On Old Carved Chests. BY THOMAS S. POPE. (Read November 12th, 1884.) IN the middle ages carved Chests formed the most usual domestic furniture, and were used for tables and seats, scarcely a room being without one of them; dresses, silver, linen, and valuables of all kinds were kept in them. They formed, with the cupboard and the bed, the principal furniture of the rich as well as of the poor, and, covered with leather, they served as trunks do now-a-days for transport in travelling. Large chests called "standards" were used by the King and nobility in moving their goods and furniture several times a year from house to house. In the 13th century the Chest-makers formed a portion of the Corporation of Carpenters and by their rules were forbidden to let out their chests for dead bodies, as they, the chests, were taken to the cemeteries, emptied of their contents and returned to be used again on similar occasions. Coffins were often called chests, as in the epitaph at Chepstow on a man named Chest: "Here lies one Chest within another. That chest was good which was made of wood, The Synod of Exeter, in 1287, required every parish to provide "cista ad libros et Vestimenta" and valuable chests are often mentioned in old wills. Some of the richest of them were probably those sent by the bridegroom to the bride, the night before the marriage, filled with dresses and jewels, and kept during the lives of the married couple as articles of furniture. Representations of old chests are sometimes carved upon the stonework of old churches; the tradesman was shewn with his chest open and the miser sleeping upon his chest. Upon the ex |