The Rise of the Middling Sort
Between the labourer’s hovel and the lord’s solar sat a genuinely new social layer by the later medieval period: the “middling sort” of town-dwelling merchants, craftsmen, and tradespeople, and their domestic lives are unexpectedly well documented through surviving wills.
Most town houses, even modest ones, came with their own garden plot where the women of the household grew vegetables just as their rural counterparts did, plus a bit of livestock where space allowed. By the 15th century, more of these households could afford a chimney and real furniture: stools, benches, trestle-boards for tables, settles with cushions, cupboards (originally literally boards for displaying cups), and buffets for showing off silverware.
One London widow’s 1480 will gives a vivid snapshot of what “comfortable” meant at this level. Having run both her late husband’s tailoring business and her own independent trade in silk goods, she left behind a featherbed and bolster, two blankets, a mattress, two pairs of large sheets, down pillows with cases, a dyed bed-tester (an indoor tent-like canopy hung from the rafters to keep out draughts), a tapestry coverlet, and a set of green buckram wall hangings — alongside chests, a cupboard, candlesticks, wash basins, and a long list of kitchenware, all carefully distributed among named beneficiaries.
Fire was the constant hazard of this world of timber, thatch, and open hearths. After a serious fire tore through London in 1212, the city banned flammable thatched roofs — a law that, tellingly, only the wealthy could actually afford to comply with, since tiling a roof cost real money most people simply didn’t have. Anyone out after dark, meanwhile, was legally required to carry a torch, not just to see by, but to prove to the night-watch they weren’t up to no good.
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