Life on a Mediaeval Barony. William Stearns Davis
is a stout projecting beam rigged with a pulley. Here is a gibbet in case the baron wishes to hang offenders as a warning for the countryside. Fortunately, however, Adela has a dislike to seeing the corpses dangling, and has persuaded Conon to order his recent hangings at the ordinary gallows across the Claire by the village. On the flag turret is always a watchman; day or night some peasant must take his turn, and even in peace he has no sinecure. He must blow on his great horn at sunrise, at "cover fire" at night, when the baron's hunt rides out and returns, and again when a strange retinue approaches the gate. The whole wide countryside spreads in a delightful panorama below him at present, but on winter nights, when every blast is howling around the donjon, the task is less grateful. No wonder that peasants impressed for this service complain that "watchmen have the lot of the damned."
So back through the donjon and again to the castle court. The donjon is purely military. In times of peace it is a mere storehouse, prison, and supplementary barrack for the seigneur's people. In war it is the last position where the garrison can stand desperately at bay. A hundred years earlier Adela and her sister-in-law, Alienor, would have lived out most of their days in the cheerless dark chambers directly above the main hall. Now they are more fortunate. They dwell in the elegant Gothic arched palais.
Great Hall of the Palais
The palais consists of a long, somewhat narrow building thrusting out into the inner court, and of other structures resting against the western curtain wall on one side, but with their larger inner windows looking also into the court. The rooms are high, with enormous fireplaces where great logs can warm the apartments in winter. The ceilings are ribbed and vaulted like a church, and some of the masonry is beautifully carved. Where the bare walls are exposed they are often covered with a stucco on which are sketched fresco scenes somewhat after the style of stiff Byzantine paintings, or the famous tapestry of Queen Mathilde at Bayeux. All the tints are flat red, yellow, or brown, without perspective or fine lines, and in a kind of demi-silhouette. Little touches of green, violet, and blue relieve the bareness, and despite many awkward outlines and other limitations many of the scenes are spirited as well as highly decorative. Some of the pictures are religious. We notice "Christ on the Cross" between the "Synagogue" and the "New Law," a "Last Judgment," an episode in the life of St. Aliquis himself; also many secular pictures based often on the jongleur's epics. Thus from the "Song of Roland" there is the tearing by wild horses of the traitor Ganelon.
The windows in this palais betray the luxury of the owner. They are not closed by wooden shutters, as are most other apertures in the castle. They are of glass, with very small panes set in lead. The panes in the smaller rooms are uncolored, although hardly of transparent whiteness, but in the huge dining hall they are richly colored as in a church, giving a jewel-set galaxy of patron saints (e.g., St. Martin, the warrior saint of France) and of knights and paladins from Charlemagne and King Artus down, gazing benignantly upon the feasters below.
This new hall is, of course, the finest apartment in the castle. Here amid wood- and stone-work deeply carved the baron's household sits down to dinner. It is, however, more than a mere dining room. Great feudal ceremonies, such as the receiving of homage, here take place. Hither also in bad weather or on winter evenings nearly all the castle folk will resort. Messire will sit on the dais upon his canopied chair; everybody else will wedge in as closely as possible, and after infinite chatter, jesting, dice playing, and uproar the ever-popular jongleurs will take station near the fireplace, do their tricks, sing songs, or recite romances. The hall is, in short, the focus of the peaceful life of the castle.
There are other rooms in the palais, but, considering the number of people who have to live therein, they seem rather few. There is little real privacy in St. Aliquis. The baron has a special closet indeed, where he can retire and hope that he is not overheard, but the great chamber for himself and the baroness is ordinarily full of servitors. Next to the chamber is a second room where the baron's sons sleep while they are little, and where honored guests can be lodged. Conon's brother and sister have each a large apartment, but there seems a singular lack of anterooms, boudoirs, and other retiring rooms. It is perfectly good manners to ask noble guests to share the same rooms with the family; and a couple of the baroness's maids will sleep on pallets within her chamber, with the baron's favorite squire just outside the door. As for the lesser folk at night, they often stretch unceremoniously on the tables or even on the floor in the main hall. The possession of a strictly private room is indeed a decided luxury; even a great noble is often able to go without it.
INTERIOR OF A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY APARTMENT
From the restoration by Viollet-Le-Duc. At the left the chair where sits the seigneur, the bed separated by a screen from the rest of the hall; at the back, between the two windows, a cupboard; opposite the fireplace, a large table. Tapestries ornament the walls.
Tables, Rushes and Tapestries in Hall
The furniture of these apartments seems scanty, but it is at least very solid. In the hall there are lines of tables set upon trestles, faced by long backless seats. Here it is often needful to remove these tables to arrange for a feudal ceremony or for a dance; but at one end of the apartment is a raised dais, and at right angles to the others runs the ponderous oaken table of the master. Conon faces the hall from a high carved chair under a wooden canopy. The other seats on the dais have the luxury of backs and arms. The fireplace is an enormous construction, thrusting far into the room, where long logs on high andirons can heat the stonework so it will glow furiously for hours. To keep off the heat in winter there are fire screens of osier, but of course in summer these disappear. Every festival day the paved floors of the rooms in the palais are strewn, if possible, with new rushes and flowers—roses and lilies, flags and mint, making a soft crackling mass under one's feet. They are fragrant and pleasant while fresh, and even through the winter are allowed to remain to protect against the chill of the floor. By springtime they are dried and are very filthy, for the diners throw their bones and bits of bread and meat into them, and the dogs and cats roaming about cannot devour all of such refuse. Certain seigneurs, indeed are introducing the use of "Saracen carpets," gorgeous rugs either imported from the East or made up in France after imported patterns; but these are an expensive innovation, and Conon as yet keeps to his river rushes.
Of another luxury, however, he is rightly proud. Stowed away in carefully guarded cupboards is a quantity of admirable wall tapestries, some of the precious sendal (taffeta) silk, some of hardly less valuable Sicilian woolen stuff. Their designs are of blazing magnificence. There is one of great elaboration showing "The Seven Virtues and the Seven Vices," another giving a whole sequence of scenes concerning Charlemagne. But such precious ornaments must be kept for great occasions. The order, "Hang the tapestries," is a sign to the servitors that Conon contemplates a tourney or a great feast or a visit from the duke. For to-day the palais contents itself with its simple fresco decoration.
Furniture and Beds
The bedroom furniture is equally simple. The chamber of the baron and his wife is lit by three windows with arched tops pierced into the masonry, overlooking the castle court. There is a little table by the fireplace holding a board of chessmen and there are a few backless stools and long narrow benches. In the window places are comfortably upholstered "She and I" seats facing one another. Opposite the fireplace is a chair of state for the baron, with high carved back and arms, a wooden canopy of equally heavy carving, and a footstool covered with red silk. There are several ponderous wardrobes, and especially a number of very massive iron-bound chests containing valuable garments, jewels, and the like. Bureaus and chests of drawers hardly exist in this age, and ordinary chests take their place. Indeed, no bedroom is fitted properly unless it has a solid chest at the foot of the bed for the prompt reception of any guest's belongings. When a castle is taken the cry, "Break open the chests!" is equivalent to calling to the victors, "Scatter and pillage!"
A THIRTEENTH CENTURY BED
Reconstructed