Note 208 — Chapter III · SURNAMES OF OFFICE.
Reading edition
Forks, used first in Italy, were not introduced into the French Court till late in the sixteenth century. In England they did not make their appearance till 1608, and it is said they were there the immediate result of the published travels of Thomas Coryat, who visited Italy in that year. I am sorry to say that I cannot find any instance of ‘Spooner’ in our earlier archives. Foxe mentions, in his Martyrology, a ‘Robert Catlin, spoonmaker,’ persecuted in 1552 at Byebrook, Suffolk.