In one of the stories in the early English Gesta Romanorum, an earl and his son, who dine at the emperor’s table, are seated together, and are served with one plate, a fish, between them. The practice was, indeed, so general, that the phrase “to eat in the same dish” (_manger dans la même écuelle_), became proverbial for intimate friendship between two persons. There was another practice relating to the table which must not be overlooked. It must have been remarked that, in the illuminations of contemporary manuscripts which represent dinner scenes, the guests are rarely represented as eating on plates. In fact, only certain articles were served in plates. Loaves were made of a secondary quality of flour, and these were first pared, and then cut into thick slices, which were called, in French, _tranchoirs_, and, in English, _trenchers_, because they were to be carved upon. The portions of meat were served to the guests on these _tranchoirs_, and they cut it upon them as they eat it. The gravy, of course, went into the bread, which the guest sometimes, perhaps always at an earlier period, eat after the meat, but in later times, and at the tables of the great, it appears to have been more frequently sent away to the alms-basket, from which the leavings of the table were distributed to the poor at the gate. All the bread used at table seems to have been pared, before it was cut, and the parings were thrown into the alms-dish. Walter de Bibblesworth, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, among other directions for the laying out of the table, says, “Cut the bread which is pared, and let the parings be given to the alms”-- _Tayllet le payn ke est parée,_ _Les biseaus à l’amoyne soyt doné._ The practice is alluded to in the romance of Sir Tristrem (fytte i. ft. 1.)-- _The kyng no seyd no more,_ _But wesche and yede_ (went) _to mete;_ _Bred thai pard and schare_ (cut), _Ynough thai hadde at ete_. It was the duty of the almoner to say grace. The following directions are given in the Boke of Curtasye (p. 30):-- _The aumenere by this hathe sayde grace,_ _And the almes-dysshe hase sett in place;_ _Therin the karver a lofe schalle sette,_ _To serve God fyrst withouten lette;_ _These othere lofes be parys aboute,_ _Lays hit myd_ (with) _dysshe withouten doute_.