The House and Household Flashcards
What was the purpose of the household?
It was a social, economic, and religious unit. A residence, workplace, and place of religious teaching and practice.
Who was responsible for the smooth running of a household?
The wife. Her duties were time consuming and difficult even if she had servants.
Who taught rich wives how to maintain a household correctly? Poor?
If the wife was young, it was probably her husband who taught her his own particular wants in the household. If older, she probably picked it up already
Poorer wives would have been taught by their mothers growing up or learned it in service.
What was privacy like for wives?
Very poor. They always had servants, retainers, and visitors watching their moves. In poorer society, neighbors usually heard all the gossip of each others.
How many rooms did most houses have?
2-3 with the hearth outside for cooking. Animals often shared the house, but there might may be buildings for livestock. Some regions it was more common to have a rectangular house with animals separate on one side, and the main living space had the hearth. Some places had a separate building for the kitchen.
What furnishings might a not particularly well-off peasant have?
A bed, trestle, table, chair and form, and three chests. Utensils were a vat, barrel, two gallon brass pan, three buckets, a tub, 8 trenchers, and a bottle. For tools he owned a spade, shovel, axe, auger, and spinning wheel.
Only wealthier people cold afford tapestries, elaborate clothes and jewellery, silver plate. If peasants had extra cash, they would invest in more land, livestock, and tools, not fineries such as mentioned.
What was the bourgeois ideology of domesticity in the later Middle Ages?
The houses and conditions of the elite, particularly at York. The houses still had workshop, shop and storehouse, but had greater space and better furnishings. There was a chamber room specifically for the wife.
Who ensured the possessions of the household were maintained?
The wife. People’s goods reflected their status. The display of them affected what the neighbours and community thought of you. Your husband’s reputation was enhanced by your hospitality and display of these goods to your peers.
What might be the duties of a wife with no servant and small children to care for?
Get up early to milk cows, drive them to the field, make butter and cheese, feed the poultry, bake, brew and clean flax, card and spin wool, weave linen and woolen clothes, feed the livestock and family, clean house, fetch water from well, care for garden.
What was diet like?
One of the main duties of a wife was to provide meals, though cooking facilities were limited. Economic conditions determined what could be eaten, and famine was always a concern - many suffered mal nutrition in the spring and summer months. Geography and climate set what people ate or drank - wine, ale, milk, water - used olive oil or animal fat. Bread was made in communal ovens or bought from a baker as many had no oven. Type of grain varied by location - wheat, rye, barley.
What was pottage?
mixture of grains, pulses (peas, beans, lentils) with salt and water that was boiled.
What was meat consumption like?
Meat and fish was small for poor people. Pig was very valued because all could be used and bacon could be preserved. Poaching caught the rare deer or rabbit. Livestock was rarely slaughtered because it had so many uses - milk, wool, traction, reproduction. It was only slaughtered after it was worn out.
High meat consumption was reserved for the rich who could afford to raise more on large estates and make larger purchases.
Fruit and vegetables weren’t consumed very often by either rich or poor.
What was preparing food like?
It took a hell of a lot of time - grinding flour, kneading and mixing the bread, wine-making, killing pigs and curing the meat, making butter and cheese, brewing ale.
Fast food?
Many public cookshops existed that sold prepared hot meals of meat or fish - mostly patronised by the poor families that couldn’t afford a house with cooking facilities. The wealthy thought them unhygienic.
What was the wealthy housewife’s relationship to food?
She supervised preparation and maybe made certain dishes. The Ménagier of Paris offered a treatise that had guidelines on how to recognise food quality - what should feel soft or hard, etc. Fresh ingredients were important.
