Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/142

 122 Hfjiory of Domejiic Man uiers felf in the liable {croiche). From the ftable the prieft watches the company in the hall through a window {feneflre), which is evidently only another name for the pertuis. In one fabliau the gallant comes through the court or garden, and is let into the hall by the back doorj in another a woman is introduced into the chamber by a back door, or, as it is called in the text, a falfe door {par un fax huh), while the hall is occupied by company. The arrangements of an ordinary houfe in the country are illuflrated in the fabliau De Barat et de Hairnet, printed in the coUeftion of Bar- bazan. Two thieves undertake to rob a third of " a bacon," which he (Travers) had hung on the beam or rafter of his houfe, or hall : — Tra'vers Pavoit a une hart All trcf de fa meson pendu. The thieves make a hole in the wall, by which one enters without waking Travers or his wife, although they were fleeplng with the door of their chamber open. The bacon is thus ftolen and carried away. Travers, roufed by the noife of their departure, rifes from his bed, follows the thieves, and ultimately recaptures his bacon. He refolves now to cook the bacon, and eat fome of it, and for this purpofe a fire is made, and a cauldron full of water hung over it. This appears to be performed in the middle of the hall. The thieves return, and, approaching the door, one of them looked through the pertuis, and faw the bacon boiling : — Ear as m'lji Jon ceil au pertuh, Et voit que la chaud'iere Lout. The thieves then climb the roof, uncover a fmall fpace at the top filently, and attempt to draw up the bacon with a hook. From the unlkilfulnefs of the mediaeval artifts in reprefenting details where any knowledge of perfpedive was required, we have not fo much information as might be expe6ted from the illuminated manufcripts relating to the arrangements of houfes. 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 preferved in the Britilh Mufeum