Let us now pass through the door on the ground floor, always open by day, into the hall. This was still the most spacious apartment in the house, and it was still also the public room, open to all who were admitted within the precincts. The hall continued to be scantily furnished. The permanent furniture consisted chiefly in benches, and in a seat with a back to it for the superior members of the family. The head table at least was now generally a permanent one, and there were in general more permanent tables, or tables dormant, than formerly, but still the greater part of the tables in the hall were made for each meal by placing boards upon trestles. Cushions, with ornamental cloths, called _bankers_ and _dorsers_, for placing over the benches and backs of the seats of the better persons at the table, were now also in general use. Tapestry was suspended on the walls of the hall on special occasions, but it does not appear to have been of common use. Another article of furniture had now become common--the buffet, or stand on which the plate and other vessels were arranged. These articles appear to have been generally in the keeping of the butler, and only to have been brought into the hall and arranged on the buffet at meal times, for show as much as for use. The dinner party in our cut No. 236, taken from an illumination of a manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” formerly in the possession of M. Barrois, a distinguished and well-known collector in Paris, represents a royal party dining at a table with much simplicity. The ornamental vessel on the table is probably the salt-cellar, which was a very important article at the feast. Besides the general utility of salt, it was regarded with profoundly superstitious feelings, and it was considered desirable that it should be the first article placed on the table. We have still a feeling of superstition with regard to the spilling of salt. A metrical code for the behaviour of servants, written in the fifteenth century, directs that in preparing the table for meals, the table-cloth was first to be spread, and then, invariably and in all places, the salt was to be placed upon it; next were to be arranged successively, the knives, the bread, the wine, and then the meat, after which the waiter was to bring other things, when each was called for:-- _Tu dois mettre premierement_ _En tous lieux et en tout hostel_ _La nappe, et apres le sel;_ _Cousteaulx, pain, vin, et puis viande,_ _Puis apporter ce qu’on demande._