In an account of the manners and customs of the English people, drawn up in 1678, the writer states that before the Reformation, "Ordinary men's houses, as copyholders and the like, had no chimneys, but flues like louver holes; some of them were in being when I was a boy."
"England in the Days of Old"
William Andrews
Certainly the same kind of fire-proof house of only one story with more light, "roofs of steel and glass on the louver principle," will obviate so frequent a change of air as a shut-in house requires, and give more equable temperature.
"The Cost of Shelter"
Ellen H. Richards
The fire of pine logs was in the midst of the hall, and the smoke went out through a louver in the roof.
"Hereward, The Last of the English"
Charles Kingsley