Video: How long did it take to build a castle in the Middle Ages?
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
When you look at the huge stone castles, you often wonder what kind of fellow ancestors were, since they were able to build such a thing! Today people are building no less magnificent buildings. And in the presence of modern technologies, the construction of many buildings naturally takes years. How long, then, did it take to build medieval castles in an era without cars and cranes?
By the way, medieval builders had cranes. Despite the fact that technology has stepped forward, there are not so many fundamentally new tools.
And since antiquity. The answer to the question of how long it took to build a castle depends on many factors. First of all, on the size of the castle itself and the shoulder of the supply of building materials, the number of builders involved and the availability of qualified fortification engineers. But if we speak in generalizations, then even quite large castles did not take so long to build.
For example, in the XII-XIII century, a stone castle with a citadel, one enclosure of walls and several towers was built by 1-1.5 thousand builders in 4-5 years. In the 10th-11th centuries, wooden donjons with a palisade were built in a matter of weeks by fewer workers. Large stone castles with one outline of the walls were erected in 7-9 years.
The stone walls of an average city could take from 4 to 20 years. It should be understood, however, that castles were rarely built in one sitting.
As a rule, medieval fortifications were built in several stages. First, the first outline of the walls was placed. Then the citadel was erected. All this could be considered the first stage of construction.
In the following decades, after the completion of the fortification work, the feudal lord or his descendants could expand and rebuild the castle as needed. Many fortresses that have survived to this day in reality bear traces of numerous "major repairs" and improvements.
Today in France, the castle of Guédelon is being built by enthusiasts. The guys use only medieval technologies for its construction. It has been under construction for 20 years and is planned to be completed by 2030.
True, only 200-300 amateur builders are involved in this project. In the Middle Ages, not only the tax-paying population, but also slaves were driven to the construction of fortifications. Therefore, construction took much less time than today. It should also be understood that medieval builders worked from dawn to dusk, they did not have any 8-hour day.
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