The centre of the daily life of the castle was the large room known as the hall. This varied greatly at different times and in different places. In the earlier days, the hall was only a bare room with some flat stones in the centre. On these meat was cooked, and the smoke found its way out through a hole in the roof as best it could. As time passed and towers were built of several stories, fireplaces with flues were made. The floor was tiled and strewn with rushes. The walls were hung with banners, tapestry, and standards bright with armorial bearings. Here and there were shields and armor or a cluster of lances. Long oaken tables with wooden benches stood ready for use, or else before each meal trestles were brought in, and boards were laid upon them, for in those days "the festive board" was a literal board. The table of the master of the castle stood at one end of the hall. This place was called the dais. At the opposite end of the room was a wooden gallery for musicians, built halfway up the wall.

When bedtime came, coarse mattresses were laid on the floor; for here the people of the household and their guests were to pass the night. The bed of the noble and his wife stood at the farther end of the hall, separated from the rest of the room by curtains; but later, when other stories were added, a room for them and also other bedrooms were built, some on the upper floors and some in the thickness of the walls. In the simpler castles the furnishings of these bedrooms were few and plain, hardly more than one or more beds, a bench or two, and a wooden chest; but in the dwellings of the wealthy there was considerable display. The posts of the beds were sometimes gilded, inlaid with ivory, or ornamented with precious stones; and the bed coverings were of silk or fur with a golden fringe. There was also a wardrobe made gorgeous with bright colors. The chests were handsomely carved, and for jewels there were smaller chests covered with leather. Frequently there was in one corner a richly ornamented shrine enclosing a relic of some saint. It is said that in Italy the beds were often put high up on trestles to escape the rats and mice.

There was a certain rude magnificence about the place, but there was not what the people of to-day would call comfort. For instance, those heavy stone walls must have been cold, but in England, even so late as the fifteenth century, a fire in one's bedroom was regarded as a foolish indulgence; and the rooms were certainly not so light as we wish our rooms to be. It was not safe to make the windows too large, and even a window of generous size would not let in much sunshine if cut into a wall ten or fifteen feet in thickness. The rooms were often made more cheerful, however, by decorations of red and yellow and blue, or by paintings of flowers and leaves, conventionally treated and decidedly crude, but bright and cheery.

In those wardrobes and richly carved chests in the bedrooms there was no lack of expensive clothes. In the fourteenth century England tried her best to keep her people from extravagance in dress and to oblige them to wear goods of English weaving. Parliament decreed that no one but the king, queen, and their children should be allowed to wear imported cloth, and that no one should wear foreign furs or silks unless he had a yearly rent of £100. In the fourteenth century, £100 would buy as much as several times that amount to-day, so that a man had to be very well to do before the law would permit him and his family to dress as they chose.

The fashions changed as extremely, if not quite so rapidly, as to-day. Toward the end of this century, English ladies wore tight-fitting dresses with long, full skirts. The sleeves were tight, extending down to the knuckles, and with sixty or seventy buttons on each arm. A few years later, buttons were no longer seen on the sleeves, and the sleeves themselves came only to the wrist. They grew larger and looser, so loose that finally a second pair, made to fit closely, were worn under them. Tightly fitting jackets were introduced and were worn with full skirts of some other color. The only rule in regard to wearing colors was apparently to have plenty of them. A blue petticoat, displayed by lifting a purple skirt adorned with a broad yellow band and worn with an ermine-trimmed jacket, was evidently regarded as being in most excellent taste; and apparently a combination of long, loose robe of blue, yellow girdle, red cloak, and red shoes was felt to be above criticism. At several periods during the Middle Ages it was in the height of the mode for a lady of rank to wear a dress presenting the coat of arms of her husband's family and her own; but it must have been a wee bit startling to see a noble dame appear in a dress white on one side with some conventional figures in black, and yellow on the other side with a gorgeous red lion rampant for ornament. This costume was completed by a tight blue jacket trimmed with ermine, a close red cap, and a crown.

But of all the remarkable fashions, those pertaining to the headdress were the most astounding. In the thirteenth century and again in later times, married women wore the wimple, that is, a covering of linen or silk arranged in folds over the chin, neck, and the sides of the face; but this gradually disappeared in favor of even more surprising modes. At one time the hair was put smoothly into a net, often made of thread of gold; then it was so puffed out at the sides that a fashionable lady had the appearance of wearing horns. These grew higher and higher, but at length a steeple-shaped cap took their place. This was followed by one made of wire and various sorts of thin material put together in such a way that the cap stood out on either side of the head like the wings of an enormous butterfly. Another style of headdress was made like a giant cornucopia, and was worn slanting up and back. From this hung a sort of drapery that floated over the shoulders; and from its highest point a long scarf streamed down the lady's back to the floor. One sort of headdress was shaped like a harp, one like a heart, one like a tower with battlements, from the top of which a long white veil floated. One was like a large crescent with a generous amount of drapery, and one looked exactly as if two large napkins had been shaken out and hung by their centres over long sticks which in some marvelous way were made to stand firm in my lady's hair.

The heads of the men were free from such wild freaks of fashion, but they, too, delighted in bright colors. A long loose gown of brilliant red, its full sleeves lined with ermine and half concealing another pair which were blue and tight, the trimming of the whole of the most dazzling yellow, was thought to be a quiet but appropriate costume for a king. This garb was completed by a sort of fez worn on the head, red and with red drapery hanging around it well banded with yellow. Small attention was paid to cleanliness. The English thought the French exceedingly extravagant because they changed their ruffles once a week and put on clean shirts once a fortnight.