|
|
|
NEW DVD now available for just £9.99 plus p&p. Click HERE for more details.          
|
The
living quarters of a medieval house or castle invariably had one basic element:
the hall. A
large one-room structure with a loft ceiling, the hall was sometimes on the
ground floor.
Early halls were aisled like a church, with rows of wooden posts or stone
pillars supporting the timber roof. In
a ground-floor hall the floor was beaten earth, stone or plaster. Carpets,
although used on walls, tables, and benches, were not used as floor coverings in
The
castle family sat on a raised dais of stone or wood at the upper end of the
hall, opposite to the entrance, away from drafts and intrusion. The lord (and
perhaps the lady) occupied a massive chair, sometimes with a canopy by way of
emphasizing status. Everyone else sat on benches. Most dining tables were set on
temporary trestles that were dismantled between meals But
all tables were covered with white cloths, clean and ample. A
major technical advance came in heating: the fireplace, an invention of
deceptive simplicity. The
fireplace provided heat both directly and by radiation from the stones at the
back, from the hearth, and finally, from the opposite wall, which was given
extra thickness to absorb the heat and warm the room after the fire had burned
low. Toward
the end of the 12th century, the fireplace began to be protected by a projecting
hood of stone or plaster which controlled the smoke more effectively and allowed
for a shallower recess. Flues
ascended vertically through the walls to a chimney, cylindrical with an open
top, or with side vents and a conical cap. The
Kitchen In
the 13th century the castle kitchen was still generally of timber, with a
central hearth or several fireplaces where meat could be spitted or stewed in a
cauldron. Utensils
were washed in a scullery outside. Poultry and animals for slaughter were
trussed and tethered nearby. Near
the kitchen the castle garden was usually planted with fruit trees and vines at
one end, and plots of herbs, and flowers. There might also be a fishpond,
stocked with trout and pike. The
Accommodation In
the earliest castles the family slept at the extreme upper end of the hall,
beyond the dais, from which the sleeping quarters were typically separated by
only a curtain or screen. Sometimes
castles with ground-floor halls had their great chamber, where the lord and lady
slept, in a separate wing at the dais end of the hall, over a storeroom, matched
at the other end, over the buttery and pantry, by a chamber for the eldest son
and his family, for guests, or for the castle steward. These
second-floor chambers were sometimes equipped with "squints,"
peepholes concealed in wall decorations by which the owner or steward could keep
an eye on what went on below. In
the early days, when few castles had large permanent garrisons, not only
servants but military and administrative personnel slept in towers or in
basements, or in the hall, or in lean-to structures; castle guards slept near
their assigned posts. Except
for the screens and kitchen passages, the domestic quarters of these castles
contained no internal corridors. Rooms opened into each other, or were joined by
spiral staircases which required minimal space and could serve pairs of rooms on
several floors. Water Water
for washing and drinking was often available at a central drawing point on each
floor. Besides
the well, inside or near the keep, there might be a cistern or reservoir on an
upper level whose pipes carried water to the floors below. The
latrine, or "garderobe," not to be confused with the wardrobe, was
situated as close to the bed chamber as possible ideally, the garderobe was
sited at the end of a short, right-angled passage in the thickness of the wall,
often a buttress. When the chamber walls were not thick enough for this
arrangement, a latrine was corbeled out from the wall over either a moat or
river An
indispensable feature of the castle of a great lord was the chapel where the
lord and his family heard morning mass. In
rectangular hall-keeps this was often in the fore building, sometimes at
basement level. By the 13th century, the chapel was usually close to the hall,
convenient to the high table and bed chamber, forming an L with the main
building or sometimes projecting opposite the chamber. By
the later 13th century, the castle had achieved a considerable degree of
comfort, convenience, and privacy. The lord and lady, who had begun by eating
and sleeping in the great hall with their household, had gradually withdrawn to
their own apartments.
|
NEW DVD now available for just £9.99 plus p&p. Click HERE for more details.
|
