“Of downe of pure dovis white I wol yeve him a fether bed, Rayed with gold and right well cled, In firm black satin d’outre mere, And many a pilowe and every bere Of cloth of Raines to slepe on soft.” The furniture of the bed was much the same as at present; it was provided with a great and a small pillow, also with pillow covers—“pillow beres”: with sheets, blankets, and coverlet of _Turtaine_—a common cloth like burel. Servants, however, slept on straw with a rough mat below and a coarse coverlet above. Sometimes there was a truckle bed under the great bed for the use of a maidservant or a child. At the foot of the bed was the “hutch” or strong box for the keeping of money, plate, and other valuables. There were other coffers kept in the chambers of great houses for securities, title-deeds, and documents of all kinds. We must remember that there were no banks; every man kept his own property, money, valuables, papers, everything—in his house and generally in his bedroom. There were no insurance companies, so that the fickleness of Dame Fortune was constantly illustrated in the most startling manner. The illuminated MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries represent the rooms of castles and palaces. They show the rich bed with the embroidered coverlet, the cushioned chair, the fireplace and chimney, the bench which was probably the box or hutch, the gold and silver plate on a sideboard, the mats before the fire; in a word, a very luxurious and well-furnished chamber. As for the furniture of the hall, it is enumerated in a vocabulary of the fifteenth century quoted by Wright (_Domestic Manners_). It contained “a board, a trestle, a banker or dorser (cushion), a natte (tablecloth), a table dormant, a basin, a laver, a hearth, a torch, a yule block, andiron, tongs, a pair of bellows, wood for the fire, a long settle, a chair, a bench, a stool, a cushion and a screen.” For the parlour the furniture should consist of “a hanging of worsted, red and green, a cupboard of ash boards, a table and a pair of trestles, a branch of latten with four lights, a pair of andirons, a pair of tongs, a form to sit upon, and a chair.” In rooms of the ruder class, where there were no hangings, the wall was decorated with paintings. As regards the furniture in houses of the middle class, Riley (_Memorials of London_) furnishes an inventory of the furniture of a house in which lived an unfortunate couple named Le Bever.