A PEASANTS GOODS 233
a few stools and a trestle-table on which the meal could bespread,
with a chest to hold the best clothes, and we have almost ex-
hausted the furnishing of the medieval cottage. Beds we know
little of: occasionally a feather-bed is mentioned in a will, and is
evidently a precious thing; but in general bags of straw or flock
had to serve, either thrown on the floor, or resting on rudely
constructed frames placed by the walls of the house. Indeed,
even in 1557, Harrison writes contemptuously of beds, and
though he exaggerates, he is evidence of a still existing con-
servatism:
Our fathers and we oursehres have lyen full ofte upon straw pallettes,
covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dogswain or hop-
harlots (I use, says he, the very words of the old men from whom I
received the accounts) and a good round logge under their heades,
insteade of a boulster. If it were so that our fathers or the good man
of the house had... a matteres or flock bed and thereto a sacke of
chafe to rest hys heade upon, he thought himself to be as well loged
as the lorde of the towne, so well were they contented. Pillowes, they
sayde, were thoughte mete only for women in childebed. As for
servants, if they had anysheete above them, it was well, forseldome had
they any under their bodies, to keepe them from the pricking straws,
that ranne oft thorow the canvas, and rased their hardened hides.1
Few inventories of peasant's goods have survived, and even
these are not very helpful. One dated 1293 enumerates the
chattels of a man who died worth only thirty-three shillings and
eightpence. His "household stuff" consisted of a bolster, a rug,
two sheets, a brass dish and a trivet.2 Nearly a century later the
Durham Halmote Rolls record the "goods and chattels" of two
serfs, but in neither instance are any domestic effects men-
tioned.3 Again, a jury of Tatenhill, about 1380, assessed Richard
Holland's goods at £5. 35., and here the household goods were
comparatively small in value. Among them we read of bedding
(sheets, blankets, counterpanes) as well as of kitchen utensils
(pans, cresset, tripod, skillet, five spoons of silver, colanders and
a board-cloth), the whole being worth less than £2.* Lastly, the
jury of Easington, in 1409, assessed the "domestic utensils" of
Richard Watson at 6$. 8J., out of an estate worth £8. 17*.
1 Elist. Eng. 119. a Arch.Journ. ill, 65.
8 Op. tit. 151, 168. 4 Tatenhill, n, 55.
* V.C.H. Durham, n, 199. Cf. D.S.P. xcvii.