• The church was located near the centre of the town. Larger towns had several churches and even a cathedral, if a bishop was based there.
• Outside the walls was the fair green for the annual fair. This was a huge market where traders from all over the country sold exotic things like silks and spices, as well as tools and weapons.
Houses
The average person’s house in a town was made of wood. They were usually several storeys high. The higher floors usually stuck out over the street, which blocked the sun and made the streets very dark. Only important buildings – the church or town hall and richer people’s homes – were made of stone. Craftsmen had their shops or workshops on the ground floor, with their family living on the floor above and the bedrooms on the floor above that.
Many houses had back gardens where people grew vegetables and kept animals such as pigs, hens and cows. People kept dung heaps in their gardens where they threw some of their waste, especially food waste. Fire was a constant danger, due to all the wooden buildings. Towns imposed curfews, which meant people had to extinguish their fires at sundown.
Streets
The streets were little more than mud tracks with an open drain down the middle. They were incredibly dirty, as people emptied the contents of their chamber pots outside each morning. Animals often roamed the streets. Life generally was very cramped and people lived very close together. This meant that disease could spread very easily; you will learn more about this in topic 6.7.
CHECKPOINT!
1. Where were towns built in the Middle Ages and why were they built there? 2. How did towns protect themselves? 3. Describe a house in a medieval town. 4. Explain the following terms: charter; fair green; curfew. 5. Why did disease spread so easily in towns?
. I can describe life in a medieval town. 76 TIME TO GO BACK I CAN MOVE FORWARD
