Western Civilization: RW
The Medieval Home
Viva Question
What can we learn about medieval society by examining their homes?
Counter Thesis
“The past is another country, they do things differently there.”
-L.P. Hartley
We humans face the challenge of seeing everything subjectively. As a result, we tend to view the past through the lens of our own experience. The Medieval era is no exception, and although we might tend to misread the Medieval mind by giving it modern impulses and contexts, the physical reality of the Medieval world offers us an important and useful corrective.
Thesis:
The Medieval home reveals an enormous amount about just how different their world was from our own.
Argument One
In the Medieval world, social hierarchy was everywhere, from your food to your clothing to the materials used to build your house.
Remember the great chain of being?
Where might you find hierarchy?
You might find it in the larder.
Medieval people thought that your class determined how your body worked, and thus what foods were appropriate for you to eat.
This was off-limits
But this was okay...
The Medieval Kitchen
You might find it in their wardrobes.
Due to things called sumptuary laws.
Sumptuary laws refer to a set of rules which which governed spending and the sorts of goods you were allowed to purchase. These laws governed people’s lives in medieval Europe, especially the sorts of clothing that was considered permissible, the foods you could eat and the luxuries you could enjoy.
The origins of the sumptuary laws in the medieval ages go back to the Catholic Church’s canon law. As the Church’s political power grew in the medieval era, it began to create highly specific ranks for the clergy. Members of the church were supposed to dress based on their status in the Church, and violations were strictly prohibited.
Similarly, there rules governing the appearance of minorities and certain social groups. As such, these laws defined dress codes for these groups, making it easier for the society at large to identify and discriminate against them. The groups for whom these laws were regulated included Jews and those suffering from communicable diseases.
Medieval Jewish Clothing
As Europeans began to see every aspect of life as developing from hidden religious symbolism, these differences in clothing were applied to secular differences. Eventually sumptuary laws began to govern the specific clothing required of each class.
This was very off-limits
Ermine, typically limited to nobles, was linked, according to popular belief to purity because it was thought that ermine were extremely pure animals, who would potius mori quam foedari. As a result it became a symbol of the moral purity of royals.
You might find it looking at the house itself.
Timber was off-limits to the average peasant.
Powerful people could demonstrate their influence by highlighting their ability to build with timber.
Peasant homes were made of coppiced wood
Peasants and Timber
“Some peasants enjoyed the rights of housbote, entitling them to take some building timber from the lord’s wood, but the right was supervised by the lord’s officials, and the quantities of timber taken were rarely enough to build a complete house.”
Christopher Dyer
Poachers who took off-limits game or wood faced death.
How did peasants build with coppiced wood?
Wattle and Daub
Thatched Roof
Argument Two
The Medieval home tells us about the impact of political and economic instability on peasants.
Tower House, Dalkey
Without the towers, stone walls, and moats which protected the aristocracy, the average peasant depended on proximity for their security.
Peasant homes were often one room with little privacy, few belongings, and were filled with people and animals.
Medieval Co-Sleeping
“Inadequate bedding meant that families in the lower ranks routinely shared a single mattress, with overnight visitors included. Sharing not only the same room but also the same covers conserved resources and generated welcome warmth. Advised an Italian proverb, "In a narrow bed, get thee in the middle," whereas "to pig" was a common English expression for sleeping with one or more bedfellows. Occasionally entire households of European peasants shared the same beds. So, too, some families throughout the British Isles brought farm animals within sleeping quarters at night. Besides protecting cows, sheep, and other livestock from predators and thieves, boarding with beasts allowed greater warmth, notwithstanding the ‘nastiness of theire extrements’”.
-Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past
The Medieval Bed
“In the early medieval era many people slept communally around a fire for protection against attackers. They would sleep in their cloaks on hay or reeds scattered around a central fire. As beds developed they remained social places. People met guests and conducted meetings in them. Key events of birth and death were often witnessed by friends, family, and interested parties, with privacy being far less common. Co-sleeping was very common. Travellers were expected to share beds with strangers, each lying on their own half, with rules existing for being a considerate bedfellow. In the poorer establishments, sleeping arrangements consisted of a simple wooden bench with a rope hung horizontally about chest height. Travellers would cram along the bench and hang their arms over the rope for support.”
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The most famous example of co-sleeping is that of the 10 x 11 foot Great Bed of Ware, designed to sleep fifteen people.
-Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past
Argument Three
The proximity of large groups of people in one space and the lack of artificial light gave medieval life a very different rhythm.
A Different Rhythm
The lack of privacy, discussed in the previous section offers us some startling insights into how differently Medieval life actually felt. In particular, the close proximity to your family and your animals meant that the rhythm and pattern of the typical person’s day would have been almost unrecognizable to most modern people.
Animals lived inside
Medieval Sleeping Patterns
Roger Ekirch’s book, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, reveals that until modern times, when artificial lighting allowed us to stay awake longer, most people would go to bed around sunset. The actual time spent sleeping was split into two phases, known as first sleep and second sleep.
“Both phases of sleep lasted roughly the same length of time, with individuals waking sometime after midnight before returning to rest. Not everyone, of course, slept according to the same timetable. The later at night that persons went to bed, the later they stirred after their initial sleep; or, if they retired past midnight, they might not awaken at all until dawn.”
-Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past
Chaucer on Sleeping Patterns
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, we hear that characters fell asleep “soon after evening fell” but then woke midway through the night, only to fall asleep again and awake when it was “full prime” or daylight.