Articles

The Curtain Lecture

In early colonial America, one of the founding colonies was populated by a group of Puritans. Their society was a theocracy which meant that their religious leaders were their political leaders as well. And in their way of thinking women were, like children, to be seen and not heard. The men would go off to their “Town Hall” meeting at the church to discuss the issues affecting their colony -----women not invited! Men debated and eventually made all the decisions affecting their lives.

When the men left such a meeting, they had two farewell greetings. Today we might say, “Goodbye. Have a nice day or good evening.” But, in that day the men also might say the full version of Good-bye ---a shortening of “God be with you”, and/or they might well say “Beware the curtain lecture” as they departed. So ringing out among the New England township’s square you would hear, “God be with you? Beware the curtain lecture!” over and over. So what were they talking about?

Well, when the men got home at night, it was cold. New England was so cold! There was no central heat in their homes, they were not insulated as our home are today and they were miserably cold at night much of the year. But in these Puritan homes were bedrooms with poster beds. Except for the summers, when they removed them, the poster bed had a wooden framed canopy top that supported heavy draw draperies and a fabric canopy top that kept the warmth inside the bed area. The man of the house would join his wife in the bed where she had already pulled closed the heavy curtains. In no time, their body heat would warm the bed and for nothing on earth did he want to step out of bed onto that cold, bare floor. That is when the wife would grill him on the events of the meeting and give her opinion…..women then weren’t much different from those of today and this was their only chance to express an opinion on what should be done. This was the dreaded “curtain lecture” given to the men who were a captive audience. Today the practical reasons for the canopy bed no longer exist but we still retain the poster bed in traditional settings for its elegant lines and beautiful style.

The Windsor Bow-back Chair

Once upon a time, the king of England was out with his men riding over his country estate on a hunt. All of a sudden the Texas equivalent of a “blue norther” came in off the Irish sea. The temperature dropped suddenly and a piercing wind and rainstorm caught them off guard. They were half a days ride from the King’s country estate home and they were all miserable and freezing cold. The cold penetrated their bones and the King thought he would never be warm again. Suddenly just over a clearing the King noticed a puff of smoke coming from the cottage of a peasant who lived as a serf on his land. To the astonishment of his men, he rode up to the cottage, dismounted and suggested his men ride on. He went up to the door, knocked and when the peasant answered the door asked if he could come in out of the cold. The peasant was so astonished to see his king at his door he was speechless! When he regained his composure, the peasant was more than happy to share his warm cottage with the King. But something else quite extraordinary happened that day. The peasant offered the King a chair that he had made! At best a peasant might have a rustic bench or 3 legged stool so for this man to own a chair and be able to offer it to the King was really quite remarkable. Well the King sat down on the chair, warmed himself by the fire and shared in a hearty stew the peasant had prepared. As he sat there, he began to think about how comfortable he felt. At first he thought it was the good food and the warmth….and, of course, to some degree it was. But eventually he realized it was something more. You see, the King was expected to sit for hours in a highly carved, ornate chair that was designed to impress and intimidate his subjects --- but, to tell the truth, it was miserable to sit on! Here he was sitting in a chair that was actually comfortable and he loved it. So, with the peasant’s permission, he sent the carpenters from his estate home out to copy the chair for his country palace.

The King was of the royal Windsor family and the chair became know as the Windsor bow-back chair as a result. You see, he proudly displayed his country comfortable chairs around the royal dining table and sent out a message loud and clear: Even a King has a right to be comfortable in his own castle!

The Rent Table and the Porringer Corner

Imagine that you were a Lord or gentleman landowner in old England in the 1700’s. You allowed farmers to work your land in return for a tax which might be paid in coin, or as a percentage of the crops harvested. Once each harvest season you would pull up a chair to a round table with drawers all the way around the table and as each tenant came into the great hall in your estate home to pay their rent, you would keep track of their payments on documents contained in the drawers around your handsome “rent table”. As there was one drawer for each tenant, the larger the number of tenants you had, the more drawers and the larger the size of the table itself. So the size of the table was a measure of wealth and status in those days. This design is still seen in traditional period pieces and often used in large entry halls as a centerpiece.

A second type of table was one with porringer corners or rounded circular projections out from each corner. Both in Europe and America, the scourge of the time was fire so the porringer corners had a very practical reason. Without running water it was doubly difficult to put fire out before it did major damage and before electricity, lighting at night was generally by candle or oil lamp. If you set your candle lamp or oil lamp down on a table as you worked and the table shook at all, the lamp could easily be bumped off the table and create a fire. To help avoid this, a round corner called a porringer was created which had a hole in the center lined with a pewter basket. The candle or oil lamp could be lowered into the basket which would prevent it from being knocked off the table. Long after the practical need for porringer corners the rounded shape has persisted although without the hole in the center and the pewter basket. This is not only a lovely detail on a period piece of furniture but still practical because it is much nicer to bang into a rounded corner than a sharp pointed one!

The Cannonball Story

There’s a wonderful story about poster beds during the early days of our country.

Long ago when America was still a group of 13 separate British colonies, you were very careful about sharing your opinion that we would be better off as an independent nation. You see, this was called treason and you could be hung for it! So the colonists developed two secret ways of signaling to each other that they were patriots.

The first way was to change the way they ate. Europeans and the British always picked up their knife with their right hand, their fork with their left hand. They lifted the fork, tines down, to their mouths as they ate --- a very sensible, easy way to dine. But the patriots began by cutting with their knives in their right hand, fork in their left hand and then switched the fork over to their right hand, tines up before placing their food in their mouths. It is extra trouble for sure, but it was a way of signaling to each other that the days of the old ways were numbered and they were in favor of an independent United States. The second way was with their furniture. Most posts ended in the European tapered finial that we still see today on traditional style beds. But, during that period, the patriots sanded off the points, and rounded off their finials into “cannonballs of defiance” against the British. So, whether you were in a formal home or a humble home and you saw that round ball finial, you knew you could speak your mind in safety. Times have changed! Most Americans appreciate greatly our closest allies the British today. But the tradition of an American cannonball finial hasn’t changed or been forgotten and is now a permanent part of our history and symbolic of the American love of freedom.