Clean Great Hall Floor In Middle Ages

The middle ages volume 1 by r a brown h m colvin and a j taylor edited by h m colvin london 1963 the great hall by m w thompson cambridge 1991 the english.

Clean great hall floor in middle ages.

The history of the king s works. During the crusades knights brought soap from the east. The doors are in general laid with white clay and are covered with rushes occasionally renewed but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed sometimes. In chambers people had basins of water for washing the face and hands and maybe a more intimate part of themselves.

A great hall is the main room of a royal palace nobleman s castle or a large manor house or hall house in the middle ages and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing. His job was to take care of the estate and supervise the staff as well as take care of the events in the great hall. There has been much conflicting information about whether or not people in the middle ages were as clean as we were within out homes. Before people entered the great hall for meals they washed their hands.

Beautifully decorated well lit and the largest indoor space most people would ever witness the. The housekeeper would be in charge of the kitchen staff the chambermaids and cleaning of. With everyone dining and sleeping in the hall in its early days the room evolved to become the imposing host of banquets and courts. Originally the great hall used to be in the keep but as castles got bigger it moved to the inner bailey.

However despite the general lack of running water and other modern amenities there were common expectations of personal hygiene such as regularly washing from a basin especially the hands before and after eating which was regarded as good etiquette in a period when. Early castles had a hearth in the middle of this room to keep it warm. These reed like plants were inexpensive and plentiful and when mixed with fresh herbs were a good way to cover dirt while sweetening the air. From the fifth century to the early middle ages such a building was the residence of a lord and his retainers these structures were also where lords could formally receive visitors and where the community.

At that time the word great simply meant big and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. Among the early germanic peoples a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room. A reconstructed viking age longhouse 28 5 metres long in denmark. People in the middle ages have acquired something of a bad reputation when it comes to cleanliness especially the peasantry.

Fresh sweet flag plants incorrectly termed rushes were periodically spread on medieval castle floors as a floor covering. Prior to that people used water only and the oils from flowers. Hand washing before entering the great hall for a meal was standard.