Definition of "above the salt" []

• Of high standing or honor. (phrase)

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• "In a few short minutes of loosed subconsciousness, I have sat in the halls of kings, above the salt and below the salt, been fool and jester, man-at-arms, clerk and monk; and I have been ruler above all at the head of the table — temporal power in my own sword arm, in the thickness of my castle walls, and the numbers of my finshing* men; spiritual power likewise mine by token of the fact that cowled priests and fat abbots sat beneath me and swigged my wine and swined my meat."