Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/752

BED. spring; (3) a mattress covered with striped or figured linen, or woolen cloth, or leather, stuffed with dried reeds, or wool, or the fluffy product of the gnaphalion; (4) pillows, one round, and two or more square, covered with linen and filled with down or feathers; (5) bedcovers of various kinds, brilliantly colored, embroidered with floral and animal patterns, some of heavy woolly cloth, some of lighter texture. The bedstead had posts sometimes square, sometimes round (turned), crowned usually by an Ionic capital and of graceful design. Sometimes they were in the form of columns, sometimes they were turned in a succession of slender necks and swelling bulbs. The frame itself was narrow, the footboard was seldom raised, but the headboard commonly projected above the bed. There appears to have been, during the Fifth Century, a reaction toward a more Spartan simplicity in bed and bedding — due, perhaps, to the fall of Athenian supremacy; but it did not last long, and the Alexandrian Age saw an even greater Oriental luxury among the Greeks.

In Italy the Etruscans led in love of luxury, and their beds, as shown in the paintings and" reliefs of their tombs, were of the same type as the Greek, with the added comfort of air-cushions. Two funeral bedsteads, veneered in ivory, have been found in Etruscan tombs of the Fourth and Third centuries B.C. One is in the Papa Giulio Museum, Rome; the other in the Field Museum, Chicago. They are covered with fine carvings in relief. But it was not until the close of the Republic that the Romans laid aside their simplicity and combined all the good points of Etruscan, Greek, and Oriental beds. There were five classes of Roman beds and couches — (1) the ordinary sleeping-bed, or lectus cubicularis; (2) the reclining-table couch, or lectus tricliniaris; (3) the smaller lounge for rest and meditation in the daytime — the lectulus; (4) the high marriage-bed — lectus genialis; and, finally, (5) the funeral-bed, or lectus funebris, on which the deceased was exposed and carried in the funeral procession. There were bedsteads of massive bronze, beautifully decorated; as, for example, that found at Pompeii, with silver incrustations. Others were of massive silver, even of gold, while the majority were veneered with expensive woods, tortoise-shell, or ivory, plates of gold or silver, or gold-leaf, or else inlaid in patterns with different materials. The typical Pompeian ordinary bed is very similar to the modern wooden bedstead in its proportions and structure. Some frames were high, and were reached by footstools. Not only were there usually both headboard and footboard, but also in the sleeping-beds the back was often protected by a board. In all these particulars it varied from the Greek bed. The mattress rested either in girth or on a delicate diagonal trellis, and was for the poor stuffed with straw or dried reeds, and for the rich with wool, or even feathers. The pillows were of feathers or down. The bedcovers were rich in color — especially purple embroidered with gold — and made of Oriental stuffs.

The Roman inheritance, lost in the West after the Sixth Century A.D., was continued in the Byzantine Empire, and the gorgeous couches and lounges in the Imperial palaces at Constantinople are famous. The Mohammedans inherited both the Byzantine and the Persian forms of luxury, and while not paying so much attention to the bedcovers, which, on account of the warm climate, were necessarily light, developed the magnificence of the baldachins and other hangings over the beds and couches to such an extent that these woven and embroidered stuffs, damasks, velvets, etc., became the masterpieces of their class, and were among the most regal presents. The Crusaders became acquainted with them and introduced them into the West. In Farther Asia beds and bedding have been and still are of great simplicity, usually in the form of simple couches or mattresses, which can be easily rolled up or carried away. In India they are called charpoys. The Japanese lie upon matting with wooden, neckrests — a custom derived ultimately from Egypt. The Chinese use low beds, often elaborately carved.

Meanwhile, in the West, bedsteads, though reduced to extreme simplicity, with the fall of Roman civilization had not entirely fallen into disuse. In the time of Charlemagne they were sometimes made of bronze tubing — like our own brass bedsteads, with bulbs at the joints and ends of the posts — with a rope netting to support the mattress and with numerous large pillows. In the crusading times of the Twelfth Century the beds acquired considerable richness; the frames were low and narrow, and of almost Spartan simplicity, there being no headboard or footboard, and only posts projecting slightly above the frame. These frames were, however, richly inlaid, carved, or painted, were covered with embroidered hangings and overhung with canopies. As in the Carlovingian Age, the bedding was arranged on a very inclined plane, so now the mattresses appear much longer than the frame, raised over the low headboard and suspended on a curve. With the advent of the Gothic Age in the Thirteenth Century, and the Golden Age of the manor-life of the castles, beds increased still further in size and luxury. The marriage-beds stood often not in a special bedroom, but in the main hall, where all persons could enter, and were entirely curtained about. Metal bedsteads had been entirely abandoned in favor of wood. The balustrade became wider, and had an opening in the middle of the front side for entrance; the height of the headboard was increased; the mattress was laid flat, inside the frame instead of on top of it, and the number of pillows was increased.

In the Fourteenth Century the bedsteads decreased in size but increased in comfort, in fineness of linen sheets and richness of coverings. They were placed in bedrooms, which were now sumptuously decorated with hangings. There were often two mattresses instead of one, and they were covered with silk. Previously the sheets had been used to wrap the person in — as nightgowns were almost unknown — but now the sheets were larger and fell over the sides of the bed, even to the ground, under the sumptuous covers.

In the Fifteenth Century their size became enormous, 7 feet long by 6 feet or more wide. The rooms were so large, however, that, as heretofore, the bedsteads were headed to the wall, and sometimes there were two side by side, and 4 or 5 feet apart, covered with a single immense canopy, as in the beds of Isabelle de Bourbon. The beds of Henry II. and Francis I. were famous, and the kings