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A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with a rather large dining tableand a number of dining chairs; the most common shape is generallyrectangular with two armed end chairs and an even number of un-armedside chairs along the long sides. In the Middle Ages, upper class Britons and other European nobility in castles or large manor houses dined in the Great Hall.This was a large multifunction room capable of seating the bulk of thepopulation of the house. The family would sit at the head table on araised dais,with the rest of the population arrayed in order of diminishing rankaway from them. Tables in the great hall would tend to be long trestletables with benches. The sheer number of people in a Great Hall meant itwould probably have had a busy, bustling atmosphere. Suggestions thatit would also have been quite smelly and smoky are probably, by thestandards of the time, unfounded. These rooms had large chimneys andhigh ceilings and there would have been a free flow of air through thenumerous door and window openings. It is true that the owners of such properties began to develop ataste for more intimate gatherings in smaller 'parlers' or 'priveeparlers' off the main hall but this is thought to be due as much topolitical and social changes as to the greater comfort afforded by suchrooms. In the first instance, the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the14th Century caused a shortage of labor and this had led to abreakdown in the feudal system. Also the religious persecutionsfollowing the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII made itunwise to talk freely in front of large numbers of people. Over time, the nobility took more of their meals in the parlour, andthe parlour became, functionally, a dining room (or was split into twoseparate rooms). It also migrated farther from the Great Hall, oftenaccessed via grand ceremonial staircasesfrom the dais in the Great Hall. Eventually dining in the Great Hallbecame something that was done primarily on special occasions. Toward the beginning of the 18th Century, a pattern emerged where theladies of the house would withdraw after dinner from the dining room tothe drawing room.The gentlemen would remain in the dining room having drinks. The diningroom tended to take on a more masculine tenor as a result.