The buttery was actually the cellar in which all liquors were kept, and in the sewery were deposited table-cloths and towels or maniples, hung on perches to keep them clean, and also to prevent the incursions of mice[1]; knives, salts, the cheese chest, candlesticks, sconces and baskets.
We may now enter the dining or great chamber where the "sovereign" took his repast, the household eating in the hall[2]. Many illuminations represent the floors of rooms paved with coloured tiles, although it is certain they were more frequently boarded and strewed with sand or rushes, dried or green according to the season[3]; in summer sweet herbs were mixed with, rushes. If we presume the old limners to have faithfully represented the manners of their times, it was customary for guests to throw the refuse of their plates, as bones, &c. on the floor; two or three dogs grubbing about for such crumbs are not unfrequently introduced in ancient pictures of feasts. In the sixteenth century Erasmus described the disgusting consequences of this habit, then still prevalent in England; it had been condemned by native writers before him. It is almost unnecessary to observe that carpets did not come into general use, until a very recent period. They were first introduced in the thirteenth century[4], and were certainly used in the royal apartments during the reign of Edward the Third.
The furniture of the dining-chamber was simple and scanty, consisting only of standing-tables, or tables on tressels, and wooden forms for seats[5]. It is clear from numerous allusions in the old romance writers that the tables were removed after dinner; hence the convenience of tressels.
"Mès maintenant que mengié ont,
Recueil de Méon, vol. i. p. 31.
"Whan bordes were born a doun and burnes[6] hade waschen
Men mizt haue seie to menstrales moche god zif."
William and the Werwolf.
- ↑ Ibid. fo. 5. See also Wynkyn de Worde's "boke of Keruynge," 1513.
- ↑ See the Northumberland Household Book. These names are frequently used, the one for the other, by old poets.
- ↑ Rot. Claus. p. 95, et passim "de camerâ regis junchiandâ."
- ↑ Household Expenses, &c. in England; presented to the Roxburgh Club by Beriah Botfield, Esq. Introd., p. ixi.
- ↑ "In the Hall foure tables with formes, one counter, one cupboard, xx.s." Inventory of Sir Thomas Hilton, of Hilton Castle, co. Durham, 1st. Eliz. Surtees Society, Wills and Inventories, p. 183. See also the Surveys of Leckinfield Manor House, and Wresil Castle in 1574: Northumberland Household Book.
- ↑ Men.
