1See paper by Messrs Flower and Murie inJourn. Comp. Anat. and Physiology(1867); and Fritsch,Die Eingebornen Süd-Afrikas(Breslau, 1873).2An interesting notice of this form of worship occurs in the journal of an expedition which the Dutch governor, Ryk van Tulbagh, sent to the Great Namaqua in 1752, which reached as far as the Kamob or Lion river (about 27° S. lat.).3On the religion and antiquities see Theophilus Hahn’s papers, “Graves of the Heitsi-Eibib,” inCape Monthly Magazine(1879). and “Der hottentottische Zai-goab und der griechische Zeus,” inZeitschr. für Geogr.(Berlin, 1870).
1See paper by Messrs Flower and Murie inJourn. Comp. Anat. and Physiology(1867); and Fritsch,Die Eingebornen Süd-Afrikas(Breslau, 1873).
2An interesting notice of this form of worship occurs in the journal of an expedition which the Dutch governor, Ryk van Tulbagh, sent to the Great Namaqua in 1752, which reached as far as the Kamob or Lion river (about 27° S. lat.).
3On the religion and antiquities see Theophilus Hahn’s papers, “Graves of the Heitsi-Eibib,” inCape Monthly Magazine(1879). and “Der hottentottische Zai-goab und der griechische Zeus,” inZeitschr. für Geogr.(Berlin, 1870).
HOTTINGER, JOHANN HEINRICH(1620-1667), Swiss philologist and theologian, was born at Zürich on the 10th of March 1620. He studied at Geneva, Groningen and Leiden, and after visiting France and England was in 1642 appointed professor of church history in his native town. The chair of Hebrew at the Carolinum was added in 1643, and in 1653 he was appointed professor ordinarius of logic, rhetoric and theology. He gained such a reputation as an Oriental scholar that the elector palatine in 1655 appointed him professor of Oriental languages and biblical criticism at Heidelberg. In 1661, however, he returned to Zürich, where in 1662 he was chosen principal of the university. In 1667 he accepted an invitation to succeed Johann Hoornbeck (1617-1666) as professor in the university of Leiden, but he was drowned with three of his children by the upsetting of a boat while crossing the river Limmat. His chief works areHistoria ecclesiastica Nov. Test.(1651-1667);Thesaurus philologicus seu clavis scripturae(1649; 3rd ed. 1698);Etymologicon orientale, sive lexicon harmonicum heptaglotton(1661). He also wrote a Hebrew and an Aramaic grammar.
His son,Johann Jakob Hottinger(1652-1735), who became professor of theology at Zürich in 1698, was the author of a work against Roman Catholicism,Helvetische Kirchengeschichte(4 vols., 1698-1729); and his grandson,Johann Heinrich Hottinger(1681-1750), who in 1721 was appointed professor of theology at Heidelberg, wrote a work on dogmatics,Typus doctrinae christianae(1714).
HOUBRAKEN, JACOBUS(1698-1780), Dutch engraver, was born at Dort, on the 25th of December 1698. All that his father, Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719), bequeathed to him was a fine constitution and a pure love for work. In 1707 he came to reside at Amsterdam, where for years he had to struggle incessantly against difficulties. He commenced the art of engraving by studying the works of Cornelis Cort, Suyderhoef, Edelinck and the Visschers. He devoted himself almost entirely to portraiture. Among his best works are scenes from the comedy ofDe Ontdekte Schijndeugd, executed in his eightieth year, after Cornelis Troost, who was called by his countrymen the Dutch Hogarth. He died on the 14th of November 1780.
See A. Ver Hull,Jacobus Houbraken et son œuvre(Arnhem, 1875), where 120 engraved works are fully described.
See A. Ver Hull,Jacobus Houbraken et son œuvre(Arnhem, 1875), where 120 engraved works are fully described.
HOUDENC(orHoudan),RAOUL DE,12th-century French trouvère, takes his name from his native place, generally identified with Houdain (Artois), though there are twelve places bearing the name in one or other of its numerous variants. It has been suggested that he was a monk, but from the scattered hints in his writings it seems more probable that he followed the trade of jongleur and recited his chansons, with small success apparently, in the houses of the great. He was well acquainted with Paris, and probably spent a great part of his life there. His undoubted works are:Le Songe d’enfer,La Voie de paradis,Le Roman des eles(pr. by A. Scheler inTrouvères belges, NewSeries, 1897) and the romance ofMéraugis de Portlesguez, edited by M. Michelant (1869) and by Dr M. Friedwagner (Halle, 1897). Houdenc was an imitator of Chrétien de Troyes; and Huon de Méri, in hisTournoi de l’antéchrist(1226) praises him with Chrétien in words that seem to imply that both were dead.Méraugis de Portlesguez, the hero of which perhaps derives his name from Lesguez, the port of Saint Brieuc in Brittany, is aroman d’aventuresloosely attached to the Arthurian cycle.
See Gaston Paris inHist. litt. de la France, xxx. 220-237; W. Zingerlé,Über Raoul de Houdenc und seine Werke(Erlangen, 1880); and O. Boerner,Raoul de Houdenc. Eine stilistische Untersuchung(1885).
See Gaston Paris inHist. litt. de la France, xxx. 220-237; W. Zingerlé,Über Raoul de Houdenc und seine Werke(Erlangen, 1880); and O. Boerner,Raoul de Houdenc. Eine stilistische Untersuchung(1885).
HOUDETOT,a French noble family, taking its name from the lordship of Houdetot, between Arques and St Valéry. Louis de Houdetot went with Robert, duke of Normandy, to Palestine in 1034, and the various branches of the family trace descent from Richard I. de Houdetot (fl. 1229), who married Marie de Montfort. Charles Louis de Houdetot received a marquisate in 1722, and on his son Claude Constance César, lieutenant-general in the French army, was conferred the hereditary title of count in 1753. His wife (see below) was the Madame de Houdetot of Rousseau’sConfessions. Their son César Louis Marie François Ange, comte de Houdetot (1749-1825), was governor of Martinique (1803-1809) and lieutenant-general (1814) under the Empire. His son Frédéric Christophe, comte de Houdetot (1778-1859), was director-general of indirect imposts in Prussia after Jena, and prefect of Brussels in 1813. He acquiesced in the Restoration, but had to resign from the service after the Hundred Days. He became a peer of France in 1819, and under the Second Empire he was returned by the department of Calvados to the Corps Législatif. His half-brother, Charles Île-de-France, comte de Houdetot (1789-1866), was wounded at Trafalgar and transferred to the army, in which he served through the Napoleonic wars. He retired at the Restoration, but returned to the service in 1823, and in 1826 became aide-de-camp to the duke of Orleans, becoming lieutenant-general in 1842. He sat in the Chamber of Deputies from 1837 to 1848, when he followed Louis Philippe into exile. A third brother, César François Adolphe, comte de Houdetot (1799-1869), was a well-known writer on military and other subjects.
HOUDETOT, ELISABETH FRANÇOISE SOPHIE DE LA LIVE DE BELLEGARDE,Comtesse de(1730-1813), was born in 1730. She married the comte de Houdetot (see above) in 1748. In 1753 she formed with the marquis de Saint Lambert (q.v.) a connexion which lasted till his death. Mme de Houdetot has been made famous by the chapter in Rousseau’sConfessionsin which he describes his unreciprocated passion for her. When questioned on the subject she replied that he had much exaggerated. A view differing considerably from Rousseau’s is to be found in theMémoiresof Mme d’Epinay, Mme de Houdetot’s sister-in-law.
For a discussion of her relations with Rousseau see Saint-Marc-Girardin in theRevue des deux mondes(September 1853).
For a discussion of her relations with Rousseau see Saint-Marc-Girardin in theRevue des deux mondes(September 1853).
HOUDON, JEAN ANTOINE(1740-1828), French sculptor, was born at Versailles on the 18th of March 1740. At the age of twelve he entered the École royale de Sculpture, and at twenty, having learnt all that he could from Michel Ange Slodtz and Pigalle, he carried off the prix de Rome and left France for Italy, where he spent the next ten years of his life. His brilliant talent, which seems to have been formed by the influence of that world of statues with which Louis XIV. peopled the gardens of Versailles rather than by the lessons of his masters, delighted Pope Clement XIV., who, on seeing the St Bruno executed by Houdon for the church of St Maria degli Angeli, said “he would speak, were it not that the rules of his order impose silence.” In Italy Houdon had lived in the presence of that second Renaissance with which the name of Winckelmann is associated, and the direct and simple treatment of the Morpheus which he sent to the Salon of 1771 bore witness to its influence. This work procured him his “agrégation” to the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, of which he was made a full member in 1775. Between these dates Houdon had not been idle; busts of Catharine II., Diderot and Prince Galitzin were remarked at the Salon of 1773, and at that of 1775 he produced, not only his Morpheus in marble, but busts of Turgot, Gluck (in which the marks of small-pox in the face were reproduced with striking effect) and Sophie Arnould as Iphigeneia (now in the Wallace Collection, London), together with his well-known marble relief, “Grive suspendue par les pattes.” He took also an active part in the teaching of the academy, and executed for the instruction of his pupils the celebrated Écorché still in use. To every Salon Houdon was a chief contributor; most of the leading men of the day were his sitters; his busts of d’Alembert, Prince Henry of Prussia, Gerbier, Buffon (for Catharine of Russia) and Mirabeau are remarkable portraits; and in 1778, when the news of Rousseau’s death reached him, Houdon started at once for Ermenonville, and there took a cast of the dead man’s face, from which he produced the grand and life-like head now in the Louvre. In 1779 his bust of Molière, at the Théâtre Français, won universal praise, and the celebrated draped statue of Voltaire, in the vestibule of the same theatre, was exhibited at the Salon of 1781, to which Houdon also sent a statue of Marshal de Tourville, commissioned by the king, and the Diana executed for Catharine II. This work was refused; the jury alleged that a statue of Diana demanded drapery; without drapery, they said, the goddess became a “suivante de Vénus,” and not even the proud and frank chastity of the attitude and expression could save the Diana of Houdon (a bronze reproduction of which is in the Louvre) from insult. Three years later he went to America, there to carry out a statue of Washington. With Franklin, whose bust he had recently executed, Houdon left France in 1785, and, staying some time with Washington at Mount Vernon, he modelled the bust, with which he decided to go back to Paris, there to complete the statue destined for the capitol of the State of Virginia. After his return to his native country Houdon executed for the king of Prussia, as a companion to a statue of Summer, La Frileuse, a naif embodiment of shivering cold, which is one of his best as well as one of his best-known works. The Revolution interrupted the busy flow of commissions, and Houdon took up a half-forgotten project for a statue of St Scholastica. He was immediately denounced to the convention, and his life was only saved by his instant and ingenious adaptation of St Scholastica into an embodiment of Philosophy. Under Napoleon, of whom in 1806 he made a nude statue now at Dijon, Houdon received little employment; he was, however, commissioned to execute the colossal reliefs intended for the decoration of the column of the “Grand Army” at Boulogne (which ultimately found a different destination); he also produced a statue of Cicero for the senate, and various busts, amongst which may be cited those of Marshal Ney, of Josephine and of Napoleon himself, by whom Houdon was rewarded with the legion of honour. He died at Paris on the 16th of July 1828.
See memoir by Émile Délerot and Arsène Legrelle inMémoires de la société des sciences morales ... de Seine-et-Oise, iv. 49 et seq. (1857); Anatole de Montaiglon and Georges Duplessis inRevue universelle des arts, i. and ii. (1855-1856); Hermann Dierks,Houdons Leben und Werke(Gotha, 1887); Albert Terrade,Autour de la statue de Jean Houdon(Versailles, 1892); P. E. Mangeant,Sur une statuette de Voltaire par J. Houdon(Paris, 1896).
See memoir by Émile Délerot and Arsène Legrelle inMémoires de la société des sciences morales ... de Seine-et-Oise, iv. 49 et seq. (1857); Anatole de Montaiglon and Georges Duplessis inRevue universelle des arts, i. and ii. (1855-1856); Hermann Dierks,Houdons Leben und Werke(Gotha, 1887); Albert Terrade,Autour de la statue de Jean Houdon(Versailles, 1892); P. E. Mangeant,Sur une statuette de Voltaire par J. Houdon(Paris, 1896).
HOUFFALIZE,a small town occupying an elevated position (nearly 1100 ft.) in the extreme south-east of the province of Luxemburg, Belgium, much visited during the summer on account of its fine bracing air. There are the ruins of an old castle, and some remains of the still older abbey of Val Ste Catherine. The parish church dates from the 13th or 14th century. It contains two old black marble tombs to Thierry of Houffalize and Henri his son, the latter killed at Woeringen in 1288. Houffalize is on the eastern Ourthe, and is connected by a steam tramway with Bourcy on the line from Libramont to Bastogne, Spa and Liége. Pop. (1904) 1486.
HOUGHTON, RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES,1st Baron(1809-1885), English poet and man of letters, son of Robert Pemberton Milnes, of Fryston Hall, Yorkshire, and the Hon. Henrietta Monckton, daughter of the fourth Lord Galway, was born in London on the 19th of June 1809. He was educatedprivately, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827. There he was at once drawn into a literary set, and became a member of the famous “Apostles” Club, which then included Tennyson, Hallam, Trench, J. W. Blakesley, afterwards dean of Lincoln, and others. After taking his degree, Milnes travelled abroad, spending some time at Bonn University. Thence he went to Italy and Greece, and published in 1834 a volume ofMemorials of a Tour in some Parts of Greece, describing his experiences. He returned to London in 1837, and was in that year elected to Parliament as member for Pontefract. His parliamentary career was marked by much strenuous activity. He interested himself particularly in the question of copyright and the conditions of reformatory schools. He left Peel’s party over the Corn Law controversy, and was afterwards identified in politics with Palmerston, at whose instance he was made a peer in 1863. His literary career was industrious and cultured, without being exceptionally distinguished. Church matters had always a claim upon him: he wrote a striking tract in 1841, which was praised by Newman; and took part in the discussion about “Essays and Reviews,” defending the tractarian position inOne Tract More(1841). He published two volumes of verse in 1838,Memorials of Residence upon the Continent and Poems of Many Years,Poetry for the People in 1840andPalm Leavesin 1844. He also wrote aLife and Letters of Keatsin 1848, the material for which was largely provided by the poet’s friend, Charles Armitage Brown. Milnes also contributed largely to the reviews. His poetry is meditative and delicate; some of his ballads were among the most popular of their day, and all his work was marked by refinement. But his chief distinctions were his keen sense of literary merit in others, and the judgment and magnanimity with which he fostered it. He was surrounded by the most brilliant men of his time, many of whom he had been the first to acclaim. His chief title to remembrance rests on the part he played, as a man of influence in society and in moulding public opinion on literary matters, in connexion with his large circle of talented friends. He secured a pension for Tennyson, helped to make Emerson known in Great Britain, and was one of the earliest champions of Swinburne. He helped David Gray and wrote a preface forThe Luggie. He was, in the old sense of the word, a patron of letters, and one who never abused the privileges of his position. Milnes married in 1851 the Hon. Annabel Crewe (d. 1874). He died at Vichy on the 11th of August 1885, and was buried at Fryston. His son, the second Baron Houghton, was created Earl of Crewe (q.v.) in 1895.
SeeThe Life, Letters and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton(1890), by Sir T. Wemyss Reid.
SeeThe Life, Letters and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton(1890), by Sir T. Wemyss Reid.
HOUGHTON-LE-SPRING,an urban district in the Houghton-le-Spring parliamentary division of Durham, England, 6 m. N.E. of the city of Durham. Pop. (1901) 7858. It is well situated at the head of a small valley branching from that of the Wear. St Michael’s church is a cruciform Early English and Decorated building, with a picturesque embattled rectory adjoining. Bernard Gilpin, “the Apostle of the North,” was rector of this parish from 1556 to 1583, and the founder of the grammar school. The principal public buildings are a town hall, market house and church institute. Houghton Hall is a fine mansion of the late 16th century. In the orchard stands a tomb, that of the puritan Sir Robert Hutton (d. 1680), of whom a curious tradition states that he desired burial beside his war-horse, the body of which was denied interment in consecrated ground. The main road from Durham to Sunderland here passes through a remarkable cutting in the limestone 80 ft. deep. The district affords frequent evidence of ice activity in the glacial period. The town is the centre of a large system of electric tramways. The population is mainly dependent on the neighbouring collieries, but limestone quarrying is carried on to some extent.
HOUND,a dog, now used, except in poetry, only of dogs of the chase, and particularly of the breed used in hunting the fox, the “hound”par excellence. Other breeds have a defining word prefixed,e.g.boar-hound, stag-hound, &c. (seeDog). The O. Eng.hundis the common Teutonic name for the animal, cf. Du.hond, Ger.Hund, &c., and is cognate with Sansk.çvan, Gr.κύων, Lat.canis, Ir. and Gael.cu.
HOUNSLOW,a town in the Brentford parliamentary division of Middlesex, England, 12½ m. W. by S. of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, on the District and London & South Western railways. Pop. (1901) 11,377. It has grown into an extensive residential suburb of London. Its situation at the junction of two great roads from the west of England made it an important coaching station, and some 500 coaches formerly passed through it daily. A priory of friars of the Holy Trinity was founded at Hounslow in 1296, and existed till the dissolution of the monasteries. The priory chapel was used as a church till 1830, after which its place was taken by the existing church of the Holy Trinity (1835). Hounslow Heath, west of the town, had, according to the survey of 1546, an area of 4293 acres. It was the site of Roman and British camps, and in the wars of the 17th century was the scene of several important military rendezvous. It was a favourite resort of highwaymen, whose bodies were exposed on gibbets along the road. In 1784 the base-line of the first trigonometrical survey in England was laid down on the heath. In 1793 large cavalry barracks were erected upon it, and it is also the site of extensive powder mills. It began to be enclosed towards the end of the reign of George III. In Osterley Park, N.E. of Hounslow, Sir Thomas Gresham built a mansion in 1577, and this was rebuilt with great magnificence by Francis and Robert Childc.1770. Hounslow is divided between the parishes of Heston and Isleworth. Pop. of urban district of Heston and Isleworth (1901) 30,863.
HOUR,the twenty-fourth part of a civil day, the twelfth part of a natural day or night, a space of time of sixty minutes’ duration. The word is derived through the O. Fr.ure,ore,houre, mod.heure, from Lat.hora, Gr.ὥρα, season, time of day, hour (seeCalendar).
HOUR ANGLE,the angular distance of a heavenly body from the meridian, as measured around the celestial pole. It is equal to the angle at the pole between the hour circle through the body and the meridian, but is usually expressed in time.
HOUR-GLASS,a device for measuring intervals of time, also known as sand-glass, and as log-glass when used in conjunction with the common log for ascertaining the speed of a ship. It consists of two pear-shaped bulbs of glass, united at their apices and having a minute passage formed between them. A quantity of sand (or occasionally of mercury) is enclosed in the bulbs, and the size of the passage is so proportioned that this sand will completely run through from one bulb to another in the time it is desired to measure—e.g.an hour or a minute. Instruments of this kind, which have no great pretensions to accuracy, were formerly common in churches. In the English House of Commons, as a preliminary to a division, a two-minute sand-glass is still turned, and while the sand is running the “division bells” are set in motion in every part of the building, to give members notice that a division is at hand.
HOURI,the term for a beautiful virgin who awaits the devout Mahommedan in Paradise. The word is the French representative of the Pers.hūrī, Arab,hawrā‘, a black-eyed virgin, fromhawira, to be black-eyed, like a gazelle.
HOURS, CANONICAL,certain portions of the day set apart by rule (canon) of the church for prayer and devotion. The Jewish custom of praying three times a day,i.e.at the third, sixth and ninth hours, was perpetuated in the early Christian Church (Acts ii. 15, iii. 1, x. 9), and to these were added midnight (when Paul and Silas sang in prison), and the beginning of day and of night. Ambrose, Augustine and Hilary commended the example of the psalmist who gave praise “seven times a day” (Ps. cxix. 164). The seventh (Compline,Completorium) was added by Benedict. These hours were adopted especially in the monasteries as a part of the canonical life, and spread thence to the cathedral and collegiate chapters.
Since the 6th century the number and order of the hours have been fixed thus: matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline.
Matinstheoretically belongs to midnight, but in Italy it issaid about 7 or 8A.M.and in France often on the preceding evening in accordance with the statement “evening and morning were one day.” At matins is said theVenite(Ps. xcv.) and a hymn, followed by aNocturnaor night-watch (on Sundays three) which consists of twelve psalms. After thenocturnacomes a lesson divided into three parts, one biblical and two patristic, and finally theTe Deum.
Laudsis proper to sunrise, but is mostly grouped with matins. It consists of four psalms, a canticle, psalms 148-150, a hymn, the Benedictus (Luke i. 68-79) and prayers.
Prime(6A.M.),Terce(9A.M.),Sext(noon) andNone(3P.M.) are called the Little Day Hours, are often said together, and are alike in character, consisting of a hymn and some sections of Ps. cxix., followed by a prayer. On Sundays the Athanasian Creed is said at prime.
VespersorEvensongconsists of five varying psalms, a hymn, theMagnificat(Luke i. 46-55) and prayers. It belongs theoretically to sunset.
Compline, technically 9P.M., but usually combined with vespers, is a prayer for protection during the darkness. It consists of the general confession, four fixed psalms, a hymn, theNunc dimittis(Luke ii. 29-32), prayers and a Commemoration of the Virgin.
The term “canonical hours” is also used of the time during which English marriages may be solemnized without special licence,i.e.between 8A.M.and 3P.M.
The term “canonical hours” is also used of the time during which English marriages may be solemnized without special licence,i.e.between 8A.M.and 3P.M.
HOUSE(O. Eng.hús, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut.huis, Ger.Haus; in Gothic it is only found ingudhûs, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of “hide,” conceal), the dwelling-place of a human being (treated, from the architectural point of view, below), or, in a transferred sense, of an animal, particularly of one whose abode, like that of the beaver, is built by the animal itself, or, like that of the snail, resembles in some fancied way a human dwelling. Apart from the numerous compound uses of the word, denoting the purpose for which a building is employed, such as custom-house, lighthouse, bakehouse, greenhouse and the like, there may be mentioned the particular applications to a chamber of a legislative body, the Houses of Parliament, House of Representatives, &c.; to the upper and lower assemblies of convocation; and to the colleges at a university; the heads of these foundations, known particularly as master, principal, president, provost, rector, &c., are collectively called heads of houses. At English public schools a “house” is the usual unit of the organization. In the “houses” the boys sleep, have their “studies” and their meals, if the school is arranged on the “boarding-house” system. The houses have their representative teams in the school games, but have no place in the educational class-system of the school. It may be noticed that in Scotland the words “house” and “tenement” are used in a way distinct from the English use, “tenement” being applied to the large block containing “houses,” portions,i.e., occupied by separate families. “The House” is the name colloquially given to such different institutions as the London Stock Exchange, the House of Commons or Lords and to a workhouse.
In the transferred sense, “house” is used of a family, genealogically considered, and of the audience at a public meeting or entertainment, especially of a theatre. A “house-physician” and “house-surgeon” is a member of the resident medical staff of a hospital. In astrology the twelve divisions into which the heavens are divided, and through which the planets pass, are known as houses, the first being called the “house of life.” The word “house,” “housing,” used of the trappings of a horse, especially of a covering for the back and flanks, attached to the saddle, is of quite distinct origin. In medieval Latin it appears ashucia,houssiaandhousia(see Ducange,Glossarium, s.v.housia), and comes into English from the O. Fr.huche, modernhousse. It has been supposed to have been adopted, at the time of the crusades, from the Arabicyushiah, a covering.
Architecturally considered, the term “house” is given to a building erected for habitation, in contradistinction to one built for secular or ecclesiastical purposes. The term extends, therefore, to a dwelling of any size, from a single-room building to one containing as many rooms as a palace; thus in London some of the largest dwellings are those inhabited by royalty, such as Marlborough House, or others by men of rank, such as Devonshire House, Bridgewater House, Spencer House, &c.; and even those which, formerly built as habitations, have subsequently been devoted to other purposes, such as Somerset House and Burlington House, retain the term. In Paris the larger houses thus named would be calledhôtel.
So far as the history of domestic architecture is concerned, the earliest houses of which remains have been found are those of the village of Kahun in Egypt, which were built for the workmen employed in the building of the pyramid at Illahun, and deserted on its completion. They varied in size from the habitations of the chief inspectors to the single room of the ordinary labourer, and were built in unburnt brick with open courts in the larger examples, to give light and air to the rooms round. The models found in 1907 at Deir-Rifa opposite Assiut in Upper Egypt, by Flinders Petrie, and assumed by him to be those of “soul-houses,” suggest that the early type of building consisted of a hut, to which later a porch or lean-to, with two poles in front, has been added; subsequently, columns replaced the poles, and a flat roof with parapet, suggesting the primitive forms of the Egyptian temple.
The only remains of early houses found in Mesopotamia are those within the precincts of the Temple of Bel, at Nippur, occupied by the king; but beyond the fact that the walls were built in unburnt brick and were sometimes of great thickness, nothing is known.
The houses in Crete would seem to have been small in area, but this was compensated for in height, as the small plaques found in the palace at Cnossus show houses in two or three storeys, with gable roofs and windows subdivided by mullions and transomes, corresponding with those of the 15th to 17th centuries in England. The stone staircase in the palace rising through two storeys shows that even at this early period the houses in towns had floors superposed one above the other; to a certain extent the same extension existed in the later Greek houses found in Delos, in two of which there was clear evidence of wooden staircases leading within to the roof or to an upper storey. The largest series hitherto discovered is that at Priene in Asia Minor, where the remains of some thirty examples were found, varying in dimensions, but all based on the same plan; this consisted of an entrance passage leading to an open court, on the north side of which, and therefore facing south, was an open portico, corresponding to theprostasin Vitruvius (vi. 7), and in the rear two large rooms, one of which might be the oecus or sitting-room, and the other the thalamos or chief bedroom. Other rooms round the court were the triclinium, or dining room, and cubicula or bedchambers. The largest of these houses occupied an area measuring 75 × 30 ft. Those found in Delos, though fewer in number, are of much greater importance, the house in the street of the theatre having twelve rooms exclusive of the entrance passage and the great central court, surrounded on all four sides by a peristyle; in this house the oecus measured 26 × 18 ft. In a second example the prostas consisted of a long gallery, the whole width of the site, which was lighted by windows at each end, the sills of which were raised 8 ft. or 9 ft. from the floor.
Plate II.
Plate II.
The remains of the houses found in the Peiraeus are of the same simple plan as those at Priene, and suggest that the Greek house was considered to be the private residence only for the members of the family, and without any provision for entertaining guests as in Rome and Pompeii. From the descriptions given by Vitruvius (ii. 8) it may be gathered that in his time many of the houses in Rome were built in unburnt brick, the walls of which, if properly protected at the top with a course of burnt brick projecting over the face of the brickwork, and coated inside and outside with stucco, were considered to be more lasting than those built in soft stone. Vitruvius refers also to Greek houses thus built, and states that in the house of Mausolus, at Halicarnassus, the walls were of unburnt brick, and theplastering with which they were covered was so polished that they sparkled like glass. In Rome, however, he points out, such walls ought to be forbidden, as they are not fit to carry an upper storey, unless they are of great thickness, and as upper storeys become necessary in a crowded city such walls would occupy too much space. The houses in Pompeii (q.v.) were built in rubble masonry with clay mortar, and their walls were protected at the top by burnt brick courses and their faces with stucco; they were, however, of a second- or third-rate class compared with those in Rome, the magnificence of which is attested in the descriptions given by various writers and substantiated by the remains occasionally found in excavations. Vitruvius refers to upper storeys, which were necessary in consequence of the limited area in Rome, and representations in mosaic floors and in bas-relief sculpture have been found on which two or three storeys are indicated. The plans of many Roman houses are shown on theMarble Plan, and they resemble those of Pompeii, but it is probable that the principal reception rooms were on an upper storey, long since destroyed. The house of Livia on the Palatine Hill was in two storeys, and the decoration was of a much finer character than those of Pompeii; this house and the House of the Vestals might be taken as representative of the Roman house in Rome itself. In those built in colder climates, as in England and Germany, account has to be taken of the special provision required for warming the rooms by hypocausts, of which numerous examples have been found, with rich mosaic floors over them.
Of the houses in succeeding centuries, those found in the cities of central Syria, described in the articleArchitecture, are wonderfully perfect, in consequence of their desertion at the time of the Mahommedan invasion in the 7th century. Very little is known of the houses in Europe during the dark ages, owing to the fact that they were generally built in wood, with thatched roofs. The only examples in stone which have been preserved are those in the island of Skellig Michael, Kerry, which were constructed like the beehive tombs at Mycenae with stone courses overlapping inside until they closed in at the top. These houses or cells were rectangular inside and round or oval outside, with a small low door at one end, and an opening above to let the smoke out.
The houses, even in large towns like London, were built mainly in wood, in some cases down to the 17th century; in the country, the smaller houses were constructed with trunks of trees in pairs, one end of the trunk being sunk in the ground, the other bent over and secured by a ridge piece, thus forming a pointed arch, the opening of which was about 11 ft. The pairs were fixed 16 ft. apart, and the space included constituted a bay, any requisite increase in the size of the house being made by doubling or trebling the bays. The roofs were thatched with straw on battens, and sometimes with a collar beam carrying a floor, which constituted an upper storey. The end walls were closed with wooden studs and wattle-and-daubfilling. The pairs of trees were known as forks or crucks. Vitruvius (ii. 1) suggests a similar kind of building in ancient times, except that the interlaced twigs were covered with clay, so as to carry off the rain. In Yorkshire there was another type of house, known as a coit, which was a dwelling-house and barn (shippon) united; the latter contained the cow-stalls with loft above, and the former was in two storeys, with a ladder inside the room leading to the upper floor.1
Passing now to structures of a less ephemeral character, the earliest houses of which there still remain substantial relics are those built in stone (seeManor House). The Jew’s House at Lincoln, 12th century, is one of the best-known examples, and still preserves its street front in stone, with rich entrance doorway and first-floor windows lighting the principal room, which seems invariably in those early houses to have been on the first floor, the ground floor being used for service and stores (see Plate I. fig. 5). To the 13th century belongs the old Rectory House at West Dean, Sussex, and to the 14th century the Parsonage House at Market Deeping, Lincolnshire. The principal examples of the domestic architecture of this early period in the country are castles, manor houses and farm buildings, as town houses occupied sites too valuable to be left untouched; this, however, is not the case in France, and particularly in the south, where streets of early houses are still to be found in good preservation, such as those at Cluny (fig. 1) and Cordes (Tarn), and others at Montferrand, Cahors, Figeac, Angers, Provins, Sarlat (fig. 2), St Emilion, Périgueux, Soissons and Beauvais, dating from the 12th to the 14th centuries. One of the most remarkable examples is the Musician’s House at Reims (see Plate I., fig. 4), with large windows on the first floor, between which are niches with life-size figures of musicians seated in them. Generally speaking, the ground storeys of these houses, which in many cases were occupied by shops, have been transformed, but occasionally the old shop fronts remain, as in Dinan, Morlaix and other old towns in Brittany. Houses of the first Renaissance of great beauty exist in Orleans, such as the house of Agnes Sorel; and the example in the Market Place illustrated in fig. 3; in Tours, Tristan’s house in brick with stone quoins and dressings to windows; in Rouen, Caen, Bayeux, Toulouse, Dijon and, in fact, in almost every town throughout France. Of houses of large dimensions, which in France are termedhôtels, there are also many other fine examples, the best known of which are the hôtel de Jacques Cœur (see Plate II., fig. 7), at Bourges, and the hôtel de Cluny at Paris (see Plate I., fig. 6). In the 15th and 16th centuries in France, owing to the value of the sites in towns, the houses rose to many storeys, the upper of which were built in half-timber, sometimes projecting on corbels and richly carved; of these numerous examples exist at Rouen, Beauvais, Bayeux and other towns in Normandy and Brittany. Of such structures in English towns (see Plate II. fig. 9) there are still preserved some examples in York, Southampton, Chester, Shrewsbury, Stratford-on-Avon, and many smaller towns; the greatest development in half-timber houses in England is that which is found more particularly throughout Kent, Sussex and Surrey, in houses of modest dimensions, generally consisting of ground and first floor only, with sometimes additional rooms in the roof; in these the upper storey invariably projects in front of the lower, giving increased dimensions to the rooms in the former, but adopted in order to protect the walls of the ground storey from rain, which in the upper storey was effected by the projecting eaves of the roof. In the north and west of England, where stone could be obtained at less cost than brick, and in the east of England, where brick, often imported from the Low Countries, was largely employed, the ordinary houses were built in those materials,and in consequence of their excellent construction many houses of the 16th and 17th centuries have remained in good preservation down to the present day; they are found in the Cotswolds generally, and (among small towns) at Broadway in Worcestershire and (of brick) throughout Essex and Suffolk. Among the larger half-timber houses built in the 15th and 16th centuries, mention may be made of Bramhall Hall, near Manchester; Speke Hall, near Liverpool (see Plate III., fig. 10); The Oaks; West Bromwich; and Moreton Old Hall, Cheshire, one of the most elaborate of the series (see Plate III., fig. 11).
On the borders of the Rhine, as at Bacharach and Rhense, and throughout Germany, hall-timber houses of the most picturesque character are found in every town, large and small, those of Hildesheim (see Plate II., fig. 8) dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, and in some cases rising to a great height with four or five storeys, not including those in the lofty roofs. Houses in stone from the 12th to the 16th century are found in Cologne, Metz, Trier, Hanover and Münster in Westphalia, where again there are whole streets remaining; and in brick at Rostock, Stralsund, Lübeck, Greifswald and Dantzig, forming a very remarkable series of 15th and 16th-century work.
Of half-timber work in Italy there are no examples, but sometimes (as at Bologna) the rooms of the upper floors are carried on arcades, and sometimes on corbels, as the casa dei Carracci in the same town. The principal feature of the Italian house is the courtyard in the rear, with arcades on one or more sides, the front in stone or brick, or both combined, being of the greatest simplicity (examples in San Gimignano and Pisa). At Viterbo are small houses in stone, two of which have external stone staircases of fine design, and the few windows on the ground floor suggest that the rooms there were used only for stores. Houses with external staircases, but without any architectural pretensions, are found throughout the Balkan provinces.
The introduction of the purer Italian style into England in the 17th century created a great change in domestic architecture. Instead of the projecting wings and otherwise picturesque contour of the earlier work the houses were made square or rectangular on plan, in two or three storeys, crowned with a modillion cornice carrying a roof of red tiles; the only embellishments of the main front were the projecting courses of stone on the quoins and architraves round the windows, and flat pilasters carrying a hood or pediment flanking the entrance doorway. In the larger mansions more thought was bestowed on the introduction of porticoes (scarcely necessary in the English climate), with sometimes great flights of steps up to the principal floor, which was raised above a basement with cold and dark passages; a great saloon in the centre of the block, lighted from above, took the place of the great entrance hall of the Tudor period, and the rooms frequently led one out of the other, without an independent entrance door. On the other hand, in the ordinary houses, the deficiency in external ornament was amply made up for by the comfort in the interior and the decoration of the staircase and other rooms. Towards the close of the century the square mullioned and transomed windows, with opening casements, gave way to sash windows, introduced from Holland, and these with moulded and stout sash-bars gave a certain character to the outside of the houses, which are valued now for their quiet unpretentious character and excellent construction. In the closes of many English cathedrals, on the outskirts of London, and in some of the older squares, as Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Queen Square, are examples of this style of house. The substitution of thin sash-bars in the 19th century,and their omission occasionally, in favour of plate-glass, deprived the house-front of one of its chief attractions; but the old English casements and oriels or bow-windows have been again introduced, and a return has been made to the style which prevailed in the beginning of the 18th century, commonly known as that of Queen Anne.
Plate III.
Plate IV.
Plate V.
Plate VI.
Perhaps in one respect the greatest change which has been made in the English house is the adoption of “flats”; commenced some time in the ’fifties in Ashley Gardens, Westminster, they have spread throughout London. In consequence of the great value of the sites on which they are sometimes built, to which must be added the cost of the houses pulled down to make way for them, the question of expense in material and rich decoration has not always been worth considering, so that frontages in stone, with the classic orders brought in with many varieties of design, have given the character of a palace to a structure in which none of the rooms exceeds the modest height of 10 ft. The increasing demand for these, however, shows that they meet, so far as their accommodation and comfort are concerned, the wants and tastes of the upper and middle classes. In some of the London streets, where shops occupy the ground floor, a far finer type of house has been erected than that which could have been afforded for the shopkeeper’s residence above, as in old times, so that London promises in time to become a city of palaces. The same change in the aspects of its streets has long been evident in Paris, but there is one feature in the latter city which has never yet found its way into London, much to the surprise of French visitors, viz. theporte-cochère, through which the occupants of the house can in wet weather drive and be landed in a covered hall or vestibule. This requires, of course, a small court at the back, so small that one wonders sometimes how it is possible for the carriage to turn round in it. Theporte-cochèrealso, from its dimensions, is a feature of more importance than the ordinary street doorway, even when a portico of some kind is added; on the other hand, the strict regulations in Paris as regards the projection of cornices and other decorative accessories gives to the stranger the appearance of monotony in their design, which certainly cannot be said of the houses in flats lately built in London. Within recent years an old English feature, known as the bow-window, has been introduced into Paris, the primary object of which does not seem yet to have been thoroughly understood by the French architect. An English bow-window, by its slight projection in front of the main wall, increases greatly the amount of light entering the room, and it is generally placed between solid piers of stone or brick. The French architects, however, project their piers on immense corbels, and then sink their windows with deep external reveals, so that no benefit accrues to the room, so far as the increased light is concerned. In Paris, since 1900, there has been a tendency to introduce a style of design in French houses which is known as “l’art nouveau,” a style which commenced in furniture as a reaction against the revival of the Empire and Louis XIV. and XVI. periods, and was then extended to house fronts; this style has unfortunately spread through the various towns in France and apparently to Germany, again as a reaction against the formal classic style of the latter half of the 19th century. It is probable that in Italy and Spain “l’art nouveau” may meet with the same success, and for the same reasons, so that in the latter country it will be a revival, with modifications, of the well-known Churrigueresque style, the most debased Rococo style which has ever existed. In England it has never met with any response.