William of Malmesbury points out as one of the more remarkable circumstances which distinguished the Normans from the Saxons, the magnitude and solidity of their domestic buildings. The Anglo-Saxons seem, indeed, to have preferred the old national prejudice of their race against confining themselves within stone walls, while the Normans and Franks, who were more influenced by Roman traditions, had become great builders. We have scarcely any information relative to the progress of domestic architecture under William the Conqueror, but the Norman chiefs seem from the first to have built themselves houses of a much more substantial character than those which they found in existence. The residence of the Conqueror, while engaged in his operations against the insurgents in the isle of Ely, is imperfectly described by the anonymous author of the life of Hereward. It consisted of the hall, kitchen, and other buildings, which were inclosed by hedges and fosses (per sepes et foveas), and it had an interior and exterior court. Towards the end of the Conqueror’s reign, and in that of his son, were raised those early Norman baronial castles, the masonry of which has withstood the ravages of so many centuries. Under William and his sons, few ordinary mansions and dwelling houses seem to have been built substantially of stone; I am not aware that there are any known remains of a stone mansion in this country older than the reign of Henry II. The miracles of St. Cuthbert, related by Reginald of Durham, contain one or two allusions to the private houses of the earlier part of the twelfth century. Thus a parishioner of Kellow, near Durham, in the time of bishop Walter Rufus (1133-1140), is described as passing the evening drinking with the parish priest; returning home late, he was pursued by dogs, and reaching his own house in great terror, contrived to shut the door (ostium domus) upon them. He then went up to what, from the context, appears to have been the window of an upper floor or garret (ad fenestram parietis), which he opened in order to look down with safety on his persecutors. He was suddenly seized with madness, and his family being roused, seized him, carried him down into the court (in area), and bound him to the seats (ad sedilia). The same writer tells the story of a blind woman in the city of Durham, who used to run her head against the projecting windows of the houses (ad fenestrarum dependentia foris laquearia).
No. 55. A Norman Carousal.
We trace in the illuminations of the earlier Norman period the custom of placing the principal apartment at an elevation from the ground. The simple plan of the stone-built house of the latter part of this century, consisted of a square room on the ground floor, often vaulted, and of one room above it, which was the principal apartment, and the sleeping-room. This was approached by a staircase, sometimes external and sometimes internal, and it had a fire-place (cheminée), though this was not always the case in the room below. The lower room was the hall, and the upper apartment was called a solar, or soller (solarium), a word which has been supposed to be derived from sol, the sun, which was more felt in this upper room than in the lower, inasmuch as it was better lighted—it was the sunny room. Yet, even here, the windows were small, and without glass. We learn from Joscelin de Brakelonde that, in the year 1182, Samson, abbot of Bury, while lodging in a grange, or manor-house, belonging to his abbey, narrowly escaped being burnt with the house, because the only door of the upper story in which he was lodged happened to be locked, and the windows were too narrow to admit of his passing through them. In the early English “Ancren Riewle,” or rule of nuns, published by the Camden Society, there are several allusions to the windows of the parlour, or private room, which show that they were not glazed, but usually covered with a cloth, or blind, which allowed sufficient light to pass, and that they had shutters on hinges which closed them entirely. In talking of the danger of indulging the eyes, the writer of this treatise (p. 50) says, “My dear sisters, love your windows”—they are called in the original text thurles, holes through the wall—“as little as you may, and let them be small, and the parlour’s least and narrowest; let the cloth in them be twofould, black cloth, the cross white within and without.” The writer goes on to moralise on the white cross upon a black ground. In another part of the book (p. 97), the author supposes that men may come and seek to converse with the nuns through the window, and goes on to say, “If any man become so mad and unreasonable that he put forth his hand towards the windowcloth (the thurl-cloth), shut the window quickly and leave him.” Under the hall, when it was raised above the level of the ground, there was often another vaulted room, which was the cellar, and which seems to have been usually entered from the inside of the building. In the accompanying cut ([No. 55]), taken from the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, are seen Harold and his companions carousing in an apartment thus situated, and approached by a staircase from without. The object of this was, perhaps, partly to be more private, for the ordinary public hall at dinner times seems to have been invaded by troops of hungry hangers on, who ate up or carried away the provisions which were taken from the table, and became so bold that they seem to have often seized or tried to seize the provisions from the cooks as they carried them to the table. William Rufus established ushers of the hall and kitchen, whole duty it was to protect the guests and the cooks from this rude rabble. Gaimar’s description of that king’s grand feast at Westminster, contains some curious allusions to this practice. After telling us that three hundred ushers (ussers, i.e. huissiers), or doorkeepers, were appointed to occupy the entrance passages (us), who were to hand with rods to protect the guests as they mounted the steps from the importunity of the garsons— Cil cunduaient les barons
Par les degrez, pur les garçons;
Od les verges k’es mains teneient
As barons vaie fesaient,
Ke jà garçon ne s’apremast,
Si alcon d’els ne l’ comandast—
he adds, that those who carried the provisions and liquor to the table were also attended by these ushers, that the “lecheurs” might not snatch from them, or spoil, or break, the vessels in which they carried them:—
Ensement tut revenaient par els
Cil ki aportouent les mès
De la quisine e des mesters,
E li beveres e li mangers,
Icil usser les cunduaient,
Pur la vessele dunt servaient,
Ke lecheur ne les escheçast,
Ne malmeist, ne defrussast.
—Gaimar, Estorie des Englès, l. 5985.
No. 56. The Norman Butler in his Office.
No. 57. A Draw-Well.
In the cut from the Bayeux tapestry, the feasting-room is approached by what is evidently a staircase of stone. In our cut [No. 56], taken from a manuscript of the earlier half of the twelfth century in the Cottonian library (Nero, C. iv.), and illustrating the story of the marriage feast at Cana, the staircase is apparently of wood, little better than a ladder, and the servants who are carrying up the wine assist themselves in mounting by means of a rope. It is a picture which at the same time exhibits several characteristics of domestic life—the wine vessels, the cupboard in which they are kept, and the well in the court-yard, the latter being indicated by the tree. The butler, finding wine run short, sends the servant to draw water from the well. It may be remarked that this appears to have been the common machinery of the draw-well among our forefathers in the middle ages—a rude lever, formed by the attachment of a heavy weight, perhaps of lead, at one end of the beam, which was sufficient to raise the other end, and thus draw up the bucket. It occurs in illuminations in manuscripts of various periods; our example in cut No. 57 is taken from MS. Harl. No. 1257, of the fourteenth century.