Amongst the particulars collected in the history of the city companies and by the record commission are lists of the royal plate, showing that objects of personal use besides table plate were made in silver and gold. We find mention of pitchers of gold and silver, plates and dishes of silver, gold salts, alms bowls, silver hannapers or baskets, a pair of knives with enamelled silver sheaths, a fork of crystal, and a silver fork with handle of ebony and ivory, combs and looking-glasses of silver. Edward had six silver forks and one of gold. Ozier mats were laid over the benches on which he and his queen sat at meals. These were also put under the feet, especially in churches where the pavement was of stone or tiles.
In the furniture of bedrooms linen chests and settles, cupboards and the beds themselves were of panelled wood. The next woodcut shows the interior of a well-furnished bedroom, from a manuscript life of St. Edmund written about the year 1400.
Chests served as tables, and are often represented with chess-boards on them in old illuminations, and husband and wife sitting on the chest and using it for the game, which had become familiar to most European nations. Chests of later date than the time of Edward, of Italian make, still show the same use of the lids of coffers. As the tops of the coffers served for tables, and for seats they began in the thirteenth century to be furnished with a panelled back and arm-pieces at either end. This development of the chest was equally common in France. It does not seem to have been placed on legs or to have grown into a cabinet till a later period. The raised dorsal or back of the seats in large rooms was a protection from the cold, and in the rude form of a settle is still the comfort of old farm and inn kitchens in this country; it became the general type of seats of state in the great halls, and was there further enlarged by a canopy projecting forwards to protect the heads of the sitters, panelled also in oak. In the fifteenth century in many instances this hood or canopy was attached to the panelling of the upper end of the hall, and covered the whole of that side of the dais. The backing and canopy were sometimes replaced by temporary arrangements of hangings, as in modern royal throne rooms, the cloth being called cloth of estate and generally embroidered with heraldic devices. Panelled closets called dressoirs or cupboards, to lock up food, were general in properly furnished rooms; a cloth was laid on the top at meals, with lights, and narrow shelves rose in steps at the back for the display of plate, the steps varying in number according to the rank of the persons served.
Tables used at meals were generally frames of boards, either in one piece or folding in the middle. These were laid on trestles, as in the woodcut from an early manuscript in the Bodleian library, and could be removed as soon as the dinner was over, so that the company might dance and divert themselves. Somewhat later, about the year 1450, the tables although still on trestles were made more solidly, even for the use of people of the middle class.
All houses, however, even of kings could not be completely or even comfortably furnished in such a manner, far less those of feudal lords, not princes or sovereigns. The kings moved incessantly to their various strongholds and manors in time of peace to collect dues and revenues, much of which was paid in kind and could only be profitably turned to account by carrying the Court to different estates and living on their produce as long as it lasted. Orders were continually sent to sheriffs to provide food, linen and other requisites, while hangings and furniture were carried by the train in its progress. Much of the household belongings of persons of wealth was, therefore, of a movable kind. We engrave (p. 53) a very curious table standing on a pedestal shaped like a chalice, from a manuscript of the beginning of the fifteenth century. The ladies are playing at cards.
A most oppressive privilege was exercised in France, which went beyond the legal right of the lord or owner to the rents of his estates whether paid in money, agricultural produce, or manufactures carried on in his towns or villages. This was the droit de prisage, a privilege of seizing furniture of all kinds by the hands of stewards and others for the use of the king. Chairs, tables, and beds particularly were included in these requisitions. The droit de prisage was modified at various times in consequence of the remonstrance of the commons at so oppressive an exaction; but as late as the year 1365 Charles the fifth seized beds. In 1313 Philippe le Bel entertained the English king and his queen at Pontoise with no other furniture than such as had been seized in this manner. A fire broke out in the night during their stay, the furniture was consumed, and the royal personages escaped in their shirts. It was not till 1407 that this privilege was finally abandoned.