Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/424

 404 Hijiory of Domcjlic Manners roof. This appears to have been the firft ftep towards the more modern four-poll: bedfteads. In one of the plates to D'Agincourt's " Hilioire de I'Art" (Pehiture, pi. 109), taken from a Greek frefco of the tweh'th or thirteenth century in a church at Florence, we have the curtains arranged thus in a fquare tent in the room, where the cords are not fufpended from the roof, but fupported by four corner-pofts. The bed is placed within, totally detached from the furrounding ports and curtains. The fpace thus left between the bed and the curtains was perhaps what was originally called in French the ruelle (literally, the "little ftreet") of the bed, a term which was afterwards given to the fpace between the curtains of the bed and the wall, which held rather an important place in old French chamber life, and efpecially in the ftories of chamber intrigue. The bedftead itfelf was ftill a very limple ftrufture of wood, as fliown in our cut No. 2^9, which reprefents the bed of a countefs. It is taken No. 259. A Bed of t lie Fifteenth Century. from the nianialcript of the romance of the " Comte d'Artois," which has already furniflied fubjeds for our previous chapters on the manners of the fifteenth century. The lady's footflool is no lets rude than the bedftead. The bed here evidently confifts of a hard mattrels. It was ftill often made of ftraw, and the bed is fpoken of in the gloflaries as placed upon a Jlramentum,