a great open hall, a kitchen and buttery, a parlour, over
which a chamber for my lord and lady; all the rest lye in common, viz.
the men-servants in the hall, the women in a common room) or oriele,
the folk at the side-tables. (Oriele is an ear, but here it signifies
a little room at the upper end of the hall, where stands a square or
round table, perhaps in the old time was an oratory; in every old
Gothic hall is one, viz. at Dracot, Lekham, Alderton, &c.) The meat
was served up by watch-words. Jacks are but an invention of the other
age: the poor boys did turn the spits, and licked the dripping-pan,
and grew to be huge lusty knaves. The beds of the servants and
retainers were in the great halls, as now in the guard-chamber, &c.
The hearth was commonly in the middle, as at most colleges, whence the
saying, "Round about our coal-fire." Here in the halls were the
mummings, cob-loaf-stealing, and a great number of old Christmas plays
performed. Every baron and gentleman of estate kept great horses for a
man at arms. Lords had their armories to furnish some hundreds of men.
The halls of justices of the peace were dreadful to behold, the
skreens were garnished with corslets and helmets, gaping with open
mouth, with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown bills,
batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern colivers and petronils (in
King Charles I.
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