[2] According to Miquel y Badía, the focus of the Romans is the present clar de foch of Cataluña; “a square platform of brick or stone raised somewhat from the ground, surrounded by a bench (escó), and large enough to serve for roasting beasts entire.”
Swinburne wrote from Reus in 1775;—“we here for the first time saw a true Spanish kitchen, viz., an hearth raised above the level of the floor under a wide funnel, where a circle of muleteers were huddled together over a few cinders.”
[3] The Codex of the Testaments, preserved in Oviedo Cathedral, contains some valuable illustrations of Spanish furniture of the tenth century. Greatly interesting, too, is the chair of San Raimundo (12th century) preserved at Roda in Aragon. It is of the “scissors” or folding form (sella plicatilis, Ducange), and the arms are terminated by heads of animals.
[4] The early nomenclature of the clothes and other fittings of a Spanish bed is bewildering. We find in common use the canopy (almocalla, almuzala; Arabic, al-mokalla, i.e. “haven of refuge in all winds”—not always, possibly, a judicious term in the case of a cama de matrimonio or “marriage-bed”); the cloth-lined skins for chilly weather (alifafe, alifad; Arabic al-lifafh), such as King Juan the First of Aragon provided for his daughter (“two leathers of Morocco for the bed.” Archive of the Crown of Aragon; Registro 1906, fol. 42); the parament or dosal; the galnapé or topmost of the bedclothes proper (“un lecho con guenabe”; Fuero of Cáceres, a.d. 1229); the counterpane (fatel, fatol, alfatel, facel, farele, fateye, fatiro; Arabic fatla); the linen sheets (izares, lentros, lentos, lintes, lincas, linteáminas, or lencios); and the mattress, pillow, and bolster, called, all three of them, plumazo, plumario, or plumaco. Nearly or quite identical in meaning with these last are cúlcita and almadraque. Cúlcita is corrupted into colcedra, cocedra, conzara, colotra, and other more or less barbaric variations; while almohada, almuella, travesera, almofadinha, faseruelo, and aljamar also signify a pillow or a cushion.
[5] “E due haber encara héla entegrament, ses vestitz é ses joyes é un leyt ben garnit del misllors apereylltz que sien en casa, é una escala d'argent é una cortina.” Fuero of Jaca, a.d. 1331, quoted by Abad y la Sierra and the Count of Clonard.
[6] Sanpere y Miquel; Las costumbres catalanas en tiempo de Juan I., pp. 83, 84.
[7] Miquel y Badía believes that the Spaniards abandoned the Roman usage of reclining at their meals towards the sixth century.
[8] Forks were not introduced till later. It has even been questioned whether they were known in Spain as late as the sixteenth century. But Ambrosio de Morales mentions one in 1591, while another is recorded in 1607 as belonging to the monastery of San Jerónimo de Valparaiso, near Cordova. (See vol. i., p. 84.)
[9] This kind of furniture was prohibited by a sumptuary pragmatic of 1594. “No silversmith or other craftsman, or any person whatsoever, shall make, or cause to be made, or sold, or sell himself or purchase, whether openly or privately, buffets, writing-desks, chests, brasiers, pattens, tables, letter-cases, rejillas or foot-warmers, images, or any other object that has silver fittings, whether the silver be beaten, stamped, wrought in relief, carved, or plain.” Suma de todas las leyes (a.d. 1628), p. 42.
[10] Describing how the monarch made these presents to the church when lying at the point of death, the Chronicle of the Monk of Silos says: “exuit regalem clamydem, qua induebatur corpus et deposuit gemmatam coronam, qua ambiebatur caput.”