Building a Medieval Castle from Scratch
guedelon.fr
guedelon.fr
This ensure that the know-how is genuine. They've been able to "rediscover" how things were actually made. It's a sort of retroactive proof of concept.
One bit of interest -- if constructed back in the 1300s, it would have probably taken 4 years or so. Funding is the biggest difference, historically it would have been built from a rich patron's pockets with no desire to wait 25 years for the protection and image it would provide.
essentially you owed the local lord a fixed number of days of work, and/or a tax; days could be traded for tax and vice-versa. usually things like clearing, roads, and bridge building, etc.
The Pacific Locomotive Association has had 10-year restorations. Here's how it was done in 12 days in the heyday of British steam.[1] Of course, the repair works had 6,000 people.
Who were also experts working full time, with plenty of practice with that specific model, and loads of specialized equipment.
vs. a handful of hobbyists.
Sometimes when you look at old things, it can be shocking how “sloppy” the workmanship is, but you have to realize that they were not trying to get perfect paint jobs or smooth castings. They were trying to make money.
However an even higher level of quality is the pros that are called in to do one off custom projects for wealthy customers that pay by the hour and don’t care what it costs.
Ultimately, the perfection of the work is basically a tradeoff between time and quality- and the pros produce a lot more quality per unit time. But it is amazing how a really careful amateur can still do impressive looking work if they just go really really slow.
From visiting the site a couple of years ago, the team is about 30 people, so they are looking at a 25-30 years timeframe to build it. In 13 century, the builder would hire about 70 people (typical small lord could not afford to pay for more) and it would take 10-15 years.
The average adult lived to what we’d still consider old age - the average life expectancy of all humans was ‘just’ low because child mortality was high, and even most child deaths occurred at very early ages.
This is a common misconception. Life expectancy at birth being low reflects high mortality for infants and children. If you can make it into adulthood, most people lived for a relatively long time.
https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/08/conversation-old-age-is-n....
OK... 25+25 = 50 rather than 40. But that is for the wealthy, the top percentage who owned land. Everyone else would have been less. That is still about half of what we can expect today.
Building a wood castle in 4 years seems perfectly reasonable for the crew in question and would have been affordable for the small lord attempting it. The small lord who attempted a stone castle probably did need a lot longer 4 years. That lord probably bankrupted himself from the cost (though a nice castle remains). Or the Lord build the wood castle and then slowly the family upgraded it to stone over the next 400 years or so - each using their own vision of how they want their house to be (and also often adjusting to the latest military technology/defense)
weird and intriguing... but make no mistake: also weird
Esp since the guy is dead, and cannot possibly address it.
It is difficult however. I understand the need to warn people.
It does sound a bit like the Cheval’s Ideal Palace, well worth a visit as well (and also in France like Guédelon, though not in the same area): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval
[1] https://assets.bouldercounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/...
Another out there spot is in Lucas, Kansas. That guy was also fiercely anti-government.
To be clear, I like that this castle exists (although I also like that building and planning codes exist, so I guess I’m conflicted…), I’m just very surprised!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Grotto,_Margate
This video makes the scale more apparent (and impressive)
Some of them are available for streaming, some appear lost to time (no pun intended) but this one appears to be available on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL72jhKwankOiwI5zt6lC3...
Ruth Goodman's shows are fun to watch, because regardless of what she's doing, how covered in grime she is, what era she's living and working in, she exudes such a sense of joy, and a general giddy, "I cannot believe that I get to do this as my job!" attitude.
It's like watching the last couple seasons of Mythbusters. There's no doubt that they are having a grand time of it.
The mid-seasons added the build team (Keri, Grant (RIP) and Tory), and started what was, in my opinion, an unwelcome turn to "mainline television." They started adding more myths, more animations to explain things, and a lot of "Here's what we're going to do after the commercial!" and "Now that we're back from the commercial, here's what we've done!" sort of repeated filler - to the point that there was some subreddit that made versions without the filler and repeated content. It was a lot more "Here's the myth, here's the test" sort of TV, and mostly ignored the process.
The build team got along well enough for the first few seasons of it, but towards the later seasons with them, the tension and dislike between various people was obvious even on air. Kari and Tory couldn't stand each other, and the "pranks" on Tory went from "entertaining" to "genuinely mean."
The last few seasons were back to Adam and Jamie, focusing on the build, except with a budget and name recognition that allowed them to do basically anything they wanted - and you could tell they were loving it.
I know there's some contract drama and such behind the scenes as well, but the above is how it felt watching it. The last two seasons are easily my favorites, because they'd worked out how to do the show well, and they were able to test a lot of impressive-scale things that wouldn't have been an option earlier in the show.
In the last season or so of the build team, the dynamics had changed. Keri and Tory, who had gotten along fine before, seemed unable to keep their dislike of each other out of the show. It went from "Okay, that's a pretty funny prank" to "You are actively trying to hurt each other." At least as I recall it.
I don't know, maybe they worked it out. But I do recall a season or so that was genuinely uncomfortable to watch, because of the dynamics between people on the show - and it was a distinct change from previous seasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology#Examp...
In the 19th century mass production was starting and, but it wasn't until the late part that quality steel would have been available in quantity (a little steel would have come from refining iron ore, but most would have been iron). Iron doesn't harden like steel and so the hardening process they showed the blacksmith doing would have been questionable for tools. (though maybe they would have paid for expensive steel in stone cutting - I don't know) They did get hardening wrong - the yellow color is about tempering which is done after hardening. A blacksmith would know this difference, but probably couldn't explain it to the camera and just gave up.
Maybe a castle would have paid for steel tools, but I question if they could get it (any historian know more)? There were a number tools they used of iron that I suspect would have been wood instead.
The wagons seemed to have some advances that I don't think existed yet. Hard to tell because they don't show the wagons in detail, but I've read just enough about wagon development to suspect those were too advanced.
It appears they were using iron hammers on those stone chisels - that is iron wrapped around a wood handle - I'd expect wood mallets would be used instead. Why use expensive iron when a good wood head works just as well (or maybe better)
I also question if saws would have been available in that quantity. I believe they existed, though I'd expect a lot more work would have been done cutting to size with an axe type tool. I also suspect bronze wood tools would have been used - but here I don't know what would have been available in 13th century France.
They showed clothing - but unfortunately (as they admit) their sources are garments saints wore and those were preserved. That feels like looking at the suit Ronald Regan wore in office (something I expect would be preserved in a museum) and completely missing that common people in the 1980s probably were wearing blue jeans for labor, or in an office job they would have ditched the formal jacket. Worse would be preserving a bridesmaid dress (again, something I wouldn't be surprised to see preserved), but young girls probably were wearing blue jeans in 1980 except for those situations. This is something historians often lament - we get a lot of information on the rulers and priest classes - but little information on how the common person lived.
They also had a lot of horses. I would expect oxen to haul the wagons. They are slower, but much cheaper than a horse and work as well. Perhaps better given the state of yokes in those days.
those are the big ones. After that tons of youtube library books and so on. Just beware that at least half is false and you get to figure out which confident self proclaimed expert knows anything. (i at least admitted a lot of ignorance and speculation above)
Thus I will relax my criticism of using iron. If that was available nearby of course it would be used. Though I'm only relaxing as I still suspect they are using late 1800's refining to get the amount of steel needed for the chisels. (the hammers could still be pure iron - we don't see heat treatment used on them, and in any case hitting hardened steel on hardened steel will cause something to break). (case hardening would have been known in the 13th century and result in the needed steel, but that heat treats differently so I'm not sure what would have been used).
However even if good ore is found nearby, refining it takes a lot of energy (read wood) and so I would expect they avoid using iron just because of the amount of additional labor to make it.
Speaking of wood. Their blacksmith appears to be using coal not charcoal. This isn't clear, but they probably should be making the charcoal for the blacksmith onsite not using coal. Coal wasn't very important until 17th century England.
While I'm at it, I just noticed their great tower is round. I'm not sure if that would be correct. A cannon was becoming advanced enough to need round towers in the 13th century, but I'm not sure of the timelines, and the thickness of the walls matter. The Chinese built thicker walled castle and so they didn't see gunpoweder/canons as useful tools, but European castle walls were often (not always!) thin enough that a cannon could destroy them. Thicker walls would have then been used for castles in response, and also round towers so that the stones beside could help take the impact of a cannonball that otherwise would go through.
Speaking of stone. Odds are the small local lord would have built their castle out of wood not stone. Wood would have been much less likely to survive to today so we see ruins of stone castles while the wood burned or rotted away.
Since England had lots of surface coal deposits they started exploiting them in the 13th century for heating. It got so bad that they had to ban coal use in London in 1306 because of the air pollution. Depending on the locality and trade networks, blacksmiths from this era could have had plenty of coal.
The shift in the 17th century was running out of the easy surface deposits and switching to subsurface mining with chain pumps (driven by water wheels at first). That followed from centuries of development and resource exploitation.
I think the bigger problem is the distribution of knowledge. Would French blacksmiths know of coal’s usefulness in the same century as it becomes widely used? Maybe in the printing press era, but it’s a bit of a stretch in the 13th century.
is an almost meaningless statement in the context of producing quality iron and steel.
"Charcoal" is a reasonably consistent product, "Coal" is an entire spectrum that ranges from [thermal coal] through to [metallurgical (coking) coal].
In a quality production pipeline there's a seperation between means of generating furnace heat (can be electric arc, can be thermal coal fired, can be charcoal) and a means of sourcing carbon for bonding with raw iron ores (coking coal).
In the context of low grade iron and poor steel manufacture the distinctions matter less.
Dunno if they still keep up the newsletter (there's a signup form) in the same manner.
The website is in german : https://www.campus-galli.de/
They might now have stopped doing that, but still were only a couple of years ago.
Though if you succeed in building a castle in someone else's kingdom that means it is no longer their kingdom - either it is now your kingdom, or(much more likely) it is part of the kingdom of whatever king you are under. When kings win battles they reward the best of their un-landed supporters with some of the taken over land, those people then become lords and are expected to build a castle (or take over an existing one if it wasn't too destroyed and culture allowed it) on their new land as part of their efforts to hold it for their king.
You sure? Many modern buildings are already 100 years old and in active use.
Empire State Building, for example, was built in 1930. Chrysler Building is from 1928. White House is from 1800.
I think we’ll be fine. Percentage wise we might end up keeping more modern buildings than we did of the very old ones.
My mom’s socialist style block of flats (in Slovenia) is from 1962 – 63 years old – and people keep living here and maintaining the structure just fine. Can easily imagine it sticking around for a long while yet.
The facade perhaps, but not the inside which dates to c. 1950: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Reconstruction
Not necessarily, no. Reinforced concrete infrastructure has an average lifespan of 50 to 100 years.
That's ridiculous.
Which is why quite a few bridges in the US and in Europe are in critical state and collapse from time to time.
Bridges aren't comparable to buildings.
Die whole city (or village) is a lot into medieval stuff, so it's a really great surrounding.
Most likely they would have used oxen not a horse to haul the wagons.
You know exactly how that would most likely work out.
Customers from France have refused to talk to colleagues of mine because they're from Alsace. French people are not nice to others.
https://www.blablacar.co.uk/search?fn=Paris%2C%20France&tn=8...
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Guyot
The son of a small business owner developed a passion for history, historic preservation, and horses from a young age. Trained in the military as a competition rider, he opened a riding stable at the Château de Valençay in the Indre department in 1972. In 1975, Guyot and his brother Jacques, who was four years younger, purchased the Château de La Roche in the Sologne region, and in 1979, they acquired the dilapidated Château de Saint-Fargeau in the Yonne department for a minimal amount. After failing with a "high culture" festival, Guyot succeeded in financing the castle's restoration through large historical spectacles involving the local population. The castle grounds also house a collection of old steam locomotives.
In the mid-1990s, he conceived the Guédelon project: since 1997, about 60 employees and 200-300 annual volunteers have been building a small fortress in 13th-century style, located 40 kilometers southwest of Auxerre - using exclusively medieval techniques. The planned construction time is 25 years. This project has also become financially self-sustaining.
Of course a real castle would probably have been made of wood which is both easier to remodel and also needs it anyway as wood burns and rots over time. (in turn meaning most castles have left no evidence they ever existed other than what is in the local records) What we see is the small minority built of stone.
Does anybody have the same tool but better?
Like, surely someone already made a sandbox that is not a fullblown VM. Docker probably.