time when that repast, which, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, had been at eleven before noon, amongst the higher classes in England, took the place of the supper, usually served at five, or between five and six, at that period.[54] The prolonged revelry, once known as the "reare supper," may have led to the custom of following up the dinner with a sumptuous dessert. Be this as it may, there can be little question that the concluding service of the social meal—composed, as Harrison, who wrote about the year 1579, informs us, of "fruit and conceits of all sorts,"—was dispensed upon the ornamental trenchers above described.
In the Doucean Museum, at Goodrich Court, there is a set of roundels, similar to the above, which appear, by the badge of the rose and the pomegranate conjoined, to be of the early part of the reign of Henry VIII. Possibly, they may have been introduced with many foreign "conceits" and luxuries from France and Germany, during that reign. In the times of Elizabeth, mention first occurs of fruit dishes of any ornamental ware, the service of the table having previously been performed with dishes, platters, and saucers of pewter, and "treens," or wooden trenchers; or, in more stately establishments, with silver plate. Shakspeare makes mention of "china dishes;" but it is more probable that they were of the ornamental ware fabricated in Italy, and properly termed Majolica, than of Oriental porcelain. The first mention of "porselyn" in England occurs in 1587-8, when its rarity was so great, that a porringer and cup of that costly ware were selected as New Year's gifts presented to the Queen by Burghley and Cecil. Shortly after, mention is made by several writers of "earthen vessels painted; costly fruit dishes of fine earth painted; fine dishes of earth painted; such as are brought from Venice."
Those elegant Italian wares, which in France appear to have superseded the more homely appliances of the festive table, about the middle of the sixteenth century, were doubtless adopted at the tables of the higher classes in our own country, towards its close.
The wooden fruit-trencher was not, however, wholly disused during the seventeenth century; and amongst sets of roundels which may be assigned to the reign of James I. or Charles I. may be mentioned a set exhibited in the Museum formed during the meeting of the Archæological Institute at York, in 1846. They were purchased at a broker's shop at Bradford, Yorkshire: in dimensions they resemble the trenchers of the reign of Elizabeth, already described; but their decoration is of a more ordinary character. On each tablet is pasted a line engraving, of coarse execution, and gaudily coloured, representing one of the Sibyls.[55]
The common trencher which most of us have seen in use, was a wooden platter employed instead of metal, china, or earthen plates. It was even considered a stride of luxury when trenchers were often changed in one meal. "And with an humble chaplain it was expressly stipulated," says Bishop Hall, "that he never change his trencher twice." The term "a good trencher-man" was then equivalent to a hearty feeder (Nares's Glossary). Maple-wood, being soft and white, was formerly in great request for trenchers.
Fosbroke remembered when no other but wooden dishes of this kind were used in farm-houses in Shropshire. The general form of the trencher was round; yet the trencher-cap of our Universities has a square top.