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1893 text

According to the original Statutes of Corpus Christi Coll. Oxon, a Scholar slept in a truckle bed below each Fellow. Called also “a trindle bed.” Compare Hall’s description of an obsequious tutor:

He lieth in a truckle bed While his young master lieth o’er his head.

Satires, ii. 6, 5.

The bed was drawn in the daytime under the high bed of the tutor. See Wordsworth’s “University Life in the Eighteenth Century.” — M. B.

This text was written as a footnote in the 1893 Wheatley transcription of the diary, the same one that is used for the diary entries on this site.

Annotations

  • truckle bed, trundle bed

    “a low bed, so called from the trundles, or casters, that were attached to the feet so that it could be pushed under the master bed when it was not in use. The bed was intended for servants, who used to sleep in their employer’s room so as to be near at hand. The framework was generally of oak, and suspension was provided by leather or canvas straps”
    From:
    http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9073560&query=truckle%20bed&ct=

    General historical info on beds:
    “The History Of The Four Poster Bed”
    http://www.fourposterbed.co.uk/history2.html

  • Truckle bed is everyday English. Search Google and you will find hundreds of links for bed shops selling them today.

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References in the diary

1662
May: 1