Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/836

 and their omission occasionally, in favour of plate-glass, deprived the house-front of one of its chief attractions; but the old English casements and oriels or bow-windows have been again introduced, and a return has been made to the style which prevailed in the beginning of the 18th century, commonly known as that of Queen Anne.

Perhaps in one respect the greatest change which has been made in the English house is the adoption of “flats”; commenced some time in the ’fifties in Ashley Gardens, Westminster, they have spread throughout London. In consequence of the great value of the sites on which they are sometimes built, to which must be added the cost of the houses pulled down to make way for them, the question of expense in material and rich decoration has not always been worth considering, so that frontages in stone, with the classic orders brought in with many varieties of design, have given the character of a palace to a structure in which none of the rooms exceeds the modest height of 10 ft. The increasing demand for these, however, shows that they meet, so far as their accommodation and comfort are concerned, the wants and tastes of the upper and middle classes. In some of the London streets, where shops occupy the ground floor, a far finer type of house has been erected than that which could have been afforded for the shopkeeper’s residence above, as in old times, so that London promises in time to become a city of palaces. The same change in the aspects of its streets has long been evident in Paris, but there is one feature in the latter city which has never yet found its way into London, much to the surprise of French visitors, viz. the porte-cochère, through which the occupants of the house can in wet weather drive and be landed in a covered hall or vestibule. This requires, of course, a small court at the back, so small that one wonders sometimes how it is possible for the carriage to turn round in it. The porte-cochère also, from its dimensions, is a feature of more importance than the ordinary street doorway, even when a portico of some kind is added; on the other hand, the strict regulations in Paris as regards the projection of cornices and other decorative accessories gives to the stranger the appearance of monotony in their design, which certainly cannot be said of the houses in flats lately built in London. Within recent years an old English feature, known as the bow-window, has been introduced into Paris, the primary object of which does not seem yet to have been thoroughly understood by the French architect. An English bow-window, by its slight projection in front of the main wall, increases greatly the amount of light entering the room, and it is generally placed between solid piers of stone or brick. The French architects, however, project their piers on immense corbels, and then sink their windows with deep external reveals, so that no benefit accrues to the room, so far as the increased light is concerned. In Paris, since 1900, there has been a tendency to introduce a style of design in French houses which is known as “l’art nouveau,” a style which commenced in furniture as a reaction against the revival of the Empire and Louis XIV. and XVI. periods, and was then extended to house fronts; this style has unfortunately spread through the various towns in France and apparently to Germany, again as a reaction against the formal classic style of the latter half of the 19th century. It is probable that in Italy and Spain “l’art nouveau” may meet with the same success, and for the same reasons, so that in the latter country it will be a revival, with modifications, of the well-known Churrigueresque style, the most debased Rococo style which has ever existed. In England it has never met with any response.

 HOUSEHOLD, ROYAL. In all the medieval monarchies of western Europe the general system of government sprang from, and centred in, the royal household. The sovereign’s domestics were his officers of state, and the leading dignitaries of the palace were the principal administrators of the kingdom. The royal household itself had, in its turn, grown out of an earlier and more primitive institution. It took its rise in the comitatus described by Tacitus, the chosen band of comites or companions who, when the Roman historian wrote, constituted the personal following, in peace as well as in war, of the Teutonic chieftain. In England before the Conquest the comitatus had developed or degenerated into the thegnhood, and among the most eminent and powerful of the king’s thegns were his dishthegn, his bowerthegn, and his horsethegn or staller. In Normandy at the time of the Conquest a similar arrangement, imitated from the French court, had long been established, and the Norman dukes, like their overlords the kings of France, had their seneschal or steward, their chamberlain and their constable. After the Conquest the ducal household of Normandy was reproduced in the royal household of England; and since, in obedience to the spirit of feudalism, the great offices of the first had been made hereditary, the great offices of the second were made hereditary also, and were thenceforth held by the grantees and their descendants as grand-serjeanties of the crown. The consequence was that they passed out of immediate relation to the practical conduct of affairs either in both state and court or in the one or the other of them. The steward and chamberlain of England were superseded in their political functions by the justiciar and treasurer of England, and in their domestic functions by the steward and chamberlain of the household. The marshal of England took the place of the constable of England in the royal palace, and was associated with him in the command of the royal armies. In due course, however, the marshalship as well as the constableship became hereditary, and, although the constable and marshal of England retained their military authority until a comparatively late period, the duties they had successively performed about the palace had been long before transferred to the master of the horse. In these circumstances the holders of the original great offices of state and the household ceased to attend the court except on occasions of extraordinary ceremony, and their representatives either by inheritance or by special appointment have ever since continued to appear at coronations and some other public solemnities, such as the opening of the parliament or trials by the House of Lords.

The materials available for a history of the English royal household are somewhat scanty and obscure. The earliest record relating to it is of the reign of Henry II. and is contained in the Black Book of the Exchequer. It enumerates the various inmates of the king’s palace and the daily allowances made to them at the period at which it was compiled. Hence it affords valuable evidence of the antiquity and relative importance of the court offices to which it refers, notwithstanding that it is silent as to the functions and formal subordination of the persons who filled them. In addition to this record we have a series of far later, but for the most part equally meagre, documents bearing more or less directly on the constitution of the royal household, and extending, with long intervals, from the reign of Edward III. to the reign of William and Mary. Among them, however, are what are known as the Black Book of the Household and the Statutes of Eltham, the first compiled in the reign of Edward IV. and the second in the reign of Henry VIII., from which a good deal of detailed information may be gathered concerning the arrangements of the court in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Statutes of Eltham were meant for the practical guidance merely of those who were responsible for the good order and the sufficient supply of the sovereign’s household at the time they were issued.