SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



this upper space were used for sleeping accommodation it would be reached 

 by a short wooden ladder from below. The windows, where they were 

 found, were probably unglazed openings protected by a shutter at night. 

 The door was supplied with a lock and key, but cannot have been very 

 substantial, as we often read of deserted or locked-up houses being broken 

 open and their contents stolen. 1 



The interior of the house was not very inviting. A proper chimney 

 was by no means common, but the fire when used was made on a hob of 

 clay, and the smoke had to escape as best it could through a hole in the 

 roof or by the door and window. The floor consisted of the bare earth 

 beaten hard, or where they were common perhaps of flints, and upon the 

 floor were flung the bags of straw that served as beds for the night. It 

 is true that we do occasionally hear of a feather bed, but it is generally as 

 an heirloom handed down by will and evidently very precious. 8 In the 

 'chimney-corner' might be found a set of bow and arrows or a half-rusted 

 bill-hook, and on the walls some of the more portable agricultural imple- 

 ments. Add a carved chest or two around the walls, a few clumsy wooden 

 stools, and a set of brass and earthenware cooking vessels, with perhaps a 

 leaden brewing vat, and you have the contents of the ordinary peasant's 

 cottage, as we find them in the few inventories left to us.* The lists vary a 

 little, but all agree in showing a lack of comfort. The jury of Easington 

 even in 1 409 only assessed Richard Watson's ' domestic utensils ' at 6s. SJ. 

 out of a total estate of 8 ijs. zd. The richer peasant might use more 

 syles and make his dwelling larger, he might have rough hangings of coarse 

 sacking to keep out the wind, or brazen and iron vessels in greater number 

 or of larger size than the poor cottagers, but the country was too disturbed 

 even in the fourteenth century for civilization to make any progress. The 

 Scots might swoop down and after burning his village carry off the peasant's 

 flocks, as we are told they sacked Heworth.* Even the prior had to send his 

 cattle at times beyond the Tees for safety, 1 and the bishop was glad to buy a 

 truce.' The result was that his house served as little more than a sleeping 

 place for the peasant. When night came he had no temptation to sit round 

 a tiny fire of smoky turf or evil-smelling coal, even if he could afford to 

 burn it. Candles or other artificial light were quite out of the question, as 

 a pound of candles cost almost a whole day's wages, and the hard fats 

 were four times as dear as the meat of animals. 7 This timber cottage with 

 the thatched roof remained in all essentials unchanged as the home of the 

 peasant down to the sixteenth century. In the middle of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury the lost art of brickmaking was recovered, and in the later rolls we find 

 that some of the dwellings were tiled, but the innovation was either not 

 popular or unserviceable, as we find the thatch was sometimes replaced. 8 

 Not until England and Scotland were one kingdom could the Durham peasant 

 feel safe enough to go to the expense of a brick or stone dwelling. 



1 Dur. Ha/mote R. (Surtees Soc. btxxii), 56, 150, &c. ' Ibid. 91. 



* In Dur. Treas. Loc. 4, No. 146-7, are some interesting post mortem inventories of the possessions of 

 tenants who died in the Black Death; cf. also Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. bourn), 151, 168; Dur. 

 Curs. No. 14, foil. 307, 332, 402. 



4 Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. bcxxii), 31. ' Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix et scq.), 314, 541, &c. 



Chancery R. in Cursitor Rec. of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, passim. 



7 Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, 67. * MS. Prior's Halmote Book, ii, fol. 194. 



199 



