How Do You Build A Medieval Castle? | Secrets Of The Castle | Progress

castles dominated the medieval landscape and Britain has some of the finest in the world today most are decaying relics many of their secrets buried in time [Music] historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pinfeld and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle Builders this is the ultimate medieval technology the origin of our castles is distinctly French introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquest of 1066. [Music] 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 at the coal face 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 really smell your food and the Art of combat is the story of how to build a medieval castle [Music] it's March Tom Ruth and Peter have traveled to San Fazio a hundred miles south of Paris where get along Castle is being built they're now 17 years into a 25-year project and over the next few months its most defining features the towers will take shape [Music] it's just something else look at those things up there oh my goodness makes you dizzy the team are meeting members of getalon's Workforce Master Mason Florian renucci and site administrator Sarah Preston Florio is our Master Mason so he's going to be guiding you throughout your stay here you oversee this entire project that is amazing that really is well it's really simple I've just have to know very well the castle but you almost like the Puppet Master you have the people working the Quarry the people working at Masons the Carpenters you've got to control everyone well I prefer the image of a musical conductor we have to to be in the same time walking this is very important yeah the Rhythm so it's like music well the fuel the conductor and you've got the strings over there and the cushion over there Tiffany over there I can play a triangle [Music] building get along is an enormous undertaking it will require some thirty thousand tons of stone that must be quarried shaped and lifted into position without modern machinery there are also teams of woodcutters and Carpenters constructing scaffolding Roofing and doors blacksmiths making iron work and tools as well as tile makers Carters in the 13th century English workers crossed the channel to hone their skills in France France is where architecture is happening castles churches we're looking at their built environment and thinking wow they're really good at that we're importing all those ideas into Britain absolutely historically very used to reading the theories behind how castles are made but hopefully it's an experimental archaeologist I can actually test some of those theories put them into practice 13th century life there's a lot of questions surrounding it there aren't that many records so by the actual Act of building this Castle it's almost like creating a window through which we can observe what 13th century life might have been like [Applause] [Music] building a medieval castle began with a wooden model so what is this model used for in medieval times they don't have a paper plan right so they used to have a wood model well I guess this is way of the Lord saying this is what I want my castle to look like yes and and the Lord It came it changed things with the Mellow it's very easy for him I suppose a medieval building sites like you have here you can easily have over a hundred Masons they all can look at this and knowing the angles they need to be doing and the and the the wall that they're working on get along's design is typical of the 13th century many British castles such as harlech Conway and carnarvon have a similar layout castles were not only for defense they were show strength a lord putting his stamp on the landscape [Music] inside the walls there were grand houses with great Halls kitchens and even chapels a thick wall surrounded by a dry moat protects an inner Courtyard which itself is protected by six towers [Music] wow this is the great tower this is what Florian wants us to work on when completed the great toe will be almost 30 meters high providing a lookout for approaching enemies and with walls four meters thick it's the Castle's ultimate stronghold so if we if we were the wall or stand here I'm inside you're inside that's four I mean that's massive it just brings home how many tens of thousands of tons of stone will be in this Castle when it's finished back then the only way of transporting Stone over land was using horse-drawn cards minimizing the distance it had to be moved was Paramount so like many castles of the time get along is actually built in a quarry in the Quarry we have the Sandstone the primary building fabric we also have the sand and the water that can be used to make the mortar we have ocher which again can be used for making pigments we're on a clay lens here and the clay can be used for firing tiles roof tiles floor tiles and we're surrounded by Forest which is a source of Timber it's a source of fuel so it can keep the blacksmiths going almost everything we need to build a castle is just a stone throw away [Music] the boys are put to work extracting blocks of sandstone under the watchful eye of a stone Mason who's worked here for 16 years clemont the first job um make the small Stone teaching the boys how to cut huge stones from the Quarry into usable building blocks using just a hammer a chisel and a wedge I don't think I've got the skills to do this I'll give it a go I'm glad it's you and not me so making this hole to fit the wedge snugly but obviously a clemor for these years and years of experience knows exactly how to orientate this so the wedge goes into this one hole you hit it and that's going to cause a fracture in the already pre-existing sediment lines and it'll split in half is he good to finish music good music good music and now I sleigh German wow you can just see the fracture starting to appear this is not about Brute Forces about listening it's about looking Precision Engineering listen good foreign the hardness of the Sandstone varies considerably depending on its iron content the more iron the harder the stone so the medieval Mason had a system of grading it we've got three categories of stone here the pith the path and the puff got the pear for this sort of black high iron content sandstone and that's used for the major load-bearing parts of the castle the path this more reddish sandstone and the soft one the poof sort of very yellowy crumbly sandstone and it's always like we're shopping for stone really isn't it we're coming out here we're looking at the colors and we can actually get what we want for the particular task we're about to do these stones will form the main building blocks of the castle just as important as the stone with the workers in the woods surrounding the castle Ruth setting up home [Music] building a castle involves such a lot of people and they've all got to live somewhere so you get a sort of temporary Community setting up at the edge of the building site as all these different people come and go with their various skills and naturally over time that begins to become a bit more permanent a village in the making indeed many villages right across Europe in Britain as well as in France can actually Trace their origin to be in camps for workers on a building site this small hovel is typical of a worker's home on a medieval building site workers Cottages somewhere like this were all were thrown up in a hurry and fairly sort of basic but then so were those of most 13th century people and this is our everything this is all there is here is our kitchen our living room our sleeping quarters just this one single space [Music] marvelous off-cut Limestone this will do perfect the centerpiece of every medieval home was the fireplace the fire was not just used for cooking it also provided heat and light and groundhouses obviously they sort of like cobbled this whole area [Music] and we know from lots of archaeological digs the ordinary houses it's just a patch on the ground and also I use a couple of bigger stones to balance pots on a bit [Music] the cottage needs somewhere to store the staple foods of Wheat and barley hi Simon oh hello Ruth how you doing I'm good I'm good I was thinking about Granite so Ruth is calling on English Carpenter Simon Dunn to make a grain Ark I'm guessing that making Furniture in the 13th century was rather different from what a modern cabinet maker would do oh certainly certainly very different from what anybody would do now or even in the last couple of hundred years you're limited by the materials and the tools available in the 13th century saws were expensive so Carpenters use them only when absolutely necessary instead wood was split using wooden wedges wow look at that split all the way around down to there yeah and then turn it over and further down gosh this is faster than soaring isn't it oh absolutely there we go so that's in two Simon splits the wood again to produce planks so as you know I mean that piece particularly is a really good piece of plank yeah it's pretty flat you can work with it and that's a couple of minutes I mean I hate to think how long that would take to have sawn the rough planks must now be smoothed off this is a side ax um it's just ground on one one Edge so it's flat on the other so you can just trim up the surface a bit can more or less use an ax like a plane once all the planks are made the arc is assembled without nails or glue pegs your basic thing for joining Furniture together so instead of nice pegs instead of nails yes [Music] so there are some things you do need a saw for so we'll just cut the pegs off to size right there's no glue or anything in here so that's just what it's just the wood holding the wood together it's not going anywhere [Music] so are you happy with that then you're gonna do the job it'll do the job home isn't home without a grain art absolutely not [Applause] [Applause] water was another vital resource for the building of a castle and hundreds of gallons would have been used every day to make mortar alone so castles were always built near a plentiful Supply Tom and Peter have been sent to repair the Castle's well to Hoist the bucket it needs a new rope and pulley how do you reckon that is we're gonna make rope I reckon it's 10 meters down give or take a meter but I suspect they sunk this to a depth where they're never going to run out of water exactly it's crucial for defense it's crucial for Life inside the car so once the castle is operational you need to have that constant Supply and obviously we need it now for our building I'm on pulley Peter's commissioning a pulley from woodturner Gary Baker well the first stage is to select uh a log yeah and the pulley's gonna be in this direction okay so you could just cut a like section through a log and just do that as a pulley that would never work the problem with the end grain yeah it shrinks at different levels and it's just going to split up right so we're going to follow the grain this way we're just gonna rough chop it [Music] this is uh Ash is very a very dry wood and therefore when it dries it doesn't doesn't move that much it's not going to warp and crack the mandrel is hammered into the center of the roughly shipped wood so it can be turned on a pole lathe pole lathes like this have been used both in England and France since before the 10th Century so it's just a pedal pulling the string around the mandrel yeah on a flexible pole and a pole basically all it does is lift the pedal back up the roughly shaped Ash is turned to make a cylinder [Music] I have to say uh watching you that is really really hypnotic but it looks natural it is it is the it's like the gymnasium maybe evil gymnasium but you do get fit as well as a pulley they'll need a rope for the well rope is essential on a medieval building site to lift loads and bind scaffolding Tom's commissioning a rope for the Well from the Castle's rope maker first he lays hemp Yarns along the Rope walk to form four strands each with 14 yards I can definitely see why this is called a rope walk all we seem to do is walk up and down [Music] for this 15 meter rope he's actually walked half a mile which is extraordinary the four strands are now complete next they must be twisted together first stage of the twisting will actually reduce the length of these strands by about 10 so that's about 1.5 meters so I'm estimating that's about there when the traveler hits this Mark Yvonne knows the Rope has been Twisted the optimum number of times pretty slowly the Traveler's moving in but with each turn that Yvonne does we get something that I see as being wrote foreign ER into a pulley by cutting a Groove in its rim [Music] get off there we go it's so smooth and so fast stop the Yarns have been Twisted to form strands then the strands are twisted in the opposite direction to form the finished rope to make the strands you twist the Yarns in one direction to make the Rope twist the strands against each other that way you create that tension and that torsion and it stops them unraveling [Music] let's see where cool [Music] I thread this through before you hold it up now Ruth and Peter can fit the pulley and rope to the well in the Castle's Courtyard you know traditionally this is where people gossip don't you around the well still is standing around the water cooler drop it down yeah [Music] long way down okay [Music] thank you on a medieval construction site the majority of the water is used to make mortar to fix the quarried sandstone in place okay the production of the daily batch is supervised by Caprice mango all right I'm winning 25 baskets of this sand 25 and 50 of this one mortar makers had a vital role to play in the building of a castle as the strength of the entire construction rested on their mixture formulas were closely guided secrets and passed down from Master to Apprentice due to the huge amounts of sand required to build this Castle they try and source as much as possible from the local area and luckily having the Quarry right there means you've got a huge amount of sand on tap lime is the key ingredient that adheres the stones to one another it's made by heating Limestone to 900 Degrees and then mixing it with water to create slaked lime good that looks very nice Pizza right now I think the experience is showing for the French guys so really putting me to shame it's uh it's enjoyable work though I actually do feel like I'm now a bit more connected to the castle foreign [Applause] every bit of building material you can suits you though it's just a natural magnetism you can tell that gray hair is actually lime water yeah oh dear he's actually just stressful working with you [Music] today's batch of mortar and Sandstone are destined for the great tower so far it's reached a height of 18 meters but when complete it will be 30 meters high the materials are hoisted to the top using a treadmill winch the Forerunner of the modern crane it takes two people to power it and can lift over half a ton so when these things are an absolute oh godsend aren't they they are the machine of the medieval building site bringing up all the stone for the for the walls what do you think about 500 kg awake we're pulling up yet we maneuver it so easily the two of us my strength you're ballast and look there it is this is the ultimate medieval technology lower the cargo onto the tower the boys simply walk in the other direction okay so walk slowly slowly yeah [Music] so this is our Stone the Sandstone from the Quarry and it will be graded into three lots isn't it that's Tiff isn't it that's yeah that's hard that's path that's the medium a little bit of puff in there somewhere another side push you got some of these the pith they're very very hard Sandstone that is used for facing for the structure for the external walls whereas the path and the puff that's used to infill the walls tied all together Philippe delage began his career as a builder over 40 years ago for the last 10 years he's worked at get along where he's perfected his skills as a stonemason you are going to lay the motor but don't crush yeah just like this but if you're a brick leg you do that because it's got a flat surface but the stone has to go in and the mortar has to go up into the stone so don't don't flatten it okay one of the biggest challenges is ensuring the walls are absolutely straight the Integrity of the entire Tower depends on him the solution is Simplicity itself a lead weight on the end of a string known as a Plumb line on the scaffolding here you'll notice there's about a two inch Gap so you can get your Plumb line down there and make sure the wall is absolutely straight because if it's not Tower starts going like that it'll start going like that most of these Medieval tools and techniques have been around for millennia and are still used on building sites today right there yeah just doing the rubble in fill to the wall so we've got the facing Stone the pith the Hearthstone and that is laid horizontally so the grain runs as it is in the ground which if you imagine a book if you lay a book horizontally you stand on it it'll support your weight whereas if you lay a book vertically if you stand on it it will collapse however the infill that actually gets laid vertically so the grain is going in the opposite direction and that's because they're all stacked against each other and they push against each other around the tower making this absolutely solid all the tricks of the trade where's that motor Peter already in the wall Tom already [Music] foreign [Music] I'm hoping that's a secret ingredient to transform what is frankly a muddy Hull into somewhere comfy to live medieval sources tell us Cottage Floors were strewn with rushes but just how they were laid is a bit of a mystery what I think might be the answer is to keep it in bundles and lay them in a sort of herringbone fashion across the whole floor look and the temperature difference between putting your hand there and putting your hand there is quite astonishing that is cold and wet and nasty that is warm and dry and comfy every few weeks Ruth will lay down new bundles of rushes Earth underneath will as these Crush down we'll gradually compost leaving you on top of new fresh reads well away from that all dry and clean and warm that's the theory nobody really knows quite how this works we'll see [Music] back at the castle slowly and surely the great tower is taking shape but before they can build up the walls any further a doorway into its third floor room must be installed I've got some Limestone that's been shaped by the Masons it's going to go to the great tower for the doorway into that top room um we're just using this crane as directed by Philippe using this simple lever system one man can lift four times his own weight [Music] there you go yeah it's okay it's then raised up the tower using the tread wheel crane I can see it coming up here it comes [Music] as you like it's a heart rate up yeah a bit of a sweater Audrey this was the thing that built castles and this was the thing that made men feel quite seasick whilst on dry land like myself before the stones are fitted a pinkle is set into the Stone from which the door will be hung it's held firmly in place using molten lead [Music] so what they've done is they've built this Reservoir out of clay and that way you can pull the lead in it's not going to drain off you don't waste a valuable resource the Masons have just one chance to get this right as the lead sets almost instantly once it hits the Cold Stone getting it wrong might mean the whole Stone having to be replaced well that looks brand new that looks fantastic it's amazing to think in a building of this size how little metal is actually used but where it is used it is essential now the stones can be set in place on a layer of mortar it's essential that they're perfectly aligned so the Forerunner of the spirit level the Mason's level is used Roman Britain medieval France or even a modern day building site these are tools and techniques that every Builder would have been familiar with these have been honed over centuries of use it is timeless it really is look good now yeah I mean even Square here says it's all it's all good it's ready to for the next Stone now the stone lintel that will Top the doorway can be fitted this is very very delicate well this is an extremely heavy Stone possibly the heaviest Stone we've moved so far and that is a serious bit of Kit and it struggles to lift this it's so heavy I think we're right on the weight limit maneuvering this heavy stone with the simple crane is tricky one slip and serious damage could be done to both the lintel and the surrounding stonework yes well done oh I felt quite vulnerable then I gotta be honest it's perfect stone masonry like so many medieval jobs was Heavy work so a well-fed Workforce was essential to prepare food in the cottage Ruth needs cooking vessels today pots and pans are metal but in the Middle Ages they were often clay Ruth is calling on the services of English Potter Jim newboldt when would people think about cooking with with Pottery I mean I think people are scared of it the idea of it now but it used to be the way of cooking I mean it is the oldest form of cooking utensil of any Source even your iron ones are called cooking pots there's the clue first Jim makes the basic cooking part on the Wheel he then fits handles so it can be lifted on and off the fire and what I'm doing is extruding the clay stretching out so it means that as you pull the handle it creates the grain so it's going to be stronger than if it was just squash together Clay is heavy and difficult to transport so Potters sourced it from as near to home as possible where'd you get your clothes from then from as close as the side of the road as you possibly can that's a pothole one way you could lose a wagon and team into it yeah it's fabulous you pull over well you've done clay for pots it's a pothole you pull over to let another wagon pass and glance past whoa you're gonna go next gym reshapes the base of the pod then for fun the cook pots on the fire big round bottoms right you want to no sharp Corners no no it means that the heat moves around the outside of the pot and then with a sharp bladed knife we start taking off the edge there as long as the pots are made evenly it'll work better so if there's a big thick lumps somewhere then you're going to have problems around that flaring it out the round bottom means it won't sit on a flat surface so the medieval pot often had legs there's the the cook pot [Music] the hovel is now fully equipped and ready to sustain the workers this is perhaps the most important thing in it this is our Larder our fridge our pantry our food supply a grain Ark lovely in that there it is this is the Mainstay of our diet this is our main food it's the the starch the bulk and it's also the source of any beer or whale we might drink and the lid is not attached because it goes that way up and it becomes my daughter off when I need to make bread it's really clever in that and then there are all sorts of Food Supplies hanging about and hanging is the operative word because I don't want anything on the floor where mice and rats can get it so hanging it either from the walls like the vegetables in Nets or from the underside of the roof keeps them safe away from all the crawling Vermin and the smoke as it percolates its way out keeps away flies you can think of this space not just as a living space But as a storage space [Music] after a day's work the boys have returned to put Ruth's experimental Rush floor to the test you've spent all day working on the castle you're tired just come back I mean this is insulating is cushioning it's it's quite hard as you think it's not as bad as you think is it I mean when they say they haven't got a bed and that's that's it you just get a blanket and this is what you sleep on it sounds a bit horrendous but it's not it's all right it is a tiny space though to live a complete life just one little space like this isn't it yeah as a whole family I'm much right well you say it's a tiny space to live your entire life I mean I'd rather be in a small space like this and get the heat in the United States and also how much time are you going to spend in here really like these days you think like you know sitting room with a TV and a big sofa because you're going to relax in there we're gonna be working most of the time and you've got all your jobs and tasks to do yeah so that's sort of like rest and relaxation isn't as important it's less time for it just speak for yourself cheers they don't clink do they that's about the only thing I've got against drinking bowls they don't clink [Music] it's morning and the team are getting ready for work knowing what ordinary medieval people wore is a challenge but fortunately a few items of clothing have survived most useful garments were survived because they were actively kept because they were the clothes of saints they have been preserved in churches right across Europe so this yellow dress that I'm wearing this is uh something that has been derived from two early to mid 13th century Saints Saint Elizabeth from Germany and Saint Claire from Assisi in Italy so it's loose but can you see look there is quite a lot of shaping to it you can see all these scenes it's made very particularly to make the cloth hang nicely no matter what position your body is in I'd have a belt however it's not to give you a waste but it's all about creating an attractive drape of cloth I tell you it's the most comfy thing I've ever worn it is faintly ridiculous I think that medieval underwear is as big as this I think obviously for tomo that's probably an appropriate size but both myself and Ruth could fit into these they feel a bit like a pair of 1950s football shorts although in the light vaguely see-through and then we just got the hose single leg hose at this stage but uh this is very similar to kind of I suppose stockings and suspenders however if they were sewn onto the pants pretty soon you'd have a pair of trousers you can kind of see with the evolution of clothes comes from Ruth's headwear is inspired by the medieval queen Elena of akitan and as she got she got older they did they that her chin was sagging a bit and she wasn't looking quite as lovely as she did so she invented a barbette which goes under the chin and onto the top of the head and pen is there and then with a barbette you always wear a fillet and this is Village it's just another band sewn into a circle and you wear that almost Crown like on top very 13th century look so that's it my French look [Music] today Tom and Peter have been summoned to the Mason's Lodge for the next stage of their apprenticeship carving limestone so far they've been working with roughly Hume Sandstone to build the castle walls but for more intricate features like arches windows and stairs Limestone was preferred as its fine grain meant it was quicker and easier to carve we need for a chapel Tower a lot of turn having 10 inches first the boys use their splitting skills to create rough Limestone blocks under the supervision of stone listeners abdelilla Abid the wedges in now you can try the big one okay very good the rough block is moved into the Mason's Lodge onto a platform known as a banker ready for the skilled job of shaping it how many ten yeah it's really good yeah you remember facing a stone was a basic skill that every stone Mason would have heard first the edges are cut using a pitch and the hammer angle about there yes yeah actually you have to do it in one time one time yeah like a follow through it's okay very good a stone Mason would have learned under the watchful eye of the Master Mason I don't want to hear this this is a bird is it still Mason it's rhythmical oh quick foreign but it is always the same you can do very rhythmical you only think the remedical music rhythmical and a few minutes after it's finished okay stone masons were paid per Stone carved so the quicker they worked the more money they would earn [Music] these Limestone blocks are for the chapel Tower this year the team are hoping to build the walls up by six meters to complete the chapel room itself in the 13th century religion was Central to daily life and nearly all castles had a chapel here we are well we're in this room yeah and we have to draw the niche in the East part of the room just in front of us yeah this drawing you have is is very much a kind of stylized view but now is the stonemason you must precisely Market out yes exactly we have now to transform imagination drain in youthful Journey the niche is where the altar will be before any building is done the walls must be marked out with absolute precision okay this this is a continuing a curve of this wall the altar Niche must be in the east of the Tower so floriana is marking out the East-West axis using an ingenious medieval tool I absolutely love this it's a horn we cut off the ends that's been tied to a piece of string which is why I'm around an axel and it is encased in ocher powder I mean the same ocher that we find in the Quarry when you pull the string up and snap it it hits the ground thus shedding the ocher and leaving an absolutely true straight line and these they've been around for millennia [Music] flip it over using just a rope dividers and the ocher line the Chapel's walls are marked out to reach this first floor Chapel a limestone spiral staircase is being built to design it Floyd and Tom have come to the tracing floor next to the stone Mason's Lodge the tracing floor was the nerve center of the medieval building site where the Master Mason Drew full-scale plans using a compass the circumference of the spiral staircase is drawn actual size this is a apprentice job who is The Apprentice never the master foreign working out the central part of our staircase and that will form the column that runs up connecting all the stairs and now we're going to drill uh 12 step for the medieval Mason geometry was the jewel in the crown of their art [Music] using just a compass angles and shapes could be accurately drawn to within a degree with perfect symmetry here Florian divides the circle into six equal segments which are then subdivided to create 12 steps [Music] now we have the step we can try the steps in the drawing first I mean this is a fantastic way to actually make sure before you start cutting Stone wasting materials in time that they work you can see there they're bigger than my foot length so that's workable now we need to finish one step because all the steps are the same Florian needs to make just one template this is a Precision job now you mess this up you're going to mess up your stone in the castle so the last thing to do is basically just cut the template [Music] thank you very much foreign plate now placed on top of our large piece of stone we're marking it out with a bit of slate magic there it is now it's ready just kidding just just cut it five ten minutes go off two or three days two or three days you can hear how good quality this stone is by the ringing sound when Claremont hits it and I think that's why to be honest I'm standing here and not actually being allowed to do anything ah I lie all right right an apprenticeship for a stonemason would have been about seven years but to be honest as claimon says it's actually a lifetime you're always learning and Peter and I haven't been here long you know there's so much to take in [Music] carving stone takes its toll on the tools and every day there must be sharper by blacksmith Martin clodel is it true uh get along if there's no blacksmiths here for two days work stops yes well stop because we have to fix a lot of stone masonry tools and if we don't do that they can't walk first the worn down chisel is heated to 1000 degrees to soften its tip to reach this temperature Bellows blow air through the fire I love these pillows one goes up the other one goes down so it's constant airflow isn't it [Music] [Applause] [Music] my turn drawers the Chisel to a point on the Anvil then sharpens it using a file [Music] but the Chisel tip would be blunt again in no time unless it's hardened hardening is one of the great discoveries of the ancient world achieved by heating the metal then quickly quenching it in water as it gets hot the metal changes color and this tells the blacksmith how hard it will be once quenched too soft and it won't cut too hard and it will shatter to carve Stone it must get yellow hot watches for the colors appearing on the surface of the metal blue the red most importantly the straw yellow at the very end now he's ready for the Masons [Music] there are a few Clues as to how ordinary people lived day to day in a medieval village but Ruth's pieced together fragments of knowledge to work out how people did the most mundane of everyday tasks like washing up haven't got a scaring pad but I have got sand for the pad look this tummy there's plenty of fresh grass I could use straw just as something to rub with now if I've got a deal with grease that's a different matter altogether sand will take the worst of it off but you know I mean no matter scrubbing with just some warm water is going to shift the grease out of something you need a little bit of chemical help and for that I turned to wood ash just straight out the funnel the wood ash combines with water to make caustic soda when it comes into contact with fat on the dishes it makes soap leaving the dishes spotlessly clean [Music] handful Ash flip it round with a bit of grass straw water and you get a clean pan easy peasy huh knowing what peasants ate in the 13th century is also a challenge but we do know what ingredients they had to earned Ruth has come to the Castle's Garden to see what there is to harvest I could really do with some tea I'll see there's patchy Garden but nonetheless a fair few things are starting to sprout through which is a relief so I've got parsley coming through here and a number of other things that you might think of as weeds and indeed they are weeds but are edible there's a lot of land Crest this little white flower on so that's quite bitter in flavor but you know anything to give a bit of bite plants that we now consider weeds would also have been used there's quite a lot of dandelions and nettles too which will help bulk it out wheat and barley were also essential ingredients flour was expensive so workers ground their own using a device that has been around for 10 000 years the corn this is a rotary corn like this is estimated to require about an hour to an hour and a half to work every day this is The Daily Grind you pop a handful of grain in the center barley in this case and off you go the posture you were the more refined your food was and ordinary people often may do with food that was really quite coarse and you can see that in people's teeth when we dug up archaeologically foreign with the tools sharpened Clemons put the finishing touches to the step now comes the delicate task of transporting it to the chapel so your steps arriving your step the step is winched up the castle wall using only Manpower ready buddy so break off [Music] [Music] once on top of the wall it's moved up the tower using an inclined plane one slip and the step could fall wasting three days worth rolling [Music] thank you [Music] these guys have been doing this for 15 years they know how to get things like this up here but it's amazing what they can move without the use of what what we call machines but essential use of rollers levers inclined planes pulleys and made out of wood en Stone working together Perfect Harmony got me and Tomo foreign each step must be absolutely level or else the staircase will Veer to one side a Mason's level and Plumb line are used to ensure it's perfectly positioned the first little bit and that just gets magnified as you go up carrying anything up here or God forbid fighting your way up here it'd be really difficult wouldn't it yeah Tomo's not stuck down there isn't it using the greens from the garden and the ground barley Ruth is cooking a medieval Cottage in The Clay Pot so a little bit of water in there I'm going to start with my leagues this tummy here Nettles are still quite tender I wouldn't say that you add Nettles for flavor particularly but they are quite good bulk now one of the few things that grows in profusion at this time of year right now grain is added to create a porridge like dish [Music] [Laughter] [Music] hello Ruth oh you're back how was it today it's going very very well it's amazing how the whole thing is it's all in two-dimensional layers but then you see yeah Third Dimension appears such as the the doorway that we've been working on put the lintel on there suddenly wow gives me a real feel too of just how much impact such places must have had on people you know if if everybody's living in this sort of little tiny one room half in the center a low building and then there's that funking great thing out there it's it's quite a shock to the system really isn't it I mean it makes a huge impact once this is a period when these great like military buildings religious buildings starting to rise up and really make an impact on the landscape the team are also getting used to the simple medieval food this is a Triumph This is an absolute Triumph for barley and vegetables it's not bad you're a hungry man you've been pounding all day at the stone walking on the Treadwell anything is good to eat it's not exactly easy either grinding the darn stuff I bet it's just as hard workers pounding away all day at the in the in the Quarry there's no easy jobs in the Medieval Age dominated the medieval landscape and Britain has some of the finest in the world today most are decaying relics many of their secrets buried in time now [Music] historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pinfeld and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle Builders this is the ultimate medieval technology the origin of our castles is distinctly French introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquest of 1066. [Music] 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 at the 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 eight you can really smell your food and the Art of combat this is the story of how to build a medieval castle [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 [Music] whenever evolving tactics and fortifications were driven by the legacy of bloody Crusades and vicious dynastic struggles foreign medieval dynasties sought to expand their influence and protect their gains they built imposing Stone castles not only to assert power but more fundamentally to withstand attack now the team learn about building the Castle's defensive structures they look at the ingenious features medieval castle Builders devised [Music] and explore the craft behind the weapons they had to resist ance for me really is the raison Detra of a castle it's not just you know 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 suppose 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 and what 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 don't need some Ruddy great big stores of food laughs and castles you know people sometimes eat Knights and princesses but it isn't it's mostly about the likes of us isn't it it's about everybody else and how do we survive yeah a castle like this at get along would have been built for a prosperous Lord who 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 from residential spaces entry is via a twin tower Gatehouse and at Each corner above the crenellated walls there will be four round Towers the highest of which will be the great tower a superb vantage point at nearly a hundred feet high in charge of the defensive structure of the castle is Master Mason Florio renucci he's traveled a world studying the ancient Secrets behind medieval stonework yetalon'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 attack [Music] to connect the front of the wall yeah front part to the ins the stone inside the wall right the Buddhist for instance you have one here this turn here it's very long it's here yeah yeah yeah yeah we have to have Wall really um strong this world I have to resist an enemy yeah and a better way to fight a castle Yeah is to throw Stone to the wall if we don't put Buddhists the front part of the wall will go down you can really see from this wall that you've got the external face the internal face and the bit in the middle the the infill exactly we are going to put when British can you help us yeah definitely very good we've seen strong Peter I don't need it that's the beauty of this yes try to be always in the middle of the stone right it's a heavy Stone to have a strong Castle booty stones are not just placed at random they're fixed into the wall at three feet intervals to give maximum strength in the middle right of the joint so it's just linking in but it's so clever because the pressure's now spread between two stones yes we have to think everything it's like a game yeah like medieval Tetris I'd get it on they're using a medieval formula to make mortar mixing water with Quarry sand and lime potty 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 breath the first time that we use this old way of making motor through experimentation they've discovered the clay impurities in the Quarry sand give this mortar great strength so the experimental archeology is actually giving you a really good building substance to build your Castle exactly torch is putting the mortar down here and he's making it rough so when the stone goes down that mortal press into 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 water it just wouldn't touch it or it's because he's making it all rough it'll squished together and just keep that stone absolutely solidly fixed into place so you can get Tom every stone has to be in line because this is going to go up and up and up potentially another four meters these stones are slightly off your build is slightly off and eventually it'll collapse now the stone will be solid solid [Music] the biggest threat to castles were 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 all mining under them but another more sophisticated means of attack developed [Music] from basic Stone throwers to Mango Nails 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 of England in the war of Scottish independence and he was trying to bring down Sterling Castle it was a vast beast called warwolf 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 hurl an object of 300 pounds weight with accuracy [Music] 30 miles from get with some Bristol 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 have a big difference counterweight is how's it going Tom it's good mate 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 is going to be stored as potential energy then when it's released this which is about 10 kilograms this ball is going to be swung out and flung into the distance they reckon it'll go about 100 meters looking good right he's just going to 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 the Rope whoa watch those handles well this is a well-trained crew they know what they're doing and this is uh it's very different isn't it from doing it in peace time as it would be in the heat of battle that's anything about the shouting the noise yeah these ropes can snap here we go to pull the projector into the sling and it's ready to go so standing back standing back so we're just moving back go to this occlusion Zone I imagine if it was In the Heat of battle you'd just be there yeah you'd feel quite lonely if you were the guy who's about to pull the Rope right we're going to count down zank God what do it thank you are you still look how much energy is still in there and you have to get the mathematics absolutely right the difference between the length of that arm the length of the rope and the things if you don't get that spot on it can fly backwards instead of flying forward if you deconstruct this it's essentially scaffolding it's a 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 castle that's the arms race is happening in our period isn't it the castles get more strong more developed more Technical and so the siege weapons become stronger more powerful more technical each driving each other further and further onwards it's not fast though is it [Laughter] despite being slow these Mighty war machines were greatly feared in the Middle Ages some fortified towns surrendered at the very side of them all right should we go and have a look [Music] projectiles ranged from carved stone or mortar balls 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 but I suppose when you think again against a stone wall it's going to keep going until it finds a weakness yeah yeah a hammer doesn't crack it's not a great explosion it's consistent drip drip drip until you crack [Music] as well as being an archaeologist Tom is a midshipman in the Royal naval Reserve with a special interest in military history foreign he's been looking into what kind of armor an ordinary Soldier might have worn in the 1200s 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 gambasol a padded linen tunic whose main protective element was sheep's wool Tom's visiting Ruth and the hovel she wants to make him a gamberson and the process starts with the sheep's wool Ruth when you ask me here for a fitting for my protective clothing I was in chainmail and armor that's not the case is it no no this is well it is but it's not this is cloth armor cloth armor yeah and that's good is it it is good yeah you're gonna be glad of this I reckon 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 compacted right down into something truly dense I mean it's almost this is modern body armor is the evolution from this you've still a balance between protection and maneuverability and trying to cover as much of the body as possible and this is the ancestor of Kevlar of the bulletproof vest foreign 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 archers a huge advantage [Music] very good get along Mason Constantine lamel a specially shaped a stone needed for building an arrow Loop in a corner Tower before they morted the stone in place they need to be sure it fits [Music] right so that's in position I thought that was going to go the other way around actually I thought uh no uh we have to alternate we have to to to have a long face here and after a short one and when you have a short one you have a long hair yeah and a shot and it's to to get something very strong when you cross the distance yeah okay the funnel-shaped design of the arrow Loop tapering to a mere three inch Gap gave attackers outside only a tiny slit to aim at while the Defenders could look out without being seen the arrow Loops sloped down so archers could see Invaders even at the foot of the Tower if it's were like this for instance we can't uh fight and shoot people so people step ladder so some people can be in front of the tower no problem for them please be safe I guess also 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 said that in the 13th century the round Tower was very useful to resist one stone or flow freeing on on the tower because when the sun are coming the the wrong form used to be stronger obviously spread the pressure don't you the stone hits there and it's curved and all these other Stones exactly take the impact exactly well Peter and I are pretty firing arrowser we just break our arrows on the inside so this will be interesting to see if you fire an arrow or a bolt back in I said that's the trick isn't it if you're attacking you won't be able to know at least scare people if not kill them on the inside 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 crossbow first seen in 4th Century BC China by the 1200s crossbows were increasingly used in 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 longbows 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 foreign 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 pierced him in the shoulder the resulting infection did for him as a weapon that 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 Britain it survived to this day among a few specialist Craftsmen like Boyer Chris jury this is what's going to be known as The Cross by prod which is basically the bow on a crossbow what kind of wood is this this is you wood now you would is probably the best wood for making a bow in any piece of view you get the the sapwood and the Heartwood the satwood is good in tension which means it can stretch and the Heartwood is good in compression which means it can Crush so the two grow naturally together in a single piece of wood to form a natural spring Chris uses a Spoke shave to take off the bark I would imagine the medieval period they would have done it in like a production process so it'll be done in Fairly large batches Predators would have started off maybe this sort of age of 13 14. after seven years then you was a journeyman who was it was nearly at the point where he was a master of the craft and you'd be a master bow maker and by that time you wouldn't even get your hands dirty with the making of the boat you just let your minions get on and do it for you basically so as I am your Apprentice is there any chance I can have a go with that yeah of course you can yes you want to be gentle but you've also got to put a bit of pressure on it it is yeah it's quite a delicate task because you don't want to be cutting into the South Wood at all you just want to remove the bark taking off lumps there don't look I don't know I'll slow down the next stage is to taper the prod with an ax yeah I can totally use an ax before you've definitely got a better technique than that with them with a Spoke if you don't mind me saying so more we do this the more likely it is I'm going to make mistakes it's really little ten toes [Music] that's it that's good that's good yeah a bit of aggression yeah a draw knife is used to further smooth and shape the crossbow actually it's still way too thick so you can take a lot of wood so it's like with everything it's just about 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 ax and like the spoke shape and the drawer knife are ideal because they followed the grain so what other tools look a bit crude they actually do the job rather well but you can understand how the apprentices did seven years because it's quite a it's quite a specialist kind of task really so yeah that's starting to take shape rather nicely you've done good work with your tapers and it should bend relatively evenly well I think I've done an exceptional work with my teeth it looks it looks pretty good [Music] Carpenter Sam Rooney has come all the way from New Zealand to work at getting on in his spare time he makes traditional bows [Music] today Sam and Ruth are experimenting with making a crossbow arrow known as a bolt or quarrel which was shorter heavier and more deadly than a regular Arrow you imagine an arrow whether it be for a crossbow or a longbow and you imagine a little stick yeah why are you starting with a great little piece of wood mainly for Mass producing arrows you can have several Links of a tree and then just split it into small squares yes I suppose if you think really mass production that makes sense doesn't it if you've got to make twenty thousand yeah for a castle the amount of time it would tell you to find twenty thousand sticks that were the right size and shapes people off to gather Twigs yeah whereas two or three trees would do your twenty thousand arrows yeah right that makes a lot of sense you're just squaring this off at the moment here yeah I'm just squaring it off using a uh a medieval bandsaw a thin piece of wood is then cut into individual strips which will be shaped to make each bolt shaft you know we practice their circles yeah like this one here all right so that one's pretty much yeah that says about as round as you're going to need isn't it so we're going to drill a small hole in the end of the bolt a 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 fletched it's recorded that in 1250 a chief English quarrel maker produced 25 000 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 I mean 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 or he's got lots of strings to his bow they're 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 that you actually get the bladder and dry it out a little bit of glue in here so it's just a bit of glue on the leather shove it in the slot yeah that's it there we go one Coral well thanks very much I shall um give it a go okay I think so [Music] by the end of the 12th century a new design of crossbow was introduced the addition of a metal Stirrup enabled the crossbowman 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 bow [Music] Peter has come to make this Stirrup with Martin Claudel who's been a blacksmith at getting along for four years [Music] and I 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 the 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 hit him when he hits the Anvil I stop okay we're good Anna foreign 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 um it's certainly starting to take shape we've got it we've got a we've got a kink and we've got a Bend and in these two ends he's done a fire world so he's he'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 essentially creating a fire World which is ultimately very very strong which will give it the strength it needs because if you think about putting your foot in it and on that crossbow in order to it you don't want your metal coming apart he's going to ramp up the heat so he goes white hot reason for the darkness in here is so he can see the colors there we go that's fantastic are you happy I'm happy yeah [Music] back at the hovel Ruth has enlisted some help to stitch Tom's gamberson together what are these you're making rugs or something right he told me they were making you a suitable we are very very very slowly that's the first layers of cloth all sewn together with the wool going on top and then I've started quilting this panel front piece and the back piece yeah yeah and then as soon as you start sewing you can see it's starting to compress it down I have a feel of the difference of that look how wobbly that is soft and wobbly yeah and then feel where it is when it's sewn oh wow and in fact I have to be honest don't fight anytime soon this is a day's work I mean I've done nothing all day today except this who's wearing Amazons they've been worn by um men at Arms fairly ordinary soldiers you know and being worn by the rich soldiers in combination with chainmail so they've been worn by quite a lot of people yeah I try to be happier if I was on the walls wearing gambeson to sort of stand there with my crossbows and I would be yeah I don't know in the 13th century gambison making was a skilled craft done mainly by men you keep your right at home 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've gone come up right over there don't want to go back down yeah you've got to come up in line okay okay it's not a natural is he at least I'm giving it a go at least you're giving it a go again all right this is like potluck like this time okay that's better that'll do that'll do it's good enough right and you need to pull really tight though don't break the thread marvelous and then straight back down again that's it and catch it with the other arm it's not envy one eye it is slow isn't it it is foreign the final stages of his work on the crossbow okay so here we have your bow all nicely shaped and expertly tapered and nice and smooth um 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're basically examining the curve of the bow right so the trick is you need to spot the weak bits before they develop into a problem and shave them away so even after all this time and all this work there's still actually Jeopardy about whether it'll actually there's a massive there's a massive amount of Jeopardy involved in doing it this is the real heart of the bow you need to train your eye to see the curve and to notice any flat spots in the Curve I was going to say because it looks pretty good to me so we're happy with that that would make a good shooting bone hahaha [Music] [Music] the Deep ditch and sloped walls at 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 [Music] 677 were needed to make this bridge all forged on site [Music] 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 a nail [Music] this believe it or not is a really female activity Story Goes that when they needed the nails to crucify Christ the blacksmith that they asked refused to be involved and his wife stepped off I'll make him 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 just like the piece of metal that we're working how many nails will it make maybe between 10 and 20 maybe it's not many work I mean I suppose that really explains why things like Furniture are made entirely 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 it's a precious thing I need it's a funny thing that 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 almost ready Ruth is going to try Smith and striking with Mata I can scarcely lift this Hamlet and do anything useful with it we'll see a scary moment I got a block of wood to stand on because I'm short oh come on oh terrible okay [Applause] [Laughter] foreign sorting out all my the metal is heated again and again nice and sharp on the end and gradually driven into a point before being squared up I guess clouded that's it and 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 a lot of work [Music] the stirrup is in a fairly straight line to make the finished weapon crossbow expert Robin Knight finds Peter's iron Stirrup and Tom's U prod and one of the interesting things for me about making this crossbow is you're relying on a lot of different skills making a stirrup yeah there was no such thing as a crossbow maker one man made the tiller the blacksmith made all of the Iron 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 he didn't know how each individual part was made because to him and the the trades were before the guilds were called Mysteries to him it was a mystery right it's just simple it just wasn't aware of how it was done group of individuals with very specific Knowledge and Skills exactly bringing together almost like a flat pack of a crossbow and then one man put it together what separates Crossroad from the longbow it's really in defense you don't actually need a huge amount of strength or you're trying to use it training for long bows took from about the age of seven crossbowman you can train him at me half a day but he's still got the capability of killing you with half a day's training as a long moment with 15 years training I mean this is a weapon that's actually banned by the church wasn't it a weapon on fit to be used on Christians only to be used on heathens and saracens nobody like crossbows unfortunately you get the oddballs like me that sort of quite like them [Music] okay now we come to the crunch we're going to span the bow moment of truth I'm at the moment of truth yeah it works get your foot in there [Music] okay is everybody holy mother [Music] that looks pretty good doesn't it it looks solid it's a proper piece of killing Machinery that's [Music] back at the castle the team are almost ready for basic Siege combat [Music] look at you too relaxing unless I'm in our way working this is it there's your Stirrup buddy I'll come in between you if that's all right looks pretty good are you surprised yes I'll be honest it wasn't me that did most of it this is our medieval killing machine that's quite a long trigger there it's long trigger oh wow that's our ammunition is it okay yeah it looks quite deadly that looks horrible doesn't it what do you think you've dipped that in some animal dung or something like that you've actually got a biological weapon there as well you're going to infect someone even if you don't kill them straight off you're gonna do damage it's not a nice weapon is there any such thing wow very true very true so Ruth how is uh Thomas gambison coming well he's not finished I can tell you that yeah where's the front panel I've got it sort of shaped and it's looking pretty mostly bound it's a it's a pretty rigid Beast have I got the right shape quite heavy oh come on follow me so how much more work is there today we want to do the back panel you're not getting sleeves I've given up on sleeves initially I was going to plan you the proper full gambison with these but I'm sorry I think it would be a bit like a straight jacket without sleeves but I found an ancient that's at the end of its life if you want to try a complete one on but put one on Peter oh I told you it was a bit smelly and ancient didn't I this is classic gin it's smelly oh that's nice it's like a straight jacket arm's out see look how much softer this one is than the other one this is much more flexible I quite like mine together so I like the cleanest of mine cleaners must do me up it is like in a straight jacket you saw at the top yeah should I hold it across yeah you could just imagine some chaps trying to get into all this little in a hurry can't you your team effort isn't it it's pretty good not just sustaining you feel strong yeah you've got a few little weak points those who could afford it would have covered their cumbersome with a chainmail shirt weighing over 25 pounds [Laughter] oh no this is like right hand to the right my hair's stuck in it oh I'm gonna have a bulge I'll get out there oh we've lost a sleeve on this side That's So Glamorous there we go there's a movement now let me see it's good it's a bit more restrictive under the arms it's actually not that restrictive just the white you know it's heavy but it's not that heavy I can still you see the chainmail on it actually looks like it gives you better protection than I thought originally against something like this it's quite dense isn't it that's fine that is actually that's actually fine I'll take a run up close you're gonna be pretty safe from a sword blow aren't you yeah now we get to see him taking that off yeah we're not going to help him then yeah sorry people this is going to be the amusing moment this is a wonderful period images of blokes trying to get out of their their male shirts go on here we go here we go for years I spent in the Asylum this is exactly what the pictures show this is exactly what they show unbelievable [Laughter] wow that's a weight off your shoulders [Music] the team are going to give the Gamba song 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 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've got down it's like you can rest thumbs on there oh I wish it looked less like a person there's no head oh it's horrible no there is it's very very small okay here we go okay three two one ah thank goodness without me load you up big boy nice meaning well I've gone to the side and low yeah yeah should we have a look yeah how are we looking how it has gone through it's gone through is it that much I really expected that to be you know up to yeah I thought it was going to be spaded into you yeah let's not forget the uh the quality of the games you know that layered approach has obviously worked [Music] while some sieges were won by overpowering the castle it was often something far more basic which finally forced The Defenders to surrender [Music] it was rarely to actual Siege engines and far more frequently to starvation indeed in 1215 at Rochester besieged inside the castle that people were holding out King John on the outside had amassed five trebuchets 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 get along's great tower contains its own food store and a well the Castle's ultimate stronghold if the worlds were breached it would be possible to fall back to the great tower next to the great tower is the kitchen where Ruth begins preparing a meal fit for fighting men [Music] meanwhile Peter and Tom are about to put the arrow Loops of the great tower to the test [Music] that's quite a narrow Target 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 out the Gap can't actually see much out of the I guess there's only one thing to do yeah go for it [Music] right bolts in Touching string that was fast in this environment that's in far more powerful on these a lot faster I guess from a defensive point of view then something like that shooting out the loop now it's a bit of a Fear Factor it's straight away isn't it satisfied with the defensive capacity of get along's Arrow loops on the inside Tom and Peter set 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 umasses I reckon you're definitely doing sex yeah let's give it a go okay so you're gonna load for me a load arrow in the groove [Music] stream it's loaded oh that was terrible that wasn't [Music] after many attempts a shot finally Finds Its Target a feat that would be somewhat harder to achieve In the Heat of battle hey I don't know that was lucky well still and that was a good height on there as well that would have gone in about head height inside yeah Ox actually 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 it's it's lucky if you do [Music] [Applause] Peter and Tom return to the building work in the castle kitchen Ruth is preparing food for medieval men at Arms [Music] slightly conjectural we have to sort of look at look at sources as we can to come up with what a 13th century Soldier would actually be eating so it largely comes down to pork was considered considered the food which was most compatible compatible [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 [Applause] 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 or pottage simply contains pork onions beans and some herbs 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 dish suitable 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 thought the bike 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 I've reached here and then once it's mostly roasted it's going to come off the split again cut up and then fried lightly so this is still running a little bit pink done to a turn as they say meaning to within one turn of this bit which is exactly what I want ready for this last Quick slash fry although we call it frying it's more like sort of braising I shall give it long about 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] [Applause] it's nearly time to down tools at the end of the day [Applause] but first there's a special delivery to the top of the tower [Laughter] I'm cute all right Crockery Crockery fried onions fried onions Thomas food beans my food oh pork nicely balanced diet then oh yeah so you know where do you fancy yourself on the social scale really I know where I am social scale oh and by the way dandelion petals they are associated with the planet Mars so you're going to be that Marshall by the time you're finished that's the point yeah so we're going to start with I'll start with a bit of positive arms yeah I know you're a man it's also working I'm gonna I'm gonna next bit of that Thrice cooked pork beautiful napkins and so forth but never mind this guy's got that rustic look to it yeah I'm good at rustic I don't really do Posh pretty food but if you're up on the walls in guard Duty reckon you actually want the kind of pottage almost stew type meal you can just you know you don't have to think about it you can just enjoy your food it's gonna warm you up of course I suppose you know if you're in a castle this is a great meal on day one of the siege but by day four you're starting to look at the stocks and hey how much have we got and as it drags on as much as anything food is a weapon of water yeah exactly castles dominated the medieval landscape and Britain has some of the finest in the world today most are decaying relics many of their secrets buried in time [Music] historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pinfeld and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle Builders this is the ultimate medieval technology the origin of our castles is distinctly French introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquest of 1066. [Music] 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 at the coal face because this is industry for the next six months roof Peter and Tom will experience the daily rigors of medieval construction and everyday life how workers dressed you can really smell your food and the Art of combat is the story of how to build a medieval castle [Music] it's May and the team have been immersed in the building Works alongside getalon's Masons I get they've learned how the castle was defended in times of War [Music] every stone has to be in line because this is now up and up and up now the team discovered a surprisingly Colorful World of 13th century Castle Interiors and much of the material they work with will come straight from the ground some of the stuff in here is ocher from paint to brighten the rooms it's hot look at the difference on my finger to Turning mud into floor tiles can you imagine living in a world with no electric lights and they'll be rediscovering an ancient art in a midnight firing at the kiln [Music] foreign [Music] the medieval castles we're used to seeing today are scarred by centuries of warfare and weather erosion [Music] most of their original roofs carpentry and interior finishes have long since disappeared but these drab walls are a far cry from how they looked in their heyday this is how many of us think of the interior of castles bare Stone echoey damp gritty underfoot but that's because we're used to ruins when they were in use behind you they're rather different you have to imagine tiled floors and plaster on the walls perhaps painted whitewashed and then hangings of fabric over the top filled with furniture and that too is covered in Fabrics cushions all sorts different Beast [Music] to strive for accuracy the get along project has adopted a specific historical time frame to work to the castle is being designed and built as it would have been in the fronts of the 1230s and 40s during the reign of King Louis IX [Music] the region of prize in burgundy was governed by Juan Jean de tusi a vassal to the king [Music] in turn the 2C was the overlord of several other lower ranking noblemen and it was one of these lesser Nobles who would have commissioned a castle like the one being built here at get along today it's not a grand royal castle bristling with military might and enormous wealth but of fortified residents of relatively modest taste and Design according to the rank and means of the imaginary Lord of getting on the team along with site administrator Sarah Preston are exploring some of the key rooms and quarters within the castle to find out how the Interiors are being dressed this is is Great Hall great is the word so this is very much the Hub of Castle life this is It's a dining hall it's a it's a banqueting feasting Hall I mean this room is a statement of power and Prestige isn't it absolutely which is why it's important to Bear In Mind Of Course once it's finished we won't have these bare stone walls the Great Hall was the political and business Hub of Castle life this was where the Lord held Court receiving his tenants and listening to their concerns and grievances with many of the social rituals of the day being held here it was important for the interior design to show off his wealth and status to invited guests [Music] over the next few years the Great Hall at get along and the great tower adjacent to it will be dressed in the style of a 13th century Lord and his lady so this is currently the Lord's chamber this is where the Lord would sleep with his wife and his children it's certainly a residential chamber you can see that from the fireplace on the wall behind us so it can be heated that's not true of all the rooms in the castle the stone walls are rough uneven and drafty but they would have been dressed and painted Peter and Tom are going to be painting and tiling some of the Castle's indoor spaces while Ruth makes paint [Music] but first Sarah takes her to the already decorated kitchen under the Great Hall but eventually it will have a render applied and then a lime washed into much whiter and brighter I can have a look oh I see what you mean I mean that's real darkness into light isn't it it makes such a difference people aren't used to necessarily seeing the inside of castle walls rendered and lime washed but it's made such a difference to the people actually work in the kitchen because it's like some sort of bounce off the electric light absolutely and I guess in terms of hygiene it would have made a difference oh yeah definitely really it sort of kills anything that might be there and stops bugs getting into all the cracks and things so you start with a really sterile surface repaint it if you know whenever you need to I mean obviously so far we haven't had the time to render the inside of all the rooms we've got other priorities at the moment but as soon as we finished kind of major building work then we can get on with a job of rendering the inside but I hope also the outside of the castle because often the outsides of castles were also rendered and lime washed because in terms of visibility it just meant that your Castle stood out in the landscape so that's something that we couldn't necessarily get away with in a genuine historic Monument but here on this experimental site that's something that we can show our visitors the Tower of London the White Tower was named because it was line washed on the outside [Music] [Applause] the tower nearest the Quarry known as the Quarry Tower would have been a guard room or shooting gallery even this would have been brightly decorated the boys have been tasked by Stone Mason fabrist mango with rendering the interior wall with lime mortar the medieval equivalent of plaster we're going to use two and a half buckets of sand and one lime and water to mix it in what we're looking for here is the right consistency keep on adding a little more moisture turn it in turn it in it'd be smart it's okay are you happy is that good enough it's good yeah cozy workspace a priest demonstrates how a medieval wall is rendered put some water we're not drenching it though [Music] if you don't put water right okay archaeological research has revealed that rendering wouldn't have been applied in several smooth layers but with a single rough coat using a technique similar to spreading butter up understand okay first yeah let me get it wrong yeah I'm gonna learn from your mistakes my friend um so let's do a turret like this how long do you think it would take two three days two three days that's ten days at least 10 days for me good luck as the lime mortar is relatively porous it will draw out any dampness in the wall and so help to preserve the masonry underneath it's interesting isn't it we're only putting on one coat that butter coat but this is an established practice isn't it you always think when you go to the ruined castles in the UK or around Europe these bare walls are what they were looking at however not the case it was a Prestige thing to get a layer render up decorate it yeah I mean castles or majority castles they are just ruins aren't they are coming to them very long after their lives foreign manufacture of tiles for Castle roofs and floor spaces was an industry in itself so far a get along 28 000 tiles have been created for the roof of the great hall building alone a job which took four years to achieve it's estimated that a total of 80 000 tiles will be needed to cover the roofs of the castle in its entirety but as The Four Towers around the curtain wall are still under construction tile production has now shifted from roof tiles to floor tiles and Tom is about to discover just how laborious the process is to make just one tile it's breaking up some of this clay I'm going to use it for our tiles obviously not in this state we actually need to get a lot of these impurities out and some of the stuff in here is ocher and ocher can actually turn into paint so I'm going to separate some of that out of now just stack up on this clay get it back to the twilery or the tile makers in the 11th century many hamlets and villages in France specialized in tile production to meet increasing demand from the local nobility and as the medieval tile trade grew so did the strict regulations it was governed by designed to standardize production let's see about clay isn't he not easy to work fill the muscles getting involved some in 1280 a decree from Toulouse stipulated that good tiles may only be made from well pug clay well trampled on the foot and not over dry it feels nice though is this good for the hands good for the skin very nice for the skin yeah some people are paying for this lucky us I've always wanted soft hands Tom and tile maker Emery are now removing any twigs and stones and making the clay homogeneous and malleable ah so this hard lump here this could be ocher yes the ocher pigments contain colorful iron oxides and are set aside to be used for making paint [Music] an integral feature of Castle design were the toilets they were known as Garda hope the French word for wardrobe clothes would often be kept inside them because it was believed the smell of ammonia from urine kept parasites at Bay guardahoga often built out of the castle walls to allow the waste to drop down through the hole to the ground or moat below [Music] get along keeps a wooden Grill over the holes to dissuade any modern day visitors from attempting to spend a penny [Music] how people use guardroups there is little bits of evidence in the earliest of the manners books which are aimed at Pages who are serving a night and they're hoping to become a squire become a knight so it's it's for little Lads you know their first job of the day before their lord is up is to prepare the privy and he's told to make it extremely clean he's got to sweep it out and make it clean he's also got to put cloths in there not quite sure how the cloths were used but they're to go in there and sweet smelling herbs yeah so that it's somewhere comfortable and pleasant to be so at least for those at the very top of society going to the toilet ought to have been quite a nice experience yeah I think I mean it wouldn't have smelled too bad I mean I know the poo is going down and yes if it's not getting moved there might be a bit of wafting up but those herbs would certainly have taken the edge off and there is of course the question of toilet paper there is I mean many people think leaves and Moss but let's face it deforestation very I mean honestly and then also you think well masks but you'd have to have most plantations wouldn't you to keep a big Community it gets very very dry in summer um there's nothing to do that people didn't use I mean you know as well as I do they're archaeologically all sorts of things turn up in cesspits so probably people used whatever was to hand but I do wonder if maybe the more normal system especially in a castle would have been to have your own cloth or rag or flannel towards yourself with or even a communal rag washed out in a bucket washed out in a bucket it's perfectly possible for these privileges certainly he's a coat of render coat of line wash probably a loose seat don't be like so you have to take some this fingers grease is dripping you have to take it on your finger like this and as for cake you put it inside just work that around and that's actually lubricate the side of the template is it yeah the tile will come out easily at the end foreign to start with hand because we can feel you can't fill all the corners it's very important to have good Corners in the tile if not the Masons are really not satisfied it works very hard for them we don't upset the Masons no don't do that so you can use this as well when you think the corners are okay you can just finish with foreign a bit there yeah a little bit if you like drink like this right I guess okay it's almost like twisting it off as you make contact that's what's happening with you with me it's kind of in between I think neutral new tool you use this one like this and try to get something very flat so we have to to see if it's okay on the other side when there is a problem it's always with the corners or with something with the corners right so we have to check the corners okay my Corners are good this is perfect oh yeah very good yes yes Masons will be happy okay you put it there and you do like this with the grispoke normally it's going but you have to sign with the name of this place and basically that's like quality control yes and we've done once we've got another 69 to do yes [Laughter] [Music] just beyond the castle walls Ruth is visiting gedalon's paint house to discover how the ocher found in the Quarry and in the clay is used to make pigments for paint I'm going to start by grinding down the Earth valerieto is a ceramicist by trade from a family of local Potters she's in charge of pigments paint making and decoration all right so these are the pieces that Tom was Finding in amongst the clay when he was doing the tiling okay paint funny stuff it's it's not the same as dye dye stains the fibers of what you're dying so so if you get a wood stain that is a die for wood because it's dyeing the wood fibers in the same way as cloth is a Dye that stains the fibers paint is different paint is bits of colored stuff that are glued onto a surface and so if they're very big lumps the amount of light coming off is quite small the color looks patchy and thin if you can make the particles very very tiny the light will refract off them in a great burst and you'll get a really strong intense color I mean I shouldn't think a 13th century person thought about light refraction but they did know that if you grind it thoroughly you get a much better paint it's not a bad color is it look good against the yellow I've got yellow still on there yellow ocher is the other key color found in the natural get along environment this really is the color of getting look at that when you're around here everything's this color absolutely everything that is the dust that we breathe in whenever you get anywhere near the castle it starts grinds underfoot it's the you know just look at the place this is the color of the ground so having sort of crushed it up a bit and dissolved it we're now sitting in we want small particles as the mixture settles the heavier ocher particles fall to the bottom and the remaining liquid is left out in the sun to dry the finer particles Left Behind are then ground down into a powder it's an enormous amount of work to grind this down to the fineness that you need but when you just see the range of colors that be produced just out of the earth of get along you can see why people would bother just look at it is out in the castle Courtyard Peter and Philippe delage known to his fellow Crafts People at Gandalf I'm mixing lime wash made with one part lime and one part water what is that in French limewash ER oh milk of lime how can you tell it's good consistency all right there's more oh it's really good that's good yeah I should be enough yeah I'll grab that bucket yes come on [Music] up the tower Peter heads towards the Lord and Ladies bed chamber in the great tower to brighten things up in the guard dog foreign and it just gives a beautiful beautiful texture I know it get along there was a massive debate as to whether you know they should leave the stones the walls bad because all this work had gone in by the Masons to to put the stone there and they say if you cover it up with more sort of with render and painted line wash the public won't see it but this is how the Castle's wearing Medieval Age of course as we come across castles they're ruins generally very little plaster work survives [Music] Ruth and Valerie experiment with a bit of 13th century chemistry so this is the local yellow ocher wait and we're cooking it so if you're trying to turn it red it's quite exciting isn't it that this just comes out of the ground all yellow and you can get this range of colors yes you're right I can see there where it's hot look at the difference on my fingers thank you yellow ocher is a hydrated iron oxide known as Limonite as it heated over the fire some of the lemonade turned into hematite turning the ocher into Rich darker Shades such as burnt sienna and burnt umber pigments like this are really ancient right across Europe if you think of those cave paintings right at the dawn of human history this is the sort of paint that they were using to make them and but if you think of Britain depicts I think those people are known or described in the ancient Roman texts as being covered in red paint the red men and the Irish talk about it too it seems to have been a really Celtic thing to do to paint yourself there's red and yellow ochres I'm old look at that [Music] yes just beyond the castle walls of getilo the Earth and Kiln used for the firing of tiles is lined with bricks Kilns were often owned by the local Lord who of course charged his tenants for using them in the 13th century regulations governing the work of local tilers in and around Toulouse specified not only the consistency and dimensions of the tiles themselves but also the size of the Kilns used and the number of tiles permitted to be fired in any one firing get along fires four thousand Tiles at a time Bruno faveau is the chief tile maker at getting on and he and his team have presided over 15 experimental firings during the past nine years [Music] each firing has enabled them to improve and finesse their techniques [Music] the way they're placing them in the kiln they're leaving gaps so that when they fire this the Flames can work their way up through every single tile and hopefully will win even temperature making each one hard each one a very similar color and and making sure there's no losses um and one of the problems with these tiles when you dry them out if there's any water in there and you fire it too quickly the Kiln that water will expand because it'll turn into a gas it will blow the tile apart you'll hear a pop and if these are stacked incorrectly if one tile goes several tiles could go they've been doing this for a number of years they know what they're doing it's a lot of this is trial and error experimental I killed you they they know what these Kilns look like from escalations have been done in the UK that have been done in France now they know how these Kilns actually worked because they've been working these Kilns all right foreign [Music] out in the peace and quiet of the forest Ruth is making an essential tool for applying her medieval paint so if I'm actually going to be able to be able to paint anything that looks like something I'm going to need a decent brush to do it with so I went and found some Badger hair well I'll be honest there was a there was some roadkill so I shaved it um I know it sounds a bit of a weird thing to do so I shaved it as close to the skin as I possibly could in order to keep the hairs all as they grow naturally in order so when I sort of grab a little tuft of it here if I sort of try and separate a bit out and what I want are these long straight hairs that are what helps a badger shed water the hair is designed to move water which is why it makes such great brushes I'm going to glue those hairs in place so they don't move during the next bit of the process the glue Ruth is using is gum arabic hardened sap from the acacia tree mixed with four parts water brush at the end and can you see how that's coming together now as a point that's exactly what I want it to do as a finished brush if you look at a modern paintbrush there's a sort of metal bit between the hairs and the stick the 13th century I'm not going to mess around trying to make a metal feral you just do something much much easier and cheaper you go and get yourself a feather because if you think about it if I cut that bit off and I cut that bit off I've got already made tube I can take a little bit of thread and bind my hairs whipping them into place tight as I can manage and I've got a nice firmly held little paintbrush head [Music] be able to poke through there we go you can see how firmly that's in there now see paintbrush head all I need now is Jam a stick in the other end done that looks like it'll work wouldn't it foreign [Music] the 13th of May in medieval France was regarded as the day of the Holy ice it was believed to be the last day of spring in which a hail storm would occur sent by God as a sign of his omnipotence before the arrival of Summer and as hail often turns quickly to Heavy Rain that could have disastrous consequences for the fate of this batch of tiles this firing has already been held up for several days owing to heavy storms and once again dark clouds are looming overhead the rain is coming and we've just got to get this finished because if these tiles get wet it'll be a serious problem not only can it affect their ability to fire essentially they may explode if if the water gets in there they've also take an awful lot more fuel to dry this Kiln out and then get it up to temperature medieval tile makers would probably have used mud Earth or wooden boards to weatherproof the tops of their Kilns but for reasons of practicality and efficiency get along relies on sheets of 21st century corrugated iron there isn't a moment to lose here it comes the holy ice the last time of the year you'll get hail and almost as if On Cue has feared the hail quickly turned into a downpour kilna remained covered for several days to allow the soil around it and the wood required for firing time to thoroughly dry out only once Bruno has assessed at the ground and climate conditions are Optimum will the firing finally take place good work Peter good work and at this rate it may have to be postponed for several more days yet [Applause] glad I've got a poncho Tomo [Music] [Music] while the tile firing is on hold progress is made on the chapel Tower the guard room within the lower floor is undergoing a colorful transformation Valerie and her colleague aureli payar are using the get along ocher to paint a design on the walls known as fictive masonry this was a popular style of artwork among the nobility and royalty throughout Europe in the mid 13th century [Music] it was a less expensive way to create the illusion of the walls having been constructed from expensive white limestone by line washing the cheaper Sandstone white and then over painting this with a colorful fake stonework pattern a look at Grandeur and of wealth was created yeah I think it goes from bear Stone to render to line wash to this and this is prestige isn't it 1240 the Queen of England has something very similar in her bed Chambers with addition of flowers but yeah it brightens the room doesn't it it's like visual is impressive and these fake joints made out of this ocher paint give the impression of Highly cut stone exactly it's like you're replicating what's beneath it but a very stylish way in a way that actually says to people coming here to visit this is what I'm worth I've got money I can make this happen the ocher pigments would be mixed with a glue binder made from egg or sometimes rabbit skin to make the pain I'm not sure if my lines are dark enough oh oh oh oh I think I top loaded my brush a little bit too much there yeah it hasn't run that's the danger isn't it too much pigment on your ear brush yes in there no this will go wrong it's going wrong it's looking awful it is well I've seen words well I know but you know you should put yourself down oh no oh every aspect of get along's design is planned by a scientific Committee of experts they work closely with the staff so that every feature is based on authentic primary sources of historical evidence and just a few miles away in the village of mutier is a key example of that evidence a church of Saint Peter Built around the year one thousand [Music] the Church of the Middle Ages was a huge and Wealthy landowner which exerted a powerful influence over people's lives and the Interiors of its buildings often set a benchmark for the tastes and trends of the era in the early 1980s the whitest Temple covering the interior wall started to crack and peel this is amazing uncovering a fascinating medieval secret everywhere a painstaking conservation over the next 10 years revealed these stunning ocher murals from the 13th century they've provided get along with an authentic and Illuminating resource from which to draw inspiration for the interior Decor of the castle this is the panel that we're particularly interested in in terms of the work we're doing again it's amazing you can you can pick out there you can see the freeze yeah at least five petal flowers you find these all over the place very pop art but it's pure 13th century of course the church would have been absolutely Central in people's lives everyone locally would have had to I've come to this church so the paintings on these walls aren't just decoration they are here to tell stories they can be read very much like a cartoon strip right it's almost the entertainment of the age the biblical story just laid out in scenes and I like the way that the artists have also taken the opportunity to retell the story uh in their way if there was any kind of friction between them and the church we've got Eve here sacheting away being very cheeky yeah given the wink to Adam just behind here I have a wink we can't see what happens behind the pillar and then afterwards they've got a Harvest on a child so I wonder what the reaction was because presumably the villagers would be in on the joke I don't even know [Music] Ruth is applying some of the techniques discovered at the church of Saint Peter to the bed chamber which would have been used to provide Hospitality to the Lord and Lady's most distinguished guests [Music] what's the most highly decorated room in the castle so far and Ruth is using the burnt red ocher paint to restore the rose motifs in the window seat obviously the domestic spaces within a castle are intended to impress they have to look gorgeous it's about the look of the place as much as anything else and naturally people painted their walls it's not a church this isn't about religious storytelling this was about showing your power it was about prestige that up there that little bit where it's painted to look as if it's masonry with the little roses in front often called stones and Roses is perhaps the most typical as far as we can tell of all interior decorating designs of the mid 13th century that is what the Queen of England had on her bedroom walls in the Tower of London stones and Roses the very height of fashion [Music] back at the church of Saint Peter Sarah explains how the paintings on these walls have informed the way in which gedalon's Interiors are decorated [Music] because we don't have evidence of the types of paintings that were inside castles we were always very careful to say to people we don't know if there was ever a bedroom painted in exactly the style that we've got at the castle but just a stone's throw from the castle at the same time we're painting these same patterns and crucially it's the same color palette this is just like walking out of the Quarry isn't it we've got the red ocher the yellow ochres the Browns I have to say I mean you look at the Masons when they come out of the Quarry and that kind of the dust and the ocher that's on them that is your color palette absolutely no it's everything's there so if we wanted to paint in this area with blues or greens we'd have to buy those pigments in from further afield and they would have been more costly and it's interesting to see that in a church the decision has obviously been taken not to have too much blue or green they've used the materials that were available locally artwork like this just doesn't really survive in castles Castle only runs but church is a such a an important historical reference now that was a that was a certainly a challenge for us and that we were aware that there are very few models of the types of paintings that they would have been inside classes at this time it was a very deliberate decision not to use the human figures because obviously these are depicting uh biblical stories so we we stuck very much with the the flowers the trees the geometric shapes but what we're wanting to do is offer people a vision of what a 13th century visitor might have seen and to get over the fact that the castles weren't bare Stone empty places they were decorated and they were full of color songs [Music] Christmas another area of the castle which is the result of intense research into 13th century architecture is the chapel Clement the chief Stone Carver at getting law is a highly experienced draftsman but he's about to undertake his most ambitious project to date right now Clement's doing the drawing for what will be the prestige feature of the chapel so much so they've actually imported a slightly less higher type of limestone that were easier to carve this really is precise work I am marveling at the skill he's got [Music] glamor is designing a decorative piece of Masonry based on a very common 13th century design found throughout France [Music] it's a niche for the chapel wall with a trefoil-shaped head which will sit upon pillars rising from two small basins called piscine at get along white dress limestone is used for the more decorative features of the castle although it's quicker to dress than the quarry's hard Sandstone it's easier to chip so great Precision is required and mistakes could prove costly [Music] thank you [Music] finally it's the morning of the long-awaited firing of the kiln Peters up early to help share the workload with Florian Dubois the Firebox in the lower chamber has been stacked with logs and twigs and at last the first piece of kindling is lit within seconds clouds of wood smoke are billowing out at the top of the firing chamber is going to take hundreds of armfuls of wood and many hours of careful monitoring to turn these Flames into the Roaring Blaze required to fire the tiles a long hot and exhausting day lies ahead [Music] the stone Carvers have completed the first part of the white Limestone mesh and they're ready to transport it to the chapel Tower [Music] the hoisting of the stone requires care and attention [Music] the Lord and all of those working for him would have set great store by this sacred work of art [Music] [Applause] well for us the significance is that this is the first real piece of religious architecture that we've got in the castle this is the the only Sacred Space within the castle so we're actually standing here in the area where the altar will be so this is the holiest place right of this this Sacred Space where you'd have Marley water and the oils yeah so that this is the most delicate sculpture that we've done here as you can see it's a handbase and you've seen it being being dressed earlier but you can see the two dips now we had some priest visitings we were wondering ourselves why there were these two kind of recesses and the priests that were visiting suggested that maybe one was for for washing priest's hands before the mass and that the other one was then washing the implements that had been used in the mass right what we've been told at least is that the idea is that all the water that is in uh this this pieceena this this hand Basin is holy water and as such it can't just be thrown away all the water will actually and we're not talking about huge amounts but the water will just kind of filter down into the wall and stay within the walls the the stone of the chapel itself is obviously porous it's going to absorb the holy water and essentially make this whole Space even more sacred that's the idea it's our mini little Temple here at gidlow so it's been an opportunity obviously for the stonemasons to to use different techniques and then there was a little bit of improvisation that gave that the stone masons an opportunity to to kind of have a bit of freedom of movement you can see each column is slightly different this is Macho's you can see his mark up here on the stone and on the other side we've got John balls right here [Music] thank you the Mason's marks undressed stones are a permanent reminder of the ancient skills and techniques of the medieval Masons [Laughter] each one presents us with a unique signature of the Craftsman who carved a particular piece [Music] [Laughter] [Music] at the kiln tension is rising the month's rain has taken its toll and the firing is not going to plan everything got wet the Kiln got wet the wood got wet so it's just taking that a little bit longer to dry everything out get rid of the moisture The Blaze is still several hundred degrees below what it needs to be Peter leads a frantic effort to try to save the four thousand tiles inside [Music] we know today the optimum temperature for successful firing is around 1000 degrees Centigrade 13th century Tyler's relied on their experience their senses and costly trial and error they would have been under intense pressure to get firings right the Kiln is just about getting up to temperature now it's ready to really feed up and it's pretty soon those tiles were getting close to firing but it does mean it's going to be a longer day I mean the Sun is setting in the sky we're going to go late Into the Night a Timeless trade depended on the local nobility's trust and the reliability of this product and the strict laws governing the standards of production were rigidly enforced tiles must be correctly stacked the temperature must not be too high or too low the heat must be distributed evenly throughout the kiln if not the results could be undefined over fired or otherwise damaged tiles and the medieval Lord would neither accept nor pay for a single substandard tile D firing had serious consequences for a Tyler's livelihood [Music] [Applause] as Darkness Falls Peter and the team finally succeed in getting the temperature up to 1000 degrees Centigrade [Music] and working since this morning without stopping and now we are a bit tired it was uh it was hard but now it's at a good temperature right and what sort of what sort of colors are you looking for it must stay orange all right if it's white it's too much if he wants the ties to be fired evenly we must stay at this temperature during two hours all right okay but are you happy yes yeah yes we are yes it's a dream yeah [Music] please yourself [Music] [Applause] [Music] can you imagine living in a world with no electric lights I mean tonight we have the Stars we have the Moon and we have the tile Kiln 4 000 tiles they're just about to block this up with wood and they're going to seal it in it's a lot of hard work at the cold face because this is industry could you imagine what it must have been like to to see a castle being built of stone surrounded by these Kilns that were firing Flames into that night sky that sat back here thinking about perhaps the hell down there and the heavens up there and your tiles currently in purgatory which way are they going to go have you been good will they be used in that castle who knows [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] it takes several days for the Kiln to cool down Peter's helping to unload the tiles and examine the results you can hear this yeah it's really like this sound is perfect for us that ringing sounds what you're looking for [Music] foreign why are you guys spitting on the tiles oh um to see to see if it's cooked because sometimes the sound is not enough right the sun can be a middle we don't know if it's well cooked so we can spit on it and if the saliva stay there it's cooked if it's going inside so tired it's it's not every single tile coming out of this Kiln your quality controlling them you're listening to us yes you're unsure you spit on it if it goes in yeah yeah we can't spit on everyone four thousand which one [Laughter] but uh what what happens if they if they overcook um oh we have an example so it was not for this firing it was for one before when overcooked it's going like that so we have this bourbon of gas inside and the bubble is big is going bigger and uh the side with ghosts with time this is good healthy handmade well I I saw how hard you guys worked and how long it takes to make these tiles I mean it's it's good I'm pleased I'm you know I'm happy for you you're happy to especially with this firing we're really happy we have very good results it's really nice to have it the fire tiles are now used to floor the fully rendered and lime washed Quarry Tower it will take thousands more tiles several more years of rendering lime washing and painting before the entire Castle finally looks like it might have done in the 13th century [Laughter] this is really starting to look like a Finnish Castle isn't it lasted and painted it's starting to get that feel of a living space I'll be honest I did not appreciate how much work and effort it would take to get this stage actually happening you know Clay for the tiles finding the paint but when you see it it's unbelievable and I really can't wait I know it's a long time in the future yet but for the furniture and the Furnishings for the textiles to finally arrive well emphasize is that it's actually a living space and not just a defensive building doesn't it and moments like this you're looking there so you know yes I could actually sit here and relax yeah it's not all about Warfare when it comes to castles this is an entertaining space next to the Great Hall you can bring your more select guests in here to wind them and dine them and perhaps a guest bed in here and everybody else sleeping around on mats you can get the feel for that sort of convivial way of life I have to say though the medieval period far more colorful than I thought it was [Music] foreign dominated the medieval landscape and Britain has some of the finest in the world today most are decaying relics many of their secrets buried in time now [Music] historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pinfeld and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle Builders this is the ultimate medieval technology the origin of our castles is distinctly French introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquest of 1066. [Music] you guys 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 at the coal face because this is industry for the next six months roof Peter and Tom will experience the daily rigors of medieval construction and everyday life how workers dressed and eight great smelling food and the Art of combat is the story of how to build a medieval castle [Music] four months into their Adventure the team have been immersed in the building work alongside getting On's Masons perfect I [Music] they've learned how a castle was defended in times of War [Music] every stone has to be in line because this is now up and up and up and discovered how lavishly decorated castles were on the inside this was about showing your power it was about prestige [Music] now the team delved deeper to discover the secrets of the skilled communities whose combined expertise made such Mighty castles it's just this mass of molten metal castles were not made from Stone alone without the Mastery of the medieval blacksmiths transforming metal [Music] The Carpenter's sophisticated grasp of geometry wow is all I can say [Music] the castle could never be built at all this is one of those moments when everything comes together extremely fast and what a dramatic way the first castles introduced to Britain by the Normans were mostly built not of stone but of wood making them quicker and cheaper to construct their favorite design was the modern Bailey following the conquest of 1066 they erected hundreds of strategic locations across England and Wales one of the first structures completed here at get along is an example of a classic wooden modern Bailey you know like I can never remember which one's the Mott and which one's the Bailey The Moth as you Mound on top of which you're probably gonna end up with a wooden Tower like this which in our case in gidon goes on to be the great tower your Bailey is the area enclosed by your Palisade fence as we can see here so this could be your Bailey so the Bailey becomes the courtyard parsley fence comes to curtains exactly that's the evolution of the castle right there isn't it [Music] While most early castles were made of Timber at Key sites the Normans invested in stone expanding on the Martin Bailey principle of high tower and defensive surrounding War but using materials that were far more imposing and durable [Music] William the Conqueror built stone castles to make a statement Norman rule was here to stay [Music] the fact so many of these castles are still standing after almost a thousand years is Testament to the Precision and skill of their builders it's this remarkable standard of craftsmanship they're seeking to recapture get along most of the walls are built with rubble Stones which are easy to produce in the Quarry every 10 feet the Masons build leveling courses rows of carefully dressed flat stones that strengthen the war and also allow the Masons to regulate the structure if it's too irregular if you're using just blocks that are shaped but not specific they'll actually end up with a weak wall by putting in the leveling courses you flatten everything out you start building again from a horizontal surface and so you'll do that again and again right up to the top and that just keeps the strength of the wall and allows you just to basically balance out and work from a flat surface Tom is helping to extract a particularly large Stone from the Quarry by the castle to use in a leveling course machior Rigo there's been a quarryman here for nine years at the moment we're just making a small hole and into that we're going to insert the wedge what we want to do is hit that perfectly and that should actually work its way along the natural crack in the Rock so it's not as simple as just smack smack smack there's your hole put in the wedge I'm sorry okay yeah foreign each different type of rock has its own extraction method and corriman's skills were handed down from father to son okay we've got our split now and we just need to separate these two bits of stone so it's over to the Crowbar get that in I'm going to lift it up we're going to apply some more wedges in the Middle Ages some Quarrymen also worked as stone masons Masons were well paid free men who enjoyed exceptional status among the workers of the age they traveled widely their skills constantly in demand for building great castles and churches [Music] on a construction site the stonemasons lodge is where they gathered to eat drink and discuss ideas and designs lodges became regarded as strongly symbolic buildings where the closely guarded secrets of the Mason's craft were shared and geometry was torn [Music] in an age where there was little scientific knowledge and a great deal of superstition it's easy to see why a Mason's Lodge acquired an almost mystical status [Music] Professor Ronald Hutton is a historian specializing in medieval and early modern folklore [Music] we're sitting in a Mason's Lodge and those words sort of conjure up certain images true I mean was there any such thing as Freemasonry in the 13th century certainly not Freemasonry as we know it comes along in the end of the 16th century actually in Scotland where this side to pull together the Mason's skill of understanding geometry and structure in order to try and understand the secrets the universe and that began the secret society of people dedicates to knowledge which grew into Freemasonry as we know it so it has absolutely nothing to do with this sort of medieval tradition of building well medieval masonry is the seed and modern free masonry is the full grown plant if you're a medieval Mason you are doing God's work you're building God's houses the churches and Cathedrals and as God as the grand architect of the universe using natural geometry so human Masons reproduce that they are sub-creators but are also in a highly mobile skills dangerous trade that's why a lodge like this is so important if you are a Freemason in the medieval sense in other words you're free to go where you like to have a place like this a temporary home from home where Masons can gather share information share Hot Tips and simply live play dice booze chill out after the day's work is done is absolutely essential Stone races were not the only skilled Craftsman on a castle building site [Music] castles required huge amounts of wood and this called The Carpenters [Music] roof structures doors walkways and drawbridges were all made from Timber [Music] wood was also key to the building process from scaffolding and lifting Machinery to basic buckets here at catalon the wooden scaffolding is a really visible part of the build it's also one of the most precarious and potentially dangerous indeed we know that in 1138 at Canterbury Cathedral William soles the master builder was up inspecting the high volts when he fell from the scaffolding and was paralyzed [Music] essential to secure scaffolding or pot logs the Timbers which stick out from the wall for the scaffold planks to rest on [Music] the Timbers are deeply embedded in the walls in potluck Halls into which the logs are inserted [Music] by planning potluck holes at regular intervals the Timbers can be continually raised in line with the stonework avoiding the need to build a scaffold up from the ground [Music] based on a problem is the Master Mason overseeing all construction on the site he's ultimately responsible for workers safety here at get along obviously we don't want anybody to die while we're building this guy 's Castle so there are certain compromises you're having to have some Modern health and safety issues with the scaffolding how close is the scaffolding you're using to being 13th century scaffolding and how much is because you need modern health and safety well the 21 century technique for us to work is only to put the iron right and also modern wood so when we look around us the 13th century scaffolding wouldn't have looked very different the wood would have been hand produced not machine produced and instead of the bolts what would it have been instead of the bolts roofs it would have just been tied yes so we have to do a lot of compromise of compromise for our safety and for a building in a good way but we don't change the way of building we use wood the completed Castle will have a chapel built into the East Tower where the Lord and his family could practice their religious devotions even Layman would have heard mass at least once a day so a chapel was considered essential [Applause] [Music] is head Carpenter here they must get the Scaffolding in place to enable the Masons to build the next level of the chapel Tower the Masons have made a potluck hole and the Carpenters have prepared the wood in advance complete with a mortise and Tenon joint something still favored by Carpenters today there we go [Music] so not only do you have a mortise and Tenon here that can be pegged you've also got a bird mouth joint so the pot log is actually sitting on this as well as in it to give it maximum security and then that pot log goes into the castle wall this side it's secured with Oak pegs more no it's okay okay and that is the scaffolding in a bill can commence [Music] as well as the stone masons being largely dependent on the Carpenters both were also reliant on another set of Craftsmen [Music] blacksmiths from hinges on doors to bars on windows or the chains that raised the drawbridge metal was crucial [Music] at the foot of the castle is a blacksmith's Forge Martin Claudel produces the tools and metalwork required at get along [Music] Peter and Tom are helping mix crushed clay with sand and water they're going to help build a furnace or bloomery to smelt iron for Tool making [Music] think about Blackman's shop you think about all the little bits of metal kicking around bits of broken nail bits of uh fragments of iron that come off where you're you're smacking it with the uh with a hammer and this furnace is a way of melting those all down and turning them back into metal that can be used big old bellows [Music] that's good [Music] once the furnace is complete they just need to put in the door held in with an ash paste so they can easily open it the giant double Bellows are attached to the furnace to pump air into it when lit raising the temperature from 800 to over 1 300 degrees sufficient to melt the Scrap Iron and Steel it's a lovely uh melodic sound of the Bellows it's a raspberry Russian breathing in and out we've made the Bloomer you made the furnace we're going to put in charcoal we're going to throw in the scrap iron bring it up to temperature melt this down and hopefully at the bottom we're going to get at the very least reusable iron but perhaps we'll get steel but that's all about your carbon content the Purity for fuel and the ability to do a good smelt [Music] steel is iron with a specific amount of carbon dissolved inside its structure when the temperature in the furnace Rises more and more carbon from the charcoal is absorbed by the iron but it's a difficult balancing process this was medieval technology long before a modern understanding of chemistry but hard steel was so useful for tools that even small amounts were precious and pretty soon we'll be ready to crack open that door and hopefully have a bloom of Steel from which we can make tools we've reached that moment the iron that's gone in the top has melted it's reached the bottom it's hopefully turned into a steel Bloom Claremont is just hacking out that sort of uh Ash and water paste that Tomo used to patch up that door oh doors off we can see the bloom it's right at the top of that chart of the bed just this mass of molten metal this is all those scrap bits of metal identifully I melt it down ah it's amazing to see this happen in a blacksmith shop I've never seen that before it just means that these guys are self-sufficient foreign to start the folding process for working it shape into tools next the metal is rapidly cooled or quenched in water to lock in its hardness Martin then tested with the steel file parts that feel softer than the file are iron harder bits are hopefully Steel I believe we got steel we just have to to walk it to see being able to produce hard steel enabled blacksmiths to make sharp cutting edges of tools like axis which is what Mata is going to forge later [Music] foreign the Lords of castles like this one were part of the driving force behind the clearance of Woodland to make way for crops and to provide Timber and firewood [Music] there are more forests in France today than there were in the 13th century the location of getting on Castle was determined in part by the surrounding Forest which provides large amounts of wood [Music] this is our tree oh it has got a good bend on it I'm glad you think I'm so Jean Michel Ray is the head Woodsman he gives the team a lesson in using medieval style wood axes to fill a tree just gotta take us for ages foreign trees were selected with specific uses in mind depending on their size and shape hello you're trying to make it look like a big pencil at the bottom Sarah Preston the site administrator is helping overcome the language barrier um do I don't look over this side then [Laughter] so Johnny shall saying we're getting to the final stages now what he can't tell us is where the tree will fall exactly so excited to fall back this one potentially so what you're going to do is keep working so you keep working keep working and at one point you will start to hear the tree cracking don't stop it's so easy now to go and get your lump of wood or get your bit of stone or the raw materials of Life are easy to acquire when you see how much work is involved in the simplest of things and not just that it's the tools to get those raw materials and you're looking at the complete tool set of The Woodsman yeah and it is it's something that's even forged in that blacksmiths area and it is going to last a lifetime and they would have cost a fortune really for an ordinary Working Man I mean the tools of your trade people pass them down in families because you have to they're too expensive to to acquire this is definitely a spectator sport I've decided it's very easy to critique someone's actually yes it is isn't it I can see a whole new game show coming up now can you hear the crack yet Tomo I can hear cracking I don't know if it's actually the tree or me [Music] it is always one of the things I like about this experience is seeing how much skill there is in the simplest of things and how much intelligence and cleverness there is are you calling Tomo simply trying to do it maybe it seems simple maybe that's more accurate foreign skill is to plan so the tree falls safely in the right place without breaking on impact [Music] [Laughter] [Music] once the trunk has been squared up it will be used by the Carpenters up on the chapel Tower [Music] muchever Castle owner's wealth came from exploiting his land and its tenants [Music] one way of doing this was to build water Mills providing a regular source of income [Music] these Mills would have made a huge difference to the lives of local villagers and laborers [Music] producing flour for their bread required up to two hours a day of hand grinding but one mil could produce as much grain as around 40 people grinding by hand according to the Doomsday Book in England as early as 1080 there were over five and a half thousand water Mills little is known about the Mills of this time however one of the most ambitious projects at get along this year is the construction of a 12th century style water mill the castle team and archaeologists have based its design on the remains of two ancient Mills discovered in Jura in the east of France in 2008. [Music] Sophie Winsor is one of a team of Carpenters who've painstakingly worked on the Watermill over a two-year period today is the moment of truth [Music] foreign to make some flour in the Watermill so we are going to open this loose the water is going to run and hopefully the wheel is going to turn and grind some grain so this this being able to do this you can actually see it working and relate it back to the the evidence you found in the archaeological record yeah yeah so this is why it's absolutely experimental archeology is that what that's why we tried several times and each time we have maybe to change some pieces and to do some modification so I think you can start by opening this loose yes and then we will need someone to watch if the wheel is all right with the paddles and everything stays so there is a emergency stop here with somebody you know ready to close it because if there is something in the mechanism it destroys everything in a minute and that's a lot of work really yeah quickly so we can say that emergency snooze yes please people making sure those paddles yeah and shaking if there is no big trouble in the gear okay here booms I'm stepping across bridging it better get down to our second station but there's a problem the mill wheel isn't turning nearly as quickly as it ought to be it means that we don't have enough pressure right so the grain isn't coming out no it's not going now it's all from wood so it's a lot of friction everywhere so resistance and we have to find Solutions you can hear the noise can't you the noise yeah and also it's true that those Tunes I have to get a bit used and then it would be a bit smoother everything it's too new as well it needs to be used a bit yeah and this is experimental archeology so everything that's going on here is all about trying to work out exactly how these works I mean it's easy to think of a Watermill in terms of water management and the water is coming down sluice and it is going into this wheel but the problem is it's not sufficient to drive this Mill there's too much friction currently in the in the mechanism so although the stones are going around they're only going around because we're helping them out so we just need to fine tune this a little bit more to get this working perfect but we're very close very close two years of painstaking research and building could be in vain if the problems can't be remedied but Peter and Tom are hopeful that some simple modifications and liberal application of lubricating pig fat will solve the teething problems and get the mill working properly [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] perhaps the most essential part of the blacksmith's role was keeping the workforce equipped the stonemason's tools become blunt after a few days were [Music] without a blacksmith to sharpen them all the stone cutting on site would come to a halt in less than a week foreign and steel were so costly tools needed to last as long as possible but today the blacksmiths are making a new side ax you work together as a team you hit fan song hits but you don't talk it's all quiet it's that just experience or you're listening to the sound yes it's experience we used to work together and we have a code when I let my hammer strike [Music] on the Anvil it means stopped that's it so in the all the noise working in the Forge it doesn't actually matter it's a visual sign as well that's it a piece of hard steel will be welded onto an iron ax head to make a hard Cutting Edge blade is starting to taper down I'm going to cut it any minute now right okay Tom has a go at cutting steel it's not as easy as I thought it would be I'm making some progress what the guys are doing it's just measuring out the steel against the iron ax heads it needs to be pretty precise until modern times few methods are accurately measuring temperature resisted so blacksmiths traditionally judged it by watching the changing colors of the metal once the iron is white hot the hard cutting steel can be welded onto it it's taken a lot of work to make this ax but when you think about it it's a crucial tool for building the castle making the water Mills to shaping anything that was required like scaffolding you can't do without an ax and these guys are working hard constantly just make sure those tools are available the entire site the climax of the process changing the qualities of metals was one of the medieval blacksmith's most carefully guarded Secrets [Music] Martin heats the ax to a critical temperature which changes the steel structure he then quenches it in vegetable oil which locks in this new hardness without distorting the blade as water might [Music] the side ax is finally sharpened on Stone [Music] medieval stone masons may have been revered but many held the blacksmith's craft as Supernatural blacksmiths were intensely magical because since pre-history that performed this extraordinary sorcery of conjuring metal from Rock and then fashioning into beautiful things medieval blacksmiths were regarded as great healers a pregnant woman afraid of Labor a sick child an adult with a lingering illness would be laid Upon A blacksmith's Anvil and the blacksmith would pretend to hammer them to hammer the illness out of them and people really believe that like royalty they had the power to heal by touch was that something that was considered to be dangerous magic or was it just part of life and nobody batted an eyelid it's pretty scary blacksmiths are often believed to make packs with the devil uh Ironically in which the blacksmith usually comes off better for example blacksmiths are believed to be the only people who can do jobs for the devil like shoeing his black horses without paying the price of their soul and they're even Tales of blacksmiths some of them saints who are capable of grabbing the devil's nose and their red hot pincers and tweaking it to get rid of him if he's annoying canonized some of these blacksmiths Dunstan in England is a classic case otherwise they simply got along with it blacksmiths were too useful and as long as they went to nass and didn't have an alternative kind of religion there's no problem here at gedalo Carpenters stone masons and archaeologists have spent weeks modifying the mill mechanisms and the water Channel Peter and Tom are going to attempt to grind their bag of grain we are going to start with the will Philip delaj has been closely involved in the mill project from the beginning we are going to to Canada and he's going to help them try it out you can hear that stone singing it's unbelievable how many pieces man-made each one of them actually involved in this wheel alone let alone the rest of the actual building yeah so it's a lot of wood it's a lot of wood all right good we got enough water uh Thomas maybe you can open the van uh the Seuss gate here yeah that's it you know you use dessert just leverage right and it goes after you put keep it wet this one underneath like this and now we'll just control the amount of water we let through yes so we are going to climb up shouts out loud when it's time for me to you're controlling our power man flower power fill the hopper crane ready to be made into flour yeah I suppose all we need is Tom Tom from that gate yep you're all ready Thomas ready here it comes mom's opening sluice Gates water's coming down about to hit the wheel it's about to hit the wheel the wheel [Music] [Applause] [Music] the mill has a Paddle Wheel eight feet in diameter [Music] this turns an axle turning the smaller pit wheel [Music] this turn the lantern wheel which turns the spindle this Powers the millstone over three feet in diameter the Bottom Stone the bedstone is fixed and the top one the runner step revolves to grind the grain [Music] the water is turning that wheel and our stones are going finally the mill is operating as intended recreating an extraordinary feated medieval engineering [Music] right now we really appreciate how precise everything has to be this isn't pinpoint accurate it's going to damage it so Peter how's it going have we got flour we're getting yeah it's brilliant it's superb I mean yeah wow wow is all I can say Target I can't believe for such a low head I mean that water is falling maybe a meter going under a wheel you're managing to turn a stone that is 200 kilograms and you're managing to grind grain into flour this is the beginning of Industry I suppose and to have this associated with a castle you can free up people from The Daily Grind to do other things it's amazing that's the power oh let's see what we got stabbing it oh fantastic are you happy I think it's a good start I mean it's just amazing how much work it actually takes to create one mill I mean hundreds and hundreds of bits of woods these massive bits of stone you've got to channel All That Power from the water now this is a big effort but if you're going to create bread you've got to feed families soldiers workforces it's all verses exactly it all comes back what does the castle need it needs to be fed yeah and this is what makes it happen [Music] and once it was up and running as well as producing food for the inhabitants of his castle the Lord could start making money from his Mill tenants on his line would have been obliged to use it and pay for the privilege [Music] thank you [Music] the next major project of the castle is to build a wooden walkway or gallery on the inside of the chapel Tower this would allow soldiers to get from the main building to the castle walls without disturbing the sanctity of the Lord's Chapel [Music] in the Middle Ages Carpenters use geometry to plan their wooden structures [Music] they drew on the floor because parchment was expensive and paper still very rare it was the Carpenters are planning a section of the gallery by marking out a full-scale plan a free piece of wood in deadlon Castle starts its life here on the tracing floor first of all the plans they are drawn on the floor to a one-to-one scale medieval units of measurement were not standardized varying from place to place perfectly isn't it interesting watching them work to have few numbers come into it it's mathematics but it's mathematics of proportions geometry it's you know two of this three of that half of it double it portrait third it it's not 0.652 in French the word for thumb pus is the same as the word for inch every site would have its own units of measurement that's a farm isn't it harm ful so let's do your hand span I like the fact the inch corresponds to the word for thumb I really like that I rather like the fact that feet in inches and yards is something that used to be right across Europe you know we tend to think that it's a very British thing these days it's just that we hung on to it when everybody else left it behind but it used to be that they were all these little inches all these little feet all over the place everywhere different but the the system measurement here at goodlawn is based on a medieval cast that's very close by and if we was turn up there at the start of the building the 13th century on a board it would say this is one inches on this site this is what the based on one person's body we don't know quite which person's body but based on somebody's body and if they were to pass away those would have been written down to be used until the end of the build to make a straight line on the tracing floor it needs to be quite tight they use string with red ocher powder they look quite High yep okay corresponding lines are made on each section of wood before matching them to the floor plan [Music] and then they are leveled out and then they're plumbed up so you're constantly jiggling and it's very very subtle little wedges going in to make sure everything's perfect foreign once everything is lined up they can cut the joints [Applause] they also chisel Carpenter's marks into the wood is there a code to identify the pieces of the frame making it easier to reassemble on the castle walls each team would have had their own code foreign they assembled a completed frame [Music] is the gallery I mean I can't believe from a few simple lines drawn on the tracing floor that we have this amazing structure ready to go into the castle and here at gedlon they almost think that carpentry it's it's almost a form of Genius there's so much thinking involved I mean this line running through all these beams it's precise so this can be unassembled by the Carpenters it can be put to one side it can be hoisted up reassembled outside the chapel Tower doesn't need to be the same Carpenter because you've got all the marks here it is a flat pack medieval gallery this is going to flip up this way my feet would be down here this is a handrail there'll be spindles here my head would be here and I'd be looking out onto the courtyard and this is how you build a castle it's thought about 30 people would live in a castle like this from the Lord and his family down to servants and guards they would have been fed from the castle kitchen and bread would have been the staple of all their diets made in the stone bread oven so it's sponging quite nice look at that Ruth and Tom are going to try making a basic bread with flour from the new Mill Ruth is using a rising agent which was popular in the Middle Ages famous it smells a little alcoholy yeah well sourdough is probably the most ancient method of raising bread because there's next to nothing involved you know you're just saving a bit from the previous day's batch when I made the last batch of bread I just broke a little bit of dough off and put it to one side and I popped it in some water with a fresh little bit of flour and this is the result so sourdough is literally sourdough yeah it is it's no trick there's no trick there's no trick at all so I've not added any yeast and I won't add and this is going to be an awesome carbohydrate for us a real staple diet it is I mean this is a real basic working man's bread I mean I'll be honest at the moment it doesn't look that appealing but I guess you've uh you've got work for me to do well do you want to give it a need go on any of this yeah add a little bit at a time and just start working it in so it is fingers in like you're mixing lime putty you know that's it I mean it's time to look a bit more how I imagine the bread would look at this stage right yeah I thought I was coming in for a break coming to the kitchen you said that's not my fault you admitted you'd never made bread and were these like family Affairs or you know proper big business how would a baker make his money so the majority of bread was made at home on a family scale right okay so you wouldn't go out and buy you'd actually have it in-house in the 13th century most of it is being homemade okay that's behaving much more like a lump Now isn't it I think you know work has evolved in this at every stage it's massive it is perfect isn't it it is a bit bigger so are you happy with that so just roll it into a nice loaf shape all right lovely yeah and then I want you to make a deep very fast cross that means that it's broken the surface tension it's easy for the loaf to rise and you also get more high quality crust for your crumb okay so two cuts that's the one burning wood heats the oven and is then raked out before the bread is placed inside that's pretty warm break out I can do that so what am I doing this Ruth it seems incredibly dangerous it is incred ibly dangerous you're right there you really don't need the fire anymore the fire has done its job it's heated the Stones it's brought them up to cooking temperature and now we need to get the oven clean ready for the bread to go in all right and we also want to put a little bit of steam in there so that it will help that final rise just scrape it all to the side so you've got access to the fire that is your 13th century oven health and safety that little move there that's your safety right next stop we've got a mop that's been soaking you need to just quickly mop Out the Oven you're not just cleaning you're also adding Steam that's it and you can see how that water doesn't just turn to steam it just sort of seems to almost explode into steam your next challenge is to get it on your pal right there we go there we go make sure it's sliding on the Pearl it is there you go sticking it in right bang in the middle is it done oh look at that guy yeah I'll give you a shout when it's done okay back back to work then [Music] while the bread bakes Tom tries out the sidax smart homemade to square up wood creating flat faces with a rounded trunk okay this is the weirdest ax I've ever used is that the balance is all off so we've got a cutting edge and a flat side and that actually helps to cut but also force on these fibers apart put the ax down like this you can actually see the pole is slightly tilted and that allows you to work along the wood nice and close but because you're holding it here there's no risk to your knuckles or your fingers as you work but what it comes down to and when I'm having trouble with is that fine tuning I know what I want to do I can see what's marked out for me but uh I'll be honest it's always happening that way [Music] okay the moments of Truth Ruth how's your life done it was quite a dark loaf was that the intention you mean burn you mean burnt okay so I don't make that a claim looks like we've got the oven a bit hot all right let's have a whisker out that is definitely burnt that's not like a sausage at a barbecue isn't it you could probably still eat it well that's on fire on the bottom oh it's cool it's definitely healthy that oven was too hot it shouldn't Scorch like that in that time oh well we'll scrape it off and hey my first loaf of bread I'm gonna eat it [Music] the wooden Gallery is ready to be installed beside the chapel Tower [Music] is going to take a post myself and Tomo are just here at the handrail so make sure it doesn't topple over that way they're going to remove the chops and the three posts are going to sink down the mortises and Tenon joints will come together and this Gallery we locked in place ready to take the final roof section that covers it in here we go trucks out [Music] and the galleries in place [Music] with the basic frame in place long beams are now needed for the roof section [Music] sorry mate push straight up yeah yeah okay after all that slow work where people seem to work for hours and hours and hours and produce very little this is one of those moments when everything comes together extremely fast and what a dramatic way but when you are ready to drop down yeah okay yeah [Music] with a bit of force the joints go into place and are pegged into position just need to pop a roof on it and there you are we've got a link between the the Great Hall and the curtain wall physical work but I think when we first saw that drawing of what this was going to look like yeah I didn't think we'd actually see this at the end of it it was brilliant [Music] a Watermill would also have a Mill Pond owned by the Lord which was a source of fish and Castle workers might well have been rewarded for their hard work with a fish supper that is a scary Beast it is isn't it Pike was a favorite dish at feasts throughout the Middle Ages so freshwater fish was actually quite highly priced yeah and Pike more so than things like salmon and trout yeah that is a medieval Fishing Off ham full of leaves a fat hen lovely medieval vegetable and you're not doing anything to this Pike no just show him on as he is so half an hour should be done [Music] [Applause] [Music] they smell good okay straight to table I say straight to table the pike is ready for presentation to Sophie Philippe and others it worked so hard building the mill and gallery here we go wow that's very impressive nice catch love to Circle that myself I want someone who noted I have brought something to this meal in honor of the Carpenters Cece [Laughter] see how soft that is it's got a good crumb do you want to break some up for the people over there oh fantastic thank you Ruth Philly worked the mill um what do you think of the bread coming out I mean solid there's Pike flesh is yeah this is why it's one of the king of fish and actually carve it into finger-sized pieces which is the point you're supposed to be able to pick it up with your fingers and yeah wow that that actually is really good um really nice and I always thought Pike was really bony and so therefore really hard to eat but it's not particularly is it it's a lot of meat and it's quite intimidating yeah you should have seen it was still fresh I think we should drink to the mill yeah cheers castles dominated the medieval landscape Britain has some of the finest in the world most today are decaying relics many of their secrets buried in time [Music] now historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Tom pinfeld and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle Builders this is the ultimate medieval technology the origins of our castles are French introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquests of 1066. [Music] here in the burgundy region of France is get along Castle the world's biggest archaeological experiment a five-year project build a castle from scratch using the same tools techniques and materials available in the 13th century it's a lot of hard work at the 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 eight you can really smell your food and the Art of combat is the story of how to build the medieval castle [Music] it's September after six months of working on the castle the team are nearing the end of their stay they're up adorned to start their day on the great tower [Music] I love the view from up here first thing in the morning I Know You Can See For Miles I was really amazed you know when you think about how far medieval people traveled you have this image in your head don't you of people sticking in this own village all their lives and then start looking at the evidence and people move on Mills across the whole continent Ordinary People Like Us which I just find quite exciting well when you think about it you've got the skill set and you've got the tools it's almost like a ticket to ride isn't it you can get out there because people need you talented Builders and crafts people are in constant demand for construction work a job that could see them travel the world I suppose once this project was finished workers like ourselves we would had to move on move to the next castle that might be the next town could have been the next country so there must have been 13th century ordinary working people who were better traveled and had a wider world view than many modern people foreign group of Craftsmen that traveled widely from Project to project were the Stone Cutters Elite members of the construction team usually free men their experience of different sites made them experts in both military and religious architecture in the 13th century a Mason like clemongera might even have been on Crusade Gathering influences from distant lands this is your wooden template yes you've got from the tracing floor at the entrance of the chapel there's going to be an ornate arch of alternating black and white stone Peter and clemel are working on the first piece but it's a complicated shape it's very special here it's round yeah it's Arch yeah all right yeah it's a right angle right I ate just this small part I need white on your ear the stone will form the base of the arch it must fit precisely into the existing walls but it will also determine the shape of the Curve if it's even slightly wrong the whole Arch will be misshapen once the shape has been marked out Clement uses a tool called a pitch to break off larger pieces of stone this is a bit of pith this is a bit of sandstone this is very very hard it's very very black and it's going to intersperse with the Limestone but because it's harder it has to be dressed in a slightly different way you remember we when it's black it's very good quality yeah it's uh the same Granite right very hard Stone the perf is black and hard because of its high iron content and takes four times as long to dress as limestone it was used alongside white stones to make a strong visual statement when you are here you come middle all right always always in the middle okay a hard-ended tool called a punch was used to finish the job this is different isn't this as you say it's so much harder so it's just a different technique different tools in the Sandstone noches noches restaurant Masons were paid according to how many stones they dressed so the final job is to add an identifying Mason's Mark to the stone and now you make your mark on the top perfect which old chisel yeah okay and just on the line on poke poke using these marks archaeologists have been able to trace the movement of particular Masons through the landscape so we have a t for Tom a pea Pizza by the 1200s Medieval Europe was a busy developing connected place as workers and Traders moved across the continent foreign s brought produce from across the world exotic luxuries like silks and spices the textile industry was at its peak in 13th century Europe and castles were a major consumer of fabrics one of the most important elements of the industry was the trade in dyes [Music] this is woad the stuff that produces a blue dye and it grows quite well in Britain that in France the climate means that it it has a much higher concentration of the active ingredients that produce the Blue by the 13th century it become quite an important cash crop in northern France where large quantities were grown and processed and sold right across northern Europe Karen gruno is an expert in traditional dyeing techniques so two or three times in a year we can cut it so you get several harvests out the same plants well that's useful isn't it it doesn't look very blue at the moment does it the world leaves don't last long in their fresh form so they were specially prepared before they could be sold any blue it still looks just like green leaves first we have to ground these cut leaves and then you have to make balls this will open up a little bit the leaves and the first blue will come out so for the moment because there's no color coming out of that at all how on Earth people discovered this I don't know when the world is ground up enzymes are released which start to convert chemicals in the leaves into the blue dye and this first stage in which we're pressing it into balls that's also about transport it's for the transport it is easier to transport these balls than the leaves and then as this dries the first chemical processes are happening yes you will see when it is dry this will be a little bit blue the color is changing already I mean that's it's got a Bluey tinge to it hasn't it I mean it's still obviously green but it's a slightly more Bluey green oh there's my first one today the forests get along provide a plentiful source of wood for building the castle but this wasn't always the case from the 11th century huge Forest clearances occurred across Europe as farms and towns expanded and new castles were built [Music] Tom is helping to fetch some wood to make a new door one of the great things about spending time at get on is actually getting to work with the horses when you think about the amount of wood needed to build a castle there is no better way than to get out here with a horse tie it up and off we go the forest at getting on spent 12 hectares but today as in the 13th century wood is a valuable commodity and must be treated with care right now taking this log out we're allowed to drag it because basically it's not been shaped yet it's not been worked so the ground it doesn't matter if it comes into contact with the bark medieval woodcutters would have been based out in the forest felling and processing the wood for the Carpenters the new door is needed for the castle and the first stage is to split a tree trunk into planks Sean Michelle show me these little natural splits in the wood and this is what we need to work off we need to follow these to get our planks using wedges means it's possible to split Timber of any size they're hammered into a small cut at the top of the trunk following the natural weaknesses in the wood I can actually start to hear the crackling of the woods as it's done to split one split into planks the outer ring of sapwood must be removed you see here this sap was up to the bark this is going to be infested with insects and also maintain the moisture a bit more we want to work with this this is solid this is hard it won't rot this has to go the planks in the door will be held together using a mortise and loose Tenon joint the mortise is the hole and is made using an auger so I've got to make sure I'm lined up in the middle of the mortise I've got to make sure I don't go forwards backwards to the sides Motors and Tenon joints date back thousands of years and were used in the construction of Stonehenge Garson told me to stop yet so I must be doing something right a line of holes are drilled on each side of the plank and then the center is chiseled out to complete the mortise Tenon should slide reasonably easily in like that I'm now going to bring this across the loose Tenon is threaded through each plank in the door so we'll put the other two planks there and the next stage will be to Peg it making doors required Advanced planning the planks won't be pegged in place until the wood is seasoned for a year when planks are fixed too early they shrink and gaps open up between them in the door this may seem like a complicated design and a lot of work but it's actually based on medieval examples and this door would have lasted hundreds of years [Music] it was very fashionable in medieval France after being adopted as the heraldic color of royalty as Europe's largest exporter French World was of huge economic importance once dry the world is ground into a powder complete its transformation into a dye a special ingredient is needed and now you have to put urine on and that'll be this part of yelling so far okay yes of course everything you ever need chemical wise in the past is supplied by urine as far as I can work out the ammonia in the urine enables chemical reactions to complete the production of the dye lime is also added which helps it form a sediment now we have to ground it again at the end the real blue Powder that's quite a complicated price it is very complicated and now we know because it is so expensive because the end and the end your powder you have just one two kilos of powders from a hectare of leaves the powdered dye is dissolved in an alkaline solution known as a vat there was no oxygen in the back which Alters the die making it look yellow so now in goes the first skein of silk into the vat and I'm trying to introduce it gently so I put not too much oxygen into that and it goes so how long will we have to wait this is the question the longer you you it stays the deeper or the blue bee oh look at that changing yeah so at the moment it's sort of looking the same color as the vat and as it comes out it will be blue it's green when the silk is taken out the dye molecules react with the oxygen in the air to slowly produce the final blue color it is beginning to change color yep it's darkening yeah it will be blue I'm sure [Music] glue that bit there using the world as well as other dyes Ruth will produce a huge range of colors [Music] medieval Builders would have used ideas from castles and Cathedrals across Europe [Music] Master Mason Florian renucci has brought Peter to the town of vesale to The Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene the Basilica was an extremely important Church in the late 12th century the place where Richard the lionheart set off on the Third Crusade fronier has drawn inspiration for the Chapel Arch from a particular architectural feature at Wesley all this architecture looks from a example coming from byzantina or Roman heart for instance they do yield the two kind of turn you've got a Romanesque arch with black stone White Stone Blackstone White Stone this is romanescence zanteen so it's coming from the sort of uh to from the East the technique of using colored Stone alternating with white stone originated in Byzantium [Music] it spread to both the Islamic world and to Western Europe where it inspired Masons who were rediscovering ancient techniques from the 5th Century yeah then 11th century or the country they don't use tone so they forget right so just just using wood yes so they have to to look to the antic tradition and so they see Rome a Greek architecture Armenian architecture so they think about it and they do how we can do something with turn like this well why not we try to do it byzantine-style black and white arches like these at Beverly can be seen in medieval buildings throughout Europe and now the Masons are ready to install theirs at get along we've got a former built out of wood unique for this doorway and we're going to build up continuing the black white black white the Limestone and the pith from the Quarry here to create a beautiful archway both sides of the arch are built in parallel to make sure the stones are absolutely level and the keystones will fit is something the stone Claremont and Peter dressed in the lodge is at the base of the arch so it's vital that it's positioned perfectly now it all makes sense this stone that we've seen clemorph work on we can see the bit that sticks out there that goes into the curtain wall that leads towards the Great Hall the curve here that is going to become the curve of the doorway that Gothic Arch social the stones have been measured precisely to allow room for the lime mortar but only the parts exposed to the air will set properly and certainly there are Roman buildings that have been taken apart and inside they have found that that water that lime water in 2000 years it's not gone off in 2000 years it's not set it is still as wet as this is today the last stones to go into the keystones the stones are marked with arrows to show their orientation but it's not always foolproof I I oh we're just spinning this Keystone around and there we have it our final Arch last minute adjustments are made to the stones using wooden wedges which will hold them in position while they're set thanks as much as this is as precise as it can be and it's almost down to millimeter Perfection when you're here when you're at the coal face you've just got to tickle it a little bit to get it to work it's like when you buy your flat pack Furniture there's always a few bits left over isn't there what do they do once the stones are in place the wooden former can be removed to reveal the arch [Music] while the door Tom made his seasoning he's come to work on another door that was prepared a year ago it must now be trimmed to size to fit inside the kitchen doorway [Music] [Applause] but I find really interesting actually if they've orientated the saw blade the right angles and saw so by turning the saw you can use this two-handed up and down technique to work across and cut cleanly and that's the secret two strap hinges will form an integral part of the door spanning the planks and helping to reinforce them blacksmith Martin Claudel is making them from strips of iron first they need to be hammered flat a task requiring a real team effort Hammer Hammer Hammer get it in Bellows Bellows Bellows right temperature out skin Hammer Hammer Hammer you really do need a team of people working with you don't you but it's so funny to walk together so you've got to be friends otherwise yeah but working together isn't always easy all right and we need to strike [Music] less stronger but more precise the end of the strap needs to be trimmed and curved round to form the part of the hinge that will hang on the wall and this curve must be firmly secured in place so now we are ready for the fall drill Forge welding involves joining two pieces of metal together using intense heat where the iron is nearly melted Martin is using sand as a flux which keeps the surfaces clean helping the metal to bond we're almost at that crucial temperature now between 1300 and 1400 degrees the heat coming off here is much more intense than it has been this is when Martin's going to hammer those two bits of metal together to seal off that hinge it's gonna have to work really quickly thank you [Music] at the opposite end of the scale of metalwork was the production of gold thread a highly skilled craft dominated mostly by women Ruth and her daughter Eve who works with historic textiles are attempting to make some using gold foil so there it is it's not as thin as the usual Gold Leaf gold foil would have been made by hammering gold coins between leather until around half a millimeter thick so we're gonna want little ribbons cut that are sort of you know no more than a millimeter [Music] pressure to [Music] well kind of straight oh do you wanna have a go at seeing if you can wrap it Ruth and Eva experimenting with their technique they're holding the silk core in place between two pins while they attempt to wind the ribbons around the core [Music] people talk about lost crafts all the time this is something that you could say really really is lost this doesn't appear to be working terribly well maybe we could turn it by Rolling it with our fingers oh oh I think I've got it I did it look at that look it looks like gold thread yeah it's got that sort of stiff fancy flexibility that's completely different from the silk gold thread was typically found in a special type of embroidery known as Opus anglicanum made almost exclusively in London renowned for its complicated stitching it appeared on the finest Fabrics from the vestments of Bishops and popes to elaborate wall hangings in great castles Ruth is attempting to make a small piece to mount on a cushion Eve is making silk braid on a box Loom to use as a trim [Music] so this is something that is supposed to have a seven year apprenticeship and you're doing it with how many years apprenticeship about five minutes brilliant yeah so I'm I don't know quite how it's going to get using the silk she died Ruth starts with split stitching a technique where each Stitch is punctured by the next is means that you get a very dense line but it also means that you can be very accurate in Where the Line some turns to the second technique an Underside couched Stitch was used to attach the gold thread so I'm gonna have a go with some of this gold so if I lay a little piece of our gold thread across there now the sewing is done with this thread this fine linen thread so what has to happen is it comes up and rounded now the point is that I have to get this thread back through exactly the same hole that it came up in but that's not where you stop then you grab hold of a linen thread from behind and you have to pull and what I'm trying to do is to pull it so hard that it pops a bit of the gold thread through the fabric I'm hauling the thread through during its Heyday in the mid 13th century Opus Anglican was traded for huge Summers only affordable to Nobles Kings and the richest clergy I know nowadays people think of this as you know sort of a ladies occupation as a bit of frippery on the side but there was a real industry in the 13th century run by women indeed the best English embroidery seems to have been done in professional secular workshops in London yeah you can have your own shop you could you can be in charge of yourself and of apprentices and star and it's the only profession that you can really do that and get the full recognition as being a master of your trade at the chapel Tower the next phase of the entrance hall has begun with the addition of the doorways this Chapel is really taking shape I mean this is the internal doorway pin tools here only the Lord is going to come into this space you then have this kind of lobby area with the external ornate doorway this black and white this Byzantine influenced structure up the spiral staircase ah and then you've got the arch there and this external daughter Chapel needs to be connected to that to the internal doorway of the chapel by Barrel vaulting to enclose all this space the barrel Vault will form a curved ceiling linking the two Chapel entrances and creating a corridor it will be built on top of a wooden former archers Mark out the shape of the Vault and the lathes provide a surface on which to place the stone Leia Mason Constantine lamel is in charge if you want to to have the demonstration just cover that and you have the name Russia like that you can see it just looked like bubble yeah you have the name there wasn't very creative for the name delays are laid Loosely in place and not nailed so they can be easily removed once the vault is built to fit tightly in place the stones need to have regular edges so the first job is to straighten them off yeah it's just that little lump there needs to come off oh now that's the problem I have actually hit that one too many times you can just see there's a crack forming there my lovely Square Edge is uh is compromised you can see it's all the way there I could probably break that off of my hands which I can [Music] the stones are tested on the former to ensure that there are no gaps which might cause weakness the thing I realized this Castle gets built twice firstly every stone is put in place see if it fits there then it's taken out mortar's added and goes back in by the end of it enough energy would have expended to have built two Parcels once their positions are finalized they're morted into place [Music] but the weather isn't on their side the rain will wash away the mortar so there's a drive to get it finished and covered up like a row of rotten teeth it's like a it's like a porcupine that's been run over it's not nice but when we remove those formers it should be beautiful stone finally the last stone is in place you can check that it's already good yeah if it wasn't the the farmer couldn't resist today that is Trust issue with the Advent of Gothic architecture increasingly ambitious structures could be built in castles on the tracing floor is planning what will be one of the most complicated projects at gedilon so far all looks so much more intricate than the other things I've seen so much more delicate what are you drawing up um to ground the Lagoon a big winter for the chapel oh well that would have happened Apple window is a Gothic Arch made up of 34 individually carved pieces and incorporating two smaller arches a popular design of the time that's very shape isn't it it's a one a sort of whenever you're thinking of Gothic arches that's pretty much what you have in mind it's a good period for this donation yes cutting tutorial it's perfect church because Gothic architecture had been around for quite a while by 1250 but it had been developed and was concentrated in ecclesiastical buildings churches Cathedrals monasteries for a castle this is quite fashionable and new to have a gothically pointed window you do really have to think in sort of three dimensions don't you I mean how it's going to look from every angle the front the back the sides the I dream the part of a part of a window I work all the day on the on the on the castle is it nice yeah now these windows you have just two stone is ready three stones and these Stones it's here just the two out of all of it it's a good way a good start the motor is still setting on the chapel Tower vault so Peter has come to help Tom install the kitchen door that car looks a bit too small for this door [Applause] blacksmith van San granola and Carpenter Stefan booty are both needed for what is a tricky job do you love the fact this at the moment a deadlawn where the crafts come together you've got the blacksmith and you've got the Carpenter and you've got the Jokers the door needs to be edged carefully into place and held in position before the hinges can be nailed up I think this is high castle has been built in small wooden wedges one of the main problems we've got is this is 100 kilos worth of door at least they've got to get it right and right now they're not sure whether to try and shave off some of that render or actually cut some of that wood to fit it in strap hinges are starting to fit into these chiseled grooves the hinges must be attached precisely a few centimeters out of place and the door won't open wow we have a door looks like an Iron Maiden from this side the nails need to be bent over to Anchor them in place so hold the sledgehammer against it ahead of the nail door and tie against the wall and then you're bending that over to create a staple um than you think you're on the wrong nail I'm holding this one this process is hammering the nail over how can I end it's really acted as a staple and pull these together I didn't realize you'd have a little claw digging back into the wood this isn't getting shifted for anything with valuable produce stored in the kitchen heavy doors would have helped keep the area secure perhaps the most expensive Commodities in a castle kitchen were the spices imported from the East the returning Crusaders of the 13th century had acquired a taste for spice and it became popular with wealthy Lords Ruth is making gingerbread because of its long journey to Europe Ginger was only available in dried form and must be ground into a powder this is the first and the most important spice that I'm going to be using and making some gingerbread every single grain of had to come the Overland route the old Silk route you mustn't think of a Chinese Merchant making his way all the way to Medieval France instead you must think of that Chinese Merchant selling his Wares to another Merchant who takes them to the next market and sells them to another Merchant by the time it gets here it may well have passed through 30 40 different hands with a small profit accrued at every stage of the journey spices were desired as much for their culinary properties as they were as a status symbol gingerbread also included nutmeg red peppercorns cloves and cinnamon the extreme expense of something like this and I do mean extreme expense meant that the only people who could afford it with a nobility and royalty you were after all eating something that was worth more than pure gold by quite a long way the ground spices are made into a paste with honey next bread is combined with some red wine it's best done with a hand the spice and honey paste is added and the mixture is set on a ball so I'm just going to take the pulp and spread it out thin look very appetizing at this stage does it so I'm going to tidy it up because once it is dry I want to cut it into perfect little lozenges it gets dished out rather parsimoniously a little lozenge now and again only for your very bad the barrel Vault has been setting overnight and now the formers need to be removed if the Masons have got it wrong the whole Vault could collapse there's no reason why this should fall in but you never know it is the ultimate appraisal of their work and that's the reason why I've got a hard hat on because this is Medieval technology but we are in the modern world the first stage is to lower the scaffolding uprights that are supporting the formers out as they hit that wood as they hit those wedges I can feel the vibrations in this Arch but don't show it is good potentially it's good now I'm very glad because uh I I don't tell you but here we go the world can push Yeah Anna and no I think yes but nothing has been pushed so good we are going to see now it seems with the scaffolding lowered the wooden lathes can come out followed by the formers as the formers in life come out the fresh water is dropping down from the barrel horse but it emphasizes the fact that the mortar isn't integral to the structure it's the stones themselves that create the arch that creates the strength in the vault ah you're now indoors Florian you've got a roof over your head hmm you're happy are you yes that's a wonderful word now all that's left to do is a bit of clearing up it's up if she's up what do you think I can see a hole always a Critic it made a nice like battenberg cake out of stove always thinking of your tummy don't listen to him I think it's lovely [Music] it's late summer and life at the castle is in full flow livestock would have been kept in the grounds from poultry to sheep and at get along they're enjoying the sunshine [Music] these are our Castle sheep they're from the Isle of Wesson off the coast of Brittany and they're essentially the closest thing you're going to find to Medieval sheep they're much smaller than modern breeds and when they were around the castle the medieval time it would have been essentially Wild Ruth has finished her embroidery cushion it's good for me I can see why I need another six years 11 months and three weeks apprenticeship mind to be any good really [Music] attempt [Music] and Peter is dealing with the effects of working on a medieval building site the problem with lime water is it just the lime is so caustic it's so corrosive and it just dries out the skin so I've taken to just applying a bit of pig fat with for me just keeps my hands soft and soft one of the major problems it does smell and there's more dogs than people on this site and I am currently the dog's best friend castle building was seasonal work lasting from the spring to the autumn at the end of a season unfinished walls would be sealed with a layer of mortar to protect them from rain and frost but for the decorative Chapel window this won't be possible so the team are working hard to finish the project before the winter weather arrives well a small the two stones now we got one two three four five six plus those two that were here before but we've got 34 in total to do so the Mason's Lodge you can hear it it's ringing with people working and when you look at them I mean the intricacy the complicated nature of this Stone carving it's no wonder it's taking so long in fact so much work is there to do they've opened a second Lodge Over The Far Side of the castle and anyone who can work stone at all is being dragooned into making the window intricate stonework was in high demand and Masons were employed based on their work in other buildings window design was particularly important and something the Lord of a castle would have direct influence over Ruth has come for a lesson in fine masonry with machia carnaville okay um a stone Mason's apprenticeship lasted seven years so for Ruth this is a very valuable stone to start on foreign [Music] too hard too soft yeah it's perfect it's okay it's a really strange mix to this between something that's very delicate and on the other hand really heavy the most detailed Stones addressed by the experienced Masons but simpler stones are supplied by the second Lodge Stone ready for the skilled work over there you are not normally a Mason are you no no you're usually one of the guys but absolutely everybody is being pressed into service to do a little bit extra this looks pretty good to me can I have a go okay you can like music so always at an angle so that I'm not going into the stone I'm going across the stone this is an awful lot more crude than I was doing in the other Lodge it's actually a heck of a lot easier you might think trying to chip big bits off is harder than chipping teeny weeny weeny weeny bits up but it's not these are so much lighter for a start [Music] the stones for the windowsill are ready to be put in place [Music] foreign I find this the most stressful because the amount of work that's gone into this and you get it wrong and you crack that stone that's it you know we're not that's it but that'll be forever in the the record of getting on your mistake the carving on the Limestone blocks is incredibly delicate flat braided ropes known as torch are used to protect the stones during Transit and even the wooden roll is a specially shaped and smoothed so they don't cause damage I mean I've been into probably hundreds of churches possibly thousands of Windows I have never appreciated just how much work goes into making them that's a real mixture of pre-planning execution but they're just making adjustments as they go and they're talking all the time communicating it's a real team effort we've learned a lot from this before their time at the castle comes to an end Ruth has gone to experience something which would have been commonplace yet extraordinary in the 13th century going on pilgrimage for many people who lived in the same Community their whole lives this was a chance to see the world and temporarily escape the monotony of daily life pilgrimage is a really big thing at this point in history isn't it everyone is going on pilgrimage who can hundreds and hundreds of people are surging up these paths absolutely meeting together exchanging ideas feeling part of a bigger world Ruth is on her way to the turn of vesely to visit the Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene one of the most important pilgrimage churches of the 13th century Chris Kelly who runs the visitor center will be her guide it sort of looks like a castle doesn't it or or a fortified City I suppose absolutely it is a fortified cities you can see the width of this gate which is more than four meters which is enormous so in fact you can understand it's not for defensive purposes it's for processions in fact it's the pilgrim entrance so wide because there were so many people and this goes direct up to the Basilica from the early 11th century the relics of Mary Magdalene were displayed at visily news of Miracles spread and the church soon became a center for pilgrims one of the four starting points on the road to Santiago de Compostela was a religious destination of huge importance [Music] today the pilgrimage of Le Pere de Familia is taking place ritual of walking across the landscape to Compass spiritual reflection is the same now as it would have been in the Middle Ages so when the pilgrim arrived here he would when he walked in through those doors naturally his eyes had drawn up to this semicircle of sculpted Stone and the first person he's going to see is Christ there so we've got Christ in the center yes and he seems to have ridiculous dick hands as far as I can see so the hand represents welcome he's welcoming everybody who comes into this place on the far right there are two people with very big ears yes some people say they look like wings in fact they're seen as a reference to Saint Benedict's rule open the ears of your heart and listen to the master inside that is to say be who you are to the fullness of Who You Are I think most of us when we think about medieval people and their and their experience of religion we tend to think that people were largely ignorant but this this is a very sophisticated way of thinking of course the monks their roles is to explain to each person when they arrive you could think of it like a visit to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and experts have to tell you what to think almost about it yes it's got an element of that tourism and yes you might call it spiritual tourism a once Humble Church the Basilica was expanded to make room for all the pilgrims Kings Nobles and abbots came along with thousands of ordinary Folk to venerate the relics and confess their sins pilgrimage can be understood as a physical Journey that helps you to have a spiritual journey by leaving behind everyday life you are putting yourself into the right frame of mind to help yourself grow inside foreign it's been an Endeavor of Epic Proportions but the intricate carved stones with a chapel window are now ready to be installed over 2 700 hours work have gone into shaping and refining the delicate pieces crafted out of 15 Tons of stone how long do these take to make them 15 days are you pleased with the results yeah that's perfect time it's not important as long as you get it right with stonework this delicate it's important to get it securely installed quickly so the surrounding walls can be built up to protect it this is a massive push to get this finished because the Chapel's got to be covered up before those that bad weather sits in otherwise all that work can be can be undone and this really is Medieval crunch time one of the most critical pieces is the mullion the central pillar which will support both of the internal arches in the window but there's a problem it's too tall this must be corrected before the stone can go in or the rest of the window won't fit together properly that Molly end for the window is a centimeter too long so lemon is gonna have to shave a perfect centimeter off the bottom of that mullion price we're going in prior to them finishing the window I mean there's already a time pressure and things like this it's just gonna you can't plan for that at all can you this is get along isn't it this is the whole purpose learning as you do [Music] clemon's last minute adjustment will be put to the test as the rest of the stones can now be painstakingly eased into position [Music] I'll be happy it's hard to tell and the formers are removed everyone who worked on the window has come to see it finally revealed [Music] [Applause] well I have to look everywhere because it's beautiful everywhere all the good forms are make By the Light so here it's uh White and here it's dark it's like a painting now a key question are you happy I think if I am [Music] with the window finished the team's time at get along is coming to an end the seasonal nature of Castle Building meant many of the workers were itinerant moving from place to place and seeking other employment in the winter months all that's left to do is to tidy the sight and clear the hovel but with 13th century accommodations of sparsely furnished there's not much to pack up Ruth just needs to clean the floor these Rush has been down for a couple of months now they are beginning to get quite trodden down and quite broken up underneath the surface which still looks reasonably clean I really was expecting to see insects moving around I was expecting to see mouse droppings [Music] and it's just not here so this is obviously the moment to clear it all out [Music] thank you [Music] very nice important thing I think I've learned on site is how to put technique before anything else you don't go in with pure strength or Force you learn the techniques allow you to work for long periods of time and work accurately you get your Technique right then everything else will follow I really liked seeing the way the geometry has come into play we all studied this at schools it seems so distant and pointless and yet here we can see exactly what it's all for and now when I look at all of the built world I can see the geometry I can see why those lessons actually were really important schedule is the largest experimental archeology project in the world the cast itself is merely a byproduct the experiment is creating the chantier medieval the medieval building site having seen just how much work goes into laying say a single Stone whenever I see a ruined Castle I won't be looking at the building itself I'll be looking at the hundreds of crafts people who are involved in that project the thousands of hours of Labor that went to make it and the community that surrounded it how do you build a castle well I know now hi Ruth naha look what we got there we have so why not some gingerbread over trees doesn't that look amazing it's incredible I mean this morning it was just pieces of stone in the Mason's Lodge and it just looked like a ruin and I brought them up here put them together and it just is beautiful I really have got a new respect yeah for for the Builders of the past to change my view entirely such a Fitting Place to end our journey because we started down there on the chapel floor we've marked out the center and in a season we've come up with we're 12 15 feet higher up at least although food of Kings Kings I'm gonna try this drink of man oh that's full of flavor well I think don't you yeah to the window and to get along the window and get on window and get along [Music] most of the time [Music]

Channel: Progress - Technology History Documentaries

Views: 138,265

Keywords: middle ages, medieval castle, dark ages, Guédelon Castle, archeology, archaeology, castle, trebuchet, 13th century, medieval, medieval history, history documentary, full documentary, BBC Documentary, science history, technology history, archeology history, Progress

Id: PnxARVtn6m0

Length: 290min 16sec (17416 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/GryphonGuitar]

Man, Ruth and company were the absolute business. Victorian Farm was probably my favorite overall but I watched everything this gang did back in the day. I miss Alex Langlands in this one.

[u/saddetective87]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4388710/