The thieves make a hole in the wall, by which one enters without waking Travers or his wife, although they were sleeping with the door of their chamber open. The bacon is thus stolen and carried away. Travers, roused by the noise of their departure, rises from his bed, follows the thieves, and ultimately recaptures his bacon. He resolves now to cook the bacon, and eat some of it, and for this purpose a fire is made, and a cauldron full of water hung over it. This appears to be performed in the middle of the hall. The thieves return, and, approaching the door, one of them looked through the _pertuis_, and saw the bacon boiling:-- _Baras mist son oeil au pertuis,_ _Et voit que la chaudiere bout._ The thieves then climb the roof, uncover a small space at the top silently, and attempt to draw up the bacon with a hook. [Illustration: _No. 81. An Anglo-Norman House._] [Illustration: _No. 82. The Hall and Chamber._] From the unskilfulness of the mediæval artists in representing details where any knowledge of perspective was required, we have not so much information as might be expected from the illuminated manuscripts relating to the arrangements of houses. But a fine illuminated copy of the romances of the San Graal and the Round Table, executed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and now preserved in the British Museum (MS. Addit. Nos. 10,292-10,294), furnishes us with one or two rather interesting illustrations of this subject. The romances themselves were composed in Anglo-Norman, in the latter half of the twelfth century. The first cut which we shall select from this manuscript is a complete view of a house; it belongs to a chapter entitled _Ensi que Lancelot ront les fers d’une fenestre, et si entre dedens pour gesir avoec la royne_. The queen has informed Lancelot that the head of her bed lies near the window of her chamber, and that he may come by night to the window, which is defended by an iron grating, to talk with her, and she tells him that the wall of the adjacent hall is in one part weak and dilapidated enough to allow of his obtaining an entrance through it; but Lancelot prefers breaking open the grating in order to enter directly into the chamber, to passing through the hall. The grating of the chamber window appears to have been common in the houses of the rich and noble; in the records of the thirteenth century, the grating of the chamber windows of the queen is often mentioned. The window behind Lancelot in our cut is that of the hall, and is distinguished by architectural ornamentation. The ornamental hinges of the door, with the lock and the knocker, are also curious. Our next cut (No. 82), taken from this same manuscript, represents part of the house of a knight, whose wife has an intrigue with one of the heroes of these romances, king Claudas. The knight lay in wait to take the king, as he was in the lady’s chamber at night, but the king, being made