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00:02Castles dominated the medieval landscape.
00:06And Britain has some of the finest in the world.
00:09Today, most are decaying relics,
00:12many of their secrets buried in time.
00:19Now, historian Ruth Goodman
00:22and archaeologists Tom Pinfold
00:25and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back
00:28to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle builders.
00:31This is the ultimate of medieval technology.
00:35The origin of our castles is distinctly French,
00:38introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman conquest of 1066.
00:49Here in the Burgundy region of France is Guédelon Castle,
00:53the world's biggest archaeological experiment.
00:59A 25-year project to build a castle from scratch,
01:03using the same tools, techniques and materials available in the 13th century.
01:10It's a lot of hard work at the coalface, because this is industry.
01:14For the next six months, Ruth, Peter and Tom
01:18will experience the daily rigours of medieval construction.
01:22Drop down.
01:23Yep.
01:24And everyday life.
01:25Looking really good, you know.
01:27How workers dressed and ate.
01:30You can really smell your food, Ruth.
01:33And the art of combat.
01:38This is the story of how to build a medieval castle.
01:57It's May, and the team have been immersed in the building works,
02:01alongside Guédelon's maces.
02:03Perfect.
02:04Oh, good!
02:06Do you know it?
02:06They've learned how the castle was defended in times of war.
02:14Every stone has to be in line, because this is going up and up and up.
02:19Now the team discover the surprisingly colourful world of 13th century castle interiors.
02:29And much of the material they work with will come straight from the ground.
02:34Some of the stuff in here is ochre.
02:38From paint to brighten the rooms.
02:40It's hot.
02:41Look at the distance on my fingers!
02:44To turning mud into floor tiles.
02:50Can you imagine living in a world with no electric lights?
02:57And they'll be rediscovering an ancient art in a midnight firing at the kiln.
03:19The medieval castles we're used to seeing today are scarred by centuries of warfare and weather erosion.
03:30Most of their original roofs, carpentry, and interior finishes have long since disappeared.
03:39But these drab walls are a far cry from how they looked in their heyday.
03:48This is how many of us think of the interior of castles.
03:53Bare stone, echoey, damp, gritty underfoot, but that's because we're used to ruins.
03:58When they were in use, back in the 13th century, they were rather different.
04:03You have to imagine tiled floors and plaster on the walls.
04:07Perhaps painted, whitewashed, and then hangings of fabric over the top.
04:14Filled with furniture.
04:16And that too is covered in fabrics, cushions, all sorts.
04:19An entirely different beast.
04:30To strive for accuracy, the Gedelon project has adopted a specific historical timeframe to work to.
04:40The castle is being designed and built as it would have been in the France of the 1230s and 40s.
04:47During the reign of King Louis IX.
04:53The region of Puise in Burgundy was governed by one Jean de Toussy, a vassal to the king.
05:03In turn, de Toussy was the overlord of several other lower ranking noblemen.
05:08And it was one of these lesser nobles who would have commissioned a castle, like the one being built here
05:15at Gedelon today.
05:17It's not a grand royal castle, bristling with military might and enormous wealth.
05:23But a fortified residence of relatively modest taste and design.
05:28According to the rank and means of the imaginary lord of Gedelon.
05:38The team, along with site administrator Sarah Preston, are exploring some of the key rooms and quarters within the castle.
05:47To find out how the interiors are being dressed.
05:54This is the castle's great hall. Great is the word.
05:58So this is very much the hub of castle life. This is, it's a dining hall, it's a, it's a
06:03banqueting, feasting hall.
06:05I mean, this room, it's a statement of power and prestige, isn't it?
06:08Absolutely, which is why it's important to bear in mind, of course, once it's finished, we won't have these bare
06:12stone walls.
06:15The great hall was the political and business hub of castle life.
06:18This was where the lord held court, receiving his tenants and listening to their concerns and grievances.
06:27With many of the social rituals of the day being held here, it was important for the interior design to
06:34show off his wealth and status to invited guests.
06:41Over the next few years, the great hall at Gedelon, and the great tower adjacent to it, will be dressed
06:47in the style of a 13th century lord and his lady.
06:57So this is currently the lord's chamber. This is where the lord would sleep with his wife and his children.
07:02It's certainly a residential chamber. You can see that from the fireplace on the wall behind us, so it can
07:06be heated.
07:07That's not true of all the rooms in the castle.
07:11The stone walls are rough, uneven and drafty.
07:16But they would have been dressed and painted.
07:21Peter and Tom are going to be painting and tiling some of the castle's indoor spaces, while Ruth makes paint.
07:32So this is the storeroom.
07:34At first, Sarah takes her to the already decorated kitchen under the great hall.
07:40But eventually, it will have a render applied and then a lime wash to make it much whiter and brighter.
07:46Come and have a look.
07:47Oh, I see what you mean.
07:49I mean, that's real darkness into light, isn't it?
07:52It makes such a difference.
07:53People aren't used to necessarily seeing the inside of castle walls rendered and lime washed.
07:58But it's made such a difference to the people who actually work in the kitchen because it's like...
08:02It takes some sort of bounce off, doesn't it?
08:03Turning on an electric light, absolutely.
08:05And I guess in terms of hygiene, it would have made a difference as well.
08:08Oh yeah, definitely, really.
08:09It sort of kills anything that might be there and stops bugs getting into all the cracks and things.
08:13So you start with a really sterile surface, repaint it whenever you need to.
08:18I mean, obviously, so far we haven't had the time to render the inside of all the rooms.
08:22We've got other priorities at the moment.
08:24But as soon as we've finished kind of the major building work, then we can get on with the job
08:29of rendering the inside,
08:30but I hope also the outside of the castle, because often the outsides of castles were also rendered and lime
08:36washed.
08:36Because in terms of visibility, it just meant that your castle stood out in the landscape.
08:41So that's something that we couldn't necessarily get away with in a genuine historic monument.
08:44But here on this experimental site, that's something that we can show our visitors.
08:49The Tower of London, the White Tower, was named because it was lime washed on the outside.
09:00The tower nearest the quarry, known as the Quarry Tower, would have been a guardroom or shooting gallery.
09:07Even this would have been brightly decorated.
09:13The boys had been tasked by stonemason Fabrice Mangot with rendering the interior wall with lime mortar,
09:21the medieval equivalent of plaster.
09:25We're going to use two and a half buckets of sand and one lime and water and mix it in.
09:34What we're looking for here is the right consistency.
09:37Keep on adding a little bit of moisture, turn it in, turn it in.
09:41A bit more.
09:44It's okay.
09:49Are you happy? Is that good enough?
09:53It's good.
09:54Yeah.
09:57Cozy workspace.
09:58Fabrice demonstrates how a medieval wall is rendered.
10:01Put some water.
10:02We're not drenching it though, are we?
10:04It's dampening the stain.
10:05If you don't put water, mortar.
10:09It just won't stick.
10:15Archaeological research has revealed that rendering wouldn't have been applied in several smooth layers,
10:20but with a single rough coat, using a technique similar to spreading butter.
10:27It's interesting technique, isn't it?
10:29Keeping the board close to the wall, pushing the render up.
10:33Like that?
10:35Shall I go first?
10:35Yeah.
10:36Give it a go.
10:37Let me get it wrong.
10:38Yeah, I'm going to learn from your mistakes, my friend.
10:42So to do a turret like this, how long do you think it would take?
10:45Two, three days.
10:47Two, three days.
10:48That's ten days for you, someone.
10:49For two mason.
10:50At least ten days for me.
10:54Good luck.
10:55We'll need it.
10:56See you later.
11:00As the lime mortar is relatively porous, it will draw out any dampness in the wall, and so help to
11:06preserve the masonry underneath.
11:08It's interesting, isn't it, that we're only putting on one coat, that butter coat.
11:16But this is an established practice, isn't it?
11:19You always think when you go to the ruined castles in the UK or around Europe, these bare walls are
11:24what they were looking at.
11:25However, not the case, it was a prestige thing, to get a layer of render up, decorate it.
11:32Yeah, I mean, castles, the majority of castles, they are just ruins, aren't they?
11:37You're coming to them very long after their lives.
11:56The medieval manufacturer of tiles for castle roofs and floor spaces was an industry in itself.
12:08So far, at Gedelon, 28,000 tiles have been created for the roof of the Great Hall building alone.
12:15A job which took four years to achieve.
12:22It's estimated that a total of 80,000 tiles will be needed to cover the roofs of the castle in
12:28its entirety.
12:31But as the four towers around the curtain wall are still under construction, tile production has now shifted from roof
12:37tiles to floor tiles.
12:41And Tom is about to discover just how laborious the process is to make just one tile.
12:50Just breaking up some of this clay.
12:52We're going to use it for our tiles.
12:54Obviously not in this state.
12:55We actually need to get a lot of these impurities out.
12:57But some of the stuff in here is ochre.
13:00And ochre can actually turn into paint.
13:02So I'm going to separate some of that out.
13:05But now, just stack up on this clay, get it back to the tuileries or the tile makers.
13:13In the 11th century, many hamlets and villages in France specialised in tile production to meet increasing demand from the
13:21local nobility.
13:23And as the medieval tile trade grew, so did the strict regulations it was governed by, designed to standardise production.
13:32Ah, that's the thing about clay, isn't it?
13:34It's not easy to work. You can feel all the muscles getting involved.
13:41In 1280, a decree from Toulouse stipulated that good tiles may only be made from well-pugged clay, well-trampled
13:50underfoot and not over-dry.
13:54It feels nice, though.
13:55Is this good for hands, good for the skin?
13:57Very nice for the skin, yes. Some people are paying for this.
14:01Lucky us.
14:03I've always wanted soft hands.
14:06Tom and tile-maker Emeric Guillo are now removing any twigs and stones, and making the clay homogenous and malleable.
14:15Ah, so this hard lump here, this could be ochre.
14:19Yes.
14:21The ochre pigments contain colourful iron oxides, and are set aside to be used for making paint.
14:34An integral feature of castle design were the toilets.
14:39They were known as garderobe, the French word for wardrobe.
14:45Clothes would often be kept inside them, because it was believed the smell of ammonia from urine kept parasites at
14:52bay.
14:54Clothes were often built out of the castle walls, to allow the waste to drop down through the hole, to
15:01the ground or moat below.
15:05Get along keeps a wooden grill over the holes, to dissuade any modern day visitors from attempting to spend a
15:11penny.
15:15It's a big question, isn't it, how people use guard ropes.
15:18There is little bits of evidence in the earliest of the manners books, which are aimed at pages who are
15:24serving a knight, hoping to become a squire, become a knight.
15:26So it's for little lads, you know.
15:28Their first job of the day, before their lord is up, is to prepare the privy.
15:34And he's told to make it extremely clean.
15:36He's got to sweep it out and make it clean.
15:37He's also got to put cloths in there.
15:40Not quite sure how the cloths were used, but they're to go in there.
15:44And sweet-smelling herbs.
15:45Yeah.
15:46So that it's somewhere comfortable and pleasant to be.
15:50So at least for those at the very top of society, going to the toilet ought to have been quite
15:56a nice experience.
15:57Yeah, I think, I mean, it wouldn't have smelled too bad.
16:01I mean, I know the poo's going down, and yes, if it's not getting moved, there might be a bit
16:05of wafting up.
16:06But those herbs would certainly have taken the edge off.
16:10And there is, of course, the question of toilet paper.
16:13There is.
16:14I mean, many people think leaves and moss, but let's face it, deforestation.
16:18Where the heck are you going to get a leaf of the right size in the middle of January?
16:22I mean, honestly.
16:23And then you also think, well, moss, but you'd have to have moss plantations, wouldn't you, to keep a big
16:28community going?
16:29It gets very, very dry in summer.
16:31It does.
16:32So, I mean, there's nothing to say that people didn't use.
16:35I mean, you know as well as I do that archaeologically all sorts of things turn up in cesspits.
16:39Yeah.
16:39So, probably people used whatever was to hand.
16:42But I do wonder if maybe the more normal system, especially in a castle, would have been to have your
16:48own cloth or rag or flannel to wash yourself with.
16:52Or even a communal rag.
16:53Quite possibly.
16:54Or washed out in a bucket.
16:55Washed out in a bucket.
16:56It's perfectly possible.
16:58For these privies, I'd certainly use a coat of render, a coat of line wash, probably a loose seat.
17:04I think a door might be a good idea too.
17:06And a door.
17:12So, you have to take some, this thing is, grease is dripping.
17:17You have to take it on your finger like this.
17:20That's for cake.
17:21You put it inside.
17:23Just work that around.
17:24And that's to actually lubricate the side of the template, is it?
17:27Yes.
17:28So, the tile will come out easily at the end.
17:35So, I like to start with hand, because we can feel, you can feel all the corners.
17:42It's very important to have good corners in the tile.
17:45If not, the masons are really not satisfied.
17:48To work is very hard for them.
17:50We don't want to upset the masons.
17:52No.
17:53Don't do that.
17:55So, you can use this as well.
17:57Right.
17:57When you think the corners are okay, you can just finish.
18:03Right, so.
18:04But you're not just hitting it, are you?
18:06Sort of, looks like you're rolling a bit there.
18:08Yeah, a little bit.
18:09If you, like, do it like this, you'll see.
18:12Right, okay.
18:12It's almost like you're twisting it off as you make contact.
18:16That's what's happening with you, with me.
18:18It's kind of in between, I think.
18:20New tool.
18:21New tool.
18:21New tool.
18:22You use this one like this.
18:23And try to get something very flat.
18:33So, we have to, to see if it's okay on the other side.
18:37Like, when there's a problem, it's always with the corners.
18:40Always something with the corners.
18:42So, you have to check the corners.
18:44Okay.
18:44My corners are good.
18:47What do you think?
18:48This is perfect.
18:49Oh, yeah.
18:49Very good.
18:50Yes, yes.
18:50Mason will be happy.
18:53Okay.
18:53You put it there.
18:54And you do like this.
18:59With the grease poke, normally it's green.
19:04But you have to sign with the name of this place.
19:07Yes.
19:07And basically, that's what quality control.
19:09Yes.
19:11And if we've done one, we've got another 69 to do.
19:14Yes.
19:15We're back to Rich.
19:30Just beyond the castle walls, Ruth is visiting Gedilon's paint house to discover how the
19:36ochre found in the quarry and in the clay is used to make pigments for paint.
19:43I'm going to start by grinding down the earths.
19:47Valerie Urtaud is a ceramicist by trade from a family of local potters.
19:52She's in charge of pigments, paint making, and decoration at Gedilon.
19:57All right.
19:58So, these are the pieces that Tom was finding in amongst the clay when he was doing the tiling.
20:04We don't know exactly the color of the stone, we don't know the color of the stone.
20:08We don't know the color in the stone.
20:09We don't know the color of the stone.
20:13It's funny stuff.
20:14It's not the same as dye.
20:16Dye stains the fibers of what you're dyeing.
20:20So, if you get a wood stain, that is a dye for wood.
20:25Because it's dyeing the wood fibers in the same way as cloth is a dye that stains the fibers.
20:31Paint is different.
20:32paint is bits of coloured stuff that are glued onto a surface and so if they're
20:39very big lumps the amount of light coming off is quite small the colour
20:44looks patchy and thin if you can make the particles very very tiny the light
20:49will refract off them in a great burst and you'll get a really strong intense
20:55colour I mean I shouldn't think a 13th century person thought about light
20:59refraction but they did know that if you grind it thoroughly you get a much
21:04better paint it's not a bad colour is it good against the yellow yellow still on
21:12there yellow ochre is the other key colour found in the natural Gedelon environment
21:24this really is the colour of Gedelon look at that when you're around here
21:29everything's this colour absolutely everything that is the dust that we
21:33breathe in whenever you go anywhere near the castle it starts grinds underfoot
21:37it's the no just look at the place this is the colour of the ground so having sort
21:44of crushed it up a bit and dissolved it we're now sitting in we want small
21:50particles as the mixture settles the heavier ochre particles fall to the bottom
21:57and the remaining liquid is left out in the Sun to dry the finer particles left
22:02behind are then ground down into a powder
22:08enormous amount of work to grind this down to the fineness that you need but when you
22:14just see the range of colours that have been produced just out of the earth of Gedelon you
22:20can see why people would bother just look it out in the castle courtyard Peter and Philippe delage known to
22:37his fellow craftspeople as Gandalf are mixing lime wash made with one part line and one part water
22:45is it what is that in French line wash is it it is leadership leadership oh milk milk of lime
22:52how can you tell it's good consistency oh there's more oh it's really good is that that's good yeah
22:58that's yeah I should be enough yeah I'll grab that bucket yes come on
23:10up the tower Peter heads towards the Lord and Lady's bedchamber in the great tower to brighten things up in
23:21the garden
23:26all right left English French brush course and then it's down down down and it just gives a beautiful beautiful
23:43texture
23:51I know at Gedelon there was a massive debate as to whether you know they should leave the stones
23:57the walls bare because all this work had gone in by the masons to to put the stone there and
24:02they say
24:02if you cover it up with mortar with render and paint it with lime wash the public won't see it
24:08but
24:09this is how the castles were in medieval age of course as we come across castles they're ruins
24:17generally very little plaster work survives Ruth and Valerie experiment with a bit of 13th century chemistry
24:37so this is the local yellow ochre yeah and we're cooking it and we're cooking it
24:45it's because he's going to turn it red it's quite exciting isn't it that this just comes out of the
24:52ground
24:53all yellow and you can get this range of colors yeah he's already changing color oh yes yes you're right
25:01I can see
25:02there where it's hot look at the difference on my fingers yellow ochre is a hydrated iron oxide known as
25:12limonite as it heated over the fire some of the limonite turned into hematite turning the ochre into rich
25:20darker shades such as burnt sienna and burnt umber pigments like this are really ancient right across Europe if
25:30you think of those cave paintings right at the dawn of human history this is the sort of paint that
25:36they were using to make them and if you think of Britain the Picts think those people are known or
25:44described in the ancient Roman texts as being covered in red paint the red men and the Irish talk about
25:51it
25:51too it seems to have been a really Celtic thing to do to paint yourself red and yellow ochres look
26:01at that
26:10just beyond the castle walls at Gedilo the earthen kiln used for the firing of tiles is lined with bricks
26:19Kilns were often owned by the local lord who of course charged his tenants for using them
26:27in the 13th century regulations governing the work of local tilers in and around to lose specified not only the
26:35consistency and dimensions of the tiles themselves but also the size of the kilns used and the number of tiles
26:42permitted to be fired in any one firing
26:49Gedilon fires 4,000 tiles at a time
26:55Bruno Favar is the chief tile maker at Gedilo and he and his team have presided over 15 experimental firings
27:03during the past nine years
27:07each firing has enabled them to improve and finesse their techniques
27:17the way they're placing them in the kiln they're leaving gaps so that when they fire this the flames can
27:25work their way up through every single tile and hopefully
27:28there'll be an even temperature making each one hard each one a very similar color and and making sure there's
27:36no losses
27:38um and one of the problems with these tiles when you dry them out if there's any water in there
27:42and you fire it too
27:44quickly the kiln that water will expand because it'll turn into a gas it'll blow the tile apart you'll hear
27:50a pop and if these are stacked incorrectly if one tile goes
27:55several tiles could go they've been doing this for a number of years they know what they're doing it's a
28:02lot of this is trial and error
28:05experimental archaeology they they know what these kilns look like from excavations have been done in the UK
28:10they've been done in France now they know how these kilns actually worked because they've been working these kilns
28:36out in the peace and quiet of the forest Ruth is making an essential tool for applying her medieval paint
28:46so if I'm actually going to be able to paint anything that looks like something I'm going to need a
28:50decent
28:51brush to do it with so I went and found some badger hair well I'll be honest there was a
28:57there was some
28:57roadkill so I shaved it um I know it sounds a bit of a weird thing to do so I
29:04shaved it as close to the skin
29:06as I possibly could in order to keep the hairs all as they grow naturally in order so when I
29:14sort of grab a little tuft of it
29:15here if I sort of try and separate a bit out and what I want to these long straight hairs
29:21that are what helps a badger shed
29:23water the hair is designed to move water which is why it makes such great brushes I'm going to glue
29:29those hairs in place so they
29:30don't move during the next bit of the process the glue Ruth is using is gum arabic
29:36hardened sap from the acacia tree mixed with four parts water gum arabic of course is water soluble so
29:45I'll be able to just wash it out of the brush at the end and can you see how that's
29:48coming together
29:49now as a point that's exactly what I wanted to do as a finished brush if you look at a
29:55modern paintbrush
29:56there's a sort of metal bit between the hairs and the stick the 13th century you're not going to mess
30:01around trying to make a metal ferrule you just do something much much easier and cheaper you go
30:06and get yourself a feather because if you think about it if I cut that bit off and I cut
30:10that bit
30:11off I've got a ready-made tube I can take a little bit of thread and bind my hairs it's
30:19whipping them into
30:20place as tight as I can manage and I've got a nice firmly held little paintbrush head which I should
30:32be able to poke through
30:37there we go and you can see how firmly that's in there now see paintbrush head all I need now
30:44is jammer
30:44sticking the other end done that looks like it'll work in there the pressures on at the tile kiln the
30:5613th
30:57of May in medieval France was regarded as the day of the holy ice it was believed to be the
31:04last day
31:04of spring in which a hail storm would occur sent by God as a sign of his omnipotence before the
31:11arrival of
31:13summer and as hail often turns quickly to heavy rain that could have disastrous consequences for the
31:20fate of this batch of tiles this firing has already been held up for several days owing to heavy storms
31:28and
31:30and once again dark clouds are looming overhead the rain is coming and we've just got to get this
31:44finished because if these tiles get wet there'll be a serious problem not only can it affect their
31:51ability to fire essentially they may explode if if the water gets in there it'll also take an awful lot
31:56more fuel to dry this kiln out and then get it up to temperature medieval tile makers would probably
32:05have used mud earth or wooden boards to weatherproof the tops of their kilns but for reasons of practicality
32:14and efficiency get along relies on sheets of 21st century corrugated iron there isn't a moment to lose
32:22here it comes here it comes the holy ice the hail the last time of the year you'll get hail
32:29and almost
32:30as if on cue as feared the hail quickly turns into a downfall the kiln will remain covered for several
32:44days to allow the soil around it and the wood required for firing time to thoroughly dry out only once
32:54Bruno has
32:55assessed that the ground and climate conditions are optimum will the firing finally take place good
33:02work Peter good work and at this rate it may have to be postponed for several more days yet glad
33:09I've got a poncho Tomo
33:34while the tile firing is on hold progress is made on the chapel tower the guard room within the lower
33:41floor is undergoing a colorful transformation
33:50valerie and her colleague or are using the ghetto on ochre to paint a design on the walls known as
33:57fictive masonry
34:00this was a popular style of artwork among the nobility and royalty throughout Europe in the mid-13th century
34:13it was a less expensive way to create the illusion of the walls having been constructed from expensive white limestone
34:21by lime washing the cheaper sandstone white and then over painting this with a colorful fake stonework pattern a
34:28look of grandeur and of wealth was created
34:36transformation of this room incredible isn't it to think it goes from bare stone to render to a lime wash
34:43to this and this is prestige is 1240 queen of
34:48England has something very similar in her bedchambers with addition of flowers but yeah brightens the room doesn't it is
34:55like visual is
34:56impressive and these fake joints made out of this ochre paint give the impression of
35:01highly cut stone exactly it's like you are replicating what's beneath it but a very stylish way in a way
35:09that actually says to people coming here to visit
35:11this is what I'm worth I've got money I can make this happen the ochre pigments would be mixed with
35:18a glue binder made from egg or
35:20sometimes rabbit skin to make the paint I'm not sure if my lines are dark enough
35:28oh oh oh oh oh oh I think I top loaded my brush a little bit too much there
35:34it hasn't run that's the danger isn't it too much pigment on your your brush
35:42do you want to touch up that bit there and then I'll nip in there
35:51no it's all going wrong it's going wrong it's looking awful it is
36:01well I've seen worse well I know but you know you should put yourself down
36:08oh no
36:21every aspect of Gedilon's design is planned by a scientific committee of experts
36:27they work closely with the staff so that every feature is based on
36:31authentic primary sources of historical evidence
36:39and just a few miles away in the village of Moutier is a key example of that
36:44evidence the church of st. Peter built around the year 1000
36:52the church of the middle ages was a huge and wealthy landowner which exerted a powerful influence
36:59over people's lives and the interiors of its buildings often set a benchmark for the tastes
37:17and trends in the early 1980s the white distemper covering the interior walls started to crack and peel
37:23this is amazing uncovering a fascinating medieval secret everywhere
37:35a painstaking conservation over the next 10 years revealed these stunning ochre murals from the 13th century
37:47they've provided get along with an authentic and illuminating resource from which to draw inspiration for the interior decor of
37:55the castle
37:59this is the panel that we're particularly interested in in terms of the work we're doing at Gedilon
38:04it's amazing you can you can pick out there you can see the frieze
38:07yeah and these five petal flowers you find these all over the place very pop art but it's pure 13th
38:14century
38:17of course the church would have been absolutely central in people's lives
38:21everyone locally would have had to have come to this church so the paintings on these walls
38:26aren't just decoration they are here to tell stories they can be read very much like a cartoon strip
38:34right almost the entertainment of the age the biblical story just laid out in scenes
38:41and i like the way that the artists have also taken uh the opportunity to retell the story uh in
38:48their way
38:48if there was any kind of friction between them and the church we've got eve here sashaying away being
38:54very cheeky yeah giving the wink to adam just behind here they have a wink we can't see what happens
39:01behind the pillar and then afterwards they've got a harvest and a child so i wonder what the reaction was
39:07because presumably the villagers would be in on the joke only when you
39:20ruth is applying some of the techniques discovered at the church of saint peter
39:23to the bed chamber which would have been used to provide hospitality to the lord and lady's most
39:29distinguished guests
39:32it's the most highly decorated room in the castle so far
39:36and ruth is using the burnt red ochre paint to restore the rose motifs in the window seat
39:44obviously the domestic spaces within a castle are intended to impress they have to look gorgeous
39:51it's about the look of the place as much as anything else and naturally people painted their walls
39:58it's not a church this isn't about religious storytelling this was about showing your power it was about prestige
40:08that up there that little bit where it's painted to look as if it's masonry with the little roses in
40:15front often called stones and roses is perhaps the most typical as far as we can tell of all interior
40:21decorating designs of the mid-13th century that is what the queen of england had on her bedroom walls
40:27in the tower of london stones and roses the very height of fashion
40:40back at the church of saint peter in moutier sarah explains how the paintings on these walls
40:47have informed the way in which gedelon's interiors are decorated
40:55because we don't have a lot of evidence of the types of paintings that were inside castles
41:02we're always very careful to say to people okay we don't know if there was ever a bedroom painted in
41:06exactly the style that we've got at the castle but just a stone's throw from the castle at the same
41:12time we're painting these same patterns and crucially it's the same color palette this is just like
41:18walking out of the quarry isn't it we've got the red ochre the the yellow ochres the browns i have
41:23to
41:23say i mean you look at the masons when they come out of the quarry and that kind of
41:28the dust and the ochre that's on them that is your color palette absolutely
41:33nice everything's there so if we wanted to paint in this area with blues or greens we'd have to buy
41:39those pigments in from further afield and they would have been more costly and it's interesting
41:43to see that in a church the decision has obviously been taken not to have too much blue or green
41:49they've
41:49used the materials that were available locally
41:54artwork like this just doesn't really survive in castles castles generally ruins but churches
41:59they're such a an important historical reference no that was it that was certainly uh a challenge for
42:05us and that we were aware that there are very few models of the types of paintings that there would
42:10have been inside castles at this time it was a very deliberate decision not to use the human figures
42:14because obviously these are depicting uh biblical stories uh so we we stuck very much with the the
42:21flowers the trees the geometric shapes but what we're wanting to do is offer people a vision of what a
42:2913th century visitor might have seen and to get over the fact that the castles weren't
42:33bare stone empty places they were decorated and they were full of color
42:38oh
43:12another area of the castle which is the result of intense research into 13th century architecture
43:18is the chapel
43:25clement guirard the chief stone carver at guédelon is a highly experienced draftsman
43:31but he's about to undertake his most ambitious project to date
43:38right now clement's doing the drawing for what will be the prestige feature of the chapel
43:43so much so they've actually imported a slightly less hard type of limestone or easier to carve
43:50this really is precise work i am marveling at the skill he's got
43:58the
43:59clement is designing a decorative piece of masonry
44:02based on a very common 13th century design found throughout france
44:16it's a niche for the chapel wall with a trefoil shaped head which will sit upon pillars rising from two
44:23small basins
44:23called piscine
44:31at guédelon white dress limestone is used for the more decorative features of the castle
44:39although it's quicker to dress than the quarry's hard sandstone
44:43it's easier to chip so great precision is required and mistakes could prove costly
45:00so
45:09finally it's the morning of the long-awaited firing of the kiln
45:16peter's up early to help share the workload with florian dubois
45:22the firebox in the lower chamber has been stacked with logs and twigs
45:27and at last the first piece of kindling is lit
45:39within seconds clouds of wood smoke are billowing out at the top of the firing chamber
45:49it's going to take hundreds of armfuls of wood and many hours of careful monitoring
45:55to turn these flames into the roaring blaze required to fire the tiles
46:00a long hot and exhausting day lies ahead
46:19the stone carvers have completed the first part of the white limestone niche
46:23and are ready to transport it at the chapel tower
46:31the hoisting of the stone requires care and attention
46:38the lord and all of those working for him would have set great store by this sacred work of art
46:56for us the significance is that this is the first real piece of religious architecture that we've
47:00got in the castle this is the the only sacred space within the castle so we're actually standing
47:07here in the area where the altar will be so this is the holiest place right of this this sacred
47:13space
47:13where you'd have the holy water and the oils yeah so the this is the most delicate sculpture that we've
47:20done here as you can see it's a hand basin you've seen it being being dressed earlier but you can
47:24see
47:25the two dips now we had some priests visiting we were wondering ourselves why there were these two kind
47:30of recesses and the priests that were visiting suggested that maybe one was for for washing
47:35priests hands before the mass and that the other one was then for washing the influence that had been
47:40used in the mass right what we've been told at least is that the idea is that all the water
47:45that is
47:46in uh this this piscina this this hand basin is holy water and as such you can't just be thrown
47:53away all the water will actually and we're not talking about huge amounts but the water will just
47:57kind of filter down into the wall and stay within the walls of the the the stone of the chapel
48:04itself
48:04is obviously porous it's going to absorb the holy water and essentially make this whole space
48:08even more sacred that's the idea so our mini little temple here at guedlon uh so it's been an
48:15opportunity obviously for the stone masons to to use different techniques and then there was a little
48:19bit of improvisation that gave that the stone masons an opportunity to to kind of have a bit of freedom
48:25of movement you can see each column is slightly different this is mature you can see his mark up here
48:31on the stone and on the other side we've got john paul's right here
48:40the mason's marks undressed stones are a permanent reminder of the ancient skills and techniques
48:46of the medieval masons
48:50each one presents us with a unique signature of the craftsman who carved a particular piece
49:14of the kiln tension is rising a month's rain has taken its toll and the firing is not going to
49:22plan
49:23everything got wet the kiln got wet the wood got wet so it's just taken that a little bit longer
49:29to dry
49:30everything out get rid of the moisture the blaze is still several hundred degrees below what it needs
49:37to be peter leads a frantic effort to try to save the 4 000 tiles inside
49:46we know today the optimum temperature for successful firing is around 1000 degrees centigrade
49:5513th century tilers relied on their experience their senses and costly trial and error
50:03they would have been under intense pressure to get firings right
50:10the kiln it's just about getting up to temperature now
50:15it's ready to really feed up and it's pretty soon those tiles will get close to firing but it does
50:20mean it's going to be a longer day i mean the sun is setting in the sky we're going to
50:26go late into the night
50:31a tireless trade depended on the local nobility's trust and the reliability of his product
50:39and the strict laws governing the standards of production were rigidly enforced
50:45tiles must be correctly stacked the temperature must not be too high or too low
50:51the heat must be distributed evenly throughout the kiln
50:57if not the results could be under fired over fired or otherwise damaged tiles
51:05and the medieval lord would neither accept nor pay for a single substandard tile
51:13failed firing had serious consequences for a tiler's livelihood
51:27as darkness falls peter and the team finally succeed in getting the temperature up to 1000 degrees centigrade
51:42we've been working since this morning without stopping and now we are a bit tired
51:48it was uh it was hard but now it's at a good temperature right
51:55and what sort of what sort of colors are you looking for
51:58it must stay orange if it's white it's too much
52:03if you want the the ties to be fired evenly we must stay at this temperature during two hours
52:10all right okay but are you happy yes yes we are yes it's a dream yeah
52:43can you imagine
52:46living in a world with no electric lights i mean tonight we have the stars we have the moon
52:55and we have the tile kiln 4 000 tiles they're just about to block this up with wood and they're
53:02going to seal it in
53:04it's a lot of hard work at the coalface because this is industry
53:10could you imagine what it must have been like to see a castle being built of stone surrounded by these
53:17kilns that were firing flames into that night sky
53:24that sat back here thinking about perhaps the hell down there and the heavens up there
53:31and your tiles currently in purgatory which way are they going to go have you been good
53:37will they be used in that castle who knows
53:40are you
53:52where
54:19It takes several days for the kiln to cool down.
54:23Peter's helping to unload the tiles and examine the results.
54:43You can hear this?
54:44Yeah, I can hear it.
54:45This sound is perfect for us.
54:47That ringing sound is what you're looking for.
54:52Hey.
54:53Perfect sound.
54:54Ah.
54:55That's a good sound.
55:02Why are you guys spitting on the tiles?
55:04Oh, to see if it's cooked.
55:08Because sometimes the sound is not enough.
55:10Right.
55:11The sound can be out of the middle.
55:13We don't know if it's raw or cooked.
55:14So we can spit on it and if the saliva stays there, it's cooked.
55:18If it's going inside the tile, it's not.
55:20But every single tile coming out of this kiln, you're quality controlling them.
55:26Yes.
55:26You're listening to the sound.
55:27Yes.
55:27If you're unsure, you spit on it.
55:29If it goes in, it's undercooked.
55:30We can't spit on everyone.
55:31And 4,000.
55:32We don't have it.
55:33Oh.
55:34Absolutely.
55:35But what happens if they overcook?
55:41Oh, we have an example.
55:43So it was not for this firing.
55:44It was for one before.
55:46When overcooked, it's going like that.
55:48So we have this bubble of gas inside and the bubble is growing bigger.
55:54And the tile is burst with time.
55:57This is good.
55:58Quality.
56:00Handmade.
56:01Well, I saw how hard you guys worked and how long it takes to make these tiles.
56:07I mean, it's good.
56:09I'm pleased.
56:09I'm happy for you.
56:11We're happy too.
56:14Especially with this firing, we're really happy.
56:16Yes, we have very good results.
56:19It's really nice to have it.
56:29The fired tiles are now used to floor the fully rendered and lime-washed quarry tower.
56:39It will take thousands more tiles and several more years of rendering, lime-washing and painting.
56:47Before the entire castle finally looks like it might have done in the 13th century.
56:57This is really starting to look like a finished castle, isn't it?
57:01You know, with the tiles and the walls all plastered and painted.
57:04It's starting to get that feel of a living space.
57:08I'll be honest, I did not appreciate how much work and effort it would take to get this stage actually
57:13happening.
57:14You know, clay for the tiles, finding the paints.
57:17But when you see it, it's unbelievable.
57:20And I really can't wait.
57:22I know it's a long time in the future yet.
57:24But for the furniture and the furnishings, for the textiles to finally arrive.
57:28Well, it emphasises that it's actually a living space and not just a defensive building, doesn't it?
57:33In moments like this, you look at this, you know, yes, I could actually sit here and relax.
57:37Yeah.
57:37It's not all about warfare when it comes to castles.
57:40This is an entertaining space.
57:42Next to the Great Hall, you can bring your more select guests in here to wine them and dine them.
57:48And perhaps a guest bed in here and everybody else sleeping around on mats.
57:53You can get the feel for that sort of convivial way of life.
57:56I have to say though, the medieval period was far more colourful than I thought it was.
58:07Next time, the community of skills it takes to build a castle.
58:13From the blacksmith transforming metal.
58:17To the never ending need for wood.
58:21Plus, making a medieval water mill.
58:25Wow, is all I can say.