Housing in Medieval England: Rich and Poor Homes
- 9 June 2026
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- 20 Min Read
Overview
A look inside 14th-century English homes, from merchants’ town houses and glazed halls to smoky peasant cottages, showing how housing reflected wealth, work, comfort, privacy and survival.
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Housing and Living in 14th-Century England
Introduction: A Tale of Two Houses
In 14th-century England, people’s houses spoke volumes about their wealth, status and daily lives. The grand home of a prosperous merchant could stand like a public landmark – part shop, part office and part family estate – while a poor villager’s cottage was often a single smoky room barely covering its inhabitants. By opening the door to both extremes, we see how medieval housing was the ultimate social map: noisy and public on the ground floor, private and dark above; rich in global luxuries or emptied to essentials; and designed as much for trade and survival as for shelter.
Imagine stepping through the doorway of a successful London merchant’s house. To one side, there’s a line of shops facing the street, and beyond a stout wooden gate lies a private courtyard. On the ground floor behind you stand storage sheds and workshops, on your right, a great hall built to impress guests. Sunlight filters through colored glass windows and hangs in the beams of a high timber roof. Glittering wall hangings and cushioned benches lend warmth to the stone floor. The hearth smokes gently at the centre, its undercroft storing goods below. Everything here, the carved beams, the velvet cushions and even a cup made from a coconut, announces wealth and connections to far-off places.
Now contrast that with the scene a few miles away in a village: a one-room cottage with bare earth floors, a soot-blackened central fire, straw piled in corners, and only a small shuttered window for daylight. The roof may be simple thatch or turf, and sometimes there was no proper door, only a wooden shutter on the front that secured with a thong of hide. Daylight barely penetrates, smoke clings to the rafters, and all the family, livestock, and work tools share this single space. This vivid juxtaposition – of towering halls versus cramped huts – opens our story: medieval houses were as varied and complex as the people inside them.
“Even the ‘jetties’ – the projecting upper storeys of medieval houses – were not just practical but a status signal,” notes Clive Aslet. Craftsmen displayed their skill by boldly overhanging the second or third floors above the street, often carving whimsical patterns into the exposed beams. In some towns, these upper floors sheltered shop goods below and advertised craftsmanship. In any case, medieval houses were not all the dark, windowless hovels we imagine; well-off houses could have glass windows, cellars, chimneys and formal gardens (though open drains and shared latrines could still make life smelly). Yet the key difference was always clear: rich houses had many rooms – hall, parlour, chapel, storage and chambers – while poor houses had to cram work and sleep into a single space.
We will explore townhouses first, where trade and family life intertwined, then peasant houses, built around the hearth and field, and use contemporary accounts and inventories to reveal daily reality. Our guideposts will be historian Ian Mortimer’s vivid Time Traveller’s Guide and Kathryn Warner’s Life in the Medieval Town, supplemented by primary records. Throughout, we will keep in mind Mortimer’s insight: a medieval house was both showplace and workplace, with people and objects stratified by wealth.
The Town House: Where Business, Family and Status Met
Intersection of Shambles and Little Shambles streets, York
In a medieval town, the house of a merchant or craftsman functioned as both a public shop and a private home. At street level, shopfronts faced the bustling market, drawing customers. Inside, thresholds and gates partitioned off the personal realm. A charter from 1384 shows London tallow-chandler Richard Willysdon agreed to rebuild his Thames Street property so that the first story (ground floor) would be 12 feet high, the second 10 feet, and the third 7 feet, all heavy oak construction. This three-storey block “leans out over the street” in a typical medieval jettyed style. The ground floor contained shops opened to the street; above them sat the family’s rooms. A gated archway led through the block into a private yard, marking the boundary between public commerce and household life.
From that courtyard, a short flight of stone steps led up to the great hall – the social heart of the house. Mortimer’s tour of Willysdon’s house (built in 1384) describes exactly this layout: behind the arch lay a large court, flanked by storage buildings on the left and the hall on the right. The hall itself was 40 feet long by 24 feet wide, with a lofty wooden roof arching overhead. Its decorations were lavish by the standards of the day: painted wall-hangings and colourful cushions lined the stone benches, adding vibrancy to the space. Beneath the hall’s stone floor was a vaulted undercroft (about seven feet high) used for storage. This was common: by raising the main hall above ground level, the space underneath could hold barrels, cloth, foodstuffs or even a latrine.
In short, the town house was really a little compound: the hall and parlour upstairs, a kitchen and buttery nearby, bedrooms or “solar” chambers off to one side, and ancillary workshops or storage buildings around a courtyard. A private chapel might be tucked in. Even a small wharf on a river could belong to a merchant, emphasising how some townhouses functioned as trade hubs, not merely residences.
The great hall itself was both a ceremony and a theatre. Important gatherings, meals, and legal matters could be held here. Every aspect – the high roof, the communal tables, the cushioned benches – was designed to impress visitors. Mortimer notes that for Willysdon’s hall, “size and craftsmanship strike you”. By contrast, a village cottage had no grand hall at all – there, a peasant’s firepit served all purposes, and beds were simple pallets on the floor.
Light, Privacy and Urban Tensions
It’s easy to think medieval towns were dingy, but not all upper floors were pitch-black. Wealthier houses sometimes had glazed windows (albeit with thick greenish glass) to let light in while keeping the cold out. Mortimer mentions Willysdon’s house having windows glazed with such glass. (Plain window glass wasn’t clear like modern panes, but it did brighten rooms and was a luxury.) Even heavy shutters – made of wood and leather – could be propped open or closed as needed.
Urban living, however, did bring conflicts over windows and space. Town houses often crowded into narrow lanes. While projecting upper floors expanded private space (and protected street goods from rain), neighbours argued about eaves and overhanging roofs. Accounts note disputes when someone’s kitchen fire scorched a neighbouring wall, or when a tenant built a stair or extension too close. Latrines were also a sore point: many households emptied cesspits into the street or into shared drains, leading to bitter quarrels when waste flooded neighbours’ cellars.
Despite these frictions, medieval townspeople certainly valued privacy more than we might expect. The rich would draw shutters or hang tapestries to block noise and noise. Alarmingly, Warner points out that window disputes and even lawsuits over “air and light” exist in medieval court rolls, meaning both light and privacy had measurable value. Again, this counters the stereotype: wealthy urban homes could be relatively well-lit and insulated.
Inside the Merchant’s Home: Inventory, Objects and Comfort
So far, we’ve described the architecture of townhouses. Now let’s peek at the stuff inside, which tells us what people valued. Paradoxically, even wealthy merchants did not have much furniture by modern standards. Instead, inventory lists from wills and probate show that “comfort” often meant textiles and small valuables, not big beds or wardrobes. Mortimer quotes several 14th-century inventories to bring these interiors to life as actual record-based spaces.
Coconut cup in silver, presented to Sir Richard Pearson in 1780 by the Royal Exchange Assurance
For example, Hugh le Bever of London (died 1337) owned one coconut-shell cup with silver fittings. Though rare to our eyes, such exotic items symbolised far-flung trade. More revealing is the make-up of his goods: blankets, mattresses, sheets, a wooden chest (for storage) and many cloth hangings. One inventory excerpt lists only one bed, but also “blankets, cushions, a copper pot and ladle, pewter platters, five brass spoons, and even an *exploding cushion” – which was a practical joke device! (Mortimer mentions a cushion fitted with fireworks for theatrical effect.)
A second example, William Harecourt of Boston (Lincolnshire, 1383), shows a similar pattern. His household goods include eight drinking bowls (‘mazers’) bound with silver-gilt, three silver cups with lids, and even a “screen” (likely for privacy or warmth) – but he has no wardrobes or sofas. He also owned two hawks (one a “gentle” falcon), indicating both status and leisure pursuits like hunting. Otherwise, Harecourt’s inventory is heavy on tableware, textiles and beds – not much furniture at all.
In both these inventories, beds themselves are small and simple: mattresses stuffed with straw or goose feathers on wooden frames, covered with woven quilts or wool blankets. Curtains and cushions are frequently listed. For a medieval person, “comfort” was layered cloth – tablecloths, wall-hangings, bed-curtains, cushions and thick blankets. These items were insulated, decorated and displayed family wealth. So as Mortimer notes, cloth goods “mattered enormously”.
One can picture a wealthy merchant’s back room: featherbeds stacked in a dark chest, a wool carpet and tapestries on the walls, a silver tankard or plate carefully polished, and a coconut-shell cup tucked in a cupboard as a novelty. In Mortimer’s words, these objects tell us about piety, hospitality, education and aspiration – for example, a man might own a psalter or a romance book as much to show his refinement as to read it. But compared to modern living rooms, “furniture” like armchairs or wardrobes is sparse or absent; storage chests and benches are more common.
In summary, the town-house interior was public yet private: the hall for all, but the chamber and parlour for the family. It had some worldly luxuries (even showing global reach) but remained utilitarian. The real luxury lay in space, height and fabric.
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The Peasant House: Smoke, Warmth and Bare Necessity
Poplar Cottage – Chris Gunns Weald and Downland Museum Singleton CC BY-SA 2.0
Shifting now to rural England, a peasant’s home could be very different in scale and structure. Not all peasants were equally poor, so Mortimer splits them into levels. We’ll consider (1) a relatively prosperous yeoman farmer, (2) a typical villager with a modest home, and (3) at the poorest end, a one-room hut of a villein or landless labourer.
Even a well-off peasant (a “yeoman”) might live in a three-bay longhouse on stone footings, about 45 by 15 feet in size. Its timber frame held wattle-and-daub or cob walls, with a thatched roof. Here, the middle bay contained the hall – a single long room – with the hearth fire in the centre. One end might be a small fenced stall for the family’s animals (so the smell and vermin stayed outside the living space). The upper storey (accessible by a ladder) could be used for sleeping or for storing hay.
Inside that hall, the family’s life revolved around the smoke hole or fireplace. Mortimer describes these halls as “dark, lit by a central fire and small shuttered, unglazed windows”. The floor was earth, often covered with rushes for insulation. The roof peaked overhead, and sometimes beams had slots for tucking in smoke – but mainly smoke rose up around the thatch, coating everything in black soot.
The hearth’s clay-lined pit was always kept burning (from autumn through spring) to heat and cook. Pots and pans (mostly iron or brass) hung above it. Long wooden tables and benches were arranged for meals, with one side often against the wall for the lord of the house and honoured guests. Others might sit on the floor or on simple stools. There might be a wooden chest or box for blankets, some earthenware jugs for ale or cider, and a few bowls and dishes – often of wood or coarse pottery. Before a meal, a servant would bring water in a ceramic ewer to wash hands, as medieval etiquette expected.
At night, the family and any visitors tried to find beds or straw mattresses to lie on. Upper boards (a loft) might hold grain or spare bedding, and children often slept on baskets of hay or any free floor space. Mortimer describes sending children up “to the straw-filled loft” while adults huddle around the dying fire. Privacy was minimal: the curtains or straw might separate one sleeping area from another, but everyone smelled the fire and heard the cow lowing in the adjoining stall.
At the very poorest end were one-room hovels. Imagine a single-chamber cottage about 12 by 13 feet: a dirt floor strewn with hay, a tiny hearth, a single shutter for a door, and no higher floor at all. Cold and damp settled in. Mortimer warns we should not assume every villager lived so miserably, but at least this was a reality for the bottom ranks of medieval society. The hearth is the centre, and that’s it.
The Hearth, the Meal and the Night
To make the peasant home vivid, Mortimer’s description is crucial. He tells us, for example, that the fire in a peasant hall burnt day and night from autumn to spring, and meals involved communal cooking: a spit for roasting meat, a large brass cauldron of pottage (stew), bakestones (griddles) for bread-cakes, and wooden bowls for serving. After supper, the family might say prayers or tell stories by the firelight.
Sleeping was communal: a couple might share a straw mattress, covered by worn quilts. If a traveller arrived, they too might be given a spot on the floor near the hearth (the infamous “house hit”). Some peasants even built a little enclosed berth in a corner by the fire. It was close and warm, but hardly private. Still, the warmth and companionship of huddling by the fire were a vital comfort.
Peasant Inventories: What the Poor Owned, and What They Did Not
Interestingly, just like the merchants’, peasants’ wills and inventories confirm their focus on things that heat, feed, and clothe rather than decorate. Mortimer cites Robert Oldham of Cuxham (Oxfordshire, c.1350) as an example. Oldham’s inventory lists things like two brass pots, a tripod, pans for cooking, wooden tubs and buckets, pewter plates, and even hoops to mend barrels. The only furniture is one coffer (storage chest), two stools, and one bench – but it does list bedsheets and cloth. In other words, Oldham’s goods are almost entirely practical: cookware, storage for wheat (and other bulk staples, hence hoops and tubs), cloth for reusing as rags or covers, and a bit of pewter tableware.
Notice what isn’t there: no silver cups, no tapestries, no extravagance. What he owns and records is what he needs. Compare this to the merchant lists: they brim with cups, cushions, curtains, books and even exotic objects. The peasant’s coffer is a safety measure for savings or grain. Bedsheets appear – because even a poor person prized a bit of linen – but often the “beds” themselves were just ticking stuffed with straw and wool.
The lesson is clear: a medieval household inventory reflects livelihood. The richer the owner, the more “luxury” items appear (silver, carved tankards, clothing in fine wool or silk). The poorer the owner, the more utilitarian objects fill the list. But both show a love of cloth: whether it’s an expensive tapestry or a plain tablecloth, material goods were how people measured comfort.
What Medieval Housing Reveals About Everyday Life
The architecture and contents of these houses tell us about medieval worldviews. In town and country, work and home were inseparable. A merchant’s ground floor was literally open for business, his upstairs closed for family. A peasant’s cot was half-stable, half-kitchen, half-bedroom. A man’s wealth (or poverty) was embossed on his walls and buried under his floors – in timbers, hearths and treasures.
Hygiene and light were at a premium. Most homes, even wealthy ones, lacked running water or plumbing. A stove or “smoke building” (chimney) was still rare, so kitchens smoked up the roofs. Lighting came from hearths, candles (expensive), rush torches or small windows. This means most medieval houses were actually dark spaces, and the arrival of better glass windows in the 15th century was a big step.
Yet medieval people managed. They hung colourful cloths and burnished wood to fight the gloom. They divided the space with furniture and curtains to claim privacy when needed. They valued storage: every house has a chest or cupboard because keeping grain, clothes or silver safe was crucial.
Finally, one should recall that these houses changed from morning to night. Farmers stored hay in summer, then shucked it to feed animals in winter. Leather tools hung in the hall, then were taken down and repaired. Blankets are spread over straw in winter, folded away in summer. The medieval house lived: curtains were pulled, beams were carved, and smoke trailed differently at night.
A House Written in Smoke, Timber and Cloth
Return to the opening scene – the merchant’s house of stained glass and coconut cup, versus the humble cottage of mud and straw. Neither was “typical” of all society, but both extremes did exist. Together, they show that a medieval home was a manual of status.
In a successful merchant’s house, every beam and object asserted rank. A carved doorway, a stone vaulted cellar, featherbeds, a coconut cup – these were ways to say “I am connected and prosperous.” The house was as public as a store and as private as a kingdom, written in oak and velvet and silver.
In a peasant’s home, the story is simpler but harsh: survival first, with little to spare. The roaring hearth and a pile of grain sacks told of endless work to feed a family through dark winters. A straw mattress and patched cloth told of poverty but also of making do. These cottages and longhouses were the backbone of the medieval village.
As one late medieval writer put it, the pattern of every house was “the shape of a cross: hearth in the centre, stairs and doors branching out.” From that cross of smoke, heat and life, we see that medieval England’s dwellings were not monolithic. They varied by profession, wealth and local custom – but every home has left traces: in records, ruins and our imaginations.
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Sources
- Mortimer, I. (2008). The time traveller’s guide to medieval England: A handbook for visitors to the fourteenth century. The Bodley Head.
- Riley, H. T. (Ed.). (1868). Memorials of London and London life in the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth centuries. Longmans, Green, and Co.
- Warner, K. (2025). Life in the medieval town. Pen & Sword History.
- British Library. (n.d.). Luttrell Psalter, Add MS 42130. British Library Digitised Manuscripts. https://www.bl.uk/collection/digitised-manuscripts-archives?ref=Add_MS_42130
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Luciano Anastasi
Luciano is the founder of the MedievalHistory platform and the LinkedIn History Enthusiasts Group, where he is dedicated to curating and sharing high-quality medieval history content. His goal is to engage scholars, teachers, students, and enthusiasts by fostering insightful discussions and promoting scholarly resources on topics from medieval warfare and religion to societal transformations and daily life in the Middle Ages.
Luciano is also an active book reviewer, focusing on academic publications related to medieval history. He recently collaborated with Yale University Press to review forthcoming medieval history titles, aiming to deepen educators' and researchers' understanding of the period. Alongside his history endeavors, he has over 40 years of experience in IT leadership roles across various industries, including the public sector, banking, insurance, airlines and consulting, and has contributed to United Nations projects.
With a Master of Arts in Business Process Management, Luciano combines his expertise in IT strategy and governance with his passion for medieval history. He leverages technology to bridge the academic community and the wider public, making historical scholarship more accessible through engaging online content.
