Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/286

 266 HiJIory of Domejiic Manjiers teenth century in the Britifli Mufeum (MS. Reg. lo E. iv.), Jofeph is reprefented counting out the money from his hiiche, to buy up the corn of Egypt, during the years of plenty. The chefts were kept in the chambers, as being the moft retired and fecure part of the houfe, and, from the terms in which the breaking open of the chambers is fpoken of in the foregoing extracts, we are led to fuppofe that the chambers themfelves were ufually locked. The ordinary place for the chefts or hutches, or, at leaft, of the principal cheft, was by the fide, or more ufually at the foot, of the bed. We have jufl: feen that this was the place in which Conftant Duhamel kept his huche. Under thefe circumftances it was very commonly ufed for a feat, and is often introduced as fuch, both in the literature of the middle ages, and in the illuminations of the mauufcripts. In the romance of " Garin" (tom. i. p. 214), the king's meffenger finds the count of Flanders, Fromont, in a tent, according to one manufcript, feated on a cotfer (for un coff're ou fe Jijt). So, alfo, in the " Roman de la Violette," p. 25, the heroine and her treacherous gueft are reprefented as feated upon "a cotfer banded with copper" (for j. coffre lende de coivre). Our cut No. 191, taken from one of the engravings in the great work of Willemin, reprefents a fcribe thus feated on a cotfer or huche, and engaged apparently in writing a letter. Our next cut (No. 192), taken from a manufcript of the four- teenth century in the Britilli Mufeum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), reprefents a lady and gentleman, feated on apparently a coffer, the former of whom is prefenting a ring to the other. This latter objeft, the ring, afts alfo a very frequent and very impor- tant part in the focial hiftory of the middle ages. A ring was often given as a token of affeftion between lovers, as may perhaps be intended by the fubjeft of our lafl cut, or between relatives or friends. In the romance of " Widukind," tom. ii. p. 20, the queen gives her ring to her lover in a 9 1. Sitting on the Huche.