CHAPTER 8 Beds

Privacy and Prestige

Tudor and Elizabethan beds were big. Paul Hentzner visited Windsor castle in 1578 where he saw “a chamber in which are the royal beds of Henry VII. and his queene, of Edward VI., and of Anne Bullen (Boleyn), all of them eleven feete square, and covered with quilts shining with gold and silver.” Even these royal beds were dwarfed by the bed made for the Duke of Burgundy for his marriage to Princess Isabella of Portugal in 1430: it was a magnificent 19' long and 12' 6" wide. The Great Bed of Ware, at 10' 8" square, was also huge, though made in about 1595 when the size of beds was decreasing. Its overlarge size gave it instant fame. Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night in 1601, only half a dozen years after the bed was made, yet he could rely on the audience getting the point when he made Sir Toby Belch refer to “as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware.” The maker of the Astley Hall bed (figure 8.1) was like many of his col- leagues in recognizing that furniture of this scale needed to be treated as architec- ture: what he was really making was a private chamber within a public space. The scale of the bed had two effects: its exterior displayed the wealth of the owner. amd its interior provided him and his wife with privacy. In the Elizabethan period, as today, privacy was one of the most impor- tant purchases the wealthy could make. Throughout the sixteenth century, both bed and dining chambers became increasingly common in the great houses. The bed chamber afforded a welcome personal space that was used for more than sleeping and dressing: inventories show that it was often equipped with furniture designed for writing, needlework, or chess-playing. The bed chamber was also used to receive high status guests and, particularly in the later seven-

149 150 LIVING WITH EARLY OAK

Figure 8.1: A magniﬁcent Elizabethan bed. It is full of architectural features that literally made it a room within a room. With curtains closed, it provided luxurious privacy, when open it was an object of magniﬁcent display. On a bed such as this, the woodwork would have equaled the hangings in importance. The plain panels indicate the depth of the bedding. Courtesy Astley Hall Museum and Art Gallery.

teenth and early eighteenth centu- carver. In the period, however, textiles ries, as a place where the lady of the were more significant than wood. house could entertain and gossip with personal friends. Whether the Jaco- Hangings and Bedstuff bethan bed was located in a private chamber or was still in the great hall, Many of the silks and damasks that its drawn curtains gave the master and surrounded the bed were imported his wife more than draft-free warmth: and thus more notable by far than the they provided a personal space that woodwork, which was made locally. nobody else in the household enjoyed. The inventories of the period invari- The interior was a place of privacy and ably emphasized the hangings. Chin- privilege. nery quotes a typical one: The exterior of the bed made a comparable statement of power and prestige. It symbolized social power both by the wooden structure of the A bedsteade of cutwirke, A bed itself and by the textiles it sup- teaster and vallans of black and ported. Today, the wood has survived cremysine velvet and frindged while the fabric has not, so we tend with cremysine silke and golde, to think that the magnificence of the Curtains of red and yallowe bed was the product of the joiner and changeable taffetie, One downe BEDS 151

BEDS ROYAL AND HUMBLE

“A bed Royall, the vallance, curtaines (turned about the posts) and counter pane laced and fringed about: with a foote cloth of Turky worke about it: the Tester adorned with plumbes, according to the colours of the bed.”

“…a Bed with blanket of Cadow or Rugg: or covering: the sheets turned down, and boulster…this is a bed prepared for to lodge in, but having no Tester. Such are termed Truckle beds, because they trundle under other beds: or being made higher with ahead, so they may be set in a chamber corner, or under a cant roofe, they are called a field Bed or cant Bed. If it be soe, that it may have a canapy over it (that is a half tester) then it is termed a Canapy bed: to which belongeth curtaines and Vellance. In the base of this square ly’s a bed staffe, of some termed a Burthen staffe.”

From Randle Holme: An Academie or Store House of Armory & Blazon (1649).

bed, a bowlster, ij pillows, and and the inventory of Paget Place are ij wollen blancketts, One red both typical in paying closer attention rugge, one quilte of cremysine to the hangings, carpets and needle- sarcenet… (1624) work than the furniture (see “Bedding and Bed Chambers” and “Bedding the Great Bed”). The Victoria and Albert Museum The bedstuffs, or as we would has refurnished the Great Bed of Ware call them today, the bedding, were (figure 1.6) with hangings in a very as excessive as the hangings. Ralph similar color scheme: bright reds and Edwards (1964:30) tells us that the yellows were the height of fashion. most luxurious medieval beds consisted Randle Holme’s list of “Things use- of “a straw or wool pallet, two feather- full about a Bed and Bed-chamber” beds, sheets (sometimes of silk), blan- 152 LIVING WITH EARLY OAK

BEDDING AND BED CHAMBERS I From Randle Holme: An Academie or Store House of Armory & Blazon (1649):

Things usefull about a Bed, and bed-chamber.

Bed stocks, as bed posts, sides, ends, Head and Tester. Mat, or sack-cloth Bottom. Cord, Bed staves, and stay for the feet. Curtain Rods and hookes, and rings, either Brass or Horn. Beds, of chaffe, Wool or flocks, Feathers, and down in Ticks or Bed Tick. Bolsters, pillows. Blanketts, Ruggs, Quilts, Counterpan, caddows. Curtaines, Valens, Tester head cloth; all either fringed, Laced or plaine alike. Inner curtaines and Valens, which are generally White silk or Linen. Tester Bobbs of Wood gilt, or covered suteable to the curtaines. Tester top either flat, or Raised, or canopy like, or half Testered. Basis, or the lower Valens at the seat of the Bed, which reacheth to the ground, and fringed for state as the upper Valens, either with Inch fring, caul fring, Tufted fring, snailing fring, Gimpe fring with Tufts and Buttons, Velum fring, &c.

The Chamber

Hangings about the Rome, of all sorts, as Arras, Tapestry, damask, silk, cloth or stuffe: in paines or with Rods, or gilt leather, or plaine, else Pictures of Friends and Relations to Adorne the Rome. Table, stands, dressing Box with drawers, a large Myrour, or Looking glass. Couch, chair, stooles, and chaires, a closs-stool. Window curtaines, Flower potts. Fire grate, and a good Fire in the winter, Fire shovel, Tongs, Fork and Bellows. kets, another feather-bed, and overall, William Harrison tells us with an embroidered quilt, often trimmed his customary pride that during Eliz- with fur.” This huge pile was kept in abeth’s reign comfortable bedding, place by bedstaves that slotted into which he calls “lodging,” spread to the holes in the top of the frame. Gener- farmers and artisans: ally, these holes are found only on the most impressive beds, indicating that The second is the great amend- the depth of the bedstuff signaled the ment of lodging, for (said they) height of the sleeper’s rank. Bedstaves our fathers (yea) and we ourselves were also pushed betwen the bedding (also) have lien full oft upon and the bed frame. People slept in a straw pallets, covered onlie with semi-sitting position, propped on bol- a sheet, under coverlets made of sters leaning against the headboard. dagswain or hopharlots (I use BEDS 153

BEDDING AND BED CHAMBERS II From An Inventory of all maner of stuff remaining in Paget Place, St Clement Danes at London 15th February 1552: In My Lord’s bed Chamber

a joined bedsted of walnuttree a testor of gold sarsenet imbroded and double valanced 5 curtaines of blew and orange sarsenet a bed of downe wt. a bolster a chaire of black velvet – a chayre of needle worke a square table wt. a grene carpet a cupbourde wt. a grene carpet a red mantle ij paires of tables a chesse bourd, a deske of ivory a little square stole, a fote stole th’ angings of arras of the story of David 4 pair

their owne termes), and a good The passage echoes his account of round logge under their heads the social diffusion of plate on court in steed of a bolster, or pillow. cupboards (pp.11-13), and we should If it were so that our fathers, or note that he makes no mention of the the good man of the house, had furniture, if any, upon which this bed- within seven years after his mar- ding was laid. riage purchased a matteres or flockebed, and thereto a sacke Tester Beds of chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well While Jacobethan home owners took lodged as the lord of the towne, great pride in colorful, expensive bed that peradventure laye seldom in hangings and in deep piles of bedding, a bed of downe or whole fethers; they were far from neglectful of the so well were they contented, and bed itself. They loved carved and in- with such base kind of furni- laid oak so much that the opportunity ture: …Pillowes (said they) were of a large bedhead was just too good thought meete onlie for women for the carver and his patron to pass in childbed. As for servants, if up. The Great Bed of Ware, for in- they had any sheet above them, stance, has magnificent hangings, but it was well, for seldome had its carving and inlay is by no means they anie under their bodies, to overshadowed. keepe them from the pricking After the Restoration, the beds straws that ran oft through the of the court and the nobility became canvas of the pallet, and rased notable only for their textiles, the their hardened hides. wood was nothing but a supporting 154 LIVING WITH EARLY OAK

Figure 8.2: A tester bed, northern English, dated 1663. The form and decoration have been much simpliﬁed from the bed pictured in ﬁgure in 8.1, but its structure is basically the same. The upper panels are carved with arabesques, strapwork, and an arcade and the date; the stiles are carved with running guilloches, and the other rails and muntins with scrolls and lozenges. The lower panels are plain because they would have been covered by the pillows. The tester is fully paneled and has running guilloches on the stiles and a molded cornice. The headboard, footboard, and tester clearly show their close relationship with the fronts of joined coffers. Courtesy Camcote House Collection. BEDS 155

BEDDING THE GREAT BED Kate Hay, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, describes how late sixteenth-century bedding has been recreated in authentic detail for the Great Bed of Ware (see figure 1.6): The first layer of the bed would have been hemp rope, strung between the holes in the bedstock. To prevent the mattress sinking through the stringing, a bedmat made of plaited rushes was laid over the top. Three mattresses would probably have been used, the lowest filled with woollen flock, the second with feathers, and the top with down, making a very soft sleeping surface. One mattress is covered in striped ticking, with a period pattern, and two with plain canvas. Bedstaves, long wooden poles, were pushed down the sides of the bedstock to keep all the matttresses in place.

Two plain linen sheets have been specially woven. These were authentically made in narrow strips of just under two feet wide which were then sewn together. The bed has been provided with a bolster, and eight pillows. Four of the pillows have linen pillow cases, and four have blackwork embroidery. On two of the pillowcases the design of the embroidery copies a pillowcase in the Museum’s collection and on the other two the design has been taken from contemporary design drawings in the way embroiderers would have worked in the 16th century.

Two woollen blankets were made using traditional methods, with a twill weave and woven blue stripes at the end. Over these was laid a quilt. The quilt is in ‘shot sarcenet’, a silk with the warp and weft in different colours so that it shows different colours as the light falls from different directions. The pattern for the embroidery on the quilt is taken from a 16th century quilt in the Muse- um’s collection, and the two colours are ‘carnation’, (pink), and green, one of the most popular colour combinations recorded in inventories. The counter- pane was often used to display luxurious fabrics, such as the one used for the bed, a fabric woven in wool with linen and gold thread. This also follows the pattern of a 16th century textile in the V&A’s collection.

The curtains and valances are in bold stripes of red and yellow say, a twill- woven wool. This was chosen because it is very frequently mentioned in inventories of the period, and was the most popular colour combination in inventories from the south of England. The curtains also have a woollen fringe trim.

The final result shows the bed as closely as possible to its probable appearance when it was first used in the 1590s.