[Illustration: _No. 55. A Norman Carousal._]
We trace in the illuminations of the earlier Norman period the custom of placing the principal apartment at an elevation from the ground. The simple plan of the stone-built house of the latter part of this century, consisted of a square room on the ground floor, often vaulted, and of one room above it, which was the principal apartment, and the sleeping-room. This was approached by a staircase, sometimes external and sometimes internal, and it had a fire-place (_cheminée_), though this was not always the case in the room below. The lower room was the hall, and the upper apartment was called a _solar_, or _soller_ (_solarium_), a word which has been supposed to be derived from _sol_, the sun, which was more felt in this upper room than in the lower, inasmuch as it was better lighted--it was the sunny room. Yet, even here, the windows were small, and without glass. We learn from Joscelin de Brakelonde that, in the year 1182, Samson, abbot of Bury, while lodging in a grange, or manor-house, belonging to his abbey, narrowly escaped being burnt with the house, because the only door of the upper story in which he was lodged happened to be locked, and the windows were too narrow to admit of his passing through them. In the early English “Ancren Riewle,” or rule of nuns, published by the Camden Society, there are several allusions to the windows of the parlour, or private room, which show that they were not glazed, but usually covered with a cloth, or blind, which allowed sufficient light to pass, and that they had shutters on hinges which closed them entirely. In talking of the danger of indulging the eyes, the writer of this treatise (p. 50) says, “My dear sisters, love your windows”--they are called in the original text _thurles_, holes through the wall--“as little as you may, and let them be small, and the parlour’s least and narrowest; let the cloth in them be twofould, black cloth, the cross white within and without.” The writer goes on to moralise on the white cross upon a black ground. In another part of the book (p. 97), the author supposes that men may come and seek to converse with the nuns through the window, and goes on to say, “If any man become so mad and unreasonable that he put forth his hand towards the windowcloth (_the thurl-cloth_), shut the window quickly and leave him.” Under the hall, when it was raised above the level of the ground, there was often another vaulted room, which was the cellar, and which seems to have been usually entered from the inside of the building. In the accompanying cut (No. 55), taken from the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, are seen Harold and his companions carousing in an apartment thus situated, and approached by a staircase from without. The object of this was, perhaps, partly to be more private, for the ordinary public hall at dinner times seems to have been invaded by troops of hungry hangers on, who ate up or carried away the provisions which were taken from the table, and became so bold that they seem to have often seized or tried to seize the provisions from the cooks as they carried them to the table. William Rufus established ushers of the hall and kitchen, whole duty it was to protect the guests and the cooks from this rude rabble. Gaimar’s description of that king’s grand feast at Westminster, contains some curious allusions to this practice. After telling us that three hundred ushers (_ussers_, i.e. _huissiers_), or doorkeepers, were appointed to occupy the entrance passages (_us_), who were to hand with rods to protect the guests as they mounted the steps from the importunity of the _garsons_--