Saltcellars, Salts

Vessels with salt issuing from the sides, as borne in the Arms of the Salters’ Company. Some heraldic writers call them sprinkling salts. At coronation and other great dinners given by the nobility and gentry, it was formerly the custom to place one of these saltcellars in the centre of the table, not only for holding salt for the use of the guests but as a mark whereby to separate and distinguish the seats of the superiors of the company from the inferior, when it was the custom in former times to set the nobility and gentry above the salt, and the yeomanry and persons of lower rank below the salt, whence arose the common expression of above the salt and below the salt.