Subject:
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Re: medieval villages
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Feb 2002 00:39:52 GMT
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Viewed:
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1651 times
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Heheh. I like the "FunFact", Kyle...
Just did a quick search on the Web for "wattle and daub", and two sites that
might interest people are:
-Reconstruction of 2-story cottage with photos of building:
http://www.wealddown.co.uk/poplar-cottage-construction-thatch-wattle-and-daub.h
tm
-Basic info on peasant cottages, including description of materials and
illustrations of interior (even shows the meat curing for the winter hanging
from the rafters):
http://loki.stockton.edu/~ken/wharram/peasant.htm
Furthermore, looking in my library here, one of the books I mentioned having is
_Life in a Medieval Village_ by Frances and Joseph Gies (HarperPerennial,
1990). This has only a few b&w photos, but they include one of an Anglo-Saxon
settlement reconstruction (500 A.D.) that has two houses/barns made of rough
vertical timbers and a thatched/straw roof that pitches almost to the ground.
A third structure in the image has no side walls and the roof does touch the
ground. Other pics in the book include similar barns, a "poultry house", and
an abby of stone walls with thatch roof.
(Yes, these are the same authors I mentioned in a post about Motte and Baileys,
but hey, they are the best resource I have in my home for this...)
Other notes from this book:
As early as 98 A.D., the Roman Tacitus wrote of two types of houses found in
rural Germania: One, a timber framed longhouse covered with clay (daub), and
the other a "sunken hut" (or "grubenhaus") that was buried several feet into
the ground (probably the third of three I mentioned above). The former
normally housed people at one end and their animals at the other. The latter
could be used to house people, animals, or as a workshop.
So the implications are that wattle (which is the mesh of straw or twig holding
the mud on) and daub was in use by Europeans even before the Middle Ages, but
it was by no means the only material used, nor was the Tudor style of
presenting it the norm until later on. ...Even the cover art of this book
shows such a home (complete with its own chimney), but the timber lines are
uneven, rectangular areas that lack the diagonals and symmetry of that shown in
the Guarden Inn and B.F. Fortess.
In the end, the real issue is materials. If the neighborhood around a rural
village of this era happened to have more stone than wood, the homes might be
built of stone. If they have nothing but clay, they might build their
buildings of clay brick (as in the Mediterranean or Middle East), and if they
had a mix of materials, they could easily have built wattle and daub.
...Fascinating stuff... One of these days one of us should compile all this and
publish a book for "The AFOL Who Wants to Build Everything"..... :)
Cheers,
-Hendo
In lugnet.castle, Kyle Peterson writes:
>
> Wattle & Daub architechure is older than one might think, some believe back
> as far as the 1100s. The process merely consists of mud being placed around
> a wooden skeleton/frame. The roof was made of thatch/grass/twigs. Not really
> that advanced.
> Eventually, modifications were made to this technique to give houses the
> more "traditional" tudor appearance:
> The mud/daub was later whitewashed
> Outlying timber was covered with a tar-like waterproof (black)
> Roofs were changed from thatch to tiles (fire-safety)
>
> If you want a medieval building circa 1100, try changing the colors around a
> bit. Use brown bricks for the timber, sand-red for the daub, and tan for the
> roof.
> Also, many early-medieval buildings were simply made out of wood, and/or
> stone (if available).
> Many peasants still lived in tents, and sod-houses as well.
>
> Obvoiusly a village during this time period wasn't very colorful, so put
> away the blue and yellow bricks.
>
> -Kyle
>
>
> FunFact: Daub was actually very brittle and easily broken. Many theives
> would merely break through the daub to gain access to a house. This became
> known has "housebreaking".
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: medieval villages
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| So true that most buildings depended on the resources/supplies in the area. Strange how that applies to us LEGO-builders as well. "Darn it! I ran out of 2x2 gray bricks!" *gets out the 2x2 gray corner bricks and 1x1 gray bricks* Thanks for the (...) (23 years ago, 20-Feb-02, to lugnet.castle)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: medieval villages
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| Wattle & Daub architechure is older than one might think, some believe back as far as the 1100s. The process merely consists of mud being placed around a wooden skeleton/frame. The roof was made of thatch/grass/twigs. Not really that advanced. (...) (23 years ago, 19-Feb-02, to lugnet.castle)
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