| Forum: | Medieval Life And Culture |
| Topic: | Baileys |
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------------------ Shops as such were not common, especially in the early middle ages and even less so in villages. OK, the bailey. What you see in many castles today is an open space which now only contains the ruins of the former inner buildings, the domestic buildings, as Deborah said. Many people sometimes worked within a castle and especially in the early middle ages they did not have their own accommadation, but slept where they worked. The stablehand would have slept in the stable with the horses. This may seem strange to you, but was in fact done on farms in Europe until not long ago. Erikamber03 I see all these pictures of castles with open area between the walls and keep (I believe they are called baileys). But what went on the baileys? Did peasants live there? Were there shops? deborahknowles All the domestic buildings e.g bakery etc would have been in the bailey. I expect if you search 'Bailey' you'll find what you need. Good luck and merry Christmas! Erik Schmidt Firstly Amber, peasants did not live in castles. Many castles were built more for defence against the local peasants than any foreign threat. Castles were built in times of feudal 'government', where most of the land was held by the local feudal lord and the peasants worked his land.
To help keep the locals civil, castles often had the only rights to milling grain or baking bread, and sometimes stored all the grain from the fields within it's walls.
The peasants were less likly to try and attack, no matter how they disliked their situation, if much of their food, or the ability to make it edible, was being held within the castle.
People relied on regular market days to trade or purchase goods, but mostly people were fairly self sufficient. These markets were often held at the castle (whether inside or outside it's walls I don't know), in some cases it was law that the market must be held there.
The bailey of a larger castle would have housed kitchens, storage buildings(food, hay wood, animal feed, weapons), stables, black smith's shop, bakery and so on. Some of these functions were often incorporated into the main buildings such as the keep and towers and then did not require a seperate building.
The inside of the walls often had buildings built up against them and on many you can still see the rows of holes where roof beams were inserted to make a 'lean to' type roof.
Open areas would have been used for training of knights, receiving guests, storing stones and seige engines for times of siege, growing herbs and anything else that did not require a building.amber03 I thank both Deborah and Erik for their insightful posts. I know my question may have sounded a little ignorant to people who know a lot about the subject of castles, but I have little knowledge in the area.
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