Many of these beds have testers and canopies: in the will of Lady Neville, in 1385, is mentioned a "white couvrelit and tester, powdered with popinjays." Many, however, had hangings of tapestry all illustrated in needlework, with pictures of battles and great events, as well as scenes from the Bible and from the favourite romances, and Matthew of Paris tells us that Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I., covered the floor with tapestry, at which there was much scoffing.
Clocks which struck and chimed the hour are mentioned at the close of the thirteenth century; and Matthew of Paris gives us a rich idea of a cupboard of plate, containing a cup of gold, six quart standing pots of silver, twenty-four silver bowls with covers, a basin, ewer, and chasoir of silver. There is also frequent mention of silver and silver-gilt plate, dishes, chargers, salt-cellars spoons, silver lavatories, spice-plates, knives with silver handles, and a fork of crystal belonging to Edward I. Forks were used in Italy as early as 1330, but not till the seventeenth century in this country. Fire-screens standing on feet were in use in the reign of Edward I., and also ornamental andirons, or fire-dogs.
The feasts at coronations of kings, the installations of prelates, the marriages of great nobles, and similar high occasions, were profuse in the number of dishes, and the guests entertained sometimes amounted to thousands. The coronation banquet of Edward III. cost £40,000 of our money. At the installation of Ralph, Abbot of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, in 1309, 6,000 guests sat down to 3,000 dishes, which cost £45,000 of our money. At the marriage-dinner of the Earl of Cornwall to the daughter of Raymond, Count of Provence, at London, in 1243, 30,000 dishes were served up. The marriage-feast of Alexander III. of Scotland and Margaret of England, held at York in 1281, causes Matthew Paris to say:—"If I attempted to describe the grandeur of this solemnity, the number of the illustrious guests, the richness and variety of the dresses, the sumptuousness of the feasts, the multitude of the minstrels, mimics, and others whose business it was to amuse and divert the company, my readers would think I was imposing on their credulity."
Chaucer describes in his "Parson's Tale" the artificial Cookery to which they had attained, and adds: "They had excess of divers meats and drinks, boiled, roasted, grilled, and fried." They had "mortries," and blancmanges, "and such maner bake metes, and dish metes brenning of wild fire, paynted and castelled with paper and somblable waste, so that it is abusion to think."
The latter ornaments were what they called their "intermeats" (entremets). These represented battles, sieges, &c., introduced between the courses for the amusement of the guests. At a banquet given by Charles V. of France to the Emperor Charles IV., in 1378, there came a great ship into the hall as if of itself, the machinery being concealed. It came with all its masts, sails, rigging, and colours—the arms of Jerusalem—flying. Geoffrey of Bouillon, with several knights armed cap-à-pie, were represented on deck. Then appeared the walls of Jerusalem, and a regular siege, assault, and conquest of the city was gone through.
As for the drinks of the period, ale and cider satisfied the common people; but a great variety of foreign wines were imported and consumed by the wealthy. Warton, in his "History of English Poetry," quotes the following enumeration of wines known and used at this time:—
"Ye shall have Rumney and Malespine,
Both Ypocrasse and Vernage wine,
Montrese and wine of Greke,
Both Algrade and Despiceeke,