Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/148

 Hijlory of Domejlic Manners the hermit's young companion goes upftairs into the Ibler to find the ufurer, who appears to have llept there for fecurity — Le -valkt les degree mcnta. El f oiler Jon hojie tro'ua. It was in the thirteenth century a proverbial charafteriftic of an avaricious and inhofpitable perfon, to lliut his hall door and live in the foler. In a poem of this period, in which the various vices of the age are placed under the ban of excommunication, the mifer is thus pointed out : — Encur efcommeni-je f lus Riche homme qui ferme Jon huh, Et "va mengier en folier Jus. The liuis was the door of the hall. The foler appears alfo to have been confidered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guefts who paid well. In the fabliau Des trois avugles de Compiefigne, three blind men come to the houfe of a burgher, and require to be treated better than ufual ; on which he fhows them upftairs — En la haute logis Us ma'ine. A clerc, who follows, after putting his horfe in the ftable, fits at table with his hoft in the hall, while the three other guefts are ferved " like knights" in the foler above — Et 11 avugle du Jol'ier Furent Jerv'i com chevalier. During the period of which we are fpeaking, the richer the houfe- holder, the greater need he had of ftxidying ftrength and fecurity, and hence with him the foler, or upper ftory, became of more importance, and was often made the principal part of the houfe, at leaft that in which himfelf and his family placed themfelves at night. This^was efpecially the cafe in ftone buildings, where the ground-floor was often a low vaulted apartment, which feems to have been commonly looked upon as a cellar, while the principal room was on the firft-floor, approached ufually by a ftaircafe on the outfide. A houfe of this kind is reprefented in one of our cuts taken from the Bayeux tapeftry, where the guefts are caroufino;