What Life Was Like In A 13th Century Castle | Secrets Of The Castle | Real Royalty with Foxy Games

castles dominated the medieval landscape and 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 pinfold 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] [Applause] [Music] here in the burgundy region of france is gedelon 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 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 work is dressed eight you can really smell your food and the art of combat this 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 at dawn to start their day on the great tower [Music] oh i love the view from up here first thing in the morning i know you can see for miles can't you uh 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 their own village all their lives and then you start looking at the evidence and people move miles and miles across the whole continent ordinary people like us which i just find quite exciting 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 craftspeople were 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 moved on move to the next castle that might be the next town could have been 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 [Music] one 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 clementerra 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 clement 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 oh right here it's a right angle right i ate just this small part i need right angle here [Music] 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 pif 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 slightly different way you remember we when it's black it's very good quality yeah it's uh the same granite right very heart stone the puff 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 uh 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 yes in sandstone no chisel no no chisel right 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 i'm just on the line on 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 p peter and r by the twelve 1200s medieval europe was a busy developing connected place as workers and traders moved across the continent a network of roads brought produce from across the world exotic luxuries like silks and spices [Music] 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 this is woad the stuff that produces a blue dye and it grows quite well in britain but 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 why are we cutting it rather than pulling it because we need just the leaves we don't need the roots and it will grow up again so two or three times in a year we can cut it so you get several harvests out of 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 i'm not seeing 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 this is 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 well there's my first one [Music] today the forests of gedelon 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 gideon 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 tired up and off we go the forest at guedelon 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 being worked so the ground it doesn't matter if it comes into contact with the bark medieval wood cutters would have been based out in the forest felling and processing the wood for the carpenters a new door is needed for the castle and the first stage is to split a tree trunk into planks jean-michel show me these 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 wood as it's done to split once split into planks the outer ring of sapwood must be removed you see here this sapwood 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 mortise and tenon joints date back thousands of years and were used in the construction of stonehenge he hasn't 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 this 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 blue was very fashionable in medieval france after being adopted as the heraldic color of royalty as europe's largest exporter french woad was of huge economic importance once dry the world is ground into a powder to complete its transformation into a die a special ingredient is needed and now you have to put urine on and that'll be this part that's 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 it's quite a complicated brush it is very complicated and now we know because it is so expensive because the end at the end your powder you have just one two kilos of powders from um a hectare of leaves the powdered dye is dissolved in an alkaline solution known as a vat there is no oxygen in the back which alters the dye 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 in it goes so how long will we have to wait this is the question the longer you you it stays the deeper will the blue be 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 that'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 yeah it's darkening yeah it will be blue i'm sure [Music] look how blue that bit there's gone by my finger [Music] using the wood as well as other dyes ruth will produce a huge range of [Music] colours [Music] medieval builders would have used ideas from castles and cathedrals across europe master mason florian ranucci has brought peter to the town of vezele to the basilica of saint mary magdalene [Music] the basilica was an extremely important church in the late 12th century the place where richard the lionheart set off on the third crusade florian has drawn inspiration for the chapel arch from a particular architectural feature at vaseline all this architecture looks from example coming from byzantine or roman art for instance they do use the two kind of stone you've got a romanesque arch with black stone white stone black stone white stone this is romanesque it's byzantine so it's coming from the sort of uh from the east the technique of using coloured 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 all the country they don't use stone for the forget right so just just using wood yes so they have to um to look to the antique tradition and so they see rome greek architecture armenian architecture so they think about it and they do oh we can do something with stone like this well why not we tried to do it byzantine style black and white arches like these at bezele can be seen in medieval buildings throughout europe and now the masons are ready to install theirs at getalong we've got a former built outwards unique for this doorway and we're going to build up continuing the black white black white the limestone and the piff 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 the stone clemont peter dressed in a 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 clermont 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 the stones have been measured precisely to allow room for the lime mortar but only the parts exposed to the air will set properly 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 in are the keystones the stones are marked with arrows to show their orientation but it's not always foolproof okay 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 stay as much as this is as precise as it can be and it's it's almost down to millimeter perfection when you're here when you're at the cold 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 urge 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 [Applause] what i found really interesting actually they've orientated the saw blade a right angle to the 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 again hammer hammer hammer you really do need a team of people working with you don't you but it's so funny to work together so you got to be friends otherwise but working together isn't always easy and we need to strike 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 forge weld forge welding involves joining two pieces of metal together using intense heat where the iron is nearly molten 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 gonna hammer those two bits of metal together to seal off that hinge it's gonna have to work really quickly [Music] [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] my it just just seems to be about getting the amount right amount of pressure doesn't it [Music] well it's kind of straight oh do you want to have a go at soon if you can wrap it ruth and eve are 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] this is sort of madness isn't it 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 bouncy 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 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 it means that you get a very dense line but it also means that you can be very accurate in where the line twists and turns to the second technique an underside couched stitch was used to attach the gold thread so i'm gonna have a go 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 round it 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 the 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 and hauling the thread through during its heyday in the mid 13th century opus and glacana was traded for huge sums 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 can you can be in charge of yourself and of apprentices and staff 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 pintle's 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 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 arches mark out the shape of the vault and the lathes provide a surface on which to place the stones layer mason constantine lamell is in charge if you want to to have the demonstration just cover that and you have the name right here like that you can see it just looks like a bubble yeah you have the name they they wasn't very creative for the name the lathes 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 yes sir 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 realize is this castle gets built twice firstly every stone is put in place to see if it fits there then it's taken out water'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 moulded 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 uh if it wasn't uh the the former couldn't resist today that is trust with the advent of gothic architecture increasingly ambitious structures could be built in castles on the tracing floor clemo is planning what will be one of the most complicated projects at gedelon so far this all looks so much more intricate than the other things i've seen so much more delicate what are you drawing up um it's a grand lagrange a big window for the chapel oh well that would have to be grand wouldn't it yes the chapel 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 a very very gothic shape isn't it when 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 13th century it's perfect church cathedral because gothic architecture had been around for quite a while by 12 50. 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 i dream the part of a part of a window do you really yes i i work all the day on the on the on the castle and dream about it at night yeah now this windows you have just two stones ready these stones and these stones it's here these two here just the two out of all of it oh it's a good way a good start the mortar 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 blacksmith van sant granal and carpenter stefan budi are both needed for what is a tricky job dude of the fact this is a moment a gedlong 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 on i think this entire castle has been killed some 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 i actually cut some of that wood to fit it in these 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 eye 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 in tight against the wall and then you're bending that over to create a staple yeah there's a lot more movement in this than you think you're on the wrong nail i'm holding this one this process of handwriting the nail over and tucking it in it's really acted as a staple and pulled 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 in making some gingerbread every single grain of spice that was used had to come the overland root the old silk road 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 were the 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 this is best done with a hand the spice and honey paste is added and the mixture is set on a board i'm just going to take the pulp and spread it out thin it doesn't look very appetizing at this stage does it so i'm going to tide 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 best guests 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 this will drop all the scaffolding down and then we can start taking the forms out as they hit that wood as they hit those wedges i can feel the vibrations in this arch potentially is good potentially it's good now i'm very glad because i don't tell you but here we go the wool can push yeah anna and no i think yes but nothing has been pushed so good we are going to see now actually standing in the most dangerous position with the scaffolding lowered the wooden lathes can come out the fresh water is dropping down from the barrel vault but it emphasizes the fact that the mortar isn't integral to the structure it's the stones themselves create the arch that creates the strength in the vault you're now indoors florian you've got a roof over your head you're happy are you yes that's a wonderful world now all that's left to do is a bit of clearing up it's still raining oh it's up it's he's up what do you think i can see a hole always a critic he made a nice like battenberg cake out of stove [Laughter] 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 getalon they're enjoying the sunshine [Music] these are our castle sheep they're from the isle of weston off the coast of brittany 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 in the medieval time they would have been essentially wild ruth has finished her embroidery cushion well 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 first 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 which 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 it's more than two stones now 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'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 the castle would have direct influence over ruth has come for a lesson in fine masonry with matthias carneville how long has this stone taken um three four four four days four days and she's now finished a stone mason's apprenticeship lasted seven years so for ruth this is a very valuable stone to start on so what's the technique it's nuddy hard work huh just just a little and i'm just sort of wearing down the surface too hard too soft yeah it's perfect it's okay it's a really strange mix that is between something that's very delicate and on the other hand really heavy the most detailed stones are dressed by the experienced masons but simpler stones are supplied by the second lodge so this is just getting the stone ready for the skilled work over there you are not normally a mason are you [Music] 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 weenie bits up but it's not these are so much lighter for a start the stones for the windowsill are ready to be put in place i think of everything that we've done here at gedlong 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 well not bad but that'll be forever in the the record of gedlon 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 rollers are specially shaped and smoothed so they don't cause damage i mean i've been into probably hundreds of churches i've looked at 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 they're just making adjustments as they go and they're talking all the time communicating it's a real team effort we learn a lot from this [Music] 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 [Music] 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 town of vezele 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 there's 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 vasily 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 vezile was a religious destination of huge importance [Music] today the pilgrimage of le pere de family is taking place this ritual of walking across the landscape to come for spiritual reflection is the same now as it would have been in the middle ages so when the pilgrim arrived here uh he would when he walked in through those doors naturally his eyes are 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 ridiculously big hands as well 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 uh 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 spirit to your journey by leaving behind everyday life you are putting yourself into the right frame of mind to help yourself grow inside it's been an endeavor of epic proportions but the intricate carved stones for the chapel window are now ready to be installed [Music] 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 yes 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 sets 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 mullion for the window is a centimeter too long so clementine is gonna have to shave a perfect centimeter off the bottom of that mullion prior to it going in prior to them finishing the window i mean there's already a time pressure and things like this is just gonna you can't plan for that at all can you this is gidlon isn't it this is the whole purpose learning as you do [Music] clemons last minute adjustment will be put to the test as the rest of the stones can now be painstakingly eased into position [Music] it's hard to tell and the formers are removed everyone who worked on the window has come to see it finally revealed well i have to look everywhere because it's beautiful everywhere all the gothic forms are made by the light so here it's uh white and here it's dark it's like a painting now the key question are you happy i think if he's not sure yes i am with the window finished the team's time at getalong 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 site and clear the hovel but with 13th century accommodation so 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 and it's just not here so this is obviously the moment to clear it all out [Music] probably the most 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 but you learn the techniques allow you to work for long periods of time and work accurately if you get your technique right then everything else will follow [Music] i really like 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 deadlock is the largest experimental archaeology project in the world but the castle 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 are we looking at the hundreds of crafts people that were involved in that project the thousands of hours of labour that went to make it and the community that surrounded it how do you build a castle well i know now hi ruth aha look what we got there we have some wine and some gingerbread bit of a treat doesn't that look amazing it does doesn't 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 they brought them up here put them together and it just is beautiful i really have got a new respect 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 with our food of kings i'm gonna try this drink of men oh that's full of flavor well i think don't you to the window and to get along the window and get on window and get along but we do get along you know most of the time

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 499,081

Rating: 4.8495903 out of 5

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, secrets of the castle, medieval france, medieval castle, living in medieval castle, french royals, rebuilding a medieval castle

Id: qMspm83hiWY

Length: 58min 29sec (3509 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021