226 EVERYDAY LIFE
des trous qui empechaient les tabourets de tenir debout; on les com-
blait de temps en temps avec de la terre apportee du jardin.1
Conditions such as these show how static rural life is in many
ways, and how little changed these houses are from that of
Chaucer's poor widow, who had but a cottage divided into bower
and hall, where she lived a "ful sooty" life with her cows, kine
and sheep all about her, while Chauntecleer and his seven wives
ran in and out from time to time.
The peasant's house was as simple in its construction as it was
rudimentary in its provision for comfort or privacy. One of the
most widespread of types—especially it would seem in the area
North and West of a line drawn from the Wash to the Bristol
Channel—was the house which had for its main timbers curved
uprights (crucks) placed opposite to each other with a ridge-pole
running the whole length of the house and holding the various
pairs of uprights firmly together. The simplest form of this sur-
viving is seen at Scrivelsby, near Horncastle, in Lincolnshire,
where a house, popularly known as "Teapot Hall", has for its
crucks pairs of perfectly straight principals united by a ridge-tree.
The roof runs from ridge-tree to the ground, and the space
within the house is severely circumscribed. The type of structure
which had curved uprights, however, gave more room than this
in the lower part of the house, and from this developed the later
form of house in which the lower portion was constructed of
heavy timbers which formed the corners and intermediate posts
and stood up from the foundations some eight or ten feet—thus
giving even more room than did the curved upright form. Upon
these posts were erected the principal rafters and crowning these
the ridge-tree. Few examples of houses of the fourteenth cen-
tury still exist, but in remote countryside valleys, such as in the
Snowdon area, some still remain. Messrs Hughes and North have
examined these carefully and write: "The characteristic of these
cottages seems to have been that the roof principals were com-
posed each of two great curved pieces of oak, starting from the
floor, against the side walls, and meeting at the ridge___The
1 E. P&rochon, Les Creux-de-maisons (1921), 14. Cf. H. Bachelin, Le
Village, 29; and especially E. Guillaumin, Notes Paysannes, 94. For conditions
in the Valais in the mid-nineteenth century, see Ruskin's moving account in
Modern Painters, iv, Part v, ch. xix, §§ 4, 5 and 6.