The Blasphemous Fork

Elias again: “In the eleventh century a Venetian doge married a Greek princess. In her Byzantine circle the fork was clearly in use. At any rate, we hear that she lifted food to her mouth ‘by means of little gold forks with two prongs.’

“This gave rise in Venice to a dreadful scandal: ‘This novelty was regarded as so excessive a sign of refinement that the dogaressa was severely rebuked by the ecclesiastics who called down divine wrath upon her. Shortly afterward she was afflicted by a repulsive illness and St Bonaventure did not hesitate to declare that this was a punishment of God.”

(The quotations are taken from a 1910 book by A Cabanes entitled, Moeurs intimes du temps passe .)