Cottage or house.

[information]

I don't know if history is the right topic, but can anyone tell me, what is a cottage and what is a house?
I have seen, near on mansions, described as cottages, but I thought they were quaint little places.

Many thanks,
Jersey C.I.

[Buenchico]

Blame the estate agents!

The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives two definitions for 'cottage':
1. labourer's or villager's small dwelling ;
2. small country or surban house.

Looking at the etymology suggests that the first definition was the original one. The first part of the word has the same meaning as either 'cot' (as in 'sheep cot') or 'cote' (meaning a 'shed, stall or shelter'). The ending ('-age') means a 'living place' (as in 'orphanage' or 'parsonage').

I suspect that, for most of it's life, the word 'cottage' has solely referred to a small (and probably humble) dwelling. However, in the latter half of the 20th century, it became fashionable to live in a cottage, and estate agents suddenly started advertising much larger houses as 'cottages', resulting in the second definition coming into effect.

Lots of terms for houses change over the years, simply because they become more or less fashionable. For example, if the Victorians built a row of adjoining houses, they'd have been described as 'terraced'. That name is now seen as 'down market'. Property developers still build the same sort of dwellings but they're now called 'town houses'.

At one time, it was fashionable to live in a 'maisonette'. Then local councils built lots of them and the term went 'down market'. Those same properties are now sold as 'apartments'.

Similarly 'bedsits' have become 'studio apartments', despite the fact that they don't have much space to use as a studio ;-)

Chris

[Octavius]

I agree with Chris, using the term 'cottage' gives an element of charm to an otherwise characterless dwelling.

Cottages were built for cottars or cottagers, a type of serf (peasant) who did not have any strips of land to work. They spent all of their time working the (land) lord�s fields. In return, they were given their hut, gardens, and a small portion of the lord�s harvest.

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)

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 as can be seen here:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/94842