Page 192

192                 TABLES 
the regulation table for several centuries after the 
Norman conquest. We are told by Galfridus Gram- 
maticus, in his English-Latin   Dictionary, the 
"Promptorium Parvulorum," written about 1440, 
that a " table " at that time was a "mete boord that 
ys borne a-wey whb.n' mete ys do6n." That even the 
"table dormant" of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries was sometimes a board standing upon 
trestles is shown by the following item recorded in 
1509 in the inventory of Martin Collins, Treasurer 
of York, published by the Surtees Society, namely, 
"De xviii d. pro iii. dormondes bordes cum lripol'." 
Following the trend of the inventories we find that 
tables with trestles were not uncommon down to the 
middle of the sixteenth century, when "joined" and 
"framed" tables began to appear. After this time 
tables with trestles declined in frequency, but that 
they continued to be used by English people well 
into the eighteenth centur y is proved by 4he "table- 
boards" that we have cited from the New England 
records. 
A table-board, we are now prepared to explain, 
was no more nor less than the top of a table which, 
when brought out and placed upon trestles or im- 
provised supports, made the family board, to be used 
for the occasion and put away when the meal was 
over. We have not seen trestles mentioned in our 
inventories in connection with table-boards, but that