Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/159

 and Sentiments. 139 cut No. 88, and Ibmetimes along the walls. Common benches were the ufual feats, and thefe were often formed by merely laying a plank upon two treftles. Such a bench is probably reprefented in the accompanying cut (No. 96), taken from a manufcript of the romance of Triftan, of the No. 96. ^ Bench en Trejlks. fourteenth century, preferv-ed in the National Library at Paris (No. 7178). Tables were made in the fame manner. We now, however, find not un- frequent mention of a talk dormant in the hall, which was of courfe a table fixed to the fpot, and which was not taken away like the others : it was probably the great table of the dais, or upper end of the hall. To " begin No. 97. ^ Table on Treftle. the table dormant" was a popular phrafe, apparently equivalent to taking the firft place at the feaft. Chaucer, in the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, defcribing the profufe hofpitality of the Frankeleyn, fays — His table dormant in his ftalle aliuay Stood redy covered al the longe day. Yet