During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mediæval art in Europe reached its greatest perfection. The classic traditions were at last forgotten everywhere except in Rome itself, where a chain lingered almost continuous between the old ideas and those which succeeded in the sixteenth century. Elsewhere the feeling in sculpture, whether of wood or other materials, was in unison with the pointed architecture and reigned unchallenged. All sorts of enrichments were used in the decoration of furniture. A chest of the time of John is preserved in the castle of Rockingham. It is of oak richly decorated with hammered iron plates, hinges, &c. The jewel chest of Richard of Cornwall was long preserved in the state treasury of Aix-la-Chapelle, and is now at Vienna. It belongs to the first half of the century, and was left at Aix when Richard was crowned king of the Romans. The body is of oak decorated with wrought-iron hinges, lock, and clamps, and with bosses of metal on which are enamelled heraldic shields. The construction of woodwork gradually became more careful and scientific. Panelled framework came into use, though seldom for doors of rooms. With this method of construction the chests were put together that formed the chief article of furniture during two centuries in the mediæval sleeping, sitting, or private room. In the middle of the thirteenth century Eleanor of Provence was escorted on her journey to England by an army of ladies, knights, nobles and troubadours, from Provence to the shores of the channel. Kings were continually making progress in this manner through their dominions, like the Indian governors of our own days, and carried their furniture and property in chests, called standards, on the backs of mules or sumpter horses. Portable furniture and hangings were the principal objects of household use on such occasions. A precept in the twentieth year of the reign of Henry the third directed that "the king's great chamber at Westminster be painted a green colour like a curtain, that in the great gable frontispiece of the said chamber a French inscription should be painted, and that the king's little wardrobe should be painted of a green colour to imitate a curtain." The queen's chamber was decorated with historical paintings. Remains of similar wall decoration are in tolerable preservation still in one of the vaulted rooms of Dover castle.