No. 302. A Time-piece, &c.
This period also differs from former periods in the much greater number of beds, and greater abundance of bed-furniture, we find in the houses. We have often several beds in one chamber. Few of the principal bedrooms had less than two beds. The form of the bedstead was now almost universally that with four posts. Still in the engravings of the sixteenth century, we find the old couch-bed represented. Such appears to be the bed in our cut [No. 300], taken from Whitney’s “Emblems,” an English book printed at Leyden in 1586. We have here another, and rather a late example, of the manner in which money was hoarded up in chests in the chambers. The couch-bed is still more distinctly shown in our cut [No. 301], taken from Albert Durer’s print of St. Jerome, dated in 1511. This print is remarkable for its detail of the furniture of a bed-chamber, and especially for the manner in which the various smaller articles are arranged and suspended to the walls. Not the least remarkable of these articles is the singular combination of a clock and an hour glass, which is placed against the wall as a time-piece. This seems, however, to have been not uncommon. A time-piece of the same kind is represented in our cut [No. 302], which is taken from a print of St. Jerome at prayer, by Hans Springen Kelle, without date, but evidently belonging to the earlier half of the sixteenth century. The method of suspending or attaching to the walls the smaller articles in common use, such as scissors, brushes, pens, papers, &c., is here the same as in the former. Our next cut ([No. 303]), from a print by Aldegraver, dated in 1553, represents evidently a large four-post bedstead, which is remarkable for its full and flowing curtains. The plate appears here to be kept in the bed-chamber. Chests, cupboards, presses, &c., become now very numerous in the bedrooms, and we begin to meet with tables and chairs more frequently. In 1567, the principal chamber in the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Hutton, at Hunwick, contained the following articles:—“In napery, in linen sheets, sixteen pair; certain old harden (hempen) sheets, and sixteen pillowberes; two Dantzic chests, a little chest bound with iron, a candle chest, and another old chest; a press with two floors and five doors; a folding table, seven little cushions, and two long cushions of crool (a sort of fine worsted) wrought with the needle, and a carpet cloth that is in working with crools for the same; six feather beds, with six bolsters, and a coarse feather-bed tick; eight mattresses, and nine bolsters; twelve pillows, twelve pair of blankets, and six happings; twenty coverlets, three coverings for beds of tapestry, and two of dornix (Tournay); a carpet cloth of tapestry work, five yards long, and a quarter deep; five standing beds, with cords; two testers with curtains of saye, and two testers with curtains of crool.” In the principal chamber in the house of lady Catherine Hedworth, in 1568, the following furniture is enumerated:—“One trussing bed, one feather bed, one pair of blankets, one pair of sheets, one bolster, one pillow with a housewife’s covering, four pillows, two Flanders chests, one almery, two cupboards, three coffers, two cupboard stools, three buffet forms, one little buffet stool, two little coffers, five mugs, three old cushions.” The principal chamber of Thomas Sparke, suffragan bishop of Berwick, whose goods were appraised in 1572, was furnished with the following articles:—“A stand-bed, with a testron of red saye and fringe, and a truckle-bed; a Cypres chest, a Flanders chest, a desk, three buffet stools; the said chamber hung with red saye.” At Crook Hall, in the suburbs of Durham, in 1577, the principal chamber contained three beds; another chamber contained four beds; and a third two beds. These lists furnish good illustrations of the various prints from which we have already given some sketches.
No. 303. A Bed of the Sixteenth Century.
No. 304. A Bed of the Seventeenth Century.
Our cut [No. 304] represents the usual form of the bedstead in the seventeenth century, and the process of “making” the bed; it is taken from a print by the French artist, Abraham Boste, of the date 1631. Another of his prints, of the same date, has furnished us with a sketch of a bedroom party (cut [No. 305]), which is no unapt illustration of domestic manners in the seventeenth century. It represents a custom which prevailed especially in France. A woman, after childbirth, kept her room in state, and with great ceremony, and received there daily her female acquaintances, who passed the afternoon in gossip. This practice, and especially the conversation which took place at it, were frequent subjects of popular satire, and formed the groundwork of one of the most celebrated books of the reign of Louis XIII., entitled “Les Caquets de l’Accouchée,” first published in 1622. An edition of this curious satire has been recently published by M. Ed. Fournier, in the introduction to which, as well as in the text, the reader will find abundant information on this subject.
No. 305. A Bedroom Party.