the time treated of in “Ivanhoe” is quite at the end of the twelfth century, yet we have in Cedric a type of man who would have gloried in retaining the customs of his ancestors, who detested and despised the new-fashioned manners of his conquerors, and who came of a race that had probably done very little in the way of “refurnishing” for some generations.  If, therefore, we have the reader’s pardon for relying upon the mise en scene of a novel for an authority, we shall imagine the more easily what kind of furniture our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in.

[Illustration:  Saxon House of 9th or 10th Century. (From the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum.)]

“In a hall, the height of which was greatly disproportioned to its extreme length and width, a long oaken table—­formed of planks rough hewn from the forest, and which had scarcely received any polish—­stood ready prepared for the evening meal....  On the sides of the apartment hung implements of war and of the chase, and there were at each corner folding doors which gave access to the other parts of the extensive building.

“The other appointments of the mansion partook of the rude simplicity of the Saxon period, which Cedric piqued himself upon maintaining.  The floor was composed of earth mixed with lime, trodden into a hard substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns.  For about one quarter of the length of the apartment, the floor was raised by a step, and this space, which was called the dais, was occupied only by the principal members of the family and visitors of distinction.  For this purpose a table richly covered with scarlet cloth was placed transversely across the platform, from the middle of which ran the longer and lower board, at which the domestics and inferior persons fed, down towards the bottom of the hall.  The whole resembled the form of the letter T, or some of those ancient dinner tables which, arranged on the same principles, may still be seen in the ancient colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.  Massive chairs and settles of carved oak were placed upon the dais, and over these seats and the elevated table was fastened a canopy of cloth, which served in some degree to protect the dignitaries who occupied that distinguished station from the weather, and especially from the rain, which in some places found its way through the ill-constructed roof.  The walls of this upper end of the hall, as far as the dais extended, were covered with hangings or curtains, and upon the floor there was a carpet, both of which were adorned with some attempts at tapestry or embroidery, executed with brilliant or rather gaudy colouring.  Over the lower range of table the roof had no covering, the rough plastered walls were left bare, the rude earthen floor was uncarpeted, the board was uncovered by a cloth, and rude massive benches supplied the place of chairs.  In the centre of the upper table were placed two chairs more elevated than the rest, for the master and mistress of the family.  To each of these was added a footstool curiously carved and inlaid with ivory, which mark of distinction was peculiar to them.”