Great hall

Knight's Hall is mostly the name of a great hall in a castle, a castle or a manor, which is often used in modern times as a banquet hall or venue for concerts and exhibitions. It is sometimes used in the literature as a term for meeting and banquet halls in monasteries or town halls.

The term only came with the castle romanticism in the 19th century, during the Middle Ages and in early modern times the term was not yet common. It is based on the romanticized glorified notion that the chivalry of a country gentleman in the largest room of a castle convened to meetings and consultations. Contrary to the actual sense of the word knights' halls have therefore usually nothing to do with chivalry, and often halls are referred to it.

The Knights' Hall in a castle

In fact, hidden behind the designated Rittersaal space of hall-like main living room or the living room of a castle. There, the daily life of the castle residents played from, for example, the taking of meals, evening get-together, but also festivals and gatherings. These rooms were always on the top floor of a residential building - often referred to as Palas - or to find a roofed hall, and took this one completely, or at least a majority. With their long rows of windows they may have been role models such as the Asturian King's Hall of Oviedo, the present church of Santa María del Naranco, modeled. As an indispensable part of the royal household of a feudal lord, the sizes of these rooms had a significant impact the size of a residential building.

The Knights' Hall in other buildings

During the period of historicism many halls have been altered or restored castle and palace complex in the style of Neo-Romanesque and Gothic Revival. Especially in the palace, many of the Baroque- large ballrooms were transformed into so-called halls of knights, the design details were dominated by the former, the romantic notion of the Middle Ages.

The same applies to meeting and banquet halls in monasteries. Abbots were often secular princes. In order to fulfill their representative duties as prince-abbot or prelate Empire, they left large spaces in their home monasteries SHapINg to ballrooms and run according consuming. An example of such knights' hall is found today in the Benedictine Iburg.

To the romantic idea of the knights' halls as meeting and Beratungsort builds on the naming of rooms in some advice or houses of parliament. Thus, the estates were, for example, in the Graz country house or Arnsberg Old Town Hall to discussions in the halls of knights called together.