Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/62

 42 Hijiory of Domejiic Mariners they are always reprefented as the feats of perfons of high rank and dignity, ufually of kings. The two examples given in the accompanying cut (No. 28), are taken from the Harleian MS., No. 603, fol. 54, °., already referred to in our preceding chapters. It will be obferved that, although very limple in form, they are both furnilTied with cufhions. The chair in our cut No. 29, taken from Alfric's tranflation of Genefis No. 29. u4 King Seated. No. 30. King Da-viJ. (MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv.), on which a king is feated, is of a ditferent and more elegant confl:ru6tion. We fometimes find, in the manufcripts, chairs of fantaftic form, which were, perhaps, creations of the artift's imagination. Such a one is the Angular throne on which king David is feated with his harp, in our cut No. 30, which is alfo taken from the Harleian Manufcript, No. 603 (fol. 68, v°.). In addition to the feat, the ladies in the chamber had afcamel, or footftool. There was a table ufed in the chamber or bower, which differed altogether from that ufed in the hall. It was named viyfe, d'lfc (from the Latin difcus), and beod; all words which convey the idea of its being round — heodas (in the plural) was the term applied to the fcales of a balance. The Latin phrafe, of the 127th Pfalm, in circuitu menfoe. tuce, which was evidently underflood by the Anglo-Saxon tranflators as referring to