Medieval Information

For medieval people, houses were very important. They represented their wealth because a bigger house would mean wealth.

Houses were usually one or two stories - these houses received the name of hovels. A medieval house could very often accommodate up to fifty people - this was mainly the case for the poor who had to live with shared space and very little privacy.

Of course this was different for the upper classes, who lived in mansions and protected strongholds. Unfortunately, building a mansion was very expensive and thus; only affordable by the very rich.

For the extreme poor, huts had to be built. They were normally made of material acquired from the forest which was practically arranged in a way to prevent the cold and animals from coming in. Nevertheless; such houses were very insecure and needless to say, in the case of huts and hovels, an invading army could mean the family's death.

This happened very frequently during the night as most hovels were built outside of the castle and offered no protection. Since sometimes the watch towers were ineffective, complete armies could pour into enemy land and kill many peasants living in their unprotected houses.

Of course, the main advantage of a castle was to prevent this, but I will discuss this topic in a future article.