The tables are nearly always long and narrow. In the great hall they are fixed and of heavy oak planks, but there are plenty of light tables of boards to be set on horses, if the seneschal suddenly says, "The weather is fine; Messire will dine in the garden." The favored guests are provided with cushions, and, of course, in the hall the baron and his immediate friends and family sit on the long master-seat on the dais, facing the company, and with the baron's own chair under a canopy. This canopy is the sign of high seigneurial privilege. One will be set for Conon even when he sits in the garden; and he will never surrender his place save when he entertains a superior, like his suzerain the duke, or when, as at present, all other claims fade before those of a bridal couple.
Indoors or outdoors, it is no mean art to lay the tables. Enormous tablecloths have to be spread out smoothly, and set with napkins neatly doubled; also at each place a suitable drinking vessel, and a knife and spoon. These articles, gold or silver, are carefully handed out by the seneschal. They represent a good fraction of the portable wealth of the castle and must be laboriously counted before and after use. The knives are sharp steel for serious business. The drinking cups are often of bizarre forms—lions, birds, and dragons, while for the humbler folk there are huge cups of wood and also large "jacks" of leather. At every place, too, there must be a good-sized cake of fine white flour, and between every two places there is a large porringer (pewter or silver) to be shared by each pair of guests.
Entering the Dining Hall
Feast day or fast day, it is the loud blast on trumpets which sends the mighty and the humble bustling toward the garden or the hall. Of course, at a wedding feast there is some little formality, but ordinarily in the St. Aliquis household the good-natured jostling and scampering is prodigious. Men and women live close to nature and are always conscious of rousing appetites. On ordinary days when you entered the baron's hall, you would take your turn at the lavatory close to the entrance. Here would be several little washstands with pitchers and basins, and everybody would fall in line in order of precedence: first, any visiting clergy; then visiting knights; then the seigneur's family, etc. The hand washing presents a great chance for flirtation among the young: Olivier and Alienor had great delight "passing the towel" to each other during their betrothal. But now at a great festival, when you enter the special banqueting tent you are met by two handsome varlets. The first holds a water jug and a small basin. Water is dexterously poured over your fingers, and as promptly wiped off by the second varlet, and each guest patiently waits until the persons ahead have enjoyed this courtesy. So they enter the tent, and the magnates make for the seats of honor.
The placing of the company has been a matter of serious deliberation between Messire Conon and the sage Sire Eustace. Of course, to-day the bride and groom take the canopy. At Olivier's right must be the officiating bishop. At the bishop's right must be the suzerain Duke of Quelqueparte, and at Olivier's left must be the bride and the Count and Countess of Perseigne. All that is standardized. But how locate the dozen other counts and barons who, with their dames, have honored the bridal? Will the old rival Foretvert stomach it now if he is seated farther from the canopy than the Count of Maric, who is richer and of a more ancient house? Bloody feuds have started from failure to seat guests properly. It is a matter for supreme diplomacy. So far as possible, a lady is placed beside each cavalier. The two will use the same dish and the same goblet during the entire feast—obviously another case where one is compelled to test one's brains while selecting partners.
Serving the Banquet
YOUNG GIRLS OF THE NOBILITY SERVING AT THE TABLE
From a thirteenth-century manuscript of the library of Munich (Schultz).