This small wooden plate was known as a ‘trencher’ and is part of a set of twelve. Each trencher is an elaborately painted roundel: a small, decorated disc. Fruits and flowers are painted on one side of this trencher, along with a short inscription. The text is a proverb, a warning or comment on daily life and morality.<br /> <br /> Sets of trenchers such as this were often used to serve sweet treats as an additional ‘banquet’ course after dinner. The trencher would be placed onto the table with the painted side down, and marzipan or other sugary delights would then be served on the plain surface. Guests could flip their trenchers having eaten their sugary confection and only then would the delicate decoration and moralising text be revealed. Guests might even be encouraged to read their text aloud to the table as a form of after-dinner entertainment.<br /> <br /> These trenchers demonstrate the two sides of leisure for middling people: socialising and entertainment, but with due respect to propriety and morality. Objects such as the posy trencher show how these aspects of middling life could be brought together during leisure time.
Posy trencher (Platter), 1597

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Posy trencher

Posy trencher (Platter), 1597

This small wooden plate was known as a ‘trencher’ and is part of a set of twelve. Each trencher is an elaborately painted roundel: a small, decorated disc. Fruits and flowers are painted on one side of this trencher, along with a short inscription. The text is a proverb, a warning or comment on daily life and morality.

Sets of trenchers such as this were often used to serve sweet treats as an additional ‘banquet’ course after dinner. The trencher would be placed onto the table with the painted side down, and marzipan or other sugary delights would then be served on the plain surface. Guests could flip their trenchers having eaten their sugary confection and only then would the delicate decoration and moralising text be revealed. Guests might even be encouraged to read their text aloud to the table as a form of after-dinner entertainment.

These trenchers demonstrate the two sides of leisure for middling people: socialising and entertainment, but with due respect to propriety and morality. Objects such as the posy trencher show how these aspects of middling life could be brought together during leisure time.

This object appears in our memory parlour and web tour. Can you find it?

Object Type Platter
Year 1597
Material Wood (sycamore), paper, vellum and paint
Owned By SBT 1992-4
Keywords playing; socialising; reading; looking; consuming; collecting; decoration; domestic; courtship; morality; leisure; performance; literacy; visual arts; dining; food/drink; tableware; wood; paint
Image Credit Platter, SRST: SBT 1992-4, CC-BY-NC-ND; Image Courtesy of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

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