Page:Elizabethan People.djvu/513

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DOMESTIC LIFE
387

truckle bed which was pushed under the large one during the daytime. Sheets of linen were fastened to the bed by little pegs. The counterpanes were elaborate and gaudy. Though nightclothes were in use, many people habitually slept naked. Oftentimes the word nightclothes in Eliabethan literature refers not so much to sleeping clothes as clothes for negligee wear. Perhaps the only other characteristic article of bedroom furniture, besides a few stools and, perhaps, a day bed, that is, a sofa, was a chest. These chests were huge affairs and used to store whatever would to-day be put into drawers, an article of furniture that had not yet come into general use. Most of the outer clothes, however, were not kept in the bedroom, but in the wardrobe. This was not an article of furniture, but a separate room where the articles of the wardrobe were kept, hence its name. The garments were hung about the walls of the room upon pegs. Frequent allusions seem to point to the fact that cut flowers were more frequently found in the bedroom than in any other part of the house.

In the library or den of the master of the house we find his books, usually sumptuously bound volumes, small in number and not various in subject-matter. The Bible and a book on hawking or hunting were considered necessary. A few