No. 257. The Nursing Chamber.
The description given in these lines agrees perfectly with the representations of chambers in the illuminated manuscripts of the latter part of the fifteenth century, when the superior artistic skill of the illuminators enabled them to draw interiors with more of detail than in former periods. We have almost invariably the chimney, and one “rich chair,” if not more. In our cut [No. 256], we have a settle in the chamber, which is turned to the fire. This picture is taken from a manuscript of the early French translation of Josephus, in the National Library in Paris (No. 7015), and represents the death of the emperor Nero, as described by that writer. All the furniture of this chamber is of a superior description. The large chair by the bed-side is of very elegant design; and the settle, which is open at the back, is ornamented with carved panels. Our next cut ([No. 257]), taken from a manuscript of Lydgate’s metrical Life of St. Edmund (MS. Harl. No. 2278), represents the birth of that saint. This room is more elaborately furnished than the former. The fittings of the bed are richer; the chimney is more ornamental in its character, and is curious as having three little recesses for holding candlesticks, cups, and other articles; and we have a well-supplied cupboard, though of simple form. From the colours in the manuscript, all the vessels appear to be of gold, or of silver-gilt. The seat before the fire in this cut ([No. 257]) seems to be the hutch, or chest, which in Nos. 261 and 262 we shall see placed at the foot of the bed, from which it is here moved to serve the occasion.
The lady seated on this chest appears to be wrapping up the new-born infant in swaddling-clothes; a custom which, as I have remarked on a former occasion, and as we shall see again further on, prevailed universally till a comparatively recent period. Infants thus wrapped up are frequently seen in the illuminated manuscripts; and their appearance is certainly anything but picturesque. We have an exception in one of the sculptures on the columns of the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels (represented in our cut [No. 258]), which also furnishes us with a curious example of a cradle of the latter part of the fifteenth century.
No. 258. A Cradle.
It will, no doubt, have been remarked that in these cuts we observe no traces of carpets on the floor. In our cut [No. 256], the floor is evidently boarded; but more generally, as in our cuts Nos. 257, 260, and 261, it appears chequered, or laid out in small squares, which may be intended to represent tiles, or perhaps parquetry. There is more evidence of tapestried or painted walls; although this kind of ornamentation is only used partially, and chiefly in the dwellings of the richer classes. The walls in the chamber in cut [No. 257] appear to be painted. In the same cut we have an example of an ornamental mat.
The most important article of furniture in the chamber was the bed, which began now to be made much more ornamental than in previous times. We have seen in the former period the introduction of the canopy and its curtains, under which the head of the bed was placed. The celure, or roof, of the canopy, was now often enlarged, so as to extend over the whole bed; and it, as well as the tester, or back, was often adorned with the arms of the possessor, with religious emblems, with flowers, or with some other ornament. There were also sometimes costers, or ornamental cloths for the sides of the bed. The curtains, sometimes called by the French word ridels, were attached edgeways to the tester, and were suspended sometimes by rings, so as to draw backwards and forwards along a pole; but more frequently, to judge by the illuminations, they were fixed to the celure in the same manner as to the tester, and were drawn up with cords. At the two corners of the celure portions of curtain were left hanging down like bags. The curtains which draw up are represented in our cuts Nos. 259 and 260. Those in cuts Nos. 261 and 262, if not in Nos. 256 and 257, are evidently drawn along poles with rings. The latter method is thus alluded to in the old metrical romance of “Sir Degrevant:”—
That was a mervelle thynge,
To se the riddels hynge,
With many red golde rynge
That thame up bare.
The celure and tester were fixed to the wall and ceiling of the apartment, and were not in any way attached to the bed itself; for the large four-post bedsteads were introduced in the sixteenth century. In some illuminations the bed is seen placed within a square compartment separated from the room by curtains which seem to be suspended from the roof. This appears to have been the first step towards the more modern four-post bedsteads. In one of the plates to D’Agincourt’s “Histoire de l’Art” (Peinture, pl. 109), taken from a Greek fresco of the twelfth or thirteenth century in a church at Florence, we have the curtains arranged thus in a square tent in the room, where the cords are not suspended from the roof, but supported by four corner-posts. The bed is placed within, totally detached from the surrounding posts and curtains. The space thus left between the bed and the curtains was perhaps what was originally called in French the ruelle (literally, the “little street”) of the bed, a term which was afterwards given to the space between the curtains of the bed and the wall, which held rather an important place in old French chamber life, and especially in the stories of chamber intrigue.