No. 259. A Bed of the Fifteenth Century.
The bedstead itself was still a very simple structure of wood, as shown in our cut [No. 259], which represents the bed of a countess. It is taken from the manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” which has already furnished subjects for our previous chapters on the manners of the fifteenth century. The lady’s footstool is no less rude than the bedstead. The bed here evidently consists of a hard mattress. It was still often made of straw, and the bed is spoken of in the glossaries as placed upon a stramentum, which is interpreted by the English word “litter;” but feather-beds were certainly in general use during the whole of the fifteenth century. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, Chaucer (Dreme, v. 250) thus described a very rich bed:— Of downe of pure dovis white
I wol yeve him a fethir bed,
Rayid with gold, and right well cled
In fine blacke sattin d’outremere,
And many a pilowe, and every bere (pillow cover)
Of clothe of Raines to slepe on softe;
Him thare (need) not to turnen ofte.
Agnes Hubbard, a lady of Bury, in Suffolk, who made her will in 1418, left among other things, “one feather-bed” (unum lectum de plumis). A rich townsman of the same place bequeathed, in 1463, to his niece, “certeyne stuffe of ostilment,” among which he enumerates “my grene hanggyd bedde steynyd with my armys therin, that hanggith in the chambyr ovir kechene, with the curtynez, the grene keveryng longgyng therto; another coverlyte, ij. blanketts, ij. peyre of good shetes, the trampsoun, the costerys of that chambyr and of the drawgth chambyr next, tho that be of the same soort, a grete pilve (pillow) and a smal pilve; the fethirbeed is hire owne that hire maistresse gaf hire at London.” After enumerating other articles of different kinds, the testator proceeds—“And I geve hire the selour and the steynyd clooth of the coronacion of Our Lady, with the clothes of myn that long to the bedde that she hath loyen (lain) in, and the beddyng in the draught chamber for hire servaunth to lyn in; and a banker of grene and red lying in hire chambyr with the longe chayer (a settle, probably); and a stondyng coffre and a long coffre in the drawth chambyr.” William Honyboorn, also of Bury, bequeathed to his wife in 1493, “my best ffether bedde with the traunsome, a whyte selour and a testour theron, with iij. white curteyns therto, a coverlight white and blewe lyeng on the same bedde, with the blankettes.” The same man leaves to his daughter, “a ffether bedde next the best, a materas lyeng under the same, iiij. peyr shetys, iij. pelowes, a peyr blankettes.” John Coote, who made his will at Bury in 1502, left to his wife, for term of her life, “alle my plate, brasse, pewter, hanggynges, celers, testers, fetherbeddes, traunsoms, coverlytes, blankettes, shetes, pelows, and all other stuff of hussold (household);” and afterwards bequeaths these articles separately to his son and daughter, after their mother’s death:—“I will that William Coote have my beste hanged bede, celer, testor, and curteyns longgyng to the same, the beste fetherbede, the beste coverlyght, the beste peyer of blankettes, the beste peyer shetes; and Alys Coote to have the next hanged bede, celer, and testour, wyth the ijde fetherbede, blankettes, and the ijde peyer shetes.” In the will of Anne Barett, of Bury, dated in 1504, we read, “Item, I bequeth to Avyse my servaunte x. marc, a ffether bed, a traunsom, a payre shetes, a payre blankettes, a coverlyght.” Lastly, the will of Agar Herte, a widow of the same town, made in 1522, contains the following items:—“Item, I bequethe to Richard Jaxson, my son, a ffetherbed, ij. trawnsoms, a matras, ij. pelowes, iiij. payer of schetes, a payer of blankettes, and a coveryng of arasse, and a secunde coverlyght, a selour and a testour steynyd with fflowers, and iij. curteyns;” ... “Item, I bequethe to Jone Jaxson, my dowghter, a fetherbed, a matras, a bolster, ij. pelowes, iiij. payer of schetes, a payer of blankettes, a coverlyght with fflowre de lyce, a selour and a testour steynyd with Seynt Kateryn at the hed and the crusifix on the selour, ... a secunde coverlyght, ij. pelow-beris (pillow-covers), the steynyd clothes abowte the chamber where I ly;” ... “Item, I bequethe to Fraunces Wrethe a ffetherbed, a bolster, a payer of blankettes, my best carpet, a new coverlyght with fflowers, ij. payer of schetes, ij. pelows with the berys.”
These extracts from only one set of wills are sufficient to show the great advance which our forefathers had made during the fourteenth century in the comfort and richness of their beds, and how cautious we ought to be in receiving general observations on the condition of previous ages by those who write at a subsequent period. I make this observation in allusion to the account so often quoted from Harrison, who, in the description of England written in Essex during the reign of Elizabeth, and inserted in Holinshed’s “Chronicles,” informs us that “our fathers (yea, and we our selves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats, covered onelie with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain,[52] or hopharlots (I use their owne termes), and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster. If it were so that our fathers, or the good-man of the house, had, within seven years after his mariage, purchased a matteres, or flocke bed, and thereto a sacke of chaffe to reste his heade upon, he thought himselfe to be as well lodged as the lord of the towne, so well were they contented. Pillowes, said they, were thought meete onelie for women in child-bed. As for servants, if they had anie sheet above them it was well, for seldom had they anie under their bodies to keepe them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides.” A description like this could only apply to the lower classes in society, who had as yet participated but little in the march of social improvement.
No. 260. A. Truckle-bed.
As the privacy of the chamber had become greater, it seems now to have been much less common in private mansions for several people to sleep in the same room, which appears more rarely to have had more than one bed. But a bed of a new construction had now come into use, called a truckle or trundle bed. This was a smaller bed which rolled under the larger bed, and was designed usually for a valet, or servant. The illuminations in the manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” already quoted more than once, furnish us with the early example of a truckle-bed represented in our cut [No. 260]. The count d’Artois lies in the bed under the canopy, while the truckle-bed is occupied by his valet (in this case, his wife in disguise). The truckle-bed is more frequently mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Every reader will remember the speech of mine host of the Garter, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (act iv. sc. 5), who says of Falstaff’s room, “There’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing bed and truckle-bed.” It was the place allotted to the squire, when accompanying the knight on “adventures.” So in Hudibras (part ii. canto ii.)— When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aking
’Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking,
Began to rub his drowsy eyes,
And from his couch prepared to rise,
Resolving to dispatch the deed
He vow’d to do, with trusty speed;
But first, with knocking loud and bawling,
He roused the squire, in truckle lolling.
In the English universities, the master-of-arts had his pupil to sleep in his truckle-bed.
No. 261. A Bedroom Scene.
The chamber, as the most private part of the house, was stored with chests and coffers, in which the person who occupied it kept his money, his deeds and private papers, and his other valuables. Margaret Paston, writing from Norwich to her husband about the year 1459, gives a curious account of the preparations for his reception at home. “I have,” she says, “taken the measure in the drawte chamber, there as ye would your coffers and your cowntewery (supposed to mean a desk for writing) should be set for the while, and there is no space beside the bed, though the bed were removed to the door, for to set both your board (table) and your coffers there, and to have space to go and sit beside; wherefore I have purveyed that ye shall have the same drawte chamber (withdrawing room—the origin of our name of drawing-room for the salon) that ye had before, thereat ye shall lye to yourself; and when your gear is removed out of your little house, the door shall be locked, and your bags laid in one of the great coffers, so that they shall be safe, I trust.” The hucches (hutches) or chests, and coffers, in the bed-chamber, are frequently mentioned in old writings. The large hutch seems to have been usually placed at the foot of the bed. In one of our preceding cuts ([No. 257]) we have seen it moved from its place to make a temporary seat before the fire. The cut annexed ([No. 261]), taken from a manuscript Latin Bible in the National Library in Paris (No. 6829), shows us the hutch in its usual place, and opened so as to expose its contents to our view. It is here evidently filled with money, and the persons who have entered the chamber seem to be plundering it. In a very popular old story, the same in substance as that of Macbeth and his daughters, an old man, on the marriage of his daughter, weakly gives up all his property to the young married pair, trusting to their filial love for his sustenance, and they go on treating him worse and worse, until he is saved from actual destitution by a deception he practises upon them. In one version of the story, given in English verse in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, the father goes to a friend and borrows a large sum of money in gold, which he places in his coffer, and, having invited them to his dwelling, and persuaded them to remain all night, he contrives that early in the morning they shall, as by accident, espy him counting his gold. The unfilial children, who supposed that he had given them all he possessed, were astonished to find him still rich, and were induced, by their covetousness, to treat him better during the rest of his life. The poem describes the old man leaving his bed to count the gold in his chest:— But on the morow, at brode daylight,
The fadir ros, and, for they shulden here
What that he dide in a boistous manere,
Unto his chest, which thre lokkes hadde,
He went, and therat wrethed he ful sadde,
And whan it was opened and unshit,
The bagged gold bi the merchaunt hym lent
He hath untied, and streight forth with it
Unto his beddis feete gone is and went,
What doth thanne this sel man and prudent
But out the gold on a tapit hath shot,
That in the bagges left ther no grot.
—MS. Harl. 372, fol. 88, vo.
Robbers, or plunderers in time of war, when breaking into a house, always made direct for the chamber. Among the letters of the Paston family, is a paper by a retainer of sir John Fastolf, who had a house in Southwark, giving an account of his sufferings during the attack upon London by Jack Cade and the commons of Kent in 1450, in which he tells how “the captain (Cade) sent certain of his meny to my chamber in your rents, and there broke up my chest, and took away one obligation of mine that was due unto me of 36l. by a priest of Paul’s and one other obligation of one Knight of 10l., and my purse with five rings of gold, and 17s. 6d. of gold and silver; and one harness (suit of armour) complete of the touch of Milan; and one gown of fine perse blue, furred with martens; and two gowns, one furred with bogey (budge), and one other lined with frieze.” One of John Paston’s correspondents, writing from London on the 28th of October, 1455, gives the following still more pertinent account of the robbing of a man’s house:—“Also there is great variance between the earl of Devonshire and the lord Bonvile, as hath been many day, and much debate is like to grow thereby; for on Thursday at night last past, the earl of Devonshire’s son and heir came, with sixty men of arms, to Radford’s place in Devonshire, which (Radford) was of counsel with my lord Bonvile; and they set a house on fire at Radford’s gate, and cried and made a noise as though they had been sorry for the fire; and by thet cause Radford’s men set open the gates and yede (went) out to see the fire; and forthwith the earl’s son aforesaid entered into the place, and entreated Radford to come down of his chamber to speak with them, promising him that he should no bodily harm have; upon which promise he came down, and spoke with the said earl’s son. In the mean time his meny (retinue) rob his chamber, and rifled his hutches, and trussed such as they could get together, and carried it away on his own horses.” As soon as this was done, Radford, who was an eminent lawyer residing at Poghill, near Kyrton, and now aged, was led forth and brutally murdered. In the stories and novels of the middle ages, the favoured lover who has been admitted secretly into the chamber of his mistress is often concealed in the hutch or chest.