A Cultural History of the Home in the Medieval Age

The period covered by this volume, roughly 800-1450, was one of enormous change in the way people lived in their houses. Medieval people could call a grand castle, a humble thatched hut, or anything in between home, but houses were more than physical spaces. They changed according to technological developments, climatic needs, geological limitations and economic resources. They were also moral units that were themselves symbolic, economic, gendered, and social. At the beginning of our period, the movement of people, goods, and ideas, and the need for defense against some of this movement had an impact on how and where people lived. The codification of laws shaped how people understood the physical integrity of their homes, the reception they should give to those who wanted to enter, and their identification with the house itself. As European economies expanded in the twelfth century, householders increasingly had access to items that changed their day-to-day lives within their houses. This volume argues that through a house and its uses, occupants created, sustained, and understood their relationship to each other and their society.>

List of contents

Introduction
1. The Meaning of Home
2. Family and Household
3. The House
4. Furniture and Furnishings
5. Home and Work
6. Gender and Home
7. Hospitality and Home
8. Religion and Home
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Katherine L. French is J. Frederick Hoffman Professor of Medieval English History at the University of Michigan, USA. She is the author of The Good Women of the Parish (2008), People of the Parish (2001) and, along with Allyson Poska, Women and Gender in the Western Past in two volumes (2007).

Product details

• Authors: Katherine L French
• Assisted by: Katherine L. French (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 07.03.2024
• EAN: 9781350412231
• ISBN: 978-1-350-41223-1
• No. of pages: 240
• Dimensions: 170 mm x 242 mm x 12 mm
• Series: Cultural Histories; The Cultural Histories Series
• Subjects: Guides > Self-help, everyday life > Family; Humanities, art, music > History > Middle Ages; HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, Medieval History, History of Architecture, Social and cultural anthropology, Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500, Relationships and families: advice and issues, European history: medieval period, middle ages, HISTORY / Europe / Medieval