THE SINGLE-NAVED HOUSE OF
WARENDORF, NEAR MÜNSTER, WESTPHALIA,
AND IN OTHER GERMAN SITES
If I have given primary consideration to aisled structures
in the preceding account of prehistoric and early medieval
house construction, I have done so because the excavations
conducted during the last three decades seem to indicate,
with mounting conclusiveness, that this was the principal
dwelling type used during the Iron Age and in the Early
Middle Ages in the barbaric territories north of the Alps.
In emphasizing this fact, I do not wish to convey the
impression that it was the only one. Other excavations,
recently conducted, have brought clear evidence of the
existence of a simpler type of house that was not provided
with any aisles.
A good sampling of this latter type was brought to light
between 1951 and 1954 when Wilhelm Winkelmann excavated
a medieval settlement in the vicinity of Warendorf,
near Münster, Westphalia.[156]
The pottery found in this
settlement suggested that it was occupied from about 650
to 800 A.D. The leading house type was a structure of
rectangular plan, accessible by two porch-surmounted entrances
facing each other in the middle of the long walls
(figs. 325 A-B and below, pp. 271ff). Similar houses were
encountered in Bucholtwelmen (district of Dinslaken) in
1939, in Haldern (near Wesel, Lower Rhine) in 1938, and
in Westick (district of Unna, Westphalia) in 1935—the
latter a rare example of Continental cruck construction.[157]
Warendorf was of particular interest because on this site
the principal dwellings were surrounded by an entire host
of subsidiary structures of smaller dimensions and lesser
significance, the like of which one would expect to encounter
in all those settlements where the various domestic functions,
rather than being assembled under one roof, are
scattered throughout a variety of separate structures.
Winkelmann has gathered all these types together in a
visual chart which reads like a model book of early medieval
house construction (figs. 325 and 326). He had found an
equivalent for virtually each and every variant mentioned
in the Alamannic, Bajuvarian, and Salic laws.
[158]
