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Home Sweet Castle - Page 2

© Rachelle Hughes

TO EAT AND SLEEP Originally, there was little privacy in the castle. Dinner was served to the entire household including the lord and lady within the Great Hall around a central fireplace whose smoke rose to an opening in the ceiling. The master's family was separated from the servants and knights by a raised dais on one end of the room. From this dais, the lord of the house could oversee all his household members. In the early middle ages the Great Hall also served as the sleeping quarters with the families dais sectioned of by curtains or partitions. Military personnel, servants and administrative castle staff slept in lean-tos, basements, towers or in the hall.

By the 13th century separate rooms and living quarters had become more common as battlements and permanent structures were built to accommodate the castle community. Finally by the later 13th century the privacy and comfort of castles had improved considerably. The lord and lady and their family slept and ate in private quarters. The lord and lady's chambers, or solar, were usually located on a floor above the great hall. The solar was furnished with a large curtained bed (a personal servant often slept in another bed at the foot of the great bed and the curtains provided privacy.) Baths were often movable structures, although some great castles had permanent baths, but every castle had a latrine area called a garderobe, usually located with an outlet over the moat.

THE CASTLE COMMUNITY At one time Eleanor de Monfort, King John's youngest daughter, had a household staff of more than 60 servants including a head steward, a laundress, a head cook, a butler, bakers, two chamber boys, several tailors, smiths, carters, messengers, and other outside servants. Her two younger sons also had their own personal nurses and Eleanor had several of her own personal attendants and companions. This large staff didn't even include the many guest entourages Eleanor entertained as hostess or the knights under her husband Simon de Monfort's command who often were housed and fed within the castle. This is just one example of the people who moved within the walls of the castle. Most castles would have had a head steward, a kitchen staff, a stable staff with a head marshal, keeper of the wardrobe, spinners, candle makers, gardeners, musicians -- The list goes on. It is easy to see that the management of a castle was a full time business. Christine di Pisan, one of the Middle Ages few women with well-known literary works, wrote treatises to the "Lady of the Manor" on how she should conduct and educate herself in the management of her castle. In such a busy home there must have been few moments of quiet or privacy for the lord and his family or the domestic staff.

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