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CHAPTER XVI
THE GOTHIC PERIOD
The Gothic Period is the pointed period, and dominated the art of
Europe from about the tenth to the fifteenth century. Its origin was
Teutonic, its development and perfection French.
At first, the house of a feudal lord meant one large hall with a
raised dais, curtained off for him and his immediate family, and
subdivided into sleeping apartments for the women. On this dais a
table ran crossways, at which the lord and his family with their
guests, ate, while a few steps lower, at a long table running
lengthwise of the hall, sat the retainers. The hall was, also, the
living-room for all within the walls of the castle. Sand was strewn on
the stone floor and the dogs of the knights ate what was thrown to
them, gnawing the bones at their leisure. This rude scene was
surrounded by wonderful tapestries hung from the walls:—woman's
record of man's deeds.
Later, we read of stairs and of another room known as the Parloir or
talking-room, and here begins the sub-division of homes, which in
democratic America has arrived at a point where more than 200 rooms
are often sheltered under one private roof!
Oak chests figured prominently among the furnishings of a Gothic home,
because the possessions of those feudal lords, who were constantly at
war with one another, often had to be moved in haste. As men's lives
became more settled, their possessions gradually multiplied; but even
at the end of the eleventh century bedsteads were provided only for
the nobility, probably on account of expense, as they were very grand
affairs, carved and draped. To that time and later belong the
wonderfully carved presses or wardrobes.
Carved wood panelling was an important addition to interior decoration
during the reign of Henry III (1216-72).
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries England with Flanders led
in the production of mediæval art.
Hallmarks of the Gothic period are animals and reptiles carved to
ornament the structural parts of furniture and to ornament panels.
Favourite subjects with the wood carvers of that time were scenes from
the lives of the saints (the Church dominated the State) and from the
romances, chanted by the minstrels.
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