Simplicity of Furniture among the Gauls and Franks.—Introduction of costly taste in articles of Furniture of the Seventh Century.—Arm-chair of Dagobert.—Round Table of King Artus.—Influence of the Crusades.—Regal Banquet in the time of Charles V.—Benches.—Sideboards.—Dinner Services.—Goblets.—Brassware.—Casks.—Lighting.—Beds.—Carved Wood Furniture.—Locksmith’s Work.—Glass and Mirrors.—Room of a Feudal Seigneur.—Costliness of Furniture used for Ecclesiastical Purposes.—Altars.—Censers.—Shrines and Reliquaries.—Gratings and Iron-mountings.
Then succeeded the Roman Conquest. Originally, and long subsequent to the formation of their warlike republic, the Romans had also lived in contempt of display, and even in ignorance of the conveniences of life. But when they had subjugated Gaul, and had carried their victorious arms to the confines of the world, they by degrees appropriated whatever the manners and habits of the conquered nations disclosed to them of refined luxury, material progress, and ingenious devices for comfort. Thus, the Romans brought with them into Gaul what they elsewhere had acquired. Again, when, in their turn, the semi-barbarous hordes of Germany and of the Northern steppes invaded the Roman empire, these new conquerors did not fail to accommodate themselves instinctively to the social condition of the vanquished.
This, briefly stated, is an explanation—we admit, rather concise—of the transition connecting the characteristics of the society of olden days with those of modern society.
Society in the Middle Ages—that social epoch which may be compared to the state of a decrepid and worn-out old man, who, after a long, dull torpor awakes to new life, like an active and vigorous child—society in the Middle Ages inherited much from preceding times, though, to a certain extent, they were disconnected. It transformed, perhaps; and it perfected, rather than invented; but it displayed in its works a genius so peculiar that we generally recognise in it a real creation.
Proposing rapidly to pursue our archæological and literary course through a twofold period of birth and revival, we cannot indulge the belief that we shall succeed in exhibiting our sketches in a light the best adapted to their effect. However, we will make the attempt, and, the frame being given, will do our best to fill in the picture.
If we visit any royal or princely abode of the Merovingian period, we observe that the display of wealth consists much less in the elegance or in the originality of the forms devised for articles of furniture, than in the profusion of precious materials employed in their fabrication and embellishment. The time had gone by when the earliest tribes of Gauls and of Northmen, who came to occupy the West, had for their seats and beds only trusses of straw, rush mats, and bundles of branches; and for their tables slabs of stone or piles of turf. From the fifth century of the Christian era, we already find the Franks and the Goths resting their muscular forms on the long soft seat which the Romans had adopted from the East, and which have become our sofas or our couches; changing only their names. In front of them were arranged low horse-shoe tables, at which the centre seat was reserved for the most dignified or illustrious of the guests. Couches at the table, suited only to the effeminacy induced by warm climates, were soon abandoned by the Gauls; benches and stools were adopted by these most active and vigorous men; meals were no longer eaten reclining, but sitting: while the thrones of kings, and the chairs of state for nobles, were of the richest sumptuousness. Thus, for instance, we find St. Eloi, the celebrated worker in metals, manufacturing and embellishing two state-chairs of gold for Clotaire, and a throne of gold for Dagobert. The chair ascribed to St. Eloi, and known as the Fauteuil de Dagobert (Fig. 1), is an antique consular chair, which originally was only a folding one; the Abbé Suger, in the twelfth century, added to it the back and arms. Artistic display was equally lavished on the manufacture of tables. Historians tell us that St. Remy, a contemporary of Clovis, had a silver table decorated all over with sacred subjects. The poet Fortunat, Bishop of Poitiers, describes a table of the same metal, which had a border representing a vine with bunches of grapes.
Fig. 1.—The Curule Chair called the “Fauteuil de Dagobert,” in gilt bronze, now in the Musée des Souverains.
Coming to the reign of Charlemagne, we find, in a passage in the writings of Eginhard, his minister and historian, that, in addition to a golden table which this great monarch possessed, he had three others of chased silver; one decorated with designs representing the city of Rome, another Constantinople, and the third “all countries of the universe.”
Fig. 2.—Chair of the Ninth or Tenth Century, taken from a Miniature of that period (MS. de la Bibl. Imp. de Paris).
The chairs or seats of the Romanesque period (Fig. 2) exhibit an attempt to revive in the interior of the buildings, where they were used, the architectural style of contemporary monuments. They were large and massive, and were raised on clusters of columns expanding at the back in three semicircular rows. The anonymous monk of Saint-Gall, in his chronicle written in the ninth century, alludes to a grand banquet, at which the host was seated on cushions of feathers. Legrand d’Aussy tells us, in his “Histoire de la Vie Privée des Français,” that at a later date—referring to the reign of Louis le Gros, in the beginning of the twelfth century—the guests were seated, at ordinary family repasts, on simple stools; but if the party was more of a ceremonious than intimate character, the table was surrounded with benches, or bancs, whence the term banquet is derived. The form of table was commonly long and straight, but on occasions of state it was semicircular, or like a horse-shoe in form, recalling the Romanesque round table of King Artus of Brittany (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3.—Round Table of King Artus of Brittany, from a Miniature of the Fourteenth Century (MS. de la Bibl. Imp. de Paris).
The Crusades, bringing together men of all the countries of Europe with the people of the East, made those of the West acquainted with luxuries and customs which, on returning from their chivalrous expeditions, they did not fail to imitate. We find feasts at which they ate sitting cross-legged on the ground, or stretched out on carpets in the Oriental fashion, as represented and described in miniatures contained in the manuscripts of that period. The Sire de Joinville, the friend and historian of Louis IX., informs us that this saintly king was in the habit of sitting on a carpet, surrounded by his barons, and in that manner he dispensed justice; but at the same time the practice of using large chaires, or arm-chairs, continued, for there still is to be seen a throne in massive wood belonging to that period, and called le banc de Monseigneur St. Louis, embellished with carvings representing fanciful and legendary birds and animals. It is unnecessary to add that the lower orders did not aspire to so much refinement. In their abodes the seats in use were settles, chests, or at best benches, the supports of which were, to a slight extent, carved.
This was the period when the practice commenced of covering seats with woollen stuffs, or with silk figured on frames, or embroidered by hand, displaying ciphers, emblems, or armorial bearings. From the East was introduced the custom of hangings for rooms, composed of glazed leather, stamped and gilt. These skins of the goat or sheep were called or basané, because plain gilt; or embossed leather, in gold colour,