Acceso usuarios
Juan Vicente García Marsilla
The sharing of food throughout history has been one of the most important rituals of socialization and has served to both unite and place different groups in hierarchical order. In the Hispanic kingdoms, like the rest of medieval Europe, the everyday act of sitting together to eat became a moment of communion filled with symbolic paraphernalia. The objective of this article is to analyze this moment almost as if it was a theatrical performance, focusing on four successive aspects: the mise-en-scène, from the creation of a single room in dwellings labelled "dining room," to the central furniture items (tables, chairs and benches, cupboards, etc.) that had functionality in the act of eating; the atrezzo, with the place-settings, tablecloths or silverware that became more refined and specialized over the centuries; the actors, not only the guests, but also those present in the homes of royalty and those of lesser status, including carvers, bartenders, and musicians; and lastly the script, in other words, the strict etiquette rules that some Spanish moralists created for these occasions. This will be done through a synthesis of diverse sources that were present across the Iberian Peninsula, from inventory lists to literature, in archeological remains and iconographic sources, including altarpieces and gothic miniatures. This approach considers two important variables: the social, since economic differences and privileges were clearly established through food; and the chronological, underlining the many changes that have taken place over the course of three centuries in this field.
