Gunda Béla et al. (szerk.): Ideen, Objekte und Lebensformen. Gedenkschrift für Zsigmond Bátky - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 29. (Székesfehérvár, 1989)
Alexander Fenton: The Hearth as a Marker of Social Change: the Scottish Example
THE HEARTH AS A MARKER OF SOCIAL CHANGE: THE SCOTTISH EXAMPLE The hearth as a source of warmth and a means of cooking food is a major element in any study of the dwellinghouse and its functions. It can also form a specially demarcated, more intimate area within a larger entity. Through this phenomenon, or through the separation of cooking and heating functions, it constitutes a sensitive indicator of social status and change. At first sight, it might appear that the situation in Scotland is simpler than in many other countries. The tradition is overwhelmingly that of the open-hearth. Though baking ovens built into the hearths of farm-kitchens are to be found in Britain as far north as the North of England and the Isle of Manf1), in Scotland they are rare or unknown at this social level. They were, of course, present in the bakehouses at castles and mansions, monasteries and other institutional buildings, and in town bakeries!2). Most references to ovens between the early 15th and the 17th centuries are to be found in the records of burghs. They are not mentioned in the homes of the generality of the people, and may be taken as markers of higher social levels and urban complexes. Scots in general did not know the pleasure of basking in the after-heat of a kitchen oven in which warm bread had been baked. As in Ireland also, the open hearths were fired by peat (Brenntorf), wood or other more short-term fuels up to and well beyond the period when coal began to spread as a fuel in the late 18th century. At the lowest levels of society, regular heating was perhaps the last thing to be thought of. A temporary fire of poor quality or excessively quick—burning fuel, was often the best that could be achieved for the basic cooking of food or heating of liquids. In point of fact, those who had the possibility of gathering animal manure for fuel had a source of heat that in comparison was considerably better.(s) Even so, such fuels of necessity were all of short duration, and energy spent in gathering fuel was often scarcely returned in terms of heat. Late 18th century sources make clear a problem that must have been present from the beginnings of human settlement to the 20th century evolution of the welfare state. Fires were hardly kindled at all in the homes of the lower classes except for cooking victuals!4). Distress in severe winters was ‘unspeakingly great’, and the daylight hours of women and children were often spent in gathering firing such as brushwood, furze or broom to provide some scanty heat in the evening.!5) The repeated need to forage for short-term fuels marks the poorest levels of society. At a higher level, countrydwellers and those living in the small villages and towns of pre-18th century Scotland were able to plan their fuelgathering and lay in stores, partly in the form of wood where this was plentiful (though estates tended to control such use of wood carefully), but mainly in the form of peat dug from the peat bogs in late spring, set up in individual blocks and then in small stacks to dry, and finally built into large stacks near the houses to provide an adequate source of supply during winter days.(6) In spite of the vast quantities of peat that have been burned over the centuries, peat still covers about 10% of the land surface of Scotland and a good deal is still used as fuel. The amount of time and effort involved in harvesting peat—or in finding surrogate fuels where peat was scarce—was considerable, and could even affect patterns of settlement. (1) M. Hartley and J. Ingilby, Life and Tradition in the Yorkshire Dales, 1968, 2; K. Williamson, Characteristics of the Chiollagh, in The Journal of the Manx Museum IV, 55 (1938) 27—28. (2) M. Mackay Mackenzie, The Medieval Castle in Scotland, 1927, 122, 124; Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue s. v. Chimney, Ovin. (3) See A. Fenton, A Fuel of Necessity: Animal Manure, in E. Ennen and G. Wiegelmann, eds., Festschrift MatthiasZender. Studien zu Volkskultur, Sprache und Landesgeschichte, Bonn 1972, II, 722—34. (4) D. Ure, General View of the County of Roxburgh, 1974, 73; J. Headrick, General View of the County of Angus, 1813, 507. (5) The Statistical Account of Scotland, XI (1794), 241 (parish of Eccles, Berwickshire); Ibid., IV (1792), 172 (parish of Kirkinner, Wigtownshire). (6) See A. Fenton, Scottish Country Life, 1976, 193—9. 65
