Not all medieval floors were equal. In most houses, the floors of the rooms on the ground floor were simply beaten earth. This always sounded unpleasant, especially when I saw the state of the floors in castles that I visited.
Thanks to them I had visions of lumpy, uneven floors being swept away when they were brushed, or of bits of a floor sticking to shoes if someone entered the house from the rain, or of it being scratched up by dogs or cats.
That floor is very solid and secure and would last for a long time with only a little maintenance. It took a fair amount of effort to make such a floor and sometimes the neighbours were called on for help.
As many people as the householder could get would walk on the floor for an afternoon or longer until it was flat and smooth. They literally walked round in circles until it was done.
They would have a chat or a sing as they walked. This seems to me to be a very satisfactory way of providing a floor surface and is probably quicker and more enjoyable than laying a laminate floor. The earthen floor would be covered with rushes.
Rushes provided good insulation and could help to keep the floor clean. I know that I often point to The Secrets of the Castle for examples, but the archaeologists demonstrate the practicalities of medieval life so well. She concluded that they would probably have been tied together in bunches and then laid on the floor. Other historians and archaeologists have considered whether the rushes might have been woven into mats before being placed on the floor, but everyone seems to be agreed that loose rushes were not strewn on the floor.
Almost every domestic beaten earth floor would have been covered in them. In a public building, an inn, for example, the rushes would have contained dreadful things trodden in from outside by people and dogs, but in a hovel, where the rushes would have doubled up as the bedding for the occupants, they would have been kept much cleaner. In the spring and summer herbs and flowers could be added to make the rushes and the room smell sweeter and to disguise less welcome odours. Tiles provided a far more upmarket floor surface.
Like everything else in medieval times, their production was very labour intensive. They required someone to dig the clay, which had to be cleaned and homogenised until it could be worked. Then it would be pressed into square, wooden moulds. After the tiles had been pushed out of the moulds, they would be dried and stacked in a kiln to be fired.
A medieval kiln was more like an earthwork than an oven and firing could take twenty-four hours or more. Disaster was always close at hand. Bad weather could mean that the firing was delayed, or the tiles could be too wet and would explode when the water became hot enough to turn into steam. However, personal hygiene was better than the perception of Medieval Hygiene.
People did wash, bath and clean their teeth. The terrible outbreak of the Black Death made Medieval people look for a link between health and hygiene. The words of men who lived during the Medieval times provide a fascinating and informative first-hand view of different aspects of Medieval hygiene during the period.
Associated articles may be accessed by clicking one of the following links:. Medieval People generally washed in cold water unless they were wealthy when hot water would be provided for bathing purposes. Bathing was usually conducted in wooden barrels but simply designed bathrooms were added in Medieval Castle interiors for the lords. Before people entered the Great Hall for meals they washed their hands.
As cleanliness and hygiene improved during the Medieval times lavers were introduced which were stone basins used for washing and provided at the entrances of castle dining halls. Bathing was usually conducted in wooden barrels but simply designed bathrooms were added in Medieval Castle interiors for the wealthy nobles and lords.
Some peasants lived in homes that sheltered animals as well as themselves. Yet animals could still occasionally find their way into the house proper. For this reason, an earthen floor was a practical choice.
However, there is no evidence that the term "dirt poor" was used in any context before the 20th century. One theory suggests that its origins lie in the Dust Bowl of s Oklahoma, where drought and poverty combined to create some of the most horrific living conditions in American history; but direct evidence is lacking. In castles, the ground floor might be beaten earth, stone, tile or plaster, but upper stories almost invariably had wooden floors, 2 and the same pattern likely held true in town dwellings.
Straw was not needed to keep people from slipping on wet slate, but it was used as a floor covering on most surfaces to provide a modicum of warmth and cushioning. In the case of tile, which was likely to be the most slippery, straw was seldom used to cover it, because it was usually designed to impress guests in the castles of more powerful nobles and in abbeys and churches.
On wood or stone floors, reeds or rushes were sometimes supplemented with aromatic herbs like lavender, and the entire floor would usually be swept clean and strewn with fresh straw and herbs on a regular basis. Old straw was not simply left down when fresh straw was added. If such were indeed the case, it might be logical to think of the little raised strip in a doorway as an item intended to "hold" in "thresh," except for one significant detail: There's no such thing as "thresh.
These reed-like plants were inexpensive and plentiful and, when mixed with fresh herbs, were a good way to cover dirt while sweetening the air. Sweet flag is a tall, smooth, fragrant plant that grows well in wetlands and boggy areas. In medieval times, bundles of these plants were gathered up and spread across some castle floors and the dirt floors of many medieval churches and cathedrals.
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