Foundation (History of England Vol 1) (16 page)

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the standard house consisted of one square room on the ground floor, with another square room built above it; access to the latter was generally granted by means of an external staircase. The furniture was simple, and scarcely varied at all from that of the Anglo-Saxons. A board laid on trestles acted as a dining table, and a wooden bench was the primary form of seating. In the houses built of stone, alcoves or recesses in the wall could be used for the same purpose. There were very few chairs or stools, except for the chair of state in noble households. Some of the richer families might own chests, coffers and cupboards; the bed was essentially a bag of straw laid upon a carved frame.

Only the wealthy possessed houses of stone with a ‘hall’ on the ground floor. A larger proportion of families owned houses built of wood and thatched with straw or reeds or heather; the windows boasted no glass, but wooden shutters could be barred at night for safety and comfort. Nevertheless the wooden house was always
draughty and smoky. It was generally on two floors, like its stone counterpart, with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor; on the upper storey was a bedroom for the master of the house and his family. In the poorer dwellings the inhabitants would sleep on the floor, with heather or straw as their bedding. There might be a wooden booth in front of the house, where goods and produce could be sold; behind the house might be located a warehouse or small factory where those goods were manufactured.

The poorer sort had no such resources, most of them living in huts of wattle and daub that were little different from those of the early Britons. At the level of absolute need, there are no variations. Peasant buildings, in the countryside, had a limited rate of survival; they either crumbled, or were pulled down, within two generations. They rise from the land and return to it. A form of tenure in Hampshire was known as ‘keyhold tenure’; if a person could build a hut or house in one night, and have his fire lit before morning, then his residency was assured.

The style and method of peasant construction survived for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, Thomas Hardy recalled the method of building used in his childhood. ‘What was called mudwall’, he wrote, ‘was really a composition of chalk, clay and straw – essentially unbaked brick. This was mixed up into a sort of dough-pudding close to where the cottage was to be built. The mixing was performed by treading and shovelling – women sometimes being called in to tread – and the straw was added to bind the mass together . . . It was then thrown by pitch-forks on to the wall, where . . . it was left to settle for a day or two.’ When the fabric had dried and hardened in the sun, the roof was built of thatch. This was the method used by the Britons before the coming of Rome. It was used by the English during the reign of Victoria.

The dimensions of a modest thirteenth-century house are given in a Worcestershire court roll of 1281; it was of one storey, 30 feet long (9 metres) and 14 feet broad (4.25 metres), with three doors and two windows. The windows were on each side, to be left open when a cool breeze blew, but stuffed with straw or fern in inclement weather. The family would have eaten and slept together within the same room. This was not a period in which the private self can
be said to exist. A thirteenth-century cottage excavated in Berkshire consisted of one room, 10 by 12 feet (3 by 3.6 metres), and another in Yorkshire had dimensions of 10 by 20 feet (3 by 6 metres). The room was generally open to the roof, with a central hearth. In the longhouses of the same period the rooms were used for livestock as well as people, together with a store of grain. The inhabitants were living and sleeping side by side with their animals.

Houses were lengthened, or rebuilt, or extended, as time and occasion demanded. Certain improvements, from human industry and human ingenuity, were possible. The houses of the eleventh century were made of clay without timber frames; by the thirteenth century most houses were constructed with timber frames and, less than a century later, the walls were being erected on stone bases to curb damp and decay. The beaten-earth floors were generally strewn with rushes that became so moist and dirty that they were known as ‘the marsh’. The first evidence of chimney pots comes from Whitefriars, just south of Fleet Street, in London; in 1278 Ralph de Crockerlane was selling clay chimney pots in that quarter.

Yet the essential structure of the dwelling remained identical for many hundreds of years. The furniture was scanty, household items rudimentary; the spoons and dishes were generally made of wood by members of the family. There might have been a few brass pots and cups. A bed acted in the daytime as a seat. These were bare rooms for bare living. It is surprising, perhaps, that richer and poorer agricultural workers of England tended to live in the same kind of dwelling; whatever their economic circumstances, they reverted to the ancient model. It is another indication of the customary traditions of the countryside. In the larger houses the same identity of purpose can be found, with a central hall flanked by smaller rooms. One gradual change did occur: towards the end of the thirteenth century more provision was made, at least in the larger towns, for adequate drainage and cesspit systems.

Houses from the fourteenth century have survived in far greater numbers than those of any earlier period. They are generally more solid and substantial than their predecessors, and in London they often attained three storeys with a height between 30 and 40 feet (9 and 12 metres). A visitor from the country would have been surprised by these urban ‘skyscrapers’, quite a new thing in England.
From the middle of fourteenth-century London, too, come fragments of small yellow bricks. The townhouse of a wealthy merchant from that century was highly decorated, with interiors of colour and of costliness; tapestries, curtains and hangings draped the walls. Tiles, rather than rushes, were laid upon the floors; finely glazed pottery was imported from France and Spain, sparkling glass from Venice and silks from Persia. This was still in great contrast to the rudimentary furnishings of the ordinary English house, but the appetite for luxury and colour slowly spread among the wealthier families. In the fifteenth century inventories of the richer households include such items as cushions and tapestries, painted cloths and carpets, basins and screens, wainscoting and coverings for benches and chairs. The colours would by modern standards of taste be considered inharmonious, with strident yellows and purples and greens placed beside each other. The intended effect was one of brilliancy and vivacity. That is why an image of the sun was sometimes embroidered on cloths and tapestries and articles of dress. In a similar spirit men often wore shoes of different colours. Brick and glass became more common. Open hearths were being replaced by fireplaces.

The objects of medieval life are still recovered from the ground. Traces of wooden stools and of other pieces of furniture, undisturbed for many hundreds of years, have been found at Winchester and Beverley. Two locks were smashed with an axe before being discarded; another lock was repaired by its owner. The vast quantity of medieval locks and padlocks, found within the excavated spaces, suggests a life of threat or at least of suspicion and caution. Medieval life was dominated by the key.

Candlesticks, of lead and copper alloy, have been taken from the earth by archaeological teams. By the fifteenth century these candlesticks have become larger, an indication that candles had increased in thickness. This in turn suggests greater wealth. So from small material details we may be able to reach larger conclusions. Hanging lamps of glass began to take the place of hanging lamps of stone or ceramic by the end of the thirteenth century; oil lamps, in which a wick floated upon a small pool of oil, were being replaced by candles at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Vessels of wood (generally of ash) are to be found everywhere,
but glass was becoming popular among the wealthier families by the fourteenth century. There are glass flasks, jugs, and of course glasses. Glass urinals, in which urine was examined for the signs of health or disease, are relatively common.

Other archaeological relics of the dead have been found. A balance to weigh coin had been adjusted to give false readings, but at a later date it was deliberately destroyed; perhaps its owner had then been placed in the pillory. Vessels of copper alloy or of ceramic were often patched up, suggesting how in the domestic economy the cheapest items were valued; cracks in the ceramic surface were sealed with lead. An iron helmet was inverted, supplied with a handle, and turned into a cooking vessel. Spindles are found everywhere. So are needles and thimbles, from an age when both men and women were skilled in sewing cloth and leather. It was a common and necessary household occupation. Many spoons and spoon-handles survive, some of them inscribed with a pattern or mark to indicate ownership; this gives a picture of communal dining. Some vessels have been found bearing the legend
CUM SIS IN MENSA PRIMO DI PAVPERE PENSO
– ‘When you are at the table, first think of the poor’. A brooch of the thirteenth century has, as its inscription, ‘I am a brooch to guard the breast, that no rascal may put his hand thereon.’ A ring of the fourteenth century has the legend ‘He who spends more than belongs to him, kills himself without a blow.’ Whistles, book clasps, writing implements, hooks, hinges, chests, caskets, leather shoes, are all mute testimony of a forgotten life.

The most commonly found location is naturally that of the ‘undercroft’ or basement. Many of them are lined with chalk or flint, and in some of them the tiles still cover the floor. There is evidence of steps leading from the street, and of small windows on a level with the ground. The life of the past leaves other marks on the earth. A worn floor will trace the path of a door once swinging to and fro. Go in.

9

Devils and wicked men

To the victor came the spoils. William set about ordering his new kingdom. He confiscated the estates of his English opponents, particularly of those who had fought against him at Hastings. Some of the English thegns had fled, and others had gone into exile. Just as Canute had done before him, he raised a large sum with a sudden tax. He was greedy, with the appetite of a conqueror. Another sign of his strength rose upon his new lands. Wherever he went, he planted a castle. One was soon built in London itself, on the site of the present Tower.

He was helped in his enterprise by many survivors of the old regime. William realized, as other foreign conquerors before him, that he needed the experience and knowledge of English administrators. In the first years of his rule he retained the English sheriffs. The monasteries were still being governed by English abbots, despite the fact that two of their number had fought at Hastings. Regenbald, head of the writing office under Edward the Confessor, became William’s chancellor.

Yet others among the English decided to fight. William’s power did not really prevail beyond the south-east of the country, and Harold’s own immediate family established a base in the south-west at Exeter. They took advantage of William’s absence in Normandy to raise the banner of revolt in 1068. The senior
protagonist in this affair was Harold’s mother, Gytha, with the assistance of the Irish and perhaps even of the Danes. Gytha was the aunt of the king of Denmark. William realized the gravity of a rebellion that might embroil the whole of northern and western England and, immediately on his return, he took his army to the walls of Exeter. He laid siege to the city for eighteen days, and in the end Gytha made her escape down the river Exe; the citizens then surrendered.

This was only a prelude to a much more significant revolt in the northern counties, when in 1069 the English of that region enlisted the help of the Danes to take York. Memories of the Danelaw were still strong. William marched up the country, planting castles wherever he halted. He did not immediately attack York, but employed the tactics he had used against London three years before; he left a trail of destruction across the surrounding lands. This became known as ‘the harrowing of the north’ and consisted of nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the people and the territory in William’s path. He fell upon them as if in a lightning storm. The men and the animals were killed, the crops destroyed, the towns and villages wasted. All the reserves of food were put to the torch, creating widespread famine; 100,000 people were reported to have died. No cultivated land was left between York and Durham, and a century later the ruins of the destruction were still be to be found. The villages of the region were described in the
Domesday Book
as ‘waste’. Yet the north would rise against William no more. He had created a desert, and called it peace. William is supposed to have confessed on his deathbed that ‘I fell on the English of the northern shires like a ravening lion.’