Why do medieval buildings overhang their lower floors?

[Music] this ratings I'm Chad and if you have ever seen a medieval-style architecture whether this was in a documentary a movie TV show whatever right you probably will have noticed something very peculiar and distinct about them and that is on any floor above the first floor so generally second floor and either and it can go you know continually up that the floor above the low ones are extended out a little bit further than the line of the wall beneath and so the walls on the highest stories up are extended out and then sometimes it goes up again and they're extended out again I'm sure you've seen this before it is very much a distinct characteristic and style of medieval architecture well if you've seen it have you ever wondered why why on earth the buildings were the buildings built like this well I'm here to help you with that question because in this video I'm gonna tell you why and also guess what it has a name that's right this style on medieval architecture are really on any building but is more prominent on medieval architecture is called getiing now the thing about jellying is that that is more applied to timber architecture but there is a very comparable design style on stone architecture now I have not been out of confirm whether it's called jellying when it's done on stone but it's done on medieval castles as well and this has come up in a lot of my castle videos because the reason for it being done on castles is somewhat different sometimes the same as the reasons why it's done on timber buildings so let's get into the reasons why first I'll cover the timber cottages and stuff and then we'll get to stone for chateaus castles and things like that the first kind of obvious reason as to why Jed eing was done on you know medieval buildings and stuff was that it offers more room on the higher up stories now this is important when the footprint of the building was restricted in terms of space if it was really close to other buildings it was in a built-up area but we're in terms of buildings there is always space out in front of them because the door needs room to open up and to usually they open onto a street and so therefore if you have restricted space down soon as you build one floor up you can extend the second floor a bit over onto the street and this was done very often in medieval cities interesting to sidenote about medieval cities before transportation became widely accessible to large amounts of people the main way in which they got around was walking now when you have an area where there's a lot of people crammed together this can make you know create issues in regards to making just livable for the people because everything need that they would need to live on needs to be in walking distance and so therefore to get the people closest to the things they need and the things they need to close to the people they cram the people as close together which reduce the walking distance that they need to walk through to get through to number necessities of life and so that's why medieval cities and stuff like that are often very very cramped because remember if you don't build up you have to build out which increases walking distance between the things that you need but so yeah building up there's a big advantage to it and then if you're restricted in space between everything yeah if you go up extending out on the street and then every story going up above that you can get additional floor space than what you were initially allotted or allowed to get away with based on the actual footprint of the building itself the part where this answer doesn't make complete sense is when you have that you know areas where the footprint wasn't restricted like in more rural country areas then why you could make their house as bigger as you want you know on the foundation so why did you make it small or have the size and then purposely go for bigger going up well another possible reason is that any type of building when it goes when you're actually building it on the ground you need a support it usually with stumps depending on the type of the architecture the build so therefore the bigger footprint that you're making the more Stubbs you need which creates more fiddly process I cuz you ever try to put in the stumps and it's not too difficult but it's not easy either but in any regards you save yourself work and effort by making the bottom level as big as it needs to be and then when you jetty the next floor above it you just get more room on top of it another way in which stone buildings were often done in the medieval period is that the bottom floor actually didn't have a floor instead there was a stone frame of the external walls which would then support the primary habitable dwelling part which would be the floor and so the lower level would be a place to store things also animals would live there and as I mentioned the upper floor would be where the people actually lived this offered a couple of advantages one of them primary ones being is that you didn't need to put any parts of the wood into the ground because wood that isn't treated properly and of course in the medieval period that was just war timur when exposed to consistent moisture will rot after a couple of years quite easily and so when you had timber buildings that were built on wooden stumps they wouldn't last very long because of that and so stone foundations were always better and by not having a floor near the ground you can avoid the necessity of having to miss bumps supporting it and therefore avoid the problem with rotting sometimes there were floors on lower levels don't get me wrong but the ones that lasted longest would be the ones that are actually built on a proper stone foundation and so it would be better for them to have stone floors in this case on the lower level now stone being more costly meant that having a larger footprint on the lower level would a golfcourse cost more so it would be as big as you could afford but timber being far more plentiful and cheaper as soon as you get to the next story up way that you can't go full timber and not risk any of the rotting issues with the timber being close to the ground you can make a much biggest floor plan than the one beneath it so you would jetty the timber frames out in extension from the stone walls underneath and this is again a very common feature with this type of buildings where their first floor of these buildings not always but the first floor of these buildings would be made out of stone and the second floor and above would be timber-framed the other possible reason and explanation as to why jetting was developed in this time period was an architectural kind of advantage you see when you have a big bit of beam spanning you know they the roof between the two walls okay well that timber will want to sag weight gravity okay basic physics so the way that you can prevent this sagging is by putting a counterweight on the other end but if the timber is just sitting on the wall itself there's no room to put a counterweight on it but if you extend that joist okay over the wall that is resting on now there will be weight while pushing down in the middle which could you know make it sag but then if you put you know a weight on the furthest end well that creates a counter force that can work against the weight of it they address itself but also the floor that you put on top of it and then everything you put on top of that well furniture and people walking on top of it well this can actually create a more stable structure and the floor for the upper levels overall and of course the other possible reason is that it just looks good okay it's really interesting how we humans determine what is visually pleasing to the eye and not and we didn't really like some level of complexity and sophistication so long as it's balanced and innocent type of symmetry that will create Beauty to us right and so just seeing a flat wall it's not that interesting but having that slight difference where it's halfway up and then got the extension and then you have either the joist supporting it or even corbels if it's stone stuff like that it creates it a view that is far more visually interesting than it was before so yes they could have done it again like for the reasons that I've mentioned and because it looked cool and the funny thing is I have loved it how this looks every from the first time I swore medieval cottages or this style of architecture I thought it looks brilliant combined with the other styles as well specifically the timber frames and how it's got the whitewash you know the door then whitewash in between which looks really good so then why was this jet eing seemingly duplicated on stone architecture specifically castles well first of all anyone who if you're familiar with my channel and you enjoy watching my castle videos you already know the answer to this so I do ask you to just bear with me while I explain to those who probably don't know the answer first and foremost it's a defensive feature on castle walls now on a castle wall you have the wall and then you have an area that people walk atop on that's called the rampart now for people who are atop of the ramparts they will be there trying to prevent bad guys from getting in because that's the purpose forecast okay to stop bad guys getting in and also be on a repel them and they don't want to stand there just completely out in the open so they developed well this part was not developed in medieval period crenellations Credle ations is the defensive part on the top of walls that was developed far before the medieval period the Romans hadn't crenellations okay and that's where you have a big stone kind of block which provides full cover from arrow fire near any other types of projectiles and then you have a gap a Crennel in between these stone blocks where you can lean out and fire back at bad guys and so the stone blocks are called Merlin's and the gaps in between the gold kernels and altogether they're called crenellations now they're great okay but there's a problem with crenellations and that's when people get too close because when they're too close unless you lean right out in the open and shoot down you're not going to be out and get them and oftentimes crenellations are too big and bulky for you to lean out and get your bow and so that actually gives people cover who are right up against the wall the answer to this is pretty awesome in my opinion when that is extend the Battlement itself out off the rampart a bit so it overhangs and it overhangs just like jetting on timber buildings and such but that's gonna do nothing unless there are some holes that they can actually shoot through so they so this is the Battlement and this is the wall the Battlement is not just extended off extending off so much there's a gap in between and then they have corbels that they rip they Battlement rests upon and in between the corbels are holes that rocks can be thrown down or you can just shoot straight through them to get it anyone who's right up against the wall this these things are these holes are called machicolations they are one of the most iconic and identifying features about a castle now I appreciate you guys who already knew the answer for sticking with with us rap because now we're going to get into some areas that I haven't covered before in regards to this design feature of extending battlements off you know the actual walls of castles because there are historical examples period examples you know so castles from the medieval period that had these Battlement extended without functional matriculation now it's funny I at first when I've you know read up on what machicolations were when I first saw battlements extended off walls I thought that was really stupid and in part I still kind of do and when I saw video games have this not have proper you know defensive machicolations there I called them out as being a mistake specifically I did it in my review of sky hold from Dragon Age Inquisition well now I do need to kind of clarify that and MIT that I was a bit out of context and are saying here because I have since discovered this was also done on historical castles with sorrel castles from many period this extension existed without functional machicolations either well first of all I need to add point out when battlements are extended without machicolations in between the holes this actually amplifies the original problem because you're just making the angle more difficult for you to fire down anyone gets the wall so this can be a without my circulation this can be a big defensive detriment if it's on a wall where the attackers will not actually get that close there's no problem and so if there's no problem in that why would you still want to do it two main reasons okay first of all sometimes the ramparts were very very cramped okay depending on the thickness of a castle wall now castle wall thickness there's a standard and then there exceptions if you want a good defensible castle wall you're going to want it thick minimum meter thick and that just on anyone if it's at the wall of a keep facing an area that isn't really at threat generally you still want it a full metre thick on actual external walls at least two meters thick and more are there exceptions are walls being thinner of course but if you want the standard and have the adequate level of I guess structural strength for the castle you getto wonder it at least yeah meter thick now if there's actually a wall especially if this is the external wall of a key they can often be only a meter thick that wall is going to be what will create the rampart atop it and then if you want a proper Battlement which is going to be maybe 20 to 30 centimeters thick that leaves a very small amount of room for you to actually walk along one person could get away with it but as soon as you can to another person there's not going to be much room for you to pass each other so there is a functional reason why you might want to extend the Battlement off the rampart a bit just to create more room to walk so this is one reason why it makes sense to do this architectural style without defensive machicolations if you add machicolations on top of that I think it's because this is the interesting if you're gonna extend it okay and go to the trouble of having to do the architecture you've gotta add the columns to support the things it's almost in my mind the exact same work to add defensive machicolations as well so I don't know why you wouldn't if that was a case there is another case where you wouldn't and that is when it's not extended far enough and so there are some cases historical castles where the Battlement was extended very very to like that much only off the side of the wall now when the battlements so yeah crenellations suffer extended that much it doesn't really need corbels to support it because most of it because if it's this big and it's only moving you know maybe 1/3 off the wall most of the weight is still sitting on the wall and it'll be perfectly stable you don't really need corals to support it and if that's the case the Battlement isn't extended far enough to provide you know machicolations anyway so you wouldn't be able to add them but then i want like the odd thing about this is that with such a small you know extension of the Battlement and won't really create extra room on the rampart either so why was it done come back to that same end so that was mentioned with the buildings it looks good it looks really good the other thing is because the true origin of this style of architecture on castles was a proper military function right it has that same kind of look and in the implication even if they're not real it still has that and makes it I don't know it makes it look more prestigious more military in that sense so one of the examples of a castle data has the Battlement and you know the upper parts of towers and walls like a really small extension is Kidwell d castle so have a look at some of these shots here again the upper battlements there is an extension there that really has no functional purpose at all the ICAT the only reason because a wouldn't be providing extra room for the rampart of any significant level so the only conclusion that I can come to as to why is put there is that it looks good and it really does I like honestly it creates a visual difference there just a flat plain wall kind of boring but just having that small border up at the top it makes it look so much better so interestingly the true origin of that you know these upper battlements having you know a slight overhang small extension from the wall underneath was a military and defensive feature but then it became a visual iconic style of this architecture and so when people wanted their buildings to look Castle like they just copy that style but didn't really go all the way do they just want it to kind of look that way and that became more common the closer you get to even the modern day you can have a look at all these castle like houses that are made to look you know like castles but aren't real defensive fortified castles this is one of the most common features you'll see on towers and walls those crenellations and battlements are always there there's a a border line underneath them where they extended just even slightly sometimes more sometimes less but there's a slight extension of them sitting just a little bit out from the wall underneath and it's all for that iconic look I just remember if you want a castle to be properly fortified and capable of defending itself to its best ability you don't want to do the visual one you want to do the proper my circulation or as I like to say magic collation [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 2,426,366

Rating: 4.6206489 out of 5

Keywords: building, medieval, structure, overhang, jetty, jettying, middle ages, castle, castles, stone, wood, timber, cottage, shadshadiversity, knight, sword, swords, history, architecture, game of thrones, lord of the rings, skyrim, dnd, dungeons, dragons, machicolations

Id: zBVPcr7VjyQ

Length: 18min 27sec (1107 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/jmartkdr]

I like how he doesn't dismiss "it looks good" as a perfectly logical reason.

[u/Steel_Airship]

Shadiversity is one of my favorite youtubers. I especially like his analysises of castles and cities from fantasy works.

[u/BartNeusaap]

MACHICULATIOOONS

[u/GregorySchadenfreude]

tldw, anyone?