Probably on a side-table in the kitchen would be a "Bible-box," containing a large family Bible, and with the sides ornamented with carving. I need hardly add that the Bible was used as a family register, but would suggest that this custom was derived from an ecclesiastical one, as before the Reformation the parish missal served the same purpose; and when Church Bibles were introduced, registerbooks were sometimes bound up with them. Small Bibles are still used in Sussex for divining whether a sweetheart will be true or false.

A large desk will be frequently seen, which, like the Bible-box, was often nicely carved with quaint designs, as in the one here shown. The inkstand was sometimes a block of wood hollowed out, a curious example of which is in the Lewes Museum. Crow quills were the pens often used in writing.

Although a kitchen formed the only livingroom in small farmhouses, in the larger ones there was another, called the parlour, and sometimes two of them, as with Cornelius Humphrey's house, where he had his "great Parlor" and his "little Parlor." These rooms had generally plaister ceilings, as recommended by Chambers in his Cyclopædia, in which he says that "they are much used in England, more so than in any other country, nor are they without their advantages, as they make the room lightsome; are

good in case of fire; stop the passage of the dust; lessen the noise overhead; and in summer make the air cooler." In houses formerly the abodes of good families, ornamental ceilings may be found, as at Moor Farm, Petworth. The same may be said of chimney-pieces, beautiful specimens of which are at the above house, dated 1580, at Town House, Slinfold, and Weston's Farm, Warnham, all being in richly-carved oak.

ornamental fire-dogs, andirons, or brandirons of cast-iron, of which many are in the late Pointed style, whilst others show a mixture of it with Classic details. Some of these dogs have the remains of hoops in front of them, as though to hold spits, and appear to have been intended for kitchen use.

The tables were generally round, and made with two folding flaps; they had often small drawers with pretty drop handles of brass.

Sofas were in use in Shakespeare's time, and were then, according to Knight, called "day-beds." The word in the last century was spelt "sopha," and these articles of luxury are not often seen in old farmhouses, but amongst the furniture a quaint kind of double armchair is fairly common. The parlour generally had some "armed chairs," as they were called, though sometimes designated "elbow-chairs," and a letter in the Tatler relates how a late-comer in an assembly had to put up with "an armless chair" whilst the rest of the company lolled in elbow-chairs. The great parlour of Cornelius Humphrey had "Eighteen Turky chaiers," and John Rowland, of Horsham, yeoman, in his will of July 27, 1674, says: Turkie-worke Chaires now standing or being "Item. I give vnto my said Wife Six of those in the Parlour." Were these chairs covered

with Turkey silk? The seats of most of the seventeenth-century chairs are higher than modern ones, as the sitter's feet rested on a footstool or on the frame of a table.

Various cabinets, resembling chests of drawers over open arched framework, and quaintly combined boxes and drawers, found places in the parlour, and a cupboard, either standing or hanging, filled in a corner of the apartment.

Looking glasses, varying in size from one foot to four in height, hung on the walls, and were sometimes to be found also in the kitchen. They mostly resembled the one here figured, having oddly-cut fretwork stuck round their frames, and the glasses themselves having bevelled edges within narrow borders of gilt gesso. According to Mr. Hungerford Pollen, these plates were made by colonies of Venetian workmen in England, and he pertinently remarks that the bevelling gives "preciseness and prismatic light to the whole glass," and he truly says of similar modern work, that "the bevel itself is generally too acute, whereby the prismatic light produced by this portion of the mirror is in violent and too showy contrast to the remainder" (Ancient and Modern Furniture and Woodwork, pp. 99, 100).

Clocks are in the farmhouse generally of the "grandfather" type, and of which many will be found to have been made at Henfield. Very rarely, as at Dedisham, Slinfold, a domed seventeenth-century clock with open-work and gong may be found.

It need hardly be noticed that spinning

was practised in every farmhouse, and not only so, but in the abodes of the gentry likewise. In 1849, a writer in the Sussex Archeological Collections says that "the spinning-wheel which used to ornament every drawing-room, and is still occasionally met with in Sussex houses, afforded a healthful recreation"; and not only was it a country occupation, but ladies in cities spun, as did the sisters of the unfortunate Major André at their Bath residence.

In the better class houses some good line engravings are to be found on the sittingroom walls, and among subjects I have met with were the Conflict of St. Michael with Satan, the Fathers discussing the dignity of St. Mary, and another of a Jesuit kneeling before her picture. Washington Irving, in his Bracebridge Hall, says of that edifice that

like Irving's prodigal, he wears a scarlet frockcoat and breeches, whilst his broad-brimmed straw hat lies by his side. Another print gives us "The Happy Father," who is in a blue coat, pants, and Hessian boots; he is bestowing a lackadaisical look on his wife, seated before him, and suckling a child in the dress of one two years old. Two more are prints of ladies, and entitled respectively "The Charming Florist " and "The Amiable Fruiterer." One called "The Elopement"

ILA.

Before the present School Board kind of education came into vogue, each farmhouse and cottage had one or two worked samplers on its walls. The subjects on these examples of feminine industry varied from representations of flowers, fruits, and the crowns worn by the various ranks of the nobility, to crossstitch embroidered maps of the globe. Usually one or two moral verses were worked on them. One example I met with was thus inscribed within a border of trees and stags :

All you my friends, who now expect to see,
A piece of workmanship performed by me,
Cast but a smile upon

This my small endeaviour

ile strive to be obedient ever.

A companion sampler bore the following:
Next unto God, Dear Parents, I address
Myself to you in humble thankfulness,
For all the care and cost on me bestowed
And means of Learning me allowed.

I have been told that the "Letter of Abgarus" is sometimes to be met with suspended as a talisman on the walls of Sussex cottages, but have met with no instance of it myself.

The most primitive kind of staircase I ever saw was formerly at Ford Church, Sussex, which consisted of a single sloping beam, through which rungs projected on either side; but the earliest stairs in Sussex farmhouses were nearly as rude, being composed of triangular blocks of wood on a couple of bearers, and of which an example, since destroyed, was at Broomhall Farm, Warnham. As before observed, in small houses the stairs often wound round the contraction of the fireplace; in larger dwellings the well-form of staircase is common, and may be seen at New Buildings, Shipley, and, like this example, consisting of many small flights of eight or nine steps only in each. A gate, breast-high, was often at the bottom of the stairs, and sometimes at the top, to keep the dogs of the house from entering the bedrooms. At New Buildings it is solid, and studded all over with nails.

Occasionally there was on the chamber floor a trap-door, which could be let down to close in the headway, and prevent burglars from using the staircase, being bolted from above. Examples are at East Maskells, Lindfield, and Broadhurst, Horsted Keynes. To fence in the staircase at top, there was often a balustrade, as at Town House, Slinfold, and at a house, now destroyed, at Horsham; the turned balusters of these seventeenth-century examples greatly resemble some wooden details in Anglo-Saxon MSS.

The bedchamber walls were often panelled, as at Weston's, Warnham, and the rooms were sometimes ceiled, at others partly open to the timbers, which, as at Broomhall, reminded one of a church roof having collars and braces.

Good oak chimney-pieces are often seen in the bedrooms, as at New Buildings and

Weston's, and there are the remains of a good stone one at Town House. Like the other rooms, there were iron backs in the fireplaces, and it may be noted here that these articles are often mentioned in wills, as in that of Thomas Ovenden, of Rotherfield, January 12, 1670, by which he left "two iron cast Plates for Chimney backs." When "sea coal" was introduced, small movable grates were fashioned with light ornamental backs, and Cornelius Humphrey, we find, had in his "middle Chamber one payer of grates, one payer of Brandjrons," and "one fire shovell."

Bedsteads were called "bedsteddles," a name by which they are still known in East Sussex, and there were "high bedsteddles" and trundle beds, the latter being truckle bedsteads to go under the high ones when not in use. Ann Carr, of Hastings, speaks in her will of May 4, 1678, of her "best bedsteddle" and her "lesser lower bedsteddle," or trundle bed.

The valance, curtains, and quilts were occasionally of linen, embroidered handsomely with worsted thread, an instance of which I met with in quite a small house at Pulborough. In 1656 the Rev. Giles Moore tells us that he bought a similar coverlet of "an upholsterer itinerant" for £2 10s., and which was covered with "birds and bucks."

From very early times it has been customary to have a chest at the foot of a bed, and in Sussex every farmhouse had one or two such receptacles; they were generally of oak, and more or less richly carved. Sometimes they were leather-covered, or encased in a hide retaining its hair; one of the last kind is mentioned by Mr. Moore, as he says he had a "furred " one. Some of these oak chests are of the rudest character, and appear to date as far back as the fifteenth century, greatly resembling the church chests of that period. Many later ones have good Jacobean carving, and some of the guilloche patterns are like those to be seen on ancient Egyptian ivories. Across the end of the chest there is generally a small box formed with a separate lid, which, being raised, forms a support to the larger one, and in the little receptacle thus contrived trinkets and other small articles were deposited, whilst the chest enclosing it contained the household linen.

Lacroix, in his Maurs et Usages (p. 77), mentions that in France such a chest "served at the same time for a seat and for a priedieu, in the inside of which were found now and then some books of prayers or of devotions." In Norway such chests serve also as registers, the names and dates of family events being inscribed on them.

Two kinds of chests of drawers are to be met with, the first resembling modern ones, the second consisting of two "nests of drawers" one over the other. Often formed of oak, they are frequently veneered with mahogany, though at the present day both woods are of equal value. Sometimes the top drawer is a secret one, very simply so contrived, a small flap of wood on the bottom of the drawer having to be pressed in from the one below. Buckle handles are of great antiquity, and a Roman one was found at Brading in the Isle of Wight; similar ones on these chests of drawers are often fixed to elegant brass plates, heightened by engraving, as are also the key plates. Pretty little drop handles are to be met with.

In conclusion, it may be remarked that if heraldry is any criterion, the estimation in which husbandry was held in former times was a high one, as shown by the number of heraldic charges representing objects connected with farming. Guillim, discoursing of "Illiberall" professions in his Display of Heraldrie, says: "In the first ranke of these Illiberalls, reason exacts, that Agriculture should have precidence, it being the chiefe Source of man's life." And of the implements belonging to farming forming armorial bearings, he says some of the chiefest and most frequent are ploughs, harrows, scythes, and wheels. Others not named by Guillim are dung forks, hay-hooks, rakes, sickles, spades, and thatch-rakes. My best thanks are due to R. Garraway Rice, Esq., F.S.A., for many extracts from wills.

VOL. XXXIV.

(CONCLUDED.)

The Shield-wall and the Schiltrum.

M

JR. NEILSON has entertained the readers of the Antiquary with some pages of speculation, ingenious, I think, rather than convincing, as to the meaning and the mutual relationships of the words "scild-truma," "schiltrum," "scildburg," "shield-wall," and "testudo." I may perhaps be pardoned for venturing to offer a few suggestions of my own on the same subject, suggestions which, I hope, will not, at any rate, be found more hazardous than those of Mr. Neilson.

If I understand Mr. Neilson rightly, he thinks that at the end of the thirteenth century, and in the early part of the fourteenth, the Old English word "scild-truma "— in various spellings, "sceld-trume," "scheldtrom," "scheltrom," "schiltroun"— represented a body of fighting men drawn up in one special array, of which the main characteristics are (a) a particular use of the spear, and (b) a circular form (1). Mr. Neilson's expressions leave me uncertain whether he does or does not regard this latter feature as essential (2) to his conception of the "schiltrum." To me, indeed, the language which he uses, throughout almost the whole of his article, appears strangely wanting in that precision. and lucidity which I have been accustomed to find in his writings. It seems, however, plain that the typical example of the "schiltrum," in Mr. Neilson's sense, is supposed to be found at the battle of Falkirk, and that the locus classicus for this application of the word is a passage in Walter of Hemingburgh, who, referring to the circles in which the Scottish spearmen were drawn up, and which he has already minutely described, adds: Qui quidem circuli vocabantur "schiltrouns" (ii. 180, Eng. Hist. Soc. ed.). Mr. Neilson, if I do not mistake him, holds that the word "schiltroun" is here used as a technical name for this particular formation; and the drift of his article as a whole is, apparently, to urge that since "scild-truma" = testudo, and testudo = "shield-wall," it follows that the ancient Teutonic "shield-wall" was essentially identical with the array of Wallace's spearmen at Falkirk.

AA