260 USAGES OF DOMESTIC LIFE

which was left unoccupied for the more convenient access of servants. The probabihty is, therefore, that this phrase, and the distinction it inferred, appHed only when the com- pany sat on both sides of a long table, where the position of a large salt marked the boundary of the seats of honour, or what may be termed the dais of the board. So long as people were compelled to the occasional use of their fingers in dispatching a repast, washing before as well as after dinner was indispensable to cleanliness, and not a mere ceremony. The ewers and basins^ for this purpose were generally of costly material and elaborate fabric : — " L'eve demande por laver, Li vilains maintenanl lor bailie Les bacins d"or, et la toaillc Lor aporte por essuier." La Mule sanz Frain. The Avill of John Holland, duke of Exeter, date 1447, mentions " an ewer of gold, with a falcon taking a partridge with a ruby in its breast V In the days of chivalry it was high com'tesy towards a guest to invite him to wash in the same basin : — " Puis fist on les napes oster Et por laver I'iaue aporter ; Li Chevalier tout premerains Avec la Comtesse ses mains Lava, et puis I'autre gent tout." Barbazan, III. 109. This however was perhaps a species of compliment naturally attendant on the equivocal honour of eating from the same plate with your host^, though it should be observed, in justice to the poets who are our veracious authorities for the custom, that there was generally a lady in the case : — ^ " Trestot delez li, coste a coste, Lo fet seoir la damoisele Et mengier a una escuele." Uecueil do Meon, I. 31. ^ In Strutt's Horda, vol. i. PI. xvi. fig. '■>, "a silver gilt ewer, triangular, enamelled is an engraving of a Saxon drawing re- with the images of the thre^ kings of presenting Lot entertaining tlie angels : Denmark, Germany, and Aragon." Arch- an attendant bears a vase-shaped basin for aeologia, vol. x. p. 252. washing, together with a long narrow niani- ^' For a more oppressive exercise of pic. which hangs over his left arm, and is hospitality in old times the curious reader fringed at the ends. may consult St. Foix, " Essais Historifjues f Royal Wills, p. 284. In the inventory sur Paris," vol. i. p. 98. of the jewels of Edward the Third, is