Luxury cutlery in the Polish lands from the 13th to the 16th century

The article discusses the variation in form and material, as well as the ideological content of luxury cutlery belonging to historical collections and obtained through archaeological excava- tions. The oldest group of medieval luxury cutlery known from the Polish lands are table knives with zoo- and anthropomorphic handles made of teeth, bone and antler, which can be dated to the second half of the 13th and the 14th century. No medieval specimens of the gilded and silver spoons mentioned in period inventories have survived; their forms are thus known only from iconographic sources and a unique casting mould found in Kraków. Archaeologically attested are only their poorer versions and imitations, often decorated but cast from tin and lead alloy. The discovery from Wrocław, unique in Central Europe, proves that some medieval wooden spoons may have had richly carved handles with full-figure zoo- and anthropomorphic representations. The finds from Gdańsk, on the other hand, suggest that some of the wooden spoons had scoops decorated with drawings and even multi-coloured paintings. The scoops of silver spoons used during the Renaissance by the magnates, as well as other luxury cutlery, were decorated with the owners’ coats of arms and carried around in leather cases attached to belts. Personal sets of gold, silver and gilded cutlery from the first half of the 16th century, consisting of a knife, a spoon and a fork, were stored in specially made boxes and chests, as evidenced by the accounts and inventories of King Sigismund the Old and the surviving set of cutlery gifted by Abbot Erazm Ciołek. These oldest forks had two prongs; examples with three prongs appeared during the reign of Sigismund Augustus. More elaborate forms of forks–with four prongs–date to the first half of the 17th century, e.g. the silver cutlery set of Prince Sigismund Casimir Vasa.