were a few pewter vessels. There were three brass pots, a pan, six skimmers, a basin, a chafing dish, a frying pan, and a dripping pan. In another room on the ground floor were a truckle bed, an old coverlet, an old bolster, an old blanket, a little round table, and two old chests. In the kitchen were six barrels of beer, five looms, four pails, four forms, three stools, one bolting hutch, two skips for taking up yeast, one vat, a table board, two pairs of trestles, and two strikes (bushel measures), an axe, shovels, and a spade. In an upper room were more beds and bedding, a cheese crate, malt, malt shovels, a beam with scales, two dozen trenchers, and one dozen pewter spoons. In the yard were bundles of laths, loads of wood, buckets, cord and windlass for the well, and a watchman's bill. This list of articles represents the whole possession of a man in well to do circumstances.[1]
Cleanliness was unknown in the Elizabethan house, whether great or small. The most pretentious palace boasted nothing better as a covering
- ↑ The substance of this inventory is given in Mr. Sidney Lee's Stratford on Avon, page 137, and in a similar description of the goods of a wooldriver on page 143. The appendix to Hall's Society in the Age of Elizabeth reprints a number of Inventories of the goods of people in different social ranks of life. A number of Elizabethan inventories were privately printed by Halliwell-Phillipps. The volume contains the Kenilwortb inventory.
