From the unskilfulness of the mediæval artists in representing details where any knowledge of perspective was required, we have not so much information as might be expected from the illuminated manuscripts relating to the arrangements of houses. But a fine illuminated copy of the romances of the San Graal and the Round Table, executed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and now preserved in the British Museum (MS. Addit. Nos. 10,292-10,294), furnishes us with one or two rather interesting illustrations of this subject. The romances themselves were composed in Anglo-Norman, in the latter half of the twelfth century. The first cut which we shall select from this manuscript is a complete view of a house; it belongs to a chapter entitled Ensi que Lancelot ront les fers d’une fenestre, et si entre dedens pour gesir avoec la royne. The queen has informed Lancelot that the head of her bed lies near the window of her chamber, and that he may come by night to the window, which is defended by an iron grating, to talk with her, and she tells him that the wall of the adjacent hall is in one part weak and dilapidated enough to allow of his obtaining an entrance through it; but Lancelot prefers breaking open the grating in order to enter directly into the chamber, to passing through the hall. The grating of the chamber window appears to have been common in the houses of the rich and noble; in the records of the thirteenth century, the grating of the chamber windows of the queen is often mentioned. The window behind Lancelot in our cut is that of the hall, and is distinguished by architectural ornamentation. The ornamental hinges of the door, with the lock and the knocker, are also curious. Our next cut ([No. 82]), taken from this same manuscript, represents part of the house of a knight, whose wife has an intrigue with one of the heroes of these romances, king Claudas. The knight lay in wait to take the king, as he was in the lady’s chamber at night, but the king, being made aware of his danger, escaped by the chamber-window, while the knight expected to catch him by entering at the hall door. The juxtaposition of hall and chamber is here shown very plainly. In another chapter of the same romances, the king takes Lancelot into a chamber to talk with him apart, while his knights wait for them in the hall; this is pictorially represented in an illumination copied in the accompanying cut ([No. 83]), which shows exactly the relative position of the hall and chamber. The door here is probably intended for that which led from the hall into the chamber.
No. 83. The Knights in waiting.
We see from continual allusions that an ordinary house, even among men of wealth, had usually only one chamber, which served as his sleeping-room, and as the special apartment of the female portion of the household—the lady and her maids, while the hall was employed indiscriminately for cooking, eating and drinking, receiving visitors, and a variety of other purposes, and at night it was used as a common sleeping-room. These arrangements, and the construction of the house, varied according to the circumstances of the locality and the rank of the occupiers. Among the rich, a stable did not form part of the house, but its site was often occupied by the kitchen, which was almost always placed close to the hall. Among the higher classes other chambers were built, adjacent to the chief chamber, or to the hall, though in larger mansions they sometimes occupied a tower or separate building adjacent. The form, however, which the manor-house generally took was a simple oblong square. A seal of the thirteenth century, attached to a deed by which, in June, 1272, William Moraunt grants to Peter Picard an acre of land in the parish of Otteford in Kent, furnishes us with a representation of William Moraunt’s manor-house. It is a simple square building, with a high-pitched roof, as appears always to have been the case in the early English houses, and a chimney. The hall door, it will be observed, opens outwardly, as is the case in the preceding cuts, which was the ancient Roman manner of opening of the outer door of the house; it may be added that it was the custom to leave the hall door or huis (ostium) always open by day, as a sign of hospitality. It will also be observed that there is a curious coincidence in the form of chimney with the cuts from the illuminated manuscript. We must not overlook another circumstance in these delineations,—the position of the chimney, which is usually over the chamber, and not over the hall. Fireplaces in the wall and chimneys were first introduced in the chamber.
No. 84. Seal of W. Moraunt.
As the grouping together of several apartments on the ground-floor rendered the whole building less compact and less defensible, the practice soon rose, especially in the better manoirs, of making apartments above. This upper apartment was called a soler (solarium, a word supposed to be derived from sol, the sun, as being, by its position, nearer to that luminary, or as receiving more light from it). It was at first, and in the lesser mansions, but a small apartment raised above the chamber, and approached by a flight of steps outside, though (but more rarely) the staircase was sometimes internal. In our first cut from the Museum manuscript ([No. 81]), there is a soler over the chamber, to which the approach appears to be from the inside. In the early metrical tales the soler, and its exterior staircase, are often alluded to. Thus, in the fabliau D’Estourmi, in Barbazan, a burgher and his wife deceive three monks of a neighbouring abbey who make love to the lady; she conceals her husband in the soler above, to which he ascends by a flight of steps:— Tesiez, vous monterez là sus
En cel solier tout coiement.
The monk, before he enters the house, passes through the court (cortil), in which there is a sheepcot (bercil), or perhaps a stable. The husband from the soler above looks through a lattice or grate and sees all that passes in the hall— Par la treillie le porlingne.
The stairs seem, therefore, to have been outside the hall, with a latticed window looking into it from the top. The monk appears to have entered the hall by the back door, and the chamber is adjacent to the hall (as in houses which had no soler), on the side opposite to that on which were the stairs. When another monk comes, the husband hides himself under the stairs (souz le degré). The bodies of the monks (who are killed by the husband) are carried out parmi une fausse posterne which leads into the fields (aus chans). In the fabliau of La Saineresse, a woman who performs the operation of bleeding comes to the house of a burgher, and finds the man and his wife seated on a bench in the yard before the hall— En mi l’aire de sa meson.
The lady says she wants bleeding, and takes her upstairs into the soler:— Montez là sus en cel solier,
Il m’estuet de vostre mestier.
They enter, and close the door. The apartment on the soler, although there was a bed in it, is not called a chamber, but a room or saloon (perrin):— Si se descendent del perrin,
Contreval les degrez enfin
Vindrent errant en la maison.
The expression that they came down the stairs, and into the house, shows that the staircase was outside.
In another fabliau, De la borgoise d’Orliens, a burgher comes to his wife in the disguise of her gallant, and the lady, discovering the fraud, locks him up in the soler, pretending he is to wait there till the household is in bed— Je vous metrai privéement
En un solier dont j’ai la clef.
She then goes to meet her ami, and they come from the garden (vergier) direct into the chamber without entering the hall. Here she tells him to wait while she goes in there (là dedans), to give her people their supper, and she leaves him while she goes into the hall. The lady afterwards sends her servants to beat her husband, pretending him to be an importunate suitor whom she wishes to punish! “he waits for me up there in that room:”— Là sus m’atent en ce perin.
* * * * *
Ne souffrez pas que il en isse,
Ainz l’acueillier al solier haut.
They beat him as he descends the stairs, and pursue him into the garden, all which passes without entering the lower apartments of the house. The soler, or upper part of the house, appears to have been considered the place of greatest security—in fact it could only be entered by one door, which was approached by a flight of steps, and was therefore more easily defended than the ground floor. In the beautiful story De l’ermite qui s’acompaigna à l’ange, the hermit and his companion seek a night’s lodging at the house of a rich but miserly usurer, who refuses them admittance into the house, and will only permit them to sleep under the staircase, in what the story terms an auvent or shed. The next morning the hermit’s young companion goes upstairs into the soler to find the usurer, who appears to have slept there for security— Le vallet les degrez monta,
El solier son hoste trova.
It was in the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an avaricious and inhospitable person, to shut his hall door and live in the soler. In a poem of this period, in which the various vices of the age are placed under the ban of excommunication, the miser is thus pointed out:— Encor escommeni-je plus
Riche homme qui ferme son huis,
Et va mengier en solier sus.
The huis was the door of the hall. The soler appears also to have been considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who paid well. In the fabliau Des trois avugles de Compiengne, three blind men come to the house of a burgher, and require to be treated better than usual; on which he shows them upstairs— En la haute logis les maine.
A clerc, who follows, after putting his horse in the stable, sits at table with his host in the hall, while the three other guests are served “like knights” in the soler above—
Et li avugle du solier
Furent servi com chevalier.
