A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes. There were manor houses in most European countries, where they were sometimes referred to as castles, palaces, and so on.
"Manor house" is also a technical term in the UK for a minor late-medieval country house. They were often fortified but this was intended more for show than for defence.
Read more about Manor House: History and Architecture, Manor Houses Outside Europe
Famous quotes containing the word house:
“Happy will that house be in which the relations are formed from character; after the highest, and not after the lowest order; the house in which character marries, and not confusion and a miscellany of unavowable motives.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)