ard, the
dressing-knife, the roasting-iron, the frying-pan, the spit-turner (in
lieu of the old turn-broach), the andiron, the ladle, the slice, the
skummer; and the _assitabulum_, or saucer, first presents itself.
It seems as if the butler and the pantler had their own separate
quarters; and the different species of wine, and the vessels for
holding it, are not forgotten. The archaic pantry was dedicated, not
to its later objects, but to that which the name strictly signifies;
but at the same time the writer warrants us in concluding, that the
pantry accommodated certain miscellaneous utensils, as he comprises
in its contents a candlestick, a table or board-cloth, a hand-cloth or
napkin, a drinking bowl, a saucer, and a spoon. The kitchen, in short,
comprised within its boundaries a far larger variety of domestic
requisites of all kinds than its modern representative, which deals
with an external machinery so totally changed. The ancient Court of
England was so differently constituted from the present, and so
many offices which sprang out of the feudal system have fallen
into desuetude, that it requires a considerable effort to imagine a
condition of things, where the master-cook of our lord the king was
a personage of high rank and extended possessions. How early the
functions of cook and the property attached to the position were
separated, and the tenure of the land made dependent on a nominal
ceremony, is not quite clear. Warner thinks that it was in the
Conqueror's time; but at any rate, in that of Henry II. the husband
of the heiress of Bartholomew de Cheney held his land in Addington,
Surrey, by the serjeantry of finding a cook to dress the victuals at
the coronation; the custom was kept up at least so late as the reign
of George III., to whom at his coronation the lord of the manor of
Addington presented a dish of pottage. The tenure was varied in its
details from time to time. But for my purpose it is sufficient that
manorial rights were acquired by the _magnus coquus_ or _magister
coquorum_ in the same way as by the grand butler and other officers of
state; and when so large a share of the splendour of royalty
continued for centuries to emanate from the kitchen, it was scarcely
inappropriate or unfair to confer on that department of state some
titular distinction, and endow the holder with substantial honours. To
the Grand Chamberlain and the Grand Butler the Grand Cook was a meet
appendage.

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