Everything about Hearth totally explained
In common historic and modern usage, a
hearth (Har-th) is a
brick- or
stone-lined
fireplace or
oven used for
cooking and/or
heating. Because of its nature, in historic times the hearth was considered an integral part of a
home, often its central or most important feature: its
Latin name is
focus. This 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 fireplace design, the hearth is often considered the visible elements of the fireplace, with emphasis upon the floor level extension of
masonry associated with the
fireplace mantel.
Archaeological features
In
archaeology, 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 or left unlined. Hearths were used for cooking, heating, and processing of some stone, wood, faunal, and floral 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 and
animal bones,
carbonized
shell,
charcoal, ash, and other waste products, all embedded in a
sequence of
soil that has been deposited atop the hearth. Unlined hearths, which are less easily identified, may also include these materials. Because of the
organic 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 heat something.
Hearth tax
In the
Byzantine Empire a tax on hearths known as
kapnikon was first explicitly mentioned for the reign of
Nicephorus I 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 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. 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 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're 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
Hearth is also a term for a kindred, or local worship group, in the neopaganism religion Ásatrú.
A religion whose base or foundation focuses in the hearth, or home, is the Church of Latter Day Saints Religion.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Hearth'.
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