Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Many types of people besides the nobility and knights now had
property and thus were considered gentry: female lines of the
nobility, merchants and their sons, attorneys, auditors, squires,
and peasant-yeomen. The burgess grew rich as the knight dropped
lower. The great merchants lived in mansions which could occupy
whole blocks. Typically, there would be an oak-paneled great hall,
with adjoining kitchen, pantry, and buttery on one end and a great
parlor to receive guests, bedrooms, wardrobes, servants' rooms,
and a chapel on the other end or on a second floor. The beds were
surrounded by heavy draperies to keep out cold drafts. In towns
these mansions were entered through a gate through a row of shops
on the street. A lesser dwelling would have these rooms on three
floors over a shop on the first floor. An average Londoner would
have a shop, a storeroom, a hall, a kitchen, and a buttery on the
first floor, and three bedrooms on the second floor. Artisans and
shopkeepers of more modest means lived in rows of dwellings, each
with a shop and small storage room on the first floor, and a
combination parlor-bedroom on the second floor. The humblest
residents crowded their shop and family into one 6 by 10 foot room
for rent of a few shillings a year. All except the last would also
have a small garden. The best gardens had a fruit tree, herbs,
flowers, a well, and a latrine area. There were common and public
privies for those without their own. Kitchen slops and casual
refuse continued to be thrown into the street. Floors of stone or
planks were strewn with rushes. There was some tile flooring. Most
dwellings had glass windows. Candles were used for lighting at
night. Torches and oil-burning lanterns were portable lights.
Furnishings were still sparse. Men sat on benches or joint stools
and women sat on cushions on the floor. Hall and parlor had a
table and benches and perhaps one chair. Bedrooms had a curtained
feather bed with pillows, blankets, and sheets. Clothes were
stored in a chest, sometimes with sweet-smelling herbs such as
lavender, rosemary, and southernwood. Better homes had wall
hanging and cupboards displaying plate. Laundresses washed clothes
in the streams, rivers, and public conduits. Country peasants
still lived in wood, straw, and mud huts with earth floors and a
smoky hearth in the center or a kitchen area under the eaves of
the hut.
In 1442, bricks began to be manufactured in the nation and so
there was more use of bricks in buildings. Chimneys were
introduced into manor houses where stone had been too expensive.
This was necessary if a second floor was added, so the smoke would
not damage the floor above it and would eventually go out of the
house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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