Chapter XVII

SLOW PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.--ENLARGEMENT OF
THE HOUSES.--THE HALL AND ITS FURNITURE.--ARRANGEMENT OF THE TABLE
FOR MEALS.--ABSENCE OF CLEANLINESS.--MANNERS AT TABLE.--THE PARLOUR.

The progress of society in the two countries which were most closely allied in this respect, England and France, was slow during the fifteenth century. Both countries were engaged either in mutual hostility or in desolating civil wars, which so utterly checked all spirit of improvement, that the aspect of society differed little between the beginning and the end of the century in anything but dress. At the close of the fourteenth century, the middle classes in England had made great advance in wealth and in independence, and the wars of the roses, which were so destructive to the nobility, as well as the tendency of the crown to set the gentry up as a balance to the power of the feudal barons, helped to make that advance more certain and rapid. This increase of wealth appears in the multiplication of furniture and of other household implements, especially those of a more valuable description. We are surprised, in running our eye through the wills and inventories during this period, at the quantity of plate which was usually possessed by country gentlemen and respectable burghers. There was also a great increase both in the number and magnitude of the houses which intervened between the castle and the cottage. Instead of having one or two bedrooms, and turning people into the hall to sleep at night, we now find whole suits of chambers; while, where before, the family lived chiefly in the hall, privacy was sought by the addition of parlours, of which there were often more than one in an ordinary sized house. The hall was in fact already beginning to diminish in importance in comparison with the rest of the house. Whether in town or country, houses of any magnitude were now generally built round an interior court, into which the rooms almost invariably looked, only small and unimportant windows looking towards the street or country. This arrangement of course originated in the necessity of studying security, a necessity which was never felt more than in the fifteenth century. We have less need to seek our illustrations from manuscripts during this period, on account of the numerous examples of buildings which still remain in a greater or less state of perfection, but still an illumination now and then presents us with an interesting picture of the architectural arrangements of a dwelling-house in the fifteenth century, which may be advantageously compared with the buildings that still exist. One of these is represented in our cut No. 234, taken from an illuminated copy of the French translation of Valerius Maximus (MS. No. 6984, in the National Library at Paris). The building to the left is probably the staircase turret of the gateway; that before us is the mass of the household apartments. We are supposed to be standing within the court. At the foot of the turret is the well, a very important object within the court, where it was always placed in houses of this description, as in the troubles of those days the household might be obliged to shut themselves up for a day or two and depend for their supply of water entirely on what they could get within their walls.

The cut here given (No. 234) is a remarkably good and perfect representation of the exterior, looking towards the court, of the domestic buildings. The door on the ground floor to the right is probably, to judge by the position of the windows, the entrance to the hall. The steps leading to the first floor are outside the wall, an arrangement which is not uncommon in the existing examples of houses of this period in England. We have also here the open gallery round the chambers on the first floor, which is so frequently met with in our houses of the fifteenth century. It is probable that within the door at the top of the external flight of steps, as here represented, a short staircase led up to the floor on which the chambers were situated. Perhaps it may have been a staircase into the gallery, as the opening round the corner to the right seems to be a door from the gallery into the chambers.

In another illumination in the same manuscript (cut No. 235), a knight is represented knocking at the door of a house into which he seeks admittance. The plain knocker and the ring will be recognised at once by all who have been accustomed to examine the original doors still remaining in so many of our old buildings, but why the person who thus signifies his wish to enter should hold the ring with his right hand, and the knocker with his left, is not very clear. The knocker, instead of being plain, as in this cut, was often very ornamental. This is, of course, the outer door of the house, and our readers will not overlook the loophole and the small window through which the person who knocked might be examined, and, if necessary, interrogated, before the door was opened to him.

Let us now pass through the door on the ground floor, always open by day, into the hall. This was still the most spacious apartment in the house, and it was still also the public room, open to all who were admitted within the precincts. The hall continued to be scantily furnished. The permanent furniture consisted chiefly in benches, and in a seat with a back to it for the superior members of the family. The head table at least was now generally a permanent one, and there were in general more permanent tables, or tables dormant, than formerly, but still the greater part of the tables in the hall were made for each meal by placing boards upon trestles. Cushions, with ornamental cloths, called _bankers_ and _dorsers_, for placing over the benches and backs of the seats of the better persons at the table, were now also in general use. Tapestry was suspended on the walls of the hall on special occasions, but it does not appear to have been of common use. Another article of furniture had now become common--the buffet, or stand on which the plate and other vessels were arranged. These articles appear to have been generally in the keeping of the butler, and only to have been brought into the hall and arranged on the buffet at meal times, for show as much as for use. The dinner party in our cut No. 236, taken from an illumination of a manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” formerly in the possession of M. Barrois, a distinguished and well-known collector in Paris, represents a royal party dining at a table with much simplicity. The ornamental vessel on the table is probably the salt-cellar, which was a very important article at the feast. Besides the general utility of salt, it was regarded with profoundly superstitious feelings, and it was considered desirable that it should be the first article placed on the table. We have still a feeling of superstition with regard to the spilling of salt. A metrical code for the behaviour of servants, written in the fifteenth century, directs that in preparing the table for meals, the table-cloth was first to be spread, and then, invariably and in all places, the salt was to be placed upon it; next were to be arranged successively, the knives, the bread, the wine, and then the meat, after which the waiter was to bring other things, when each was called for:--

_Tu dois mettre premierement_
_En tous lieux et en tout hostel_
_La nappe, et apres le sel;_
_Cousteaulx, pain, vin, et puis viande,_
_Puis apporter ce qu’on demande._

In our last cut (No. 236) it will be seen that the “nappe” is duly laid, and upon it are seen the salt-cellar, the bread (round cakes), and the cups for wine. Knives are wanting, and the plates seldom appear on the table in these dinner scenes of the fifteenth century, any more than in the previous period. This, no doubt, arose from the common practice at that time, of people carrying their own knives with them in a sheath attached to the girdle. We find, moreover, few knives enumerated in our inventories of household goods and chattels. In the English metrical “Stans Puer ad Mensam,” or rules for behaviour at table, written by Lydgate, the guest is told to “bring no knyves unskoured to the table,” which can only mean that he is to keep his own knife that he carries with him clean. The two servants are here duly equipped for duty, with the towel thrown over the shoulder. The table appears to be placed on two board-shaped trestles, but the artist has forgotten to indicate the seats. But in our next cut (No. 237), a very private party, taken from a manuscript of the early French translation of the Decameron (in the National Library at Paris, No. 6887), are placed in a seat with a back to it, although the table is still evidently a board placed upon trestles. It may be remarked that in dinner scenes of this century, the gentlemen at table are almost always represented with their hats on their heads.

As we have already hinted, the inventories of this period give us curious information on the furniture of houses of different descriptions. We learn from one of these, made in 1446, that there were at that time belonging to the hall of the priory of Durham, one dorsal or dorser, embroidered with the birds of St. Cuthbert and the arms of the church, five pieces of red cloth (three embroidered and two plain), no doubt for the same purpose of throwing over the seats; six cushions; three basins of brass; and three washing-basins. A gentleman at Northallerton, in Yorkshire, who made his will in 1444, had in his hall, thirteen jugs or pots of brass, four basins, and two ewers (of course, for washing the hands), three candlesticks, five (metal) dishes, three kettles, nine vessels of lead and pewter, “utensils of iron belonging to the hall,” valued at two shillings--probably the fire-irons, one dorser and one banker. An inventory of a gentleman’s goods in the year 1463, apparently in the southern part of England (printed in the “New Retrospective Review”), gives, as the contents of the hall,--a standing spear, a hanging of stained work, a mappa-mundi (a map of the world) of parchment--a curious article for the hall, a side-table, one “dormond” table (a permanent table), a beam with six candlesticks.

A vocabulary of the fifteenth century (“Volume of Vocabularies,” p. 197) enumerates, as the ordinary furniture of the hall, a board, a trestle, a banker, a dorser, a natte (table-cloth), a table dormant, a basin, a laver, fire on a hearth, a brand or torch, a yule-block, an andiron, tongs, a pair of bellows, wood for the fire, a long settle, a chair, a bench, a stool, a cushion, and a screen. The permanent or dormant table, is shown in the scene given in our cut No. 238, taken from the beautifully illuminated manuscript of the “Roman de la Violette,” at Paris, some facsimiles from which were privately distributed by the comte de Bastard, from whom I had the honour of receiving a copy. We have here also the seat with its back, and the buffet with its jugs and dishes. In our cut No. 236, we had the waits or trumpeters, who were always attached to the halls of great people to announce the commencement of the dinner. Only persons of a certain rank were allowed this piece of ostentation; but everybody had minstrelsy to dinner who could obtain it, and when it was at hand. The wandering minstrel was welcome in every hall, and for this very reason the class of ambulatory musicians was very numerous. In the scene given in this cut (No. 238), the wandering minstrel, or, according to the story, a nobleman in that disguise, has just arrived, and he is allowed, without ceremony or suspicion, to seat himself at the fire, apparently on a stool, beside the two individuals at dinner.

The floor of the hall was usually paved with tiles, or with flag stones, and very little care appears to have been shown to cleanliness, as far as it was concerned, except that it was usual to strew it with rushes. Among the various French metrical “Contenances de Table,” or directions for behaviour at table, of the fifteenth century, the person instructed is told that he must not _spit upon the table_ at dinner time--

_Ne craiche par dessus la table,_
_Car c’est chose desconvenable_,

which is necessarily an intimation that he must spit upon the floor. In another of these pieces he is told that when he washes his mouth at table, he must not reject the water into the basin--

_Quant ta bouche tu laveras,_
_Ou bacin point ne cracheras._

The reason for this rule was evidently the circumstance that one basin might serve for all the company; but the alternative again was of course to spit the water out upon the floor. Again, in one of these codes, the learner is told that when he makes sops in his wine, he must either drink all the wine in the glass, or throw what remains on the floor:--

_Enfant, se tu faiz en ton verre_
_Souppes de vin aucunement,_
_Boy tout le vin entierement,_
_Ou autrement le gecte à terre._

Or, as it is expressed in another similar code more briefly--

_Se tu fais souppes en ton verre,_
_Boy le vin ou le gette à terre._

There can be no doubt that all this must have made an extremely dirty floor. Another rather _naïve_ direction shows that no more attention was paid to the cleanliness of the benches and seats; it is considered necessary to tell the scholar always to look at his seat before he sits down at table, to a assure himself that there is nothing dirty upon it!--

_Enfant, prens de regarder peine_
_Sur le siege où tu te sierras,_
_Se aucune chose y verras_
_Qui soit deshonneste ou vilaine._

The fireplace at the side of the hall, with hearth and chimney, were now in general use. An example is given in our last cut; another will be seen in our cut No. 239, and here, though evidently in the hall, and a monastic hall too, the process of cooking is pursued at it. The monks appear to be taking a joyous repast, not quite in keeping with the strict rule of their order, and the way in which they are conducting themselves towards the women who have been introduced into the monastery does not speak in favour of monastic continence. This picture is from a manuscript bible, of the fifteenth century, in the National Library at Paris (No. 6829).

Manners at table appear to have been losing some of the strictness and stiffness of their ceremonial, while they retained their rudeness. The bowl of water was carried round to the guests, and each washed his hands before dinner, but the washing after dinner appears now to have been commonly omitted. In one of the directions for table already quoted, the scholar is told that he must wash himself when he rises from bed in the morning, once at dinner, and once at supper, in all thrice a day:--

_Enfant, d’honneur lave tes mains_
_A ton lever, à ton disner,_
_Et puis au soupper, sans finer;_
_Ce sont trois foys à tout le moins._

And again, in another similar code,--

_Lave tes mains devant disner,_
_Et aussi quant vouldras soupper._

Still people put their victuals to their mouth with their fingers, for, though forks were certainly known in the previous century, they were not used for conveying the food to the mouth. It was considered, nevertheless, bad manners to carry the victuals to the mouth with the knife--

_Ne faiz pas ton morsel conduire_
_A ton coustel qui te peult nuire._

Another practice strictly forbidden in these rules was picking your teeth with your knife while at table. From the use thus made of the hand, in the absence of forks, it may be supposed that we should have directions for keeping it clean during the process of eating. One of these appears droll enough to us at the present day. It is directed that a person sitting at table in company is not to blow his nose with the hand with which he takes his meat. Handkerchiefs were not yet in use, and the alternative of course was that, if any one felt the need of performing the operation in question, he was to lay down his knife, and to do it with the hand which held it. In one of the French codes this direction is given rather covertly, as follows:--

_Ne touche ton nez à main nue_
_Dont ta viande est tenue._

But in another it is enunciated more crudely, thus:--

_Enfant, se ton nez est morveux,_
_Ne le torche de la main nue_
_De quoy ta viande est tenue;_
_Le fait est vilain et honteux._

All these circumstances show a state of manners which was very far from refined.

Among other directions for table, you are told not to leave your spoon in your platter; not to return back to your plate the food you have put in your mouth; not to dip your meat in the salt-cellar to salt it, but to take a little salt on your knife and put it on the meat; not to drink from a cup with a dirty mouth; not to offer to another person the remains of your pottage; not to eat much cheese; to take only two or three nuts, when they are placed before you; not to play with your knife; not to roll your napkin into a cord, or tie it in knots; and not to get intoxicated during dinner-time!

Our next cut (No. 240) represents one of the backed seats, after a pattern of this century. It is taken from a manuscript of the romance of Launcelot du Lac, in the National Library at Paris (No. 594). It is probable that this seat belonged to the parlour, or, as the name signifies, conversation room. The custom still continued of making seats with divisions, so that each person sat in a separate compartment. A triple seat of this kind is represented in our cut No. 241, taken from a manuscript of the French Boccaccio in the National Library at Paris.

The parlour seems to have been ornamented with more care, and to have been better furnished than the hall. This apartment appears to have been placed sometimes on the ground floor, and sometimes on the floor above, and large houses had usually two or three parlours. It had often windows in recesses, with fixed seats on each side; and the fireplace was smaller and more comfortable than that of the hall. As carpets came into more general use, the parlour was one of the first rooms to receive this luxury. In the inventory I have already quoted from the “New Retrospective Review,” the following articles of furniture are described as being in the parlour--

_A hanging of worsted, red and green._
_A cupboard of ash-boards._
_A table, and a pair of trestles._
_A branch of latten, with four lights._
_A pair of andirons._
_A pair of tongs._
_A form to sit upon._
_And a chair._

This will give us a very good idea of what was the usual furniture of the parlour in the fifteenth century. The only movable seats are a single bench, and one chair--perhaps a seat with a back like that shown above. The table was even here formed by laying a board upon trestles. The cupboard was peculiar to this part of the house; many of my readers will probably remember the parlour cupboards in our old country houses, the branched candlestick of metal, suspended from the ceiling, and the tongs and andirons for the fire.

The principal articles of furniture in the parlour are all exhibited in illuminations in manuscripts of the same period. The “hanging of worsted” was, of course, a piece of tapestry for the wall, or for some part of the wall, for the room was in many, perhaps in most, cases, only partially covered. Sometimes, indeed, it appears only to have been hung up on occasions, perhaps for company, when it seems to have been placed behind the chief seat.[50] The wall itself was frequently adorned with paintings, in common houses rude and merely ornamental, while in others of a better class they represented histories, scenes from romances, and religious subjects, much like those exhibited on the tapestries themselves. In the cut annexed (No. 242), taken from a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the romance of “Lancelot,” in the National Library at Paris, No. 6784, we have a representation of a parlour with wall paintings of this kind. Morgan le Fay is showing king Arthur the adventures of Lancelot, which she had caused to be painted in a room in her palace. Paintings of this kind are very often alluded to in the old writers, especially in the poets, as every one knows who has read the “Romance of the Rose,” the works of Chaucer, or that singular and curious poem, the “Pastyme of Pleasure,” by Stephen Hawes. Chaucer, in his “Dream,” speaks of--

_A chamber paint_
_Full of stories old and divers,_
_More than I can as now reherse._

There was in the castle of Dover an apartment called Arthur’s Hall, and another named Guenevra’s Chamber, which have been supposed to be so called from the subjects of the paintings with which they were decorated; and a still more curious illustration of the foregoing drawing is furnished by an old house of this period still existing in New Street, Salisbury, a room in which preserves its painting in distemper, occupying the upper part of the wall, like the story of Lancelot in the pictures of the room of Morgan le Fay. We give a sketch of the side of this room occupied by the painting in the accompanying cut (No. 243). It occupies the space above the fireplace, and the windows looking into the street, but it has been much damaged by modern alterations in the house. The subject, as will at once be seen, was of a sacred character--the offering of the three kings.

The window to the left of the fireplace, which is one of the original windows of this house, has a deep sill, or seat, which was intended as one of the accommodations for sitting down. This was not unfrequently made with a recess in the middle, so as to form a seat on each side, on which two persons might sit face to face, and which was thus more convenient both for conversation, and for looking through the window at what was going on without. This appears to have been a favourite seat with the female part of the household when employed in needlework and other sedentary occupations. There is an allusion to this use of the window sill in the curious old poem of the “Lady Bessy,” which is probably somewhat obscured by the alterations of the modern copyist; when the young princess kneels before her father, he takes her up and seats her in the window:--

_I came before my father the king,_
_And kneeled down upon my knee;_
_I desired him lowly of his blessing,_
_And full soon he gave it unto me._
_And in his arms he could me thring,_
_And set me in a window so high._

The words of our inventory, “a form to sit upon, and a chair,” describe well the scanty furnishing of the rooms of a house at this period. The cause of this poverty in movables, which arose more from the general insecurity of property than the inability to procure it, is curiously illustrated by a passage from a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband, written early in the reign of Edward IV. “Also,” says the lady to her spouse, “if ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain of pewter vessel, two basins and two ewers, and twelve candlesticks, for ye have too few of any of these to serve this place; I am afraid to purvey much stuff in this place, till we be surer thereof.” As yet, a form or bench continued to be the usual seat, which could be occupied by several persons at once. One chair, as in the inventory just mentioned, was considered enough for a room, and was no doubt preserved for the person of most dignity, perhaps for the lady of the household. Towards the latter end of this period, however, chairs, made in a simpler form, and stools, the latter very commonly three-legged, became more abundant. Yet in a will dated so late as 1522 (printed in the “Bury Wills” of the Camden Society), an inhabitant of Bury in Suffolk, who seems to have possessed a large house and a considerable quantity of household furniture for the time, had, of tables and chairs, only “a tabyll of waynskott with to (_two_) joynyd trestelles, ij. joynyd stolys of the best, a gret joynyd cheyre at the deyse in the halle--the grettest close cheyre, ij. fote stoles--a rounde tabyll of waynskott with lok and key, the secunde joynyd cheyer, ij. joynyd stolys.” The ordinary forms of chairs and stools at the latter end of the fifteenth century are shown in our cut No. 244, taken from a very curious sculpture in alto-relievo on one of the columns of the Hôtel-de-Ville at Brussels. At this time we begin to find examples of chairs ingeniously constructed, for folding up or taking to pieces, so as to be easily laid aside or carried away. Some of these resemble exactly our modern camp-stools. A curious bedroom chair of this construction is represented in our cut No. 245, taken from a fine illuminated manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” of the fifteenth century, in the collection of M. Barrois of Paris, but now, I believe, in the library of lord Ashburnham. The construction of this chair is too evident to need explanation. It explains the phrase, used in some of our old writers, of unfolding a chair.

At this time much greater use appears to have been made of candles than formerly, and they seem to have been constructed of different substances and qualities. Candlesticks, made usually of the mixed metal called laton or latten (an alloy of brass), were found in all houses; they appear to have been still mostly made with a spike on which the candle was stuck, and sometimes they were ornamented, and furnished with mottoes. John Baret, who made his will at Bury, in 1463, possessed a “candylstykke of laten with a pyke,” two “lowe candylstikkez of a sorth,” (_i.e._ to match), and three “candylstykkes of laton whereupon is wretyn _grace me governe_.” A testament dated in 1493 enumerates “a lowe candilstyke of laton, oon of my candelstykes, and ij. high candilstykes of laton.” In the will of Agas Herte of Bury, in 1522, “ij. belle canstykes and a lesser canstyke,” occurs twice, so that they seem to have formed two sets, and there is a third mention of “ij. bell canstykes.” We also find mention at this time of double candlesticks, which were probably intended to be placed in an elevated position to give light to the whole apartment. Our inventory of the contents of the parlour contains “a branch of latten, with four lights,” which was no doubt intended for this purpose of lighting the whole room (a sort of chandelier), and appears to have been identical with the candlebeam, not unfrequently mentioned in the old inventories. A widow of Bury, named Agnes Ridges, who made her will in 1492, mentions “my candylbeme that hangyth in my hall with vj. bellys of laton standyng thereon,” _i.e._ six cups in which the candles were placed. Our cut No. 246 represents a candlebeam with four lights. It is slung round a simple pulley in the ceiling, by a string which was fixed to the ground. It is taken from a manuscript of the “Traité des Tournois” (treatise of tournaments), by king René, in the National Library at Paris, No. 8352; and as the scene is represented as taking place in a princely hall, which is fitted up for a festive entertainment, we may take it as a curious proof of the rudeness which was still mixed up with the magnificence of the fifteenth century. In a fine illumination in a manuscript of Froissart in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 18 E. 2), representing the fatal masque at the court of Charles VI. of France, in 1393, in which several of the courtiers were burnt to death, we have, in the king’s palace, a chandelier exactly like that in our last cut, except that each candlestick on the beam contains two candles--a “double candlestick.” This manuscript is of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It had been the custom, on festive occasions, or in ceremonies where large apartments required to be lighted, to do this by means of torches which servants held in their hands. This custom was very common, and is frequently spoken of or alluded to in the mediæval writers. Nevertheless, the inconvenience and even danger attending it, led to various plans for superseding it. One of these was, to fix up against the walls of the room frames for holding the torches, of which an example is given in the accompanying cut (No. 247), representing a torch-frame, still preserved in the Palazzo Strozzi at Florence. One of the group, it will be observed, has a long spike, intended to hold a large candle. Candlesticks fixed to the wall in various manners are seen in manuscripts of the fifteenth century; and an example is given in our cut No. 248, taken from a part of the same illumination of Froissart mentioned before. The candle is here placed before a little image, on the upper part of the fireplace, but whether this was for a religious purpose or not, is not clear. In this cut, the three princesses are seated on the large chair or settle, which is turned with its back to the fire. This important article of furniture is now found in the parlour as well as in the hall.