Paper Summary:

The paper argues that the evolution of the concept of domesticity - and its associated impact upon furniture design - was closely associated with the rise of the bourgeois or middle class and the gradual preeminence of urban living as the defining lifestyle of the Middle Ages. The paper shows how the merchant classes of medieval European cities were the primary agents of historical and social change and innovations in furniture design.

Outline:
Introduction
The Rise of the Middle Class
The Early Medieval Home and Furniture
The Evolution of the Language of Domesticity
The Signification of Furniture

From the Paper:

"It must be acknowledged that in making the argument that it was the early European middle classes in their small city dwellings, and not the medieval nobility in their huge, picturesque castles, who were primarily significant in terms of the evolution of domesticity and furniture design one is challenging a popular image of medieval history. However, while the nobility were undeniably the ruling class in medieval Europe, the history of the Middle Ages can also be read as a history of the decline of aristocratic power and the rise of the middle class."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Gies, Joseph and Gies, Frances. Life in a Medieval Castle.New York: Harper and Row, 1979.
• Gies, Joseph and Gies, Frances. Life in a Medieval City.New York: HarperPerennial, 1969.
• Hodgett, Gerald. A Social and Economic History of MedievalEurope. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.
• Keen, Maurice. The Pelican History of Medieval Europe. New York:Penguin, 1982.
• Lukacs, John. "The Bourgeois Interior." The American Scholar.39.4 (1970).

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