Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/141

 a?id Sentiments. 1 2 1 door into the chamber at one end, and one into the croiche or ftable at the other end, and a back door into the garden. The chamber had alfo frequently a door which opened alio into the garden; the liable, as a matter of courfe, would have a large door or outlet into the yard. The chief windows were thole of the hall, Thefe, in common houfes, appear to have been merely openings, which might be doled with wooden Ihutters ; and in other parts of the building they were nothing but holes (pertuis) ; there appears to have been ufually one of thefe holes in the partition wall between the chamber and the hall, and another between the hall and the liable. There was alfo an outer window, or pertuis, to the chamber. In the popular French and Anglo-Norman /a /•/ia/za, or tales in verfe, which belong moftly to the thirteenth century, we meet with many incidents illulirating this diftribution of the apartments of the houfe, which no doubt continued effentially the fame during that and the following century. Thus in a fabliau publilhed by M. Jubinal, an old woman of mean condition in life, dame Auberee, is defcribed as vifiting a burgher's wife, who, with charaderiftic vanity, takes her into the chamber adjoining {en une chamlre ilueques pres), to lliow her her handfome bed. When the lady afterwards takes refuge with dame Auberee, llie alfo lliows her out of the hall into a chamber dole adjoining {en une chaniire iluec de jofte). In a fabliau entitled Du prejrre crucifie, publilhed by Meon, a man returning home at night, fees what is going on in the hall through a pertuis, or hole made through the wall for a window, before he opens the door {par un pertuis les a veu%). In another fabliau publilhed in the larger colleftion of Barbazan, a lady in her chamber fees what is pafling in the hall par un pertuis. In the fabliau of Le povre clerc (or fcholar), the clerc, having alked for a night's lodging at the houfe of a miller during the miller's abfence, is driven away by the wife, who expefts a vilit from her lover the priell, and is unwilling to have an intruder. The clerc, as he is going away, meets the miller, who, angry at the inhofpitable condu6l of his dame, takes him back to the houfe. The priell in the meantime had arrived, and is fitting in the hall with the good wife, who, hearing a knock at the door, makes her lover hide him- felf