THE name 'cupboard' is rather a wide term, embracing the armoire, or great press, the credence, the almery, the hutch, the court and livery cupboards, as well as many varieties of these leading forms. The various types mostly came into vogue during successive periods as developments of the primitive form, and in order to trace these developments it will be expedient to deal with each type consecutively, commencing with the earliest known type.

It is not in England that we must look for the oldest existing specimens of medieval cupboards. Such armoires as are to be seen at Aubazaine, in Correze, at Bayeux, and Noyon, no longer exist in our own country. Civil war, working its destruction over a small area, combined with the corroding nature of our climate, has in every instance reduced these early works of art to dust. There are, however, still remaining to us a very few examples of English armoires of the fifteenth century. The finest of these, which is in York Minster, is a huge embattled press of oak, containing many compartments of various shapes and lengths. The cupboard on the right-hand side of this handsome structure reaches from the floor to its embattled cornice, and was evidently designed to contain a pastoral staff. The armoire is still equipped with its original iron locks and hinges, the latter being adorned with a series of rosettes wrought in the metal, and terminating in fleurs-de-lis* The whole structure is probably the most complete English example of a Gothic cupboard in existence.

There are - or were until recently - two old Gothic cupboards in Carlisle Cathedral, though of much smaller dimensions than that at York. They had remains of a painted diaper pattern and wrought-iron hinges of fifteenth-century workmanship, while one of them bore the initials of Thomas Gondibour, who was Prior of the abbey toward the latter end of the fifteenth century.

In the parish church of Aylesbury, Bucks, is the remnant of an armoire of the fifteenth century, now used as a receptacle for the choristers' surplices. This most interesting fragment is formed of heavy baulks of oak pegged together in the usual manner, and has along the top a fine moulding of bold proportions. The front evidently at one time possessed doors or shutters, for the marks of hinges are visible on the uprights.

SECTION OF MOULDING ON THE AYLESBURY ARMOIRE.

* The handles and plates on the York armoire are of precisely the same character as many others which appear on the fittings in other parts of the cathedral.

The reason why the doors of so many receptacles of the pre-Reformation period have disappeared can be easily explained by a glance at some of the fifteenth-century foreign examples which still remain. It will be noticed that in the thirteenth-century armoire at Noyon the painted remains of figures of saints are visible on its shutters, while in other examples - such, for instance, as the upright Flemish cabinet belonging to Mr. Barry, of Ockwells Manor - the side-panels are elaborately carved, the front doors being now mere plain pieces of wood, which have evidently lost their original decoration of painted figures.

In England such representations as escaped the iconoclastic spirit of the Reformation were more summarily dealt with during the Cromwellian visitation, when hundreds of such 'Popish images and pictures' were destroyed out of hand by the zealous Puritans. The armoire, as its name implies, was a strong receptacle intended for the safe custody of articles of value. In the Middle Ages the two chief interests of life were the Church and the calling of a soldier. When used in an ecclesiastical capacity, the armoire was doubtless intended to contain plate and rich vestments, but when used for a military purpose it would no doubt constitute in itself an armoury containing the soldier's most valuable possession, his body armour. There is an old Dutch engraving of Charles I. in which the monarch's armour is depicted in a cupboard beside him. We have, moreover, an earlier piece of evidence in the shape of a receipt from one Geoffrey Poulin for certain moneys paid to him for repairing, in 1419, the armoire of the Comte de Vertus and supplying the same with a new key for the better security of his armour.*

Though we have such a scarcity of early armoires in England to refer to as examples, an immense amount of information may be derived as to their form and decoration from studying the armoire-like cupboards beneath the magnificent oak Watch Gallery at St. Albans' Abbey. These cupboards have an embattled cornice like that of the York armoire, which also passes round the finely-moulded caps of the pillars supporting the gallery above, their shutters or doors being ornamented with applied Perpendicular tracery, and retaining most of their original iron fittings. The Watch Gallery is supposed to have been erected about the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century.

A remarkable instance of medieval furnishing occurs at Norwich, in the picturesque old-world building known as Strangers' Hall. The early history of this mansion is closely bound up with the history of the city itself. The present building, which is erected on the foundations of an earlier one, dates in great part from the junction of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At that time it was inhabited by one Thomas Cawse, a mercer, and Mayor of the city in 1495 and 1503, and also burgess in Parliament, 1489-1497, after whose death, in 1509, the property passed into the possession of the Sotherton family, who retained it for upwards of a century. During the occupation of the Sothertons an influx of foreigners engaged in the wool trade into the town took place, and some of these 'strangers artificers' took up their abode in the mansion, from which occupation the house derived its name.

* Parker's 'Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages.' This document is in the British Museum (Add. Char., No. 2,806).