tom. i. p. 318), the house of the burgher (bourgeois) is described by this title:—
Jà Dieu plasce ce soit voir
Que vous vandiez nostre manoir.
In the fabliau Du bouchier d' Abbeville (Barbazan, iv. 1), the house of the priest is called a manor—
Venuz est au manoir le prestre:
while in the fabliau Du vair palefroy (Barbazan, i. p. 164.) the same term is applied to the residence of a knight, which appears by the context to have been rather what we should now call a fortified manor-house than a baronial castle:—
—avoit la seue forterece
De grant terra et de grant richece;
Deus liues ot de l'un manoir
Jusqu' à l'autre.—
At the period of which we are speaking (the thirteenth century) the houses of the people had in general no more than a ground-floor, of which the principal apartment was the aire, aitre, or hall (atrium), into which the principal door opened, and which was the room for cooking, eating, receiving visitors, and the other ordinary usages of domestic life. Adjacent to this was the chamber (chambre), which was by day the private apartment and resort of the female portion of the household, and by night the bed-room. We might give many extracts shewing the juxtaposition of the chamber and the hall. In the fabliau D'Auberée (Jubinal, Nouveau Recueil, i. p. 199), the old woman, visiting the burgher's wife, is led out of the hall into the chamber to see her handsome bed:—
Maintenant se lieva la dame,
Et puis dame Auberée après,
Qu'en une chambre ilueques près
Enmedeus ensamble en entrerent.
And when the lady has taken refuge with Dame Auberée, who holds a much lower rank in society and is represented as very poor, she takes her in the same manner out of the hall into her chamber:—
Lors l'a menée por couchier
En une chambre, iluec de joste.
Strangers and visitors generally slept in the hall, beds being made for them apparently on the floor. In the fabliau Du
