The English Mediaeval House by Margaret E. Wood

Image credit: Txllxt TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0/ wikimedia commonsĬastle toilets, also known as garderobes or latrines, would have a plank of wood with a hole held on stone supports through which waste could be deposited.

View up into a medieval toilet outlet at a castle in Carcassonne. Toilets weren’t as dirty and smelly as you’d think. At other times, the household might be smaller such as during a woman’s confinement before birth and just after ( see Rachel Delman’s work on this).Ģ. Numbers in the household could swell at times of celebration such as Easter, or when they received guests, who might stay for months at a time. Then there would be people associated with the different areas of the household from the kitchen, stables, guards, carers for the children, personal attendants to the lord and lady and those who carried out religious duties. The moving household could be anywhere from 30 to 150 people it would have included the lord and lady as well as their children (which could go into double figures – for example Queen of England Eleanor of Aquitaine had 10 children).

While castles were homes, they weren’t permanent residences – the lord, lady and household moved from castle to castle and took their things with them – beds, linen, tableware, tapestries, candlesticks, chests and perhaps even plants in pots! This means that the resident household at a castle would usually be very small and most of the rooms were shut up. Not many people lived there for much of the time. Bodiam Castle by Adam Kumiszcza CC BY-SA 4.0/ wikimedia commonsġ. Here she tells us some unexpected facts about daily life in medieval castles. Dr Karen Dempsey’s research tells the stories of medieval people’s lives through the objects they used and cared about, in the spaces where they lived and worked.

The English Mediaeval House by Margaret E. Wood