The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

FROM HALLAM'S VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

It is an error to suppose that the English gentry of the middle ages were lodged in stately, or even well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in capacity, as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement consisted of an entrance passage running through the house, with a hall on one side, a parlour beyond, and one or two chambers above, and on the opposite side, kitchen, pantry, and other offices. Such was the ordinary manor house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as appears not only from documents and engravings, but, at the latter period, from the buildings themselves, sometimes, though not very frequently, re-converted into farm-houses or distinct tenements. Larger structures were erected by men of greater estates, during the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. but very few can be traced higher; but such has been the effect of time, still more through the advance or decline of families, and the progress of architectural improvement, than the natural decay of those buildings, that I should conceive it difficult to name a house in England still inhabited by a gentleman, and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances at least, must be extremely few.