Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/282

 262 Hijlory of Domejiic Manners reprelented in our cut No. 186 (taken from a manufcript of the romance of "Meliadus," in the Britilla Mufeum, MS. Addit. No. 12,228, foL 3T2), which is a good reprefentation of a bed of the fourteenth century. A lady has introduced a king into her chamber, and they are converfing privately, feated on the bench of the bed. In fome of thefe illumina- tions, the perfons converfing are feated on the bed, with their feet on the bench. The illuminators had not yet learned the art of reprefenting things in detail, and they iViU too often give us mere conventional reprefentations of beds, yet we fee enough to convince us that the bedfl:eads were already 87. Takmg Clothes, from the Cheji. made much more elaborately than formerly. Befides the bench at the fide, we find them now with a hutch {huche) or locker at the foot, in which the poffetfor was accufl;omed to lock up his money and other valuables. This hutch at the foot of the bed is often mentioned in the fabliaux and romances. Thus, in the fabliau "Du chevalier a la Robe Vermeille," a man, when he goes to bed, places his robe on a hutch at the toot of the bed — Sur une liucJie aus pie% du lit A c'll tout e fa robe m'lje. Another;