How To Guard A Castle The 13th Century Way | Secrets Of The Castle | Real Royalty

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] now historian ruth goodman and archaeologists tom pinfold and peter ginn are turning the clock back to re-learn 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. [Applause] here in the burgundy region of france is getalong 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 ate you can really smell your food and the art of combat this is the story of how to build a medieval castle it's april and since their arrival a month ago the team have been learning ancient skills from the ghetto on masons perfect i guess [Music] they've also set up a base for themselves in the shadow of the castle building a cattle 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 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 learned 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 defence for me really is the raison d'etre 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're 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 you need some ruddy great big stores of food and castles you know people sometimes knights and princesses but it isn't it's mostly about the likes of us isn't it about everybody else how do we survive [Laughter] a castle like this at getalon 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 and 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 florian ranucci he's traveled the world studying the ancient secrets behind medieval stonework [Music] the adelon's walls are over 12 feet thick in places today the masons are placing a special long stone called a boutis into a section of castle wall designed specifically to reinforce it against attack the booties is to connect the front of the wall yeah front part to the ins uh the stone inside the wall right the booties for instance you have one here this turn here it's very long it's here yeah yeah yeah we have to have wall really um strong this wall 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 buttis the front part of the wall we'll 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 one british can you help us yeah definitely very good you're feeling strong peter i don't need yes try to be always in the middle of the stone 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 the booties goes 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 like medieval tetris at gedelon 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 been held together there's a bit of a risk at the start exactly and uh it's perhaps the first time in gedelon that we use this old way of making motion through experimentation they've discovered that clay impurities in the quarry sand give this mortar great strength so the experimental archaeology is actually giving you a really good building substance to build your castle exactly thompson's putting water down here and he's making it rough so when the stone goes down that mortar will press into the the cracks of the stone if it was smooth then you just have gaps so if there's a bump in the stone and smooth water it just wouldn't touch it whereas because he's making it all rough it will squish together and just keep that stone absolutely solidly fixed into place it's looking good tom every stone has to be in line because this is gonna 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 sorry [Music] the biggest threat to castles was sieges were far more common than pitch 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 [Music] but another more sophisticated means of attack developed from basic stone throwers to mangonels cuias 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 cannon [Music] the largest ever trebuchet it is thought was that commissioned by edward longshanks king of england in the war of scottish independence and he was trying to bring down 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 thirty miles from geraldo is sanbrisone castle which houses a collection of replica siege engines 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 the crew wear protective helmets in case the machine malfunctions how big do you think that 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 i reckon it'll go about 100 meters looking good right he's just going to lock this off there we go tension's 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 a very different isn't it from doing it in peacetime as it would be in the heat of battle that's anything like the shouting the noise yeah these ropes could snap that here we go the bull the projectile into the sling and it's ready to go i think you know we're standing back we're just moving back to the seclusion zone i imagine if it was in the heat of battle you'd just be there yeah 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 cut down are you still look how much energy is still in that and you have to get the mathematics absolutely right the difference between the length of that arm and the length of the rope and the things if you don't get that spot on it can fly backwards instead of flying forwards but 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 that's happening in our period isn't it the coastals get more strong more developed more technical and so the siege weapons become stronger more powerful more technical it's each driving each other further and further onwards it's not fast though is it [Laughter] [Music] 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 have a look 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 hole but i suppose when you think again against a stone wall it's going to keep going until it finds a weakness this is another yeah yeah a hammer doesn't crash it's not a great explosion it's the persistent 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 [Music] 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 [Music] a more basic form of protection commonly worn for combat was the gambeson a padded linen tunic whose main protective element was sheep's wool [Music] tom's visiting ruth in the hovel she wants to make him a gambeson and the process starts with the sheep's wool ruth when you asked me here for a fitting for my protective clothing i was in chainmail and armor that's not the case is it no 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 bodily armor is the evolution from this you've still that 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 here it goes [Music] one of the defining visual features of medieval castles is their arrow loops the ingenious design of these simple slits in the walls provided protection and gave castle archers a huge advantage very good getalon mason constantine lamel a specially shaped a stone needed for building an arrow loop in a corner tower before they mortar 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 yeah okay uh and when you have a short one you have a long hair yeah and a shot under it's to to get something uh very strong when you cross the the stones 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 well um like this for instance we can't hit people over there fight and shoot people for people so some people can be uh in front of the tower no problem for them completely 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 our floor flying on on the tower because when the stones are coming the round form um used to be stronger i guess you spread the pressure don't you the stone hits there and it's curved then all these other stones exactly the impact exactly well peter and i are pretty firing arrows that we just break our arrows on the inside so this would be interesting to see if you fire an arrow or a bolt back in that's it 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 was the 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 and it was the sort of weapon that anybody could use with no training and no skill at all richard the lionheart eventually met his end when a crossbow bolt fired by a boy in 1199 pierced him in the shoulder the resulting infection did for him [Music] 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 in britain it survives to this day among a few specialist craftsmen like bowya chris jury this is what's going to be known as the crossbro prod which is basically the bow on a crossbow what kind of wood is this this is you would 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 sapwood 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 in the medieval period they would have done it in like a production process so it would be done in in fairly large batches apprentices would have started off maybe the sort of age of 13 14 after seven years then he was a journeyman who was it was nearly at the point where he was a master of the craft then 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 always got to put a bit of pressure on it it's quite a delicate taste because you don't want to be cutting into the sapwood at all you just want to remove the bark taking off lumps there don't look i'll slow down the next stage is to taper the product with an axe yeah i can totally use an axe before you've definitely got a better technique than that than with the spokeshave you don't mind me saying so it's the more we do this the more likely it is i'm going to make a mistake you need all ten toes yeah every time on your own legs oh god that's it that's good that's good yeah a bit of aggression is that yeah a draw knife is used to further smooth and shape the crossbow that's it's still way too thick so you can take off a lot of wood suppose 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 axe and like the spokeshave and the draw knife are ideal because they follow the grain so while the 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 then it should bend relatively evenly well i think i've done an exceptional work with my two parts well it looks pretty good [Music] carpenter sam rooney has come all the way from new zealand to work at ghetto in his spare time he makes traditional bows 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 big piece of wood mainly for mass producing arrows you can have several lengths 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 20 000 yeah for a castle yeah the amount of time it would take you to find 20 000 sticks that were the right size and shape you have to send an army of people off to gather twigs yeah whereas two or three trees would do you 20 000 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 a medieval band saw the thin piece of wood is then cut into individual strips which will be shaped to make each bolt shaft and it'll be practical yeah like this one here all right so that one's pretty much fun yeah that's as about as round as you're gonna need isn't it so we're gonna 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 and a slit is cut so it can be fletched it's recorded that in 1250 a chief english quarrel maker produced 25 000 corals 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 bows are still really woven into our modern life let me think of the surnames bowier 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 [Music] they finish off their bolt by warming up a medieval glue made from an unusual source it's made from the bladder of a fish where you actually like 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 that's it there we go one quarrel well thanks very much i should um give it a go okay thanks sir [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 the stirrup with martin claudel who's been a blacksmith at get along for four years [Music] and they use a process called smith and striking the smith is the blacksmith he's the guy doing the thinking he's got the little hammer he's moving the metal around he taps it 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 and when he hits the anvil i stop okay we're good you're done all right peter and marta will hammer the iron flat and then bend it at four corners making a stirrup shape i 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 going to fire weld so he's he's basically splitting the metal so when they come together they interlock he'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 pulling 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 the reason for the darkness in here is so he can see the colours here we go that's fantastic are you happy i'm happy yeah back at the hover ruth has enlisted some help to stitch thomps gambeson together oh chaps what are these you're making rugs or something you told me they were making you a suit of armor we are very very very slowly that's the first four uh layers of cloth all sewn together with the wool going on top and then i've started quilting this panel so it's like a 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 with that look how wobbly that is soft and wobbly yeah and then feel where it is when it's sewn oh wow i think so fight in the winter because this looks quite warm i think it's quite warm 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 well who's wearing gabersons they're being 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'd certainly be happier if i was on the walls wearing a gambeson to sort of stand there with my crossbow than i would be yeah i don't know in the 13th century gambeson making was a skilled craft done mainly by men you keep your right arm underneath so you just keep poking and pointing and i find if you stretch the cloth with your left hand tightly 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 right at least this is like pot luck 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 you with the other arm do not envy one eye it is slow isn't it it is [Music] chris is nearing the final stages of his work on the crossbow okay so here we have your bow all nicely shaped and expertly tapered nice and smooth and now the next stage is to make sure it bends evenly the prod is ready to be put under tension using a tiller stick if the bow is not evenly shaped the prod may snap so now we'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 art of the bow you need to train your eye to see the curve and to notice any flat spots in the curve i was going to say because it looks pretty good to me so we're happy with that that'd make a good shooting bone [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 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 going to have a go at making a nail this believe it or not is a really female activity the story goes that when they needed the nails to crucify christ the blacksmith that they asked refused to be involved and his wife stepped up 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 but dress just like me this one little piece of metal that we're working how many nails will it make maybe between 10 and 20 maybe it's not many is it for this much 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 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 guild's 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 ham a little and do anything useful with it we'll see scary moment i've got a block of wood to stand on because i'm short oh sorry i'm not on strike am i oh terrible okay [Applause] as my hips are not quite central as i'm making dents down the edges that he's being very 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 the head is then shaped [Music] i guess clouted 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 the stirrup is in a fairly straight line to make the finished weapon crossbow expert robin knight binds peter's iron stirrup and tom's you prod i mean one of the interesting things for me about making this crossbow is you're relying on a lot of different skills blacksmith making a stirrup there was no such thing as a crossbowmaker one man made the tiller the blacksmith made all of the ironwork 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 that the trades were before the guilds were called mysteries to him it was a mystery right it's just simple he 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 one put it together what separates the crossroads from the longbow it's really in defense you don't actually need a huge amount of strength or skill trying to use it training for training for long bows took from about the age of seven crossbowmen you can train him up me half a day but he's still got the capability of killing you with half a day's training as a longman with 15 years training i mean this is a weapon that was actually banned by the church wasn't it a weapon unfit 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 okay now we come to the crunch we're going to span the bow moment of truth at the moment of truth stir it works get your foot in there [Music] okay is everybody a holy mother that looks pretty good doesn't it it looks solid it's a proper piece of killing machinery that [Music] back at the castle the team are almost ready for basic siege combat look at you two relaxing i've been away working this is it there's your stirrup hey i'll come in between you that's all right ah that looks pretty good are you surprised yes fair enough 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 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 gonna infect and even if you don't kill them straight off yeah you're gonna do damage it's not a nice weapon is there any such thing well very true very true so ruth how is uh thomas gambeson coming from well it'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 so how much more work is there today i'm going 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 gambeson with the sleeves but i'm sorry i think it would be a bit like a straight jacket had sleeves but i found an ancient gangperson 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 hey smelly oh my god it might actually be alive it's like a straight jacket arms out see look how much softer this one is than than the other one this is much more flexible i quite like my interiors i like the cleanness of mine cleanness it is like it's a straight jacket you start at the top dear shall i hold it across yeah you could just imagine some chaps trying to get into a little in a hurry can't you you'll be a team effort isn't it actually yeah yes this is it sees you this is 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 gambeson with a chainmail shirt weighing over 25 pounds [Laughter] there's only one way of doing this oh no this is like right hand to the right my hair's stuck in it oh i'm going to have a bald spot i'll get up here oh we've lost a sleeve on this side it's so glamorous there we go there's your movement now you see it's it's good it's a bit more restrictive it's under the arms it's actually not that restrictive it's just the weight you know it is it's heavy but it's not that heavy i can still do this sir you see the chain mail on it actually looks like it would give you better protection than i thought originally again something like this is quite dense isn't it that's fine that is that's that's actually fine i'll take a run up close cause you're gonna be pretty safe from a sword blow aren't you in there yeah now we get to see him taking that off yeah yeah we're not gonna help him then yeah ah sorry peter this is gonna be the amusing some moment period images of blokes trying to get out of their their male shirts go on here we go here we go the years i spent in the asylum this is exactly what the pictures show this is exactly what they show unbelievable [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] wow that's a weight off your shoulders [Music] [Music] the team are going to give the gambeson a stern a test using their new crossbow [Music] i can't tell you how glad i'm not really in the 13th century facing an invading army i just can't imagine how horrible that would be bolts shot from a high-powered crossbow could be as deadly as bullets and shell fire okay i'm ducked down so you can rest hide 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 [Laughter] loads you up big boy well i've gone to the side and low yeah yeah should we have a look yeah how are we looking oh 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 but let's not forget the uh the quality of the gamson 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] in truth when castles fell it was rarely to actual siege engines and far more frequently to starvation indeed in 1215 a 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 defending your food was a vital aspect of strategic castle design with this in mind gedilon's great tower contains its own food store and a well it's the castle's ultimate stronghold if the walls were breached it would be possible to fall back to the great tower [Music] next to the great tower is the kitchen where ruth begins preparing a meal fit for fighting [Music] [Applause] men 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're just trying to get the balls out the gap can't actually see much out there i guess there's only one thing to do yeah go for it are you aiming for anything out there the same into the gap my friend aiming for the gap right bolts in touching string that was fast in this environment that seemed far more powerful on these a lot faster i guess from a defensive point of view then something like that shooting out the loop you know it's a bit of a fear factor straight away isn't it satisfied with the defensive capacity of getalongs 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 i reckon you're definitely doing six do you give it a go yeah let's give it a go okay so you're gonna load for me arrow in the groove [Music] it's on the string it's [Music] i loaded that was terrible it wasn't many attempts a shot finally finds its target yes a feat that would be somewhat harder to achieve in the heat of battle 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 architecturally these arrow 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 lucky if you do while peter and tom return to the building work in the castle kitchen ruth is preparing food for medieval men at arms it is slightly conjectural we have to sort of look at as many sources as we can to come up with what a 13th century soldier would actually be eating so it largely comes down to pork port was considered to be the food which was most compatible with the human body [Music] medieval thinking was that the body of someone of high social standing digested and responded to food differently to that of a common man [Music] so their food needed to be cooked differently [Music] for the common surgery 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 so that should just quietly cook for the next couple of hours so almost the same ingredients the 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 13th century medical and ideas thought of the stomach as a cauldron that had to cook through the food they thought that by 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 spit 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 the spit which is exactly what i want ready for this last quick flash fry although we call it frying it's more like sort of braising i shall give it long at two minutes and it'll be done and that with the beans and a sprinkle of dandelion leaves should make him one of the most fearsome warriors in christendom [Music] it's nearly time to down tools at the end of the day but first there's a special delivery to the top of the tower oh you can really smell your food what do you got for us smoke oh wow well roast on to you oh pasta all right crockery crockery fried onions fried onions thomas food beans high 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 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 finish that's the point yeah so we're going to start with i'll start with a bit of potatoes yeah i know you're a man i'll eat this i'll start working i'm gonna i'm gonna next bit of that thrice cooked pork you'll keep your belly if it was on silver platters and they were beautiful napkins and so forth but never mind it'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 yeah 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 by day four you're starting to look at the stocks and hey how much have we got and then as it drags on as much as anything food is a weapon of war exactly next time interior design 13th century style which means mud paint and a fiery furnace can you imagine living in a world with no electric lights

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 117,816

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history

Id: J6imTYbB5eA

Length: 58min 3sec (3483 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021