It seems that this is a thing, and has been for a couple decades:
Guedelon Castle in Burgundy, France, is built using only techniques and materials that were available in the Middle Ages. Michel Guyot and Maryline Martin started the project in 1997, and it has been nearing its inevitable completion ever since. Today, it has created over 55 jobs and draws more than 300,000 visitors every year.
It looks pretty cool:
Here's their web site, Building A Castle From Scratch. I'd go there, if I ever get the chance.
10 comments:
Less a "castle" than a fortified manor house.
And 55 years?!? Yeesh.
When you're dead before you complete it, and with medieval lifespans closer to 40 years or so, that's moving into stupid territory.
And it's still not even completely walled in?
maybe it would help their concept of timeliness if every so often, someone would attack it using medieval siege weaponry, set fire to a tower or two, and string a few of the workmen up using the hospitality of medieval besiegers, to underscore the whole point of the exercise.
I get that it's France, where everyone takes a mandatory month off work every year to lay about on a beach and swill wine, but normally, to half-ass build something that takes 55 years and still doesn't work as designed, you have to start a government program in a Democrat district.
It would be built in a timely manner using a coupla hundred slaves I bet.
Nope. Definitely a small castle of the 1300's. Not a simple motte and bailey, nor just a keep or donjon. Separate building for living, potential for temporary housing inside the walls, fully walled and turreted perimeter, a fosse or dry moat around the outside, definitely a castle.
Matches many of the border or marcher lord castles you see along the Welsh and Scots borders of England, those that weren't torn down or remodeled after the Restoration, or the dreaded Victorian/Edwardian age.
I have watched several videos and shows about this place. They do it right. And some of the masons trained there are working on the Notre Dame de Paris restoration.
And and emphasis on period clothing is interesting. Why? Because clothing affects one's ability to move. Their only concession to modernity is the wearing of modern shoes. Understandable, as medieval shoes mostly suck.
And Glypto? Not slaves. Use of the local peasants and serfs and the basing soldiery for the most part. Though by then specialized castle construction 'firms' would handle all the personnel portions and accessing supplies and materials. 4-5 years for major construction for a castellaged castle as shown, on average, unless there are some serious issues.
Very cool Borepatch! Thanks for sharing!
There's a BBC program that shows the construction.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_Castle
You seem to have a problem with reading comprehension.
This project started in 1997 and the planned completion in in 2023, so 26 years.
It's on YouTube
https://youtu.be/ydoRAbpWfCU
I bet they would have had considerably more than 55 people working on it as well.
I beg your pardon Ratus, I glossed it after a long shift and conflated employees with the timespan. Mea culpa.
So, only 26 years.
In 55, they might even be able to finish two such, with enough time left over to hang a tapestry or two.
Huzzah.
And Beans,
"Small" castle?
So, one that could hold out under siege for maybe...a week? For a couple dozen inhabitants, tops?
"Small castle" would seem to be on par with "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence".
Dover Castle is an actual castle from the 1300s.
https://archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/interpreting-dover-castles-great-tower.htm
So is Caernarfon Castle.
https://www.worldhistory.org/Caernarfon_Castle/
That Burgundian thing is, as described, hardly more than a stone manor house, and would have a rough go of resisting attack by so much as a cheeky group of minstrels, let alone anything sufficient to the word "army", and would barely qualify as a stable in either of the other two examples.
Even the internet dictionaries (which are never wrong /sarc) describes a castle as:
"a large building, typically of the medieval period, fortified against attack with thick walls, battlements, towers, and in many cases a moat."
That might be a "small" castle of circa 900 A.D., somewhere, but by the 1200s, it wouldn't even qualify as a fortified speed bump to any force larger and more heavily armed than a troop of jugglers.
Now take a peek at Old Soar Manor house in the UK,
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/old-soar-manor/
and tell me that isn't a lot closer to this Burgundian not-a-castle-by-any-stretch, which is why I called it a fortified manor house.
That's all it is.
Ah, Aesop is here to spread his words of wisdom again.
The problem is: he's wrong.
It's a castle, pretty typical for the time and more than adequate to fulfill it's function in the timeframe of the high middle ages.
The reason it takes that long to build is because they have just a few dozen instead of a few hundred people working at any time and they had to relearn nearly everything while in the middle ages castles were built by experienced specialists.
Dover castle for example is an exceptional castle of very important strategic function, as is Caernarfon, took 10 years to build and was extensively modernized up to the 18th century so most of the size of the battlements is from a later date than the middle ages. THESE castles are outliers, smaller Burgen such as the replica at Guedelon, are the norm and worked pretty well.
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