Sheehan, J. “Ireland’s Early Viking Age Silver Hoards: Com-
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See alsoCoinage; Jewelry and Personal
Ornament
HOSTAGES
SeeBrehon Law; Kings and Kingship
HOUSES
Introduction
Within the walls and under the sheltering roof of Mid-
dle Age houses, people slept, worked, prepared and
ate food, gathered for social occasions and extended
hospitality to others. The house could potentially be
seen then as the main venue for the performance of
personal and collective social identities. Indeed,
archaeologists often see the house not merely as a
backdrop for human action, but as a space through
which social identities of social rank, gender, and kin-
ship are ordered, produced, and reproduced over time,
with doors, hearths, walls, and beds all constraining
and enabling movement and daily practice.
Archaeological and Historical Evidence
There is a range of archaeological and historical evi-
dence of early medieval Irish houses (between the
seventh and the ninth century A.D. in particular). Stud-
ies have established a good understanding of their
architectural development, location, shape, size, build-
ing materials, and internal features (Lynn 1994). At
least 300 wooden and stone early medieval houses are
known, mostly from ringforts, crannogs, and ecclesi-
astical enclosures, but also from Hiberno-Norse towns
(e.g., Dublin, Waterford, Cork). Early medieval historical
texts (e.g., early Irish laws, saints’ lives, and narrative
literature) also usefully describe house architecture.
The eighth-century law tract Críth Gablachprovides
detailed discussion of the size of houses, construction
details, and the types of domestic equipment used
within them, all closely linked with ideas of social
class and rank. The narrative literature also provides
descriptions of fantastic houses that clearly owe more
to the imagination than to real-life dwellings, but these
do indicate the social and symbolic importance of
houses, doorways, hearths, and internal arrangements.
In the later medieval period, there is also good histor-
ical evidence, but relatively few archaeological exca-
vations of houses have been carried out. It is also worth
stating that most late medieval castles and tower-
houses should also be seen as houses, places for
domestic residence and daily activity.Early Medieval Round Houses
(500–800 A.D.)
The structures at the beginning of the early medieval
period were usually round houses (usually found at
the center of ringforts) constructed of post-and-wattle
or stone walls, with wooden poles for roof joists,
and thatched roofs of reed, turf, or straw. Most early
medieval roundhouses were fairly small, typically 4 to
5 meters in diameter, with some houses slightly larger,
at 6 to 10 meters in diameter. The internal floor space
was typically 45 square meters, comprising a single
small room. It is likely that house size was closely
related to social rank, and both customary practice and
law forbade an individual from building larger than a
certain size. In the early Middle Ages, if people required
more domestic space, they built a second house and
attached it to the larger house to create a figure-of-eight
shape (as at Dressogagh, Co. Armagh, and Deer Park
Farms, Co. Antrim). This may have been the cuile, or
back-house, referred to in the law tracts, which was
possibly used as a kitchen or sleeping area.Early Medieval Rectangular Houses
(800–1000 A.D.)
Lynn’s (1994) studies also show that there is a signif-
icant architectural change from the use of round houses
to rectangular houses after about 800 A.D. At the end
of the early medieval period (ninth to tenth century
A.D.), rectangular houses built in stone or turf were
common, and roundhouses became rare. On most
settlement sites where there is clear chronological
evidence, round houses can be seen to have been
physically replaced by rectangular structures, as at
Leacanabuile, County Cork (Ó Ríordáin and Foy
1941). The reasons for this transition in architectural
styles are still unclear. It is possible that it reflects
significant changes in early medieval Irish society by
800 A.D., with the emergence of semi-feudal socioeco-
nomic relationships and changing concepts of land
ownership and household size. The ownership and use
of a rectangular house, which could more easily be
divided up into compartments and sections, may haveHOARDS