[CHAPTER VI]
FURNITURE
The furniture of a mediæval house was scanty in the living-rooms, ample in the sleeping-rooms. The hall, which was the dining-room, the public room, and the room where all business matters were transacted, was provided with permanent benches running along the sides: at one end was a dais, on which, in great houses, was sometimes a table dormant, i.e. a permanent table, placed across the hall. Other tables were on trestles laid for each meal, and removed after the meal. At the middle of the “dormant” or the high table was the principal chair or bench with arms, and a cushion: the other guests sat on the bench with their backs to the wall or without backs at all. The lower tables were always boards laid upon trestles: in the middle of the hall was the fire, sometimes in an iron frame: the smoke ascended and went out through the lantern in the roof. Pieces of tapestry, worked to represent coats of arms, or figures of birds and beasts, or painted with pictures of some historical event, hung round the hall: arms and armour were hung more for use and to be in readiness than for show—in fact, the great hall was the armoury of the house. Rushes were thickly strewn over the floor; over the head of the master was a cupboard loaded with gold and silver plate; bankers or dorsers, e.g. cushions, were used to mitigate the hardness of the bench. The furniture of the “parlour” was equally simple. It consisted of a worsted hanging, a cupboard, a table on trestles, a chafing dish to heat the room, a candlestick for four candles, andirons, tongs, a bench and a chair, coffers and strong boxes, table covers, gilt and silver broches, it was provided with a chimney. Candle and torch holders stood against the wall; a “perche” or arrangement of hooks and pegs for hanging arms, cloaks, and other things was set up in every room. The falcons and hawks were placed on these perches. In the bedroom, where comfort was studied, the principal article of furniture was, of course, the bed; and upon this useful piece of furniture was lavished all the expense and adornment that the possessor could afford. Sometimes a canopy stretched over the whole bed: it was decorated with the family arms, or with religious emblems; at the back of the bed were also painted the family arms; the heavy curtains were not intended for ornament but for use, because in these rooms, in which the windows were always ill-fitting, it was necessary to draw the curtains in order to keep off draughts; and, besides, as a nightdress seems to have been unusual and most people slept in the costume of Eden, it was all the more necessary to guard against cold. The bedstead was always made of wood, and was sometimes beautifully carved and gilded; the bed itself was commonly a mattress of straw, on which, in the better sort of house, the feather bed was laid. Chaucer says:—
“Of downe of pure dovis white
I wol yeve him a fether bed,
Rayed with gold and right well cled,
In firm black satin d’outre mere,
And many a pilowe and every bere
Of cloth of Raines to slepe on soft.”
The furniture of the bed was much the same as at present; it was provided with a great and a small pillow, also with pillow covers—“pillow beres”: with sheets, blankets, and coverlet of Turtaine—a common cloth like burel. Servants, however, slept on straw with a rough mat below and a coarse coverlet above. Sometimes there was a truckle bed under the great bed for the use of a maidservant or a child. At the foot of the bed was the “hutch” or strong box for the keeping of money, plate, and other valuables. There were other coffers kept in the chambers of great houses for securities, title-deeds, and documents of all kinds. We must remember that there were no banks; every man kept his own property, money, valuables, papers, everything—in his house and generally in his bedroom. There were no insurance companies, so that the fickleness of Dame Fortune was constantly illustrated in the most startling manner.