ury, we may
guess how mean were the habitations in less polished parts of Europe.

[Sidenote: Invention of chimneys and glass windows.]

The two most essential improvements in architecture during this period,
one of which had been missed by the sagacity of Greece and Rome, were
chimneys and glass windows. Nothing apparently can be more simple than
the former; yet the wisdom of ancient times had been content to let the
smoke escape by an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery,
of which Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was made, perhaps in this country,
by some forgotten semi-barbarian. About the middle of the fourteenth
century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in England and in
Italy; but they are found in several of our castles which bear a much
older date.[674] This country seems to have lost very early the art of
making glass, which was preserved in France, whence artificers were
brought into England to furnish the windows in some new churches in the
seventh century.[675] It is said that in the reign of Henry III. a few
ecclesiastical buildings had glazed windows.[676] Suger, however, a
century before, had adorned his great work, the abbey of St. Denis,
with windows, not only glazed but painted;[677] and I presume that other
churches of the same class, both in France and England, especially after
the lancet-shaped window had yielded to one of ampler dimensions, were
generally decorated in a similar manner. Yet glass is said not to have
been employed in the domestic architecture of France before the
fourteenth century;[678] and its introduction into England was probably
by no means earlier. Nor indeed did it come into general use during the
period of the middle ages. Glazed windows were considered as moveable
furniture, and probably bore a high price. When the earls of
Northumberland, as late as the reign of Elizabeth, left Alnwick Castle,
the windows were taken out of their frames, and carefully laid by.[679]

[Sidenote: Furniture of houses.]

But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would not seem
very spacious or convenient at present, far less would this luxurious
generation be content with their internal accommodations. A gentleman's
house containing three or four beds was extraordinarily well provided;
few probably had more than two. The walls were commonly bare, without
wainscot or even plaster; except that some great houses were furnished
with hangings, and that perhaps hard