[HN Gopher] Medieval Table Manners: The Messiest Myth?
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Medieval Table Manners: The Messiest Myth?
Author : BerislavLopac
Score : 89 points
Date : 2023-07-21 08:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.medievalists.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.medievalists.net)
| spapas82 wrote:
| An old greek proverb says "chicken and woman need a hand" (to eat
| the chicken and to pleasure the woman)
| geewee wrote:
| Can you cite a source for that? Googling it only comes up with
| this particular comment.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| I translated it to Greek and then searched. Not a great
| source, but a source. https://www.lexilogia.gr/threads/t%CE%B
| F-%CF%88%CE%AC%CF%81%... "The saying goes <<to psari, to
| kotopoulo kai e gunaika theloun kheri>>, i.e. "you should use
| your hand for fish, chicken and women". It is usually used as
| a joke, in a familiar environment, in order to urge someone,
| usually a man, who is reluctant to use their hands to eat
| fish or chicken, and stick to using their knife and fork,
| because they are embarrassed to eat with their hands.
|
| An attempt at a definition: "you can't eat fish and chicken
| unless you grab them with your hand, and you should also use
| your hands on (your) woman". It is a play with the phrase
| "bazo kheri", which means to grope, to feel up. Not very
| politically correct, I know :)"
| spapas82 wrote:
| Here's another source:
| https://www.paroimies.gr/paroimies.php?pid=3992
| (paromies/paroimies = proverbs)
|
| An older person told me that a lot of years ago when I was
| a child and was trying to eat a chicken thigh with fork and
| knife. Only understood the chicken part back then...
| goda90 wrote:
| I think this is more of a joke that has moved through a bunch
| of cultures. In Chile, when I started to use silverware on
| chicken, I was told(with a laugh) the only things they eat
| with their hands there is chicken and women.
|
| Of course that excludes all the things they eat on bread.
| pbjtime wrote:
| The author implies that because there are presently certain
| social customs that it is logical to presume that these customs
| are inherent to the human condition.
|
| It is not logical to presume so.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Isn't it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm
| mid-1800s? If doctors weren't washing theirs at the time, I have
| a hard time believing peasants would be doing so in the 1200s.
| brokenkebaby wrote:
| >Isn't it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a
| norm mid-1800s?
|
| You're mixing up two completely different modes of washing. The
| one related to medicine in XIX is about washing hands in lime
| solution. Pop science magazines always miss this part to make
| it feel more sensational I guess.
|
| Washing visibly dirty hands (e.g. with soil, grease, or blood),
| often using sand as an abrasive cleaner, and ashes to dissolve
| fat, or (depending on one's wealth) a real soap was a norm for
| a very long time before. [Edit: added the last para]
| adrian_b wrote:
| Actually exactly what was used for washing the hands and the
| body in the Ancient World is a bit of a mystery, I have never
| seen an adequate discussion of this.
|
| In the Ancient World, at least from almost 4000 years ago,
| i.e. when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written, until less than
| 2000 years ago, by the time of Pliny the Elder, the main use
| of the vegetable oils, including of oils like sesame oil or
| olive oil, was not as food, but for body massage, preferably
| mixed with perfumes.
|
| Starting with the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also in many later
| literary works, until in the early Roman Empire, the greatest
| pleasures for civilized people were described as eating
| bread, drinking beer or wine and being anointed with
| vegetable oil.
|
| While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all
| good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes
| are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the
| abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not
| have soap.
|
| The most likely method for removing the oil from the skin is
| that they have used lye made from plant ashes (i.e. potassium
| carbonate) or from mineral natron (sodium carbonate).
|
| However, at least for a modern sensitive skin such harsh
| washing methods seem rather unpleasant, which seems
| inconsistent with the pleasure associated by the ancients
| with anointing.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| > While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil,
| all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy
| clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means
| to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when
| they did not have soap.
|
| They scraped it off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil
| balderdash wrote:
| I suspect one interpretation of washing your hands is simply
| with water to get the visible dirt of your hands - hardly anti-
| microbial
| sorokod wrote:
| They might be doing so as to not soil their clothes.
| jsight wrote:
| Handwashing has a long history:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text...
| adrian_b wrote:
| Cato the Elder, writing about 2200 years ago, begins his recipe
| for making bread like this:
|
| "Manus mortariumque bene lavato"
|
| which means
|
| "Wash well your hands and the bowl in which you will knead the
| dough!"
|
| so the ancient Romans were well aware about the benefits of
| washing the hands, at least when preparing food.
| retrac wrote:
| This is a common confusion with the ancients' lack of germ
| theory. It doesn't mean they weren't aware of the association
| between filth, excrement, and the concept of contamination or
| unhealthy influence. Miasma theory goes back to at least
| Hippocrates, and it was thought that bad smells could cause
| illness. That decay begets decay is obvious. They were just
| very fuzzy on the mechanism.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Besides, you don't need to specifically know that filth
| causes disease to find it offensive, and to be innately
| repulsed by the idea that your food has been near it.
| Hygenic behavior is, to some degree, instinctive.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It isn't unheard of. Jesus refused to wash his hands before
| eating in Mark 7:1-6, and some people were not happy about
| that:
|
| The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered to Him after
| they came from Jerusalem, and saw that some of His disciples
| were eating their bread with unholy hands, that is, unwashed.
| (For the Pharisees and all the other Jews do not eat unless
| they carefully wash their hands, thereby holding firmly to the
| tradition of the elders; and when they come from the
| marketplace, they do not eat unless they completely cleanse
| themselves; and there are many other things which they have
| received as traditions to firmly hold, such as the washing of
| cups, pitchers, and copper pots.) And the Pharisees and the
| scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk in
| accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their
| bread with unholy hands?" But He said to them, "Rightly did
| Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
| caminante wrote:
| In summary, Jesus got called out for not washing, and then
| switched to an ad hominem instead of acknowledging?
|
| edit: See gjsman-1000's comment below for the missing
| context. It wasn't a shaming for lack of functional
| sanitation.
| csydas wrote:
| note: I don't believe in any religion, but grew up
| christian
|
| Jesus' callout here was on their callout; the story of
| Jesus in the Bible if you subscribe to Jesus was that he
| was the real deal and sent to close the previous covenant
| between god and humans, and preach the new word of god.
|
| in the context of the book of mark, Jesus had been busy for
| awhile pointing out the fallacies of the current religious
| authoritarians and debating classic scripture with them
| quite successfully. the intent of the story would more
| accurately be that the Pharisees were the ones doing the
| random ad hom callout after getting bested by Jesus during
| debate, and he responded with a prophesy from Isaiah that
| is relevant.
|
| I mean I get your point, but you need to understand that
| the entirety of the Bible read through a modern lens is
| really just a holy version of social media drama, but with
| a literal deity involved. the reason Jesus' response is
| supposed to be so big here is because his entire point up
| to, during, and after this is that the old laws are not
| relevant because humans cannot ever atone for their sins or
| stop sinning, so Jesus is there to solve that, and set some
| new rules.
|
| and keep in mind, this is just how _I_ was taught growing
| up in my sect; other christian sects don't take the same
| interpretation of this...in other words, don't focus too
| much on the specifics, it's very much so open to
| interpretation and the Bible has so many conflicting
| authors and ideologies that it self-supports so many
| interpretations
|
| I'm sure there will be people who instead of just sharing
| their interpretation will try to prove that mine is wrong
| :) and I'm pretty sure we could argue for days if we wanted
| to, and the Bible and the history of theological study
| would probably produce troves of thoughts and evidence to
| support all the interpretations and more, and we might even
| start a new sect accidentally while arguing :)
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| No, his disciples were called out. (It was stated so in
| plain language, you'd have to be arguing in bad faith to
| claim otherwise.)
| caminante wrote:
| _> And [x] asked [jesus], "Why do Your disciples not walk
| in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat
| their bread with unholy hands?" But [jesus] said to [x],
| "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites_
|
| [x] = Pharisees and the scribes = "hypocrites", right?
|
| Help me understand what I'm missing.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| You are missing the cultural significance of the washing
| of hands. It was not meant to be about sanitation (or,
| any culture could have that).
|
| 1. The handwashing rule was invented by the Pharisees,
| and was not a part of Jewish law.
|
| 2. It was also not a tradition for sanitation, but was
| created to serve a ritualistic role to show they were
| ritually purified.
|
| 3. Because it was just a made up rule God did not give,
| and it was meant for the ritualistic appearance of
| purity, it is obviously hypocritical if the priest has no
| concern about their internal state (sin and whatnot).
|
| 4. In which case, it would be much less hypocritical if
| they either said it _was_ for sanitation; or that it was
| a symbol while still admitting their unworthiness before
| God.
|
| 5. This is why Jesus elsewhere calls them "whitewashed
| graves."
| caminante wrote:
| Thank you for the correction, i.e. it wasn't a humorous
| tale of someone getting defensive after getting called
| out for not washing their hands in a modern sense.
|
| I'll note that you're agreeing with me in this subthread
| that Jesus wasn't calling his disciples hypocrites, but
| the Pharisees.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Meh, would you seriously investigate any scientific fact
| your mother told you if the sentence started with "Alex
| Jones says..."?
|
| It's an internal ad hominem if you don't. Which goes to
| show an ad hominem is not a hard-and-fast rule.
| op00to wrote:
| He was like, making a point, man!
| wongarsu wrote:
| God and Jesus, as portrait in the bible, are not flawless
| creatures. Even if some people really want them to be.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| That's an understatement. Especially in the Old
| Testament, God is outright evil in some places.
| enkid wrote:
| That's specifically about doctors washing their hands to
| prevent disease. Plenty of cultures had traditions of washing
| before that
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| > That's specifically about doctors washing their hands to
| prevent disease.
|
| Not prevention of disease, but preventing its spread.
|
| Doctors were a common transmission vector of infectious
| disease across history.
| enkid wrote:
| I don't see a meaningful distinction between "preventing
| disease" and "preventing spread of disease" in this context
| given we're talking about pathogens.
| sornaensis wrote:
| The doctor isnt the one in danger dying or getting sick,
| that seems like a big distinction and probably the reason
| people were skeptical of it.
| op00to wrote:
| Jewish people have a long history of laws involving hand
| washing. I'd be surprised if most cultures at the time didn't
| have rituals or laws around hand washing!
| Ekaros wrote:
| I would guess there is varying levels of dirtiness. I think it
| is reasonable to expect people to clean their hands if they
| have things like soil or sooth on them. As those are slightly
| annoying to eat.
|
| On other hand if your hands are relatively clean, I would not
| expect particular attention put in on cleaning them again.
| sethammons wrote:
| I had not heard of taking small enough bites that you can always
| respond to a conversation; that seems such a small amount that I
| must be the ape they abstain from being.
| foobarian wrote:
| I was a bit surprised that a twelfth century source would refer
| to apes. Possibly the word meant something else first and was
| later used for big nonhuman primates?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > I was a bit surprised that a twelfth century source would
| refer to apes.
|
| The Roman empire extended into North Africa and they would
| absolutely have been aware of the wildlife. Hannibal actually
| launched an attack on the Romans that involved bringing war
| elephants across the Alps [0]. Subsequent readers of Roman
| authors would have known about the animals the Romans knew
| about, e.g. [1], which in turn made their way into medieval
| bestiaries (along with unicorns and a few others).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal%27s_crossing_of_th
| e_A...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiologus
| umanwizard wrote:
| There are no apes in North Africa, though, unless your
| definition of "North" is quite expansive.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| The inhabitants of North Africa may have been familiar to
| some degree and had some contact with subsaharan Africa.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Or your definition of "ape" includes macaques, which a
| twelfth century definition very possibly would.
| bloak wrote:
| Definitely. According to the OED, "ape" included monkeys
| before the word "monkey" was introduced in the 16th
| century, and even after that any primate without a tail
| was an "ape", including the "Barbary ape", as it is still
| often called.
| [deleted]
| libele wrote:
| https://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast148.htm
|
| the gallery on this website has over 100 illustrations of
| apes... some from the 12th century.
| [deleted]
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology :
|
| "Ape", from Old English apa, is a word of uncertain origin.
| The term has a history of rather imprecise usage--and of
| comedic or punning usage in the vernacular. Its earliest
| meaning was generally of any non-human anthropoid primate, as
| is still the case for its cognates in other Germanic
| languages.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Czech "opice" seems to have a common root with "ape". The
| older version thereof was "op", even closer to "ape".
|
| So the origin might actually be Indo-European.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| You don't need to look back to Proto-Indo-European for a
| word like this. Like many other words in Slavic, this
| Czech word is more likely a borrowing from Germanic prior
| to the merger of short *a and *o to /o/ in Common
| Slavonic. Indeed, I just checked and it is listed on p.
| 200 of Pronk-Tiethoff's _The Germanic Loanwords in Proto-
| Slavic_ , the modern standard reference for these
| matters.
| [deleted]
| gostsamo wrote:
| Well, if your liege ask you something, you should be able to
| reply immediately. It would be impolite to make them wait for
| you to end chewing. I remember in some of the musketeer books
| described how Portos had cut a big part of a boar while dining
| with the king and when the king asked him something, he had to
| swallow the entire piece.
| eru wrote:
| Did you mean to write 'liege'?
| [deleted]
| gostsamo wrote:
| Yep, sorry. Edited now.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| It says "A diner should not take so large a bite that he is
| _completely_ unable to speak, if he were addressed. " which
| seems very reasonable. I can speak while having a normal sized
| bite in mouth, although it's of course less than ideal and not
| polite these days. But sometimes useful for shorter utterances.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I guess that depends on the standards. I _can_ talk with about
| half my mouth full, but doing so would be considered impolite
| by today 's standards. At about a quarter mouth full I can push
| it into my cheeks to talk mostly unimpeded.
| bombcar wrote:
| Chipmonking is an important skill.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Does medieval refer to one or two countries?
| iamthemonster wrote:
| In the English-speaking world, "mediaeval" often ends up being
| a shorthand for "mediaeval English" in practice. The books
| references in this article are English.
|
| The vast majority of the world's population was not in Western
| Europe in mediaeval times but Indian and Chinese history of
| this period for example is rarely taught or discussed in such a
| mainstream way.
| ycombinete wrote:
| This article felt like a strange place to see the idiom "on the
| regular".
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