cottages

Cottages are absolutely the quaintest forms of shelter. Did you ever think about how they got their name?---KE

Originally in the Middle Ages, cottages housed agricultural workers and their families. The term cottage denoted the dwelling of a cotter. Thus, cottages were smaller peasant units (larger peasant units being called "messuages"). In that early period, a documentary reference to a cottage would most often mean, not a small stand-alone dwelling as today, but a complete farmhouse and yard (albeit a small one). Thus in the Middle-Ages, the word cottage (Lat. "cotagium") seems to have meant not just a dwelling, but have included at least a dwelling (domus) and a barn (grangia), as well as, usually, a fenced yard or piece of land enclosed by a gate (portum)Examples of this may be found in 15th Century manor court rolls. The house of the cottage bore the Latin name: "domum dicti cotagii", while the barn of the cottage was termed "grangia dicti cotagii".Later on, a cottage might also have denoted a smallholding comprising houses, outbuildings, and supporting farmland or woods. A cottage, in this sense, would typically include just a few acres of tilled land.Much later (from around the 18th Century onwards), the development of industry led to the development of weavers' cottages and miners' cottages.

*information provided by Wikipedia