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The question of how medieval carpenters set out their work is an under-investigated topic of research. Advanced craft knowledge is needed for a study of this kind and, in that regard, this article is written from a master craftsman's point of view. Domestic medieval roofs have consistently common roof pitches of 48°, 52°, 55°1 and 58°, and roofs were being pitched long before the early scholars brought knowledge from the ancient world to England in the mid-twelfth century. Moreover, it is unlikely that master carpenters and masons had access to this knowledge until the early to mid-thirteenth century, and equally unlikely that the domestic carpenter had any knowledge of geometry until the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Instead, this article argues that medieval carpenters used a simple method of setting out using cord, which would obviate the need for measurement and geometry and whose common divisions correspond to the common pitches found in medieval buildings. This article is on a subject of ongoing debate in which there are a range of views, and it is anticipated that a response will be published in due course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth, carpenters’ and builders’ manuals have defined tusks as shoulders above or below tenons. In recent decades, especially in English archaeological literature, the term ‘tusk tenon’ has come to be applied in a variety of ways to what are more generally known on the Continent as ‘through tenons with face pegs’. To meet the demands imposed by a growing typology, it is suggested below that ‘tusk tenon’ should be applied only in the sense defined in early manuals and that ‘through tenons’ with or without ‘face pegs’ would, as a result, be better understood as a discrete and separate group of carpentered joints. The latter have been found in Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon contexts, as well as on the medieval waterfront in London. In contrast with the Continental evidence, there was a decline in their use in English medieval buildings, followed by a resurgence in the seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological excavation has provided an alternative source of evidence for the development of the late medieval peasant house. It is argued that, whilst there was a significant change in building techniques in the decades around 1200 with the adoption of ground-set timbers, the most important factor which led to the survival of houses was a fall in real wages during the thirteenth century. This encouraged peasants to repair existing buildings, rather than replace them with new ones. Alternative traditions of building are also investigated. Stone construction was adopted in a number of areas of England, but, in spite of the durability of the material, few medieval peasant buildings of this type have survived in use because of the failure to use lime mortar. Decisions about whether to invest in a building's renovation will depend on the capital initially expended upon it. This interpretation is considered against the data from the fifteenth century and found to conform satisfactorily. Its implications are considered for the period between 1200 and 1350. Data collected from archaeological excavations combined with the results of dendrochronology on a growing number of closely dated standing buildings suggest that there was a significant 'cull' of houses in the period after 1350 as new dwellings were constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The medieval peasant house has always featured strongly in vernacular architecture studies. This paper focuses on the buildings of those of lower social status, and their survival opens a window on a world of lifestyles that was at one time thought to be completely lost. A great deal of work has been done - on documentary sources, archaeological sites and standing buildings - which has shown that the life of the medieval peasant was lived in a degree of comfort and elegance, although many of its details still elude us. The VAG Winter Conference held in Leicester in January 2013 brought together scholars in cognate disciplines as well as a range of regional experts to focus on the current state of knowledge and to suggest whether the time had come to reconsider the standard model of the medieval house, its use and meaning. The purpose of this paper is to summarise our current understanding and to suggest future directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Welsh became dedicated consumers in the medieval period. This paper examines the evidence - which is visual and archaeological as well as literary - for this process which is inseparable from the construction and maintenance of social identities, especially in relation to housing culture. The late medieval peasant dwelling in Wales had a specific chronology and social context. This paper argues that the distinctive durable cruck-framed peasant hall house developed as an assertion of free identity inseparable from the changes in the relationship between lords and their tenants in late-medieval Wales. Peasants, often characterised as conservative and stoical, developed an innovative and assertive housing culture in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the first annual lists of tree-ring dated buildings were published in Vernacular Architecture in 1980, dendrochronologists have assigned either a precise felling date or reasonably narrow dating parameters to more than 3000 building construction phases. In 1997, and again in 2001, Sarah Pearson traced the chronological distribution of rural aristocratic, gentry, vernacular and urban buildings tree-ring dated to 1200-1600. In 2001 it was particularly encouraging to learn that, although the numbers of tree-ring dated buildings in these categories had nearly doubled, the chronological patterns had remained unchanged. She forecast that 'the results in all categories will become more statistically valid as the number of buildings sampled increases [...]'. Following a further marked increase in the number of tree-ring dating reports available for analysis, this paper tests the proposition that '[...] the information should soon become robust enough to be subdivided and sustain serious argument'.1 Arguably, the collective efforts of historic building analysts and dendrochronologists can now be put to wider use, going beyond the attribution of construction date ranges to individual buildings and building categories and contributing to wider historical debates through enhancing our understanding of the dissemination of building types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrangement of service rooms in medieval houses in south-east England is often taken for granted, namely that two rooms beyond the cross-passage at the lower end of the hall were a standard feature and are usually termed buttery and pantry. Some houses may have had detached kitchens, in others cooking may have taken place within the building. This article looks at surviving houses in both rural and urban Kent and compares them with fifteenth- and sixteenth-century documentary evidence. The results suggest that we should not be too complacent in our interpretations, and that the way service functions were provided may have been more varied than we normally assume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although work has been published on the importance of hay barns in the Midlands and the north of England during the eighteenth century and later, southern hay barns have been relatively neglected. This paper seeks to restore the balance by discussing three southern hay barns of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Then attention is drawn to a rich source of information on medieval hay barns in the south. Finally arguments are advanced for believing that an extraordinary early-sixteenth-century farm building in Hampshire was built as a hay barn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work at all nine colleges of vicars choral at England's medieval cathedrals is reviewed. At York, the vicars' buildings developed from thirteenth-century, quasi-monastic structures to a close of individual houses, with individual front doors, by c.1400, and a search is mounted for similar sequences of development at the other eight colleges. At Lincoln, a hitherto misunderstood vicarial building is reconstructed and interpreted as a probable early communal dormitory, but at most other colleges, the documentary and archaeological sources provide only hints that the individual houses of the late Middle Ages were preceded by earlier types of dwelling. Nevertheless, it is suggested that the surviving collegiate houses at Chichester, Hereford and Wells, might have replaced earlier, short-lived, building types. Finally it is proposed that changing building types reflect, quite precisely, both the developing demarcation between different grades of vicar within cathedral hierarchies, and the rising status of the most senior members of those hierarchies who latterly became known as 'vicars choral'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imberhorne Farm Cottages 1–3 (TQ 373384) are, from the exterior, Victorian farm-workers' cottages. The outward appearance, however, hides the impressive remains of Imberhorne Manor House, containing an early archbraced false hammer-beam roof, tree-ring dated to 1428. The structure is compared to other surviving arch-braced examples and shows strongest similarities to the design of Westminster Hall, but lacking its elaborate mouldings and sculpture. The lack of adornment enables the detail of the design to be determined, showing considerable strengthening of the braces and retention of the hammer beam and post as single elements undivided by the arch. The construction of such a building within thirty years of the completion of Westminster Hall makes this property particularly important within the milieu of the developing structure of the arch-braced hammer beam, and demonstrates the influence of Westminster Hall in a vernacular context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain the Bernoulli Principle and to discuss its effect on the removal of smoke from the medieval open hall. To this end louvres and smoke vents, the cross passage, and the orientation of the house are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]