HOUSEHOLDS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The typical medieval peasant household was similar to the nuclear family known today but, just as today, it had infinite variations. Typically, a husband and wife plus their young children lived and worked together. Sometimes members of an extended family lived together under one roof. Merchants and artisans housed apprentices and journeymen in their homes.

The medieval aristocratic household was mostly male. It consisted of the lord, his wife, and their young children, possibly the lord’s mother, a few female companions, and one or two female servants. Sometimes after the death of the lord, his widow (sometimes his mother or daughter) would rule in his place. The rest of the members of the household included male officers and mostly male servants. Dukes and earls had between fifty and two hundred members in their households. Bishops and abbots usually had between forty and eighty. A royal household had three or four hundred. Barons and petty nobility had as few as twenty members in their households. Knights might have half that number.

The noble household consisted of the inner household, which was the stable, unchanging, main household, and the riding household, which consisted of the lord and a small group of retainers who traveled on the lord’s business. The inner household usually consisted of the wife or widow, plus the youngest members of the family, a few companions, and some servants. Relatives, important advisors, and officials also joined the household on a changing basis. Gentlemen, yeomen (called valetti, from which the word valet comes), grooms (called garciones or garçons, “waiters”), pages, and guests also lived in the household at different times and in varying numbers.

The more servants a noble had, the more glory and social standing he or she acquired. Servants and affiliated members of the household wore livery and badges to identify with whom they were associated.

A royal household consisted of a chancellor who served as chief of staff; a constable who supervised the outside staff; a marshal who kept the discipline at court; a grand butler who supervised the inside staff; a personal bodyguard consisting of several well-trusted retainers; a master of falconry and the hunt; a master of stables; a master of forests; grand stewards of the kitchen, bakery, cellar, fruit, and furnishings; a physician; an astronomer; a chamberlain who saw to the private needs of the king; barbers; priests; painters and other artists; musicians; minstrels and storytellers; secretaries; copyists or scribes; jesters and other entertainers; pages, usually the sons of favored nobles; squires; a chatelaine or estate manager; a treasurer and other ministers; knights with attendants; and servants, such as cupbearers, carters, and launderers. This often meant a permanent household or court of hundreds. In the early Middle Ages, this retinue traveled from place to place in order to reduce the burden such a number of people placed on limited resources.

The biggest expenditure for every household was food. As much as half the budget (in some cases, more) was spent on food, regardless of social class. Another ten percent was spent on clothing and textiles, which would be passed down from one person to another and even from generation to generation. Clothing was so valuable that lords gave clothing or cloth to retainers as a reward for service. Wages also equaled about ten percent of the budget; much pay was given in kind. Little was spent on fuel, since firewood and peat were easily collected.

The poor lived in huts and hovels or in one- or two-room houses. The middle class lived in larger buildings with stone walls and gardens. Outbuildings included stables, pigpens, and chicken coops. A bakehouse was connected to the kitchen. The house itself consisted of a central hall, a great parlor with smaller rooms off of it, privy, cellar, larder house, buttery, cloth house (closet), and often a chapel. Above stairs was the bedchamber. All of the rooms were small and sparsely furnished and were designed for working in.

Nobles lived in castles that were larger versions of the middle-class home and more lavishly decorated. Toward the end of the medieval time period, they lived in manor houses in towns.

By Jennifer Lawler in "Encyclopedia of Women in the Middle Ages", McFarland & Company, USA, 2008. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.