Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/145

 and Sentiments. 25 houfehold — the lady and her maids, while the hall was employed indis- criminately for cooking, eating and drinking, receiving vifitors, and a variety of other purpofes, and at night it was ufed as a common lleeping- room. Thefe arrangements, and the conftruftion of the houfe, varied according to the circumftances of the locality and the rank of the occupiers. Among the rich, a liable did not form part of the houfe, but its fite was often occupied by the kitchen, which was almoft always placed clofe to the hall. Among the higher clafTes other chambers were built, adjacent to the chief chamber, or to the hall, though in larger manfions they fometimes occupied a tower or feparate building adjacent. The form, however, which the manor-houfe generally took was a limple oblong fquare. A feal 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 parifh of Otteford in Kent, fur- nifhes us with a reprefentation of William Moraunt's manor-houfe. It is a fimple fquare building, with a high-pitched roof, as appears always to have been the cafe in the early Englifh houfes, and a chimney. The hall door, it will be obferved, opens outwardly, as is the cafe in the preceding cuts, which was the ancient Roman manner of opening of the outer door of the houfe ; it may be added that it was the cuftom to leave the hall door or liuis {nftium) always open by day, as a fign of hofpitality. It will alfo be obferved that there is a curious coincidence in the form of chimney with the cuts from the illuminated manufcript. We muft not overlook another circumftance in thefe delineations, — the pofition of the chimney, which is ufually over the chamber, and not over the hall. Fireplaces in the wall and chimneys were firft introduced in the chamber. As the grouping together of feveral apartments on the ground-floor rendered the whole building lefs compa6t and lefs defenfible, the pradice foon rofe, efpecially in the better manoirs, of making apartments above. This No. 84. Seal of n: Mcraunt.