Everyday life in princely towns

Everyday life in princely towns considerably depended on the social order, but mainly was based on agriculture, crafts, and trade. Town residents worked in their kitchen gardens, bred cattle, and did various crafts. They also visited open markets and took part in public assemblies. The wealthy orders lived in spacious wooden houses, had more varied food, and imported clothes, while the poor wore homemade clothes sewn from flax and wool.

A huge collection of artifacts has been accumulated through archaeological research of chronicle towns, enabling the recreation of the everyday life of ancient townsfolk.

Most buildings in towns were wooden, and builders used both log and post-and-beam constructions. The main churches and some civil buildings (palaces, mansions) were built of stone, but the latter were just a few. All the living estates (homesteads) were surrounded by fences. Every construction within the yard had its own purpose – a house for living, a workshop, a storage, a stable, a threshing barn, a cellar. Trees and flowers were planted near houses, the pathways were paved with wooden boards. The doors in the buildings were locked with padlocks and drawback locks. There were often carved trims on the windows. The roofs, crowned with curved eaves, had wooden cover (shingles) and wooden gutters.

In those times, the houses for living were small and consisted of one or several rooms. Wealthy houses and palaces were typically two-storeyed, as evidenced by archaeological research and chronicle names: “hornytsia” [the upper room], “perehody” [passages], and “stepeni” [stairs]. The main furniture in the houses was benches and subsellia, which were used both for sitting and sleeping. Wealthy houses had wooden beds, carpets, tables, and chairs. The backs of armchairs were often decorated with curved ornament, the grooves of which were filled with paint. House property was kept in wooden boxes or sacks, placed under benches. In dark hours, the room was lit with a burning wooden chip, a torch, an earthenware oil lamp, or candles. The houses were heated by earthenware ovens, also installed on the second floor, to which a wooden staircase led, and the floor was made of wooden boards.

There was a distinct culture of cooking and serving food; therefore, there were specific kitchen and table dishes and utensils. There were different items for storing and transporting food products (barrels, buckets, amphorae, earthenware pots), for cooking (pots, baker’s shovels, mortars, pestles), and eating. Tableware was either made of clay (pots of different sizes with richly decorated lids, deep bowls, and shallow plates) or wood (plates, ladles, and spoons of different sizes); glasses were used less frequently.

Analyzing archaeological findings, we know that potters could prepare high-quality clay dough and maintain the relevant high temperatures to achieve a strong and resonant texture in ceramic goods after their thermal processing. The skill of modelling items with perfect symmetric proportions on the potter’s wheel was of special significance. It was precisely this perfectly made tableware that was intended for sale in the markets of princely towns.

The assortment of products was rather wide. The most commonly produced item was a pot. These were manufactured in different capacities and used to store food, cook dishes in the oven (often with greasy soot on their surface), and serve them (these were mostly of light colours and richly decorated). Table pots were complemented with lids, densely decorated with various ornaments. In addition to pots, potters made deep bowls, shallow plates, lamps, and toys. Wooden tableware was as common as ceramic items. The simplest and most commonly used hemispherical bowls had a rounded bottom; the other kind was a dish plate with slightly convex sides. The table setting was completed with wooden spoons. Another indispensable category of tableware was the one to serve drinks, mostly it was ceramic. Yet the drinks were poured with wooden ladles, also found in the chronicle towns during the archaeological research, and people drank them from wooden or glass goblets. Most wooden tableware items were obviously made locally, which is evidenced by the range of wooden goods and the characteristic tools of craftsmen, for instance, chisels.

Food was mainly cooked from cereals (rye, oats, millet, and, less often, wheat), legumes, and vegetables. These included bread, various porridges, kissels, and soups. People drank fermented-bread kvass, meads, and fruit decoctions. They didn’t eat much meat, and more often it was pork, not beef or mutton. Yet, river fish was widely popular, which can be explained by its affordable price and the numerous Christian fasting periods.

There is considerable evidence to suggest that townsfolk wore leather shoes; numerous fragments of leather bags and knife sheaths have been discovered. It is also known that personal hygiene was of great importance, as demonstrated by a considerable number of findings, including wooden and bone combs of various sizes with original decorations, as well as earpicks.