Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/399

 and Sentiments. 379 CHAPTER XVllI. IN-DOOR LIFE AND CONVERSATION. PET ANIMALS. THE DANCE. RERE-SUPPERS. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE "NANCy" TAPESTRY, AS people began to have lefs tafte for the pubHcity of the old hall, they gradually withdrew from it into the parlours for many of the purpofes to which the hall was originally devoted, and thus the latter loft much of its former chara6ter. The parlour was now the place commonly ufed for the family meals. In a curious little treatife on the " moft vyle and deteftable ufe of dyce play," compofed near the beginning of the fixteenth century, one of the interlocutors is made to fay, "So down we came again," i.e. from the chambers above, "into the parlour, and found there divers gentlemen, all ftrangers to me j and what Ihould I fay more, but to dinner we went." The dinner hour, we learn from this fame tra6l, was then at the hour of noon; "the table," we are told, "was fair fpread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnilhed with much goodly plate." The cupboard feems now to have been confidered a necelTary article of furniture in the parlour ; it had originally belonged to the hall, and was of limple conftru6tion. One of the great obje6ts of oftentation in a rich man's houfe was his plate 3 which, at dinner time, he brought forth, and caufed to be fpread on a table in light of his guefts ; afterwards, to exhibit the plate to more advantage, the table was made with ihelves, or fteps, on which the difterent articles could be arranged in rows one above another. It was called in French and Anglo- Norman a l-uD'et, or a dreffbir (drelfer), the latter name, it is faid, being given to it becaufe on it the ditlerent articles were drejfes, or arranged. The Englilh had, in their own language, no fpecial name for this article of furniture, fo that they called it literally a cup-board, or board for the cups. In courfe of time, and efpecially when it was removed from the hall