In Medieval Europe, No Outfit Was Complete Without a Personal Eating Knife

Thank you my friend CW5 Jack Cardwell for sharing the well known fact that in Medieval days in Europe most food was consumed by hand. Knives were commonplace because they were multifunctional - stabbing, cutting opponents or cutting meat and using the knife to put food into your mouth or your date's :-)

By reading the article you posted it seemed that according to that perceptive only men with belts had these eating with knives . I expect noble women had servants who carried their personal knives.

Background on the fork
"The Qijia culture (2400-1900 BC) that resided in part of present day China also are known to have used forks. A couple thousand years later, the fork’s popularity in the Western world spread via the Silk Road into Venice.
One of the earliest recorded evidence of forks in Venice is from an 11th century story of the the wedding of a Byzantine princess, Theodora Anna Doukaina, to Domenico Selvo. She supposedly brought gold forks as part of her dowry.
Apparently it was quite the scandal. The God fearing Venetians saw these pronged monstrosities as a slight against The Lord himself who gave us perfectly good fingers to eat with. I can’t make this stuff up: God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating. -St. Peter Damian

Of course, in the Book of I Samuel (2:13)- thought to have been composed around 640-540 BC- it states that Jewish priests’ assistants used forks:
And the priests’ custom with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand…
Such trivial mentions as usage in the Holy scriptures by none other than the priests’ servants themselves didn’t stop many religious elite from vilifying the fork and poor Theodora. (They also didn’t like that she used napkins, among other things.)
When the princess died two years later of a mysterious degenerative disease, it was considered by some to be punishment for her pride and perceived excesses. What the fork?
Despite being mentioned as OK to use in the Hebrew Bible, forks in the Western world continued to carry this negative stigma due to their association with Eastern decadence and being perceived as an affront to God. They were subsequently strictly reserved for sticky food.

The fork’s popularity began to grow during the 16th century due to the infamous historical trend setter Catherine de Medici. She helped popularize the fork (as well as pasta, olive oil, chianti and the separation of sweet and savoury) with the French tables after her marriage to Henry II. At this time, anything Italian was in vogue thanks to the Renaissance.
The fork also became more popular as hygiene ideals began to change. Up until this point, purposely clogging one’s pores with dirt to prevent the plague infiltrating through them was considered a good idea. (Similar thought processes were largely why bathing was uncommon during Medieval times- you don’t want disease filled water getting in your pours!) Many people also preferred to blow their noses directly into their hands instead of onto the tablecloth, as that would be bad manners. Now, imagine these same people eating with their hands."
https://gizmodo.com/the-history-of-knives-forks-and-spoons [login to see]

"Though it could be used as a defensive weapon, it’s primary purpose was as an eating utensil. One would just as soon leave the house without shoes as walk around without a knife strung from the girdle. In fact, it was so habitually worn, Wilson says, that it was often easy to forget it was there. According to her, one sixth-century text “reminded monks to detach their knives from their belts before they went to bed, so they didn’t cut themselves in the night.”
Not only were they functional tools, they were also personal gadgets tailored to their owner. While meals were shared, with multiple diners often eating from the same plate, knives were far from communal. “You would no more eat with another person’s knife than you would brush your teeth today with a stranger’s toothbrush,” writes Wilson. At the end of the dinner, knives would be wiped down with a napkin and promptly returned to their owners.
But while no one totes a toothbrush on their person, the knives were, in a sense, a garment, and thus often designed to reflect their owners’ taste. The handle, where one could really show personal flair, could be crafted from a wide variety of materials, including brass, glass, mother of pearl, and tortoiseshell. Some were plain, while others were engraved with surprisingly sweet images of flowers, doves, apostles, or even babies."

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Great share. I did not know this.

Yep - so very true.