A GREAT deal may be said about the chests and coffers used by our forefathers, for they were perhaps their earliest staple pieces of furniture, and occupied an important place in not only the domestic household, but in the safe custody of muniments, clothes, and vestments. The oldest specimens of coffers which remain in England are most frequently found in the vestries of our country parish churches. These boxes were primarily made of great strength, and hence the name 'coffer,' which implies a single panel - a simple form of construction, affording the best protection against injury, and being the most suitable form for the transport of weighty articles.

In England there is a deplorable absence of characteristic woodwork of the Norman period remaining. At Brampton, Northants, is a coffer bound with ironwork in scrolls, which is said to be of the beginning of the thirteenth century. Viollet le Due, who gave an illustration of this in his 'Dictionnaire Raisonne du Mobilier Francais,' states that this 'bahut parait dater des dernieres annees du XIIe siecle,' and also adds: 'A cette epoque, d'ailleurs, la difference entre les meubles Anglo-Normands et les meubles Francais n'est pas sensible.'

Wonderful as the Brampton coffer undoubtedly is, it is surpassed by a specimen in the Church of St. James, at Icklingham, near Bury St. Edmunds, which dates from pretty much the same time. It is in a magnificent state of preservation, front, lid, and sides being almost completely covered with iron scrollwork, terminating in trefoils and rosettes. In general character this piece is remarkably like the Brampton coffer, but with this difference - that the very smallest details can be studied. In both examples the iron coils are grooved, but in the Icklingham example the lid is slightly convex, and possesses three hoops.

Early Gothic chests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were mostly of a very ponderous make, the front panel being supported by enormous stiles or uprights without any connecting transom rails, the bottom often being wedged by a peculiar inward curvature of the interior of the walls.

Coffers of the thirteenth century, if in their original condition, are mostly provided with a curious form of mechanism known as the pin-hinge. On the under side at each end of the lid are fastened two strong flanges of wood, which fit into slots sunk in the uprights.

Through the back part of these flanges an iron pin is passed, thus allowing the lid to move as on a pivot, and obviating the necessity of hinges. The pins were 8 usually secured by a small piece of metal, of decorative form, which was fastened on the outside of the flanges. This detail of construction appears only in coffers of the Early English period.

The earliest instance of carving more frequently takes the form of an arcade, lightly incised, or else of geometrical wheels. Examples of such coffers may be seen in Graveney Church, Kent; Stoke D'Abernon Church, Surrey; and Clymping Church, Sussex. A beautiful specimen of a thirteenth-century coffer formerly existed in Rustington Church, Sussex, which was furthermore ornamented with ironwork in bands. This, however, disappeared during the fifties, and lovers of such relics have since searched for it in vain. A coffer of rough make, but of the deepest interest to antiquaries, exists in the church of Heckfield, Hants. It is of the peculiar type which has just been described, but the only detail it possesses in the way of carving is a moulding of very early design, carved at the bases of the ponderous stiles. There is a money slot in the centre of the lid, and the matrices of the hasps, which have now disappeared, show them to have been formed in the shape of a cross. It has been questioned whether this is not one of the Crusaders' alms-chests which were ordered to be set up in every church by Pope Innocent III. in 1199. Considering that the Heckfield coffer, as judged by what one may call internal evidence, is undoubtedly of thirteenth-century make, and apparently belongs to the earlier part of that century, there is good reason to believe that it may have been one of the boxes used for receiving alms for the prosecution of the fifth Crusade. And if this is the case, it would probably be one of the few examples to be found in England; for after the death of Richard Cceur de Lion interest in the Crusades languished in this country, the war against the Paynims being mainly prosecuted by the Franks. The point is an interesting one, and it may be noted that the Stoke D'Abernon coffer, which is of more ornate character, and perhaps some few years later, also has the slot for alms in the lid.

END OF THIRTEENTH-CENTURY COFFER IN SHERE CHURCH, SURREY, SHOWING PROTECTIVE CLAMPS AND PIN-HINGE.

Many coffers and chests, from early down to very late times, were provided with a sort of shallow tray, running across one end, and close beneath the lid. This tray was sometimes fitted with a separate lid of its own, but in some cases, such as in the Stoke D'Abernon example, the coffer lid itself was pierced with a slot immediately above the tray, for the purpose of dropping money directly into it. I have known some very fair judges of antique oak who have not 8 - 2 hesitated to say that this tray is an essentially English feature; but this statement can at once be disproved by reference to almost any of the specimens contained in Continental museums. The tray is peculiar to no country, being found in chests and coffers all over the Continent. Neither is it a characteristic of any particular period, but had its origin, no doubt, in the want of a small fixed receptacle for money. Instead of a tray, the money-box is sometimes actually a small fixture upon the floor of the coffer, as in the beautiful painted coffer in Newport Church, Essex. This example, which we have mentioned elsewhere, not only possesses, in addition to the money-box, a curious secret hiding-place for money, but the painted subjects inside the lid, which are of thirteenth-century date, are actually executed in an oil medium, thus conclusively proving that oil-painting was practised in England by monkish artists at a very early date.