Some knops were flat-ended abstract shapes, such as a stamp or a seal. Pre-1649 knop "finials" included diamonds and acorns, owls and bunches of grapes, naked women and sitting lions. Over the previous few centuries, silversmiths lavished great artistry on a part of the spoon we would now consider almost irrelevant, adding little sculptures called knops on the end point of the handle. The biggest change with the Puritan spoon was its handle, which was entirely unadorned. These earlier spoons had a bowl like a teardrop, widening toward the end that you put in your mouth, whereas the Puritan bowl narrowed slightly at the end, like most of our spoons now. The Puritan spoon marked a departure from previous English silver spoons, which had bowls that were fig shaped (the technical term is ficulate), with chunky hexagonal stems. The shape of these spoons - which began to appear in England from the 1630s on - is known as "Puritan." They have a simple, shallow egg-shaped bowl that gives way to a plain, flat stem. But those that have survived are, as you'd expect, plain and unadorned. ![]() And, almost overnight, silver spoons took on an entirely new shape, the trifid (also known as trefids, trefoils, split-ends, and pieds-de-biche).īecause the Commonwealth lasted such a short time, Cromwellian spoons are rare. Handel composed his majestic Water Music. Charles II's Restoration was accompanied by sweeping cultural changes, aimed at effacing all memory of the Puritan Roundheads. Eleven years earlier, in 1649, the king's father, Charles I, was executed, the culmination of the English Civil War. In 1660, the luxuriantly bewigged Charles II became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a restoration of the monarchy after the country's brief experiment with republican government in the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard. Yet their construction and use has often reflected deep passions and fiercely held prejudices. ![]() Gripping a spoon in the fist is one of the earliest milestones in our development. ![]() Spoons are what we give babies - whether ceremonial silver christening spoons or shallow plastic weaning spoons containing the first gummy mouthfuls of baby rice. In and of themselves, these utensils are mild-mannered - certainly in comparison with the knife. Every human society has spoons of one kind or another. Their functions include serving, measuring, and conveying food from plate to mouth, not to mention culinary spoons for stirring and scraping, skimming, lifting, and ladling. Spoons - along with their companions and rivals, chopsticks and forks - are definitely a form of technology.
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