Book 2, Chapter 6, The End of the Ninth Century – Anglo Saxon Furniture
The Anglo Saxon poems speak of the hall as being “adorned with treasures,” so that perhaps it was customary to display there in some manner the richer ornamental household vessels. Perhaps one end of the hall was raised higher than the rest for the lord of the household, like the dais of later times, as Anglo-Saxon writers speak of the heap fell, or high seat. The table can hardly be considered as furniture, in the ordinary sense of the word: it was literally, according to its Anglo Saxon name board, a board that was brought out for the occasion, and placed upon tressels, and taken away as soon as the meal was ended. In the illuminated manuscripts, wherever dinner scenes are represented, the table is always covered with what is evidently intended for a handsome table cloth, the myfe-hragel or bord-clath. The grand preparation for dinner was laying the board, and it is from this original character of the table that the ordinary expression is derived of receiving any one “to board and lodge.”
Chapter 6, Ancient Towns and Highways
Domestic life of the Anglo-Saxons
Chapter 6, Internal Fittings of Houses
Chapter 6, Anglo-Saxon Furniture
Anglo-Saxon Furniture
Chapter 6, Anglo Saxon Hunting and Travelling
Chapter 6, Anglo-Saxon Language
Local and District Courts of Justice
Categories: Book 2
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