![]() ![]() The magistrates’ chambers were located at the upper level of the building, which also contained the public courtroom ( vierschaar). The explanation in the city account suggests this was necessary people could possibly hear aldermen talking outside their chambers. In that year the accounts capture the activities of the carpenter Rubbine de Pleckere, who had built a double wooden wall ‘so one could not hear the arguments of the aldermen’.Īpparently the deliberation room was not soundproof by 1456, urging the aldermen to order two wooden walls as to facilitate more protection. Apparently the space still was not (or no longer was) sufficient for this use in 1456. The aldermen used this room for instance during public trial, in order to have a place for enclosed and confident discussions. In 1451 the city accounts of Aalst include a reference to a seemingly new addition to the town hall (the oldest in the Low Countries): a deliberation room, constructed by means of wooden walls with a door. Town halls were highly public buildings as well as places used for seclusion. Image 1: "Meeting of the Regensburg Council" (1536). I will use them as starting points to further explore how governments tried to keep town halls undisturbed places, which was far from self-evident. In this blog I will share some of my finds from the Aalst (BE) and Leiden city accounts. For many medieval scholars perhaps not the most attractive source material, the accounts helped me to further explore the uses of town halls as public buildings in my recently defended PhD research. These accounts are of course useful to study the town hall’s construction, but also contain other enriching details which shed light on daily life inside such buildings. But sometimes a specific type of sources suddenly surprises and opens up worlds, in this case city accounts. It is therefore not easy to step into these still prominent buildings. Town halls, however, are relatively infrequently or at least not consistently mentioned in such writings. Thus each medieval village acted as a self-sufficient unit of medieval life.Much of medieval city life is known through sources such as ordinances, statutes, law codes, chronicles, and cases brought to local courts. Trade and travel were uncertain and bore considerable expense which was generally out of reach of the villagers. Fax, wool, and leather were used to make clothes and the farm implements were manufactured at the village smithy. Wood for houses and furniture, on the other hand, was provided by the forest. The needs of people mainly consisted of water, food, and clothing, all of which could be fulfilled with the village produce. The distinguishing factor of a medieval village was its self-sufficiency. Some medieval villages also had dovecots to store pigeons as pigeon meat was eaten as a delicacy. The tenth part of the total village produce was given to the church which was stored in the tithe barn. The mill was owned by the lord while ordinary people could take their own corn to the mill for grinding for which they had to pay a certain amount of tribute. The most common peasant was called a Serf who was not a freeman and tied to the land so that if the land was sold the Serf would be sold with it.Ī medieval Tithe Barn used to store one-tenth of the produce of peasants such as Serfs The bulk of the population consisted of peasants who either worked on the lands of the nobles or sometimes owned a small piece of land. The life of an individual in a medieval village was intertwined with the community. While there were peculiar differences according to the location and climate of a medieval village, the basic components of a medieval village remained similar. Unlike modern life, socialization was very important during medieval times and people living in a medieval village depended on each other for protection and sustenance. Life inside a medieval village was so self-sufficient that it was rare for medieval people of the medieval village to venture out of it. It had all the necessary ingredients of a self-sufficient social life, including places for work, socialization, religious rituals, and festivals. The central unit of social life during medieval times was a medieval village. ![]()
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