ccording to his rank. The almoner said grace and distributed the
leftovers to the poor gathered at the gate. The superior people's
hands were washed by their inferiors. Lastly, the trestle tables
were removed while sweet wine and spices were consumed standing.
Then the musicians were called into the hall and dancing began.
The lord usually slept in a great bed in this room. The standard
number of meals was three: breakfast, dinner, and supper.

The diet of an ordinary family such as that of a small shopholder
or yeoman farmer included beef, mutton, pork, a variety of fish,
both fresh and salted, venison, nuts, peas, oatmeal, honey,
grapes, apples, pears, and fresh vegetables. Cattle and sheep were
driven from Wales to English markets. This droving lasted for five
centuries.

Many types of people besides the nobility and knights now had
property and thus were considered gentry: female lines of the
nobility, merchants and their sons, attorneys, auditors, squires,
and peasant-yeomen. The burgess grew rich as the knight dropped
lower. The great merchants lived in mansions which could occupy
whole blocks. Typically, there would be an oak-paneled great hall,
with adjoining kitchen, pantry, and buttery on one end and a great
parlor to receive guests, bedrooms, wardrobes, servants' rooms,
and a chapel on the other end or on a second floor. The beds were
surrounded by heavy draperies to keep out cold drafts. In towns
these mansions were entered through a gate through a row of shops
on the street. A lesser dwelling would have these rooms on three
floors over a shop on the first floor. An average Londoner would
have a shop, a storeroom, a hall, a kitchen, and a buttery on the
first floor, and three bedrooms on the second floor. Artisans and
shopkeepers of more modest means lived in rows of dwellings, each
with a shop and small storage room on the first floor, and a
combination parlor-bedroom on the second floor. The humblest
residents crowded their shop and family into one 6 by 10 foot room
for rent of a few shillings a year. All except the last would also
have a small garden. The best gardens had a fruit tree, herbs,
flowers, a well, and a latrine area. There were common and public
privies for those without their own. Kitchen slops and casual
refuse continued to be thrown into the street. Floors of stone or
planks were strewn with rushes. There was some tile flooring. Most
dwellings had glass windows. Candles were used for lig