It was not usual, in the middle ages, to possess much furniture, for in those times of insecurity, anything moveable, which could not easily be concealed, was never safe from plunderers. Benches, on which several persons could sit together, and a stool or a chair for a guest of more consideration, were the only seats. Our word chair is Anglo-Norman, and the adoption of the name from that language would seem to indicate that the moveable to which it was applied was unknown to the great mass of the Anglo-Saxon population of the island. The Anglo-Saxon name for it was _setl_, a seat, or _stol_; the latter preserved in the modern word stool. We find chairs of different forms in the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, but they are always represented as the seats of persons of high rank and dignity, usually of kings. The two examples given in the accompanying cut (No. 28), are taken from the Harleian MS., No. 603, fol. 54, v^o., already referred to in our preceding chapters. It will be observed that, although very simple in form, they are both furnished with cushions. The chair in our cut No. 29, taken from Alfric’s translation of Genesis (MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv.), on which a king is seated, is of a different and more elegant construction. We sometimes find, in the manuscripts, chairs of fantastic form, which were, perhaps, creations of the artist’s imagination. Such a one is the singular throne on which king David is seated with his harp, in our cut No. 30, which is also taken from the Harleian Manuscript, No. 603 (fol. 68, v^o.). In addition to the seat, the ladies in the chamber had a _scamel_, or footstool. [Illustration: _No. 29. A King Seated._] [Illustration: _No. 30. King David._]