As I have said, the dresser (_dressoir_) or cupboard was the only important article of furniture in the hall, besides the tables and benches. It was a mere cupboard for the plate, and had generally steps to enable the servants to reach the articles that were placed high up in it, but it is rarely represented in pictured manuscripts before the fifteenth century, when the illuminators began to introduce more detail into their works. The reader may form a notion of its contents, from the list of the service of plate given by Edward I. of England to his daughter Margaret, after her marriage with the duke of Brabant; it consisted of forty-six silver cups with feet, for drinking; six wine pitchers, four ewers for water, four basins with gilt escutcheons, six great silver dishes for entremets; one hundred and twenty smaller dishes; a hundred and twenty salts; one gilt salt, for her own use; seventy-two spoons; and three silver spice-plates with a spice-spoon. The dresser, as well as all the furniture of the hall, was in the care of the groom; it was his business to lay them out, and to take them away again. It appears to have been the usual custom to take away the boards and tressels (forming the tables) at the same time as the cloth. The company remained seated on the benches, and the drinking-cups were handed round to them. So tells us the “Boke of Curtasye”-- _Whenne they have wasshen, and grace is sayde,_ _Away he takes at a brayde_ (at once), _Avoydes the borde into the store,_ _Tase away the trestles that been so store_. CHAPTER IX. THE MINSTREL.--HIS POSITION UNDER THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--THE NORMAN TROUVERE, MENESTREL, AND JOUGLEUR.--THEIR CONDITION.--RUTEBEUF.--DIFFERENT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN USE AMONG THE MINSTRELS.--THE BEVERLEY MINSTRELS. The minstrel acted so very prominent a part in the household and domestic arrangements during the middle ages, that a volume on the history of domestic manners would be incomplete without some more detailed account of his profession than the slight and occasional notices given in the preceding pages.