Why was the Middle Age kitchen separated from the castle?

Answer 1

Kitchens were frequently separate structures in the middle ages, both in castles and sometimes in town homes as well. This probably was for fire safety. It may also be due to the fact that kitchens were seen as utilitarian structures in the middle ages. Only the wealthy had a separate kitchen (most common people cooked at a fireplace or a central hearth). Those who could afford a kitchen could also afford servants to cook. In a sense the kitchen was the cook's workshop, and may have been removed from the social areas and private quarters of the main residence as such. People did not socialize in kitchens or entertain guests there, as might happen in a modern home.

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Chimneys were invented in the 12th century in northern Europe, and did not catch on very fast because they were expensive and required maintenance. The result was that most castles, and other buildings, of the Middle Ages did not have chimneys. Since a fireplace requires a chimney, there were also no fireplaces in most buildings. This presented quite a problem for the medieval builder. The solution usually used was to put a fire on a hearth in the middle of a big room, the great hall, and let the rest of the building be left unheated. Smoke went out through a hole in the roof, or large open windows.

Kitchens represented a special problem for dealing with smoke. In a castle or monastery, there was the potential to have a lot of people to feed, and this meant a lot of fuel was being used. A lot of smoke was produced, and this had to be ventilated. Usually, the kitchen was a separate building with very large open windows for that reason.

There was an alternative, and some castles and manor houses used it. This was to have a hearth set up beneath a plaster structure that gathered the smoke and vented it through a hole in a wall or in the roof. The structure was called a smoke canopy. It made possible a kitchen hearth placed against a wall, and with this setup it looked a bit like a fireplace with a chimney.

Some castles or manor houses had multiple kitchens, each for a different purpose. One typical setup was to roast meat in one kitchen in a separate building or outdoors, bake bread in an oven either in a separate building or outdoors, and have different kitchens for different purposes in rooms of the house or castle, as venting situations allowed.

There is a link below to an article on the smoke canopy, with a picture of one.

Answer 2

To Not start Fires in the castle.