2. Position of the Hall and Chamber, MS. Add No. 10,293, fol. 139. vo. Our second figure is a good illustration of what was said in our last number on the juxtaposition of the hall and chamber in houses of the thirteenth century, as described in the fabliaux of that age. The chapter to which it belongs is entitled, Ensi que Gal. parole à Lancelot en une chambre, et li chevalier les atendoient en la sale; and the hall is represented open on one side in order to exhibit the knights within, while the door of the chamber shews us the king in conversation with Lancelot. The next cut (fig. 3.) furnishes an exceedingly good picture of a house of the beginning of the fourteenth century
3. A House, from MS. Addit. No. 10,293, fol. 199. vo. (the age of the MS.)[1]: it is entitled, Ensi que Lancelot ront les fers d'une fenestre et si entre dedens pour gesir avoec la royne. The queen has informed Lancelot that the head of her bed lies near the window of her chamber, and that he may come by night to the window, which is defended by an iron grating, to talk with her, and she
- ↑ The cut also shews the simple form of the houses even of the great. In a tract in a MS. of the thirteenth century (MS. Reg. 3. A. x. fol. 180), an alphabetical list of names of things, and their definitions, gives the following account of a house:—
Domus sic ædificatur.
Primo terra foditur.
Deinde fundamentum jacitur
Post parietes eriguntur.
Diversa laquearia interponuntur.
Tectum superponitur,
Quadrata est.