Obs. [A difficult word: used on the one hand as identical with ASSEOUR, he who sets the table; on the other identified with SEWER, as if it were a compound of the latter, or the latter an aphetic form of assewer. (Sewer occurs earlier.) Cf. also ASSAYER 2.] An officer who superintended the placing of a banquet on the table, or who himself carried in and arranged the dishes; a sewer. (In the Househ. Ord. of Edw. IV. it interchanges with Sewer, and represents the Asseour of the Househ. Ord. of Edw. II., transl. in 1601 Assayer.)
1478. Liber Niger Edw. IV., in Househ. Ord. (1790), 45. Twentie Squires attendantes on the Kinges person … to helpe serue his table … as the Assewer will assigne. Ibid. (a. 1483), 36. A sewar for the Kynge … He receveth the metes by sayes and saufly so conveyeth it to the King’s bourde … he seweth at one mele, and dyneth and soupeth at another mele … Item, if the King’s surveyour lacke, then this assewer, with the clerke of countrolment and the clerk of Kychyn, and the master cooke for the mouthe, shall go see the King’s servyse.
