Nice discussion: But Nogrod, I fear I must bring up a point of procedure. Any kitchen hearth in the middle ages would NEVER go out. If it goes out, you have to start with a cold hearth in the morning, and it can take hours to get it to cooking heat, especially since a kitchen fire is mostly coals. What you do is rake it over so that the coals are insulated, and there's no live flame, but that can still burn down a house.
Ever wonder where we got the phrase "Keep the home-fires burning"? A Middle-Ages hearth-fire isn't ever put out, and I think Stigend would know that. That's equally true, by the by, in a serf's hovel and a lord's summer palace. That's another reason a kitchen in a castle might be built separately: with a constant flame, heat against the building's walls in summer would make the building near unbearable.
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