As noted above, the English cared less for vaulted roofs than did the people of the Continent. They developed a splendid system of decorative timbered construction, of which the finest mediæval example is the roof of Westminster Hall. Nearly two hundred years later than that splendid roof is the almost equally fine piece of timber work which covers Middle-Temple Hall, Plate LIII. This Hall shows us also the finest possible screen of Jacobean architecture. These screens were used when the plans of buildings were simple, when the great Hall of a country-house or a college or the building of a company of merchants filled the whole of the pavilion devoted to it, occupying all the space under its roof and within its four walls. To make a vestibule of entrance for protection against the cold and against undue publicity, the screens were built athwart one end of the interior space: and their
