A winter dining room in the style of the Pompeian, at Saratoga, N. Y. 

 work of art, but of doubtful practical value 



Creditable as I 



CHAPTER X 

 THE DINING ROOM AND KITCHEN AND THEIR RELATIONS 



S the dining room of the present day is a room in which meals are 

 served, it answers no double purpose. In the early Middle 

 Ages the nobility observed festivities in the hall. The feast 

 was served on a long, movable table, the top of which was 

 easily detached from the supports, and along which was placed 

 lengthy benches, easily relegated to obscurity after the end 

 of the meal. Thus, probably, our present-day table manners 

 originated, although it is doubtless true that their infancy partook more or less of 

 infantile uncertainty and freedom. We have not considered the Roman in this 

 connection, as his views on these things were somewhat different, and also be- 

 cause he is suspected of being guiltless of a close adherence to table manners in 

 our sense. He of the later Middle Ages dined, or rather consumed, his meals in 

 the seclusion of his chamber. Prior to the setting aside of this room, he must, 

 as we have already stated, have eaten in the hall altogether, with the clogs and 

 the rest of the family, as this was substantially the whole house, and there was 

 no alternative place unless it was the roof. At a later period, when the sub- 

 division of rooms evolved the ante-chamber, it was one of these which served 



166 



