The Domestic Architecture Of The Middle Ages.

THE DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES .

TO a Freemason who is interested in the archaeology of the Craft , the domestic architecture of the middle ages is rich in materials for study and thought . To understand remote civilisation it is essential that we should

know how the people were lodged , what were their domestic habits and manners , and to what extent the prevailing styles of architecture influenced the daily life of the cultivated classes . The historian has hitherto

ignored archaeology . He has been content to tell us of battles and sieges , or to retail the gossip or scandal of courts , but the materials which alone could afford an insight into the state of the people at any given period , have been held to be beneath the dignity of history .

Macanlay was one of the first of historical writers who ventured to ignore these absurd canons of historic criticism , but his masterpiece is a mere fragment , and goes no further back than the reign of James II . We look in vain in more ambitious works for the details of the daily life

of an Englishman 500 years ago , but happily the archaeologist has come to our aid , and with his assistance much of the obscurity which has rested on this interesting subject

is now being cleared away . Those amongst us who still believe in the " good old times , " may perhaps carry away an erroneous impression from a mere superficial study of the domestic architecture of the middle ao-es . Evidence of the

habits of the common people is difficult to find , since the dwellings in which they lived were mere hovels , which have not escaped the destroying hand of time . In the twelfth century , the period to which we refer , the middle classes had scarcely begun to exist . In walled cities ,

possessing charters , the citizen of the period was commonly a poor and mean person , whose dwelling was a mere den , built of timber and mud . and thatched with straw . There were no doubt a few wealthy merchants , who traded beyond the seas , and whose houses were built of

more ambitious materials ; but if we would learn aught of the manners and habits of the period , we must examine such remains of the manor houses of the nobles as time and the vandalism of ignorant persons have spared to us . Fortunately these remains are by no means scauty , and

by their aid we may not only form a tolerable idea of the domestic habits of their original occupants , but some conception of the kind of work which was accomplished by the masons of the period . The custom of living and eating in common appears to have been a general practice with our

Saxon and Norman ancestors , and accordingly the "Hall" was the principle , and indeed almost the only apartment in an ancient mansion . The Saxon nobles appear to have constructed their dwellings of timber , and in the more ambitious examples the Hall , with the kitchen , stables and

sheds for the serfs , was surrounded by a fortified enclosure flanked by towers . The Norman castle of the twelfth century has been rendered familiar to us by the illuminated manuscripts of the period . Its lofty keep is still a marked feature of many a picturesque ruin , and the Hall often

formed its chief apartment . We have , however , to deal with domestic rather than with military architecture . In the Hall the noble and his retainers took their meals in common . The furniture was of the rudest description ,

consisting merely of a few rough tables and benches , and the earthen or stone floor was strewn with straw or rushes . This primitive carpet was often in the foulest condition with the accumulated filfth of weeks or months , and when it had become too noisome for the seasoned nostrils

The Domestic Architecture Of The Middle Ages.

of the inmates , it was usually carted away and used as manure . The retainers slept in the Hall , either on the tables and benches or upon the floor , while the lord and his lady occupied the only sleeping apartment in the mansion . This chamber , which was usually on the

second story , was called the " solar ' or " sollere , " and the apartment beneath it on a level with the Hall was called the " cellar , " aud was used as such . The architecture of these mansions was of the most substantial kind ; the masonry was always excellent , and the mouldings of the

doors aud windows were generally good . The roof was of open timber , substantially and artistically constructed , and in the earliest examples a central opening was provided for the escape of the smoke of the fire , which occupied the centre of tho floor . The chimney appears to have been a

very uncommon constructive feature in the dwellings of the period , but as wood was tho chief , if not the only fuel used , the inconvenience arising from its absence was not much felt . Glass was a luxury which was but little known , and only sparingly used in Ecclesiastical buildings . Tho

windows in the hall of a noble of the period were merely secured by strong shutters , and it was impossible to admit the light of heaven without permitting the rude winds of our boisterous climate to have free play through the

apartment . At a later period , when glass came into fashion , the heads of the windows were glazed , but this luxury was only within reach of the richest of the upper classes . The masons who erected the halls aud manor houses of the

twelfth century appear to have been a wandering fraternity ; and it would seem that they were intimately associated , and their work was , consequently , characterised by great uniformity . The mouldings and other details of the edifices they erected are all much alike , both in pattern and dimensions

and the carvings with which the heads of columns were enriched , present much uniformity of type . Writers on art , who insist upon " truth " as one of the essentials of good architecture , will be perhaps surprised to learn that the masons of the period did not scruple to use plaster and

whitewash , while the decorator thought the additions of colour to stonework perfectly legitimate ornamentation . Towers decorated with bands of colour externally are frequently represented in the illuminated manuscri pts of the period , and the specifications still existing amply prove

that the internal walls of manor houses were gaily adorned with chromatic designs . The masons appear to have been separated into classes ; there wero cutters and sculptors of free-stone , and layers and setters . They worked either

by the piece or for fixed daily wages . An inferior class of operatives were the " mud stickers , " who filled up the framework of timber houses with mud or mud clay ; in addition , there were the usual assistant labourers , exca » vators and barrow-men .

The remains of the mansions of the twelfth century rarely afford any traces of fortification in the strict sense of the term . The walls , indeed , were always of great thickness , but the high pitched roof was unfitted for defence , and it docs not appear that any of the military

features of domestic architecture was geueral before the thirteenth century . Licenses to embattle the walls of mansions are amongst the most frequent literary relics of this latter period , and the general anxiety which was displayed to adopt this , the then most effective means of

fortifying a dwelling , is one of the collateral proofs of the disturbed state of society . The homes of tho nobles now assumed the appearance of castles , for which tbey are often mistaken by ignorant tourists . The internal arrangements were much more complex than those which satisfied the wants of a former age . The hall was now no