University of Virginia Library

WESTWARD DIFFUSION FROM THE NEAR EAST
BY-PASSING ROME?

Roman custom of heating a house or its individual apartments
by means of hypocausts stands in marked contrast
to the open fire that burned on the floor of the Germanic
house. The Roman heating unit was not only enclosed; it
was concealed. The medieval open chimney combined the
advantages of both; the fire was enclosed, as in the Roman
type, and yet it was visible, as in the Germanic open fireplace.
We do not know exactly when or where this combination

[ILLUSTRATION]

379.B ST.-REMY, BOUCHES-DU-RHÔNE (NEAR ARLES), FRANCE

RUINS OF A "PILLARED" HYPOCAUST IN A HOUSE OF THE ROMAN SETTLEMENT OF GLANUM

These two illustrations show typical use of the Roman
hypocaust system in houses of transalpine Europe. No
Roman villa of any significance in the vast stretches of
land that extended from Provence to the borders of
Scotland lacked such a facility.

first took place. One might be tempted to guess that
it occurred in an area where Roman and Germanic culture
merged. But Parrot's discovery of corner fireplaces with
chimneys in the Mesopotamian Palace of Mari, dating as
early as the beginning of the second millennium B.C., suggests
that we have to contend with a third influence, from
the East. It is possible that the medieval wall or corner
fireplace is a Near Eastern idea, cast into Roman masonry
in Merovingian times, which permitted the installation of
open fires in individual rooms, without endangering the
safety of the building. Perhaps it was the close ties established
between the Near East and the West through the
monastic conquest of Merovingian Europe, in the fifth
century, as well as the ubiquitous presence in the ports and
inland cities of Gaul of Syrian, Egyptian and Jewish tradesmen
that opened up the channels for the westward diffusion
of this heating device which seems to have bypassed
Rome.[259]

[ILLUSTRATION]

380. SILCHESTER, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND

Roman hypocaust of the channeled type. The floor of the room is removed to reveal the hypocaust substructure. This system, although not
quite so common, was as widely diffused as the pillared type.

[after Joyce, 1881, pl. vii]