And they forsooke stately buildings: Colonization and the social order of New England houses (England, Massachusetts)

The houses of colonial Massachusetts went through a visible stylistic change between 1700 and 1725 with the adoption of Renaissance-type Georgian details. This change has been attributed to a fundamental change in society which, it has been argued, was contemporary with that change. The fundamental change is supposed to be the shift from a medieval to a Georgian society. To examine this question, the houses of medieval England were compared to those of colonial Massachusetts, looking at both the early period and the later period, and tied to social history. Experiential space and the social relations of spatial use were considered a vital element in understanding colonial buildings and, through them, colonial society. This study uses floorplan analysis and spatial syntax access analysis to explore the use of space in medieval, early colonial, and late colonial houses.; The analysis shows that the houses of colonial Massachusetts were not medieval in their use of space, despite their medieval stylistic appearance. These houses are best described as post-medieval, as they are a direct outgrowth of medieval house forms but were notably different in room use and social meaning. The stylistic change of the early eighteenth century did not result in a change in the use of space for the majority of colonial houses. However, the houses of the rising colonial elite used the layout of the house as a marker of their position in society, as the houses of the elite differed from those of the rest of colonial society. At the same time, both the elite and non-elite houses used the same Georgian style, creating a uniform English landscape in colonial Massachusetts.