an article of furniture on which to stretch the body for sleep or repose. The modern bed is usually a sack or case of ticken, filled with feathers, chaff, wool, or other soft materials, placed upon a raised framework which is called the bedstead. In the first ages it was universally the practice for mankind to sleep upon skins of beasts. This was originally the custom of the Greeks and Romans, as also of the ancient Britons previous to the Roman invasion; and the skins thus employed were spread on the floor of their apartments. But they were afterwards changed for loose rushes and heath; and in process of time the Romans suggested to the central Britons the use, and the introduction of agriculture supplied them with the means, of the greater convenience of straw beds. The beds of the Roman patricians at this period were generally filled with feathers, and those of the inns with the soft down of reeds. But for many ages the beds of the Italians had been constantly composed of straw; it still formed those of the officers and soldiers present at the conquest of Lancashire; and from both, it is probable, our countrymen learnt the use of it. It appears, however, to have been used only by gentlemen, as the common Welsh had their beds thinly stuffed with rushes as late as the end of the twelfth century; and with the gentlemen it continued for many ages afterwards. Straw was used in the royal chambers of England as late as the close of the thirteenth century. Most of the peasants in different parts of the country sleep on chaff beds at present; in the Highlands heath is also very much employed as bedding; and in France and Italy straw beds remain in general use to this day.
Dining Bed, lectus triclinarius or discubitorius, that on which the ancients reclined at meals. The dining or discubitory beds were four or five feet in height. Three of these beds were ordinarily ranged by a square table (whence both the table and the apartment where it stood were called tri-
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1 See Novi Commentarii Soc. Sc. G. tom. II.—viii.; and Commentar., tom. I.—v. in such a manner that one of the sides of the table remained open and accessible to the waters. See ACCURATION.