[Illustration:  State Banquet, with Attendant Musicians. (From Miniatures in the National Library, Paris.) Period:  XV.  Century.]

Chairs of this period appear only to have been used on very special occasions; indeed they were too cumbersome to be easily moved from place to place, and in a miniature from some MSS. of the early part of the fifteenth century, which represents a state banquet, the guests are seated on a long bench with a back carved in the Gothic ornament of the time.  In Skeat’s Dictionary, our modern word “banquet” is said to be derived from the banes or benches used on these occasions.

[Illustration:  A High Backed Chair, in Carved Oak (Gothic Style).  Period:  XV.  Century.  French.]

[Illustration:  Mediaeval Bed and Bedroom. (From Viollet-le-Duc.) Period:  XIV. to XV.  Century.  French.]

The great hall of the King’s Palace, where such an entertainment as that given by Charles V. to the Emperor Charles of Luxemburg would take place, was also furnished with three “dressoirs” for the display of the gold and silver drinking cups, and vases of the time; the repast itself was served upon a marble table, and above the seat of each of the princes present was a separate canopy of gold cloth embroidered with fleur de lis.

[Illustration:  Scribe or Copyist.  Working at his desk in a room in which are a reading desk and a chest with manuscript. (From an Old Minature) Period:  XV.  Century.]

The furniture of ordinary houses of this period was very simple.  Chests, more or less carved, and ornamented with iron work, settles of oak or of chestnut, stools or benches with carved supports, a bedstead and a prie dieu chair, a table with plain slab supported on shaped standards, would nearly supply the inventory of the furniture of the chief room in a house of a well-to-do merchant in France until the fourteenth century had turned.  The table was narrow, apparently not more than some 30 inches wide, and guests sat on one side only, the service taking place from the unoccupied side of the table.  In palaces and baronial halls the servants with dishes were followed by musicians, as shewn in an old-miniature of the time, reproduced on p. 39.

Turning to German work of the fifteenth century, there is a cast of the famous choir stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, which are considered the finest work of the Swabian school of German wood carving.  The magnificent panel of foliage on the front, the Gothic triple canopy with the busts of Isaiah, David, and Daniel, are thoroughly characteristic specimens of design; and the signature of the artist, Jorg Syrlin, with date 1468, are carved on the work.  There were originally 89 choir stalls, and the work occupied the master from the date mentioned, 1468, until 1474.

The illustrations of the two chairs of German Gothic furniture formerly in some of the old castles, are good examples of their time, and are from drawings made on the spot by Prof.  Heideloff.