A Castle Fit For Fighting | Secrets of the Castle (2/5) | Absolute History

castles dominated the medieval landscape and Britain has some of the finest in the world today most of decaying relics many of their secrets buried in time [Music] now historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom can fold and Pete again are turning the clock back to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle builders this is the ultimate and medieval technology the origin of our castles is distinctly French introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquest of 1066 [Music] [Applause] here in the Burgundy region of France is get along castle the world's biggest archaeological experiment a 25 year project to build a castle from scratch using the same tools techniques and materials available in the 13th century it's a lot of hard work and coalface because this is industry for the next six months Ruth Peter and Tom will experience the daily rigors of medieval construction and everyday life how workers dressed and ate you can smell your food and the art of combat [Music] this is the story of how to build a medieval castle [Music] [Music] it's April and since their arrival a month ago the team have been learning ancient skills from the get-along Masons [Music] they've also set up a base for themselves in the shadow of the castle building a castle involves such a lot of people and they've all got to live somewhere the 13th century was part of the Golden Age of castle building when ever evolving tactics and fortifications were driven by the legacy of bloody Crusades and vicious dynastic struggles medieval dynasties sought to expand their influence and protect their games they built imposing stone castles not only to assert power but more fundamentally to withstand attack now the team learn about building the castles defensive structures they look at the ingenious features medieval castle builders devised and explored a craft behind the weapons they had to resist defense for me really it's the raison d'etre of a castle it's not just the battles the attacking the defending it's the structural input that you have to think about your defensive your curtain walls your towers things like that there are defensive structures I mean they're much more than that though aren't they I mean they are about defending yourself psychologically they're about telling everybody don't even try it I'm about the weapons too I mean what could they actually do against a castle how effective were they yeah I guess how many men do you need to defend a castle I need some ruddy great big stores of food and castles you know people sometimes in Knights and princesses but it isn't it's mostly about the likes of us isn't is about everybody else and how do we survive a castle like this at get along would have been built for a prosperous Lord they wanted to display his wealth and power and also needed his home to be strong enough to withstand potential attack and this dictates much of its design with 36 feet high curtain walls protecting the courtyard and residential spaces entry is via a twin tower gatehouse and at each corner above the crenelated walls there will be four round towers the highest of which will be the great tower a superb vantage point nearly a hundred feet high in charge of the defensive structure of the castle is must a Mason Floriana Nucci he's travelled the world studying the ancient secrets behind medieval stone work yet Allen's walls are over 12 feet thick in places today the Masons are placing a special long stone called a booties into a section of castle wall designed specifically to reinforce it against the tag booties is to connect the front of the wall front part to the stone inside the world right the booties for instance you have went here this stone here it's very long it's here yeah we have to have warm really strong this wall I've to resist an enemy and a better way to fight a castle yeah it's to floor turn to the wall if we don't put booties the front part of the wall will go down you can receive from this wall that you've got the external face the internal face and bit in the middle the the infill exactly we are going to put when British can you help us yeah definitely very good it's very strong piece I don't need yes try to be always in the middle of the stone it's a heavy turn to have a strong castle duty stones are not just placed at random they're fixed into the wall at 3 feet intervals to give maximum strength the booties go in in the middle right of the joint so it's just linking in but it's so clever because the pressures now spread between two stones yes we have to think everything it's like a game yeah medieval texts that get it on there using a medieval formula to make mortar mixing water with quarry sand and lime putty unlike lime produced industrially it will take many centuries to set completely we were afraid about it because thousands of tons of stone being held together there's a bit of a risk at the start exactly and it's brought the first time in general that we use this old way of making water through experimentation they've discovered that clay impurities in the quarry sand give this mortar great strength so the experiments are archeology is actually giving you a really good building substance to build your castle exactly Tom's just putting mortar down here and he's making it rough so when the stone goes down that water will press into the the cracks of the stone if it was smooth then you just have gaps so if there's a bump in the stone and smooth mortar it just wouldn't touch it but it's because he's making it all rough is squished together and just keep that stone absolutely solidly fixed into place so Dan good Tom every stone has to be in line because this is an hour up and up and up potentially another floor meters these stones are slightly off your build is slightly off and eventually they'll collapse now this done will be solid site [Music] the biggest threat to castles was sieges these were far more common than pitched battles and could last for months even years [Music] if they couldn't get through the gates invaders could try going over the walls with towers and ladders or mining under them [Music] but another more sophisticated means of attack developed [Music] from basic stone-throwers to manga Nell's queers and trebuchet a range of deadly medieval war machines evolved these came to dominate siege warfare for hundreds of years until they were ultimately superseded by the canon the largest ever trebuchet it is thought was that commissioned by Edward Longshanks King of England in the war of Scottish independence and he was trying to bring down Stirling Castle it was a vast beast called war wolf as a nickname disassembled it took 30 wagons to move it five master carpenters worked on it along with 49 other workers and it could whole an object a 300 pounds weight with accuracy 30 miles from get along is Sempra salt castle which houses a collection of replica siege engines [Music] the Romans introduced basic catapults to Britain but by the 13th century the development of counterweight technology saw the introduction of deadly high-powered stone hurling war machines they were used in sieges to bombard defending troops and collapse castle walls [Music] the crew wear protective helmets in case the machine malfunctions that kills away this how's it going Tom it's good way it's amazing how only four people can maneuver such a heavy counterweight yeah I mean what that's about 500 kilograms the energy you're putting into that to raise it up it's gonna be stored as potential energy field then when it's released this which is about 10 kilograms this boy's gonna be swung out and flung into the distance I reckon it'll go about 100 meters looking good right he's just gonna lock this off there we go tensions on the pin now it's locked off they can unwind this rope so that when it fires or when it's loosed the Rope doesn't hold it back so here we go I'm winding right watch those handles this is a well-trained crew they know what they're doing honestly sir it's a very different isn't it from doing peacetime as it would be in the battle I'd say think about shouting the noise yeah these ropes can snap a Twinkie yeah here we go all the projectile we're into the sling and it's ready to go standing back just moving back to the seclusion zone I imagine if it was in the heat of battle you just be there you feel quite lonely view at the guy who's about pull the rope you're gonna count down thank God what myself how much and you have to get the mathematics absolutely right the difference between the length of that arm and the length of the rope and the things if you don't get that spot on it can fly backwards instead of flying forward you can strike this it's essentially scaffolding it's a Mason shape it is it's the ropes and it's exactly the same mathematics that the Masons are using I mean it's really it's sort of simple but it's also really quite sophisticated if you can build a castle you can fight a costume that's the arms race that's happening in our period isn't it the castles get more strong or developed more technical than so the siege weapons become stronger more powerful more technical its each driving each other further and further onwards it's not fast though is it no [Music] despite being slow these mighty war machines were greatly feared in the Middle Ages some of fortified towns surrendered at the very sight of them all right sure we got another look projectiles ranged from carved stone or mortar bulls like these to rotting animal carcasses intended to spread disease and even the heads of defeated soldiers to really lower morale it's funny isn't it looking at the damage you know because it is just a small hole but I suppose when you think again against a stone wall it's gonna keep going until it finds a weakness this is the yeah yeah hammer doesn't cry it's not a great explosion it's the persistent drip drip drip until you crack [Music] [Applause] [Music] as well as being an archaeologist tom is a midshipman in the Royal Naval Reserve with a special interest in military history he's been looking into what kind of armor an ordinary soldier might have worn in the twelve armors not everyone could afford the expensive metal helmets and mail worn by wealthy Lords and Knights a more basic form of protection commonly worn for combat was the gamba saw a padded linen tunic whose main protective element was shipped wolf Tom's visiting Ruth in the hovel she wants to make him a gambeson and the process starts with the sheep's wool Ruth when you asked me here for a fitting for my protective clothing I was in chainmail and armor that's not the case is it this is well it is but it's not this is tough armor cloth armor yeah that's good is it it's good so you may have lots and lots and lots of layers of linen and then a big fat layer of wool prepared wool and then more and more more layers many and then you've got to stitch the whole lot together really tight not so it's like big and fluffy like a duvet right compacted right down into something truly dense it's almost this is modern body armor is the evolution from this you'd still balance between protection and maneuverability and trying to cover as much of the body as possible and this is the ancestor of Kevlar vest [Music] here guys [Music] one of the defining visual features of medieval castles is their arrow loops the ingenious design of these simple slits in the walls provided protection and gave castle arches a huge advantage very good get-along Mason constant and lamelle especially shaped a stone needed for building an error loop in a corner towers before they mortar the stone in place they need to be sure it feels right that's in position I thought that was going to go the other way around actually I thought no we have to attend eight we have to to to have a long face here and after a short one you and when you have a short one you have a long here M Rashad and it's true to get something very stronger when you cross a distance yeah okay the funnel shaped design of the arrow loop tapering to a mere three inch gap Gabe attack is outside only a tiny slit to aim at while the defenders could look out without being seen the arrow loops sloped down so arches could see invaders even at the foot of the tower if it's worth like this for instance we can't can be in front of the tower no problem for them things say I guess so so this is a weak point of the castle isn't it you're actually creating a crack in your castle wall so you need to reinforce it people say that in the 13th century the wrong Tower was very useful to resist when sterner our fro preying on the tower because when the stone are coming the wrong form used to be stronger because he spread the pressure don't you the stone hits there and it's curved and all these other stones exert a the impact exactly computo and I agree firing arrows out we just break our arrows on the inside so those will be interesting to see if you fire an arrow or bolt back in I say that's the trick isn't hey if you're attacking you won't be able to know you least scare people have not killed them if the inside [Music] there'll be around 40 arrow loops in the finished castle in order to test their effectiveness Peter and Tom will need a suitable weapon one of the most infamous at the time was the crossbow first seen in 4th century BC China by the 1200 s crossbows were increasingly used a European siege warfare crossbows were probably introduced into Britain around the time of the Norman Conquest in some ways they were less effective than the long bows they took an awful lot longer to load so the rate of fire was much much slower out in the battlefield in the heat of the moment they're pretty useless but in a siege it was a completely different thing behind some nice safe walls you had time and it was a sort of weapon that anybody could use with no training and no skill at all richard the lionheart eventually met his end when a crossbow bolt fired by a boy in 1199 pissed him in the shoulder the resulting infection did for him [Music] as a weapon it made Knights more vulnerable to lowly foot soldiers some despised it for breaking the conventions of chivalry but the art of crossbow making became a whole industry by the 13th century in Britain it survives to this day among a few specialist craftsmen like Bowyer Chris jury this is what's gonna be known as a cross probe fraud which is basically the the bow on a crossbow what kind of wood is this this is you would know you would is probably the best word for making above in any piece of view you get the SAP wood and the heartwood the set word is good in tension which means it can stretch and the heartwood is good in compression which means it can crush so the to grow naturally together in a single piece of wood to form a natural spring Chris uses a spokeshave to take off the bug I would imagine in the medieval period they would have done it in like a production process so he'll be done in in fairly large batches predecease would have started off maybe this sort of ages thirteen fourteen after seven years then he was a journeyman who was nearly at the point where was a master the coffin you'd be a master bow maker and by that time you wouldn't even get your hands dirty with the maker just let your minions get on and do it for you actually so as I am your apprentice there any chance I can however go with that yeah of course you can yes you want to be gentle but you've always gotta put a bit of pressure on it is yeah it's quite a delicate times you don't want to be cutting into the SAP a little you just want to remove the bark taking off lumps look the next stage is to taper the prod with an axe it's more we do this more likely it is I make a mistake you need all ten toes [Music] that's a bit of aggression is that yes it go a drone Alif is used to further smooth and shape the crossbow crowd is still fighting this you cannot avoid a site with everything it's just like getting your eye in understanding the material you're working with and understanding the tools and hopefully it all comes together yes that's why certain tools like the axe and like the spoke shape and the draw a knife are ideal because they followed the grain so while the tools look a bit crude they actually do the job over well but you can understand the apprentices did seven years of quarter it's quite a specialist kind of task really yeah I started a rather nicely you don't work with your tapers and it should be relatively evenly I think I've done a exceptional work with my tape it looks pretty good [Music] carpenter Sam Rooney has come all the way from New Zealand to work at gettin all in his spare time he makes traditional bows [Music] today cinnamon Ruth our experiment with making a crossbow arrow known as a bolt or quarrel which was shorter heavier and more deadly than a regular hammer you imagine an arrow whether it be for a crossbow war or a longbow and you imagine a little stick yeah why you starting with a great piece of wood mainly for mass producing arrows you can have several links of a tree and then just split it into small squares if you think really mass production that makes sense doesn't if you've got to make 20,000 yeah 20,000 sticks that were the right size of shape to send people after together yeah where is two or three trees with do you twenty thousand arrow yeah right that makes a lot of sense you're just squaring this off at the moment yeah I'm just squaring it off using a medieval bandsaw the thin piece of wood is then cut into individual strips which will be shaped to make each boat shaft ones pretty much round are you gonna need it so we're gonna drill a small hole in the end of the bolt the metal bolt head is then attached you would not want that pushed through you would you oh no and the slit is cut so it can be flashed it's recorded that in 1215 the chief English quarrel maker produced 25-thousand quarrels a year and could be expected to make 100 in a single day it is a huge amount of work all of this isn't it well yeah I guess so those are still really woven into our modern life they think of the surnames Bowyer Fletcher stringer Archer and then all the number of phrases that come from one form of archery or another things like to pick a quarrel or a bolt from the blue he's got lots of strings to his bow in all archery terms they finish off their boat by warming up a medieval glue made from an unusual source it's made from the bladder of a fish they actually I get the bladder and dry it out in here so it's just a bit of glue on the leather yeah that's it there we go one coral well thanks very much I'll show them give it a go okay good thanks [Music] by the end of the 12th century a new design of crossbow was introduced the addition of a metal stirrup enabled the crossbowmen to hold the bow with his foot and draw back the string either with both hands or a belt hook this was known as spanning the bone [Music] peter has come to make the stirrup with Martin Claudell who's been a blacksmith at getting on for four years [Music] and they use a process called Smith and striking the Smith is the blacksmith he's the guy doing the thinking he's got the little hammer he's moving the metal around he taps it a striker has the big hammer and that is me I always hate doing the striking I'm not I've got no rhythm basically but then he hits I hit he hits I hear and when he hits the anvil I stop okay we're good all right Peter and Martin will hammer the iron flat and then bend it at four corners making a stirrup shape I think we got away with that it's certainly starting to take shape got it we got a we got a kink and you've got a bend and in these two ends he's gonna fire world so he's it's basically splitting the metal so when they come together they interlock you'll heat all that up and then he'll basically smack it as hard as he can and compact that back into a single piece of metal since you're creating a fire world which is ultimately very very strong give it the strength it needs because if you think about put your foot in it on that crossbow in order to it's you don't want your metal coming apart he's gonna ramp up the heat so he goes white-hot the reason for the darkness in here is so he can see the colors here we go that's fantastic back at the hovel Ruth has enlisted some help to stitch Tom's gambeson together Oh what are these you're making roses or something we are very very very slowly that's the first four layers of cloth all sewn together with the wall going on top and then I've started quilting this panel piece in the back piece yeah and then as soon as you start sewing you can see it starting to compress it down I have a feel at the difference of that look how wobbly that is soft and wobbly and then fear where it is when it's sewn in the winter because this is I have to be honest don't fight anytime soon this is a day's work I've done nothing all day today except this who's wearing they've been worn by men at arms fairly ordinary soldiers you know and being worn by the rich soldiers in combination with chainmail mm-hmm so they won by quite a lot of people yeah I couldn't be happier if I was on the walls wearing a gambeson it's a sort of standing there with my cross fighters and I would be in the 13th century gambeson making was a skilled craft done mainly by men you keep your right arm underneath so you just keep poking and pointing and I find if you stretch the cloth with your left hand yeah blimey I'm glad you said that now you've missed look you're gone come out right over there don't wanna go back there yeah you got to come up in line okay it's not a natural Lizzie least I'm giving it a girl right nice to go again oh this is like potluck right this time okay that's better that'll do bail dude it's good enough Raya and you need to pull really tight though don't break the thread marvelous and then straight back down again and catch it with the other arm not in v1 on it just slow isn't it it is [Music] Chris is nearing the final stages of his work on the crossbow okay so here we have your bow all nicely shaped and expertly tape it nice and smooth and now the next stage is to make sure it bends evenly the prod is ready to be put under tension using a tiller stick if the bow is not evenly shaped the prod may snap so now we've basically examing the curve of the bow right the trick is you need to spot the wheat bits before they develop into a problem and shave them alright so even after all this time all this work there's still actually jeopardy about whether it's a massive there's a massive magnet deputy involved in doing it this is the real art of the bow you need to train your eye to see the curve and to notice any flat spots in the curve I was gonna say because to us it looks pretty good to me so we're happy we're there look like a good shooting boat [Music] [Music] the deep ditch and sloped walls of the base of the castle are designed to make them harder to approach the only entrance across the ditch is a 10-foot high bridge to the main gate a structure which relies on a very humble element to hold it together the nail six hundred and seventy seven were needed to make this bridge all forged on-site Martin the blacksmith makes all the nails for the doors and fixtures in the castle inspired by a popular story from the Middle Ages Ruth has come to the blacksmith's forge I'm gonna have a go at making the nail this believe it or not is a really female activity the story goes that when they needed the nails to crucified Christ the blacksmith that they asked refused to be involved and his wife stepped up I maker she said it was a story that had a lot of popularity in the 13th century and as a result there are lots and lots of pictures of women working at a blacksmith's forge nail making frequently rather ugly demonized women great big hook noses the dress just like me this one little piece of metal that we're working how many nails will it make maybe between 10 and 20 it's not many this much work I mean I suppose that really explains why things like furniture made Italian with no nails they're all made of wood with wood joints so you only use your nails where you really need them it's a precious thing it's a funny thing when you talk about the past and you list all the crafts people imagine that that means it's only men if you look at the lists of guilds people in London and indeed in Paris it's amazing how many crafts are in fact headed up by a female name there were female blacksmiths once the iron has turned red in the hearth it softens and can be worked almost ready Ruth is going to try Smith's and striking with Martin I can scarcely lift this hammer little and and do anything useful with it we'll see scary moment I've got a block of wood to stand on because I'm short oh sorry I'm not on strike am i Oh terrible [Applause] my hips are not quite central as I'm making dents down the edges that he's been very sorting out all my the metal is heated again and again and gradually driven into a point before being squared up the head is then shaped I get clouded that's it just straightened out and plunged in the water to cool it just like that I can really see why 13th century people were finding ways of using as few nails as possible such hard work [Music] the stirrup is in a fairly straight line to make the finished weapon crossbow expert Robin Knight binds Peters iron stirrup and Tom's you prod in one of the interesting things for me about making this crossbows you rely on a lot of different skills well isn't it making a stirrup yeah yeah there was no such thing as a crossbow Micah one man made this tiller the blacksmith made all of the arm work another man made the string that's where you get the surname stringer when the the guy at the end of the process got all the bits together didn't know how each individual part was made because to him and they the trades were before the guilds were called mysteries to him it was a mystery right it's as simple it just wasn't aware of how it was done group of individuals with very specific knowledge and skill exactly bringing together almost like a flat pack of a crossbow and then one man put it together what separates a crossroad from the longbow it's really in defense you don't actually need a huge amount of strength Orsolya Ryan who's it training training for long bows took from about the age of seven crossbow men you can try and him out me half a day but he still got the capability of killing you with half a day's training as a long madman with 15 years training and this is a weapon banned by the church wasn't that's a weapon unfit to be used on Christians only to be used on heathens and Saracens nobody liked crossbows unfortunately you get the old bulls like me that sort of quite liked them [Music] okay now we come to the crunch we're going to Spain the boat moment of truth I'm at the moment of truth so it works yeah your foots in there okay is everybody Holy Mother sounds pretty good doesn't it looks solid it's a proper piece of killing machinery that [Music] back at the castle the team are almost ready for basic siege combat lookey - relaxing I've been away working this is it there's your stirrup pain I'll come in between you that's alright pretty good are you surprised yes I'll be honest it wasn't me that did most of it this is a medieval killing machine long trigger there it's a long trigger oh wow nice our ammunition is it okay yeah it looks what deadly do you think you've dipped that in some animal dung or some like that you've had you've got a biological weapon there as well you're gonna infect someone even if you don't kill them straight off you gonna do damage it's not a nice weapon is that any such thing Wow very true very true so Ruth how is Thomas gambeson yeah where's the front panel I go it's shaped and looking pretty nice rebound it's it's a pretty rigid beast have I got the right shape you know getting sleeves I've given up on sleeves initially I was gonna plan you the proper full gambeson with the sleeves but I'm sorry it would be a bit like a straitjacket at the end of its life if you want to try a complete one on okay put one on Peter this is classic in a smelly see look how much softer this one is than the other one this is much more flexible I quite like mine's realist I like the cleanness of mine Jana's straightjacket you saw the top do you sure I hold it across yeah you could just imagine some chaps trying to get into a little in a hurry it's pretty good not just sustaining you feel strong yeah those who could afford it would have covered their gambeson the chainmail shirt weighing over 25 pounds there's anyone we're doing this oh this is like right hand to the right oh my hair we've lost the sleeve on this is a movement now it's a bit more restrictive under the arm saying she thought that restrictive it's just the white you know but it's not I could still see the chain mail law now she looks like he'll give you better protection than I thought originally against something like this that's fine nice that's actually fine I'll take a run up close call you can be pretty safe from assault lower yeah now we get to see him taking that off yeah we're not gonna help him then yeah sorry this is gonna be the amusing moment wonderful period images of blokes trying to get out of there that male shirts gone here we go years I spent in the asylum this is a show this is exactly what they show [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] wow that's a weight off your shoulders [Music] the team are going to give the gambeson a stern a test using their new crossbow [Music] I can't tell you how glad I'm not really in the 13th century facing an invading army I just can't imagine how horrible that would be boats shot from a high-powered crossbow could be as deadly as bullets and shell fire okay I'm down so you can rest thumbs on there it's very very small okay here we go okay three two one load you up big boy tois nice I've gone to the side and low yeah so you have a look yeah help you're looking yeah I had gone through it's gone for is it that much I really expected that to be you know up to yeah I thought it's gonna be spaded into you yeah let's don't forget the the quality of the gambeson you know that layers approach has obviously work [Music] while some sages were won by overpowering the castle it was often something far more basic which finally forced the defenders to surrender in truth when castles fell it was rarely to actual siege engines and far more frequently to starvation indeed in 1215 of Rochester besieged inside the castle that people were holding out King John on the outside had amassed five trevor shades that were battering the walls for two months inside food was running short and they looked around them and began to eat their expensive war horses and it was only when they had finished eating every horse that they surrendered [Music] defending your food was a vital aspect of strategic castle design with this in mind geralyn's great tower contains its own food store and a well it's the castles ultimate stronghold if the walls were breached it would be possible to fall back to the great tower [Music] next to the great tower is the kitchen where Ruth begins preparing a meal fit for fighting men [Music] [Applause] [Music] meanwhile Peter and Tom are about to put the arrow loops of the great tower to the test [Music] that's quite narrow Thalia isn't it really you know I mean do you ever really aim to hit someone on the other side or you just want to get the balls it out the gap can't actually see much alder yes there's only one thing to do yeah go for it you aiming for the others to say me if the gap more an aiming for the gap right bolts in touching strength that was fast in this environment that seemed far more powerful on these old faster I guess for my defensive point of view then something like that shooting out the loop no it's a bit of a fear factor to straight away isn't it satisfied with the defensive capacity of get along sparrow loops on the inside Tom and Peter said about seeing how resistant they are to attack from the outside do you think we can get a bolt through that gap luckily we're not under fire um Rox bonuses I reckon deftly doing six do give it a go there let's give it a go okay gotta load pull me ironically [Music] on the string ladies I was terrible that I was [Music] after many attempts a shot finally finds its target a feat that would be somewhat harder to achieve in the heat of battle still and that was a good height on there as well that would have gone in about head height inside ya architectual e these are loops they work for this castle don't they you can be in there you can fire out but if you're outside here trying to fire in it's not impossible its lucky if you do while Peter and Tom returned to the building worked in the castle kitchen Ruth is preparing food for medieval men-at-arms it is slightly conjectural we have to sort of look at as many sources as we can to come up with what a 13th century soldier would actually be eating so it largely comes down to pork port was considered to be the food which was most compatible with the human body [Music] medieval thinking was that the body of someone of high social standing digested and responded to food differently to that of a common man so their food needed to be cooked differently for the common soldiery it just all goes in fat skin marrow all good for building strong fighting bodies this broth of pottage simply contains pork onions beans and some herbs so that should just quietly cook for the next couple of hours so almost the same ingredients pork the beans and the onions are also going to form the basis of dis dutiful for the Lord but it is the cooking methods that make the difference 30th century medical and ideas thought of the stomach as a cauldron that had to cook through the food they fought the fight cooking food itself you could be helping the stomach to do that process so for the Lord we start by boiling the meat it's parboiled part cooked by boiling it then we roast it which is the stage of reached here and then once it's mostly roasted it's going to come off the spit again cut up and then fried likely so this is still running a little bit pink done to a turn as they say meaning to within one turn of the spit which is exactly what I want ready for this last quick flash fry although we call it frying it's more like sort of braising a chunk of it long at two minutes and it'll be done and that with the beans and a sprinkle of dandelion leaves should make him one of the most fearsome warriors in Christendom [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's nearly time to down tools at the end of the day [Music] but first there's a special delivery to the top of the tower crockery rockery fried onions tamos food beans my food Oh pork a balanced diet then oh yeah so you know where do you fancy yourself on the social scale really oh and by the way dandelion petals they are associated with the planet Mars so you're going to be that marshal by the time you finish [Laughter] that rustic look to it yeah I'm good at rustic I don't really do wash pretty food but if you're up on the walls in God UT reckon you actually wants the kind of pottage almost you type male weakness you know you don't have to think about it you can just enjoy your food gonna warm you up cause I suppose you know if you're in a castle this is a great meal on day one of the siege [Laughter] stocks and hey how should we got drags on as much as anything food is a weapon of war next time interior design 13th century style which means mud paint for the fiery furnace can you imagine living in a world with no electric lights you

Channel: Absolute History

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Rating: 4.93716 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, castles, geometry, Medieval Documentary, Tom Pinfold, stories, stonemasons, Channel 4 documentary, Documentaries, medieval castle, Britain, France, Documentary, 13th century, history documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, build, archaeologists, BBC documentary, medieval, Full Documentary, hand-carved, Peter Ginn, real, Secrets, Staircases, Historian, documentary history, History, TV Shows - Topic, Ruth Goodman, construct

Id: u6v-3Ai88oM

Length: 58min 23sec (3503 seconds)

Published: Thu May 21 2020