Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/463

 and Sentiments. 443 1570, gives us a good reprefentatiou of the general appearance of houfes in a town at that period. In the country a greater change had taken place in all but the houfes of the peafantry. The older caftles had become obfolete, and, with the increaiing power and efficiency of the laws, it was no longer neceffary to confult ftrength before convenience. The houfes of the gentry were, however, ftill built of conliderable extent, and during the fixteenth century the older domeftic arrangements were only flightly modified. Now, however, inllead of feeking a ftrong pofition, people chole fituations that were agreeable and healthful, where they might be protected from inclemency of weather, and where gardens and orchards might be planted advantageoully. Thus, like the earlier monaftic edifices, a gentleman's houfe was built more frequently on low ground than on a hill. In the fixteenth century, the hall continued to hold its pofition as the No. 278. The " Hundred Men's Hall;' at St. Crofs, near mnchejl^ great public apartment of the houfe, and in its arrangements it fl;ill differed little from thofe of an earlier date ; it was indeed now the only part