Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/130

 10 Hijlory of Do?neftic Manners niture under the Normans than under the Saxons. Cupboards {armaria, armoires) were more numerous, and were filled with veffels of earthen- ware, wood, or metal, as well as with other things. Chefts and coffers were adorned with elaborate carving, and were fometimes inlaid with metal, and even with enamel. The fmaller ones were made of ivory, or bone, carved with hiftorical fubjeds. Rich ornamentation generally began with ecclefiaftics, and we find by the fubje6ts carved upon them that the earlier ivory cofi'ers or calkets belonged to churchmen. When they were made for lords and ladies, they were ufually ornamented with fubje6t3 from romance, or from the current literature of the day. The No. 75. A Norman Bed. beds, alfo, were more ornamental, and affumed novel forms. Our cut No. 75, taken from MS. Cotton. Nero, C. iv., differs little from fbme of the Anglo-Saxon figures of beds. But the tefter bed, or bed with a roof at the head, and hangings, was now introduced. In Reginald of Durham, we are told of a facriflan who was accuftomed to fit in his bed and read at night. One night, having fixed his candle upon one of the fides of the bed {fupra fpondilia leSiuR fuprcma), he fell accidentally afleep. The fire communicated itfelf from the candle to the bed, which, being filled with flraw, was foon enveloped in flame, and this communi- cated