ier buildings, at least in some districts, no part of the walls was
of stone.[662] Stone houses are, however, mentioned as belonging to
citizens of London, even in the reign of Henry II.;[663] and, though not
often perhaps regularly hewn stones, yet those scattered over the soil
or dug from flint quarries, bound together with a very strong and
durable cement, were employed in the construction of manerial houses,
especially in the western counties and other parts where that material
is easily procured.[664] Gradually even in timber buildings the
intervals of the main beams, which now became perpendicular, not
throwing off their curved springers till they reached a considerable
height, were occupied by stone walls, or where stone was expensive, by
mortar or plaster, intersected by horizontal or diagonal beams, grooved
into the principal piers.[665] This mode of building continued for a
long time, and is still familiar to our eyes in the older streets of the
metropolis and other towns, and in many parts of the country.[666] Early
in the fourteenth century the art of building with brick, which had been
lost since the Roman dominion, was introduced probably from Flanders.
Though several edifices of that age are constructed with this material,
it did not come into general use till the reign of Henry VI.[667] Many
considerable houses as well as public buildings were erected with bricks
during his reign and that of Edward IV., chiefly in the eastern
counties, where the deficiency of stone was most experienced. Few, if
any, brick mansion-houses of the fifteenth century exist, except in a
dilapidated state; but Queen's College and Clare Hall at Cambridge, and
part of Eton College, are subsisting witnesses to the durability of the
material as it was then employed.

[Sidenote: Meanness of ordinary mansion-houses.]

It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in
stately or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their
dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in
capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement consisted of
an entrance-passage running through the house, with a hall on one side,
a parlour beyond, and one or two chambers above, and on the opposite
side, a kitchen, pantry, and other offices.[668] Such was the ordinary
manor-house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as appears not
only from the documents and engravings, but as to the latter period,
from the