Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/155

 and Sentiments. 135 No. 89. ^ Cupboard Door. have been very few fixtures in the infide, and, as furniture was fcanty, the rooms muft have appeared very bare. In timber houfes, of courfe, it was not eafy to make cupboards or clofets in the walls, but this was not the cafe when they were built of ftone. Even in the latter cafe, however, the walls appear not to have been much excavated for fuch purpofes. Our cut No. 89 reprefents a cup- board door, taken from an illumi- nated manufcript of the thirteenth century, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; it is curious for its iron- work, efpecially the lock and key. The fmaller articles of domeftic ule were ufually depofited in chefts, or placed upon fideboards and move- able Hands. In the houfes of the wealthy a feparate room was built for the wardrobe. The accompanying figure (cut No. 90), taken from a manufcript in the Cottonian Library (Nero, D. vii.), reprefents the cellarer, or houfe-fteward, of the abbey of St. Alban's, in the fourteenth cen- tury, carrying the keys of the cellar door, which appear to be of remarkably large dimenfions; he holds the two keys in one hand, and a purfe, or, rather, a bag of money, in the other, the fymbols of his office. A drawing in the fame MS., copied in our cut No. 91, fhows us the entrance-door to an ordinary houfe, No. 90. The Cellarer oj St. Allan s.