Whilst we are considering the paramount influence of the Renaissance, we must not ignore that other ruder influence which came from Scandinavia. This is observable in the northern parts of England, and especially in Yorkshire, where we shall find its traces upon that abnormal product of the old oak period, the Yorkshire chair with open back.

To define the exact limits of all these influences is perhaps an impossible task. Let us remember that classical architecture is the mainspring, whether we received it straight from Italy or through the muddier channels of Germany or Flanders. It seems pretty certain that as the seventeenth century progressed the severer feeling of the English nation threw off much that seemed too florid for its taste. In the more ordinary furniture which it is our chief object to study, the Jacobean and later carvers seem to have contented themselves with a few well-tried patterns which, stock or not, were easy of application to English oak, and might yet be slightly manipulated to suit the individual carvers fancy.

It is natural enough that there should have been the interchange of decorative motives to which I refer, if we remember that the masons who built the house, and the carpenters and joiners who made the interior woodwork and the furniture, were - unless foreigners, men expressly called in - very probably natives of the same village. Allowing for differences of technique, the simple pattern which sufficed for the lintel of a window, or for a string-course in stone, would do very well for the framing of a table. The moulding of a cornice is made by the mason for the outside walls in the same pattern as that used by the joiner for the highest adornment of his panelling. Some slight acquaintance, therefore, with the shapes of decoration employed on the exterior of the Renaissance house is likely to afford useful suggestions for the dating of furniture and the settling of questions of its genuineness. It will be necessary to refer more particularly to the decorative motives common on the various kinds of furniture; but briefly here I may mention certain well-known houses in which the most obvious furniture details can be plainly seen.

A very fine instance of the use of steeples in woodwork is to be found at Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire (early seventeenth century), over a corner door or ' interior porch' in the drawing-room. The arrangement is one for saving space, or rather, obviating the necessity of taking space from an adjoining room. The doorway is a flattish round arch with a pair of pillars on both sides. These support an elaborate cornice with scroll ornament upon it, and above appear the five huge steeples, which look well in need of so much support from below. The same shape in stone is found at Rushton and Kirby Halls, Northants, dating 1595 and 1572 respectively. Upon church screens in wood it is frequently to be found, as at Abbey Dore, Herefordshire.