Ancient and Modern Furniture and Woodwork

by John Hungerford Pollen

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mediæval art in Europe reached its greatest perfection. The classic traditions were at last forgotten everywhere except in Rome itself, where a chain lingered almost continuous between the old ideas and those which succeeded in the sixteenth century. Elsewhere the feeling in sculpture, whether of wood or other materials, was in unison with the pointed architecture and reigned unchallenged. All sorts of enrichments were used in the decoration of furniture. A chest of the time of John is preserved in the castle of Rockingham. It is of oak richly decorated with hammered iron plates, hinges, &c. The jewel chest of Richard of Cornwall was long preserved in the state treasury of Aix-la-Chapelle, and is now at Vienna. It belongs to the first half of the century, and was left at Aix when Richard was crowned king of the Romans. The body is of oak decorated with wrought-iron hinges, lock, and clamps, and with bosses of metal on which are enamelled heraldic shields.

The construction of woodwork gradually became more careful and scientific. Panelled framework came into use, though seldom for doors of rooms. With this method of construction the chests were put together that formed the chief article of furniture during two centuries in the mediæval sleeping, sitting, or private room.

In the middle of the thirteenth century Eleanor of Provence was escorted on her journey to England by an army of ladies, knights, nobles and troubadours, from Provence to the shores of the channel. Kings were continually making progress in this manner through their dominions, like the Indian governors of our own days, and carried their furniture and property in chests, called standards, on the backs of mules or sumpter horses. Portable furniture and hangings were the principal objects of household use on such occasions. A precept in the twentieth year of the reign of Henry the third directed that "the king's great chamber at Westminster be painted a green colour like a curtain, that in the great gable frontispiece of the said chamber a French inscription should be painted, and that the king's little wardrobe should be painted of a green colour to imitate a curtain." The queen's chamber was decorated with historical paintings. Remains of similar wall decoration are in tolerable preservation still in one of the vaulted rooms of Dover castle.

Till the fourteenth century candles were generally placed on a beam in the hall, whether in the castle of a king or baron. Frames of wood with prickets were also suspended for the lighting of rooms, or were fixed to the sides of the fire-place when that was made in the wall and had a chimney constructed for it. More generally, as regards halls, the hearth was in the middle of the room and a lantern just above it in the roof acted as a chimney. Iron chandeliers, or branches, were ordered to be fixed to the piers of the king's halls at Oxford, Winchester, and other places. Though the royal table might be lighted with valuable candlesticks of metal, they were not in general use till a century later. Besides the numerous rows of tallow candles pieces of pine wood were lighted and stuck into iron hasps in the wall, or round the woodwork at the back of the dais to give more abundant light.

The wardrobe was a special room fitted with hanging closets, and in these clothes, hangings, linen, as well as spices and stores, were preserved. This arrangement was common in all large castles during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Great preparations were made in the bedrooms of queens of England to which they retired before the birth of children. Henry the third directed that his queen's bedroom should be freshly wainscoted and lined, and that a list or border should be made, well painted with images of our Lord and angels, with incense pots scattered over it; that the four evangelists should be painted in the chamber, and a crystal vase be made to keep his collection of relics.

Room panelling was introduced into England during the same reign. Henry ordered a chamber at Windsor castle to be panelled with Norway pines specially imported; the men worked day and night. The boards were radiated and coloured, and two clear days only were allowed for the fixing and completion.

Edward the first married a Spanish queen, and household furniture was further developed under his reign in many particulars. Pottery for the table was imported from Spain, and oriental carpets were introduced; a luxury naturally borrowed from the extensive use of them by the Moors in that country. Italian artists had already been invited to England. Master William, the Florentine, was master of the works at Guildford castle. John of St. Omer was another foreign artist employed by Henry the third. To the former of these we probably owe the introduction into this country of the method of gilding and tooled gold work, with which wood was decorated. Specimens of the work are still discernible on the famous coronation chair (of which we give a woodcut, p. 49) in Westminster abbey; made about the year 1300.

The decoration and comfort of furnished houses during Henry's reign was further promoted by the general use of tapestry. Queen Eleanor is traditionally and incorrectly said to have first brought this kind of furniture into houses; it was certainly adopted for churches at earlier periods, and hangings of various materials, stained or embroidered, were employed as far back as the Anglo-saxon times. Tapestries and cypress chests to carry them probably became more general in Eleanor's reign.