The byzantine house
The house was without doubt the centre of private life for
the Byzantines. Many variations of the home existed, depending on the owner’s
financial means, the terrain and, of course, the available space.
In
the cities there were luxurious mansions inhabited by the rich and the
nobility, as well as humble dwellings for the poor.
The Byzantine
home
combined
features
from Ancient
Greece, Rome
and the East. Since few authentic Byzantine houses have survived, our
information comes from the few remains that have been excavated, and mainly
from the descriptions found in texts, manuscript illustrations and depictions
in monumental art.
Early Christian houses were more elaborate than those
built later, as they followed the tradition of antiquity. The rooms were organized
around an interior courtyard surrounded by arcades, while the most formal room
in the house was the triclinium ,
where the owner hosted banquets for his guests. One narrow side of this room was usually built in a
semicircle, where couches would be placed around a table. The remaining rooms in
the house were large and often decorated with marble tiles, mosaic floors and
frescoes . This luxurious type of house was obviously intended for the
aristocracy of the time; the middle class lived
in
more
modest
versions, with
no courtyard or fewer rooms, beaten earth floors and unpainted plaster walls. That
being said, the lower classes that made up the bulk of the urban population
lived in houses resembling blocks of flats. Written sources tell us that many
people in contemporary Constantinople lived in
multi-storey buildings rising from seven to nine floors high.
The form taken
by houses
changed radically from the
6th century on.
Though the triclinium
or triklinari remained the principal
room in the home, all other spaces were arranged around it: those for men and children (dorms or cabins); women’s
quarters at the back of the house, where the loom was kept; the dining room;
and the lavatory.
Many houses in Byzantine
times - especially the palaces of emperors and aristocrats such as Digenis
Akritis - had balconies on the upper floor called heliaka, or solars. Reference is made to covered balconies with
wooden supports (hayats ) and various wings around the main building; in some
cases houses were guarded by towers and had chapels serving the religious needs
of the occupants, baths and other ancillary buildings.The outside walls were
meticulously constructed of alternating brick and stone or decorated with other
designs. The floors were laid with marble tiles, and the walls dressed in
marble or adorned with murals and mosaics. Courtyards and gardens had fountains
of various types and sizes.
However, most of the
population in Byzantine times lived in rudely constructed one or two-storey
houses of cheap materials, including parts of ancient buildings. The majority
consisted of a group of rooms arranged around an open courtyard, where there
was usually a well and an oven. At least one of the wings had a second floor. Descriptions
of houses found in Byzantine documents, as well as those that have come to
light in excavations, such as those at Corinth,
allow us to surmise that workshops, mills, warehouses, stables and living
quarters often formed part of a single building complex.
Over the centuries it seems
that the triklinari took over all the
previously separate areas and that the interior courtyard was abolished. At Mystras,
where the best preserved examples of late Byzantine houses are to be found, homes
were generally
rectangular two-storey affairs,
in some cases built parallel to the slope and in others vertically, so that part
of their basement was hewn into the rock. Some houses shared a wall with
adjacent buildings, while others were fully detached. Mansions
had a tower on one side. The utility rooms (water cistern, warehouse, stable,
kitchen, etc.), were located on the ground floor, whereas the triklinari was above. Light for the
upper floor came through a row of arched windows, usually with a sun balcony on
one side. Heavy fabrics hanging from the rafters or makeshift board
constructions marked off the various rooms. Alcoves for storing clothes and
other objects were made in the walls,
in corners and next to windows, and benches lined the walls. Opposite the heliakon was the hearth for heating and
cooking. One corner of the house was reserved for the lavatory.
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