Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/232

214 bouchier d'Abbeville (quoted above), the butcher sleeps in the hall, which is only separated from the chamber in which the priest and his mistress sleep by a door, and he lifts the latch to enter the chamber and take leave of his hostess in the morning:—

In the fablian Du munier d'Arlenx (printed separately by M. Michel), they make a bed for the young maiden who is detained all night, in the hall beside the fire:—

Sometimes, however, the whole family appear to have made their beds indiscriminately with strangers in the hall, although both sexes slept naked, for there was little delicacy of manners at this period. The story of two French fabliaux analogous to Chaucer's Reves Tale, turns on this indiscriminate position of the beds in the hall. The house was in general very much exposed. In the fabliau Du clerc qui fu repus deriere l'escrin (Meon. i. 165), a man enters the hall, and seeing no one there, boldly knocks at the chamber door. In the fabliau Du meunier d'Arleux, the outer door of the hall is left unlatched at night, although a young maiden is in bed by the fire-side. In the fabliau Du prestre crucifié (Meon. iii. 14), the maker of crucifixes returning home at night, before he opens the door sees his wife and her gallant in the hall through a hole in the wall:—

In the fabliau Des treces (Meon. i. 343), the gallant enters by night through the window into the chamber in which the man and his wife are sleeping. In the fabliau Du segrelain moine (Barbazan, i. p. 242), the monk takes liberties with the lady as they are seated by the fire in the hall, which she repulses because they are exposed to the view of those who pass on the road:—