The world we inhabit in the 21st century moves so fast and changes in everything from technology to social acceptability to science and our understanding of the world and life itself happen so swiftly that it’s easy to forget just how unchanging and how slow the pace of life used to be. And I was recently reminded of just that, when I picked up a curious piece of silver while mosying around at my local flea-market on a cold, blustery day, with half the stalls empty, because people were scared of the possibility of rain.

I stopped at one of the regular stalls and perused the array of nicknacks under the glass display case, and my eye was drawn to four spoons, each one slightly different. Three of them were the rather bog-standard silver ‘apostle’ or ‘saint’ spoons – silver souvenir pieces designed as trinkets for the tourist trade in some far off country. However, one spoon in particular, caught my eye, mostly because it was so unusual. It was both decorative, but also surprisingly plain. Just the sheer design of it told me that this was something different, even as far as spoons went.

To say that the spoon was different was putting it mildly. It had a very large, circular bowl, a very thin, hexagonal handle, and a strangely shaped head. It wasn’t flat or round or anything, but shaped like an upside-down wax seal. When I picked up the spoon and examined the end of the handle, I noticed it had a series of dots on it, which formed letters, and a date: 1629.

At first, I got really excited, but when I asked the price, which was surprisingly cheap, I realised that it couldn’t possibly be nearly 400 years old! But perhaps it was still silver?

I flipped the spoon over to have a look. Stamped on the handle, just behind the bowl, was a series of English hallmarks, which said the spoon was made in Sheffield, in 1926, by the famed silver firm of Mappin & Webb (a company founded in the 1700s, and still operating today!).

OK, s it wasn’t a 17th century spoon, but it was still silver, and it was still made by a famous company! After walking around the market two or three times, I decided that I wanted it, if for no other reason than the novelty factor.

So What’s so Special about this Spoon, anyway?

What you’re looking at here is a reproduction, in sterling silver, of a spoon called a ‘seal-top’ spoon, a type that was popular in Britain and Europe in the 1500s, all the way up to the mid-1600s. It’s characterised by a wide, round bowl, and a long, thin handle. It gets its name from the ‘seal’ at the end of the shaft, a popular design choice of the day (other similar spoons came with figures of animals or religious figures on their ends).

Such decorative features were usually just that – decorative. But not in the case of seal-tops. These actually served a purpose…and it wasn’t so that you could seal thank-you notes with them after dinner, either! To understand why they were so common, one needs to understand a bit about the history of cutlery (yes, cutlery has history, just like everything else).

The Deal with the Seal

The purpose the pretty, flat circular disc at the top of the seal-top spoon was to serve as a seal. Or more specifically, as a sign or identifier (which is what seals are, anyway). The purpose of this disc was so that the spoon’s owner would have somewhere convenient and tasteful to engrave their initials, name, or special date, into the spoon.

Why?

Well so that the spoon could be identified as theirs, duh!

But why on earth would that be the case? Surely people in the 1500s had as many spoons as we do now, right?

Actually, no they didn’t. And this is where the history-bit comes in.

A Brief History of the Spoon

Since the beginning of time, mankind has tried to find a way of delivering food to his mouth. This was usually done with the hands. Which was fine…if the food could be handled. If it couldn’t, then something else needed to be used in order to deliver sustenance to the body. For a long time, this was the knife. A sharp blade could be used to pierce meat, fish, vegetables and fruit and pick it up and eat it. A knife could also be used to slice and cut food into more manageable pieces.

But you can’t eat everything with a knife. What about peas? Or rice? Or soup?

To get over this shortcoming of the humble blade, people started crafting out a device which could scoop things up to bring them to the mouth for eating. Originally, such devices were whatever could be found in nature – shells and hollowed pieces of wood, for example. Eventually, the idea came about that if you put a handle on this scoopy-thing, you could use it to dig around in hot stews and soups without getting your fingers burned, or losing your scoop if it slipped out of your fingers.

The first spoons were born!

Early spoons were pretty crude. They were usually just carved out of wood, or bone, or were made from clay. You ever tried carving or shaping a spoon by hand, from scratch?

Yeah. Imagine how long that takes. Imagine how fiddly it is to make one. Imagine how frustrated you’ll be when you’ve snapped it in half, and you can’t eat again until you’ve carved yourself another one. Imagine how delicate and fragile they are and how easily they can be lost, stolen or broken!

This is precisely why for much of history, if you owned any type of eating utensil, it was a spoon, and it’s also why most people did not own more than one. They were useful and versatile, but also fragile and tricky to make. That said, by the Middle Ages, it was common for everyone to eat with spoons, and it became very common for people to have their own personal spoons. There was no such thing as having a multitude of spoons lying around, just in case you wanted to eat something – no! You had your own personal spoon that you ate things with.

This became so ingrained that if you went anywhere – to the local pub, to a friend’s house for dinner, to the lord’s manor for a grand feast or if you traveled overseas or cross-country – you never took it for granted that the place you were going to had spare spoons lying around – there was absolutely no guarantee that there would be!

Because of this culture, ownership of personal cutlery sets (‘trousses’) became very common. In both Europe and in Asia, such sets were manufactured. They differed slightly from place to place (Asian sets had a spoon, knife and chopsticks, a European one would’ve had a spoon and knife). Again, to ensure that everyone knew which set belonged to which person, it was possible to personalise your own specific set to your taste and desire.

“Being Born with a Silver Spoon in your Mouth”

We’ve all heard this expression. But what does it mean? Where does it come from? How did it come to be?

As I’ve said – for much of history, it was common for people to own their own personal spoons, sets of chopsticks, knives or other eating utensils that they carried with them, or used when they needed to eat. This became such a part of life that it became common for families to gift sets or pieces of cutlery to other family-members, specifically, to newborn infants. Chances were, the spoon the child was given at birth would be the one that they used for the rest of their lives!

Because of this, spoons had to be made of something more durable than wood or clay or porcelain. Where possible, they were made of metal. Usually, this was bronze, pewter, and maybe later on, brass. But one particular type of metal was always favoured – good old-fashioned silver!

Why Were Spoons made of Silver?

Spoons were made of silver because in times past, silver was a very important metal – far moreso than it is today. Silver was seen not only as a statement of wealth, it was also seen as a store of wealth – often, the grade of silver permissible in a particular country was the same grade that was used in the country’s coinage. This meant that in hard times, any silverware you owned could be melted down and stamped into coins, and in times of great wealth, coins could be melted down and made into silverware! This was a perfectly legal process – all you had to do was go through the right channels and it was done!

Because of this, families which wanted to be financially secure owned as much silverware as possible. That’s why you see things like silver candlesticks, silver plates, silver cups, bowls, silver trays, teapots, and of course – silver spoons.

But in an age when silver was very expensive, obviously, only the richest people (usually royalty, nobility and the wealthy mercantile classes) could afford to do this. To have something as small and as trivial as a spoon be made of silver was therefore seen as a sign of wealth and status, especially if your family was rich enough to have such a spoon made for you before you were even born!

This is how the expression ‘to be born with a silver spoon’ came to be, and why it became synonymous with being born into riches and money.