In Vvardenfell and Cyrodiil, almost every pawnbroker, trader, merchant and anyone from other service functions have their shop in the context of their home (or - they have their home in their shop). How come? Is it an inspiration from the Middle Ages (where, when?) or just to solve some technical (or other) problems in Tamriel/Elder Scrolls?

Sorry for my awful English. Regards!

Well, it's fairly realistic in the context of medieval craftsmen and shopkeepers. Usually they had their shop and workshop or storehouse on the first floor, and inhabited on the upper floors.

To be perfectly accurate, though, they'd have to merely open a large window on the first floor and peddle their ware from there to passerbys; the customers stayed in the street. Shops were you walk in were a later developments, and shops were you grab yourself what you want before going to the cashier with your filled basket are even more recent.

Thank you, I can imagine that now.

Certainly here in England, there are still some shops (not big chains, obviously) where the owner and family will live upstairs, with the shop downstairs. This is a common layout in the TES games isn't it?

So yeah, like Gez said, it certainly has precedent, and not even just a mediaeval one.

Highland Illinois' (my stompin ground as a wee lad) main square is like that, the barber's got his home and golf store all in one, the video lender has rooms for rent upstairs, etc. It's pretty cool I think.