Editing Tableware (section)

===Plates and other vessels===
[[File:British Museum Royal Gold Cup.jpg|thumb|250px|The [[Royal Gold Cup]], {{Nowrap|23.6&nbsp;cm}} high, {{Nowrap|17.8&nbsp;cm}} across; weight 1.935&nbsp;kg, [[British Museum]]. [[Saint Agnes]] appears to her friends in a vision. Before 1391, when it was owned by the King of France. One of a handful of medieval survivals, solid gold with enamels.]]
The earliest pottery in cultures around the world does not seem to have included flatware, concentrating on pots and jars for storage and cooking.  Wood does not survive well in most places, and though archaeology has found few wooden plates and dishes from [[prehistory]], they may have been common, once the tools to fashion them were available.

Ancient elites in most cultures preferred flatware in precious metals ("plate") at the table; China and Japan were two major exceptions, using [[lacquerware]] and later fine pottery, especially [[porcelain]]. In China, bowls have always been preferred to plates.  In Europe, [[pewter]] was often used by the less-well-off (and eventually, the poor), and silver or gold was preferred by wealthier individuals.  Religious considerations influenced the choice of materials, as well: [[Muhammad]] spoke against using gold at table, as the contemporary elites of Persia and the [[Byzantine Empire]] did, and this greatly encouraged the growth of [[Islamic pottery]].

In Europe, the elites dined off metal, usually silver for the rich and [[pewter]] for the middling classes, from the ancient Greeks and Romans until the 18th century.

A trencher (from [[Old French]] ''tranchier'' 'to cut') was commonly used in [[medieval cuisine]]. A trencher was originally a flat round of (usually stale) bread used as a [[Plate (dishware)|plate]], upon which the food could be placed to eat.<ref>{{cite book|title=Banquets set forth: banqueting in English Renaissance drama|first=Chris|last=Meads|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2001|pages=47|isbn=0-7190-5567-9}}</ref> At the end of the meal, the trencher could be eaten with sauce, but could also be given as [[alms]] to the poor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/trenchers.html|date=September 2020|title=Trenchers}}</ref><ref>{{YouTube|id=wrroWt3xjVU?t=410|title=Medieval Misconceptions: FEASTS, DINING, ETIQUETTE and FOOD, filmed at the Abbey Medieval Festival, part of the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology}}</ref> Similar use of bread is still found with the [[bread bowl]].

The trencher was not fully replaced in France until the 1650s,<ref name="Strong, 226">Strong, 226</ref> although in Italy [[maiolica]] was used from the 15th century.  Orders survive for large services.  At an [[Este family]] wedding feast in [[Ferrara]] in 1565, 12,000 plates painted with the Este arms were used, though the "top table" probably ate off precious metal.<ref>Strong, 166–167; the wedding was between [[Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara]] and [[Barbara of Austria]]</ref>

Possession of tableware has to a large extent been determined by individual wealth; the greater the means, the higher was the quality of tableware that was owned and the more numerous its pieces.  The materials used were often controlled by [[sumptuary law]]s.  In the late Middle Ages and for much of the [[Early Modern period]] much of a great person's disposable assets were often in "plate", vessels and tableware in precious metal, and what was not in use for a given meal was often displayed on a ''dressoir de parement'' or ''buffet'' (similar to a large [[Welsh dresser]]) against the wall in the dining hall. At the wedding of [[Philip the Good]], [[Duke of Burgundy]], and [[Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy|Isabella of Portugal]] in 1429, there was a dresser 20 feet long on either side of the room, each with five rows of plate;<ref>Strong, 96–98. Strong says 1429, the year the proxy wedding took place. The bride arrived by sea in late 1429, but the formal marriage ceremony was not until January 1430.</ref> A comparable display on three ''dressoirs'' could be seen at the State Banquet in [[Buckingham Palace]] for the US President, [[Donald Trump]] in 2019.  Inventories of King [[Charles V of France]] (r. 1364–1380) record that he had 2,500 pieces of plate.<ref>Strong, 97</ref>

Plate was often melted down to finance wars or building, or until the 19th century just for remaking in a more fashionable style, and hardly any of the enormous quantities recorded in the later Middle Ages survives.<ref name="Osborne, 733">Osborne, 733</ref> The French [[Royal Gold Cup]] now in the [[British Museum]], in solid gold and decorated with enamel and pearls, is one of few secular exceptions.  Weighing more than two kilos, it was perhaps passed around for ceremonial toasts.<ref name="Osborne, 733"/> Another is the much plainer English silver [[Lacock Cup]], which has survived as it was bequeathed to a church early on, for use as a chalice.

The same is true for French silver from the 150 years before the [[French Revolution]], when French styles, either originals or local copies, were used by all the courts of Europe.  London silversmiths came a long way behind, but were the other main exporters. French silver now survives almost entirely in the form of exported pieces, like the [[Germain Service]] for the [[King of Portugal]].<ref>Strong, 237</ref>

[[File:Table Service MET DT11573.jpg|thumb|250px|A {{circa|1785}}–90 [[Chinese export porcelain]] dinner service for the American market]]

In London in the 13th century, the more affluent citizens owned fine furniture and silver, "while those of straiter means possessed only the simplest pottery and kitchen utensils." By the later 16th century, "even the poorer citizens dined off pewter rather than wood" and had plate, jars and pots made from "green glazed earthenware".<ref name=Ackroyd>{{cite book|last1=Peter Ackroyd|title=London: the biography|date=2003|publisher=Anchor books|location=New York|isbn=0385497717|edition=1st Anchor Books|author1-link=Peter Ackroyd}}p.55, 96</ref> The nobility often used their arms on [[heraldic china]].
[[File:Henrich petman. caffettiera in argento, viborg 1779-1799 circa.JPG|thumb|250px|18th century coffee pot, [[Vyborg]], Russia]]

The final replacement of silver tableware with porcelain as the norm in French aristocratic dining had taken place by the 1770s.<ref>Strong, 232–233</ref> After this the enormous development of European porcelain and cheaper fine [[earthenware]]s like [[faience]] and [[creamware]], as well as the resumption of large imports of [[Chinese export porcelain]], often [[armorial porcelain]] decorated to order, led to matching "china" services becoming affordable by an ever-wider public. By 1800 cheap versions of these were often brightly decorated with [[transfer printing]] in blue, and were beginning to be affordable by the better-off working-class household.  Until the mid-19th century the American market was largely served by imports from Britain, with some from China and the European continent.

The introduction to Europe of hot drinks, mostly but not only tea and coffee, as a regular feature of eating and entertaining, led to a new class of tableware. In its most common material, various types of ceramics, this is often called [[teaware]]. It developed in the late 17th century, and for some time the serving pots, milk jugs and sugar bowls were often in silver, while the cups and saucers were ceramic, often in [[Chinese export porcelain]] or its [[Japanese export porcelain|Japanese equivalent]].<ref>Osborne, 736; Strong, 225–226</ref> By the mid 18th century matching sets of European "china" were usual for all the vessels, although these often did not include plates for cake etc. until the next century.  This move to local china was rather delayed by the tendency of some early types of European [[soft-paste porcelain]] to [[thermal shock|break]] if too hot liquid was poured into it.