ves. Horse collars especially fitted for horses,
replaced oxen yoke that had been used on horses. The horse collar did
not restrict breathing and enabled horses to use the same strength of
oxen. Also, horses had better endurance and faster speed.

A free holder's house was wood, perhaps with a stone foundation,
and roofed with thatch or tiles. There was a main room or hall,
with bed chambers around it. Beyond was the kitchen, perhaps
outside under a lean-to. These buildings were surrounded by a bank
or stiff hedge.

Simple people lived in huts made from wood and mud, with one door
and no windows. They slept around a wood-burning fire in the
middle of the earthen floor. They wore shapeless clothes of goat
hair and unprocessed wool from their sheep. They ate rough brown
bread, vegetable and grain broth, ale from barley, bacon, beans,
milk, cabbage, onion, apples, plums, cherries, and honey for
sweetening or mead. Vegetables grown in the country included
onions, leeks, celery, lettuce, radish, carrots, garlic, shallots,
parsnip, dill, chervil, marigold, coriander, and poppy. In the
summer, they ate boiled or raw veal and wild fowl such as ducks,
geese, or pigeons, and game snared in the forest. Poultry was a
luxury food, but recognized as therapeutic for invalids,
especially in broth form [chicken soup]. Venison was highly
prized. There were still some wild boar, which were hunted with
long spears, a greyhound dog, and hunting horns. They sometimes
mated with the domestic pigs which roamed the woodlands. In
September, the old and infirm pigs were slaughtered and their
sides of bacon smoked in the rafters for about a month. Their
intestines provided skin for sausages. In the fall, cattle were
slaughtered and salted for food during the winter because there
was no more pasture for them. However, some cows and breed animals
were kept through the winter.

For their meals, people used wooden platters, sometimes
earthenware plates, drinking horns, drinking cups from ash or
alderwood turned on a foot-peddled pole lathe, and bottles made of
leather. Their bowls, pans, and pitchers were made by the potter's
wheel. Water could be boiled in pots made of iron, brass, lead, or
clay. Water could be carried in leather bags because leather
working preservative techniques improved so that tanning prevented
stretching or decaying. At the back of each hut was a hole in the
ground used as a latrine, which flies frequented. Moss was used