EAA 2023: Abstract

The standards we use today to measure comfortable living or housing are most likely not the ones that medieval society used. It is difficult to guess what is appropriate to one's social rank in a certain time period, because we tend to judge categories such as comfort, defensive use, representation or remarkable construction solutions by different standards than contemporary witnesses. In addition, the indicators for wealth or nobility in society varied regionally.
To find out more about the needs and associated standards of living of nobility in specific periods, an analysis of three castles was conducted: Altenburg, Castle Klingen and Castle Altenklingen (Switzerland). They stand or stood in short distance of each other and, as the research revealed, were built in successive periods during the Middle Ages. An old castle was abandoned in order to live in a newer or to build the newer castle.
This base offers a good ground to evaluate standards for nobility, in best-case measure wealth of the owner of each castle in a similar setting but different time. The results indicate that nobility showed their wealth and power in many different ways throughout time. Even though the requirement to have a residence befitting one’s rank remains the same and the period under investigation is relatively narrow, the changes in the understanding of comfortable living and representation are remarkable. Some symbols of nobility developed early on out of need (like the tower of a castle) were reproduced as the standard for a castle for many hundred years, even if their actual purpose of use was completely lost. Many more results of the researche show that wealth and nobility showed themselves in many more facets and make it clear that individuals but also communities of a larger region, valued and understood same or similar symbols as wealth.

castle, medieval, nobility, living standards, social complexity

Oral presentation

  Abstract (PDF)

Iris Hutter^1,2