Cat still missing.

[nolawitch58]

Question for SCA folks on my flist: Do you have any reference material in your personal libraries or know of any that would provide blueprints or crude floor plans for medieval homes? I've been all over the 'net and find churches galore, but few diagrams of dwellings. I've gotten stuck with my writing project and really need to figure out the characters' house before I go any further and make a fool of myself. Thanks.

Edit: (to add link to sca for future reference) link

Comments

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

Might find some viking stuff, but not medieval in general. :-/

:(

[salegamine.livejournal.com]

*hugs anxious cat pet*
I'll continue pestering my deity of choice.

I'll also look into any medieaval stuff I may have around. If I find anything, I'll give you a shout.

Re: :(

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I've gotten two phone calls about him from the flyers I put out. Unfortunately, some people only read the part about him being Siamese. One called and said she had a young Siamese cat and she couldn't even tell what sex it was. The other told me about several Siamese at the shelter that I'd already seen from several trips over there.

The shelter is a heartbreaking place. So many sweet kitties without homes. I will only ever get kitties from the shelter from now on. There was one guy I could have easily scooped up and brought home. No more cats until I lose these to attrition.

[thenea.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry your kitty is still missing. :( I'll keep a good thought that he finds his way home safely.

Even our local SPCA (which is one of the nicest I've ever seen, but I may be biased because I volunteer there) can be sad at times. However it's so nice to see someone's face light up when they find a perfect kitty match to take home.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks for volunteering there. All those New Orleans critters than ended up there have so many smiling faces and loving hearts to help them deal with the awful possibility of never being able to purloin a shrimp from their owner's po-boy again.

[mcnutcase.livejournal.com]

Well now... I recall from a museum of "surviving" mediaeval buildings I visited a while back ("surviving" in quotes because they'd survived, but then been torn down and reconstructed, with the odd bit of new stuff patched in where the old material had gone shonky...) that your average low-status dwelling is basically one big ol' room with a fire in the middle, and partitions around the sides with curtains for beds. Sometimes a lean-to on the end for the livestock, but more usually just hurdles to fence them off. Mmmm, home-like.

Moving up, we have the rural middle-class home, which is still pretty basic. Usually has one big "hall", where the people and the animals sleep, but it's bigger and will often have enough height to have a sort of mezzanine/attic-ish storage area round the sides. Big ol' fire in the middle, and just a hole in the roof to let the smoke out.

You've got to be fairly heftily wedged to afford actual rooms. Corridors are unknown; the master bedroom will be the one that nobody has to pass through to get to any other. It'll generally have en-suites in all upstairs rooms; well, sort of. On the downwind side, anyway. Think long-drop and a bucket below. Mmmm, fertiliser...

Terms that may help in your search: cruck, hall house, "wattle and daub".

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Having the correct search terms helps a lot. I think I'm getting a good idea of what the average nouveau-riche nobility of the time could expect to live in. I'm going to draw a diagram to use for my work. That way, I'll avoid continuity problems as well as anachronisms.

[mcnutcase.livejournal.com]

Glad I could help. I knew this supernatural memory of mine would come in handy someday...

[celticess.livejournal.com]

Will this help:

http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/

http://www.daycreek.com/dc/HTML/DC_cob.htm

Tourist like I know, but cool

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

The Clickster (http://www.vrbo.com/20846)

Re: Tourist like I know, but cool

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

That's a little higher up on the socio-economic scale than I was writing about. And you're right: it's been bastardized for the tourists.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah! SCA types know all this stuff. That's their primary hobby. The main SCA website is only helpful as far as finding people and events involved with the organization. I was hoping that blackbyrd2 or ms_issicran would pop by or carthax since they're all SCA members.

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

Peasant folk generally lived in one room structures, as I recall.

Unfortunately, I have discovered my bookmarks have been suffering serious link rot, so I can't find links to more elaborate homes, but those would be the castles of Barons and such, not the average person's living quarters.

If you have a more elaborate setting, (keep or castle,) assume there will be a chapel. Also, a great hall which doubles as a meeting room, feasting area and probably general living quarters. Great halls have a high table where the lord sits with the priveleged members of family, knights or visitors, and then side, 'low' tables for others. Rank and favor determines distance from the 'high' table, which would be on a small dais.

In front of the high table is where the (can't recall the titles of these positions) bread cutter and the meat cutter will have their small tables set up.

Hope this helps, and I hope my memory is reliable.

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

Looks like McNutcase has some good references for you there. I'd go with hs stuff. :)

[mcnutcase.livejournal.com]

Well, that was me, at the age of about 8, walking through actual houses that had survived since then. One would kind of expect houses that were built at the time to be pretty historically-accurate ;)

This place, it was; school trip...

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

My characters are the nobility, the nouveau riche, though, not the older boyar classes. As egalitarian as I am, I can't find the spark to write about my people: the peasantry.

My Links Must Be Fresher

[ms-issicran.livejournal.com]

I know they smell nicer anyway...;]

Try these two links, Stephen's Florilegium

Stephen's Florilegium is a wonderful place to get lost in the links.

Re: My Links Must Be Fresher

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, tasty links! Very fresh indeed. I'm wading through them now. Thanks.

[gyrbyl.livejournal.com]

I hope you find him...

If you haven't already, check animal control in counties bordering yours too -- the animal control for my county calls the owners of microchipped animals they've found -- one turned out to have very worried owners who lived almost 60 miles away!

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Our natural barriers (lake, river, canals) make it unlikely he got very far. I've got a strong feeling that someone in the neighborhood took him in and hasn't seen my flyers yet. I'll put some more up tomorrow.

I'll keep your cat in my thoughts

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you haven't found him yet.

[entheos93.livejournal.com]

No help with interiors, but here's what a city looked like-this is a "circulade", a midieval town built in a circle on a hilltop.

http://www.ot-mirepoix.fr/mirepoix2.htm

[ms-issicran.livejournal.com]

This makes wonderful sense, the covered sidewalk area so no one would be hit with any kind of waste flying from windows, not to mention shelter from inclement weather.

[entheos93.livejournal.com]

It does- it's a very cool town, located about an hour from Carcassone near the Pyranees. It was probably obvious from the picture that it's still a residential area, so alot of the adornments happened through the ages.
I don't know if it's really a typical midieval setup, or if it's a french thing. I would imagine the bottom floor was used for livestock- probably also for shop and work space.

Carcassone is another living example- it's a fortressed town, and the fortresses and battlements are all very intact- the whole town inside is intact. I couldn't find any pictures of the residential dwellings online, but it's worth it to keep looking.