Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/154

 134 Hijiory of Domejiic Manners This houfe was fituated within a court, or, as it is called, yard, which was enclofed by a hedge of flicks, and by a ditch : — A yerdjche had, enclofed al ahoute Ifith Jlikkes, and a drye d'lch ivithcute. In the Tale of Gamelyn, the yard, or court, as we ufe the Anglo-Saxon or the Anglo-Norman name for it, had a ftronger fence, with a gate and wicket fattened by lock and bolt, and apparently a lodge for the porter. In the yard there was a draw-well, feven fathoms deep. While Gamelyn took pofTeflion of the hall, his brother fliut himfelf up in the cellar, which could be made a fafe place of refuge, when all the reft of the houfe was in the power of an enemy. The yard here had alfo a poftern-gate. In the carpenter's houfe, in Chaucer's Milleres Tale, the chamber has a low window, to fwing outwardly — So mote I thryve, I Jchal at cokkes croive Ful pryvely go knokke at Ms ivyndoive. That Jiant ful hive upon his bozures lual — which is immediately afterwards called the *• fchot wyndowe " — Unto his brejl it r aught, it ivas Jo hive. A new apartment had now been added to the houfe, called in Anglo- Norman a parlour {parloir), becaufe it was literally the talking-room. It belonged originally to the monaftic houfes, where the parlour was the room for receiving people who came to converfe on bufinefs, and, when introduced into private houfes, it was a fort of fecondary hall, where vifitors might be received more privately than in the great hall, and yet with lefs familiarity than in the chamber. In the ftory of Sir Cleges, the knight finds the king feated in his parlour, and liftening to a harper. In a Latin document of the year 1473, printed in Rymer's Foedera, a citizen of London has, in his manfion-houfe there, a parlour adjoining the garden {in qiiadam parlura adjacente gardino). Houfes were, as I have before ftated, ufually built in great part of timber, and it was only where unufual ftrength was required, or elfe from a fpirit of oftentation, that they were made of ftone. There appear to have