A hearth () is the place in a
home where a
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...
is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for
cooking, usually constituted by at least a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial wall behind a hearth),
fireplace
A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the desig ...
,
oven, smoke hood, or
chimney. Hearths are usually composed of
masonry such as
brick or
stone. For centuries, the hearth was such an integral part of a
home, usually its central and most important feature, that the concept has been
generalized to refer to a homeplace or household, as in the terms "hearth and home" and "keep the home fires burning". In the modern era, since the advent of
central heating
A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces.
...
, hearths are usually less central to most people's daily life because the heating of the home is instead done by a
furnace or a heating
stove, and cooking is instead done with a
kitchen stove/range (combination
cooktop and
oven) alongside other
home appliance
A home appliance, also referred to as a domestic appliance, an electric appliance or a household appliance, is a machine which assists in household functions such as cooking, cleaning and food preservation.
Appliances are divided into three ...
s; thus many homes built in the 20th and 21st centuries do not have hearths. Nonetheless, many homes still have hearths, which still help serve the purposes of warmth, cooking, and comfort.
Before the industrial era, a common design was to place a hearth in the middle of the room as an open hearth, with the smoke rising through the room to a
smoke hole Smoke Hole may refer to:
* Smoke hole, a hole in a roof for the smoke from a fire to vent
* Smoke Hole Canyon
Smoke Hole Canyon — traditionally called The Smoke Holes and later simply Smoke Hole — is a rugged long gorge carved by the South ...
in the roof. In later designs which usually had a more solid and continuous roof, the hearth was instead placed to the side of the room and provided with a
chimney.
In fireplace design, the hearth is the part of the fireplace where the fire burns, usually consisting of
fire brick masonry at floor level or higher, underneath the
fireplace mantel.
Archaeological features
The word ''hearth'' derives from an
Indo-European root, ''*ker-'', referring to burning, heat, and fire (seen also in the word ''carbon''). In
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...
, a hearth is a firepit or other
fireplace feature of any period. Hearths are common
features of many eras going back to prehistoric campsites and may be either lined with a wide range of materials, such as stone or left unlined. They were used for cooking, heating, and the processing of some stone, wood, faunal, and floral resources. Occasionally
site formation processes—e.g., farming or excavation—deform or disperse hearth features, making them difficult to identify without careful study.
Lined hearths are easily identified by the presence of
fire-cracked rock, often created when the heat from the fires inside the hearths chemically altered and cracked the stone. Often present are fragmented
fish
Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...
and
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage ...
bones,
carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon ma ...
ized
shell,
charcoal, ash, and other waste products, all embedded in a
sequence
In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is called ...
of
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former ...
that has been deposited atop the hearth. Unlined hearths, which are less easily identified, may also include these materials. Because of the
organic
Organic may refer to:
* Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity
* Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ
Chemistry
* Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...
nature of most of these items, they can be used to pinpoint the date the hearth was last used via the process of
radiocarbon dating. Although carbon dates can be negatively affected if the users of the hearth burned old wood or coal, the process is typically quite reliable. This was the most common way to cook, and to heat interior spaces in cool seasons.
Hearth tax
In the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
a tax on hearths known as ''kapnikon'' was first explicitly mentioned for the reign of
Nikephorus I (802–811) although its context implies that it was already then old and established, and perhaps it should be taken back to the 7th century AD. Kapnikon was a tax raised on households without exceptions for the poor.
In England, a tax on hearths was introduced on 19 May 1662. Householders were required to pay a charge of two
shillings per annum for each hearth, with half the payment due at
Michaelmas
Michaelmas ( ; also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels) is a Christian festival observed in some Western liturgical calendars on 29 September, a ...
and half at
Lady Day. Exemptions to the tax were granted, to those in receipt of
poor relief, those whose houses were worth less than 20 shillings a year and those who paid neither church nor poor
rates
Rate or rates may refer to:
Finance
* Rates (tax), a type of taxation system in the United Kingdom used to fund local government
* Exchange rate, rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another
Mathematics and science
* Rate (mathema ...
. Also exempt were charitable institutions such as schools and
almshouses, and industrial hearths with the exception of smiths' forges and bakers' ovens. The returns were lodged with the
Clerk of the Peace between 1662 and 1688.
A revision of the Act in 1664 made the tax payable by all who had more than two chimneys.
The tax was abolished by
William III in 1689 and the last collection was for Lady Day of that year. It was abolished in Scotland in 1690.
Hearth tax records are important to
local historians
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administra ...
as they provide an indication of the size of each assessed house at the time. The numbers of hearths are generally proportional to the size of the house. The assessments can be used to indicate the numbers and local distribution of larger and smaller houses. Not every room had a hearth, and not all houses of the same size had exactly the same number of hearths, so they are not an exact measure of house size.
Roehampton University has an ongoing project which places hearth tax data in a national framework by providing a series of standard bands of wealth applicable to each county and city.
Published lists are available of many returns and the original documents are in the
Public Record Office. The most informative returns, many of which have been published, occur between 1662–1666 and 1669–1674.
Religion and folklore
In
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities o ...
,
Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, while in Roman mythology
Vesta has the same role.
In ancient Persia, according to
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
traditions, every house was expected to have a hearth for offering sacrifices and prayers.
[Boyce, Mary. ''A history of Zoroastrianism''. 2nd impression with corrections. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989. 154. ]
In traditional
Albanian folk beliefs, the
Vatër, the home hearth, is a spiritual link between past, present, and future generations of the
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...
, linking
ancestors to the family today and to
descendants tomorrow.
Hearth is also a term for a family unit, or local worship group, in the
Heathen religion.
See also
*
Agungi
*
Brazier
A brazier () is a container used to burn charcoal or other solid fuel for cooking, heating or cultural rituals. It often takes the form of a metal box or bowl with feet. Its elevation helps circulate air, feeding oxygen to the fire. Braziers h ...
*
Buttumak
*
Cook stove
*
Firebox (architecture)
*
Fireplace
A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the desig ...
*
Firepit
*
Forge
*
Hall house
*
Hibachi
*
Inglenook
*
Kitchen
*
Vesta – Goddess of the hearth
References
{{Authority control
Archaeological features
Fireplaces
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