Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/293

 THE FEUDAL LAND SYSTEM 249 an entire floor of the castle or of the donjon would be used as the great hall, where the lord and his followers ate their I meals, drank their ale or wine, held court, talked together, I or warmed themselves before the fire in the huge open i chimney-place. When we read of horrible, damp, under- I ground dungeons where prisoners languished, we must i remember that even the lord and lady in their apartments ! of state were none too comfortable. The fireplace, however, represented a great improvement in domestic life, for chimney flues were a medieval invention. If the Greeks I and Romans wished to avoid filling the house with smoke, they had to cook outdoors, although the Romans had hypo- causts to warm their floors from underneath. Although the castle was poorly lighted and heated and dreary enough within, from its lofty battlements a wonder- ful view often could be obtained of the countryside for miles around. One rather envies the feudal lords of those cheer- less keeps, as from their commanding sites one gazes down on the long windings of a beautiful river and the fertile expanse of valley and plain below. Not long, moreover, after the steep climb up to the picturesque ruins on im- pregnable heights, one becomes conscious of a keen appe- tite, and can to some extent sympathize with the robber baron's descents from his stronghold in order to procure a round of beef or saddle of mutton from such sheep and cattle, or a cask of wine and mess of fish from such traveling merchants, as strayed within his ken while he was survey- ing, with an even closer scrutiny and intenser interest than that of the modern tourist, the every detail of the surround- ing landscape. As the castle suggests, war was the natural state of the feudal world. Ambitious lords, especially as population in- creased and land became scarce, waged war upon Feudal one another. Younger sons tried to win new fiefs warfare by the sword, since they could not hope to inherit them, and often fought against their fathers or older brothers. Lords perhaps fought more often against their own vassals, or rather against men whom they claimed as their vassals,