(dramatic music)
From the beginning of the Middle Ages,
buildings made of wood and then stone emerge
as symbols of power, fortified castles.
France will gradually be covered in fortresses.
Between the 12th and 13th centuries,
they become more and more common.
Castles of almost identical design are built
all over the royal territory.
Their magnificent architecture will define the image
of a medieval castle for eternity.
How we can explain this golden age?
Which techniques did medieval architects
have to master in order to accomplish
such monumental works?
During the 1990s, some medieval history enthusiasts
came up with a crazy idea,
to built a fortified castle using 13th century techniques
in order to discover the secrets of the medieval builders
and shed new light on a forgotten world.
The Guedelon Castle project was born.
By recreating a magnificent building from scratch,
the team build the past back to life,
and with it, the real meaning
of this kind of structure.
During this unusual quest,
they managed to answer many questions.
How did medieval workers choose their stones?
Which mortar did they use to bind them together?
How did they transport them
and what devices did they use to hoist them
sometimes dozens of feet into the air?
How were the plans for these buildings drawn up?
What were the stages involved in such a construction?
For more than 20 years, the Guedelon builders
and their master mason have been reaching out
to their ancestors.
They began a real journey back in time.
Deep in a forest in Burgundy, Guedelon Castle rises up
like a gateway to the 13th century,
a magical passageway to the golden age
of fortified castles.
(dramatic music)
the first castles appear around the year 1000.
Initially, they're only motte-and-bailey constructions,
wooden towers representing feudalism
and the power of warlords.
Built on artificial mounds,
these first towers are surrounded by a series of fences,
determining the face to be defended.
The first lords, their families,
and those who serve them live within this enclosure.
These rapidly built wooden buildings mark out the territory,
but they have one weakness.
They're fragile because they're vulnerable to fire.
Very quickly, the wealthiest lords
replace their wooden tower with a keep,
the seat of feudal power.
This time, made of stone.
The building becomes the key to securing power.
The castle has to be a way of administering
and defending the lord's territory.
Although these buildings multiply
during the 11th and 12th centuries,
the motte-and-baileys don't disappear overnight.
They coexist with these new castles,
the dwellings of men capable of raising
the astronomical sums needed for their construction.
Between the 10th and 13th centuries,
the designs of castles vary considerably.
They evolve according to whether the lord
building the castle has it built on a rocky outcrop,
on a plain, or in the bend of a river,
but the thinking behind the construction
of these castles is always the same,
a fact the Guedelon team has been discovering
since the beginning of the project.
Begun in 1998, Guedelon will take 25 years to complete.
In the 13th century, an identical project
would usually be finished in 12 to 15 years,
but the wealthiest owners could go much faster.
In the Middle Ages, builders would work
an average of 200 days a year,
eight hours a day in autumn and winter
and 12 from Easter to September.
On Saturdays and the days before a holiday,
they would stop working at Nones,
which is around 3:00 p.m.
In order to build quickly and well,
the medieval lords and master masons
would choose the ground upon which
the castle was to be constructed extremely carefully.
It had to be integrated into its surroundings
in order to minimize the costs
by using readily available materials.
Florian Renucci is Guedelon's master mason.
Just like in the Middle Ages,
he has to manage the local resources,
solve technical issues on site,
oversee each stage of the project,
and stay within his allocated budget.
It's a challenge for the whole team
because nobody has attempted a venture
such as this for several centuries.
Basically, we'll try and use materials available
within a three to five kilometer radius.
When we have the materials on site,
it's obviously even better.
The Guedelon builders have therefore
gone deep into a thick forest.
Oak trees provide the wood needed to make the framework,
scaffolding, and lifting gear.
Water was everywhere,
and in the heart of these mountains,
they discovered the Holy Grail for every castle builder,
a stone quarry.
Once it's completely finished,
the castle will have absorbed 10,000 cubic meters of stone.
That's 25,000 tons of sandstone,
the weight of three Eiffel Towers
or 61 Boeing 747s.
In Guedelon, the castle is built
directly on a ferruginous sandstone quarry.
It's sand that's been glued together by iron oxide,
so there's ocher present.
This generates sedimented layers,
which are easy to separate.
It's a rock that's cleaved.
By using a sledgehammer,
we can separate the stones
which will give us three different qualities.
The first, we used for blocks of dressed stone,
for realignment courses, and for steps, and thresholds.
The second, the broken stones are going to make the rubble,
the headers, and ashlars, which are the stones
on the front wall of the castle.
The third quality of stone is the offcuts,
which we use to fill the inside of the wall.
The quarrymen had to learn
to read the stone.
They had to study it, decipher it in order to understand it
and use it to its full potential.
The bluer the stone, the harder it is to carve.
They rediscovered the technique used
to extract the blocks.
Wedge holes had to be made at the point
at which the quarrymen want the stone to break.
They then insert metal wedges
and hit them with a sledgehammer
so that the shock waves break the stone,
creating large slabs.
Sand blocks can weigh between 100 kilos
and three or four tons.
With these very heavy blocks,
we look for the weak spot instead of the layer.
Once we find the weak point in the stone,
we can split it with just a small wedge
without too much effort.
There are only two of us quarrymen in Guedelon
along with some of the builders who give us a hand.
Back then, there were maybe 50, 60, 80.
We don't really know.
(dramatic music)
By studying the soil around the site,
the builders found other hidden treasures.
The soil in Guedelon is composed of loam,
clay, and sand.
The loam found at surface level
will be used to make roof and floor tiles
for the castle.
The purer clay, found at a deeper level,
will be used to make crockery,
and sand will be an ingredient of the key element
in the construction, mortar.
All the stones in Guedelon will be bound together.
The mortar makers prepare the mixture.
In the Middle Ages, these craftsmen were usually free men,
just like stone carvers, masons, or carpenters.
This says a lot about their skill
and their importance on the site.
It was the Romans who perfected mortar making
with sand and lime.
We have 2,000 years of Roman technology behind us,
which resulted in the creation of vaults
in lime concrete, which are still standing today
in Rome and Ostia.
The problem in the medieval world
was bringing back these techniques
and making them as effective as possible
in order to build really solid stone walls.
That's part of our research.
In medieval times,
the masons were the chemists of construction,
so much so that we have a group of masons
who specialize in making mortar.
The modern builders
studied illuminated manuscripts
and recreated tools such as the scuffle hoe
used on the site, but they still had to work out
how medieval mortar was made.
A scientific investigation began.
To put it simply, mortar is the glue
that binds the stone together.
For the mixture, you need lime,
sand, and water.
At the beginning, we used industrial mortar
with sand that wasn't local,
but the Scientific Committee
thought this mortar wasn't right,
and Baud, who is a member of the Scientific Committee
and a professor at the University of Lyon
introduced us to Christian Le Barrier,
a mortar specialist.
He visited the site, saw how we worked,
took the sand we had,
and mixed it with some lime in an artisanal way.
This produced a different kind of mortar
from the one we'd been using before.
Christian carried out some comparative studies
in Ratilly which is five kilometers from here
and Saint-Fargeau Castle,
which also has a 13th century base,
and he found the same composition.
So we are really creating what was done back then.
(dramatic music)
The lime used on the site
is made of calcareous stone,
heated to a very high temperature, 900 degrees Celsius.
It is then emerged in troughs of water
where it turns into a white paste
which hardens in contact with the air.
Although the lime used in Guedelon
is bought from a lime burner
who makes it using traditional methods,
a lime kiln with the capacity of four cubic meters
was also built according to archeological models
studied by the agricultural research institute, the INRA.
(dramatic music) (fire crackling)
And it works perfectly.
The dehydrated stone expands in contact with the water,
then turns into a creamy foam.
What we all slaking the lime is the process
of rehydrating the stone.
When it's burned, it loses water and carbonic gas.
It's then called quicklime.
When it's heated, it goes from being calcium hydroxide
to calcium carbonate.
When calcium carbonate is emersed in water,
it releases heat.
When this happens, it turns into a paste.
This paste will be used to make the mortar
as well as lime plaster and other limewashes.
In Guedelon, all the primary resources
are on site, including iron.
The human adventure of this site has consisted
of going that extra mile in the transformation of materials,
and the stone from the quarry contains
enough iron oxide to allow us to extract ore from it.
The blacksmiths become metalworkers
and several times throughout the year
they'll do reductions, which is when the stone
is heated to 1,400 degrees Celsius
in order to produce iron and steel.
(dramatic music)
The reduction of more than 20 kilos of ore
produces approximately 1.5 kilos of metal,
which is immediately tested by the blacksmiths.
Part of it is very dense.
It's obviously metal.
Heating it several times in the forge allows us
to work it properly and extract
a little bit of iron or steel.
After that, the aim is to work it
to see how it behaves when it's being worked,
and then to find out if we can use it
for either metalwork or for making tools
for the construction of the castle.
In the 12th and 13th centuries,
forges spring up everywhere
thanks in particular to the use of hydraulic energy.
In Guedelon, all the metal tools are made onsite,
and everyday, the metalworkers maintain the tools,
especially those used by the stone carvers,
which are put to heavy use.
(dramatic music)
The construction site is also at the heart
of another essential supply source for the work, the forest.
(dramatic music)
Guedelon forest has supplied us
with a lot of timber, especially oak,
which is what we use most on the site, more than 90%.
We use it for all the timber frames,
to make the doors, and all the other wooden elements
used for defense.
We also use other kinds such as beech,
hornbeam, whitebeam, which we use to make smaller things
such as mill gears and tool handles.
We also use much smaller kind such as wicker,
which we use to make baskets
to carry mortar and other things.
We have fragments of wood that were found in the dig
that prove it, so there's no doubt about it.
We're sure that all the timber frames
in medieval times and even much later
were made with oak.
That's undeniable.
The carpenters have set up
workshops called lodges.
They work closely with the master mason,
masons, stone carvers, and blacksmiths.
They make wheelbarrows, troughs for the mortar,
scaffolding, master beams for the dwellings and rafters,
and large-scale structures like the bridge over the moat,
a real jigsaw puzzle with wooden pieces.
Around 57 oak trees were felled, squared off,
and shaped to make the piles, decking,
and sleepers for the bridge.
700 long, large-headed nails were forged
to attach the deck to the beams.
This completely unique construction site
had a few surprises in store for the Guedelon builders.
It's a great adventure in experimental archeology.
While working on the front part of the bridge,
we realized that after 10 to 15 years,
a nail that goes through wood creates a gutter
which causes deterioration in the wood.
So now, the footbridge we've designed
to reach the courtyard to get to the castle
has been entirely designed without nails.
The planks are set in wooden grooves,
which is a truly medieval method.
Experimental archeology consists of keeping what works
and eventually rejecting what doesn't.
It's as simple as that.
The forest around the castle
also supplies the wood needed to make the shingles,
wooden tiles, sometimes equipped with fixing pegs,
which will be stored before being used.
It's a whole ecosystem
that's turning into a castle.
All the materials will be used
in a well thought out way both for the main construction
and the finishing.
If castles have been built
for the same reasons since 1000 AAD
protecting the lord and defending a territory,
the structures built during the 13th century
are influenced by the political,
economic, and cultural changes of their time.
During the 12th century with the increase
in agricultural yields, living conditions improved
for a part of the population,
and some peasants leave the countryside
and move to the cities, which are growing fast.
These new city dwellers joined the ranks
of a growing number of craftsmen,
providing an increasingly skilled workforce
for the thousands of construction sites
opening at that time.
The workers specialize and become metalworkers,
masons, stone carvers, carpenters,
mortar makers, and wood cutters.
Cities become independent decision-making centers,
emancipated from the tutelage of the lords and the Church.
The largest cities develop trade
and facilitate exchanges between regions
by holding fairs and markets.
In June, 1204, Philip II,
the seventh king of the House of Capet
is made King of France and no longer
King of the Franks.
Born in 1165, the new sovereign will restore
his influence in every province held by royal vassals
and considerably extend the royal territory.
Between 1199 and 1214,
Philip embarks on a series of expeditions to reconquer
the French territory.
In the North, he takes back Artois,
Boulogne, Valois, and Valmondois.
In the West, he annexes Norman Vexin,
Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Poitou,
Touraine, and Anjou.
In the center, he annexes Paris and Auvergne.
Finally, in the East, he claims back
the Champagne region.
To administer his new conquests,
the king appoints state representatives
independent of the nobility,
and above all, to defend his territories
and keep them within the crown,
he constructs a substantial number of fortified castles
built to a standardized plan
in order to control costs.
The first of these castles is built in Paris.
Before leaving for the Third Crusade in 1195,
Philip wants to protect the city.
In the West he builds a strong fortress, the Louvre.
The seasoned troops stationed there
can confront potential attackers coming up the Seine.
It can also block the road leading to Normandy,
at that time in the hands of Richard I of England,
known as Richard the Lionheart.
The building forms a square enclosure,
each side 70 meters long, reinforced by 10 circular towers,
one in each corner and one
in the center of the west and north sides.
Twin towers flank the gates in the center
of the east and south sides.
In the center of the courtyard stands a keep
on a cylindrical base six meters high.
Standing 30 meters tall,
the keep is 15 meters in diameter.
Its walls are around four meters thick.
In the courtyard, built against the west and south walls,
are the garrison's quarters.
The Louvre and the ramparts surrounding Paris
will be the inspiration for a multitude of castles
built or remodeled between 1202 and 1220,
but it's the royal castle of Dordogne
that will become the standard model
for fortresses built by Philip II's successors,
his son, Louis VIII, and his grandson, Louis IX,
known as St. Louis.
Provence and the County of Toulouse become part
of the kingdom.
Louis IX will unify and consolidate the legacy.
Under his reign between 1226 and 1270
he pursues the Capetian dream of a country
extending from Brest to Strasbourg,
and from Lille to Aigues-Mortes.
The builders in Guedelon have been inspired
by this period.
The design for their castle
has the style of that time.
Guedelon comprises a curtain wall
with a door between two towers,
two flanking towers to the east and west,
an imposing keep, a fifth slightly smaller tower
containing a chapel,
and in the courtyard, the lord's dwelling.
The roof of this dwelling
was covered with 25,000 handmade tiles.
The tile maker's experience is a perfect example
of the experimental archeology
which is the hallmark of the Guedelon construction site.
The workers rediscovered methods
that had been lost for decades.
The tile makers pug the clay,
mixing it with water to break it up
and extract impurities such as stones, leaves,
and pieces of wood.
They then cut it into slabs
before wedging it once again
to make it homogenous.
Once molded, the tiles are left to dry on racks.
Firing the tiles raised many problems for the team.
(birds chirping)
We did several tests with kilns.
We tried at east five kilns
before we were able
to start making our own tiles from 2009.
The first batch was black,
a bit over fired, but we still used them.
We went to visit a tile maker in Corbigny in Nievre.
He gave us some advice.
We had to place the tiles vertically
in a quincuncial formation so the heat
and the flames pass through the tiles.
You can't increase the temperature too quickly.
If you increase the temperature too fast,
the tiles will break.
You hear little noises, and that's not a good sign.
You have to push the embers to each side
so you have the same thickness of embers
on either side of the flues.
We improved the color and firing times.
The weather is also crucial to this process.
If the weather's dry,
the batch will be much better.
It's great because this is my 26th batch,
and I'm still learning on the job
because I experiment with new things each year.
If it works, it works.
If it doesn't, I'll try something else.
That's how we experiment in Guedelon.
Fired at 1,100 degrees,
these tiles can last hundreds of years.
From the middle of the 12th
and during the 13th century,
80 cathedrals spring up from the ground
in the Kingdom of France.
Gothic architecture becomes so complex
that it requires incredible technical expertise.
On the big sites, master masons meet
and share their knowledge,
but how do the Guedelon builders
choose their construction techniques?
The guides we have to building a 13th century castle
are obviously the castles themselves.
We have Ratilly right next door,
which gave us a model for using ferruginous sandstone,
and the way of using it to be in line
with the local building style.
We also have construction reports.
The accounts from Druyes-les-Belles-Fontaines
how us the type of roofing used.
And finally, the most important resource
from where we learned everything we know
about daily life at the time, illuminated manuscripts.
So, drawing from the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries
of castles that could have been built
by a lord of average status.
The result of this vast amount
of documentation and research is amazing.
Characters from medieval stained glass windows
and illuminated manuscripts
come to life before our eyes.
The construction site is buzzing.
The workers are here,
stone carvers under their wooden lean-tos,
woo cutters squaring off freshly-cut trees,
mortar makers mixing sand and lime,
masons perched on scaffolding,
patiently building the walls.
The tools are identical,
just like the hoisting gear
and means of transport.
From the beginning, some things become obvious
to the builders.
At the start, we had troughs and buckets
that were extremely heavy.
They were heavy in themselves,
and when they were filled with mortar,
they were unmanageable.
We realized that in all the illuminated manuscripts
and stained glass windows, there are baskets,
containers with handles made of wicker, woven wicker,
which means that you're only lifting
the weight of the mortar.
So, we created a basket weaving workshop,
and now all the masons on the site use these baskets,
which are much lighter
and in accordance with what we see
in the illuminated manuscripts.
These iconographic sources
showed the team the type of tools
used by the stone carvers,
chisels, splitters, and mallets,
all required for obtaining the high level
of precision demanded by the workers.
All the prestige of the 12th and 13th century
comes from the use of the dressed stone.
Not the rubble, the broken stone, but the dressed stone.
While doing this sort of work, the masons will have to cut
stones that are perfectly square and accurate
to the last milimeter.
So, the stone cutter's job consists
of working out the thickness of the joints
so that the stones fit perfectly.
In the Middle Ages,
the master mason's role is crucial.
He guarantees the balance of forces
involved in the construction,
the ever higher and more elaborate masonry,
the increasingly slender arches and the vaults
supporting ton upon ton of stones.
However, on this site,
there are no plans on parchment.
In this workshop,
the master mason sketches out full-scale outlines.
He gives his stone masons and carpenters templates
so that they can follow his instructions
and carry out the work.
Let's see what we have here.
Not too bad, six. And seven.
(speaking in foreign language)
The more precise we are when drawing the outlines,
the more accurate and perfect the dressed stones will be.
The quadrivium, a curriculum implemented by Charlemagne,
is the study of geometry, mainly Greek geometry
in which elements of Euclid and Pythagoras are taught.
So, their knowledge of geometry encompasses
the plane geometry studied in primary
and middle schools nowadays.
The medieval world is pragmatic.
They used knowledge from ancient times
to make their society function.
(dramatic music)
The vaults in Guedelon
are a real challenge to gravity.
For the first time since the Middle Ages,
the workers have attempted a difficult task,
cutting a complex group of dressed stones
in order to make cross ribbed vaults.
For the vault on the grand floor of the chapel tower,
the masons made six bases, 54 voussoirs
25 centimeters thick, and a keystone
to keep the whole thing together.
The stones have engravings
indicating the direction in which they should be laid,
their position relative to the next stone,
and the mason's mark, a quickly made
and easily recognizable symbol,
allowing each mason to be paid for his work.
For the cross ribbed vault,
the carpenters built a wooden frame
to support the assembled stones.
The forces exerted between the voussoirs
make the structure stable.
Once the frame is removed,
the cross ribbed vault takes the weight
and the stones fit into place.
In the shooting gallery of the keep,
the keystone is 5.5 meters up.
It is covered by an 80 centimeter layer of stone
which forms the floor above.
The total volume balanced over this open space
amounts to 50 cubic meters,
an astronomical weight of 120 tons.
(birds chirping)
In the carpenter's workshop,
another plan has been traced on the floor.
On this huge drawing board,
beam after beam of the future framework
of the chapel tower is adjusted and assembled.
(speaking in foreign language)
After that, it's disassembled and entirely reassembled
in position on the tower.
The real challenge is trying to find wood
with a natural curve in order to respect
the rounded shape of the tower.
The wood shouldn't have to adapt to the plan or to us.
It's the other way around.
We made templates and went into the forest with them
to see if the trees corresponded
with the curves that we needed.
Push.
Easy now.
They will be able to make assemblies
that are extremely precise,
incorporating all the detail
that we get in 3D software nowadays.
Carpenters have their software in their heads and hands.
(speaking in foreign language)
The verification will actually take place in situ.
We can't really know beforehand
if everything is going to fit,
so yes, there's always a bit of apprehension.
It's not until the end of the Middle Ages
that reduced-scale plans as we know them today
come into use.
In the meantime, the master masons develop so much skill
that they turn from simple local entrepreneurs
into real architects.
The National Library of France
holds a real gem, Villard de Honnecourt's notebooks,
a aster mason born in the 13th century near Cambrai.
During his apprenticeship, he goes from site to site
and from city to city.
His writings relate a part of his journey.
He starts off at Vaucelles, near Cambrai,
where he works on the construction
of the Cistercian Abbey.
Then he goes to Reims, Laon, Chartres, and Lausanne,
and around 1234, he takes part
in the construction of a cathedral in Kosice in Hungary.
These parchment pages include naturalistic illustrations,
drawings of people, and a self-portrait of him as a warrior.
He also depicts allegories and religious drawings.
74 of the 250 drawings concern architecture
and geometrical studies, but Honnecourt also drew
lifting machinery and war machines
because the art of building fortified castles
cannot be separated from that of war.
There were no ancient war machines
during the Early Middle Ages in the 10th and 11th centuries
for a good reason.
The first stone fortifications were often confronted
by small troops of infantrymen and horsemen,
but during the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries,
Frank attackers had to resuscitate the war machines
in order to take possession of fortified cities.
They therefore brought back plans and models
of these formidable machines,
transportable siege towers as tall as the curtain walls,
battering rams, scaling ladders,
catapults, and mantlets.
(dramatic music)
The Royal Army comprised hundreds
or even thousands of men.
In the 12th and 13th centuries,
attack takes precedence over defense.
Sovereigns use the services of one of several engineers,
often clerks passionate about ancient literature
who rediscover the war machines,
onagers, catapults, ballistas by reading texts
written by Archimedes, Vitruvius, Vegetius,
or d'Ammien Marcellin.
The devices, transported in pieces on wagons
are generally stone-throwing machines,
counterweight catapults capable of launching projectiles
weighing 12 kilos over distances of up to 175 meters
with an impressive degree of accuracy.
To confront these new threats,
castle architecture had to be significantly adapted.
During the 13th century,
the wooden hoardings which were vulnerable
to ballistic devices disappear to be replaced
by corbelled constructions with brattices,
small, rectangular or sloping structures
and machicolations, openings in the galleries
running along the top of the curtain wall.
The progress and construction methods
makes these fortifications even stronger
and more difficult to approach.
Castles built on plains
sit on a strong, sloping base, a talus.
In the first few years, we had to start
by building the base of the castle.
So, the whole base with this sloping wall
which is more than 250 meters long,
comprising about 3,000 cubic meters
took us four years to complete.
In Guedelon, the talus of the six towers
and curtain walls comprises 3,000 cubic meters of stone,
approximately 6,000 tons.
The length of the wall is impressive.
Once completed, the masons will have built
250 meters of ramparts, a colossal task.
We had to support one another.
When we were doing the last 10 stones,
we'd send messages to each other.
Stone cutters to masons,
it's the last but one stone.
It's the last stone, until we finally reached this line
all around the base of the castle.
Then we could start building the vertical wall.
At the same time, it was an opportunity to follow
in the great tradition of the medieval builders
because all the 13th century walls and castles
went through this exhausting stage
of talus fortification.
The study of medieval walls
allows each stage of the building work to be recreated.
The wall is built with successive layers of stones.
Like a mille-feuille, layers of rubble,
uncut stone, alternate approximately every three meters
with three levels, three courses of cut stone.
These are realignment courses.
At regular intervals the walls also have holes
whose function was a mystery for a long time.
(dramatic music)
They're foot log holes, notches a meter deep
into which the ends of long oak beams are inserted
in order to support scaffolding.
The carpenters move them as they work
their way up a building.
The rows of foot log holes are 1.4 meters apart,
an ideal height for the masons and stone cutters to work at.
After the holes have been used, they're generally filled
with sandstone plugs that can be removed
if the building needs restoration.
The scaffolding sets the pace
for the construction of castles
whose walls get progressively higher.
(dramatic music)
To lift the buildings sometimes more than 10 meters
from the ground, the carpenters at Guedelon
have a hoisting device,
with treadwheel, which had to be reconstructed.
To make these medieval treadwheels,
we looked at existing treadwheels
found in cathedrals such as Strasbourg,
Canterbury in England or Bourges like this one.
There are some with two drums like the one
in the Wenceslas Bible which is kept in Prague
that depicts a complete treadwheel crane
with its rope and pulley system.
We use the treadwheels everyday here in Guedelon.
(dramatic music)
Stop. -: Stop!
We work with a double wheel treadwheel.
Two people walk inside the wheel
to activate a rope and lift the loads,
either mortar or stones.
We are lucky to have a treadwheel on an axle,
which means we can rotate it 360 degrees.
At any time, I can stop or start it again
with the central brake here.
These two pedals stop or start the wheel.
This hoisting device,
known since Roman times,
works thanks to force multiplication.
The wheels, which are two to three meters in diameter
with wooden spokes rotated together,
one either side of an axle,
around which wound a rope, pulling the load to be lifted.
The lifting force is increased tenfold,
meaning that one man can lift a load
weighing up to 500 kilos.
This ancestor of a crane enables loads
of up to 600 kilos to be lifted as high as 15 meters.
Treadwheel cranes can be dismantled
and reassembled anywhere on the site,
even on top of the walls.
(speaking in foreign language)
There are some techniques that help us with our work.
For example, the walls are built in levels
in layers of stone where the wall, from one layer to another
is perfectly horizontal.
This means that we an use the wall itself
as a building tool.
We can move the stone along on rollers into its place
where it will be sealed.
It's pretty much in place.
(speaking in foreign language)
It's pretty much in place.
With Philip II's architecture
notably in the Louvre and Dordogne,
defense becomes active.
This massive stone is not the sole defensive feature.
It is now designed to strike the attacker
as much to prevent him breaching its walls.
In the 13th century,
constructions are increasingly elaborate,
the architecture turning towards
the active defense of the castle.
This active defense as reinvented by Philip II
at the beginning of the 13th century
is the addition of ditches,
ramparts, doors between two towers,
and of course, the keep.
So, the curtain walls
which surround the entire perephery of the castle
are at least 1.5 meters thick,
providing room to walk around
while the parapet walls, half a meter thick,
are lined with crenels and merlons.
Their average height is two meters.
This allows the castle to be defended from the top.
We protect ourselves behind the merlons
and throw stones or shoot with bows or crossbows.
During his reign, Philip will standardize
the use of round towers to flank a corner of the castle.
He didn't really invent this shape
because it had existed since Roman times
and even in the 12th century, but he will introduce
one major improvement,
the use of arrow loops.
The round towers will have small openings
form which bowmen will shoot,
enabling flanking and circular fire.
The rotundity of these towers
makes them less vulnerable to attack
by catapults firing stones,
far less vulnerable than square towers.
That's why from the year 1200
it's castles with round towers
that establish themselves throughout the Capetian world.
(dramatic choral music)
But how did medieval master masons
draw perfectly round towers?
Huge compasses comprising a mast
and a horizontal pole are built and set
at the center of the towers.
When the compass turns, the plumb line attached to the pole
draws a perfect circle.
From now on, castles are increasingly well prepared
for potential attacks.
The ditches surrounding them
are made deeper and deeper,
12 meters deep in Dordogne,
22 meters deep in Courcy.
The door between the two towers is impossible
because of its portcullis,
a latticed grille made of wood.
The walls, furnished with crenelations
and a continuous walkway, are dotted with towers,
pierced with arrow loops whose firing range
has been meticulously calculated.
Here we are in the shooting gallery
on the ground floor of the main tower.
The walls are three meters thick,
which more or less corresponds to the radius of the room,
which is six meters in diameter.
This room is equipped with favorite arrow loops.
The bowmen shoot from within this room.
No question of firing from inside the arrow loop
since the sills slope downwards,
but this enables the bowmen to shoot
at the foot of the wall.
(dramatic music)
Chantal Porte is Field Archery World Champion.
She's agreed to do a little experiment.
We've placed a target on the bridge
which is around 15 meters away.
What we want to know is can we get an arrow
straight through the arrow loop
which is only seven centimeters wide,
and do you think we'll be abl to get
a wider firing angle and cover a fan-shaped area
at 10 or 15 meters wide in front of us?
Well, I don't know.
I've never tried anything like this before.
Is this a first? -: It is, indeed.
We'll start by trying to shoot straight ahead
because this eight centimeter gap
is already pretty scary.
After that, if everything goes well,
we'll try for the wider angle
and see what we can do.
(tense music)
Wow, that's amazing!
Bravo!
That means it works! It works.
Here on this axis, it's perfect.
Now we're going to try something trickier,
to see if we can shoot parallel with a splayed wall
and extend the area we can cover outside.
The target how now been moved
10 meters to one side.
(tense music)
Wow, a perfect bullseye!
I was a bit skeptical,
but I think we can trust the people from the Middle Ages.
They tested it out and I think they were right.
It means that with a seven centimeter wide arrow loop
and a meter thick sill,
we can cover an area of more than 10 meters.
Could there have been several archers
shooting at once?
Yes.
The fortified castle protects
the land it dominates.
Perched on the walls
or hidden behind the guard's house and towers,
the garrison can actively defend it
and inflict severe casualties on the attacking enemy.
(speaking in foreign language)
The efficiency of this architecture is such
that castles could be built either on plains
or at the bottom of valleys.
There's no longer any need to build them high up.
In the 13th century, the shape of fortified castles changes.
The resurgence of cities with their episcopal palaces
and wonderful abodes
for an increasingly influential bourgeoisie
inspire the aristocracy.
The quest for comfort and light prevails.
The building is so strong that the keep
is sometimes removed.
It is generally relocated to one of the corners,
leaving room for the lord's dwelling,
built in the inner courtyard against a high wall
just like in Guedelon.
From the moment that castles
are laid out around courtyards,
providing them with a kind of shell,
the facades facing the courtyard
don't need to be overprotected and defensive
as keeps were in the 11th and 12th centuries
with their small windows.
We start to see windows being made in the lord's dwelling.
So, these are gammel windows common in the mid-13th century.
The decorative power of these windows
lies in their composition.
They consist of two rectangular openings
with a central mullion.
The uprights support a broken arch,
which takes the weight off the lintels,
forming a tympanum.
The lintels on top of the openings
are carved what trefoils.
The combination of these elements
provides a more decorative facade
than mere lintels,
even if the windows remain the same size.
Inside, stone window seats set into the thick walls
allow the castle's occupants
to benefit fully from the light of day.
There's a desire to give the castle
an ostentatious side, a decorative side,
to highlight the lord's economic power
and give his dwelling status.
(dramatic music)
Whoa.
(dramatic music)
The castle is therefore much more
than a simple defensive tool.
It is the home and the hub of the political
and administrative power of the lord
who is part of a pyramid at the top of which
is one single man, the king.
(dramatic music)
The size and architecture of each stronghold
is determined by the social status
of the lord who will occupy it
in the name of the sovereign.
Under his fiefdom,
the lord can exercise the right of ban,
which authorizes him to receive a direct
and indirect income.
In the 13th century, people of modest means
were granted fiefs thanks to their bravery in battle
or simply through marriage or inheritance.
The lord of Guedelon held the right
to dispense middle and low justice.
His function and rank determined the architecture
of his dwelling.
Apart from the defensive features
of this sort of architecture,
the crenelated curtain wall,
flanking towers, the keep, and the chapel tower,
the castle possesses an impressive seigniorial dwelling.
On the ground floor,
a kitchen and a cellar.
Ont eh first floor, a Great Hall, the aula
reached by a large staircase.
This staircase, known in French
as the (speaking in foreign language) staircase
isn't just functional.
It has a symbolic role.
It illustrates the power of seigniorial justice.
It's at the foot of these stairs
on a wide stone step that the lord would pass judgment.
The most humble lords could only dispense
middle and low justice.
They settled disputes between peasants
and passed judgment on petty offenses.
More powerful lords have the right
to dispense high justice.
They can impose any form of punishment,
including the death penalty.
The banal rights associated with territory
impose an incredible number of rules.
There's land that's reserved for the villagers,
other reserved for the lords.
So, catching a rabbit or felling a tree
on the lord's land is enough to expose you
to severe punishment.
So, the stairs are well and truly
the symbol of this seigniorial power.
The Great Hall in the lord's dwelling,
the aula, is the place for arbitration.
This is where legal acts are sealed.
It is also where the great ceremonies
from feudal life take place,
such as the act of homage,
in which a free man places himself under the protection
of another more powerful free man, his overlord.
Do you agree to be my vassal?
Yes, I do.
Homage is when an important lord
grants a vassal territory
in exchange for his fidelity.
This ceremony is accompanied by a ritual
that will bring this world of noble warriors together.
So, the banquets, the minstrels are all a codification.
Hunting for several days,
it's about sharing the same rituals
to become one with a society
that in essence doesn't mix with either clergymen
or with the peasants.
(speaking in foreign language)
The status of the noblemen
occupying the castle demands a social life
that takes place in this Great Hall.
The aula is the place for banquets and feasts.
It's where people dance
and stay up very late,
telling each other tales of war
or discussing political affairs.
There's very little furniture,
often just chests used for seating.
Everything within the room
needs to be easily transportable.
At the end of the evening, the important guests
are invited to stay in the castle.
They sleep in a room adjacent to the Great Hall.
The walls have been carefully decorated with paintings
inspired by other lords' dwellings or nearby churches
like the ones in Moutiers.
The Guedelon team employed a very ancient technique
to brighten up he drab walls of this room,
limewash using pigments collected on site
such as ochers from Puisaye.
The walls are plastered with lime plaster
which will then be painted wit a limewash
made with a lime mixture
which will give us a white background on which to paint.
(speaking in foreign language)
This lime plaster will regulate humidity,
allowing the wall to breathe
and absorb any excess moisture.
Since we're painting on dry plaster,
we have to use binders to make it last.
So, we'll add a whole egg,
beaten up as if for an omelet,
and then some hide glue
because there's collagen in hide glue,
and this mixture hardly flakes at all.
All the pigments used are natural,
extracted from the land around Puisaye.
All the raw materials are in these baskets,
stone, soil, sand, clay from the site
surrounding the castle.
Ocher is a metal oxide that's present in these materials.
Ocher is Greek for yellow, so we're in the yellow family.
The stone is ground and sieved
to obtain the finest powder possible.
As for the sand and clay, we wash it
and the sieve will catch everything we don't want,
such as gravel and roots,
leaving a colored liquid.
We dry this liquid, and when it's dry,
we make it into powder.
The powder being mineral,
we can store it almost indefinitely until we use it
to make paint.
Certain colors will be used as they are
and others will be reddened.
Heating it to eight or 900 degrees
makes the paint redder.
It'll go from beige to pink, from yellow to red.
Reddening the paint
will also make a dull, boring brown
a reddish brown like hematite.
So, being able to get any color you want
also shows that you have the means to obtain it.
So, the wealthier the lord ordering the work,
the more elaborate and extensive
the decorations will be.
This triangular frieze is seen everywhere.
Also, the pleated ribbon pattern,
which has existed for several centuries
and these trees and vines,
which are completely local.
(upbeat music)
In Guedelon, the seigniorial
couple's bedchamber, the camera, is found on the top floor
of the main tower, which is still under construction,
but the one on the first floor already possesses
all the elements of a residential space.
A fireplace, latrines, slit windows to defend the space,
but also a window overlooking the courtyard.
This room is at the heart of a real little bastion.
Outside, the tower entrance is protected by a hoarding,
and inside, by the murder hole,
protecting the staircase door.
The basement comprises a well,
making the keep completely self-sufficient in water.
Water is crucial in a fortified castle
because you have to hold out and have your own
source of water during a siege.
You also need it in daily life,
and of course, to build the castle itself.
In Guedelon in Puisaye, water is never far away.
We dug down seven meters and the distinctive feature
of this well is that at the time,
there were banks of ferruginous sandstone
that were homogenous and big enough
to contain a monolithic rim.
The rim of the well is made of one piece of stone
that was hollowed out by two stone masons
in about six weeks.
It is an external sign of wealth,
but we can assume that the lord of Guedelon
could afford this small luxury because of the quarry.
It's one of Guedelon's little masterpieces.
In Guedelon, water is stored everywhere.
The cisterns in the chapel tower and the great tower
collect water by capillary action.
The castle can withstand a siege
without having to fetch water from elsewhere.
The autonomy of this stronghold is reinforced
by the other important room
after the Great Hall, the cellar.
(door hinges squeaking)
The cellar is the heart of a castle
or a fief's economy.
The lord's role is to manage the territory,
and in order to do this, he will collect taxes
directly or indirectly, which will make up the revenue
from his banal rights.
The tax isn't necessarily taken in monetary form.
It can be paid in bags of grain or flour,
so the seller is the equivalent of the public treasury,
but concentrated in one room in the castle
intended for this purpose.
(dramatic music)
The lord of Guedelon
is the master of a fief,
the exploitation of which
gives him a considerable income.
A fortified castle is not only a military camp,
but the economic center of a whole region.
The lord has had a tile kiln
and a mill built on his land.
(water rushing)
(millstone grinding)
Exercising the rights of ban on justice
and imposing taxes gives him sources of income,
which are normally paid in the form of comestible goods
carefully stored in the cellar.
Since there's a lot of flour, sacks of grain,
we need to stop rodents and birds getting in.
So, the cellar is recognizable
by these rabbets in the doorway,
these steps that mean that when the door is shut,
it's hermetically closed, including the threshold.
The same goes for the basement windows
where wooden shutters are installed
to stop the birds getting in.
The walls also have to be sound,
so they will be plastered and painted with limewash.
Of course, there will also be shelves against all the walls
and sometimes registers recording everything
received in the cellar.
Building up the castle's reserves
entails a lot of work.
This is why the lord prefers his peasants
to pay in kind rather than cash.
They have to bring in grain, press the grapes,
salt or smoke the meat or fish caught
in the fief's ponds, and most of all, bake bread,
of which people in the Middle Ages eat a kilo a day.
The kitchen is on the ground floor
of the lord's dwelling.
It has a big chimney
equipped with two main fireplaces,
a cooking fire with a spit,
and a kitchen oven used for many different purposes.
(soft choral music)
After having meticulously washed his hands,
the lord and his mesne, the people of the castle,
sit down to eat.
In the corner, some passing minstrels,
a troubadour declaiming verses.
(diners chattering) To your good health!
In the 13th century, during Lent,
the lord's meal would comprise four or five
fish dishes, pike or carp fished from the nearby ponds.
The most elaborate meals include meat,
mostly game, which only he is allowed to hunt
on his territory.
The meat is boiled or roasted
accompanied by highly spiced cold or warm sources.
There are very few green vegetables
except during spring.
The dishes are particularly heavy,
and the guests drink pomade, cider,
fermented ale or water with licorice or honey.
Wine is obviously the drink of choice
for the wealthiest lords
who have it brought in at great expense
if they can't produce it themselves.
(diners chattering)
These meals can last for hours,
giving heart to a fortress built to defend itself
from the harmful effects of war
and where life sometimes passes slowly.
Meals also bring the people of the castle together
as well as clients, vassals, and kinsmen
entirely devoted to the lord.
The castle becomes the showplace for the power
of a man and his family.
(diners chattering)
(bell ringing)
Ah! (cheering)
The golden age of fortified castles
during the 12th and 13th centuries
didn't only bring architectural developments
and technological progress.
It represented the birth of a state
until then in gestation,
and the structuring of towns and countryside.
Soon, the power of feudal lords will diminish
as the power of kings becomes increasingly strong.
Castles will suffer the same fate as their owners.
Guedelon Castle is not just another fortress
planted in the landscape.
Its construction makes sense,
and the message it whispers in our ears
has been passed down through the centuries
as if the modern workers,
in addition to the gestures and techniques
have revived the symbolic meaning of the building.
The achievement of the Guedelon project team is unique.
Every stone laid, every architectural or decorative feature
forms part of the memories of the men and women
who have passed through the site.
This work will stand throughout the millennia
as a reminder of the lives
that once came together to achieve it.
(all cheering)
(epic music)