LITMIR.BIZ

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placed on end.”

A statute of Charlemagne alludes to bons barils (bonos barridos). These barrels were made by skilled coopers (Fig. 9), who gave all their care to form of staves, hooped either with wood or iron, the casks destined to hold the produce of the vintage. According to an old custom, still in vogue in the south of France, the inside of the wine-skin used to be painted with tar, in order to give a flavour to the wine; to us this would perhaps be nauseous, but at that time it was held in high favour. In alluding to wine-skins, or sewn skins coated with pitch, we may remark that they date from the earliest historic times. They are still employed in countries where wine is carried on pack-animals, and they were much used for journeys. If a traveller was going into a country where he expected to find nothing to drink, he would fasten a wine-skin on the crupper of his horse’s saddle, or, at least, would sling a small leather wine-skin across his shoulder. Etymologists even maintain that from the name of these light wine-skins, outres légères, was derived the old French word bouteille; that, first having been designated bouchiaux, and boutiaux, they finally were named bouties and boutilles. When, in the thirteenth century, the Bishop of Amiens was setting out for the wars, the tanners of his episcopal town were bound to supply him with two leathern bouchiaux—one holding a hogshead, the other twenty-four setiers.

      Fig. 9.—A Cooper’s Workshop, drawn and engraved, in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.

      Some archæologists maintain that, when there had been a very abundant vintage, the wine was stored in brick-built cisterns, such as are still made in Normandy for cider; or that they were cut out of the solid rock, as we see them sometimes in the south of France; but it is more probable that these ancient cisterns, which are perhaps of an earlier date than the Middle Ages, were more especially intended for the process of fermentation—that is to say, for making wine, and not for storing it; which, indeed, under such unfavourable circumstances, would have been next to impossible.

What light did our ancestors use? History tells us that at first they used lamps with stands, and hanging lamps, in imitation of the Romans; which, however, must not lead us to the conclusion that, even in the remotest times of our annals, the use of fat and wax for such purposes was absolutely unknown. This fact is the less doubtful because, from the time when trade corporations were formed, we find the makers of candles and wax-chandlers

      Figs. 10 and 11.—Hanging Lamps of the Ninth Century, from Miniatures in the Bible of Charles the Bald (Bibl. Imp. de Paris).

      of Paris governed by certain statutes. As for the lamps, which, as in ancient times, were on stands placed for this purpose in the houses, or were suspended by light chains (Figs. 10 and 11), they were made in accordance with the means of those for whom they were intended, and were of baked earth, iron, brass, and gold or silver, all more or less ornamented. Lamps and candlesticks are not unfrequently mentioned in the inventories of the Middle Ages. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, German artisans made torch-holders, flambeaux, and chandeliers in copper, wrought and embellished with representations of all kinds of natural or fantastic objects; and in those days these works of art were much in request. The use of lamps was all but general in the early days of the monarchy; but as the somewhat dim and smoky flame which they furnished did not give sufficient brilliancy to the entertainments and solemn assemblies held in the evening, it became an established custom to add to these lamps the light of resinous torches, which serfs held in their hands. The tragic episode of the Ballet des Ardents, as told by Froissart—which we shall hereafter relate in the chapter on Playing Cards—shows that this custom, which we already see alluded to in Grégoire de Tours, our earliest historian, was in fashion until the reign of Charles VI.

      In subjugating the East, the Romans assumed and brought back with them extreme notions of luxury and indolence. Previously their bedsteads were of planks, covered with straw, moss, or dried leaves. They borrowed from Asia those large carved bedsteads, gilt and plated with ivory, whereon were piled cushions of wool and feathers, with counterpanes of the most beautiful furs and of the richest materials.

      These customs, like many others, were handed down from the Romans to the Gauls, and from the Gauls to the Franks. With the exception of bed-linen, which came into use much later, we find, from the time of our earliest kings, the various sleeping appliances nearly as they are now—the pillow (auriculare), the foot-coverlet (lorale), the counterpane (culcita), &c. No mention, however, is made of curtains (or courtines).

      At a later period, while still retaining their primitive furniture, bedsteads vary in their shapes and dimensions: those of the poor and of the monks are narrow and homely; among kings and nobles they, in process of time, became veritable examples of the joiner’s work, and only to be reached by the aid of stools, or even steps (Fig. 12). The guest at a château could not receive any greater honour than to occupy the same bed as the lord of the manor; and the dogs by whom the seigneurs—all great sportsmen—were constantly surrounded had the privilege of reposing where their masters slept. Hence we recognise the object of these gigantic bedsteads, which were sometimes twelve feet in width. If we are to believe the chronicles, the pillows were perfumed with essences and odoriferous waters; this we can understand to have been by no means a useless precaution. We see, in the sixteenth century, Francis I. testifying his great regard for Admiral Bonnivet by occasionally admitting him to share his bed.

Having completed our review of furniture, properly so called, we have now to treat of that which may be termed highly artistic articles of furniture—that is, those on which the workers in wood exercised their highest talents—elevated seats of honour, chairs and arm-chairs, benches and trestles; all of which were frequently ornamented with figures in relief, very elaborately sculptured with a knife (canivet); the bahuts, a kind of chest with either a flat or convex top, resting on feet, and opening on the upper side, whereon were placed stuffed leather cushions (Fig. 13); tubs, buffets,

      Fig. 12.—Bed furnished with Canopy and Curtains, from a Miniature at the end of the Fourteenth Century. (MS. de la Bibl. Imp. de Paris.)

presses, coffers both large and small, chess-boards, dice-tables, comb-boxes, which have been superseded by our dressing-cases, &c. Many specimens of these various kinds of furniture have descended to our time; and they prove to what a degree of perfection and of elaborate finish the art of cabinet-making and of inlaying had attained in the Middle Ages. Elegance and originality of design in inlaid metals, jasper, mother-of-pearl, ivory; carving, various kinds of veneering, and of stained woods, are all found combined in this description of furniture; some of which was ornamented with extreme delicacy of taste (Plate I.), and still remains inimitable, if not in all the details of execution, at least in rich and harmonious effect.

      At the time of the Renaissance, cabinets with numerous drawers and in several compartments were introduced: these were known in Germany by the name of artistic cabinets (armoires artistiques): the sole object of the maker was to combine in one piece of furniture, under the pretext of utility, all the fascination and gorgeous caprices of decorative art.

      To the Germans must be awarded the merit of having been the first to distinguish themselves in the manufacture of these magnificent cabinets, or presses; but they soon found rivals in both the French (Fig. 14) and Italians (Fig.

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