The Trusty Servant

The Trusty Servant is an emblematic figure in a painting at Winchester College and the name of the college's alumni magazine.

The wall-painting called The Trusty Servant was painted by John Hoskins in 1579.[1] It was reworked by William Cave in 1809, giving the painting now on display there.[2] It hangs outside the college's kitchen.[3]

The American author Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1818-1896) described "the time-honoured Hircocervus, or picture of 'the Trusty-servant,' which hangs near the kitchen, and which emblematically sets forth those virtues in domestics, of which we Americans know nothing. It is a figure, part man, part porker, part deer, and part donkey; with a padlock on his mouth, and various other symbols in his hands and about his person, the whole signifying a most valuable character."[4]

The painting of The Trusty Servant had a didactic function: it is accompanied by allegorical verses that associate the servant's various animal parts with distinctive virtues that the students of Winchester College were meant to follow.[5]

Texts accompanying The Trusty Servant painting on the wall beside the kitchen in Winchester College[3][6]
Latin English

Effigiem servi si vis spectare probati,
Quisquis es, haec oculos pascat imago tuos.
Porcinum os quocunque cibo jejunia sedat:
Haec sera, consilium ne fiat, arcta premit.
Dat patientem asinus dominis jurgantibus aurem;
Cervus habet celeres ire, redire, pedes.
Laeva docet multum tot rebus onusta laborem;
Vestis munditiem, dextera aperta fidem.
Accinctus gladio, clypeo munitus; et inde
Vel se, vel Dominum, quo tueatur, habet.

A Trusty Servant's Portrait would you see,
This Emblematic Figure well Survey.
The Porker's Snout not Nice in diet shows;
The Padlock Shut, no Secrets he'll disclose;
Patient the Ass, his Master's wrath will bear;
Swiftness in Errand, the Stagges feet declare;
Loaded his left Hand, apt to Labour saith;
The Vest his Neatness; Open hand his Faith;
Girt with his Sword, his Shield upon his Arm,
Himself and Master he'll protect from Harm.

Legacy

In 2014 Winchester College commissioned a medal by Old Wykehamist Anthony Smith to be awarded to staff in recognition of "Long And Loyal Service". The medal features a relief sculpture of The Trusty Servant as it appears in the painting.[7] The Trusty Servant is the name of the Winchester College alumni magazine.[8] There is a Trusty Servant Inn at Minstead in the New Forest.[9]

  • 18th century engraving of The Trusty Servant
  • Inn sign at The Trusty Servant Inn, Minstead, Hampshire, painted by P J Oldreive

References

  1. ^ Pattern Histories: The Trusty Servant Archived 2008-12-04 at the Wayback Machine accessed 29 May 2007
  2. ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus; Lloyd, David (1967). Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Yale University Press. p. 703. OCLC 850028671.
  3. ^ a b "A good servant, represented as a hybrid creature combining a man, a pig, an ass and a deer, carrying cleaning implements and having a padlocked mouth. Engraving, 1749, after J. Hoskins". Wellcome Collection. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  4. ^ Coxe, Arthur Cleveland (1874). Impressions of England. J. B. Lippincott. p. 249.
  5. ^ Mark Thornton Burnett, Constructing "monsters" in Shakespearean drama and early modern culture (New York: Macmillan, 2002), 139.
  6. ^ Combe, William (1816). The history of the colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster. London: R. Ackermann. pp. 43–44.
  7. ^ "Trusty Servant Medal". Anthony Smith Sculpture. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  8. ^ "The Trusty Servant Archive". Winchester College. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  9. ^ "The Trusty Servant Inn: Est. 1896". The Trusty Servant. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
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