IX 



FURNITURE AND FURNISHINGS 



BY many writers on the subject it is held that 

 all house furniture of Western Europe and 

 America has a common ancestor in the 

 feudal chest of the Middle Ages. For after the fall of 

 the Western Empire in the fifth century, Europe seems 

 to have forgotten the use of most articles of furniture 

 except the chest, even such simple things as chairs 

 not coming into general use until something like a 

 century before Columbus' great discovery. 



For many hundreds of years the chest seems to have 

 been the one characteristic piece of furniture of the 

 movable type. It should not be inferred, however, that 

 all chests were the simple trunk-like structures known 

 by that name to-day, but rather that most of the simple 

 pieces of furniture of that time partook of many char- 

 acteristics of the chest. Chairs were not made with 

 four legs as at present, but were small chests with high 

 backs attached; settles were simply elongated chests 

 with high backs and side-pieces; movable beds, when 

 used at all, were long, wide chests. Most beds at that 

 time were built into the wall and were not movable 

 pieces. Such articles of furniture as wardrobes, side- 

 boards, bureaus, etc., were unknown, and when finally 

 developed were made first as modified chests. 



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