大堂，即高大的殿堂，是指一座建筑物最大或最好的空间。例如中世纪皇家宫殿、贵族城堡或大型庄园以及16世纪至17世纪初乡村住宅（country houses）的主要房间。不过那时“great”一词仅仅意为big（大），而无其现代含义“excellence”（卓越）。

A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing. At that time the word "great" simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. In the medieval period the room would simply have been referred to as the "hall", unless the building also had a secondary hall, but the term "great hall" has been predominant for surviving rooms of this type for several centuries, to distinguish them from the different type of hall found in post-medieval houses. Great halls were found especially in France, England and Scotland, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries.