The rhetorician Arnobius, in his work “Disputationes contra Gentes,” wrote that the pagans were wont to sanctify or hallow their tables by setting salt-cellars thereon. For owing to the fact that salt was employed at every sacrifice as an offering to the gods, and owing moreover to its reputed divine attributes, receptacles containing salt were also held sacred.
Indeed, the salt-cellar partook of the nature of a holy vessel, associated with the temple in general, and more particularly with the altar.[334]
Pythagoras said that salt was the emblem of justice; for as it preserves all things and prevents corruption, so justice preserves whatever it animates, and without it all is corrupted. He therefore directed that a salt-cellar should be placed upon the table at every meal, in order to remind men of this emblematic virtue of salt.[335]
The Romans considered salt to be a sacred article of food, and it was a matter of religious principle with them to see that no other dish was placed upon the table before the salt was in position.[336] A shell served as a receptacle for salt on the table of the Roman peasant, but at the repast of the wealthy citizen the silver salt-cellar, which was usually an heirloom, was placed in the middle of the table; and the same custom prevailed in England in mediæval times.
In a work entitled “Antiquitates Culinariæ,” compiled by the Rev. Richard Warner, London, 1791, are to be found, reprinted from an old paper-roll, elaborate directions for the preparation of the banquet-table on the occasion of a great feast at the enthroning of George Neville as Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York in the sixth year of Edward the Fourth, A. D. 1466.
After the laying of the “chiefe napkin,” the officials of the king’s household charged with such duties were directed to bring salt, bread, and trenchers, and to “set the salt right under the middest of the cloth of estate.”
Minute directions follow regarding the proper disposition of the trenchers, knives, spoons, and bread, and their exact relations to the salt, which was treated with special deference throughout the ceremony.
The Hon. Horace Walpole published an account of the formalities observed at the “setting” of Queen Elizabeth’s dinner-table, as described by a German traveler who was present on such an occasion. After the table-cloth had been spread two gentlemen appeared, one bearing a rod and the other having a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread. After kneeling three times with the utmost reverence, they placed these three articles upon the table and withdrew. Later in the ceremony came an unmarried lady dressed in white silk, and a matron carrying a tasting-knife. The former, having thrice prostrated herself, approached the table in the most graceful manner, and rubbed with bread and salt the plates provided for the guests. After this the yeomen of the guard, clad in scarlet, and each with a golden rose upon his back, entered bare-headed, bringing a course of four-and-twenty dishes. In the households of the English nobility a similar custom prevailed. A rhythmical code of instructions to servants of the fifteenth century required that the salt should always be the first article placed on the festive board after the cloth was laid:[337]—
Tu dois mettre premièrement en tous lieux et en tout hostel
La nappe, et après le sel;