Move over, Mr. Hoi Polloi

".................................. the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
And salt too little which may season give...."


                                        Much Ado About Nothing (IV, i)


Shakespeare's character Leonato is convinced that his daughter, a bride-to-be, has been unfaithful to her betrothed. He's none too happy about it: his family's reputation has been shamed, so he calls his daughter's death "the fairest cover for her shame / That may be wished for." That certainly sounds severe by the moral standards of our day, less so by the standards of his.


Leonato's metaphor, imagining all the salt in the sea as insufficient to give his daughter's moral character the redemptive seasoning it needs, befits an Elizabethan age that found salt indispensable. It was used in the preservation of fish and meat and in making a variety of foods more palatable. It was an enormously important item of trade for that reason alone, with the best salt generally coming from Spain and other countries hugging the Mediterranean.

We've gotten used to a salty taste in so many of our fast foods, to the point where we're often misled into believing that taste to be perfectly natural. It isn't.

Pictured above, from the collection of Agecroft Hall, is an English silver bell salt cellar made in London and dating to 1591, right around the time Shakespeare began to make a name for himself in that city's theatrical world. A silversmith's mark "I M" might refer to the smith John Morley, although this is by no means certain. The piece stands about ten inches tall, with a diameter at the base of four and one-quarter inches. It is decorated with floral designs and three roundels, two with Tudor roses and one with a shield.

This is a "double salt," consisting of two tapered sections, each with a salt bowl, capped with a hollow cover that was pierced to dispense pepper as well. The arrangement allowed the host to use his covered container while his guests, or some of them, used the lower, uncovered section. This sheds a bit of light on the stratified nature of Elizabethan society: for the nobility, it simply wouldn't do to be seated at table "below the salt," that is, at one of the lower tables for less highly-regarded guests, or furthest  from the presumably esteemed, wealthy and gracious host.

Macbeth makes reference to the protocols of such a rigid social hierarchy when he welcomes his supper guests, minus Banquo, with "You know your own degrees; sit down: at first / and last the hearty welcome"   (III, iv).

In our own more egalitarian times, we'd hardly dare think, even to ourselves, that our guests could be arranged on any descending ladder of social importance. But in Shakespeare's time, order was everything, disorder unthinkable.