The Norman invasion of England caused a new advance in the luxury and refinement, such as it was, of daily life. The houses began to grow--upper rooms or rooms at the side of the great hall were added, called solars (solaria), the sunny or light rooms. These seem to have been appropriated to the ladies. In due time they added a parloir or talking room, a name derived from the rooms in which conversation was allowed in monasteries where silence was the general rule. In the upper rooms fireplaces were made occasionally, but not always chimneys. In the halls, when the upper room did not cover the whole under room or when an upper room was not constructed, fire was made in the centre of the floor. Stairs were of wood. Glass was all but unknown in the windows of houses, and wooden shutters kept out the weather. The houses of landowners in England were called manoir or manor. The furniture was simple and consisted of few objects. The table was on trestles; the seats were benches. _Armaria_, armoires, cupboards or presses, either stood in recesses in the wall or were complete wooden enclosures. These had doors opening horizontally. The frames were not panelled. The doors were ledge doors of boards, nailed to stout cross bars behind, and decorated with iron hinges and clamps beaten out into scrolls and other ornaments. [Illustration] Bedrooms were furnished with ornamental bed testers, and benches at the bed foot. Beds were furnished with quilts and pillows, and with spotted or striped linen sheets; over all was laid a covering of green say, badgers' furs, the skins of beavers or of martin cats, and a cushion. A perch for falcons to sit on was fixed in the wall. A chair at the bed head, and a perch or projecting pole on which clothes could be hung, completed the furniture of the Anglo-norman bedroom. In the foregoing woodcut from Willemin there is no tester, but carving on the posts, and the coverings are of the richest description. Woodwork was decorated with painted ornament or with fanciful work on the hinges; and nails and clamps were applied to hold it together, rather than with sculpture, down to the fourteenth century; and in England, France, and Germany, oak was the wood employed for furniture. Both in England and in the countries which had retained old artistic traditions on the continent, such as Italy, France, and Spain (which profited by the skill of the Moors in painted decoration), colour was used not less on walls and wood than on metal and pottery. Tapestry was an important portion of the furniture of all houses of the richer classes.