So, yesterday we had a look at some men eating from a communal bowl of porridge or maybe soup, on my Facebook page. And in the discussion in the comments bellow, both blankets and table clothes for outdoor meals got mentioned, so I’d like to make a post here and show some of the table cloth pictures that I’ve found! Of course there are more pictures of outdoor meals, but most of them are with a more normal setting with tables and chairs, and now we’re looking for more ground adjacent cloths.
The first one with the cloth with food out to the left is from Belgium, Bruges, 1525-1530.
The second one with the soldier is from Milan, Italy, 1380-1385.
The third and fourth one is both from Belgium, ca. 1490.
Just two of them have the cloth directly on the ground and the other two seem to have some kind of low table. One of the ground cloth is clearly just to keep the food on and then you sit somewhere else. But one of the Belgian ones have some fairly close sitting and lying next to it. The men are not fully on the cloth, but they’re not completely off it either, like the ladies are.
I’ll keep looking for images like that, and hopefully I can do an update if I find more!
/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)
The lazy reenactor girl 