Great hall

A great hall was the main room of a royal palace, a nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. As that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. Great halls of the type covered in this article were found especially in England, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries.

Related Topics:
Middle Ages - Country houses - 16th - 17th centuries - England - European

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A typical great hall was a rectangular room between one and a half and three times as long as it was wide, and also higher than it was wide. It was entered through a screens passage at one end, and had windows on one of the long sides, often including a large bay window. There was often a minstrel's gallery above the screens passage. At the other end of the hall was the dais where the top table was situated. The lord's family's more private rooms were beyond the dais end of the hall. Even the royal and noble residences had few living rooms in the Middle Ages, and a great hall was a multifunction room. It was used for receiving guests and it was the place where the household would dine together, including the lord of the house, his gentleman attendants and at least some of the servants. At night some members of the household might sleep on the floor of the great hall.

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Many great halls survive. Two very large surviving royal halls are Westminster Hall and the Wenceslas Hall in Prague Castle. Penshurst Place in Kent, England has a little altered 14th century example. Surviving 16th century and early 17th century specimens in England are numerous, for example those at Longleat and Burghley House, but by the late 1500s the great hall was beginning to lose its purpose. The greater centralisation of power in royal hands meant that men of good social standing were less inclined to enter the service of a lord. As the social gap between master and servant grew, there was less reason for them to dine together and servants were banished from the hall. The other living rooms in country houses became more numerous, specialised and important, and by the late 17th century the halls of many new houses were simply vestibules, used to pass through to get to somewhere else, but not lived in.

Related Topics:
Westminster Hall - Prague Castle - Penshurst Place - Kent - England - 14th century - Longleat - Burghley House - 1500s - Country houses

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Many colleges at Oxford and Cambridge universities have halls on the great hall model which are still used as dining rooms on a daily basis.

Related Topics:
Oxford - Cambridge

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