THE HISTORY OF THE FORK. 831 



THE HISTORY OF THE FORK. 



By J. VON FALKE. 



THE Duchess of Beaufort, dining once at Madame de Guise's 

 with King Henri IV of France, extended one hand to receive 

 his Majesty's salutation while she dipped the fingers of the other 

 hand into a dish to pick out what was to her taste. This incident 

 happened in the year 1598. It demonstrates that less than three 

 hundred years ago the fingers were still used to perform the office 

 now assigned to forks, in the highest and most refined circles of 

 society. At about this time, in fact, was the turning-point when 

 forks began to be used at table as they are now. When we reflect 

 how nice were the ideas of that refined age on all matters of outer 

 decency and behavior, and how strict was the etiquette of the 

 courts, we may well wonder that the fork was so late in coming 

 into use as a table-furnishing. The ladies of the middle ages and 

 the Renaissance were not less proud of a delicate, well-kept hand 

 than those of our own days, and yet they picked the meat from 

 the platter with their slender white fingers, and in them bore it 

 to their mouths. The fact is all the more remarkable, because the 

 form of the fork was familiar enough, and its application to other 

 uses was not uncommon. It was even used in cooking in the epic 

 period of the middle ages, as a spitting instrument, though rarely 

 as an aid in cutting. It appears with some regularity in the in- 

 ventories or treasure-lists of kings and noble houses after the four- 

 teenth century, but only in isolated or very few specimens as com- 

 pared with the large numbers of knives and spoons. In Clement 

 of Hungary's list in the fourteenth century thirty spoons are men- 

 tioned, but only one fork, and that of gold. The proportion is 

 nearly the same in the Duke of Anjou's inventory of 1360. King 

 Charles V of France in 1380 listed along with many other objects 

 two silver forks with crystal handles ; and this monarch is said to 

 have had in all twelve forks in a million francs' worth of silver- 

 ware. The Duchess of Touraine in 1389 had only two forks to 

 nine dozen spoons. The instrument was then called by the same 

 name it bears to-day in French— -fourchette — and this was the di- 

 minutive of fourche, pitchfork, with which all the farmers at 

 least were acquainted. Forks are not oftener mentioned, nor for 

 a different purpose, in the fifteenth century ; but Duchess Char- 

 lotte of Savoy had, in 1483, two spoons and a fork, of silver, " to 

 eat comfits with." 



These examples show that forks were known as rare and costly 

 articles, but were not used for the purposes they now are. Among 

 the miniature pictures on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts are represen- 

 tations of meals, but none in which a fork is shown lying on the 



