_So mote I thryve, I schal at cokkes crowe_ _Ful pryvely go knokke at his wyndowe,_ _That stant ful lowe upon his bowres wal--_ which is immediately afterwards called the “schot wyndowe”-- _Unto his brest it raught, it was so lowe._ A new apartment had now been added to the house, called in Anglo-Norman a parlour (_parloir_), because it was literally the talking-room. It belonged originally to the monastic houses, where the parlour was the room for receiving people who came to converse on business, and, when introduced into private houses, it was a sort of secondary hall, where visitors might be received more privately than in the great hall, and yet with less familiarity than in the chamber. In the story of Sir Cleges, the knight finds the king seated in his parlour, and listening to a harper. In a Latin document of the year 1473, printed in Rymer’s Fœdera, a citizen of London has, in his mansion-house there, a parlour adjoining the garden (_in quadam parlura adjacente gardino_). Houses were, as I have before stated, usually built in great part of timber, and it was only where unusual strength was required, or else from a spirit of ostentation, that they were made of stone. There appear to have been very few fixtures in the inside, and, as furniture was scanty, the rooms must have appeared very bare. In timber houses, of course, it was not easy to make cupboards or closets in the walls, but this was not the case when they were built of stone. Even in the latter case, however, the walls appear not to have been much excavated for such purposes. Our cut No. 89 represents a cupboard door, taken from an illuminated manuscript of the thirteenth century, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; it is curious for its ironwork, especially the lock and key. The smaller articles of domestic use were usually deposited in chests, or placed upon sideboards and moveable stands. In the houses of the wealthy a separate room was built for the wardrobe. [Illustration: _No. 89. A Cupboard Door._] [Illustration: _No. 90. The Cellarer of St. Alban’s._]