ABSTRACT
In order to try to write the history of everyday life, it is necessary to have a permanent dialogue between these three elements. The history of material culture cannot be dissociated from the history of the appropriation and use of objects by users. To use Michel de Certeau's formula, everyday life is indeed the place of a permanent ‘invention’. In this ‘interrelation of people and objects’, material culture is well ‘defined by practices’. In farmers’ cottages, the fireplace that takes up one of the walls of the living room, a unique source of heat, is the magnetic pole of domestic life. It is around this that meals are prepared, people come to warm themselves and people gather at the vigil. Its role is so central that it is rare that it does not appear in genre scenes that depict peasants in their homes. ‘The royalty of fireplaces’ was never really called into question during the period studied.
