Furniture - The Later Middle Ages

France And Burgundy
The period 1200-1500 in Europe was one of awakening interest in learning accompanied by a sense of security that had not been possible for some centuries, and although these years were still marred by periodic outbreaks of international and civil wars, conditions were more conductive to a civilised was of life in which fitted and non fitted furniture could play a more significant role. While even large houses continued to be sparsely furnished a greater variety of articles were made and a fresh repertoire of ornamental decoration was introduced.

The first coherent style to emerge was the Gothic, which overlapped the Romanesque period and was ifself to become modified by the Renaissance in Italy in the second half of the 15th century - it is not unusual to come across early pieces that combine Gothic and Renaissance features superimposed on Gothic forms. To suggest that there are precise dates for the ending of one style and the beginning of another would therefore be arbitrary and misleading.

The term 'Gothic' is itself misleading. It was first applied - or rather misapplied - to late medieval buildings by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), a pupil of Michelangelo and an enthusiast for the Renaissance style. He sought to pour scorn on the earlier buildings and labelled them 'Gothic' after the Goths who had been the conquerors of ancient Rome. The power of the Goths themselves had been finally destroyed in 711, more than 400 years before the first Gothic church was built in France. This was the abbey church of St Denis built in 1140-44 by Abbot Suger, which marked the first major transition from Romanesque to Gothic and set a fashion which by the 13th century was spreading across most of Europe and greatly influencing the design of handmade furniture

Suger set out to create the most beautiful church in France, and called in the finest artists and craftsmen available, thus bringing far more laymen into the church building business than had been customary, the monks having hitherto operated what almost amounted to a closed shop. The practice spread and the experience gained from such employment increased the skills of the workmen, who were able to put them to good use on their return to private business. Craftsmanship in furniture-making, now reproduction furniture, greatly improved but the decoration of domestic pieces was more than ever influenced by the repertoire of ornament derived from ecclesiastical architecture and woodwork.

The most readily recognisable Gothic feature is the pointed arch, said to have been introduced to France by the Normans, who in turn had found it in Saracenic architecture in Sicily. The spaces in the arch are often occupied by delicate tracery, together with plant forms and animal and human figures, all rendered more naturalistically and with less emphasis on the grotesque than is often apparent in Romanesque work.
Furniture with this kind of decoration was substantially made, usually in solid oak or walnut. The carving was frequently enriched with painting in vivid colours that created an effect far from the rather sombre appearance of surviving pieces, almost all of which lack their original colouration.