Is your houses comftorble in the medieval life?

Answer 1

I suppose that depends on what you consider comfortable.

A peasant's house in a village was very simple, consisting of one or two rooms. It would have been built using post and beam construction, with walls made of a substance called wattle and daub. Wattle and daub consists of panels made my weaving together think branches, and then covering the lattice with a mixture of wet soil, clay, straw, and sometimes animal dung. Once dry these panels were painted with lime inside and out out to make help protect them from the weather, and on the inside the white color reflected the limited light. The roof was made of thatch, a roofing material made of grasses and other plant materials. If properly constructed and maintained thatch is wind and water proof and can last as long as modern building materials.

Furnishings would have been simple and basic. There may have been a trestle table. Chairs were rare, people sat on benches or stools. Chests were used for storage, there were no closets. Water was carried to the house by hand from a well or nearby stream or river. A simple bed stand would hold a mattress that was usually stuffed with straw. Sanitary facilities consisted of a privy built some distance behind the house over a cesspit.

Most peasant houses had a central open hearth. This was basically a low stone platform in the middle of the room where one build a fire, which provided the heat, the majority of the light, and the cooking facilities. Smoke exited through vents in the roof, which were covered with lantern shaped louvered hoods to allow for ventilation but deny entry of wind an rain. Because most houses, even in towns, did not have their own ovens, most food was boiled or stewed in a pot over the fire. In addition to bread (from a village oven) and cheese, the peasant diet was mostly "pottage", meaning a stew of whatever was at hand, including beans, peas, garden vegetables, grains, and occasionally small amounts of meat. Even for the peasant, food was not bland as is often supposed, as they would have had onions, garlic, leaks, and a wide range of locally grown herbs to flavor their food.

Houses in towns and cities were more varied. In some places in less crowded towns the peasant cottage could still be found. On busier streets near the middle of town people lived much closer together. Buildings were several stories, sometimes including a basement and as many as three stories above ground. Buildings were nearly always multipurpose, and usually had common walls or were built very closely to the next building. The basement of a house might be storage, or a tavern. The ground floor would be a shop or business, and the upper floors would be living quarters. In the later middle ages fireplaces came into use, which gave urban builders more flexibility. It allowed rooms to be built over the main hall as there not longer had to be roof access to allow for the venting of smoke from the hearth. A prosperous merchant might have an entire entire house for his use, which his offices on the ground floor, his family and servants housed above, and a warehouse for his goods might connected to, adjacent to, or behind his home.

The urban poor, on the other hand, would have lived in much more cramped quarters. They would have rented individual chambers in houses, or above shops, or sometimes even have lived in attics or basement vaults.