An accomplished illustrator of our Domestic History in describing the
mode of furnishing houses in the Middle Ages, tells us that there were
tables of Cyprus and other rare woods, carved cabinets, desks,
chess-boards, and, above all, the Bed--the most important piece of
furniture in the house, and of which Ralph Lord Basset said, "Whoever
shall bear my surname and arms, according to my will, shall have my
great bed for life." There was the "standing bed," and the "truckle
bed;" on the former lay the lord, and on the latter his attendant. In
the daytime the truckle bed, on castors, was rolled under the standing
bed. The posts, head-boards, and canopies or spervers of bedsteads were
sometimes carved, or painted in colours, but they are generally
represented covered by rich hangings. King Edward III. bequeathed to
his heir an entire bed marked with the arms of France and England, and
Richard, Earl of Arundel, to his wife Philippa, a blue bed, marked with
his arms, and the arms of his late wife; to his son Richard a standing
bed called clove, also a bed of silk embroidered with the arms of
Arundel and Warren; to his son Thomas, his blue bed of silk embroidered
with griffins, &c.
The great chamber was often used as a sleeping-room by night and a
reception-room by day. Shaw, in his _Decorations of the Middle Ages_,
gives the interior of a chamber in which Isabella of Bavaria receives
from Christine of Pisa her volume of poems. The Queen is seated on a
couch covered with a stuff in red and gold, and there is a bed in the
room furnished with the same material, to which are attached three
shields of arms. The walls of the chamber were either hung with tapestry
or painted with historical subjects. Chaucer, in his Dream, fancies
himself in a chamber--
"Full well depainted,
And al the walles with colors fine
Were painted to the texte and glose,
And all the Romaunte of the Rose."
The beds of the better classes were sumptuous and comfortable.
Mattresses were used, but sometimes, to receive the bed, loose straw was
spread on the sacking. The order for making the royal savage's own lair
says, "A yoman with a daggar is to searche the strawe of the kynges
bedde that there be none untreuth therein--the bedde of downe to be cast
upon that." The lower classes were contented with straw alone; but, as
appears from Holinshed's account, more from an ignorant contempt for a
pleasant bed, and a soft pillow, than from lack of means to obtain the
indulgence. The windows had curtains, and were glazed in the manner
described by Erasmus; but in inferior dwellings, such as those of
copyholders and the like, the light-holes were filled with linen, or
with a shutter.
Early in the fourteenth century one Thomas Blaket, or Blanket, of
Bristol, introduced the woollen fabric which still goes by his name. The
word _worsted_ comes from the village so named, near Norwich, where that
kind of stuff began to be extensively manufactured for wall-hangings in
the fourteenth century. A still richer fabric similarly used, called
_baudekin_, a kind of brocade, is said to have derived its name from
Baldacus, in Babylon, whence, says Blount, it was originally brought.
Few objects of antiquarian curiosity acquired more notoriety than a
bedstead or bed, of unusually large dimensions, preserved at Ware,
twenty miles from London, on the road to Cambridge. Shakspeare employs
it as an object of comparison in his play of _Twelfth Night_, bearing
date 1614, where Sir Toby Belch says: "As many lies as will lie in this
sheet of paper, though the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in
England." (Act iii. sc. 2.) Nares, in his _Glossary_, says: "This
curious piece of furniture is said to be still in being, and visible at
the Crown or at the Bull in Ware. It is reported to be twelve feet
square, and to be capable of holding twenty or twenty-four persons." And
he refers to Chauncey's _Hertfordshire_ for an account of the bed
receiving at once twelve men and their wives, who lay at the top and
bottom in this mode of arrangement,--first two men, then two women, and
so on alternately,--so that no man was near to any woman but his wife.
Clutterbuck, in his History, places the great bed at the Saracen's Head
Inn, where a large bedstead is preserved. It is twelve feet square, of
carved oak, and has the date 1463 painted on the back; but the style of
the carving is Elizabethan--a century later, at least. It was
_traditionally_ sold among other movables which belonged to Warwick, the
King-maker, at Ware Park, to suit which story the date is thought to
have been painted. Again, it is placed at three inns--the Crown, the
Bull, and Saracen's Head, at Ware, each of which may have had its "great
bed."
Formerly, wealthy persons travelled with their bed in their carriage.
Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, was, probably, the last person who so
travelled, in England, some forty years since, when the writer's
informant saw the unpacking of the bed, at the inn-door, at Salt Hill.
The Warming-pan did not make its appearance till the Tudor times. In the
inventory of the goods of Sir William More, of Loseley, in Surrey, A.D.
1556, occurs "a warmynge," considered to be a warming-pan, and the
earliest recorded mention of that article. The old warming-pans were
often engraved with armorial bearings, mottoes, and inscriptions. In the
_Welsh Levite tossed in a Blanket_, 1691, we read: "Our garters,
bellows, and warming-pans wore godly mottoes, &c." We find a warming-pan
engraved with the arms of the Commonwealth, and the motto: "ENGLANDS .
STATS . ARMES." Another warming-pan has the royal arms, C. R. and "FEARE
GOD HONNOR YE KINGE. 1662." Some years ago, there was purchased at the
village of Whatcote, in Warwickshire, a warming-pan engraved with a
dragon, and the date 1601; probably brought from Compton Wyniatt, the
ancient seat of the Earl (now Marquis) of Northampton; the supporters of
the Compton family being dragons.
The seats were mostly forms, but Chairs were sometimes used. A MS. of
the fourteenth century has this item:--"To put wainscote above the dais
in the king's hall, and to make a fine large and well sculptured chair."
The early chair was a single seat without arms. The fauldsteuel
(fauteuil in modern French) was originally a folding stool of the curule
form, but afterwards the form alone was preserved; examples remain from
the time of Dagobert up to a late period. Dagobert's seat is considered
by some to be of much greater antiquity than his time, and the back and
arms are certainly of a later period than the rest. The so-called
Glastonbury chair is much to be commended for simplicity of form,
perfect strength, and adaptation for comfort.
In the earlier times, chairs and benches were not stuffed but had
cushions to sit upon and cloths spread over them: afterwards, as the
workmanship improved, they were stuffed and covered with tapestry,
leather, or velvet. The forms and workmanship of these seats were
generally very rude, but the stuffs that covered them were of great
richness and value, and tastefully trimmed with fringes and gimps,
fastened with large brass studs or nails.
The description of the furniture in the great chamber at Hengrave, the
seat of Sir Robert Kytson, _temp._ Henry VII., enumerates very minutely
the various articles; among which are, the carpet, the tables, the
cupboards, the chairs, the stools, two great chairs, silk and velvet
coverings, curtains to the windows and doors, a great screen, the
fire-irons, branches for lights, &c.
The floors, which at an early period were laid with rushes, were at a
later one covered with a carpet, called the bord carpet. Still, carpets
were used very early in the castles and mansions of the wealthy. The
manufacture of carpets is of great antiquity: we read of them in the
sacred writings, they were found in the ruins of Pompeii, they were
introduced from the East to Spain, from Spain they passed to France and
England, and when Eleanor of Castile arrived in London, in 1255, the
rooms of her abode were covered with carpets; they were used generally
in the palace in the reign of Edward III. Turkey carpets were first
advertised for sale in London in 1660. The manufacture of carpets was
introduced into France by the celebrated Colbert, in 1664. A manufactory
was opened in England during the reign of Henry VIII., but this branch
of industry was not permanently established until 1685, when the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove half a million of Protestants
from France, many of whom, settling in this country, established the
manufacture of carpets. Brussels carpets were introduced from Tournay
into Kidderminster, in 1745.
We have already described the Hall. At the further end of this apartment
was generally placed a cupboard called the "Court cupboard," in which
the service of plate, such as salvers and gold drinking cups, were
arranged on shelves or stages, answering in some respects to our
sideboards of the present day. These cupboards, though originally of
rude construction, afterwards became elaborate and beautiful pieces of
furniture, richly carved in oak: they are often alluded to in old
documents. On grand occasions temporary stages, as cupboards, were also
erected. At the marriage of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII., in the
hall was a triangular cupboard, five stages high, set with plate valued
at 1,200_l_. entirely ornamental; and in the "utter chamber," where the
princess dined, was another cupboard set with gold plate, garnished with
stones and pearls, valued at 20,000_l_.
In the inventory of Skipton Castle, in Yorkshire, the furniture of the
great hall is thus given:--"Imprimis, 7 great pieces of hangings, with
the Earl's arms at large in every one of them, and powdered with the
several coates of the house. 3 long tables on standard frames, 6 long
forms, 1 short ditto, 1 Court cupboard, 1 fayre brass lantern, 1 iron
cradle with wheels for charcoal, 1 almes tubb, 20 long pikes."
There is no mention of Mirrors, but they were used at this time, though
very small, and of metal polished. The coffre or chest which contained
the ladies' trousseaux, was subsequently much ornamented. The wardrobes,
so called, were generally small rooms fitted with cupboards called
armoiries. In 1253, "the sheriff of Southampton was ordered to make in
the king's upper wardrobe, in Winchester Castle, where the king's cloths
were deposited, two cupboards or armoiries, one on each side of the
fireplace, with arches and a certain partition of board across the same
wardrobe."[50]