The Furcifer
In the days of King James I, Thomas Coryat visited Italy and came home with an affected Continental habit: eating with a fork.
1608
King James I 1603-1625
In the days of King James I, Thomas Coryat visited Italy and came home with an affected Continental habit: eating with a fork.
1608
King James I 1603-1625
When Peter Damian, Bishop of Ostia, learnt that the late Maria Argyropoulaina (?-1007), daughter-in-law to the Doge of Venice, had eaten with a little fork rather than her fingers, he denounced it as unnatural. But on a tour of Italy in 1608, Englishman Thomas Coryat found that forks were now everyday items, and he even brought the fashion back home.
abridged
I OBSERVED a custom in all those Italian cities and towns through which I passed, that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels, neither do I think that any other nation of Christendom doth use it, but only Italy.* The Italian and also most strangers that are commorant in Italy,* do always at their meals use a little fork when they cut their meat. For while with their knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten their fork which they hold in their other hand upon the same dish; so that whatsoever he be that, sitting in the company of any others at meal, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meat with his fingers from which all at the table do cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good manners, in so much that for his error he shall be at the least brow-beaten,* if not reprehended in words.
* Coryat set out from Dover on May 14th, 1608, for a tour of France, Germany and Italy (the latter two not single countries at this time), returning to his home in Odcombe, Somerset, to prepare his observations for publication. They appeared in 1611 under the snappy title of “Coryats Crudities, Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia commonly called the Grisons country, Helvetia alias Switzerland, some parts of high Germany and the Nether lands; Newly digested in the hungry aire of Odcombe in the County of Somerset, and now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling Members of this Kingdom.” The word ‘Crudities’ is used in the sense of crudités, i.e. raw nibbles; they were followed by ‘Coryats Crambe, or his Colwort [cabbage] twise sodden and now served in with other Macaronicke dishes as the second course to his Crudities.’
* ‘Commorant in’ means ‘residing in’. From Latin com- (with) + morari (remain or delay).
* Frowned upon, assailed with looks of disapproval.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Where in Europe did Coryat find the use of forks widespread?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Thomas Coryat toured the Continent in 1608. He wrote down his observations. He published his observations in 1611.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IReturn. IISee. IIITravel.