reign of Edward
IV., says: "Also, if ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done
ye should do purvey a garnish or twain or pewter vessel, two basins
and two ewers, and twelve candlesticks, for ye have too few of any of
these to serve this place; I am afraid to purvey much stuff in this
place, till we be sure thereof."

Wall paintings had come into use in the houses of the better sort,
and the hardwood finishings of the parlor and other important rooms
displayed elaborate carvings and a massiveness and dignity of scheme.
Among the newer styles of chairs was one of the folding sort, which
exactly resembled our camp stools. Griffins, centaurs, and the like
were patterns for candle and torch holders, which were often of
wrought iron of an elaborate design. The branch of latten with four
lights, mentioned in the inventory quoted, referred to a sort of
chandelier, holding four candles, which was suspended from the centre
of the ceiling and was raised and lowered by means of a cord and
pulley.

As the people began to lose taste for the hall, on account of its
publicity, they gradually withdrew from it to the parlors for many of
the purposes to which the hall had been originally devoted. The recess
seat at the windows was the favorite place for the female members
of the household when employed in needlework and other sedentary
occupations, and the apartment was commonly used for the family meals.
In a little treatise dating at the close of the fifteenth century,
one of the speakers is made to say: "So down we came again into the
parlor, and there found divers gentlemen, all strangers to me; and
what should I say more, but to dinner we went." The table, we are
told, "was fair spread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnished with
goodly plate." Also, the parlors relieved the bedchambers of many
of the uses to which they had been put, and secured to them greater
privacy. Largely because of the lack of any other place, ladies had
been accustomed to receive their friends in their bedchambers, but now
the parlor was used for a reception room, and there was spent much of
the time which the female part of the family had previously passed in
the bower or the chamber.

Young ladies of even the great families were brought up very strictly
by their mothers, who kept them constantly at work and exacted from
them an almost slavish respect. It appears from the correspondence of
the Paston family, to which reference has been made, th