speak of spinsters. Formerly
relationship through the mother was called 'on the spindle side,' while,
long after the men had to fight every day against marauding tribes,
relationship through the father was called 'on the spear side.' All day
long the men worked outside in the fields, or in the warehouse, and on
the quays or at their craft. In the evening they sat about the fire and
listened to stories, or to songs with the accompaniment of the harp.

The first improvement was the separation of the kitchen from the hall:
in the Cambridge College you see the hall on one side and the kitchen
the other, separated by a passage. The second step was the construction
of the 'Solar,' or chamber over the kitchen, which became the bedroom of
the master and the mistress of the house. Then they built a room behind
the solar for the daughters and the maidservants; the sons and the
menservants still sleeping in the Hall. Presumably the house was at this
stage in the time of King Ethelred, just before the Norman Conquest. The
ladies' 'bower' followed, and after that the sleeping rooms for the men.

There was no furniture, as we understand it. Benches there were, and
trestles for the tables, which were literally laid at every meal: a
great chair was provided for the Lord and Lady: tapestry kept out the
draughts: weapons, musical instruments, and other things hung upon the
walls. Dinner was at noon: supper in the evening when work was over:
they made great use of vegetables and they had nearly all our modern
fruits: they drank, as the national beverage, beer or mead.

But everybody was not a wealthy merchant: most of the citizens were
craftsmen of some kind. These lived in small wooden houses of two rooms,
one above the other: those who were not able to afford so much slept in
hovels, consisting of four uprights with 'wattle and daub' for the
sides, a roof of thatch, no window, and a fire in the middle of the
floor. They lived very roughly: they endured many hardships: but they
were a well-fed people, turbulent and independent: their houses were
crowded in narrow lanes--how narrow may be understood by a walk along
Thames Street; they were always in danger of fire--in 962, in 1087, in
1135, the greater part of the City was burned to the ground. They lived
in plenty: there was work for all: they had their folk mote--their City
parliament--and their ward mote--which still exists: they had no feudal
lord to harass them: as for the dirt and