we hear of "a chafing dish of coals;"
and under September, wood and coals are mentioned together. But
doubtless the employment of the latter was far less general.

In a paper read before the Royal Society, June 9, 1796, there is an
account of a saucepan discovered in the bed of the river Withain, near
Tattersall Ferry, in Lincolnshire, in 1788. It was of base metal, and
was grooved at the bottom, to allow the contents more readily to
come within reach of the fire. The writer of this narrative, which
is printed in the "Philosophical Transactions," considered that the
vessel might be of Roman workman-ship; as he states that on the handle
was stamped a name, C. ARAT., which he interprets _Caius Aratus_. "It
appears," he adds, "to have been tinned; but almost all the coating
had been worn off.... The art of tinning copper was understood and
practised by the Romans, although it is commonly supposed to be a
modern invention."

Neckam mentions the roasting-spit, elsewhere called the roasting-iron;
but I fail to detect skewers, though they can hardly have been
wanting. Ladles for basting and stirring were familiar. As to the spit
itself, it became a showy article of plate, when the fashion arose
of serving up the meat upon it in the hall; and the tenure by which
Finchingfield in Essex was held _in capite_ in the reign of Edward
III.--that of turning the spit at the coronation--demonstrates that
the instrument was of sufficient standing to be taken into service as
a memorial formality.

The fifteenth century vocabulary notices the salt-cellar, the spoon,
the trencher, and the table-cloth. The catalogue comprises _morsus,
a bit_, which shows that _bit_ and _bite_ are synonymous, or rather,
that the latter is the true word as still used in Scotland, Yorkshire,
and Lincolnshire, from the last of which the Pilgrims carried it
across the Atlantic, where it is a current Americanism, not for
one bite, but as many as you please, which is, in fact, the modern
provincial interpretation of the phrase, but not the antique English
one. The word _towel_ was indifferently applied, perhaps, for a
cloth for use at the table or in the lavatory. Yet there was also the
_manuturgium_, or hand-cloth, a speciality rendered imperative by the
mediaeval fashion of eating.

In the inventory of the linen at Gilling, in Yorkshire, one of the
seats of the Fairfax family, made in 1590, occur:--"Item, napkins vj.
dozen. Item, new napkins vj. dozen." This