Mae yno i ddyn mwyn a ddêl
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Cupboards
Cupboards, chests and coffers were used in hall-houses to store small items such as linen for the tables, vessels and food. These were usually commissioned by a patron and made by a local carpenter. Beautifully carved with decorative patterns and heraldic images, they reflected the owner’s wealth and status. Cochwillan is described by Guto’r Glyn as a house furnished in the most appropriate way for a man of high status:
Fwrdd a chwpwrdd a chapel
A gwych allor Gwchwillan
Ac aelwyd teg i gael tân;
There are for a gentle man who comes there
a table and cupboard and chapel and Cochwillan’s brilliant altar and a fair hearth for a fire; Guto’r Glyn also suggests that Sieffrai Cyffin had a cupboard to store items in his hall in Oswestry castle:
Ni bu gwpwrd y gwrda,
Ni bydd un dydd, heb win da;
The nobleman’s cupboard was never
without excellent wine, nor will it be one day; A word used for a cupboard in the poetry is almari, borrowed from the Middle English almarie, ‘A place for storing things, as a cupboard’.[1] Guto does not give a description of an almari, but a sixteenth-century poet, Sir Dafydd Trefor, composed a poem to request an almari from William ap Maredudd ap Rhys of Llanfairfechan on behalf of Dafydd ap Gwilym. It seems that his patron needed a cupboard to keep his food and drink safe and away from mice![2] Some cupboards have survived from the Tudor period and perhaps the most significant one is the 'Cotehele cupboard', which has been connected to Henry Griffith of Newcourt.[3] Bibliography[1]: ‘The Oxford English Dictionary’, s.v. aumbry, n.².[2]: Rh. Ifans, Gwaith Syr Dafydd Trefor (Aberystwyth, 2006), 7. [3]: R. Bebb, Welsh furniture, 1250-1950: a cultural history of craftsmanship and design, Vol. 1 (Aberystywth, 2007), 161-2. |
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