Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/40

 20 Hijlory of Domejlic Manners but at other times they were richly ornamented, and not unfrequently embroidered with hiflorical fubjefts. So early as the feventh century, Aldhelm fpeaks of the hangings or curtains being dyed with purple and other colours, and ornamented with images, and he adds that " if tinillied of one colour uniform they would not feem beautiful to the eye." Among the Saxon wills printed by Hickes, we find feveral bequefis of heall ivah-riftas, or wall-tapeftries for the hall ; and it appears that, in fome cafes, tapeftries of a richer and more precious charafter than thofe in common ufe were referved to be hung up only on extraordinary feftivals. There were hooks, or pegs, on the wall, upon which various objects were hung for convenience. In an anecdote told in the contem- porary life of Dunftan, he is made to hang his harp againfi: the wall of the room. Arms and armour, more efpecially, were hung againfi the wall of the hall. The author of the " Life of Hereward" defcribes the Saxon infurgents who had taken pofTeflion of Ely, as fufpending their arms in this manner ; and in one of the riddles in the Exeter Book, a war-vefl is introduced fpeaking of itfelf thus : — kivilum liongigc. Sometimes I hang, hyrjlum frcetived, %vith ornaments adorned, lulittg on ivage, fplendid on the luall, >ar ivcras drince^, ivhere men drink, freolic fyrd-fceorp. a goodly ivar-veji. — Exeter Book, p. 395. We have no allufion in Anglo-Saxon writers to chimneys, or fire- places, in our modern acceptation of the term. When neceffary, the fire feems to have been made on the floor, in the place mofl convenient. We find inftances in the early faints' legends where the hall was burnt by incautioufly lighting the fire too near the wall. Hence it feems to have been ufually placed in the middle, and there can be little doubt that there was an opening, or, as it was called in later times, a louver, in the roof above, for the efcape of the fmoke. The hiflorian Bede defcribes a Northumbrian king, in the middle of the feventh century, as having, on his return from hunting, entered the hall with his attendants, and all fianding round the tire to warm tlicmfelvcs. A fomewhat fimilar fcene, but in more humble life, is rcprefeuted in the accompanying cut, taken from