Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/167

Castles of the Early English Period. 151 In the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries, much was done to introduce domestic comfort into castles. Fireplaces, which in the Norman keeps were but recesses in the wall, often with a mere lateral orifice for a smoke-vent, as at Colchester and Rochester, are now adorned with hoods, often of stone, sometimes of wood and plaster, and the flues are capacious and calculated to carry off the smoke. The stone hoods are usually of excellent masonry, and, even when plain, of much elegance of design, resting upon brackets, and these on clustered columns flanking the hearth. The vent or flue is often capped by a chimney- shaft and smoke lanthorn, such as may be seen at Grosmont and St. Briavels castles, or in the remains of the priory at Abingdon. Where the hood was of wood or plaster, with a shaft of the same, or where there was an opening or louvre in the roof, all traces are, of course, gone, and thus is explained the absence of fireplaces in rooms evidently intended for ladies and persons of rank. In the Norman keeps boarded floors were a necessity, and very ill-jointed and cold they no doubt were, but with the vault the floors were composed of beaten lime and sand. Garderobes continued to be frequent, both in mural chambers and on the battlements, and the shafts were usually vertical, and descended within the wall, having an outlet at the foot of it. The hall chapel, and other buildings, placed usually in the inner ward, were more ornate than in the Norman period. In addition to the flanking defence afforded by towers upon the line of the enceinte wall, there was in general use a contrivance called a " Bretasche." This was a gallery of timber running round the walls outside the battlements, and at their level, supported by struts resting upon corbels, and covered in with a sloping roof Sometimes, in large towers, there were two tiers of these galleries, the upper projecting beyond the lower, and thus affording a very formidable defence. As these galleries concealed the top of the wall, this part was often left in a rude state, and now that the bretasche is gone, such towers, as at Caerphilly, have a very unfinished appearance. The bretasche was only put up when a siege was expected, and examples of it are very rare indeed, although it is evident in numerous instances that it was formerly in use. There remains a fragment of the actual bretasche over the Soissons gate of Coucy ; and at Ledes, over the outer gate, is the place of its main beam. The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence shows by its lines of corbels that it was intended to carry a bretasche, and a door is seen, as at Norham, in the wall, which could only