Use the Forks, Henry

In 2016, the Polish government unexpectedly broke off ongoing negotiations over the purchase of French-made military helicopters. In response, France withdrew its invitation to the Polish delegation for an arms fair in Paris. This prompted Mr Bartosz Kownacki,^🔊 Poland’s deputy defence minister at the time, to react with the following remark about the French:

Henry Valois returning from Poland to France with a fork in hand
By Maja Berezowska (1970)

These are people who, just a few centuries ago, were learning from us how to use a fork…

— Bartosz Kownacki in Jeden na jeden, TVN24, 12 October 2016, own translation Original text: To są ludzie, którzy uczyli się od nas jeść widelcem parę wieków temu…

What does it have to do with defence contracts? Hard to say. In any case, the notion that Poles taught the French how to use a fork wasn’t Mr Kownacki’s own idea. He was merely repeating a well-known factoid: that Henry Valois – known in France as King Henri III – was the first Frenchman to use this utensil at the table. And that he picked up the habit while seated on the throne of Poland, where he is known as King Henryk Walezy.

And that’s precisely the matter we’re going to explore today. But first, we need to return to the story from the previous post and pick up the thread where we dropped it.

A French Fop on the Polish Throne

We left off as Queen Bona, estranged from her son, returned from Poland to Italy in 1556 and died by poison a year later. The son, King Sigismund II Augustus, had already married for the third time – to his first wife’s younger sister, Catherine Habsburg. But she, like the two queens before her, failed to provide him with an heir. Thus, with the king’s death in 1572, the entire Jagiellonian^🔊 dynasty came to an end and Poland’s 65-year-long Sigismundian golden age – spanning the reigns of Sigismunds I and II – drew to a close. This raised a number of intriguing constitutional questions (which we won’t be exploring here), made all the more pressing by the fact that none of the living politicians could even remember what a royal election was supposed to look like – since Augustus had been crowned without one, in an unconstitutional exception. After lengthy debate, the nobility and the magnates agreed on new rules for choosing a monarch: any noble-born Catholic could be a candidate, though ideally someone from a reigning European dynasty.

Henry Valois (1551–1589), King of Poland and France

Meanwhile, in France, a lavish royal wedding took place: Princess Margot, the youngest daughter of Catherine de’ Medici, was married to Henry Bourbon, King of Navarre. Margot was a Catholic, while Bourbon was a Calvinist. Their union was meant to be a grand gesture of ecumenical reconciliation – but instead it ended in the massacre of several thousand Huguenots (as Calvinists were known in France) who had come to Paris for the royal festivities. The slaughter took place on the night of 23–24 August 1572, the eve of St Bartholomew’s Day. At the time, the French throne was held by Catherine’s second son, Charles IX, who had inherited it from his elder brother, Francis II. But Catherine’s favourite was her third son, Henry Valois, and she spared no effort in securing him a throne that he could comfortably rest his bottom on. The Queen Mother sent out his CVs in all geographic directions. And so, when plans to marry little Henry off to either the Queen of England or the Queen of Scotland came to nothing, and the Algerian throne also slipped through her fingers, Catherine decided to put forward his candidacy for the Polish crown.

And here came the surprise: the Polish nobility – who had only just adopted the Compact of Warsaw, which established religious toleration across Poland and promised that nobles would never slaughter one another over confessional differences – elected as their monarch a French prince who had been one of the chief instigators of the St Bartholomew’s Eve massacre. News of his election as King of Poland reached Henry in the midst of a siege of the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. Choosing the least suitable candidate available as head of state seems to be a long-standing Polish tradition.

Henry Valois entering Poland in Międzyrzecz on 24 January 1574
By Feliks Sypniewski (1882)

Henry set off for his new kingdom in early November 1573; he had crossed the Polish border by late January, and by mid-February he’d reached Cracow, Poland’s then capital city. The king-elect and his French retinue’s journey thus took place at the height of a frosty Polish winter, which failed to make a good first impression on the warm-blooded arrivals. The Poles, in turn, were shocked by the king’s appearance: dressed in wide ruffs and lace, wearing makeup and perfumes, bedecked with jewels and pearl earrings. The look sported by his closest courtiers was no less unsettling; flamboyantly attired in bright colours and affectionately referred to by Henry as his “minions” (les mignons^🔊), they were widely suspected of doubling as the king’s boy toys. Worse still, put off by the constraints imposed on royal power by Poland’s unique quasi-democratic system of government, Henry shied away from the tedious duties of a head of state. Instead, he spent most of his time taking naps, dancing the volta (a dance so lewd, you’d never see any Pole dancing it), losing tremendous amounts of money at cards, and writing letters back to France. He also shied away from the fifty-year-old and not-especially-comely Princess Anna Jagiellon, Bona and Sigismund I’s last unmarried daughter – despite the senators’ expectation that the king would propose to the Polish infanta in order to preserve dynastic continuity.

Henry Valois leaving Poland near Pszczyna on 19 June 1574
By Artur Grottger (1860)

Barely four months had passed since Henry’s coronation at Cracow’s Wawel^🔊 Cathedral when he received word that the younger of his elder brothers had succumbed to a brief illness. Unlike in Poland, the French monarchy was hereditary: King Charles IX was dead – long live King Henry III ! Therefore Catherine de’ Medici promptly summoned her favourite son, urging him to return to France without delay and claim the throne left vacant by his late brother. The snag was that the King of Poland wasn’t allowed to leave the country without the parliament’s consent. Henry, however, had no intention of waiting for the parliament to convene and graciously grant him permission. And so, on the night of 18–19 June 1574, he slipped out through the back passages of Wawel Castle and – in the company of just a handful of his most trusted minions – fled his own kingdom. When Polish courtiers realized a few hours later that the king had gone missing, Chamberlain Jan Tęczyński^🔊 (uncle of Palatine Jan Baptysta Tęczyński, whom I mentioned in the previous post and whom he accompanied in his Danish captivity) quickly gave pursuit. Presumably to reassure the French that Poland was a full-fledged member of Western civilization and not some wild Asiatic steppe, he brought along a small detachment of Tatar light cavalry. He caught up with the king just across the border with the Kingdom of Bohemia (part of the Holy Roman Empire). The minions were ready to defend their monarch, but breathed a sigh of relief when Tęczyński revealed he intended only verbally to persuade the king to return. As it turned out, to no avail. The chamberlain had to settle for a few lavish gifts and Henry’s solemn promise that he would still return to Poland one day.

Medieval Table Manners

Medieval carvers required good knives for their work. Forks, on the other hand, were merely optional. The ones seen in these French miniatures (left: from The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry, ca. 1410; right: from The Quest for the Holy Grail and the Death of King Arthur, 14th century) made do without any forks.

Henry left Cracow in a hurry, taking with him only a small sack with his most prized possessions. Is it possible he also managed to pack a fork pilfered from a Wawel pantry – intending to present it to his French courtiers as a brand new invention they were now expected to adopt?

But what exactly was so innovative about it? The fork had been known in Europe long before Henry Valois came along. It was, however, more of a kitchen tool – much larger than today’s table fork and typically equipped with two rather than four tines. It served the cook for fishing out hefty chunks of meat from the pot or removing them from the spit. It might then be used by the carver to hold the meat in place while slicing it into smaller portions – although, even in that context, the fork was optional throughout the Middle Ages. Unlike the cook, however, the carver worked in full view of the diners, so meat carving often took on a performative flair – which likely contributed to the Renaissance-era fashion for using the fork rather than holding the meat by hand. In 16th-century Spain and Italy, a particularly extravagant way of carving was in vogue, in which a chunk of meat would be speared onto a large fork, raised upright and sliced mid-air, allowing the individual cuts to fall neatly into the serving dish below.

The account of a Swiss Calvinist theologian who spent five years in Poland (overlapping with Henry’s brief reign in the country) and left behind detailed descriptions of local noblemen’s feasts, shows that also in 16th-century Poland, the fork was primarily a tool of the carver’s trade.

Next to the lord, a space is left for the carver. On this part of the table, several platters are laid out with knives, forks and napkins. […] The carver then plunges not only his mind but also his hands into the serving dish: he pulls, slices, tears, divides, dissects and distributes. Each guest takes what he receives and eats. Those at the lower end of the table waste no time waiting; forgoing the need for a carver altogether, they thrust their knives into the dish, snatching up whatever they please.

— Heinrich Wolf: Polskie przypadki Henryka Wolfa z Zurychu: Dziennik podróży z lat 1570–1578, Warszawa: Zamek Królewski, 1996, p. 110–111, own translation Original text: Iuxta Dominum locu incisori vacuus relinquitur. In aeque mensae parte orbes aliquot cum cultris, furcillis et mantilibus ponuntur. […] Tum incisor non animum saltem, sed iam manus in patinam mittit, educit, scindit, mutilat, dividit, dissecat, et ditribuit. Accepta quisque conficit. Haud segniores sunt infimi, quorum, ne sit opus incisore, singuli cultri uno impetu in patinam convolant, quod cuivis arridet, auferunt.

According to medieval table etiquette, the morsels already cut by the carver – and usually swimming in some thin sauce – were taken from the communal dish using a knife, a spoon, a piece of bread or simply one’s fingers. That’s why contemporary experts on civility strongly advised courtiers to wash their hands before and after a meal, and never to reach into the common dish ahead of others in order to grab the tastiest bits for themselves.

Manuals of good manners – often written in verse and addressed to young men of noble birth – enjoyed great popularity. Of the Bread Table (O chlebowym stole), dating from the early 15th century and attributed to a certain Przecław Słota,^🔊 is the oldest such text in Polish. The poem ridicules those knights and squires who betray their lack of refinement at a courtly banquet.

Many a man is at the table found Who like a dumb ox sits around, Like a pole stuck in the ground. He doesn’t have his own plate, Nor will he carve for neighbour’s sake. Thinks it’s sweet to grab before Others reach into the bowl. Let his mouth erupt in sore! Among ladies fair he sits, But with dirty hands he eats. No praise will come from their lips.

— [Przecław Słota]: O zachowaniu się przy stole, in: Wikiźródła: Wolne materiały źródłowe, own translation Original text: A mnogi idzie za stoł, Siędzie za nim jako woł, Jakoby w ziemię wetknął koł. Nie ma talerza karmieniu swemu, Eżby i ukroił drugiemu. A grabi się w misę przod, Iż mu miedźwno jako miod. Bogdaj mu zaległ usta wrzod! A je z mnogą twarzą cudną, A będzie mieć rękę brudną. Ona też ma k’niemu rzecz obłudną.

Each guest would place the pieces of food they fished out of the communal dish onto their own trencher (a plate carved from a large loaf of bread) and, if needed, cut them further into smaller bites with their personal knife. Because yes, you had to bring your own cutlery to the table!

Forking with Hermaphrodites

But while knives – and occasionally spoons – were carried tucked into one’s belt or boot, no one ever went to dinner with a fork. Using this kitchen implement at the table must have seemed as bizarre to people back then as eating soup with a ladle would to us today. Not to mention the horror of pointing such a dangerous object towards one’s own face! Resistance to the table fork was strong and persistent; physicians considered it a threat to public health, while the clergy decried it as immoral excess.

In 1605, a novel by one Thomas Artus appeared, titled Description of the Newly Discovered Island of Hermaphrodites (Description de l’isle des Hermaphrodites nouvellement decouverte), regarded as the first dystopia written in French. The titular island was inhabited by gender-ambiguous freaks in whom readers easily recognized caricatures of the late Henry III and his effeminate minions. The entire novel was a satire on the customs of the royal court under the last of the Valois – its morality, fashion, palace architecture and peculiar eating habits. In his work, Artus mocked Henry’s courtiers, whose green peas would tumble from their forks straight into their enormous pleated collars known as ruffs. But then, the peas had every right to fall, since the fork at the time had only two straight tines, better suited for spearing than scooping, and using this trendy gadget required a finesse that no one in France had yet mastered.

Henry III and his minions at dinner
By Maja Berezowska (1970)

There were also several salad dishes, though not like the ones we eat here, for they contained so many different things that those who ate them could scarcely tell them apart. […] They ate them with forks, for in that country it is forbidden to touch food with one’s hands, however difficult it may be to grasp, and they prefer that this little pronged instrument should touch their mouths, rather than their fingers. This course lasted a little longer than the first, after which came artichokes, asparagus, peas and shelled beans – and what a pleasure it was to watch them eat these with their forks, for those who were not quite as skilful as the others let just as much fall back into the dish, onto their plates or along the way as reached their mouths.

— Thomas Artus: Description de l’isle des Hermaphrodites nouvellement decouverte, Cologne: Heritiers de Herman Demen, 1724, p. 107, own translation Original text: Il y avoit aussi quelques plats de salade qui n’estoit pas comme celles que nous mangeons de deçà, car il y avoit de tant de sortes de choses qu’à peine ceux qui les mangent les peuvent-ils distinguer ; […] ils la prenoient avec des fourchettes, car il est deffendu en ce pays là de toucher la viande avec les mains, quelque difficile à prendre qu’elle soit, et ayment mieux que ce petit instrument fourchu touche à leur bouche que leurs doigts. Ce service dura un peu plus long-temps que le premier, après lequel on apporta quelques artichaux, asperges, poix et febves escossées et lors ce fut un plaisir de les voir manger cecy avec leurs fourchettes : car ceux qui n’estoient pas du tout si adroits que les autres en laissoient bien autant tomber dans le plat, sur leurs assiettes et par le chemin qu’ils en mettoient en leurs bouches.

In any case, this was the first mention of the table fork in French literature. Which explains why the introduction of the fork to the Gallic table is often attributed to Henry III. The question remains, however, where Henry imported this utensil from.

Well, according to Tadeusz Przypkowski^🔊 – already known to us as the founder of the Gastronomic Order of Pomiane – Henry was first introduced to this novelty during his brief stay on the banks of the Vistula.

It was in Poland that Valois first encountered this refined expression of table culture, carrying it from there into the wider world.

— Tadeusz Przypkowski: Łyżka za cholewą, a widelec na stole…, in: Przekrój, No. 1514, Kraków: 1974, p. 11, own translation Original text: Spotkał się bowiem Walezy z tym wykwintnym przejawem kultury stołowej w Polsce, stąd go na szeroki świat wynosząc.

It appears then that none other than Przypkowski was the first to suggest that “Poland, with its splendid court of the last Jagiellons, contributed to the spread of this symbol of the refined table” and that this occurred through the agency of Henry, who “entered the history of French and global gastronomic culture as the inventor of the table fork” – even though “this fork appears as a novelty and revolutionary revelation […] on the royal table in France only after Valois’s return from Poland!”

From One Erasmus to Another

Tadeusz Przypkowski was most likely the one who came up with the idea that it was the Poles who taught the French how to use a fork.

To support his thesis, Tadeusz Przypkowski cited two historical facts intended to show that the table fork was known in Poland before it appeared in other parts of Europe. One was the outfitting of a Polish princess for her wedding to the Prince of Finland (arranged in Stockholm by Jan Baptysta Tęczyński, who himself fell in love with a Swedish princess while he was there), with a set of table forks – some golden, some of gilt silver – so that she might have something to eat with in her new home in the far north, where the invention was presumably still unknown.

In 1562, Catherine Jagiellon, Bona’s daughter, while being married off – most unhappily – to John Vasa, receives as part of her dowry a complete set of silver forks.

— Ibid., p. 12, own translation Original text: W 1562 roku Katarzyna Jagiellonka, córka Bony, wychodząc za mąż, tak nieszczęśliwie, za Jana Wazę, otrzymuje w wyprawie cały komplet srebrnych widelców.

An even earlier example, cited by Przypkowski, is a gift sent to Erasmus of Rotterdam from the Abbot of Mogiła near Cracow.

Meanwhile, as early as 1535, the Cistercian abbot of Mogiła sends Erasmus of Rotterdam a luxurious table knife and fork as a gift – a sort of response, and rather a pointed one, to Erasmus’s treatise De Civilitate, in which, in one of the chapters, he discusses table manners and the use of knife and spoon, without any mention of the fork – evidently unknown to him.

— Ibid., own translation Original text: A tymczasem już w roku 1535 opat cystersów w Mogile posyła Erazmowi z Rotterdamu w darze luksusowy nóż i widelec stołowy, niejako odpowiedź, i to raczej złośliwą, na rozprawę Erazma „De Civilitate”, w której Erazm z Rotterdamu w jednym z rozdziałów mówi o zachowywaniu się przy stole i używaniu noża i łyżki, nic o widelcu, widać nie znanym mu, nie wspominając.

The illustrious Dutch humanist was indeed the author of a manual on the upbringing of boys. And although he is regarded as a man of the Renaissance, the kind of table etiquette he recommends in his book differs little from what was practised in the Middle Ages. The great Erasmus did, in fact, advise spearing food with one’s knife – and made no mention of the table fork!

To shove your fingers in the dishes with sauce is very rude, but you should pick up what you want with a knife […]* Nor should you take bits from all over the dish, as greedy folk tend to do, but you should select the food that is in front of you […]

— Erasmus of Rotterdam: A Handbook on Good Manners for Children, trans. Eleanor Merchant, Random House, 2011 *) Interestingly enough, the English translator adds: “or fork”, which is absent in the original Latin text. Original text: Digitos in iussulenta immergere agrestium est, sed cultello fusanave tollat, quod vult; nec id ex toto eligat disco, quod solent liguritores, sed quod forte ante ipsum iacet sumat. — Erasmus Roterodamus: De civilitate morum puerilium, Norimberga: Johannes Petreius, [1540], p. [s]

The fork and knife, together with their case – now held in the collections of the Historical Museum in Basel – presented to Erasmus of Rotterdam by Erazm Ciołek, Abbot of Mogiła.

The first edition of the manual came out in 1530. Two years later, while returning from a diplomatic mission to Rome, Erazm Ciołek,^🔊 the Abbot of Mogiła, stopped off in Freiburg im Breisgau to pay a visit to his famous namesake from Rotterdam. Upon returning to Poland, as a token of gratitude for the hospitality, the abbot sent him a gift: a pair of exquisitely decorated utensils, a knife and a fork of gilt silver. Was this present a veiled, if barbed, jab intended to underscore the civilizational superiority of Poland – already familiar with the table fork – over the backward West? That, at any rate, is Przypkowski’s interpretation.

But is this truly evidence that Henry Valois brought the custom of using the fork to France from Poland?

The Franco–Polish Rap Battle

Henry’s sudden departure from the country – under cover of the night, without the consent of the parliament or even the knowledge of most of the Wawel court – provoked understandable outrage among the Polish nobility. The king’s conduct left the Poles gravely offended and their anger quickly turned on those Frenchmen who were left behind in Cracow. Some were merely insulted; others suffered physical harm. The king’s compatriots soon followed his example, fleeing in panic and leaving behind nothing but dust – and a few unflattering poems, such as this one:

Farewell, O Poland! Adieu, lifeless plain, Where frost, ice and snows forever obtain. Your climes, your customs make my stomach churn; Goodbye, I’m leaving – never to return! […] You savage people, arrogant and vain, Believing yourselves to match Mars in fame! All day and night you sit around and drink, Snore at the table and beneath it sink.

— Adieu à la Pologne, in: Philippe Desportes: Œuvres de Philippe Desportes, ed. Alfred Michiels, Paris: Adolphe Delahays, 1858, p. 424–425, own translation Original text: Adieu, Pologne, adieu, plaines désertes, Toujours de neige et de glace couvertes, Adieu, pays d’un éternel adieu : Ton air, tes mœurs m’ont si fort su déplaire, Qu’il faudra bien que tout me soit contraire, Si jamais plus je retourne en ce lieu. […] Barbare peuple, arrogant et volage Vanteur, causeur n’ayant rien que langage, Qui, jour et nuit, dans un poisle enfermé, Pour tout plaisir se joue avec un verre, Ronfle à la table ou s’endort sur la terre, Puis comme un Mars veut être renommé. […]

Jan Kochanowski,^🔊 Poland’s foremost poet of the age, promptly rose to defend his nation, thus maligned by accusations of barbarism, with a dignified response in Latin verse. Here is my abridged paraphrase in English:

We applauded your arrival, played the gittern and drank wine…
By Władysław Bakałowicz (1883)

Stop, O Frenchmen! Hold your horses! What’s the reason for your flight? Only tyrants run from Poland like a dog annoyed by flies. […] We applauded your arrival, played the gittern and drank wine, Did our best that you feel welcome; all you ever did was whine, Call us drunks and take our earnest hospitality for vice. Runaway barbaric ingrates! We are tired of being nice.

— Jan Kochanowski: Gallo crocitanti ἀμοιβή, in: Julian Ejsmond: Polska w pieśniach cudzoziemskich, Warszawa: Jan Cotta, 1915, p. 48–52, own translation Original text: State, viri, quae causa fugae? […] Sarmatia est, quam Galle fugis, fidissima tellus Hospitibus; fastus tantum impatiensque tyranni Sarmatia est, cui verba prius, nunc terga dedisti Continuasque fugam, quasi musca agitere canina. […] Atque ego, Galle, quidem fateor, neque forsitan ipse Inficias ibis, vos summo hominumque deorumque Applausu exceptos, passimque agitata per urbes Adventu vestro convivia, nec puduisse Sauromatam pictis redimitum tempora sertis Ad citharam saltare rudem, Bacchoque madere, Quippe ut Galle fidem faceret tibi simplicis atque Non fucati animi, quo confidentius et tu Laetum ageres convivam, epulis acceptus amicis. Tu vero ingratus fugitivus, barbarus, hospes Officium in vitium trabis et temeto conspergis Non tantum me, sed proprios etiam ebrie versus.

Another poet, who preferred to remain anonymous, responded to the “filthy French” in Polish – and in a far sharper tone.

I’ve seen the words you wrote there, ungrateful Gaulish rake: The thank-you note you’d left us before you ran away. […] Now here’s a true barbarian, who’s catty, mean and coarse, And any way you view him, duplicitous and false. […] We welcomed you with splendour, you answered with a scoff; We showered you with honours, yet somehow put you off. […] The prideful Gaul ain’t someone we Poles shall put up with; We’ll stand up to his hubris and give him a good hit!

— Odpowiedź przez Polaka wszetecznemu Francuzowi, in: Pisma polityczne z czasów pierwszego bezkrólewia, ed. Jan Czubek, Kraków: Akademia Umiejętności, 1906, p. 655–658, own translation Original text: Widziałem, coś napisał, Francuzie wszeteczny, Coś nam za dank zostawił, człowiecze niewdzięczny […] Toć mi jest prawy barbar, co hardy, złośliwy, I cokolwiek z nim poczniesz, odmienny a łżywy. […] Witaliśmy was strojnie, a ty z tego szydzisz; My z wami pięknie, szczerze; ty się nami brzydzisz. […] A nasz Polak nie ścierpi pysznego Francuza, Hardemu hardy będzie, by mu dostać guza.

As we can see, the first encounter between the two nations didn’t go particularly smoothly. The French didn’t warm to the Poles and neither did the Poles to the French. Henry Valois’s retinue went home with a lasting impression of Poland as a poor, backward, uncouth and bitterly cold country. In light of this, can we really imagine the French were eager to imitate any customs they might have glimpsed on the Vistula? That, in my opinion, seems rather unlikely. But it still doesn’t mean that Henry and his companions couldn’t have brought the idea of eating with a fork back from abroad. Only, if not from Poland – then whence?

A Long Way Home

Henry III’s itineraries:

  from France to Poland (5 November 1573 – 15 February 1574)

  and back again via Venice (18 June – 6 September 1574)

Once safely out of Poland, Henry headed south across Moravia until he reached Vienna. There, he found the money his mummy had sent him so he could afford his journey home. From that moment on, Henry was no longer in a rush. The threat of being stuck in Poland forever had passed and the French throne – kept warm for her darling boy by Catherine de’ Medici – could wait a little longer. The king chose a roundabout route back to France, skirting the Alps from the south and treating himself to the holiday of a lifetime in northern Italy. The weather there was far milder than in Poland (especially now that summer had arrived), and the culture was, without question, of a considerably higher calibre. And if ever questioned by his mum, he could always claim that his grand tour of Venice, Padua, Ferrara, Mantua and Turin had been a series of highly important diplomatic visits aimed at improving relations between the Italian city-states and France – which, fifteen years after the end of the Italian Wars, were still far from cordial.

The highlight of the entire journey was undoubtedly the visit to Venice, where Henry was greeted with great enthusiasm by both the highest dignitaries – including the Doge and the Patriarch of Venice – and by ordinary citizens, who no doubt appreciated the fact that the monarch of France and Poland was visiting their city as an honoured guest rather than a bloodthirsty conqueror. Throughout the week of his stay (18–24 July 1574), the king travelled the canals aboard a grand golden galley, surrounded by dozens of gondolas and accompanied by music, cannon salutes and the ringing of bells. He toured local landmarks and art collections, paid visits to luxurious courtesans, attended theatrical performances and firework displays, witnessed a demonstration of Venetian glassmaking and watched a traditional fistfight staged on the Bridge of Fists. And, of course, he enjoyed lavish banquets, which were so extravagant that the authorities of the Venetian Republic had to temporarily suspend the local sumptuary laws.

Henry III’s arrival in Venice
By Jacopo di Antonio Negretti (ca. 1594)

One witness to these events recorded the following detail from one of the feasts held in honour of King Henry:

After this most beautiful spectacle, a sumptuous breakfast was laid out for him, featuring exquisite confections and candied fruits, but what caused the greatest marvel and would never be seen again – were knives, forks, plates and napkins, all fashioned from sugar […]

— Rocco Benedetti: Le feste et trionfi fatti dalla serenissima signoria di Venetia nella felice venuta di Henrico III christianissimo re di Francia et di Polonia, Venetia: 1574, p. [6], own translation Original text: Doppo questa così belle vista, le fu apparecchiata una sontuosa collatione d’esquisite confettioni e frutti di zucchero, e quello che porta maggior[mente] maraviglia, e che non s’è più veduto, con i cortelli, pironi, piatti e tovaglie fatti di zucchero […]

Naturally, this sugar-sculpted tableware and cutlery were neither meant for use nor for consumption, but simply for admiration. Still, one might assume that the display was intended to imitate the style of table setting that was usual in Venice. And so, if there were sugar forks on the table, then real table forks can hardly have been anything extraordinary.

It’s worth noting one further detail. The Italian word for “forks” is “forchette”,^🔊 but the term used in the passage quoted above is “pironi”^🔊 – which comes from the Venetian dialect. And that word bears a striking resemblance to “pirounia” (πιρούνια^🔊), which is what forks are called in Greek. That shouldn’t be surprising, though. The Venetians had, after all, learned to eat with forks from the Greeks – and did so several centuries before Henry Valois ever came on the scene.

Devil’s Implement

The person traditionally credited with introducing the fork to Venice was a Greek princess, Maria Argyropoulina,^🔊 granddaughter of a Byzantine emperor, who in 1004 married the son of a Doge of Venice. The devilish contraption she wielded in her hand reportedly caused immense scandal among medieval Italian moralists, who deemed her death from smallpox three years later a fitting punishment from God for such outrageous excess.

Simple two-pronged table forks were already used in Italy as early as the 11th century.
Miniature from a manuscript of Rabanus Maurus’s encyclopaedia De Universo (Monte Cassino Abbey Archive, MS 132, fol. 408, ca. 1030)

A Doge of Venice took as his wife a citizen of Constantinople who lived with such tenderness and delicacy, and indulged herself in such pleasures – not only superstitiously but, if I may say so, artfully – that she refused even to wash herself with ordinary water. Instead, her servants laboured to collect morning dew from which they would prepare her bath. She would never touch her food with her hands either; her eunuchs would finely chop every morsel, which she would then bring to her mouth with a little golden two-pronged fork. Her bedchamber, moreover, was so redolent with incense and perfume that it shames us even to recount such disgrace and the listener might scarcely believe it anyway. But Almighty God made clear how hateful this woman’s pride had been, delivering a manifest judgement upon her. For when the sword of divine justice struck her, her entire body rotted away, every limb decayed and her chamber was filled with an utterly unbearable stench […]

— Institutio Monialis, in: Petrus Damiani: Opera Omnia, [Lyons]: Claudius Landri, 1623, p. 726, own translation Original text: Dux Venetiarum Constantinopolitanæ urbis civem habebat uxorem, quæ nimirum tam tenere tam delicate vivebat, et non modo superstitiosa sed artificiosa ut ita loquar, sese jucunditate mulcebat ut etiam communibus se aquis dedignaretur abluere; sed ejus servi rorem cœli satagebant undecunque colligere, ex quo sibi laboriosum satis balneum procurarent. Cibos quoque suos manibus non tangebat, sed ab eunuchis ejus alimenta quæque minutius concidebantur in frusta; quæ mox illa quibusdam fuscinulis aureis atque bidentibus ori suo, liguriens, adhibebat. Ejus porro cubi culum tot thymiamatum, aromatumque generibus redolebat, ut et nobis narrare tantum dedecus feteat, et auditor forte non credat. Sed omnipotenti Deo quantum hujus feminæ fuerit exosa superbia, manifesta docuit ulciscendo censura. Vibrato quippe super eam divini mucrone judicii, corpus ejus omne computruit, ita ut membra corporis undique cuncta marcescerent, totumque cubiculum intolerabili prorsus fetore complerent […]

The ambivalent attitude towards the table fork would persist in Italy for another five hundred years. We know from estate inventories that wealthy Italians did own forks and probably used them for eating, but they did so privately and refrained from flaunting such luxury too ostentatiously, lest they provoke the ire of the Church authorities. That’s why forks are so hard to find in medieval artworks produced on the Apennine Peninsula.

The Feast in the House of Levi by Paolo Veronese (1573)

Even Renaissance artists had to tread carefully when it came to forks, as is evident from the case of Paolo Veronese.^🔊 A year before King Henry’s visit to Venice, Veronese received a commission to paint the Last Supper for the refectory of a Dominican monastery in the same city. But when executing the work, the painter got… somewhat carried away. His Last Supper unfolded in the arcaded loggia of an ornate palace, where Jesus and the apostles were surrounded by German halberdiers, dwarf jesters, black servants, Turks in turbans, women in windows, even cats, dogs and a parrot… Like in a Monty Python sketch, all that was missing were kangaroos and a mariachi band! And to top it all off – horror of horrors – two apostles were seated at the table with forks in their hands! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, yet it’s hardly surprising that the Inquisition (Venetian, in this case) summoned Veronese for questioning and ordered him to alter the painting. The artist, however, found a brilliant way to appease the inquisitors without retouching the work: he simply changed the title from The Last Supper to The Feast in the House of Levi. That too is a biblical motif, but since at Levi’s house Jesus was dining alongside sinners, the inquisitors concluded that there were no more doctrinal obstacles to allowing a greater dose of poetic licence. Even those forks – so offensive to pious eyes – were ultimately permitted to remain.

Details of the painting with apostles making use of elongated two-pronged forks

By the 16th century, the sinful utensil was already widespread enough in Italy that it did not escape the notice of travellers from other parts of Europe – for whom it still remained a rather exotic novelty. Jacques Lesaige,^🔊 a silk merchant from northern France who undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1518, recorded the following observation during a stopover in Venice:

Each gentleman […] had all the dishes that were brought in cut up by a carver. One carver attended to four men, laying the sliced meat upon their trenchers. When the gentlemen wished to eat, they picked up the meat with a small silver fork, which to me seemed a very proper thing.

— Jacques Le Saige: Voyage de Jacques Le Saige, de Douai à Rome, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Venise, Jérusalem et autres saints lieux, red. Romain-Hippolyte Duthillœul, Douai: Adam d’Aubers, 1851, p. 53, own translation Original text: Chascun seigneur […] avoient trencheux qui trenchoient de tous les mes quy y furent aportés. Et chascun trencheux servoit quattre hommes et leurs mettoient sur leurs trenchoirs la viande toute taillée. Dont quant ceulx seigneurs volloient mengier prenoient ladite viande a toute une fourquette d’argent, quy me sembla chose honeste.

Lesaige – though undoubtedly a pious man – found nothing improper in the use of the fork. Almost a century later, the Englishman Thomas Coryat likewise encountered the table fork for the first time in Italy. He too perceived no harm in it, but when, upon returning home, he sought to introduce the custom of using this utensil at table, he earned for himself the less than flattering nickname Furcifer – which in Latin means a pitchfork‑wielding rogue.

Italian 15th-century table fork, in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

I observed a custom in all those Italian cities and towns through the 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. This form of feeding I understand is generally used in all places of Italy, their forks being for the most part made of iron or steel, and some of silver, but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means endure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men’s fingers are not alike clean.

— Thomas Coryat: Coryat’s Crudities, vol. 1, Glasgow: James McLehose and Sons, 1905, p. 236

So Coryat never encountered a fork in any other European country he travelled through outside of Italy. But then again, he never set foot in Poland!

Queen à la Fourchette

As you may recall from my previous post (and if you don’t, then you may wish to go back and read it again), Henry III’s mother is credited with bringing to France all manner of Italian culinary novelties – from melons to artichokes to pasta. One may also add the fork to the list. For who else could be held responsible for spreading in her adopted homeland so devilish an implement, if not the demonic queen, Catherine de’ Medici? Even Przypkowski entertained such a possibility, though in the end he inclined towards his own thesis: that the decisive role in this matter was played by Henry himself, returning from Poland.

Polish historians of culture […] have supposed that the fork came to Poland together with Queen Bona’s “Italian vegetables”. A couple of years ago in Milan, I devoted considerable time to research and discussions with Italian historians. […] The Italians pointed out that the Sforzas – glorified sellswords who had risen from the ranks of fur traders – maintained a rather austere court and that one would sooner expect to find the fork at the Florentine court of the Medici. But then, it would have been Henry’s mother, herself a Medici, who introduced it to the French court – rather than Henry upon his return from Poland!

— T. Przypkowski, op. cit., p. 11 Original text: Polscy historycy kultury […] przypuszczali, że widelec przyniosła nam do Polski wraz z „włoszczyzną” Bona. Parę lat temu poświęciłem sporo czasu na poszukiwania w Mediolanie i dyskusje z włoskimi historykami kultury. […] Włosi zwracali mi przy tym uwagę, iż dwór Sforzów, kondotierów wyrosłych z handlarzy futer, był raczej surowym i prędzej na florenckim dworze Medyceuszów trzeba by widelca szukać. A wtedy przyniosłaby go na dwór francuski już matka Walezego, przecież Medycejka, a nie dopiero Walezy po powrocie z Polski!

Spoon, fork and knife in an illustration from B. Scappi’s Opera (1570)

We have no direct evidence that Catherine herself ever used a fork, but it’s unlikely that she was unfamiliar with the utensil. For while we don’t know for sure whether she brought the fork from Italy to France, it is certain that she procured for herself an Italian cookbook. And not just any cookbook! It was the work of Bartolomeo Scappi,^🔊 titled Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi, or The Work of Bartolomeo Scappi. Scappi, papal master chef during the pontificates of Piuses IV and V, published in 1570 the most extensive compendium of culinary knowledge produced in the entire 16th century. What is more – and this was a complete novelty – the book was rich in instructive (not merely decorative) illustrations. Among them, for the first time in any book, appeared an image showing what a table fork looked like. One may therefore assume that Catherine possessed at least a theoretical knowledge of the fork.

Ultimately, however, one should not overestimate the role of individuals in the spread of culinary customs. Well‑known figures from the highest political elites – Maria Argyropoulina, Bona Sforza, Catherine de’ Medici or Henry III – may indeed have played some part in popularizing the fork in Europe, but far more important to this process were the broader contacts between nations: through wars, trade, pilgrimages and the like.

What Happened Next?

Knife and fork, dated to the times of Catherine de’ Medici and Henry III, in the collections of the Louvre Museum in Paris

Henry finally crossed the French border on 5 September 1574 and the following day he reached Lyons, where his mother was waiting for him. Contrary to what you may sometimes hear, his sudden departure from Poland did not automatically mean that he abdicated the Polish throne. Nevertheless, the outrage of his Polish subjects led the senate to present the monarch with an ultimatum: he would either come back to Poland within a year and summon the parliament or the throne would be declared vacant. The year passed, the king failed to return, and so the senators began preparations for a new royal election. Henry, however, continued to style himself king of both France and Poland until the end of his life, and French diplomacy never recognized his elected successor, Stephen Báthory, as a legitimate monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In France, Henry showed no greater interest in affairs of state than he had in Poland, leaving the business of running the kingdom in the hands of his mother. In 1589, Catherine died of pleurisy, and half a year later, Henry died at the hands of an assassin. Nothing of this sort would have happened, had he remained in Poland – a country with almost no history of regicide. Polish nobility took the sudden death of their former monarch as further proof of their civilizational superiority over the French. In Poland, as one historian would quip centuries later, Henry “might have perhaps died of boredom, but never from a knife.”

With Henry’s demise, the Valois dynasty came to an end and the French throne passed to the Bourbons. The latter were initially less persuaded of the fork than their predecessors had been. Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) preferred, throughout his life, to eat conservatively with his fingers. It was only his great‑grandson and successor, Louis XV (r. 1715–1774), who finally grew accustomed to the fork. Across Europe, in fact, the process of adopting the table fork was protracted and gradual. What may have helped accelerate it was the growing popularity of another Italian novelty: pasta. More traditional foodstuffs could still be eaten with the fingers, but pasta – especially the long and thin kind, slippery with sauce – was far easier to twirl on a fork. Italians had long eaten pasta in this way, as attested, for example, in a story by the 14th‑century writer Franco Sacchetti,^🔊 which includes a description of a pasta speed-eating contest.

Noddo began to gobble up the macaroni, twirling it and pushing it down. He had already swallowed six mouthfuls, while Giovanni still had his first bite stuck on the fork and, seeing it steaming so fiercely, didn’t dare bring it near his mouth.

— Franco Sacchetti: Il Trecentonovelle, Liberliber.it, 1999, p. 136 Original text: Noddo comincia a raguazzare i maccheroni, avviluppa, e caccia giú; e n’avea già mandati sei bocconi giú, che Giovanni avea ancora il primo boccone su la forchetta, e non ardiva, veggendolo molto fumicare, appressarlosi alla bocca.

An Italian man eating pasta with his fingers
By Luca Giordano (ca. 1660)

Only here arises a puzzle: I was trying to gather some iconographic examples illustrating the shared history of the fork and pasta, but among all of the early modern paintings I’ve managed to find that show people enjoying pasta, every single one depicts the pasta being grabbed with the fingers! It seems, however, that these paintings mostly portray peasants or the urban poor. Perhaps the image of a pauper greedily stuffing handfuls of pasta into his mouth was more appealing to painters of the time than that of nobles daintily twirling it on their forks.

In the 18th century, the fork began to evolve. Two straight, pointed prongs were gradually replaced with three – and later four – curved, blunted tines, allowing for easier scooping and reducing the risk of injury. The 19th century brought a whole array of specialized variants: fish forks, oyster forks, cheese forks, dessert forks… Differences in fork etiquette began to emerge as well: some people laid their forks on the table with the tines facing down (the French way), others with the tines facing up (the English way); some held the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left, while others kept fork-shuttling from one hand to another (as Americans still do today).

Fork‑related trends didn’t bypass Poland. However, even in the mid‑20th century, ethnographers noted that the Polish Carpathian mountainfolk still regarded the fork as a “convenient accessory, though not a necessary one”. It might serve, for instance, to place slices of sausage on a piece of bread – but not to convey the food directly to the mouth – and besides, it also aroused fears “lest someone poke out an eye with the prongs”.

In the end the fork became a symbol of the entire so‑called Western civilization. The ability to use it remains a marker of social refinement. As an implement unambiguously associated with eating, it has found its way onto maps and road signs to indicate dining establishments, not to mention its appearance in the titles of food-related books, films and, yes, culinary blogs.

Bibliography

An Italian woman eating polenta with a three-pronged fork
By Giandomenico Tiepolo (1757)

• Ferdinand Braudel: Struktury codzienności: Kultura materialna, gospodarka i kapitalizm, XV–XVIII wiek, transl. Maria Ochab, Piotr Graff, Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2019 (2024), p. 168–171
• Pascal Brioist, Florent Quellier: La table de la Renaissance: Le mythe italien, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Presses Universitaires François-Rabelais, 2018
  • Loïc Bienassis, Antonella Campanini: La reine à la fourchette et autres histoires : Ce que la table française emprunta à l’Italie : analyse crytique d’un mythe, in: La table de la Renaissance…, p. 29–88
  • Deborah L. Krohn: Le livre de cuisine de la reine : un exemplaire de l’Opera de Scappi dans la collection de Catherine de Médicis, in: La table de la Renaissance…, p. 151–163
• Antonella Campanini: The Illusive Story Of Catherine de’ Medici: A Gastronomic Myth, in: The New Gastronome, Università degli studi di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo
• Norbert Elias: Über den Gebrauch der Gabel beim Essen, in: Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976, p. 170–174
• Marc de Ferrière le Vayer: The Fork, in: Alimentarium, 2016
• Barbara Ketcham Wheaton: Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789, Touchstone, 1996
• Robert Kusek, Wojciech Szymański: Kings as ‘Queens’ – Textual and Visual Homophobic Fabrications of Two Polish Kings: The Curious Cases of Boleslaw the Generous and Henry I of Poland, in: Royal Studies Journal, 6, no. 2, Winchester University Press, 2019, p. 127–147
• Kathleen Long: Dining with the Hermaphrodites: Courtly Excess and Dietary Manuals in Early Modern France, in: Folger Shakespeare Library, 10 March 2020
• Jean-Robert Pitte: La fourchette : son histoire, son usage et l’art de la disposer à table, in: Repas gastronomique des Français, Paris: La Mission Française du Patrimoine et des Cultures Alimentaires, 31 January 2022
• Tadeusz Przypkowski: Łyżka za cholewą, a widelec na stole…, in: Przekrój, No. 1514, Kraków: 1974, p. 10–11
• Patrick Rambourg: Profession : écuyer tranchant, in: L’Histoire, 2018
• Gilian Riley: Table Manners and what they Looked Like: a Discussion of Visual Evidence for what People Ate and how they Handled it, in: Mark McWilliams: Food & Material Culture: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2013, Devon: Prospect Books, 2014, p. 256–263
• Radosław Sikora: Staropolska biesiada (cz. 3): Widelce, in: Kresy.pl, 27 March 2017
• Janusz Tazbir: Henryk Walezy, in: Andrzej Garlicki: Poczet królów i książąt polskich, Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1984, p. 345–352
• Carolin C. Young: Catherine de’ Medici’s Fork, in: Richard Hosking: Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2005, Devon: Prospect Books, 2006, p. 441–453
• Carolin C. Young: The Soup that Went into the Tureen: Connecting the Dots between Food and Material Culture, in: Mark McWilliams: Food & Material Culture: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2013, Devon: Prospect Books, 2014, p. 33–47

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