View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 36

[652] Muratori, Antichita Italiane, Dissert. 23, t. i. p. 325.

[653] "These English," said the Spaniards who came over with Philip II., "have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king." Harrison's Description of Britain, prefixed to Holingshed, vol. i. p. 315 (edit. 1807).

[654] Pfeffel, t. i. p. 293.

[655] aeneas Sylvius, de Moribus Germanorum. This treatise is an amplified panegyric upon Germany, and contains several curious pa.s.sages: they must be taken perhaps with some allowance; for the drift of the whole is to persuade the Germans, that so rich and n.o.ble a country could afford a little money for the poor pope. Civitates quas vocant liberas, c.u.m Imperatori solum subjiciuntur, cujus jugum est instar libertatis; nec profect usquam gentium tanta libertas est, quanta fruuntur hujuscemodi civitates. Nam populi quos Itali vocant liberos, hi potissimum serviunt, sive Venetias inspectes, sive Florentiam aut Caenas, in quibus cives, praeter paucos qui reliquos duc.u.n.t, loco mancipiorum habentur. c.u.m nec rebus suis uti, ut libet, vel fari quae velint, et gravissimis opprimuntur pecuniarum exactionibus. Apud Germanos omnia laeta sunt, omnia jucunda; nemo suis privatur bonis. Salvo cuique sua haereditas est, nulli nisi nocenti magistratus nocent. Nec apud eos factiones sicut apud Italas urbes gra.s.santur. Sunt autem supra centum civitates hac libertate fruentes. p. 1058.

In another part of his work (p. 719) he gives a specious account of Vienna. The houses, he says, had gla.s.s windows and iron doors. Fenestrae undique vitreae perlucent, et ostia plerumque ferrea. In domibus multa et munda supellex. Altae domus magnificaeque visuntur. Unum id dedecori est, quod tecta plerumque tigno contegunt, pauca latere. Caetera aedificia muro lapideo consistunt. Pictae domus et exterius et interius splendent.

Civitatis populus 50,000 _communicantium_ creditur. I suppose this gives at least double for the total population. He proceeds to represent the manners of the city in a less favourable point of view, charging the citizens with gluttony and libertinism, the n.o.bility with oppression, the judges with corruption, &c. Vienna probably had the vices of a flourishing city; but the love of amplification in so rhetorical a writer as aeneas Sylvius weakens the value of his testimony, on whichever side it is given.

[656] Vols. iv. and vi.

[657] Mr. Lysons refers Castleton to the age of William the Conqueror, but without giving any reasons. Lysons's Derbyshire, p. ccx.x.xvi. Mr.

King had satisfied himself that it was built during the Heptarchy, and even before the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity; but in this he gave the reins, as usual, to his imagination, which as much exceeded his learning, as the latter did his judgment. Conisborough should seem, by the name, to have been a royal residence, which it certainly never was after the Conquest. But if the engravings of the decorative parts in the Archaeologia, vol. vi. p. 244, are not remarkably inaccurate, the architecture is too elegant for the Danes, much more for the unconverted Saxons. Both these castles are enclosed by a court or ballium, with a fortified entrance, like those erected by the Normans.

[No doubt is now entertained but that Conisborough was built late in the Norman period. Mr. King's authority, which I followed for want of a better, is by no means to be depended upon. 1848.]

[658] Whitaker's Hist. of Whalley; Lysons's c.u.mberland, p. ccvi.

[659] The ruins of Herstmonceux are, I believe, tolerably authentic remains of Henry VI.'s age, but only a part of Haddon Hall is of the fifteenth century.

[660] Archaeologia, vol. vi.

[661] Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. iii. p. 242.

[662] Whitaker's Hist. of Whalley.

[663] Lyttelton, t. iv. p. 130.

[664] Harrison says, that few of the houses of the commonalty, except here and there in the west country towns, were made of stone. p. 314.

This was about 1570.

[665] Hist. of Whalley.

[666] "The ancient manors and houses of our gentlemen," says Harrison, "are yet and for the most part, of strong timber, in framing whereof our carpenters have been and are worthily preferred before those of like science among all other nations. Howbeit such as are lately builded are either of brick or hard stone, or both." p. 316.

[667] Archaeologia, vol. i. p. 143; vol. iv. p. 91.

[668] Hist. of Whalley. In Strutt's View of Manners we have an inventory of furniture in the house of Mr. Richard Fermor, ancestor of the earl of Pomfret, at Easton in Northamptonshire, and another in that of Sir Adrian Foskewe. Both these houses appear to have been of the dimensions and arrangement mentioned.

[669] Single rooms, windows, doorways, &c., of an earlier date may perhaps not unfrequently be found; but such instances are always to be verified by their intrinsic evidence, not by the tradition of the place.

[Note II.]

[670] Melanges tires d'une grande bibliotheque, par M. de Paulmy, t.

iii. et x.x.xi. It is to be regretted that Le Grand d'Aussy never completed that part of his Vie privee des Francais which was to have comprehended the history of civil architecture. Villaret has slightly noticed its state about 1380. t. ii. p. 141.

[671] Chenonceaux in Touraine was built by a nephew of Chancellor Duprat; Gaillon in the department of Eure by Cardinal Amboise; both at the beginning of the sixteenth century. These are now considered, in their ruins, as among the most ancient houses in France. A work by Ducerceau (Les plus excellens Batimens de France, 1607) gives accurate engravings of thirty houses; but with one or two exceptions, they seem all to have been built in the sixteenth century. Even in that age, defence was naturally an object in constructing a French mansion-house; and where defence is to be regarded, splendour and convenience must give way. The name of _chateau_ was not retained without meaning.

[672] Melanges tires, &c. t. iii. For the prosperity and downfall of Jacques Coeur, see Villaret, t. xvi. p. 11; but more especially Mem.

de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xx. p. 509. His mansion at Bourges still exists, and is well known to the curious in architectural antiquity. In former editions I have mentioned a house of Jacques Coeur at Beaumont-sur-Oise; but this was probably by mistake, as I do not recollect, nor can find, any authority for it.

[673] Giannone, Ist. di Napoli, t. iii. p. 280.

[674] Muratori, Antich. Ital. Dissert. 25, p. 390. Beckman, in his History of Inventions, vol. i., a work of very great research, cannot trace any explicit mention of chimneys beyond the writings of John Villani, wherein however they are not noticed as a new invention. Piers Plowman, a few years later than Villani, speaks of a "chambre with a chimney" in which rich men usually dined. But in the account-book of Bolton Abbey, under the year 1311, there is a charge pro faciendo camino in the rectory-house of Gargrave. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 331.

This may, I think, have been only an iron stove or fire-pan; though Dr.

W. without hesitation translates it a chimney. However, Mr. King, in his observations on ancient castles, Archaeol. vol. vi., and Mr. Strutt, in his View of Manners, vol. i., describe chimneys in castles of a very old construction. That at Conisborough in Yorkshire is peculiarly worthy of attention, and carries back this important invention to a remote antiquity.

In a recent work of some reputation, it is said:--"There does not appear to be any evidence of the use of chimney-shafts in England prior to the twelfth century. In Rochester Castle, which is in all probability the work of William Corbyl, about 1130, there are complete fireplaces with semicircular backs, and a shaft in each jamb, supporting a semicircular arch over the opening, and that is enriched with the zigzag moulding; some of these project slightly from the wall; the flues, however, go only a few feet up in the thickness of the wall, and are then turned out at the back, the apertures being small oblong holes. At the castle, Hedingham, Ess.e.x, which is of about the same date, there are fireplaces and chimneys of a similar kind. A few years later, the improvement of carrying the flue up the whole height of the wall appears; as at Christ Church, Hants; the keep at Newcastle; Sherborne Castle, &c. The early chimney-shafts are of considerable height, and similar; afterwards they a.s.sumed a great variety of forms, and during the fourteenth century they are frequently very short." Glossary of Ancient Architecture, p. 100, edit. 1845. It is said, too, here that chimneys were seldom used in halls till near the end of the fifteenth century; the smoke took its course, if it pleased, through a hole in the roof.

Chimneys are still more modern in France; and seem, according to Paulmy, to have come into common use since the middle of the seventeenth century. Jadis nos peres n'avoient qu'un unique chauffoir, qui etoit commun a toute une famille, et quelquefois a plusieurs. t. iii. p. 133.

In another place, however, he says: Il parait que les tuyaux de cheminees etaient deja tres en usage en France, t. x.x.xi. p. 232.

[675] Du Cange, v. Vitreae; Bentham's History of Ely, p. 22.

[676] Matt Paris; Vitae Abbatum St. Alb. 122.

[677] Recueil des Hist. t. xii. p. 101.

[678] Paulmy, t. iii. p. 132. Villaret, t. xi. p. 141. Macpherson, p.

679.

[679] Northumberland Household Book, preface, p. 16. Bishop Percy says, on the authority of Harrison, that gla.s.s was not commonly used in the reign of Henry VIII.

[680] See some curious valuations of furniture and stock in trade at Colchester in 1296 and 1301. Eden's Introduct. to State of the Poor, p.

20 and 25, from the Rolls of Parliament. A carpenter's stock was valued at a shilling, and consisted of five tools. Other tradesmen were almost as poor; but a tanner's stock, if there is no mistake, was worth 9_l._ 7_s._ 10_d._, more than ten times any other. Tanners were princ.i.p.al tradesmen, the chief part of dress being made of leather. A few silver cups and spoons are the only articles of plate; and as the former are valued but at one or two shillings, they had, I suppose, but a little silver on the rim.

[681] Nicholl's Ill.u.s.trations, p. 119. In this work, among several interesting facts of the same cla.s.s, we have another inventory of the goods of "John Port, late the king's servant," who died about 1524: he seems to have been a man of some consideration and probably a merchant.

The house consisted of a hall, parlour, b.u.t.tery, and kitchen, with two chambers, and one smaller, on the floor above; a napery, or linen room, and three garrets, besides a shop, which was probably detached. There were five bedsteads in the house, and on the whole a great deal of furniture for those times; much more than I have seen in any other inventory. His plate is valued at 94_l._; his jewels at 23_l._; his funeral expenses come to 73_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ p. 119.

[682] Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 289. A better notion of the accommodations usual in the rank immediately below may be collected from two inventories published by Strutt, one of Mr. Fermor's house at Easton, the other Sir Adrian Foskewe's. I have mentioned the size of these gentlemen's houses already. In the former, the parlour had wainscot, a table and a few chairs; the chambers above had two best beds, and there was one servant's bed; but the inferior servants had only mattresses on the floor. The best chambers had window shutters and curtains. Mr. Fermor, being a merchant, was probably better supplied than the neighbouring gentry. His plate however consisted only of sixteen spoons, and a few goblets and ale pots. Sir Adrian Foskewe's opulence appears to have been greater; he had a service of silver plate, and his parlour was furnished with hangings. This was in 1539; it is not to be imagined that a knight of the shire a hundred years before would have rivalled even this scanty provision of moveables. Strutt's View of Manners, vol. iii. p. 63. These details, trifling as they may appear, are absolutely necessary in order to give an idea with some precision of a state of national wealth so totally different from the present.

[683] Cuperent tam egregie Scotorum reges quam mediocres Nurembergae cives habitare. aen. Sylv. apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allem. t. v. p. 510.

[684] t. iii. p. 127.

[685] Crescentius in Commodum Ruralium. (Lovaniae, absque anno.) This old edition contains many coa.r.s.e wooden cuts, possibly taken from the illuminations which Paulmy found in his ma.n.u.script.

[686] Harrison's account of England, prefixed to Hollingshed's Chronicles. Chimneys were not used in the farm-houses of Cheshire till within forty years of the publication of King's Vale-royal (1656); the fire was in the midst of the house, against a hob of clay, and the oxen lived under the same roof. Whitaker's Craven, p. 334.

[687] The Saracenic architecture was once conceived to have been the parent of the Gothic. But the pointed arch does not occur, I believe, in any Moorish buildings; while the great mosque of Cordova, built in the eighth century, resembles, except by its superior beauty and magnificence, one of our oldest cathedrals; the nave of Gloucester, for example, or Durham. Even the vaulting is similar, and seems to indicate some imitation, though perhaps of a common model. Compare Archaeologia, vol. xvii. plate 1 and 2, with Murphy's Arabian Antiquities, plate 5.

The pillars indeed at Cordova are of the Corinthian order, perfectly executed, if we may trust the engraving, and the work, I presume, of Christian architects; while those of our Anglo-Norman cathedrals are generally an imitation of the Tuscan shaft, the builders not venturing to trust their roofs to a more slender support, though Corinthian foliage is common in the capitals, especially those of smaller ornamental columns. In fact, the Roman architecture is universally acknowledged to have produced what we call the Saxon or Norman; but it is remarkable that it should have been adopted, with no variation but that of the singular horse-shoe arch, by the Moors of Spain.

The Gothic, or pointed arch, though very uncommon in the genuine Saracenic of Spain and the Levant, may be found in some prints from Eastern buildings; and is particularly striking in the facade of the great mosque at Lucknow, in Salt's designs for Lord Valentia's Travels.

The pointed arch buildings in the Holy Land have all been traced to the age of the Crusades. Some arches, if they deserve the name, that have been referred to this cla.s.s, are not pointed by their construction, but rendered such by cutting off and hollowing the projections of horizontal stones.

[688] Gibbon has a.s.serted, what might justify this appellation, that "the image of Theodoric's palace at Verona, still extant on a coin, represents the oldest and most authentic model of Gothic architecture."

vol. vii. p. 33. For this he refers to Maffei, Verona Ill.u.s.trata, p. 31, where we find an engraving, not indeed of a coin, but of a seal; the building represented on which is in a totally dissimilar style. The following pa.s.sages in Ca.s.siodorus, for which I am indebted to M.

Ginguene, Hist. Litter. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 55, would be more to the purpose: Quid dicamus columnarum junceam proceritatem? moles illas sublimissimas fabricarum quasi quibusdam erectis hastilibus contineri.