coverlets of the same wool, and with the same devices, for placing on the bed. Item, a coverlet of red leather bearing in its centre the arms of the King and the Infanta. Item, another coverlet made of leather bars and plain red leather. Item, a woollen coverlet with the arms of the Infanta.”[6]

Another corner of the room was occupied by the dining-table,[7] spread at meal-times with a cloth denominated by Saint Isidore the mappa, mápula, mapil, mantella, or mantellia; and laid with the mandíbulas or “jaw-wipers” (i.e. napkins; see Du Cange), plates (discos), dishes (mensorios, messorios, or misorios), spoons (cocleares, culiares), though not as yet with forks,[8] cups of various shapes and substances, with or without a cover (copos, vásculos, and many other terms), the water-flagon (kana, mikana, almakana), the cruet-stand (canatella), and the salt-cellar (salare).

This table also served to write upon, while in its neighbourhood would stand the massive sideboard, piled with gold and silver plate, and vessels of glass or ivory, wood or alabaster.

Besides the bed and table in their several corners, the chamber would contain a suitable variety of chairs and stools, mostly surrounding the capacious fireplace. Members of the household also sat on carpets spread upon the floor. The great armchair of the seignior himself was more ornate than any of the rest, and was provided somewhat later with a lofty Gothic back (Plates i. and ii.). A chair with a back of moderate height was destined for distinguished visitors. The back of ordinary chairs reached only to about the sitter's shoulder, and coverings of cloth or other stuffs were not made fast, but hung quite loosely from the wooden frame. This usage lasted till the sixteenth century, when the upholsterers began to nail the coverings of the larger chairs and benches.

Owing to the oriental influence brought back from the Crusades, the furniture of Europe, not excluding Spain, grew ever more elaborate and costly, while further, in the case of this Peninsula, the native Moorish influence operated steadily and strongly from Toledo, Seville, Cordova, Valencia, and elsewhere. Tapestries of Eastern manufacture (alcatifas) were now in general use for decorating floors and walls. The bed grew more and more gigantic, and its clothes and curtains more extravagantly sumptuous, until the florid Gothic woodwork harmonized with canopies and curtains cut from priceless skins, or wrought in gold and silver thread on multicolor satin and brocade. And at the bed's head, like some jewel marvellously set, rested, in every noble home, the diptych or the triptych with its image of the Saviour or the Virgin Mary.

Under the influence of the Renaissance this love of luxury continued to increase among the royal and the noble families of Spain. In 1574 an inventory of the estate of Doña Juana, sister of Philip the Second, mentions a silver balustrade, weighing one hundred and twenty-one pounds, for placing round a bed. The inventory (1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque contains a great variety of entries relative to the furniture and chamber-fittings of the period. We find here mentioned, Turkey carpets and the celebrated Spanish ones of Alcaraz, linens of Rouen, green cloth of Cuenca, Toledo cloths, hangings of Arras and elsewhere, tablecovers of damask and of velvet, gold-fringed canopies (doseles) of green or crimson velvet or brocade, a “canopy for a sideboard, of red and yellow Toledo cloth, with the arms of the La Cuevas in embroidery, together with stripes and bows, and repetitions of the letter I (for Isabel Giron, the duchess), also embroidered fringes of the same cloth, and cords of the aforesaid colours.” We also read of a sitial or state-chair of crimson satin brocade, and “a small walnut table covered with silver plates, bearing the arms of my lord the duke and of my lady the duchess, and edged with silver stripes.”[9] The bedstead, fitted with hangings of double taffeta and scarlet cloth, was no less sumptuous than the other objects.

I
MEDIÆVAL CHAIR
(Carved with the arms of Castile and León)

A popular and even an indispensable piece of furniture in every mediæval Spanish household was the caja de novia or “bride's chest.” The use of this, as well as of a smaller kind of box, was common both to Moors and Christians. No matter of what size, these objects were essentially the same. They served innumerable purposes; were made of all dimensions—from the tiniest casket (arcellina, capsula, or pyxide; see vol. i., p. 45 et seq.) to the ponderous and vast arcón,—and almost any substance—ivory or crystal, mother-of-pearl or glass, gold, silver, copper, silver-gilt, jasper, agate, or fine wood; and we find them in every part of the Peninsula, from the dawn of the Middle Ages till very nearly the end of the eighteenth century.

II
GOTHIC CHAIR
(15th Century)

According to the Marquis of Monistrol, the larger boxes or arcones constitute by far the commonest article of Spanish furniture all through the earlier portion of this lengthy period. The same authority divides them broadly into seven classes, thus:—

The decorative richness of these quaint arcones varies according to their date of manufacture, or the purpose they were meant to serve. Commonly, in the earliest of them, dating from the sixth or seventh century, the iron clamps or fastenings form the principal or only ornament. Such are reported to have been the two chests which the Cid Campeador loaded with sand and