The Heuerhaus (Hirelings' House) @museum.de

F: Is this the little brother of the big farmhouse?

M: The Heuerhaus looks suspiciously like the farmhouse – except that everything is just that bit smaller and more modest. It has a thatched roof, and at the very top you can see the owl hole – the flue where the owls liked to nest. Below that is the Hamm – a great, semi-circular loft space where all kinds of hay, straw and grain were stored. The great door of the Heuerhaus is a little more modest. And the panels in the timber frame are generally not bricked up, but filled with a clay mixture.

F: None of this is surprising, since the Heuerhaus wasn't home to the farmer's family, but to their hirelings. Each farmstead had several such rental properties associated with it, which were let to the farmhands for a peppercorn rent and plenty of labour. Quite often, those hirelings were the younger siblings of the eldest son, who had inherited the farmstead.

M: The deal went like this: the farmer rented out the Hirelings' House to his farmhands. The house included a few hectares of land that they could farm for their own needs. But to do so, the hirelings had to borrow the farmer's tools: the harness, the horse and the plough, for example. One day's use of the farmer's equipment had to be paid for by three days of labour.

F: Which was not entirely equitable! But that way, the farmer could at least be sure he'd have enough labourers available during the season, while not having to pay anyone out of season. Meanwhile the farm hands had to work on their own land in the evenings or at weekends. Wives and children were always expected to pitch in.