without waking Travers or his wife, although the door of their chamber was open. The thief who had entered
Rampa tant de banc en astel,
Qu'il est venuz au hardeillon
Où il vit pendre le bacon.
The whole description leads us to suppose the house in this instance to have been built chiefly of wood. Travers, now disturbed, rises from his bed, goes from his chamber into the hall and thence direct into the stable. After he has recovered his bacon and while he is boiling it over a fire in the hall, the thieves come and quietly make a hole in the roof to see what is going on below:
Puis est montez sor le toitel,
Si le descuevre iluec endroit
Là où la chaudiere boloit.
The houses of knights and gentlemen seem to have consisted frequently, at this period, of the same number and arrangement of apartments. In the fabliau Du sot chevalier (Barbazan, iv. 255), a party of knights overtaken by a storm seek shelter at the residence of the knight who is the hero of the tale: they pass through the court or garden to reach the house:—
Atant sont en la cort entré,
Puis sont venu en la meson
Où li feus ardoit de randon.
This was the hall, where they stopped and where dinner was served; after which beds are made there for them, and the host and his lady go to sleep in the chamber, which is separated from the hall only by a doorway:—
Ainz qu'il aient le sueil passé.
During the night, the knight comes from his chamber into the hall to seek a light; which leads to the denouement. Even in the castellated buildings the bed-chambers appear to have been frequently adjacent to the hall; in the fabliau of Guillaume au faucon (Barbazan, iv. 407), William enters first the hall, and goes out of it into a bed-chamber, where—
—la dame seule trouva;
Les puceles totes ensamble
Erent alées, ce me sanble,
En une chambre d'autre part—
that is, as appears by the sequel, on the other side of the hall.
