mostly from the Alaouite era but some dating as far back as the Marinid or Saadian periods in Fes and Marrakesh. In Fes, in the early 20th century, one richly decorated house from the beginning of the 14th century (the early Marinid period) was studied and documented by Alfred Bel before it was demolished by its owners. Built in brick, its decoration and form bore very strong similarities with the Marinid madrasas built in Fes in the same period, revealing a shared ornamental repertoire and craftsmanship between madrasas and private houses of rich families. Beyond this, the overall layout was also comparable to the Muslim houses of Granada and demonstrated many classic features of medieval Moroccan houses that are often repeated in later houses. It had a central square courtyard or patio (called the wust ad-dar) surrounded by a two-story gallery, from which rooms opened on every side on both stories. The rooms were wide but relatively shallow in order to keep a generally square floor plan with the courtyard at its center, and the main rooms opened through very tall arched doorways with wooden double doors. Above these doorways on the ground floor were windows that allowed light from the courtyard to enter the rooms behind. While not completely symmetrical, each façade of the courtyard gallery consisted of a tall, wide central arch and two narrow side arches. This arrangement resulted in a cluster of three pillars at the corners of the gallery. The top of the central arch in the lower-floor gallery consisted of a two-tiered or corbelled wooden lintel instead of a round arch, while the two smaller arches to the side were round and much lower. The vertical space above the side arches was filled with ornate stucco decoration based on a sebka motif, similar to some of the decorated surfaces in the Marinid madrasas of the city. The central arch of the second-floor gallery was a round arch whose spandrels were filled with the same kind of stucco decoration, with the two smaller arches to either side having a similar form. The wooden lintels were carved with vegetal motifs as well as with floriated Kufic letters. The lower parts of the brick pillars were covered in zellij tiles. Although the house is gone, pieces of the house's stucco decoration have been preserved in the Dar Batha museum in Fes.Since the demolition of this early documented