EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES.--THEIR GENERAL FORM AND DISTRIBUTION.
After the middle of the twelfth century, we begin to be better acquainted with the domestic manners of our forefathers, and from that period to the end of the fourteenth century the change was very gradual, and in many respects they remained nearly the same. In the middle classes, especially in the towns, there had been a gradual fusion of Norman and Saxon manners, while the Norman fashions and the Norman language prevailed in the higher classes, and the manners of the lower classes remained, probably, nearly the same as before the Conquest.
We now obtain a more perfect notion of the houses of all classes, not only from more frequent and exact descriptions, but from existing remains. The principal part of the building was still the hall, or, according to the Norman word, the _salle_, but its old Saxon character seems to have been so universally acknowledged, that the first or Saxon name prevailed over the other. The name now usually given to the whole dwelling-house was the Norman word _manoir_ or manor, and we find this applied popularly to the houses of all classes, excepting only the cottages of labouring people. In houses of the twelfth century, the hall, standing on the ground floor, and open to the roof, still formed the principal feature of the building. The chamber generally adjoined to it at one end, and at the other was usually a stable (_croiche_). The whole building stood within a small enclosure, consisting of a yard or court in front, called in Norman _aire_ (area), and a garden, which was surrounded usually with a hedge and ditch. In front, the house had usually one door, which was the main entrance into the hall. From this latter apartment there was a door into the chamber at one end, and one into the _croiche_ or stable at the other end, and a back door into the garden. The chamber had also frequently a door which opened also into the garden; the stable, as a matter of course, would have a large door or outlet into the yard. The chief windows were those of the hall. These, in common houses, appear to have been merely openings, which might be closed with wooden shutters; and in other parts of the building they were nothing but holes (_pertuis_); there appears to have been usually one of these holes in the partition wall between the chamber and the hall, and another between the hall and the stable. There was also an outer window, or _pertuis_, to the chamber.