1. Housing architecture from the late Middle Ages until the 16th c.
Housing architecture and house types in pre-existing urban environments, such as Athens, Thessaloniki, Corinth, and Thebes remained more or less unchanged throughout the Late Medieval period. Archaeological evidence suggests that 13th-15th-century urban housing retained its previous characteristics with rooms arranged around a central courtyard; sometimes, additional rooms were added within the courtyards, further increasing domestic space. The archaeological evidence for rural housing in Boeotia during the Late Medieval or Frankish and Early Ottoman periods, however, is still limited. Due to lack of systematic excavations in the area, the identification of rural settlements dated between the 13th and 16th/17th centuries still relies on systematic surface survey and the discovery of ruined feudal towers, traces of longhouses, and surface pottery concentrations. There are two distinct types of domestic architecture that one can identify in the rural regions of Boeotia: (a) the feudal multi-storey towers that were established in the 13th century close to or within already existing Byzantine settlements, and (b) the so-called peasant “longhouse” of simple and basic construction, a very common type throughout Greece, that probably made its appearance in Boeotia in the 13th/14th century, and survived throughout the Ottoman period down to the 19th century.
1.1. Towers
At the small fortified rural Late Medieval settlement of Panakton in Boeotia (fig. 1, fig. 2), excavations have revealed a square tower measuring approximately 7 by 7 metres at the highest point of the hill, a single-aisle church dominating the central plateau of the site, and a series of domestic structures consisting of one, two or three rooms of different functions (one of them used for storage and cooking). Equally important information for housing architecture of the period comes from the tower-site of Klimataria (fig. 1) at the shores of lake Yliki. The general plan of the site (fig. 3) suggests an arrangement of spaces around a sizable rectangular courtyard. The focus of the complex is on the multi-storey tower in the middle of the west branch of rooms. The tower, measuring 5.23 by 6.92 metres, agricultural and domestic in inspiration, presumably provided accommodation to the estate owner, and formed part of the farm complex, comprised of rectilinear rooms of varying sizes. A third tower-site, Panaya in the Valley of the Muses, preserves a settlement-layout similar to that of Panakton, with a feudal tower built at the beginning of the 13th century on an outcrop on the highest point of the settlement, the ruins of a single-aisle church, and traces of domestic housing (fig. 4), the average dimensions of which measuring approximately 12 by 6 metres. The Frankish towers of Boeotia, almost always associated with a permanent settlement in the vicinity or just below them, are agreed to have functioned as points of control of the nearby peasant communities for exploitation of the allotted land around them, providing at the same time accommodation to the local minor lord and storage for feudal dues. Most of them reached a height of 15 metres or higher, measuring between 7 by 7 and 9 by 9 metres, they were multi-storey with thick walls (in most cases comprising of a basement and three more floors), sometimes Classical masonry has been reused for its construction, but the bulk of the structure was made of crudely dressed stones (fig. 5). The entrance was located on the floor above the basement, while a series of putlog holes on the exterior beneath the entrance indicate the existence of a (fixed) wooden staircase. and small windows on the upper floors permitted air and light to penetrate the interior of such structures. Access between the ground floor and the first floor was usually by means of a squared opening in the vaulted roof of the first. The basement was most possibly used for storage or as a . All the floors were of timber resting on beams, while the top floor was always . It is assumed that the first floor served as a hall or kitchen, while the private quarters were located on the top floor. Built hearths, such as the one surviving on the south wall of the tower of Panaya on first-floor level (fig. 6) must have provided the means for cooking as well as warming the chamber during the cold winter months.
1.2. “Longhouses” (monospita) Evidence for rural housing in 13th to 16th/17th-century Boeotia comes from the aforementioned sites of Panakton, Klimataria, and Panaya. It seems that geographical, climatic and economic factors determined house construction. In the plains single storey longhouses were mainly constructed of mudbrick and had thatched roofs, while in other areas longhouses were built of roughly cut local limestone, which was in cases mortared with mud, and had tiled roofs. Longhouses were built in line with the direction of the slope/ground, usually having a North-South alignment, and their entrance was located on one of the long sides. Their average size ratio was 1:3, ranging between 45 and 100 m2. This long-lived “peasant” house-type provided a single room and undivided space for a number of different domestic activities simultaneously: animals (stabling) and humans (family life) clearly occupied two different ends of the long-house, while cooking, eating and sleeping (and probably weaving) were arranged along the full length of the house. It has to be added that since a lot of domestic activities took place outdoors, especially during the spring, summer and autumn months, the interior (with the exception of the animals’ quarters at one end of the house) was generally kept clean. Archaeological debris on the exterior of longhouses outside their entrance confirms this theory. There are cases within longhouses, however, where we trace a low fence made of wood or reeds being constructed in order to separate the animals from the main living area, while in other cases there is a difference in height between the domestic platform and the animals’ quarters. As families extended and grew larger, additional long-houses were added onto one of the short sides of the original structure. Series of longhouses in an Early Ottoman village (such as Panaya in the Valley of the Muses) or a Middle Ottoman çiftlik-estate (such as Guinosati in Eastern Boeotia) were usually dispersed around the landlord’s tower-house (fig. 7). In the Ottoman period, the previously Frankish feudal tower-house was in a sense replaced by a konak, the residence of the farming estate holder, as it is the case with a number of studied Ottoman sites in rural Boeotia and other parts of rural Mainland Greece (fig. 8). The symmetry and homogeneity of longhouses obviously represent social equality between peasants under a particular agricultural status. Harmena (a çiftlik of the Middle-Late Ottoman period) in Boeotia was an estate with the typical Balkan layout (fig. 9). It preserves the ruins of an impressive multi-storey house (probably the konak) with a number of dispersed humble single storey longhouses stretching below it. The empty space between houses also provided a sense of privacy, as all structures had the same orientation and their entrance was located on the same side.
(A. Vionis)
2. Housing architecture from the late Ottoman era until the 19th c. 2.1. Typology Boeotian Late Ottoman houses share similar characteristics to housing types in other regions of Greece. Early travellers in Boeotia account the presence of huts made of mudbricks that for their perishable nature have left nowadays only sporadic traces of their existence. The Boeotian houses whose presence is still detectable in the settlements’ texture can be mainly divided into two typologies: the ground floor longhouse (monospito) and the two-storey house (anogokatogo). In his catalogue of Boeotian housing types, Sigalos adds a third category, the one-and-a-half storey house that is built in sloping ground conditions and arranged similarly to the two-storey house. Stedman suggests that the anogokatogo appears starting from around 1880, while the monospito spans from the 1780s to the 1940s.
Although it is found also in urban centres, the longhouse, which can be traced back to the Medieval period, is typical of rural settlements (both Greek and Albanian). As the name suggests, the longhouse was characterised by a broad façade and by an internal arrangement in a single room that hosted both people and animals. Often a partition wall was used to demarcate a separation between the space that was allocated to animals and the room that was reserved to humans. The furniture consisted of basic elements such as beds (made of wooden boards, straw and stones), a fireplace (estia or tzaki), a low table and stools, a loom. The fireplace was the only feature that had a permanent location, often on the short side of the house; the rest of the furniture, instead, was movable and could therefore be placed in the most useful spot according to the residents’ necessities. Externally, a private yard served as a transitional space between the outside and the inside of the house. This space, sometimes paved, was often marked by the presence of an oven. In the two-storey house the ground floor was used as stable and storage place, while the first floor was used for living. The first floor was usually divided in two rooms, which mirrors a strong division of functions: one room was used for living and sleeping, while the other one, the so-called sala, was used only for receiving guests. The construction of two storey houses with a stronger separation of room functions is seen as a consequence of increased wealth and of an improvement in building techniques. Characteristic of the two-storey houses was also the so-called hagiati (from the Arabic hayaṭ, meaning courtyard), an open gallery that was introduced in the house’s structure in the Middle Ottoman period. This new feature that connected the rooms and faced the outside changed the organisation of movements within the house: the rooms were in fact no more directly connected one with the other, but they were accessible through the hagiati. Urban environments present similar housing types to the rural settlements, due to the fact that centers such as Livadeia conserved semi-agrarian characteristics until the middle of the 20th century. Nevertheless, surveys in Thebes and Livadeia have highlighted more variations within house types: along with a few surviving examples of longhouses, three-storey houses and types that were influenced by the Ottoman and Neoclassical styles were also recorded. Characteristic of housing in urban centers is moreover the introverted nature of the houses that are fenced off by high yard walls. 2.2. Travellers’ accounts Early nineteenth-century travellers have left us vivid descriptions of the houses they visited and lodged into when they were travelling in Boeotia. These accounts are a precious source of information to add detail to our knowledge of traditional housing. The British Sir John Hobhouse, who spent Christmas Eve in 1809 in one of the houses of the village of Skourta, describes his accommodation as “The worst hovel of which we had ever been inmates”. He goes on by adding detail: “The cows and pigs occupied the lower part of the chamber, where there were racks and mangers and other appurtenances of a stable, and we were put in possession of the upper quarter. We were almost suffocated with the smoke, a common calamity in Greek cottages in which the fire is generally made in the middle of the room, and the roof, having no aperture, was covered with large flakes of soot, that sometimes showered upon us during the night.” Another poor village that Hobhouse passed by during his journey through Boeotia was Mazi, that he says having “50 huts, containing 500 people”. The British traveller stayed also in Livadeia experiencing a remarkably different lodging condition: “The house where we lodged belonged to one of the richest subjects in Roumelia, and was spacious, handsomely furnished”.
Another traveller, the Irish painter Edward Dodwell who arrived in Livadeia in 1801, describes the “large and showy” house of the local archon in 1801 as “a good specimen of the better kind of modern dwellings in Greece”. As Dodwell accounts, this house had “a double or folding floor (the πυλαι ερκειοι of the ancients) opens into a court, or αυλη, on two sides of which is a corridor, the αισθουσα of Homer. The kitchen and menial offices occupy the ground floor; the stairs, which are on the outside of the house, lead to a large open gallery, useful in rainy weather for walking and taking the air under cover. Contiguous to the gallery are the apartments, which are divided into two sets, one for the men, the other for the women, the ανδρων, or ανδρωνιτις, and the γυναικειον, or γυναικωνιτις of the ancients. The wall which separates the house from the street, and in which is the entrance, was the προδρομος or προαυλιον”. 2.3. History of the Study of Late Ottoman Housing The study of housing types in Boeotia from the Late Ottoman period onwards has received growing attention in the past years. Earthquakes (especially those that happened in 1853 and 1981), wars and increasing wealth are all factors contributing to the fast disappearance of traditional housing architecture. The first survey that aimed to record such structures in Boeotia was carried out between 1982 and 1984 by Nancy Stedman who was interested in examining settlement changes from Medieval times to the 20th century. In 1990 Peter Lock recorded 25 rural houses, while in 1993 John Bintliff and Paul Spoerry focused on the town of Livadeia, recording 72 houses. The recording in Livadeia continued in 1999 and accomplished to enlarge the previous dataset to more than 600 documented houses. More recently, Eleftherios Sigalos collected all the available information on housing in Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece and integrated them with his surveys in Boeotia that were carried out during his PhD at Leiden University.
The development in documentation methods that take advantage of digital recording and three-dimensional modelling was also employed in recording Boeotian traditional architecture. A first attempt in this direction was made by Joep Verweij who recorded two surviving longhouses in the village of Agios Georgios and produced an AutoCAD model of these structures. During the 2009 summer season of the Boeotia Project, this approach was further developed by Chiara Piccoli in recording ten traditional houses in the villages of Mazi and Evangelistria. This recording methodology combined the documentation of the standing structures by means of a reflectorless Total Station with the data processing through computer graphic software. In addition to the recording of the building’s framework, a collection of additional sources (memories of the owner, old pictures, records from a local folks museum) has made it possible to create a reconstructive hypothesis for the internal arrangement of one of the recorded houses dated to the mid 19th century.
(C. Piccoli) |