Great banquets were the climax of any embassy or important royal occasion. They were feasts not only for the body but for the mind and the eye; they were an opportunity for opulent display and they were meant to astonish. Indeed, as a central plank in the promotion of the regime and its wealth and power, it was essential that they did astonish. When the papal nuncio, Francesco Chieregato, attended a feast given for the Spanish ambassadors in 1517 he concluded his report with the observation that ‘the wealth and civilization of the world are here; and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render themselves such. I here perceive very elegant manners, extreme decorum, and very great politeness’.

Great royal banquets, as we have already noted, were not held in isolation. They were set within a sequence of events that included tournaments, pageants and church services; they were hugely costly and were an essential feature of princely magnificence. The principal guests were usually foreign ambassadors and because an account of such an event, which they attended as their masters’ representatives, would inevitably have been written up in their dispatches, we have more evidence of what they were like than most other kinds of courtly spectacle.

No two banquets or feasts (terminology was fluid and ‘banquet’ also had a more restricted sense) were exactly alike, but the basic elements did not change much. The hall, or banqueting house, was always hung with rich tapestries and cloth of gold, the meal was always punctuated by elaborate ceremonies, and the serious business of eating was invariably accompanied by extravagant entertainments. But, other than the food, the feature that usually attracted most comment was the plate. This comprised wares used for the service of the meal itself and, more impressively, rows of gold and silver-gilt vessels displayed on tiered structures called buffets or cupboards.

This chapter looks at the spectacle of banquets and the extravagant rituals that attended them. It concentrates on the huge quantities of plate that were deployed and the uses to which it was put.