FURNITURE, Mediaeval. Much of the few pieces of furniture used by the nations not reached by Byzantine or Romanesque in fluences was without decoration and consisted of bare boards fastened together. But under Gothic influence the pieces of utility began, in the northern countries, to receive some artistic attention. The wealthy alone owned anything outside of chests and settles. The bahut (chest) of the nobility was used as a piece of furniture when not traveling. It acted as a seat, a bed, and often as a table, and when change of place was at hand the bedding, hang ings of leather or arras were packed into the bahut. The chest was also known as a huche, and the chestmakers or carpenters were called huchters. Continuous warfare subjected Eu ropeans to very frequent and hurried change of abode and the court and nobles had little use for the comforts afforded by much furni ture. In early medixyal times the Church alone, with its altars, choir-stalls and patriarchal chairs, possessed permanent, substantial fur niture. In the absence of actual specimens
we have to fall back on illuminations in old MSS. and the inventories attached to old wills, for information as to the household equip ment. By the 11th century we find dressoirs, cup bordes (on trestles) ; and the armoire takes an early place with the faldestool. The bed stead was built into the wall. Even the lux uriousness of the French was one more of show than of comfort right into the 15th cen tury. And, while we read of beautifully carved wainscoting and ceilings, these rooms held but few chairs, mostly hassocks (carreaux) or cushions, carved bench, perhaps, while the mag nificent bahuts, architecturally constructed and decorated, hold immense services of the precious metals to be displayed on state occasions (their silver and gold services representing their only realizable wealth). When a medium of ex change was needed this precious metal was melted down for payment.