[k] Hist. of Whalley. In Strutt's View of Manners we have an inventory of furniture in the house of Mr. Richard Fermor, ancestor of the earl of Pomfret, at Easton in Northamptonshire, and another in that of Sir Adrian Foskewe. Both these houses appear to have been of the dimensions and arrangement mentioned.
[m] Single rooms, windows, doorways, &c., of an earlier date may perhaps not unfrequently be found; but such instances are always to be verified by their intrinsic evidence, not by the tradition of the place. [[Note II.]]
[n] Mélanges tirés d'une grande bibliothèque, par M. de Paulmy, t. iii. et xxxi. It is to be regretted that Le Grand d'Aussy never completed that part of his Vie privée des Français which was to have comprehended the history of civil architecture. Villaret has slightly noticed its state about 1380. t. ii. p. 141.
[o] Chenonceaux in Touraine was built by a nephew of Chancellor Duprat; Gaillon in the department of Eure by Cardinal Amboise; both at the beginning of the sixteenth century. These are now considered, in their ruins, as among the most ancient houses in France. A work by Ducerceau (Les plus excellens Batimens de France, 1607) gives accurate engravings of thirty houses; but with one or two exceptions, they seem all to have been built in the sixteenth century. Even in that age, defence was naturally an object in constructing a French mansion-house; and where defence is to be regarded, splendour and convenience must give way. The name of château was not retained without meaning.
[p] Mélanges tirés, &c. t. iii. For the prosperity and downfall of Jacques Cœur, see Villaret, t. xvi. p. 11; but more especially Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xx. p. 509. His mansion at Bourges still exists, and is well known to the curious in architectural antiquity. In former editions I have mentioned a house of Jacques Cœur at Beaumont-sur-Oise; but this was probably by mistake, as I do not recollect, nor can find, any authority for it.
[q] Giannone, Ist. di Napoli, t. iii. p. 280.
[r] Muratori, Antich. Ital. Dissert. 25, p. 390. Beckman, in his History of Inventions, vol. i., a work of very great research, cannot trace any explicit mention of chimneys beyond the writings of John Villani, wherein however they are not noticed as a new invention. Piers Plowman, a few years later than Villani, speaks of a "chambre with a chimney" in which rich men usually dined. But in the account-book of Bolton Abbey, under the year 1311, there is a charge pro faciendo camino in the rectory-house of Gargrave. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 331. This may, I think, have been only an iron stove or fire-pan; though Dr. W. without hesitation translates it a chimney. However, Mr. King, in his observations on ancient castles, Archæol. vol. vi., and Mr. Strutt, in his View of Manners, vol. i., describe chimneys in castles of a very old construction. That at Conisborough in Yorkshire is peculiarly worthy of attention, and carries back this important invention to a remote antiquity.
In a recent work of some reputation, it is said:—"There does not appear to be any evidence of the use of chimney-shafts in England prior to the twelfth century. In Rochester Castle, which is in all probability the work of William Corbyl, about 1130, there are complete fireplaces with semicircular backs, and a shaft in each jamb, supporting a semicircular arch over the opening, and that is enriched with the zigzag moulding; some of these project slightly from the wall; the flues, however, go only a few feet up in the thickness of the wall, and are then turned out at the back, the apertures being small oblong holes. At the castle, Hedingham, Essex, which is of about the same date, there are fireplaces and chimneys of a similar kind. A few years later, the improvement of carrying the flue up the whole height of the wall appears; as at Christ Church, Hants; the keep at Newcastle; Sherborne Castle, &c. The early chimney-shafts are of considerable height, and similar; afterwards they assumed a great variety of forms, and during the fourteenth century they are frequently very short." Glossary of Ancient Architecture, p. 100, edit. 1845. It is said, too, here that chimneys were seldom used in halls till near the end of the fifteenth century; the smoke took its course, if it pleased, through a hole in the roof.
Chimneys are still more modern in France; and seem, according to Paulmy, to have come into common use since the middle of the seventeenth century. Jadis nos pères n'avoient qu'un unique chauffoir, qui étoit commun à toute une famille, et quelquefois à plusieurs. t. iii. p. 133. In another place, however, he says: Il parait que les tuyaux de cheminées étaient déjà très en usage en France, t. xxxi. p. 232.
[] Du Cange, v. Vitreæ; Bentham's History of Ely, p. 22.