The Hall itself was a large and lofty room, in the shape of a parallelogram; the roof, the timbers of which were framed with pendants, generally richly carved and emblazoned with arms, formed one of the most striking features. "The top beam of the Hall," in allusion to the position of his coat-of-arms, was a symbolical manner of drinking the health of the master of the house. At the upper end of the apartment, furthest from the entrance, the floor was usually raised a step, and this part was styled the daïs, or high place. On one side of the daïs was a deep embayed window, reaching nearly down to the floor; the other windows ranged along one or both sides of the Hall, at some height above the ground, so as to leave room for wainscoting, or arras, below them. We see this arrangement to great advantage in the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace, where the wall beneath the windows is hung with Flemish tapestry, in eight compartments, the arabesque borders of which are very beautiful; the subject is the History of Abraham. The tapestry at the entrance of the Hall is of much earlier date, being in the school of Albert Durer: the subject, Justice and Mercy pleading before Kings or Judges. The withdrawing-room is also hung with tapestry, the subjects mostly mythological; and the oriel-window is filled with armorial stained glass.
The Hall windows generally were enriched with stained glass, representing the armorial bearings of the family, their connexions, and royal patrons; and between the windows were hung full-length portraits of the same persons. The windows were not, however, permanently glazed till the fifteenth century. Before that, it was the custom for the glazed casements to be carried about from manor to manor along with the other furniture; every man of rank, whether civil or ecclesiastical, was in the habit of travelling with all his retinue, from one estate to another, so as to consume the produce of each estate upon the spot. It is this custom, or rather necessity, which explains the multitude of manorial houses possessed by every mediæval magnate, and the constant migrations from one to the other. Royal writs and documents are frequently dated from the most insignificant places where the court, on its progress from one royal manor to another, might happen to be staying.[34]
To return to the Hall. The Royal arms usually occupied a conspicuous station at either end of the room. The head-table was laid for the lord and principal guests on the raised place, parallel with the upper end wall; and other tables were ranged along the sides for inferior visitors and retainers. Tables, thus placed, were said to stand banquet-wise. In the centre of the Hall was the rere-dosse, or fire-iron, against which fagots were piled, and burnt upon the stone floor, the smoke passing through an aperture in the roof immediately overhead, which was generally formed into an elevated lantern, a conspicuous ornament to the exterior of the building. In later times, a wide-arched fireplace was formed in the wall on one side of the room.
The Halls, in fact, of our colleges, at either University, and the Inns of Court, still remain as in Aubrey's time, accurate examples of the ancient and baronial and conventual Halls: preserving not merely their original form and appearance, but the identical arrangement and service of the table. Even the central fire has been, in some instances, kept up, being of charcoal, burnt in a large braziere, in lieu of the rere-dosse. The open fire was so kept up, at Westminster School, so late as 1850. The Halls of the temple, Gray's Inn, and Staple Inn, have their lanterns; and even the Hall of Barnard's Inn, the oldest and the smallest, has its lantern; the newly built Hall of Lincoln's Inn has a very ornamental one; and the new roof of the Guildhall is to have a lantern with a lofty spire. The lantern of Westminster Hall is large and picturesque; it is modern, of cast-iron, but is an exact copy of the original one, erected near the end of the fourteenth century. As the existing lanterns are no longer required for the egress of smoke, they are glazed.
In other respects, probably, little, if anything, has been altered since the Tudor era; and he who is anxious to know the mode in which our ancestors dined in the reigns of the Henrys and Edwards, may be gratified by attending that meal in the Great Halls of Christchurch or Trinity, and tasking his imagination to convert the principal and fellows at the upper table, into the stately baron, his family, and guests; and the gowned commoners at the side-tables, into the liveried retainers. The service of the kitchen, buttery, and cellar is conducted, at the present day, precisely according to the ancient custom.[35]
Gradually, the solar or private sitting-room of the matron or mistress of the house increased in importance. Its most usual position was at one end of the Hall, on an upper level, raised above an apartment which was used as a cellar or a store-room.
The Hall is, of course, the part of a house or castle where the art of architecture proper has the best opportunity of displaying itself. So, in a monastery, the refectory comes next in grandeur to the church and chapter-house. Indeed, some of the early Halls were built not unlike churches, with two rows of pillars. In a wooden construction this is not uncommon both in halls and barns; but the examples we mean have two regular aisles with stone pillars and arches. Such was the original Westminster Hall, till Richard II. threw it into one body under the present magnificent single roof. The finest existing example is perhaps that superb one at Oakham Castle, of the best architecture of the end of the twelfth century. In the next century we have the Hall of the Royal Palace at Winchester used like that at Oakham, for an assize-court. Of single-bodied halls of the fourteenth century, nothing can surpass those of Caerphilly Castle in Glamorganshire, and Mayfield Palace in Sussex. Mayfield has, and Caerphilly seems to have been designed to have, a very effective arrangement of stone arches thrown across at intervals to support the roof, and to produce something of the effect of actual vaulting. The same is the case at Conway. Most of these examples are ruined.[36] Mayfield has lately been restored.
The gallery was brought into use with the Elizabethan style of architecture, and became a prominent feature among the apartments of houses in that style. The gallery at Hatfield, with a magnificently gilded ceiling—a blaze of gold—is a fine specimen: it was regilt just previous to the visit of Queen Victoria to Hatfield in 1846: a state ball was given in this gallery, and we remember to have been told the day after the Royal visit, that during the dance there fell from Her Majesty's hand a rose, which was immediately taken up by a gentleman of the company; on bended knee he presented it to the Queen, who most graciously returned the flower, which, we doubt not, is preserved.
The extensive passages in some ancient houses have, no doubt, been originally similar to the open galleries round our old inns, of which we have examples, year by year, diminishing in number. These passages were ultimately inclosed for comfort and convenience. The staircases, in ancient times, were usually cylindrical, and were carried up in a separate turret: it was not until the age of Elizabeth that the massive staircase, with its broad hand-rails, balustrades, and enriched ornaments, was introduced into the mansion; that of a later period is familiarly known as a "Queen Anne staircase."
The royal parlour of Eltham is a perfect specimen of the banqueting-hall, and was the frequent residence of our kings before Henry VIII.; and here they held their great Christmas feasts. Two thousand guests in 1483 were entertained here at Christmas, by Edward IV., the royal builder of the Hall. His badges—the falcon, the fetterlock, and rose-en-soleil—are sculptured over the chief entrance; and Edward is represented by Skelton as saying: