Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/31

 and Sentiments, 1 1 continued nearly the fame down to a late period. The moft important part of the building was the hall, on which was bellowed all the orna- mentation of which the builders and decorators of that early period were capable. Halls built of ftone are alluded to in a religious poem at the beginning of the Exeter bookj yet, in the earlier period at leaft, there can be little doubt that the materials of building were chiefly wood. Around, or near this hall, flood, in feparate buildings, the bed-chambers, or bowers (lur), of which the latter name is only now preferved as applied to a fummer-houfe in a garden 3 but the reader of old Enghlli poetry will remember well the common phrafe of a Vinl in lure, a lady in her bower or chamber. Thefe buildings, and the houfehold offices, were all grouped within an inclofure, or outward wall, which, I imagine, was generally of earth, for the Anglo-Saxon word, lueall, was applied to an earthen rampart, as well as to mafonry. What is termed in the poem of Judith, wealles gedt, the gate of the wall, was the entrance through this inclofure or rampart. I am convinced that many of the earth-x^'orks, which are often looked upon as ancient camps, are nothing more than the remains of the inclofures of Anglo-Saxon refidences. In Beowulf, the lleeping-rooms of Hrothgar and his court feem to have been fo completely detached from the hall, that their inmates did not hear the combat that was going on in the latter building at night. In fmaller houies the lleeping-rooms were fewer, or none, until we arrive at the fimple room in which the inmates had board and lodging together, with a mere hedge for its inclofure, the prototype of our ordinary cottage and o-arden. The wall ferved for a defence againll robbers and enemies, while, in times of peace and tranquillity, it was a protedion Irom in- difcreet intnaders, for the doors of the hall and chambers leem to have been generally left open. Beggars alfembled round the door ot the wall— the oftium dovius— to wait for alms. The vocabularies of the Anglo-Saxon period furnilh us with the names of moft of the parts of the ordinary dwellings. The entrance through the outer wall into the court, the ftrength of which is alluded to in early writers, was properly the gate (geat). The whole mafs inc oled within this wall conftituted the lurh (burgh), or tun, and the mcloled court