THE FORTIFIED MANOR HOUSE OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY--THE DOMINANCE OF THE HALL.
Although the first germ of the house of to-day is to be found in the
Norman keep, its more direct ancestor was the fortified manor house.
The chief room here, as in the keep, was the hall; indeed it was of
greater relative importance in the manor house than in the castle. In
the latter it had rooms of equal size above and below it, rooms which
must have helped to lessen the pressure on its space. In the former
it was not so much the heart of the house as the house itself. It was
often the only considerable room in the building, supplemented by a
kitchen and a “chamber” or two. So overmastering was its importance
that the house was called “the hall,” a designation which, to this day,
is applied to the principal house in a parish. There were, however,
supplementary rooms, some for the master, and some for the servants; in
the earlier examples, indeed, the plural is hardly admissible; there
was one for the master, called the “solar,” and there was a kitchen,
or a kitchen department, which was the headquarters of the servants.
The hall lay between the two; at one end was the kitchen with whatever
it had of pantry and buttery; at the other was the solar, a small room
for the private occupation of the lord--a room generally upstairs, and
over a cellar or store place. Other rooms there were none. The hall was
the house; everybody lived there when indoors, everybody ate there,
everybody slept there.
Knight, and page, and household squire,
Loitered through the lofty hall,
Or crowded round the ample fire.
The household stores, if put away anywhere, went to the cellar; the
food was cooked in the kitchen, there was a pantry where it was kept
when not in the kitchen, there was a buttery where the drink was
served: the lord, when he desired privacy, sought his solar. The rest
of the household presumably never had privacy even if they desired
it. It was an elementary state of things, and the story of domestic
architecture is made up of the efforts to obtain greater privacy and
more comfort. It was a long and gradual development. The hall remained
for centuries the centre and kernel of the house; but at one end of it
the solar gradually swelled into suites of apartments for the family;
at the other, the kitchen grew into the servants’ wing, with scullery,
larders, pantry, and many other subdivisions. When we remember this
primitive type of plan and then look at the plan of an Elizabethan
manor house (usually quite simple in its arrangements), it becomes less
difficult to imagine the stages through which it must have passed since
the time of the hall, solar, and kitchen; and it is easy, on the other
hand, to see how the simple Elizabethan plan grew into the complicated
arrangements necessary for our comfort to-day.
The hall, then, being pre-eminently the principal room, requires our
first attention. It was necessarily of large size, and it was lofty.
In the majority of instances it was of one storey with an open timber
roof, and consequently it completely separated from each other the
subsidiary rooms built at either end of it. This is observable down
to Elizabethan days, when the family apartments and the servants’
quarters had each grown into a considerable wing of at least two
storeys in height. Each wing had to have its own staircases, and on the
upper floor the hall interposed an impassable barrier between the two
ends of the house.
The hall was planned so that the entrance was at the servants’ end,
where most of the traffic was. The bulk of the floor space was thus
left clear for the tables, and for the purposes of daily life. The lord
and his family sat at the “high table” at the upper end, farthest away
from the draughty entrance. There was at this end a raised platform
some 6 inches high, called the daïs, and it was on the daïs that the
high table was placed. Judging from the floor levels of the earliest
houses, there would not seem to have been a daïs, unless it were a
movable platform. Through the wall at the upper end a doorway led to
the family room or rooms. The two long sides of the hall were usually
free from any buildings, and were occupied by the windows. At Minster
Lovel in Oxfordshire, however--a splendid house of the Lovels, now in
hopeless ruin--the lofty hall was flanked on one side with a building
of two storeys. The windows on the opposite side were large and long,
set fairly high up in the thick wall, of fine Perpendicular design, and
finished at the top with the usual simple tracery. Those on the side
flanked by the two-storey building were so much curtailed by it as to
retain nothing below the tracery.
The entrance was generally cut off from the rest of the hall by a
screen (at any rate in later years). The screen did not extend the full
height of the hall, but stopped short some 10 or 12 ft. high, and was
connected to the end wall by a floor, which thus at once served as a
ceiling to the entrance passage, and formed a gallery, usually called
the minstrels’ gallery, though indeed it may well be doubted whether
in many of the smaller houses it was put to regular use, inasmuch as
there was no convenient means of access. The fire was frequently,
though not by any means always, placed on a hearth in the middle of the
floor, yet not exactly the middle, but rather towards the end where the
family sat. There are plenty of instances where the hall was warmed
by a fireplace even in fairly early times. There are also instances
as late as the sixteenth century of hearths being constructed on the
floor. At Deene Hall in Northamptonshire, built in the time of Edward
VI., there was no fireplace in the hall until the father of the late
Lord Cardigan (of Balaclava fame) caused one to be made. The roof shows
by the absence of cross-braces in one of its bays where the louvre for
the escape of smoke used to stand.
These general dispositions were, of course, subject to variations in
particular instances, but the main idea of entering the hall at its
lower end, of the kitchens being at this end and the solar or family
rooms at the other, is so universal as to furnish a clue to the
unravelling of the mysteries of many a complicated ruin.
The finest example in England of an early hall is to be found at
Oakham Castle in Rutland. It is of such a large size, 65 ft. long by
43 ft. wide, that it serves for the Law Courts of the county, the
Assizes, Quarter Sessions, and County Court being all held within its
four walls. The fittings necessary for these purposes rather obscure
its original appearance, which was as spacious as a good-sized parish
church, and very much of the same character. It is divided into what
may be termed nave and aisles separated by fine bold arcades (Fig. 13).
[Illustration: 13. Oakham Castle.
Interior of the Hall.]
This disposition is extremely interesting, as it at once raises the
question of the resemblance between ecclesiastical and domestic
architecture, and takes us immediately to the root of the matter,
namely, that architecture is essentially a noble form of construction,
embellished suitably to its purpose. It follows, therefore, that church
and house architecture are only likely to differ in so far as their
purposes differ. Here at Oakham was a space to be covered of much the
same area as a church, and it was covered in the same way. The means at
the disposal of the builders forbade very wide spans, therefore they
divided the width of the building by two walls carried on a series of
arches. The middle space (or nave) was of no greater width than could
be covered by a timber roof resting on the arcaded walls. The two outer
spaces (or aisles) were covered by narrower roofs leaning against the
walls of the nave. This simple solution of a constructional problem
was applied equally to churches or houses, but it so happens that
there were many churches of a width demanding such a treatment and but
few houses. The churches have survived, while the houses have mostly
disappeared; and consequently the disposition which is in reality
constructional, has become associated with church architecture. So too
with various features, such as doors and windows. These were treated,
broadly speaking, in the same way whether in churches or houses, but in
the former they were, as a rule, more elaborately embellished. Their
general forms were the same; that is to say, when arches were round
in churches they were round in houses; when pointed in the one they
were pointed in the other. When mullions, tracery, and cusping became
the fashion in churches, they became also, though in less degree, the
fashion in houses. This, however, is to be observed that, as a rule,
more elaboration and more fancy were bestowed upon ecclesiastical work
than upon domestic. So far as windows are concerned the practical
necessity of having some means of opening and closing those in
houses led to the dividing of them into manageable sizes by means of
horizontal cross-bars or transomes, which are much more frequent in
houses than in churches.
This similarity of treatment between the two classes of buildings,
although only what might be expected on reflection, has led to much
confusion in the popular mind, and has resulted in many an old hall
being looked upon as a chapel.
But to return to Oakham Castle. Strictly speaking it was not a
castle, but merely a strongly defended manor house. It lies in a
large enclosure surrounded by the ruins of a wall. The wall shows no
signs of having been guarded by the towers customary in a castle,
but is built on the summit of an embankment, which may be the remains
of an extremely ancient stronghold. The height and steepness of the
bank, increased by the height of the wall, although the latter was
ill-constructed, must have rendered attack difficult. The enclosure
was entered through a gatehouse, which has entirely disappeared and
only lives in a record of the fourteenth century. This record is an
Inquisition of the year 1340, and is interesting as enumerating the
accommodation of the place at the time. It says that the castle was
well walled, and contained one hall, four chambers, and one kitchen;
there were also two stables, one grange for hay, one house for
prisoners, one chamber for the porter, and one drawbridge with iron
chains (this indicates the gatehouse). There was also a free chapel
within the castle. Such was the accommodation of an important house in
the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: 14. Oakham Castle, Rutland (_cir._ 1180).
The Hall.]
The hall is the only building left, and it is clear from its
architectural features that the four chambers and the kitchen could
only have been of one storey in height, at any rate so far as they were
contiguous to the building. The overpowering importance of the hall is
thus further established. Its plan is of the usual type (Fig. 14). The
entrance door was at the end of one of its sides, although many years
ago it was removed, for greater convenience in relation to modern uses,
to its present position in the middle.
[Illustration: 15. Oakham Castle, Rutland (_cir._ 1180).
The Hall.
The door was originally at the right-hand end of the front.
The original window in the gable is shown as blocked up; that
immediately above the doors is of late date.]
In the end adjacent to the entrance were two doors (there are also
indications of a third at the end of the north aisle) which led to the
kitchen, the pantry, and buttery. At the upper end was a door which
led to the solar and subsequently, no doubt, to the four chambers,
mentioned in the Inquisition, which replaced it. At the time when the
hall was built, about 1180, the probability is that there were not so
many as four chambers, but merely the solar. There is no fireplace, so
the fire must have been on a central hearth, with a louvre over it in
the roof; but the present roof having been rebuilt affords no evidence
on this point. The lighting was from small windows in the side walls,
supplemented by a larger one in the gable over the doors to the kitchen
(Fig. 15). The side walls are necessarily not very lofty, and the
light from the small windows had a long way to travel, consequently
the place must have been but ill-lighted although far more cheerful
than contemporary keeps. The lighting was wholly inadequate for modern
purposes, and has therefore been increased by means of dormers.
The style of the work is such as marks the buildings of the later years
of the twelfth century. The four arches of the arcades are semicircular
and of about 15 ft. span; they rest on massive round pillars (Fig.
13), and where they spring from the end walls they rest on corbels of
unusual and quaint design. The entrance door is round-headed and of
two orders, the outer being carried on a shaft and cap. The windows
are of two lights, with pointed heads, the mouldings carried on shafts
externally; the tympanum is filled in solid, thus making the actual
light square-headed. Internally each window is set in a deep recess
under a round-headed arch carried down to the floor, thus differing
from church windows which usually have a sill the full thickness of
the wall. The angles of the windows inside and out, as well as the
outer angles of the doorway, are ornamented with the dog-tooth. The
illustrations make this short description plainer than many words,
and they show how in general treatment the door and windows closely
resemble contemporary work in churches.
There are no indications of a screen at the entrance end, nor of a daïs
at the upper, inasmuch as the ornament of the window-recesses goes down
to the floor in all cases, whereas had there been a permanent daïs, it
would have stopped short to accommodate it.
[Illustration: 16. Oakham Castle.
Pier cap.]
The pillars of the arcade have vigorously carved caps admirably
designed (Fig. 16), and they support, between the springing of the
arches, quaint figures of musicians. Two of the heads which support a
corbel on the wall near the entrance are supposed to represent Henry
II. and his queen. The whole of the work is excellent in design and
execution, and the hall, both in its arrangement and its building, is
the most valuable example left of its period.
The hall at Oakham is typical, as to its main features, of all others
down to the end of the sixteenth century. That is to say, the hall
was the principal room; it was entered through the screens; at the
lower end were the kitchens, at the upper the family rooms. It was
nearly always a lofty apartment of one storey with an open timber
roof. The principal changes that took place in the room itself were
the elimination of the pillars and the contriving of a roof to cover
it in one span from wall to wall; the provision of larger windows, and
especially of a bay window at the daïs end; the addition of a porch to
protect the front entrance from the weather. The other changes which
affected it were those which took place in the rooms at either end;
the growth of the solar into a suite of rooms, and the provision of
separate sleeping accommodation for the servants. By the end of the
sixteenth century these changes had very materially affected the size
and plan of the house, and they ultimately led to the extinction of the
hall as a living room; but this development will be further considered
in a later chapter.
[Illustration: 17. Cothele House, Cornwall (time of Henry VII.).
The Great Hall.]
An illustration of a late hall (of the time of Henry VII.) is given in
Fig. 17, from Cothele House in Cornwall. It shows the large window, the
fireplace, and the start of the open roof. The daïs has disappeared,
as it has in most old houses, but the door leading to the family rooms
is visible in the corner. It gives a good idea of the appearance of a
mediæval hall.
All the changes which took place in the treatment of dwellings tended
towards the increase of comfort. The growth, it is true, was slow, and
if a modern critic were compelled to dwell in them, the difference to
him between a house of the twelfth century and one of the thirteenth
would hardly be perceptible; both would be intolerable. But gradually
the number of rooms increased both at the upper and lower ends of the
hall. The keep still survived in a modified form, and often formed
the nucleus round which the rest of the house grew. At Stokesay in
Shropshire, which dates from about 1240, or sixty years later than
Oakham, there is still a keep, but it is almost detached from the
actual house, and may have served as the final stronghold to which
the inhabitants could retreat in times of stress. At Longthorpe in
Northamptonshire, some two miles to the west of Peterborough, there
is a very interesting though small example of a keep or peel-tower
attached to the house, and forming an integral part of it. The house
was built in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and has
undergone many alterations; but the tower remains in good preservation,
as also does a contemporary gable adjacent to it, the only remnant of
the original house.
The most usual method of protecting these manor houses was to surround
them with a moat, across which a drawbridge led to a strongly defended
gateway. Bodiam Castle in Sussex, on the borders of Kent (Fig. 18), is
an excellent example of a moated structure. It was built in 1386 as a
place of defence, rather than as a dwelling-house. In hilly districts
moats were impossible, and in such cases advantage was taken of a
precipitous piece of ground which might furnish natural protection on
as many sides as possible. Aydon Castle in Northumberland is a striking
instance of the latter kind of defence, being situated on the edge of
a ravine. Although inhabited, it still retains much of its original
appearance, and many of its original features.
[Illustration: 18. Bodiam Castle, Sussex (1386).
Showing the Moat.]
[Illustration: 19. Stokesay Castle, Shropshire (_cir._ 1240–90).
Ground Plan.]
Stokesay (about 1240–1290) was defended by a moat, crossed no doubt by
a drawbridge, and entered through a gatehouse. The original fortified
gatehouse, however, has been replaced by a picturesque half-timber
structure of Elizabeth’s time, and the drawbridge by a solid approach.
The gateway led into a large courtyard, on the opposite side of which
stood, and still stands, the house (see plan, Fig. 19). The chief
apartment, as usual, is the hall, not so large as that at Oakham,
but still of fair size, 52 by 31 ft., that is to say large enough to
contain, with plenty of space to spare, two complete houses such as
now form the streets of a growing town. It is covered with a simply
designed open timber roof (see section, Fig. 20), the principal rafters
of which rest on plain built-out corbels. There were no buttresses to
counteract its thrust, until it was found necessary to build some on
the courtyard side. Unlike Oakham, the hall at Stokesay has rooms
attached to it at each end. At the lower end they are of three storeys,
at the upper of two. Applying the usual rule the three-storeyed part
(marked on the plan “North Tower”) ought to have been for the servants’
or retainers’ use; and it is possible that in early days it was. The
lowest storey was doubtless a cellar, the upper ones, however, are
furnished with large fireplaces, which point to their occupation by a
superior class of persons. In later years the topmost room was enlarged
and made more cheerful by adding some overhanging half-timber work in
which plenty of windows were introduced (Fig. 21). The kitchen must
have stood at this end, but there are no remains of it left. There was
at one time a return wing running east from the north tower; it was
built of wood, and contained kitchens, probably of a date subsequent
to the hall. These rooms at the lower end were approached by a wooden
stair within the hall, a rather unusual arrangement. From the upper end
of the hall access was obtained by an external flight of stone steps
to the solar, or lord’s chamber, which had a large fireplace, and on
either side of it a small window looking into the hall, so that the
lord--or more probably, considering the immutability of human nature,
the lady--could overlook that apartment after retiring from it. The
solar was embellished in later times with panelling and a fine wood
chimney-piece, and thus rendered a very pleasant room. Beneath the
solar was, as usual, a cellar or store place on the ground floor, and
beneath that another cellar underground. Outside and beyond the solar
stands the massive south tower or keep of three storeys, with one room
on each floor. They have fireplaces, but the windows are small, and
were never glazed, but merely closed with shutters.
[Illustration: 20. Stokesay Castle.
Section of Great Hall.
In the end wall are two small windows opening from the solar.]
[Illustration: 21. Stokesay Castle (General View).
The hall and adjoining rooms are to the right; the south tower is in
the centre; the Elizabethan gatehouse to the left.]
[Illustration: 22. Stokesay Castle.
Window and Doorway of the Hall.]
It must be borne in mind that hitherto windows had not been glazed.
They were usually of small size for purposes of security, and no doubt
their smallness was an advantage so far as the inlet of cold air was
concerned. But they rendered the rooms gloomy to the last degree, and
the unlucky people of the time must often have had the choice of two
evils, icy draughts, or the darkness which followed the closing of the
shutters. No wonder the fireplaces were made large, yet even with a
blazing fire in the middle of the hall, none of its heat being lost up
the chimney, the plight of the household must have resembled that of
travellers round a camp fire who complain of being roasted on one side
and frozen on the other.
In the hall at Stokesay, however, the windows are large, and the lights
are of such ample width as to offer but little protection against
attack. They are two lights wide and two lights high, the upper ones
being pointed and cusped, and surmounted by a circular eye (Fig. 22).
This eye and the upper lights were glazed, but the lower ones were
merely closed with shutters. This amount of glazing is a decided
advance in comfort, and so is the size of the windows, which must have
rendered the hall quite a cheerful place, in striking contrast to the
gloom of the tower, where the small windows provide a patch of light
which only renders the general darkness more pronounced (Fig. 23).
[Illustration: 23. Stokesay Castle.
Window in South Tower--Showing shutter and stone seats.]
The glazing of windows was carried out in a fitful way. Some windows
in buildings as early as Stokesay were already glazed, others even
so late as the end of the fifteenth century were not so treated. In
the scanty remains of Abingdon Abbey the so-called Prior’s Room has
never had glass in its windows. This room is of the early Decorated
period (_c._ 1300) and whether devoted to the prior or not, it
was of sufficient importance to have a fine fireplace and plastered
walls ornamented with coloured lines. The windows of the adjoining
guest-house (if such were its purpose) have likewise never been glazed.
These are of much later date--towards the end of the fifteenth century.
They, too, lighted rooms of some importance, 30 ft. long, warmed by a
large fire, handsomely roofed, and decorated in places with elaborate
ornament.[1] Horn was occasionally used as a material for glazing prior
to the general use of glass.
The improvement in domestic arrangements which is observable in the
actual buildings at Stokesay is also noticeable in such contemporary
accounts of building works as have been preserved. The Liberate Rolls
of Henry III.’s time (1232–1269) contain many orders issued in respect
of the king’s houses which were scattered up and down the country in
almost every southern county from Kent to Hereford, and northwards to
Northamptonshire and Nottingham. They nearly all point towards making
the houses more comfortable. Windows were to be glazed to prevent
draughts; porches were to be built to external doors; passages of
communication were to be made from one building to another; roofs and
walls were to be wainscoted; windows were to be enlarged; fireplaces
were to be built; _garde-robes_ were to be made less offensive;
in some cases drainage was to be executed as a protection to health.
Everything goes to show that Henry’s aim was to make his houses more
convenient and more comfortable. In addition to structural alterations
there are many orders for decoration. Buildings were to be whitewashed
inside and out; windows were to be filled with painted glass, either
heraldic or setting forth some scriptural subject, notably the story of
Dives and Lazarus; shutters were to be painted with the king’s arms;
and most frequently of all, rooms were to be painted green spangled
with gold stars. It is quite clear that houses were gradually becoming
not merely places of safety and of shelter from winter and rough
weather, but places of pleasure and delight; not merely lairs but
homes.