On this day in 1637, French Cardinal Richelieu, formerly known as Armand Jean du Plessis made his point – by removing the point. “Cardinal Richelieu (born September 9, 1585, Poitou or Paris, France—died December 4, 1642, Paris) was the chief minister to King Louis XIII of France from 1624 to 1642.”1 Judging from history, it is difficult to determine if he was more of a spiritual or political leader. Neither arena, though, is where he achieved the greatest accomplishment that affects us today.
Instead, his greatest accomplishment happened at the dinner table.
We might think of the French as being quite fashionable in manners and etiquette. This was not always the case. Frustrated by dinner guests who thrust their knives into the tabletop or used the point of the steak knife to pick their teeth, Richelieu snapped at the barbaric behavior. He ordered the points of all knives to be ground down and rounded, eliminating the impromptu toothpick and all the holes in the dining room table.
And the butter knife was born!
“Richelieu’s knives became the rage among the court, and soon everyone who was anyone in France had a set. The dinner knife became commonplace throughout France after Louis XIV — who, like most kings, had his own reasons for not wanting sharp blades and pointed tips around — decreed its universality. Soon afterward, the dinner knife found its way throughout continental Europe to England and, eventually, the American colonies.”2
“In 1669, King Louis XIV of France banned pointed knives – at the table and as weapons – to try put an end to the culture of violence of the time. This further cemented the position of the round-ended table knife as preferred form of cutlery.
“Over time, the exact shape and form of the table knife changed, becoming slightly wider to make it easier to scoop food onto a fork, and to make it easier to spread butter or other spreads onto a slice of bread.”3
Bad manners such as stabbing your host’s table or picking your teeth with a knife seem very out of place in our culture. However, we have plenty of bad manners that take place at our tables: chewing with your mouth open, talking with your mouth full, slurping, licking your fingers, eating before everyone is served, double-dipping, bodily noises and eruptions, reaching across someone’s personal space, cell phone usage, failure to use excuse me, please, or thank you, blowing your nose, personal grooming – have I missed anything? The first five on my list just about push me over the edge! And I’m not too keen on the double-dipping, either.
What are manners? Seems like we ought to have a working definition if they bug us so much like they bugged Cardinal Richelieu. Manners could be defined as socially and culturally acceptable behaviors. Admittedly, this varies among cultures.
The word manners is found only six times in the Bible and most of the occurrences could be defined as behaviors that God finds acceptable. Unfortunately, the word is generally used in the negative. The first occurrence is in Leviticus 20:23. “And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.” The manners of the nations were those which God did not find acceptable based on His holy standard.
The northern exiled kingdoms of Israel intermingled and developed some very bad manners. 2 Kings 17:34 says, “Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.”
Unguarded associations can have an adverse effect on us as well. We are warned in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”
Let’s be cautious to guard our lives against behaviors that go contrary to the Word of God. God doesn’t want us to have bad manners and another warning is provided in Proverbs 22:24-25. “Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: (25) Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.”
1https://www.britannica.com/biography/Armand-Jean-du-Plessis-cardinal-et-duc-de-Richelieu/First-minister-of-France
2https://www.wired.com/2011/05/0513cardinal-richelieu-invents-table-knife/
3https://sciencelens.co.nz/2013/05/13/richelieu-table-knife/
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