Home seigneurial

The home seigneurial , also called more commonly home , is, with the Moyen-âge end of in the middle of, a vast building located most of the time in the Basse-cour of a fortified town, and reserved for the use of the lord and his famille.
By extension, the terms of home , Manor , or large house indicated thereafter the dwelling of the Master of a strengthened farm (sometimes isolated), as for example the home of which it is possible to still find, in particular in England, Normandy or in Spain.

Nowadays, the existence of an old “home” can, by its insulation, the destruction of the buildings and walls having surrounded it in the beginning, and by the successive modifications made to the wire of time for the comfort of the dwelling or its “recycling” out of agricultural building, to escape the glance from the traveller.

Definition

The owner of the home - knight, baron, Count, Duke, or King… in this precise case one speaks about “logis royal”, second home used like pied-à-terre during displacements related on the control of the kingdom (inspection), or to the leisures (rest, Chasse) - used like:

  • place of residence (for itself, its family and its comrades in arms) in period of peace. In the event of threat or of conflict, they took refuge in the high-court or the Donjon, if there were one of them. Smallest seigneuriaux home had for only fortifications only buttresses, of door frames to double thickness, walls surrounding it and ditches being able to be fed out of water. For this reason, the home was often set up close to a river (or of a source for simple matters of everyday life).

  • meeting room, intended to receive her vassal and other distinguished guests, all decisions being caught in the Big room or “ aula ” in Latin (declaration of war, preparation to a battle, economic management of the possessions…). In the Big room of Caen (" Room of the échiquier"), Richard Lion-hearted, King d' Angleterre and Duke of Normandy, join together its baron S there before leaving to the Croisade.

  • court of justice, if there were conflicts on its grounds, concerning or the man common peoples of high ranking. These conflicts could be regulated only via the mediator, namely “the lord”, who only had legal decision.

  • room of reception, where all the ceremonies proceeded (dubbing, marriage, religious holiday…). Robert de Torigni, abbot of the Mount-Saint-Michel, reports that in 1182 more than one thousand of knights are present to celebrate Christmas, in the room of the Chess-board, the Big room of the castle of Caen.

  • place of worship, all “home seigneurial” of some importance having a accompanying document arranged in vault .

  • room of treasury, where different the taxes was collected.

Plan and function of the parts

The home seigneurial generally has two levels:

  • the ground floor sheltered a large storeroom and the kitchen with a monumental Cheminée; the kitchen could be sometimes on the first floor.

  • the 1st stage was separate in two parts, the largest anteroom or sometimes in smallest home the Big room or Grand' Salle, as one finds it in the medieval texts (vast room of public use - room of reception), where great meals or official ceremonies were organized: marriages, dubbings, etc It was also the necessary place to return legal decisions. The smallest part was the Chambre to lay down of the lord. One reached on this first floor by an external staircase called great degree.

In largest seigneuriaux home, one could find the Big room ( aula in Latin, great hall in English), in another type of building associated with the home.

) or with beams.

, the object fixed on the toothed rack is a “calen”, oil lamp out of metal which its stem bent in hook makes it possible to clutch in various places.

In the kitchen of a home seigneurial, one could work out very refined flat . If a current prejudice can make believe that the art of cooking did not exist at the time, one should not lose sight of the fact that this refinement domesticates was a privilege of a dominant caste, the people of the " sujets" , of the serfs, not being able of course to reach these delights.

Big room

The room of banquet or reception is generally located on the first floor, one reaches it by the staircase great degree. This room was generally provided with a large chimney reserved for the kitchen with its accessories of cookings but also for the heating. Not far from the chimney, there were mural cupboards in order to arrange there the crockery, one could also find a wash-hand basin because hygiene with the Middle Ages was, contrary with the prejudices, very rigorous, if there were not he had of a Aquamanile or a gémellion (container) or of a Ewer.

In this room there were also trestles to put cover from where the expression " to draw up the table" and of the benches. Murals were often applied there, as well as tapestries.

The Big room could be a building associated with the home

  • Oakham city with the County with Rutland,

  • Caen

  • Creully vestiges of a large market “to see in Evolution of the building”
  • Bricquebec market transformed in XVe
  • Beaumont-the-Richard “market ruined” ca.1150
  • Dover-the-Délivrande “vestige of a large market” Ca 1250
  • Lillebonne “the Big room destroyed into 1830”
  • Penshurst places - example Baron' S Hall

The home royal or princely had them-also to them Big room, much more imposing and luxurious that of the small lords. Some remained famous for their size and their beauty. It is the case of Grand' Salle of the Palais from the City in Paris, which was in its time, with its 1.800 square meters, more the big room of Europe. It disappeared in 1618 in a fire, but one can still see with the Law courts of Paris the low room, today the Room of People-in Armes.

Examples of princely Big rooms in France:

Examples of princely Big rooms in Europe:

Room

The room was juxtaposed with the Big room, separated by a simple partition. One reached this room, by the room or a turret provided with a spiral staircase “access to private use”. In this room there were a Cheminée with vocation of heating and obviously a bed and its medieval Mobilier. One could find there a wash-hand basin and his Puisette to wash itself there.

Architectural components

Chimney

It does not appear that it had Cheminée S in the interiors of the palates or the Roman houses. The chimneys or hearths do not appear, laid out in the interiors, that at the century, and from this time the examples abound. The primitive chimney is composed of a niche taken at the expense the thickness of the wall, stopped each side by two jambs, and overcome by a coat and a hood, under which engulfs smoke. The chimney was used as well as heating as of space of cooking, according to the part where it was installed.

In the home primitive of, there would have been a central hearth with open fire (instead of the mural chimney).

Pipes and chimney pots

  • the flues of the chimneys of the century usually cylindrical and are finished inside above the pinions or the combes in the shape of large column crowned by a Miter. Built besides with great care by means of sat hollowed out stones, these pipes often affect the monumental form which surmounts in a gracious way the ridge of the buildings.

.

. See removable staircase .

  • Spiral staircases

They put in communication two superimposed parts, they were not always taken at the expense the thickness of the walls; they visible, were partly posed in an angle or along the walls of the lower room, and openwork on this part. On this subject, it is important to be penetrated of the principles which directed the architects of the Middle Ages in the construction of the staircases. These architects never saw in a different staircase thing but one appendix essential to any building made up of several stages, appendix having to be placed in the most convenient way for the services, like one places a scale along a building in construction, where the need is felt some. See spiral staircase .

, as also testify some to the murals of the XIV° century.
, White S on Yellow bottom Ocher, or, more frequently, Brown Red on white zone or pale yellow bottom; the lines thus spun to the brush on large surfaces, simple, doubled, tripled or accompanied by certain ornaments, present a very economic decoration, putting forward perfectly the liters, the stringcourses, the beams of columns, the covered edges of a more complicated ornamentation and brilliant Couleur S.

  • Floor coverings

Assembly of terra cotta or stone squares.

    • Tiling

Decorated floor tiles One knows no terra cotta tiling former to; one should not about it be surprised, when one observes how much little the enamels last of which one revêt this matter; promptly used, the terra cotta tilings were to be often replaced.

    • Dallage hones of it - opus Roman

Limestone, granite, schist, etc, according to the geological geographical area and resources. From time immemorial and in all the countries one employed, to cover the surfaces of the ground floors, in the dwellings particular, of the stones punts, hard, polished, jointed, without order or with symmetry. The majority of the stone quarries limestones have thin, of a compact texture, specific higher deposits to this kind of paving. The majority of the home were paved in large hard stone slabs. Often even, in the castles, these pavements were decorated with stone incrustations of color or cements, or the flagstones alternated with the painted stuccos. In an account of the construction of the Castle of Bellver (Spain), in the island Majorque, it is question of pavings of this dwelling seigneuriale, made stuccos made up of quicklime, plaster and large mixed stones of color; the whole so quite polished which one had been able to believe these surfaces made up of marble and porphyry .

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Frames

The frame of the buildings, in the Anglo-Norman regions for example, is characterized by its similarity with the naval frame. The Norman ones, seafaring nation, seem considerably to have contributed to the art of the carpenters, as attest it, as of XIe century, of vast buildings entirely covered by large apparent frames. The frames raised more tardily in England, during, seem more original, and to have integrated older traditions.

The Charpente S could be very worked and carved, generally made in oak or elm.

Roof

  • Crawling

Crawling is the tilted part of the pinion, of a Toiture.

  • Peak and ridge

They are the elements recovering the upper part of a roof. These elements could be worked. .

  • Finials

Buttresses

Solid mass of projecting masonry high against a wall or a support to shoulder it. The Contrefort S have more one function of reinforcement that of esthetics.

Some seigneuriaux home Anglo-Normans

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