The progress of society in the two countries which were most closely allied in this respect, England and France, was slow during the fifteenth century. Both countries were engaged either in mutual hostility or in desolating civil wars, which so utterly checked all spirit of improvement, that the aspect of society differed little between the beginning and the end of the century in anything but dress. At the close of the fourteenth century, the middle classes in England had made great advance in wealth and in independence, and the wars of the roses, which were so destructive to the nobility, as well as the tendency of the crown to set the gentry up as a balance to the power of the feudal barons, helped to make that advance more certain and rapid. This increase of wealth appears in the multiplication of furniture and of other household implements, especially those of a more valuable description. We are surprised, in running our eye through the wills and inventories during this period, at the quantity of plate which was usually possessed by country gentlemen and respectable burghers. There was also a great increase both in the number and magnitude of the houses which intervened between the castle and the cottage. Instead of having one or two bedrooms, and turning people into the hall to sleep at night, we now find whole suits of chambers; while, where before, the family lived chiefly in the hall, privacy was sought by the addition of parlours, of which there were often more than one in an ordinary sized house. The hall was in fact already beginning to diminish in importance in comparison with the rest of the house. Whether in town or country, houses of any magnitude were now generally built round an interior court, into which the rooms almost invariably looked, only small and unimportant windows looking towards the street or country. This arrangement of course originated in the necessity of studying security, a necessity which was never felt more than in the fifteenth century. We have less need to seek our illustrations from manuscripts during this period, on account of the numerous examples of buildings which still remain in a greater or less state of perfection, but still an illumination now and then presents us with an interesting picture of the architectural arrangements of a dwelling-house in the fifteenth century, which may be advantageously compared with the buildings that still exist. One of these is represented in our cut No. 234, taken from an illuminated copy of the French translation of Valerius Maximus (MS. No. 6984, in the National Library at Paris). The building to the left is probably the staircase turret of the gateway; that before us is the mass of the household apartments. We are supposed to be standing within the court. At the foot of the turret is the well, a very important object within the court, where it was always placed in houses of this description, as in the troubles of those days the household might be