Life Below Stairs |
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Social structures have changed considerably since Medieval times. "Life below stairs" is a relatively modern concept, i.e. the divide between the servants and the gentry, epitomised by the "green baize door" separating the living areas of the servants from the owners and their guests. From the Medieval Age up until around 1700 when someone talked about his family, he meant everyone living under his roof including his servants; by the Victorian age he meant his wife and children. A small household, such as Muncaster would owe allegiance to an Overlord and Muncaster's social organisation would reflect on a smaller scale that of a great Lord such as the Percys of Northumberland. Households of the Middle Ages contained members of all classes, spreading out in a hierarchy under the Lord of the Manor. In an age when force was more powerful than law, its members lived together for mutual protection. As stronger central government produced a more peaceful country and as society grew ever more complex there was less reason for any but the lower social ranks to put themselves under the protection of a landowner in a Castle by entering her service. A medieval gentleman, serving
under the leadership and often in the household of a great Lord
had no feeling of solidarity with a gentleman serving other leaders
- his loyalty was to his lord. Once society began to re-organise,
and as gentlemen began to live, work and eat together as gentry,
their mutual affinity increased. Gradually first the gentry and
then the middle classes disappeared from great households as employees
or subordinates and reappeared as guests. In a medieval household
the whole community would eat together in the Great Hall, but in
a strict hierarchy with the Lord of the Manor at the top table.
By the nineteenth century the dining room had been invented, the
focus of the Hall as the centre of the household had gone and the
Lord and his family would dine in much smaller groups with guests
of any class at the same table.
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