_Là sus m’atent en ce perin._ * * * * * _Ne souffrez pas que il en isse,_ _Ainz l’acueillier al solier haut._
They beat him as he descends the stairs, and pursue him into the garden, all which passes without entering the lower apartments of the house. The _soler_, or upper part of the house, appears to have been considered the place of greatest security--in fact it could only be entered by one door, which was approached by a flight of steps, and was therefore more easily defended than the ground floor. In the beautiful story _De l’ermite qui s’acompaigna à l’ange_, the hermit and his companion seek a night’s lodging at the house of a rich but miserly usurer, who refuses them admittance into the house, and will only permit them to sleep under the staircase, in what the story terms an _auvent_ or shed. The next morning the hermit’s young companion goes upstairs into the soler to find the usurer, who appears to have slept there for security--
_Le vallet les degrez monta,_ _El solier son hoste trova._
It was in the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an avaricious and inhospitable person, to shut his hall door and live in the soler. In a poem of this period, in which the various vices of the age are placed under the ban of excommunication, the miser is thus pointed out:--
_Encor escommeni-je plus_ _Riche homme qui ferme son huis,_ _Et va mengier en solier sus._
The _huis_ was the door of the hall. The soler appears also to have been considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who paid well. In the fabliau _Des trois avugles de Compiengne_, three blind men come to the house of a burgher, and require to be treated better than usual; on which he shows them upstairs--
A clerc, who follows, after putting his horse in the stable, sits at table with his host in the hall, while the three other guests are served “like knights” in the soler above--
_Et li avugle du solier_ _Furent servi com chevalier._
[Illustration: _No. 85. Ancient Manor-House, Millichope, Shropshire._]