Note 953 — ACT I. SCENE I.

a trencher] "At this time pewter was not introduced into common use. Our ancestors were content with wooden trenchers, and these were even to be found at the tables of our nobility and persons of good fashion. Among the orders for household servants, devised by John Haryngton, 1566, and renewed by his son, 1592, it is directed, ‘That no man waite at the table without a trencher in his hand, except it be uppon good cause, on paine of 1d.’ Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. ii. p. 267, ed. 1779. See also the Northumberland Household-Book, p. 354. Trenchers are still used in some colleges and inns-of-court, particularly in Lincoln’s-Inn." Reed.