Daily American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1852, 1852-01-20
AMERICAN TELEGRAPH.
[From Dickens's Household Words.


Mr.. bull at Home An the MiddIo Ages.
We all know what delightful times the medi-
ayal times were. We all know, on undeniable
authority, Gf we would only believe it and act
accordingly that to restore the medieval times
is, the only hopeful and thoroughly sensible
thing left us to do in these degenerate days.
Let US be middle-aged or perish! ay
We will present the reader with sketch Of
Mr.. Bull at Home after the manner of the
Middle Ages. Mr.. BULBS home shall be a
medieval home; butour sketch of it shallnot be,
after the manner Of the middle ages, false in
drawing and extraVagant in color. We will
sketch correctly coming fresh from the in
struction of an able master, Mr.. Hudson Tur-
ner, who has lately published an elaborate
work on the Domestic Architecture Of the
Middle Ages" 1"."
To begin with house-building. The Romans
in Britain scattered few villas here and there
among our woods; but the Romans were very
far from British in their habits. They were
accustomed to the warm sky Of the south; but,
tor all that they were John Bullish, too, in one
respect; what it was the custom to do, they
thought could not be wrong. They built houses
in ITALY, of which the grand apartment had no
roof and had rain-cistern in the middle Of
the floor; with little bedrooms, very much like
apartment was the sitting room, and study, and
dining-room, and also kitchen to do the Ro-
man justice, however, we must add bath to
this ground plan Of his family mansion. It is
very doubtful whether the Romans in Britain
often allowed it to occur to them, that in our
climate parlor without roof is open to
wind, rain, fog, and other inconvenience.
Sometimes, no doubt, a spirited proprietor roof
ed himself in; but we can imagine more than
a few Romans of the true hereditary breed who
scorned to let effeminacy lead them to the
breach of time-honored custom. Roof or no
roof to his hall-Gtrium he called 1.-THE
ground-plan of a Romans house remained the
same, and it was always very solid in its struc-
ture. The remains of Roman towns and houses
greatly edited the Saxons whose taste ran for
less solid kind of house property. The Ro-
mans having made roads over the country, con-
veyed stones from distant quarries, to give
strength to the massive buildings, which the
Saxons called emphatically works, and honor
ed with their verbal admiration by such names
as the Ald-wark in York and the Southwark
in London.
The Romans gradually went, the Saxons
gradually came; and where the Saxon chief
tain found Roman house vacant he would
not object to become its tenant. Why should
he? He had been accustomed, in his home by
the Baltic to two-roomed establishment, of
which one was the cooking, feasting, and pro-
miscuous sleeping room the other was the pri-
vate council chamber, and the place in which
he and his chief retainers were Uttered down
at night, in more select and exclusive man.
ner The old Roman house still Left him q
feasting-hall, and gave him increased private
accommodation The family mansion of Sax.
on thane was built of the same wood that over
spreads the country and was thatched with
reeds or straw, and rooted with wooden shingles
1t was the usual two-roomed "compact resi-
dence" there was the hall, with fire lighted
in the centre, and hole in the roof above to
let the smoke out-that is to say, when the
owner had spice of foppery about him; gen.
orally, the smoke found its way out as it pleas
ed. 1t was wood smoke of course
Wood, and mud, and thatch, therefore were
the building materials of our forefathers, the
Saxons; their chiefs may have added few
daubs of paint, by way of ornament, or a little
gliding, and few pinnacles. Moreover in
the latter centuries of Saxon dominion, stone
buildings were raised, undoubtedly. Church
men and traders out of England saw the world,
and brought some wisdom home with them.
The clergy cried for "churches in the Ro-
man manner" and, being spoiled children, of
course got them Mansions, however, in the
Roman manner, did not include chimneys. In
1868, Prince of Padua visiting Rome took
with him masons who built chimney in the
inn at which he stopped, because" says Mu-
ratori ain the city Of Rome they did not then
use chimneys; and all lighted the fire in the
middle of the house, on the floor" Chimneys
probably, were understood in principle, centu-
ries before custom gave way, and permitted
them to be introduced into common practice
For Saxon fortresses, they probably were not
worth much; the fortresses of England in those
times were supplied by Nature-fens and forests
Alfred retired for protection to the woods and
marshes of Somersetshire; and the last stand
of the Saxons against the Normans was made
among the fens of Ely.
The Normans, prevailing, introduced their
style of house, in which the accommodation still
consisted of great hall and a single bed-cham-
ber. They used more stone, and paid more at
had done. Still, however, wood and mud clay
were employed by the vast majority of house.
builders still, the carpenter might answer, as
he answered in the colloquy of Elfric, that
he made houses-and bowls.n To the end of
the middle ages, the great bulk of the house
property in England was of this character
We talk glibly, in these present times of the
slight manner in which houses are run up in
London. In the most fourishing period Of
these dear Middle Ages it was the duty of q
London alderman to be provided with a hook
and chain, that he might be ready to pull
down any house that sinned against existing
regulations.
Travelling over the twelfth century, and a
step farther, over the days of of Coeur de Lion,
and John, and Magma Charta, we do not find
that there was much improvement in the
houses of the people, Let us see what sort of
house the King inhabited. It will help us to
test the amount of comfort enjoyed by Mr..
Bull