Manor house
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely applied to various English country houses, mostly at the smaller end of the spectrum, sometimes dating from the Late Middle Ages, which currently or formerly house the landed gentry.
Manor houses were sometimes fortified, albeit not as fortified as castles, but this was often more for show than for defence. They existed in most European countries where feudalism was present.
Function
The lord of the manor may have held several properties within a county or, for example in the case of a feudal baron, spread across a kingdom, which he occupied only on occasional visits. Even so, the business of the manor was directed and controlled by regular manorial courts, which appointed manorial officials such as the bailiff, granted copyhold leases to tenants, resolved disputes between manorial tenants and administered justice in general. A large and suitable building was required within the manor for such purpose, generally in the form of a great hall, and a solar might be attached to form accommodation for the lord.The produce of a small manor might be insufficient to feed a lord and his large family for a full year, and thus he would spend only a few months at each manor and move on to another where stores had been laid up. This also gave the opportunity for the vacated manor house to be cleaned, especially important in the days of the cess-pit, and repaired. Thus such non-resident lords needed to appoint a steward or seneschal to act as their deputy in such matters and to preside at the manorial courts of his different manorial properties. The day-to-day administration was carried out by a resident official in authority at each manor, who in England was called a bailiff, or reeve.
Architecture
Although not typically built with strong fortifications as were castles, many manor-houses were fortified, which required a royal licence to crenellate. They were often enclosed within walls or ditches which often also included agricultural buildings. Arranged for defence against roaming bands of robbers and thieves, in days long before police, they were often surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge, and were equipped with gatehouses and watchtowers, but not, as for castles, with a keep, large towers or lofty curtain walls designed to withstand a siege. The primary feature of the manor house was its great hall, to which subsidiary apartments were added as the lessening of feudal warfare permitted more peaceful domestic life.By the beginning of the 16th century, manor houses as well as small castles began to acquire the character and amenities of the residences of country gentlemen, and many defensive elements were dispensed with, for example Sutton Place in Surrey,. A late 16th-century transformation produced many of the smaller Renaissance châteaux of France and the numerous country mansions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean styles in England. These would eventually evolve into country houses with the estate replacing the manor.
History in England
Manor houses were often built in close proximity to the village for ease, as they served not just as a home for the lord of the manor, but as a centre of administration for those who lived or travelled within the bounds of the manor. In some instances, they needed to be able to hold meetings of the Manorial court.Nearly every large medieval manor house had its own deer-park adjoining, imparked by royal licence, which served primarily as a store of food in the form of venison. Within these licensed parks deer could not be hunted by royalty, nor by neighbouring land-owners nor by any other persons.
Decline of the manor house
Before around 1600, larger houses were usually fortified, generally for true defensive purposes but increasingly, as the kingdom became internally more peaceable after the Wars of the Roses, as a form of status symbol, reflecting the position of their owners as having been worthy to receive royal licence to crenellate. The Tudor period of stability in England saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses, for example Sutton Place in Surrey, circa 1521.The Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII resulted in many former monastical properties being sold to the King's favourites, who then converted them into private country houses, examples being Woburn Abbey, Forde Abbey, Nostell Priory and many other mansions with the suffix Abbey or Priory to their name.
During the second half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and under her successor King James I the first mansions designed by architects not by mere masons or builders, began to make their appearance. Such houses as Burghley House, Longleat House, and Hatfield House are among the best known of this period and seem today to epitomise the English country house.
During the 16th century, many lords of manors moved their residences from their ancient manor houses often situated next to the parish church and near or in the village and built a new manor house within the walls of their ancient deer-parks adjoining. This gave them more privacy and space.
Naming
While suffixes given to manor houses in recent centuries have little substantive meaning, and many have changed over time, in previous centuries manor names had specific connotations.- Court – This suffix came into use in the 16th century and was applied to the buildings where lords would receive their tenants.
- Castle – Non-royal castles were generally the residences of feudal barons, whose baronies might comprise several dozen other manors. The manor on which the castle was situated was termed the caput of the barony, thus every true ancient defensive castle was also the manor house of its own manor. The suffix "-Castle" was also used to name certain manor houses, generally built as mock castles, but often as houses rebuilt on the site of a former true castle:
- Place – The "Place" suffix is likely to have been a shortened form of "Palace", a term commonly used in Renaissance Italy to denote a residence of the nobility.
- Park – came into use in the 18th and 19th centuries
- 'Manor' Suffix - Romantic Revival - Manor houses, although mostly forming residences for the lords of the manors on which they were situated, were not historically named with the suffix "Manor", as were many grand country houses built in the 19th century, such as Hughenden Manor or Waddesdon Manor.
Similar constructions
- Tower Houses – Tower houses, including Peel towers, were constructed in the wilder parts of England, usually in the marches. They served a defensive purpose, built as a solid fortified keep, they were designed to protect inhabitants from raids by border reivers. Though the lord lived in the tower and their followers lived in simple huts outside the walls, the towers were designed to provide a refuge so that, when cross-border raiding parties arrived, the whole population of a village could take to the tower and wait for the marauders to depart.
- Lodges – Some of the land in England was designated as Royal forest during the feudal era. These areas were under forest law, which was historically distinct from the law of the rest of the country and operated outside the common law, serving to protect game animals and their forest habitat from destruction. Kings would appoint 'Wardens', 'Keepers', or 'Guardians' to oversee these lands, who would often be provided Lodges that functioned similarly to manor houses.
- Clergy dwellings – As the often second most important individual in a feudal manor, clergy dwellings often incorporated many of the elements of a manor house. Some manors were themselves clerical and so the manor house and vicarage/rectory were one and the same. Properties such as rectories in England were often supported by their own Glebe – land within the parish/manor set aside to support a parish priest.
In other countries
Australia
In Australia, the term "manor" is occasionally used, often informally, in place of "mansion" to describe substantial historic residences, particularly prominent homesteads constructed during the pastoral boom of the 19th century. Many of these estates were built by wealthy landholders who sought to emulate the architectural idioms of English country houses, incorporating elements such as symmetrical façades, grand entrance halls, and landscaped grounds. Examples include Château Kolor, whose French-influenced nomenclature reflects the broader aspiration toward European aristocratic styles, and Leslie Manor, a substantial Western District, noted for its scale and formal composition.France
In France, the terms château or manoir are often used synonymously to describe a French manor house; maison-forte is the appellation for a strongly fortified house, which may include two sets of enclosing walls, drawbridges, and a ground-floor hall or salle basse that was used to receive peasants and commoners. The term manoir is used historically only in Normandy and in Brittany. The salle basse was also the location of the manorial court, with the steward or seigneur's seating location often marked by the presence of a crédence de justice or wall-cupboard.The salle haute or upper-hall, reserved for the seigneur and where he received his high-ranking guests, was often accessible by an external spiral staircase. It was commonly "open" up to the roof trusses, as in similar English homes. This larger and more finely decorated hall was usually located above the ground-floor hall. The seigneur and his family's private chambres were often located off of the upper first-floor hall, and invariably had their own fireplace and frequently a latrine.
In addition to having both lower and upper halls, many French manor houses also had partly fortified gateways, watchtowers, and enclosing walls that were fitted with arrow or gun loops for added protection. Some larger 16th-century manors, such as the Château de Kerjean in Finistère, Brittany, were even outfitted with ditches and fore-works that included gun platforms for cannons. These defensive arrangements allowed maisons-fortes and rural manors to be safe from a coup de main perpetrated by an armed band, many of which roamed the countryside during the troubled times of the Hundred Years War and the French wars of religion; but these fortified manor houses could not have withstood a lengthy siege undertaken by a regular army equipped with engines or heavy artillery.