IV. THE COURSE OF MEDIÆVAL BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 44 V. THE LATER MANOR HOUSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 67 VI. MEDIÆVAL DOMESTIC FEATURES--DOORWAYS, WINDOWS, FIREPLACES, CHIMNEYS, ROOFS AND CEILINGS, STAIRCASES 87 VII. EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY--COMING OF THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 126 VIII. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--SYMMETRY IN PLANNING 141 IX. ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--EXTERIORS 157 X. ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--INTERIORS 186 XI. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--PERSONAL DESIGN--TRANSITIONAL TREATMENT 205 XII. CLASSIC DETAIL ESTABLISHED--INFLUENCE OF THE AMATEURS 221 XIII. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EXTERIORS--THE PALLADIAN STYLE 233 XIV. LATE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES--INTERIORS--DETAILS AND FEATURES 259 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BUILDINGS 303 GLOSSARY 309 BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS 313 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS 315 INDEX 325 [Illustration: Norham Castle, Northumberland.] CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY--THE NORMAN KEEP. Those who, in the course of their wanderings through the remote districts of England, whether on business or on pleasure bent, have seen the lonely tower on the hillside, or the grey ruins of some ancient dwelling gleaming through the spaces of encircling trees, have no doubt often speculated as to the precise significance of these remnants of antiquity. They may have dismissed them from consideration as being relics of a past order of things having no connection with the concerns of the present day. Yet to the dweller in a modern house these maimed survivals have as much interest as have his own ancestors; and the home to which he returns after his travels can trace its descent step by step from those rugged masses of stone which roused his interest as he passed them by. It is not difficult for any one to trace a likeness between the house of to-day and that of, let us say, the time of Elizabeth; but the resemblance between an Elizabethan manor house and a Norman castle or a Northumbrian peel-tower is not by any means so obvious, yet the descent of one from the other can be clearly established. It is the object of the following pages not only to show how this can be done, but to trace briefly the continuous changes which have transformed, in the course of some seven or eight centuries, the gaunt and desolate keep into the comfortable mansion or villa of our own experience.