Hall (concept)

The meanings attributed to the word hall have varied over the centuries, as social practices have changed.

Later, partitions were set up so that the lord's family could have more privacy, a fairly new concept in northern Europe at the time.

The English had come to Britain from a part of Europe which had not been directly exposed to the ways of the Roman Empire.

While the humbler residents still slept there, the lord's family had one or more chambers at one end of the building in what came to be called the solar.

Notably, in an increasing number of cases, this was by inserting a floor, dividing the space which would have been occupied by the open hall in two, horizontally.

From the early seventeenth century, the hall was usually a space inside the front door, more or less grand, in keeping with the grandeur of the house, in which people were first welcomed before proceeding to one of the partitioned rooms.

Its hall, at the front door, has rather the nature of a passage leading to the featured staircase at the back of the house.

In a modern house, the hall is the space inside the front door from which the rooms are reached.

Between these in age, Nassau Hall at Princeton University began as the single building of the then college, showing a continuation of the medieval European pattern in America.

Many Livery Companies such as the Mercers in the City of London, have a Hall which serves as their headquarters and meeting place.

In the ancient world, the Celts were neighbours of the Greeks, whose word for salt was háls (ἅλς).

While European science was developing, some branches of it adopted the Greek language as the source of its terminology.