Editing Cottage (section)

==England==
===Medieval===
[[File:South Devon cottage - geograph.org.uk - 81799.jpg|thumb|right|A typical cottage in Devon, with walls built of cob and a thatched roof]]
The word originally referred to a humble rural detached dwelling of a ''[[Cotter (farmer)|cotter]]'', a semi-independent resident of a [[Manorialism|manor]] who had certain residential rights from the [[lord of the manor]], and who in the social hierarchy was a grade above the slave (mentioned in the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086), who had no right of tenure and worked full-time to the orders of the lord. In the Domesday Book, they were referred to as ''Coterelli''.<ref name="elmes178" /> The cottage had a small amount of surrounding agricultural land, perhaps two or three acres, from which the resident gained his livelihood and sustenance. It was defined by its function of housing a cotter, rather than by its form, which varied, but it was certainly small and cheaply built and purely functional, with no non-essential architectural flourishes. It would have been built from the cheapest locally available materials and in the local style, thus in wheat-growing areas, it would be roofed in thatch, and in slate-rich locations, such as Cornwall, slates would be used for roofing. In stone-rich areas, its walls would be built of rubble stone, and in other areas, such as Devon, was commonly built from [[Cob (material)|cob]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Alcock|first1=Nat|last2=Miles|first2=Dan|title=The Medieval Peasant House in Midland England |year=2012|publisher=Oxbow Books|page=107|isbn=978-1-842-17506-4}}</ref>

===Industrial Revolution===
[[File:Miners Cottages, Pit Village, Beamish Museum, 5 September 2013.jpg|thumb|right|19th century coal miners' cottages rebuilt at the [[Beamish Museum]]]]
In England from about the 18th century onwards, the development of industry led to the development of [[Weaving|weavers]]' cottages and [[Mining|miners]]' cottages.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=King|first1=Steven|last2=Timmins|first2=Geffrey|title=Making Sense of the Industrial Revolution: English Economy and Society 1700-1850|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0719-05022-0|page=340}}</ref> [[Friedrich Engels]] cites 'Cottages' as a poor quality dwelling in his 1845 work ''[[The Condition of the Working Class in England]]''.

===Enclosure acts===
{{see also|Enclosure|Inclosure act}}
Over the years various English [[acts of Parliament]] removed the right of the cottager to hold land. According to [[John Lawrence Hammond]] and [[Barbara Hammond]] in their book ''The Village Labourer'', before an [[inclosure act]] a cottager was a farm labourer with land, and after an [[inclosure act]] the cottager was a farm labourer without land.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hammond |first1=J L |title=The Village Labourer 1760–1832 |last2=Barbara Hammond |publisher=Longman Green & Co |year=1912 |location=London |page=100 |author-link=John Lawrence Hammond |author-link2=Barbara Hammond}}</ref>

===Legal definition===
In the law of England and Wales the definition of a cottage is "a small house or habitation without land".<ref name="elmes178">{{Cite book |last=Elmes |first=James |url=https://archive.org/details/apracticaltreat02elmegoog |title=On Architectural Jurisprudence; in which the Constitutions, Canons, Laws and Customs etc |publisher=W.Benning |year=1827 |location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/apracticaltreat02elmegoog/page/n199 178]–179 |access-date=5 December 2013}}</ref> However, originally under an [[Erection of Cottages Act 1588|Elizabethan statute]], the cottage had to be built with at least {{convert|4|acre|km2 sqmi|2}} of land.<ref name="elmes178" />