PART OF LONDON WALL IN THE CHURCH-YARD OF ST. GILES, CRIPPLEGATE
In the earliest times the whole family slept in the common hall. The first improvement was the erection of the solar, or upper, chamber. This was above the hall, or a portion of it, or over the kitchen and buttery attached to the hall. The arrangement may be still observed in many of the old colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. The solar was first the sleeping-room of the lord and lady: though afterwards it served not only this purpose, but also for an ante-chamber to the dormitory of the daughters and the maid-servants. The men of the household still slept in the hall below. Later on, bed recesses were contrived in the wall, as one may find in Northumberland at the present day. The bed was commonly, but not for the ladies of the house, merely a big bag stuffed with straw. A sheet wrapped round the body formed the only night-dress. But there were also pillows, blankets, and coverlets. The early English bed was quite as luxurious as any that followed after, until the invention of the spring-mattress gave a new and hitherto unhoped-for joy to the hours of night.
The second step in advance was the ladies' bower, a room or suite of rooms set apart for the ladies of the house and their women. For the first time, as soon as this room was added, the women could follow their own avocations of embroidery, spinning, and needle-work of all kinds apart from the rough and noisy talk of the men.
The main features, therefore, of every great house, whether in town or country, from the seventh to the twelfth century, were the hall, the solar, built over the kitchen and buttery, and the ladies' bower.
There was also the garden. In all times the English have been fond of gardens. Bacon thought it not beneath his dignity to order the arrangement of a garden. Long before Bacon, a writer of the twelfth century describes a garden as it should be. "It should be adorned on this side with roses, lilies, and the marigold; on that side with parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, vine, dettany, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, and the peony. Let there be beds enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, mellons, and scallions. The garden is also enriched by the cucumber, the soporiferous poppy, and the daffodil, and the acanthus. Nor let pot herbs be wanting, as beet-root, sorrel, and mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to have anice, mustard, and wormwood.... A noble garden will give you medlars, quinces, the pear main, peaches, pears of St. Regle, pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." The latter fruits were perhaps attempted, but no one doubts their arriving at ripeness. Perhaps the writer sets down what he hoped would be some day achieved.
The in-door amusements of the time were very much like our own. We have a little music in the evening; so did our forefathers; we sometimes have a little dancing; so did they, but the dancing was done for them; we go to the theatres to see the mime; in their days the mime made his theatre in the great man's hall. He played the fiddle and the harp; he sang songs; he brought his daughter, who walked on her hands and executed astonishing capers; the gleeman, minstrels, or jongleur was already as disreputable as when we find him later on with his ribauderie. Again, we play chess; so did our ancestors; we gamble with dice; so did they; we feast and drink together; so did they; we pass the time in talk; so did they. In a word, as Alphonse Karr put it, the more we change, the more we remain the same.
ENTRANCE TO KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS
Out-of-doors, as Fitz Stephen shows, the young men skated, wrestled, played ball, practised archery, held water tournaments, baited bull and bear, fought cocks, and rode races. They were also mustered sometimes for service in the field, and went forth cheerfully, being specially upheld by the reassuring consciousness that London was always on the winning side.