ABSTRACT
In order to study houses, it is first necessary to select a period and an area. The period dealt with here is that of the transition between the late medieval and early modern worlds. In many areas of England, the 15th century saw the erection of thousands of houses built to a medieval design, houses that, in contrast to their predecessors, survive in large numbers to this day. By the end of the 17th century, as we shall see, the layout of these structures had been transformed, a transformation that pointed the way towards the emergence of the Georgian and modern house. The period 1400-1700 is thus also one well suited to comparative treatment with contemporary documents, as well as the wider interpretations of social historians.
