In the earliest castles the family slept at the extreme upper end of the hall,
beyond the dais, from which the sleeping quarters were typically separated by only
a curtain or screen. Fitz Osbern's hall at Chepstow, however, substituted for this
temporary division a permanent wooden partition. Sometimes castles with ground-
floor halls had their great chamber, where the lord and lady slept, in a separate
wing at the dais end of the hall, over a storeroom, matched at the other end, over
the buttery and pantry, by a chamber for the eldest son and his family, for guests,
or for the castle steward. These second-floor chambers were sometimes equipped with
"squints," peepholes concealed in wall decorations by which the owner or steward
could keep an eye on what went on below.
The lord and lady's chamber, when situated on an upper floor, was called the solar.
By association, any private chamber, whatever its location, came to be called a
solar. Its principal item of furniture was a great bed with a heavy wooden frame
and springs made of interlaced ropes or strips of leather, overlaid with a feather
mattress, sheets, quilts, fur coverlets, and pillows. Such beds could be dismantled
and taken along on the frequent trips a great lord made to his castles and other
manors. The bed was curtained, with linen hangings that pulled back in the daytime
and closed at night to give privacy as well as protection from drafts. Personal
servants might sleep in the lord's chamber on a pallet or trundle bed, or on a
bench. Chests for garments, a few "perches" or wooden pegs for clothes, and a stool
or two made up the remainder of the furnishings. Sometimes a small anteroom called
the wardrobe adjoined the chamber - a storeroom where cloth, jewels, spices and
plates were stored in chests, and where dressmaking was done.
In the early Middle Ages, when few castles had large permanent garrisons, not only
servants but military and administrative personnel slept in towers or in basements,
or in the hall, or in lean-to structures; knights performing castle guard slept
near their assigned posts. Later, when castles were manned by larger garrisons,
often mercenaries, separate barracks, mess halls, and kitchens were built.
