Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/32

 12 Hijlory of Do?neJiic Ma?2?2ers court itfelf feems to have been defignated as the cofer-tun, or inlurh. The wall of the hall, or of the internal buildings in general, was called a wag, or wah, a diftindive word which remained in ufe till a late period in the Englifli language, and feems to have been loft partly through the fimilarity of found.* The entrance to the hall, or to the other buildings in the interior, was the durii, or door, which 'as thus dlftinguifhed from the gate. Another kind of door mentioned in the vocabularies was a hlid-gata, literally a gate with a lid or cover, which was perhaps, how- ever, a word merely invented to reprefent the Latin valva, which is given as its equivalent. The door is defcribed in Beowulf as being ''faftened with fire-bands" {fyr-lendum fceft, I. 1448), which muft mean iron bars.f Either before the door of the hall, or between the door and the interior apartment, was fometimes ^felde, literally a flied, but perhaps we might now call it a portico. The different parts of the architectural ftrufture of the hall enumerated in the vocabularies arejtapul, a poll: or log fet in the ground ; Jiipere, a pillar 3 Icam, a beam 5 rafter, a rafter 3 keta, a lath j fiver, a column. Ihe columns fupported ligels, an arch or vault, or fijrjl, the interior of the roof, the ceiling. The lirof, or roof, was called alio tlieccn, ov thcecen, a word derived from the verb theccan, to cover; but although this is the original of our modern word thatch, our readers muft not fuppofe that the Anglo-Saxon thcecen meant what we call a thatched roof, for we have the Anglo-Saxon word thcec-tigel, a thatch-tile, as well as hrof-tigel, a roof-tile. There was fometimes one ftory above the ground-floor, for Mhich the vocabularies give the Latin word folarium, the origin of the later mediaeval word, fo/er; but it is evident that this period. Halliwell, "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," v. ivag/w, quotes the following lines from a manuscript of the fifteenth century— So hcdoufely that Jiorme game f die. That Jondir it brajie hot he ivaghe and ivalh. t It appears not, however, to have been customary to lock the doors during the absence of the family, but merely to leave some one to take care ot the house. This, at least, was tiie case in Winchester, as we learn from the miracles of St. Swithun, by the monk Lantfrcd.
 * The distinction between the li'ag/ie and lualk continued to a comparatively late