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CUPBOARD

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 635 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CUPBOARD , a fixed or movable closet usually with shelves. As the name suggests, it is a descendant of the See also:

credence or See also:buffet, the characteristic of which was a See also:series of open shelves for the reception of drinking vessels and table requisites. After the word lost its See also:original meaning—and down to the end of the 16th See also:century we still find the expression " on the cupboard "—this piece of See also:furniture was, as it to some extent remains, movable, but it is now most frequently a fixture designed to fill a corner or See also:recess. Throughout the 18th century the cupboard was a distinguished domestic institution, and the housewife found her See also:chief joy in accumulating cupboards full of See also:china, See also:glass and preserves.. With the exception of a very few examples of See also:fine ecclesiastical cupboards which partook chiefly of the nature of the See also:armoire in that they were intended for the storage of See also:vestments, the so-called See also:court-cupboard is perhaps the See also:oldest See also:form of the contrivance. The derivation of the expression is somewhat obscure, but it is generally taken to refer to the See also:French word court, See also:short. This particular type was much used from the Elizabethan to the end of the Carolinian See also:period. It was really a See also:sideboard with small square doors below, and a recessed superstructure supported upon balusters. Of these many examples remain. Less frequent is the See also:livery cupboard, the meaning of which may be best explained by the following See also:quotation from See also:Spenser's See also:Account of the See also:State of See also:Ireland: " What livery is we by See also:common use in See also:England know well enough, namely, that it is an See also:allowance of See also:horse-See also:meat, as they commonly use the word stabling, as to keep horses at livery; the which word I guess is derived of livering or delivering forth their nightly See also:food; so in See also:great houses the livery is said to be served up for all night—that is, their evening allowance for drink." The livery cupboard appears usually to have been placed in bedrooms, so that a See also:supply of food and drink was readily available when a very See also:long See also:interval separated the last See also:meal of the evening from the first in the See also:morning. The livery cupboard was often small enough to stand upon a sideboard or See also:cabinet, and had an open front with a series of turned balusters. It was often used in churches to contain the loaves of See also:bread doled out to poor persons under the terms of See also:ancient charities.

They were then called See also:

dole cupboards; there are two large and excellent examples in St See also:Alban's See also:Abbey. The See also:butter, or bread and See also:cheese cupboard, was a more See also:ordinary form, with the back and sides bored with holes, sometimes in a geometrical See also:pattern, for the See also:admission of See also:air to the food within. The corner cupboard, which is in many ways the most pleasing and See also:artistic form of this piece of furniture, originated in the 18th century, which as we have seen was the See also:golden See also:age of the cupboard. It was often of See also:oak, but more frequently of See also:mahogany, and had either a solid or a glass front. The older solid-fronted pieces are fixed to the See also:wall See also:half-way up, but those of the somewhat more See also:modern type, in which there is much glass, usually have a wooden See also:base with glazed superstructure. Most corner cupboards are attractive in form and treatment, and many of them, inlaid with satinwood, See also:ebony, See also:holly or See also:box, are extremely elegant.

End of Article: CUPBOARD

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