BOOK filken, fome with the figures of golden birds in II. needle work, fome woven, and fome plain At another time a veil, or piece of hanging, is mentioned, on which was fewed the deftruction of Troy + Thefe were royal prefents. We also read of the curtain of a lady on which was woven the actions of her husband in memory of his probity. These articles of manufacture for domeftic ufe are obviously alluded to by Aldhelm in his fimile, in which he mentions the texture of hangings or curtains; their being ftained with purple and different varieties of colours, and their images, embroidery, and weaving. Their love of gaudy colouring was as apparent in these as in 'their drefs, for he says, "if finished of one colour uniform they "would not feem beautiful to the eye 6." Curtains and hangings are very often mentioned; fometimes in Latin phrases, pallia or cortinas '; fometimes in the Saxon term wahrift. Thus Wynfleda bequeaths a long heall wahrift and a short one, and Wulfur bequeaths an heall wahrifta; the fame teftator alfo leaves a heall reafes. Whether this is another expreffion for a hanging to the hall, or whether it alludes to any thing like a carpet, the expreffion itself will not decide. The probability is, that it expreffes a part of the hangings. We can perceive the reasons why hangings were used in such early times their carpenters were not exact and perfect 3 Ingulf, p. 53. S 3 Gale Script. 495. + Ibid. p. 9. • Aldhelm de Laud. Virg. 283. 7 Dugd. 130. 3 Gale, 418 and 495. Ingulf, 53. VI. joiners; their buildings were full of crevices, and C H A P. hangings were therefore rather a neceffity than a luxury, as they kept out the wind from the inhabitants. Nothing can more ftrongly prove their neceffity than that Alfred, to preferve his lights from the wind, even in the royal palaces, was obliged to have recourse to lanthorns. Their hangings we find were not cheap enough to be used perpetually, and therefore when the king gave them to the monastery, he adds the injunction to the one gift, that it fhould be fufpended on his anniversary, and to another, that it should be used on festivals to. BENCHES" and feats and their coverings are alfo mentioned. In one gift, feven fet! hrægel, or feat coverings, occur. Wynfleda bequeaths three fetl hrægl. Their footftools appear to have been much ornamented. Ingulf mentions two great pedalia with lions interwoven, and two fmaller ones fprinkled with flowers 14. Some of their feats or benches, represented in the drawings, have animals' heads and legs at their extremities'. Their feats seem to have been benches and stools. • THEIR tables are fometimes very coftly: we read of two tables made of filver and gold ". Ethelwold, in Edgar's reign, is faid to have made a filver table worth three hundred pounds". We also read of a wooden table for an altar which was See the Anglo-Saxon Hiftory, vol. ii. p. 337. so Ingulf, 53. 12 Dugd. 216. 14 Ing. 53. "Dugd. Mon. 130. BOOK adorned with ample and folid plates of filver, and II. with gems various in colour and species 18. CANDLESTICKS of various forts are mentioned; two large candlesticks of bone (gebonede candelfticcan), and fix fmaller of the fame kind, are enumerated, as are alfo two filver candelabra, gilt 20, and two candelabra well and honourably made 2. Bede once mentions that two candles were lighted 22 HAND-BELLS also appear. At one time twelve are ftated to have been used in a monastery 23. A difciple of Bede fends to Lullus, in France, "the "bell which I have at my hand 24.” A filver mirror is also once mentioned 25. Of bed furniture we find in an Anglo-Saxon's will bed-cloaths (beddreafes), with a curtain (hryfte), and sheet (hoppfcytan), and all that thereto belongs; to his fon he gives the bed-reafe and all the cloaths that appertain to it. An Anglo-Saxon lady gives to one of her children two chefts and their contents, her beft bed-curtain, linen, and all the cloaths belonging to it. To another child fhe leaves two chests, and "all the bed-cloaths that to one bed belong." She alfo mentions her red tent 27 (giteld). On another occafion we read of a pillow of ftraw 29. A goat skin bed-covering was fent to an Anglo-Saxon abbot 29. In Judith we read of 38 28 3 Gale Script. 420. 19 Dugd. Mon. 221. 21 Ibid. 130. Candelabris 22 Bede, 259. 24 16 Mag. Bib. 88. 28 3 Gale Scrip. 418. 23 20 Ibid. 40. ex argento ductilibus. Ib. 104. 27 Hickes Præf. VI. the gilded fly-net hung about the leader's bed 3. C HA Bear-skins are sometimes noticed as if a part of bed furniture. There is a drawing of a Saxon bed and curtain in Claud. B. iv. which may be feen in Strutt Horda Angelcynn. pl. xiii. fig. 2. The head and the bottom of the bed feem to be both boarded, and the pillows look as if made of platted straw. Not to go into a bed, but to lay on the floor, was occafionally enjoined as a pennance 31. 32 FOR their food and conviviality they used many expenfive articles. It was indeed in thefe that their abundant use of the precious metals principally appeared. We perpetually read of filver cups, and fometimes of filver gilt. Byrhtric, in his will, bequeaths three filver cups 3. Wulfur bequeaths four cups, two of which he defcribes as of four pounds value 33. Wynfleda gives, befides four filver cups, a cup with a fringed edge, a wooden cup variegated with gold, a wooden knobbed cup, and two fmicere fcencing cuppan, or very handsome drinking cups 34. In other places we read of a golden cup, with a gold difh 35; a gold cup of immenfe weight 36; a difh adorned with gold, and another with Grecian workmanship 37. A lady gave a golden cup, weighing four marcs and a half 38. The king of Kent sent to Boniface, the AngloSaxon miffionary in Germany, a silver bason, gilt within, weighing three pounds and a half 39. On 30 Frag. Jud. 3 Wilk. Leg. Anglo-Sax. p. 97. 32 Thorp. Reg. Roff. 30. 35 Dugd. Mon. 21. 37 Ibid. 40. JI. BOOK another occafion a great filver dish of excellent workmanship and of great value is noticed 40. Two filver cups, weighing twelve marks, were used by the monks in a refectory to serve their drink. Two filver bafons were given by a lady to a monastery 42. A king, in 833, gave his gilt cup, engraved without with vine dreffers fighting dragons, which he called his cross-bowl, because it had a crofs marked within, and it had four angles projecting like a fimilar figure; two filver cups, with covers in one place44; five filver cups in another 45; and fuch-like notices, fufficiently prove to us that the rich and great among the Anglo-Saxons had no want of plate. At other times we meet with cups of bone 6, brazen difhes 47, and a coffer made of bones 48. We may infer that the lefs affluent ufed veffels of wood and horn. A council ordered that no cup or difh made of horn fhould be used in the facred offices 49. HORNS were much used at table. Two buffalo horns are in Wynfleda's will 50. Four horns are noticed in the lift of a monaftery's effects ". Three horns worked with gold and filver occur s, and the Mercian king gave to Croyland monaftery the horn of his table," that the elder monks may drink "thereout on festivals, and in their benedictions "remember fometimes the foul of the donor |