4 - The Medieval Household: the Material Culture of Everyday Life

Summary

Materiality and domesticity

Social archaeology frequently targets the ‘household’ as a unit of analysis, but careful consideration must first be given to its social and physical parameters. In pre-industrial societies the household is the residential centre of both production and consumption; it is the focus of social relations and biological reproduction; and it accommodates dual domestic and ritual functions (Allison 1999; Hendon 2004). The social composition of the household is often regarded as synonymous with the family, although in many societies its residents also include servants, slaves and other non-family members – what Rosemary Joyce has termed a ‘houseful’ (Joyce 2000, 6). An archaeology of the household interrogates the spatial locale in which people lived and the material practices that gave meaning to their life course. The materiality of everyday, domestic life shaped the individual experience of ageing and the social relations between age groups. Through the framework of the household, human lives were also connected with the lifecycle of the house, the physical fabric that was their home (Tringham 1995; Brück 1999b; see Chapter 6.3).

The English term ‘household’ emerged in the late 14th century and referred to a group of people who lived and worked under the same roof (Goldberg and Kowaleski 2008, 2). There was no separation of public and private spheres, in contrast with households of the modern era (Wall 1994), nor was the medieval home principally a female space. It housed industrial, commercial and religious activities, in addition to fulfilling domestic requirements.