House and Home
Families
Family homes in medieval Aberdeen were dangerous places to live. Resident animals probably included rats and mice which scavenged on food scraps. Cats kept the rats and mice at bay, while dogs were used to herd other animals and for protection. Smaller 'animals' included fleas and lice, as well as parasites living stomachs and intestines.
Households in medieval Aberdeen produced domestic and commercial waste disposed of in pits and middens adjacent to dwellings. These have proved to be immensely rich sources of information for archaeologists in the form of food waste and discarded or broken objects. Cess, or toilet pits near the houses have similarly yielded evidence of the diet which people enjoyed.
Many women would have taken on the baking of oatcakes to feed the family, selling on any excess for a profit. This is attested to in the statutes which sought to prohibit this practice. In times of scarcity, it was thought unfair to allow people to purchase raw materials and then make profit from the finished product.
The family, and indeed all medieval Aberdonians, were much more at the mercy of the environment and nature than we are today. As much as the family had an impact on the environment they probably dreaded the impact that it might have upon them. Their largely wooden dwellings were not entirely robust against the winter weather, while cramped conditions, poor water supplies and open fires encouraged the spread of both fire and disease. People cultivated every portion of land they had and would have kept animals, thus contributing further to the problems of waste and its disposal.
