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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that delivers a tasty morsel of history every

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Speaker 1: day of the week. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the unusual birth of a now ubiquitous

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Speaker 1: piece of cutlery, the trusty table knife. The day was

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Speaker 1: May sixteen thirty seven. A French clergyman ordered the blades

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Speaker 1: of his dinnerware to be rounded off at the edges,

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Speaker 1: thus creating the first known version of the butter knife.

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Speaker 1: Long before utensils came along, Humans primarily ate with their hands,

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Speaker 1: and many still do, but one of the first tools

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Speaker 1: we adopted for the task of eating. We're nineis In

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Speaker 1: medieval Europe, many people carried intricately decorated knives or daggers

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Speaker 1: on their person at all times. The blades weren't specifically

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Speaker 1: designed for eating, but many used them at the dinner

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Speaker 1: table all the same. After all, a hunting knife could

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Speaker 1: just as easily spear a cooked animal as it could

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Speaker 1: alive one. To be clear, spoons and forks were both

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Speaker 1: in use by the seventeenth century, but forks in particular

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Speaker 1: remained a rarity in the West, even among French nobility.

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Speaker 1: That meant that if you wanted to stab a piece

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Speaker 1: of food and bring it to your mouth, a sharp

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Speaker 1: knife was still the tool of choice for the job.

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Speaker 1: Cardinal armand Jean Duplicy, the Duke of Richelieu, was a

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Speaker 1: French clergyman who is best remembered today for helping transform

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Speaker 1: France into a centralized state, one where the majority of

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Speaker 1: power rested with the crown, not the nobles. He advanced

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Speaker 1: this goal on the behalf of King Louis the thirteenth,

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Speaker 1: whom he served as chief minister. The Cardinal exerted his

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Speaker 1: influence through harsh methods, including banning political discussions in public

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Speaker 1: places and using spies to dig up dirt on political

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Speaker 1: rivals in order to justify their execution. That said, the

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Speaker 1: Cardinal is believed to have been responsible for hanging quite

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Speaker 1: a few people, regardless of the strength of the evidence

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Speaker 1: against them. This alleged cruelty was immortalized by Alexander Dumas

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Speaker 1: in his classic novel The Three Musketeers, which portrays Cardinal

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Speaker 1: Richelieu as a brutal, power hungry ruler. His vicious approach

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Speaker 1: to politics was also reported by French memoirist Francois Bertot

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Speaker 1: der Motteville, who wrote that the Cardinal was fond of

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Speaker 1: saying that quote with two lines of a man's handwriting,

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Speaker 1: an accusation could be made against the most innocent, because

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Speaker 1: the business can be interpreted in such a way that

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Speaker 1: one can easily find what one wishes. If all of

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Speaker 1: that weren't damning enough, the Cardinal was apparently a stickler

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Speaker 1: for table manners too. He detested watching his dinner guests

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Speaker 1: stab at their plates with daggers, and it was even

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Speaker 1: worse after the meal, when they would pick at their

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Speaker 1: teeth with the points of their knives. Eventually, the delicate

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Speaker 1: Cardinal decided to discourage the practice by grinding down the

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Speaker 1: sharp ends of all the knives in his home so

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Speaker 1: that they were too blunt to be used as toothpicks.

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Speaker 1: According to legend, the first of these blunt edged table

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Speaker 1: knives or butter knives, were created on May sixteen, thirty seven.

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Speaker 1: Of course, the Cardinal couldn't prevent guests from stabbing food

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Speaker 1: and picking a teeth with their personal daggers, but since

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Speaker 1: he wielded considerable power and influence, many French households quickly

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Speaker 1: began dulling their own knives. Gradually, everyone at court started

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Speaker 1: using blunt knives at the table, and this made the

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Speaker 1: practice so fashionable that commoners began to do the same.

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Speaker 1: There were some holdouts, as not everyone was willing to

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Speaker 1: sacrifice convenience for the sake of appearing well mannered, but

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Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty nine, nearly thirty years after the cardinal's death,

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Speaker 1: King Louis finally put an end to sharp knives at

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Speaker 1: the dinner table. Officially, the king's ban on sharp blades

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Speaker 1: was meant to curb a recent wave of violence in

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Speaker 1: city streets and in private homes, but rather than throw

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Speaker 1: out every knife they owned, most people opted to grind

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Speaker 1: them down to make table knives, which would at least

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Speaker 1: still serve some purpose. This made dull knives a common

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Speaker 1: feature across France and eventually throughout continental Europe. England soon

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Speaker 1: caught on as well, and from there eventually the American

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Speaker 1: colonies did too. In the centuries since the table knives introduction,

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Speaker 1: it's traditional shape has changed a bit. No longer fashioned

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Speaker 1: from existing thin daggers, the average dinner knife is now

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Speaker 1: somewhat wider, making it all the more suited for pushing

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Speaker 1: food onto a fork, and of course we're spreading butter,

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Speaker 1: jam or whatever else. Of course, sharp and serrated knives

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Speaker 1: still pop up on the dinner table from time to time,

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Speaker 1: especially when sliced bread or steak is on the menu.

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Speaker 1: But luckily for etiquette enforcers like Cardinal Richelieu, picking your

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Speaker 1: teeth with a steak knife never quite caught on, at

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Speaker 1: least not for most people. I'm Gabe Luzier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you have a second and you're

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Speaker 1: so inclined, consider keeping up with the by following us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t D i HC Show.

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Speaker 1: You can also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or you can send your feedback directly to me by

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Speaker 1: writing to This Day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again soon

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Speaker 1: for another day in History class.