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 Trusty Servant and accompanying Latin and English texts, on the wall beside the kitchen, Winchester College, first painted in 1579 by John Hoskins. The current painting is by William Cave, 1809.

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 kitchen of Winchester College in Hampshire, England.[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]
LatinEnglish

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