I. Fifteenth Century
Learn these rules.
1. Do not put back on your plate what has been in your mouth.
2. Do not offer anyone a piece of food you have bitten into.
3. Do not chew anything you have to spit out again.
4. It is not decent to poke your fingers into your ears or eyes, as some people do, or to pick your nose while eating. These three habits are bad.
5. Do not blow your nose with the same hand that you use to hold the meant.
II. Sixteenth Century
1. If a serviette is given, lay it on your left shoulder or arm.
2. Your goblet and knife, duly cleansed, should be on the right, your bread on the left.
3. Some people put their hands in the dishes the moment they have sat down. Wolves do that.
4. Do not be the first to touch the dish that has been brought in, not only because this shows you greedy, but also because it is dangerous. For someone who puts something hot into his mouth unawares must either spit it out or, if her swallows it, burn his throat. In either case he is as ridiculous as he is pitiable.
5. To dip the fingers in the sauce is rustic. You should take what your want with you knife and fork; you should not search through the whole dish as epicures are wont to do, but take what happens to be in front of you.
6. If you are offered a piece of cake or pie on a spoon, hold out your plate or take the spoon that is held out to you, put the food on your plate, and return the spoon.
7. If you are offered something liquid, taste it and return the spoon, but first wipe it on your serviette.
8. To lick greasy fingers or to wipe them on your coat is impolite. It is better to use the tablecloth or the serviette.
9. To blow your nose on your hat or clothing is rustic, and to do so with the arm or elbow befits a tradesman; nor is it much more polite to use the hand, if you immediately sear the snot on your garment.
10. You should not offer your handkerchief to anyone unless it has been freshly washed . . .
11. Nor is it seemly, after wiping your nose, to spread out your handkerchief and peer into it as if pearls and rubies might have fallen out of your head. . . . What, then shall I say of those . . . who carry their handkerchiefs about in their mouths?
12. . . .it does not befit a modest, honorable man to prepare to relieve nature in the presence of other people, nor to do up his clothes afterward in their presence.
13. [Likewise} it is not a refined habit, when coming across something disgusting in the street, as sometimes happens, to run at once to one’s companion and point it out to him.
14. It is far less proper to hold out the stinking thing for the other to smell, as some are wont, who even urge the other to do so, lifting the foul-smelling thing to his nostrils and saying, “I should like to know how much that stinks,” when it would be better to say, “Because it stinks do not smell it.”
III. Seventeenth Century
1. If everyone is eating from the same dish, you should take care not to put your hand into it before those of higher rank have done so, and to take food only from the part of the dish opposite you. Still less should you take the best pieces, even though you might be the last to help yourself.
2. It must be pointed out that you should always wipe your spoon when, after using it, you want to take something from another dish, there being people so delicate that they would not wish to eat soup into which you had dipped it after putting it into your mouth.
IV. Eighteenth Century
1. It is not . . . polite to drink your soup from the bowl unless you are in your own family, and only then if you have drunk the most part with your spoon.
2. If the soup is in a communal dish, take some with your spoon in your turn, without precipitation.
3. Do not keep your knife always in your hand, as village people do, but take it only when you need it.
4. You should not throw bones or eggshells or the skin of any fruit onto the floor.
5. The same is true of fruit stones. It is more polite to remove them from the mouth with two fingers than to spit them into one's hand.
6. It is improper to use the serviette to wipe your face; it is far more so to rub your teeth with it, and it would be one of the grossest offenses against civility to use it to blow your nose. . . . The use you may and must make of the serviette when at table is for wiping your mouth, lips, and fingers when they are greasy, wiping the knife before cutting bread, and cleaning the spoon and fork after using them.