Castles dominated the medieval landscape.
And Britain has some of the finest in the world.
Today most are decaying relics,
many of their secrets buried in time.
- Now, historian Ruth Goodman... - Whoo!
...and archaeologists Tom Pinfold and Peter Ginn
are turning the clock back
to relearn the secrets of the medieval castle builders.
PETER: This is the ultimate in medieval technology.
The origin of our castles is distinctly French -
introduced to Britain at the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Trois, deux, un, tirez!
Here in the Burgundy region of France is Guédelon Castle,
the world's biggest archaeological experiment.
A 25-year project to build a castle from scratch,
using the same tools, techniques and materials available in the 13th century.
It's a lot of hard work at the coalface, because this is industry.
For the next six months, Ruth, Peter and Tom
will experience the daily rigors of medieval construction...
Drop down. Yeah, there.
...and everyday life. ...looking really good, you know.
How workers dressed...
Oh!
...and ate... - You can really smell your food, Ruth.
(Ruth laughs)
...and the art of combat.
Oh!
This is the story of how to build a medieval castle.
Ripped By mstoll
It's May, and the team have been immersed in the building works
alongside Guédelon's masons.
- Perfect. - Oh, good!
They've learned how the castle was defended in times of war.
Every stone has to be in line because this is gonna go up and up and up.
Now the team discover the surprisingly colourful world of 13th-century castle interiors.
And much of the material they work with will come straight from the ground.
Some of the stuff in here is ochre.
- (Speaks French) - Oh, yes.
From paint to brighten the rooms...
...where it's hot. Look at the difference on my fingers!
...to turning mud into floor tiles.
Can you imagine living in a world with no electric lights?
And they'll be rediscovering an ancient art in a midnight firing at the kiln.
The medieval castles we're used to seeing today
are scarred by centuries of warfare and weather erosion.
Most of their original roofs, carpentry and interior finishes have long since disappeared.
But these drab walls are a far cry from how they looked in their heyday.
RUTH: This is how many of us think of the interior of castles:
Bare stone, echoey, damp, gritty underfoot,
but that's because we're used to ruins.
When they were in use, back in the 13th century, they were rather different.
You have to imagine tiled floors and plaster on the walls,
perhaps painted, whitewashed,
and then hangings of fabric over the top, filled with furniture.
And that too is covered in fabrics, cushions, all-sorts.
An entirely different beast.
To strive for accuracy,
the Guédelon project has adopted a specific historical timeframe to work to.
The castle is being designed and built
as it would have been in the France of the 1230s and '40s
during the reign of King Louis IX.
The region of Puisaye in Burgundy was governed by one Jean de Toucy,
a vassal to the King.
In turn, de Toucy was the overlord of several other lower ranking noblemen.
And it was one of these lesser nobles who would have commissioned a castle
like the one being built here at Guédelon today.
It's not a grand royal castle, bristling with military might and enormous wealth,
but a fortified residence of relatively modest taste and design,
according to the rank and means of the imaginary Lord of Guédelon.
The team, along with site administrator, Sarah Preston,
are exploring some of the key rooms and quarters within the castle...
...to find out how the interiors are being dressed.
- This is the castle's Great Hall. - Great is the word.
So this is very much the hub of castle life.
This is... It's a dining hall, it's a banqueting, feasting hall.
I mean, this room is a statement of power and prestige, isn't it?
Absolutely. It's important to bear in mind, once it's finished,
we won't have these bare stone walls.
The Great Hall was the political and business hub of castle life.
This was where the lord held court,
receiving his tenants and listening to their concerns and grievances.
With many of the social rituals of the day being held here
it was important for the interior design to show off his wealth and status to invited guests.
Over the next few years the Great Hall at Guédelon, and the Great Tower adjacent to it,
will be dressed in the style of a 13th-century lord and his lady.
This is currently the lord's chamber.
This is where the lord would sleep with his wife and his children.
It's a residential chamber.
You can see that from the fireplace on the wall behind us, so it can be heated.
- That's not true of all the rooms in the castle. - (Laughter)
The stone walls are rough, uneven and draughty.
But they would have been dressed and painted.
Peter and Tom are going to be painting and tiling some of the castle's indoor spaces,
while Ruth makes paint.
So this is the store room.
But first, Sarah takes her to the already-decorated kitchen under the Great Hall.
But eventually it will have a render applied
and then a lime wash to make it much whiter and brighter.
Come and have a look.
Oh, I see what you mean!
- I mean, that's real darkness into light, isn't it? - It makes such a difference.
People aren't used to necessarily seeing the inside of castle walls rendered and lime washed,
but it's made such a difference to the people who work in the kitchen because it's like...
- The light seems to bounce off, doesn't it? ...turning on an electric light, absolutely.
In terms of hygiene it would have made a difference.
Definitely, really. It kills anything that might be there
and stops bugs getting into all the cracks and things.
So you start with a really sterile surface.
Repaint it if... whenever you need to.
I mean, obviously, so far, we haven't had the time to render the inside of all the rooms.
We've got other priorities at the moment.
But as soon as we've finished, kind of, the major building work,
then we can get on with the job of rendering the inside,
but, I hope, also the outside of the castle.
Because often the outsides of castles were also rendered and lime washed,
because in terms of visibility it just meant your castle stood out in the landscape.
So that's something that we couldn't necessarily get away with in a genuine historic monument,
but here, on this experimental site, that's something that we can show our visitors.
The Tower of London, The White Tower,
was named because it was lime washed on the outside.
The tower nearest the quarry, known as the Quarry Tower,
would have been a guard room or shooting gallery.
Even this would have been brightly decorated.
The boys have been tasked by stonemason, Fabrice Maingot,
with rendering the interior wall with lime mortar, the medieval equivalent of plaster.
We're gonna use two and a half buckets of sand and one lime and water, and mix it in.
What we're looking for here is the right consistency.
Keep on adding a little... moisture. Turn it in, turn it in.
Little bit more.
It's OK.
Are you happy? Is that good enough?
- It's good. - Yeah.
Cosy work space.
Fabrice demonstrates how a medieval wall is rendered.
Put some water...
We're not drenching it, though, are we?
Just dampening the stone.
If you don't put water, mortar...
- It just won't stick. - Right.
OK.
Archaeological research has revealed
that rendering wouldn't have been applied in several smooth layers,
but with a single rough coat,
using a technique similar to spreading butter.
Interesting technique, isn't it?
Keeping the board close to the wall, pushing the render up.
- Do you understand? - Shall I go first?
- Yeah. - You want to try?
Let me get it wrong.
Yeah, I'm gonna learn from your mistakes, my friend.
Um... So to do a turret like this, how long do you think it would take?
- Two, three days. - Two, three days.
- That's ten days for you, Tommo. - For two mason.
At least ten days for me.
FABRICE: Good luck. - We'll need it.
See you later.
As the lime mortar is relatively porous it will draw out any dampness in the wall
and so help to preserve the masonry underneath.
It's interesting, isn't it, that we're only putting on one coat, that butter coat.
But this is an established practice, isn't it?
You always think, when you go to the ruined castles in the UK or around Europe,
these bare walls are what they were looking at.
However, not the case.
It was a prestige thing, to get a layer of render up.
- Yeah. - You know, decorate it.
Yeah, I mean, castles... the majority of castles, they are just ruins, aren't they?
You're coming to them very long after their lives.
The medieval manufacture of tiles for castle roofs and floor spaces was an industry in itself.
So far, at Guédelon, 28,000 tiles have been created
for the roof of the Great Hall building alone.
Ajob which took four years to achieve.
It's estimated that a total of 80,000 tiles
will be needed to cover the roofs of the castle in its entirety.
But as the four towers around the curtain wall are still under construction,
tile production has now shifted from roof tiles to floor tiles.
And Tom is about to discover just how laborious the process is to make just one tile.
Just breaking up some of this clay, gonna use it for our tiles.
Obviously not in this state. We actually need to get a lot of these impurities out.
But some of the stuff in here is ochre and ochre can actually turn into paint.
So I'm gonna separate some of that out.
But, for now, just stack up on this clay.
Get it back to the tuilerie, or the tile makers.
In the 11th century many hamlets and villages in France specialised in tile production
to meet increasing demand from the local nobility.
And as the medieval tile trade grew so did the strict regulations it was governed by,
designed to standardise production.
Oh, that's the thing about clay, isn't it?
It's not easy to work. You can feel all the muscles getting involved.
You take some. There.
In 1280, a decree from Toulouse stipulated that good tiles may only be made
from well-pugged clay, well trampled underfoot and not over-dry.
It feels nice, though. Is this good for hands, good for the skin?
Very nice for the skin, yeah. Some people are paying for this.
(Laughter)
Lucky us.
I've always wanted soft hands.
Tom and tile maker, Aymeric Guillot, are now removing any twigs and stones,
and making the clay homogenous and malleable.
Ah, so this... hard lump here, this could be ochre.
Yes.
The ochre pigments contain colourful iron oxides
and are set aside to be used for making paint.
(Hammering and sawing)
An integral feature of castle design were the toilets.
They were known as garderobes, the French word for "wardrobe".
Clothes would often be kept inside them
because it was believed the smell of ammonia from urine kept parasites at bay.
Garderobes were often built out of the castle walls
to allow the waste to drop down through the hole to the ground, or moat, below.
Guédelon keeps a wooden grille over the holes
to dissuade any modern-day visitors from attempting to spend a penny.
It's a big question, isn't it, how people used garderobes.
There is little bits of evidence.
In the earliest of the "manners books", which are aimed at pages who are serving a knight,
who are hoping to become a squire, become a knight.
It's for little lads, you know.
Their first job of the day, before their lord is up, is to prepare the privy.
And he's told to make it extremely clean: He's got to sweep it out and make it clean.
He's also got to put cloths in there.
Not quite sure how the cloths were used but they're to go in there.
- And sweet-smelling herbs. - Yeah.
So that it's somewhere comfortable and pleasant to be.
So at least for those at the very top of society, going to the toilet ought to have been...
Quite a nice experience.
Yeah, I think, I mean, it wouldn't have smelt too bad.
I mean, I know the poo's going down
and, yes, if it's not getting moved there might be a bit of wafting up,
but those herbs would certainly have taken the edge off.
And there is, of course, the question of toilet paper.
There is. I mean, many people think leaves and moss but, let's face it, deforestation.
Where the heck are you gonna get a leaf of the right size in the middle of January?
I mean, honestly.
And then also you think, well, moss, but you'd have to have moss plantations,
wouldn't you, to keep a big community going.
- It gets very, very dry in summer. - It does. (Laughs)
So, I mean, there's nothing to say that people didn't use...
You know as well as I do that, archaeologically, all sorts of things turn up in cesspits.
So... probably people used whatever was to hand.
But I do wonder if maybe the more normal system, especially in a castle,
would have been to have your own cloth or rag or flannel to wash yourself with.
- Or even a communal rag. - Quite possibly.
- And washed out in a bucket. - Washed out in a bucket.
It's perfectly possible.
Well, these privies, they can certainly use a coat of render,
a coat of lime wash, probably a loo seat.
- I think a door might be a good idea too. - And a door!
(Laughs)
So you have take some er... This thing is grease, is dripping.
You have to take it on your finger like this and, as for a cake, you put it inside.
Just work that round and that's to actually lubricate the side of the template, is it?
- Yes. - So the tile will come out easily at the end.
So, er... I like to start with hand,
cos we can feel, we can feel all the corners.
It's very important to have good corners in a tile.
If not, the masons are really not satisfied.
To work is very hard for them.
- We don't wanna upset the masons. - No, don't do that.
(Laughter)
- So you can use this as well. - Right.
When you think the corners are OK you can finish with...
Right, so... But you're not just hitting it, are you?
- It looks like you're rolling a bit there. - Yeah, a little bit.
- If you're, like, doing like this... You see? - Right, OK.
It's almost like you're twisting it off as you make contact.
That's what's happening with you. With me it's kind of in-between, I think.
- New tool. - A new tool.
You use this one like this and try to get something very flat.
So, we have to... to see if it's OK on the other side.
When there is a problem it's always with the corners.
- Always something with the corners. - Right.
You have to check the corners. OK, my corners are good.
- What do you think? - This is perfect.
- Oh, yeah. - It's very good, yes, yes.
The masons will be happy.
OK, you put it there and we'll do like this.
With the greased block normally it is going...
But you have to sign with the name of this place.
- And basically that's like quality control. - Yes.
And if we've done one, we've got another 69 to do.
- Yes. Go back to work. - (Laughter)
(Baaing)
Just beyond the castle walls, Ruth is visiting Guédelon's paint house
to discover how the ochre found in the quarry and in the clay
is used to make pigments for paint.
We're gonna start by grinding down the earth.
Valerie Hurtault is a ceramicist by trade from a family of local potters.
She's in charge of pigments, paint-making and decoration at Guédelon.
Oh, right.
So these are the pieces that Tom was finding in amongst the clay when he was doing the tiling.
Paint's funny stuff. It's not the same as dye.
Dye stains the fibres of what you're dying.
So, if you get a wood stain, that is a dye for wood.
Because it's dying the wood fibres in the same way as cloth is a dye that stains the fibres.
Paint is different. Paint is bits of coloured stuff that are glued on to a surface.
And so, if they're very big lumps,
the amount of light coming off is quite small.
The colour looks patchy and thin.
If you can make the particles very, very tiny,
the light will refract off them in a great burst and you'll get a really strong, intense colour.
I mean, I shouldn't think a 13th-century person thought about light refraction,
but they did know that if you grind it thoroughly you get a much better paint.
It's not a bad colour, is it?
It'll look good against the yellow. I've got the yellow still on there.
Yellow ochre is the other key colour found in the natural Guédelon environment.
(Speaking French)
This really is the colour of Guédelon.
- Oui. - Look at that.
When you're round here everything's this colour, absolutely everything.
That is the dust that we breathe in whenever you get anywhere near the castle.
It's what grinds underfoot. It's the... you know, just look at the place!
This is the colour of the ground.
So having sort of crushed it up a bit and dissolved it, we're now sieving it.
We want small particles.
As the mixture settles, the heavier ochre particles fall to the bottom
and the remaining liquid is left out in the sun to dry.
The finer particles left behind are then ground down into a powder.
It's an enormous amount of work to grind this down to the fineness that you need,
but when you just see the range of colours
that have been produced, just out of the earth of Guédelon,
you can see why people would bother.
Just look at it!
Out in the castle courtyard Peter and Philippe Delage,
known to his fellow craftspeople as Gandalf,
are mixing lime wash, made with one part lime and one part water.
What is that in French - lime wash?
- Lait de chaux. - Lait de chaux.
Oh, milk of lime.
How can you tell that it's good consistency?
If there's more on the trowel it's very good.
That's good? Yeah, that's good.
- Oh, should be enough. - Yeah.
- I'll grab that bucket. - Yes.
Come on.
Up the tower.
Peter heads towards the lord and lady's bedchamber in the Great Tower...
...to brighten things up in the garderobe.
Right, left, English, French, à droite, à gauche.
And then it's down... down... down!
And it just gives a beautiful, beautiful texture.
I know at Guédelon there was a massive debate
as to whether, you know, they should leave the stones, the walls bare,
because all this work had gone in by the masons to put the stone there.
And they say if you cover it up with mortar, with render
and paint it with lime wash the public won't see it.
But this is how the castles were in the medieval age.
Of course, as we come across castles,
they're ruins generally, and very little plaster work survives.
Ruth and Valerie experiment with a bit of 13th-century chemistry.
RUTH: So this is the local yellow ochre earth.
- Oui, oui. - And we're cooking it.
- (Speaks French) - So we're trying to turn it red.
- Oui. - (Laughs)
It's quite exciting, isn't it, that this just comes out of the ground all yellow
and you can get this range of colours.
Oh, yes. Yes, you're right.
I can see there, where it's hot.
Look at the difference on my fingers!
Yellow ochre is a hydrated iron oxide known as "limonite".
As it's heated over the fire some of the limonite turns into hematite,
turning the ochre into rich, darker shades such as burnt sienna and burnt umber.
Pigments like this are really ancient.
Right across Europe, if you think of those cave paintings right at the dawn of human history,
this is the sort of paint that they were using to make them.
And, if you think of Britain, the Picts,
those people are known or described in the ancient Roman texts
as being covered in red paint - the red men.
And the Irish talk about it too.
It seems to have been a really Celtic thing to do, to paint yourself in red and yellow ochres.
- (Speaks French) - Ah, look at that!
Just beyond the castle walls at Guédelon,
the earthen kiln used for the firing of tiles is lined with bricks.
Kilns were often owned by the local lord
who, of course, charged his tenants for using them.
In the 13th century, regulations governing the work of local tilers in and around Toulouse
specified not only the consistency and dimensions of the tiles themselves,
but also the size of the kilns used,
and the number of tiles permitted to be fired in any one firing.
Guédelon fires 4,000 tiles at a time.
Bruno Feval is the chief tile maker at Guédelon
and he and his team have presided over 15 experimental firings during the past nine years.
Each firing has enabled them to improve and finesse their techniques.
The way they're placing them in the kiln, they're leaving gaps.
So that when they fire this, the flames can work their way up through every single tile,
and hopefully they'll be an even temperature,
making each one hard, each one a very similar colour,
and making sure there's no losses.
One of the problems with these tiles, when you dry them out,
if there's any water in there and you fire it too quickly in the kiln,
that water will expand because it will turn into a gas
that will blow the tile apart.
You'll hear a pop.
And if these are stacked incorrectly, if one tile goes, several tiles could go.
They've been doing this for a number of years so they know what they're doing.
A lot of this is trial and error - experimental archaeology.
They know what these kilns looked like from excavations that have been done in the UK.
They've been done in France.
Now they know how these kilns actually work because they've been working these kilns.
Out in the peace and quiet of the forest,
Ruth is making an essential tool for applying her medieval paint.
So if I'm actually going to be able to paint anything that looks like something
I'm going to need a decent brush to do it with.
So, I went and found some badger hair.
Well, I'll be honest. There was some roadkill, so I shaved it.
Um... I know it sounds a bit of a weird thing to do.
So I shaved it as close to the skin as I possibly could
in order to keep the hairs all as they grow naturally in order.
So when I sort of grab a little tuft of it here, if I sort of try and separate a bit out.
And what I want are these long straight hairs that are what helps a badger shed water.
The hair is designed to move water, which is why it makes such great brushes.
I'm going to glue those hairs in place so they don't move during the next bit of the process.
The glue Ruth is using is gum arabic:
Hardened sap from the acacia tree, mixed with four parts water.
Gum arabic, of course, is water soluble,
so I'll be able to just wash it out of the brush at the end.
And can you see how that's coming together now as a point?
That's exactly what I want it to do as a finished brush.
If you look at a modern paintbrush there's a sort of metal bit between the hairs and the stick.
They're 13th-century. They're not gonna mess around trying to make a metal ferrule.
You just do something much easier and cheaper.
You go and get yourself a feather.
Cos if you think about it: If I cut that bit off and I cut that bit off,
I've got a ready-made tube!
I can take a little bit of thread and bind my hairs. It's whipping them into place.
As tight as I can manage.
And I've got a nice, firmly held, little paintbrush head.
Which I should... be able to poke through.
There we go. You can see how firmly that's in there now.
See? Paintbrush head.
All I need now is jam a stick in the other end. Done.
That looks like it'll work, doesn't it?
The pressure's on at the tile kiln.
The 13th of May in medieval France was regarded as "the day of the holy ice".
It was believed to be the last day of spring in which a hailstorm would occur,
sent by God as a sign of his omnipotence, before the arrival of summer.
And as hail often turns quickly to heavy rain
that could have disastrous consequences for the fate of this batch of tiles.
This firing has already been held up for several days owing to heavy storms.
And, once again, dark clouds are looming overhead.
(Chatter)
The rain is coming. I've gotta get this finished,
because if these tiles get wet it will be a serious problem.
Not only can it affect their ability to fire,
essentially they may explode if the water gets in there.
It'll also take an awful lot more fuel to dry this kiln out and then get it up to temperature.
Medieval tile makers would probably have used mud, earth or wooden boards
to weatherproof the tops of their kilns.
But for reasons of practicality and efficiency,
Guédelon relies on sheets of 21 st-century corrugated iron.
There isn't a moment to lose.
Here it comes, "the holy ice".
The hail.
The last time of the year you'll get hail and, almost, as if on cue.
As feared, the hail quickly turns into a downpour.
The kiln will remain covered for several days
to allow the soil around it, and the wood required for firing...
...time to thoroughly dry out.
Only once Bruno has assessed that the ground and climate conditions are optimum
will the firing finally take place.
Good work, Peter. Good work.
And at this rate, it may have to be postponed for several more days yet.
Glad I've got a poncho, Tommo!
(Thunder rumbles)
(Birdsong)
While the tile firing is on hold, progress is made on the Chapel Tower.
The Guard Room within the lower floor is undergoing a colourful transformation.
(Conversation in French)
Valerie and her colleague, Aurelie Paillard,
are using the Guédelon ochre to paint a design on the walls known as "fictive masonry".
This was a popular style of artwork among the nobility and royalty
throughout Europe in the mid-13th century.
It was a less expensive way to create the illusion
of the walls having been constructed from expensive white limestone.
By lime-washing the cheaper sandstone white
and then over-painting this with a colourful fake stonework pattern,
a look of grandeur and of wealth was created.
(French)
The transformation of this room is incredible, isn't it?
Yeah, to think it goes from bare stone, to render, to lime wash, to this.
I mean, this is prestige, isn't it?
In 1240 the Queen of England had something very similar in her bedchambers
with the addition of flowers.
But, you know, it brightens the room, doesn't it?
- It's, like, visual. It's impressive. - Yeah, yeah.
And these fake joints, made out of this ochre paint, give the impression of highly-cut stone.
Exactly.
It's like you are replicating what's beneath it but in a very stylish way.
In a way that actually says to people coming here to visit:
"This is what I'm worth. I've got money, I can make this happen."
The ochre pigments would be mixed with a glue binder
made from egg, or sometimes rabbit skin, to make the paint.
I'm not sure if my lines are dark enough.
Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh!
I think I top-loaded my brush a little bit too much there.
- (Laughter) - It hasn't run.
That's the danger, isn't it, too much pigment on your brush.
TOM: Yeah, if you wanna touch up that bit there and then I'll nip in there.
No. It's all going wrong. It's going wrong.
It's looking awful! Hideous!
Aaah-ah!
(Groans)
I've seen worse.
I know, but, you know, you can put yourself down.
(Laughter)
- Oh, no! - (Groaning)
(French and laughter)
Every aspect of Guédelon's design is planned by a scientific committee of experts.
They work closely with the staff,
so that every feature is based on authentic primary sources of historical evidence.
And just a few miles away, in the village of Moutiers, is a key example of that evidence.
The Church of St Peter: Built around the year 1000.
The Church of the Middle Ages was a huge and wealthy landowner,
which exerted a powerful influence over people's lives.
And the interiors of its buildings often set a benchmark for the tastes and trends of the era.
(Lock turns)
In the early 1980s, the white distemper covering the interior walls started to crack and peel.
This is amazing.
Uncovering a fascinating medieval secret.
They're everywhere.
A painstaking conservation over the next ten years revealed these:
Stunning ochre murals from the 13th century.
They've provided Guédelon with an authentic and illuminating resource
from which to draw inspiration for the interior décor of the castle.
This is the panel we're particularly interested in, in terms of the work we're doing at Guédelon.
Right. Yeah.
It's amazing. You can pick out there, you can see the frieze.
- Yeah. - And these five-petalled flowers,
you find these all over the place.
Very pop art but it's pure 13th century.
Of course, the church would have been absolutely central in people's lives.
Everyone locally would have had to have come to this church.
So the paintings on these walls aren't just decoration.
They are here to tell stories. They can be read very much like a cartoon strip.
PETER: Right.
It's almost the entertainment of the age. The Biblical story just laid out in scenes.
And I like the way that the artists have also taken the opportunity
to retell the story in their way.
If there was any kind of friction between them and the church.
We've got Eve here sashaying away, being very cheeky.
- Yeah. - Giving the wink to Adam. Just behind here.
They have a wink. We can't see what happens behind the pillar.
And then afterwards they've got a harvest and a child so...
I wonder what the reaction was.
Because presumably the villagers would be in on the joke.
If only we knew.
Ruth is applying some of the techniques discovered at the Church of St Peter
to the bedchamber, which would have been used to provide hospitality
to the lord and lady's most distinguished guests.
It's the most highly-decorated room in the castle so far,
and Ruth is using the burnt red ochre paint to restore the rose motifs in the window seat.
Obviously the domestic spaces within a castle are intended to impress.
They have to look gorgeous.
It's about the look of the place as much as anything else,
and naturally people painted their walls.
It's not a church, this isn't about religious storytelling.
This was about showing your power, it was about prestige.
That up there, that little bit where it's painted to look as if it's masonry,
with the little roses in front - often called stones and roses -
is perhaps the most typical, as far as we can tell,
of all interior decorating designs of the mid-13th century.
That is what the Queen of England had on her bedroom walls in the Tower of London.
Stones and roses - the very height of fashion.
Back at the Church of St Peter in Moutiers...
Sarah explains how the paintings on these walls
have informed the way in which Guédelon's interiors are decorated.
And because we don't have a lot of evidence of the types of paintings that were inside castles,
we're always very careful to say to people,
"We don't know if there was a bedroom painted in exactly the style that we've got at the castle,
but, just a stone's throw from the castle,
at the same time, we're painting these same patterns
and, crucially, it's the same colour palette."
This is just like walking out of the quarry, isn't it?
We've got the red ochre, the yellow ochres, the browns.
I have to say, I mean, you look at the masons when they come out of the quarry
and that kind of... the dust and the ochre that's on them.
- That is your colour palette. - Absolutely.
Everything's there. So, if we wanted to paint in this area with blues or greens
we'd have to buy those pigments in from further afield and they would have been more costly.
And it's interesting to see that, in a church,
the decision has obviously been taken not to have too much blue or green.
They've used the materials that were available locally.
Artwork like this just doesn't really survive in castles.
Castles are generally ruins, but churches, they're such an important historical reference.
No, that was certainly a challenge for us
in that we were aware that there are very few models of the types of paintings
that there would have been inside castles at this time.
It was a very deliberate decision not to use the human figures.
Because obviously these are depicting biblical stories.
So we stuck very much with the flowers, the trees, the geometric shapes.
But what we're wanting to do is offer people
a vision of what a 13th-century visitor might have seen
and to get over the fact that castles weren't bare stone, empty places.
They were decorated and they were full of colour.
(Choral music)
Another area of the castle
which is the result of intense research into 13th-century architecture is the chapel.
Clément Guérard, the chief stone-carver at Guédelon,
is a highly experienced draughtsman,
but he's about to undertake his most ambitious project to date.
Right now, Clement's doing the drawing for what will be the prestige feature of the chapel.
So much so they've actually imported a slightly less hard type of limestone
that will be easier to carve.
This really is precise work. I am marvelling at the skill he's got.
Clement is designing a decorative piece of masonry.
Based on a very common 13th-century design found throughout France.
It's a niche for the chapel wall,
with a trefoil-shaped head which will sit upon pillars
rising from two small basins called piscinae.
At Guédelon, white dressed limestone is used for the more decorative features of the castle.
Although it's quicker to dress than the quarry's hard sandstone, it's easier to chip,
so great precision is required and mistakes could prove costly.
(Blows)
Finally, it's the morning of the long-awaited firing of the kiln.
Peter's up early to help share the workload with Florian Dubois.
The firebox in the lower chamber has been stacked with logs and twigs.
And, at last, the first piece of kindling is lit.
Within seconds, clouds of wood smoke are billowing out of the top of the firing chamber.
It's going to take hundreds of armfuls of wood, and many hours of careful monitoring,
to turn these flames into the roaring blaze required to fire the tiles.
A long, hot and exhausting day lies ahead.
The stone-carvers have completed the first part of the white limestone niche,
and are ready to transport it to the Chapel Tower.
The hoisting of the stone requires care and attention.
The lord, and all of those working for him,
would have set great store by this sacred work of art.
For us, the significance is that this is the first real piece of religious architecture
that we've got in the castle.
This is the only sacred space within the castle.
So we're actually standing here in the area where the altar will be.
So, this is the holiest place of this sacred space.
Where you'd have the holy water and the oils, yeah?
So this is the most delicate sculpture that we've done here.
As you can see it's a hand basin. You've seen it being dressed earlier.
But you can see the two dips.
We had some priests visiting.
We were wondering ourselves why there were these two kind of recesses.
And the priests that were visiting suggested
that maybe one was for washing priests' hands before the Mass,
and that the other one was then for washing the implements that had been used in the Mass.
Right.
What we've been told, at least, is that the idea is
that all the water that is in this piscina, this handbasin, is holy water.
- Yeah. - And, as such, it can't just be thrown away.
The water will actually, and we're not talking huge amounts,
but the water will just kind of filter down into the wall and stay within the walls of the chapel.
So the stone of the chapel itself is obviously porous.
It's gonna absorb that holy water and essentially make this whole space even more sacred.
That's the idea.
So our mini, little temple here at Guédelon.
So it's been an opportunity, obviously, for the stonemasons to use different techniques.
And then there was a bit of improvisation that gave the stonemasons an opportunity
to kind of have a bit of freedom of movement.
You can see each column is slightly different.
This is Matthieu's. You can see his mark up here on the stone.
And on the other side we've got Jean-Paul's, right here.
The masons' marks on dressed stones
are a permanent reminder of the ancient skills and techniques of the medieval masons.
Each one presents us with a unique signature of the craftsman who carved a particular piece.
(Fire crackling)
At the kiln...tension is rising.
A month's rain has taken its toll and the firing is not going to plan.
Everything got wet. The kiln got wet, the wood got wet.
So it's just taken that little bit longer to dry everything out, get rid of the moisture.
The blaze is still several hundred degrees below what it needs to be.
Peter leads a frantic effort to try to save the 4,000 tiles inside.
We know today the optimum temperature for a successful firing
is around 1,000 degrees centigrade.
13th-century tilers relied on their experience, their senses and costly trial and error.
They would have been under intense pressure to get firings right.
PETER: The kiln, it's just about getting up to temperature now.
It's ready to really feed up and pretty soon those tiles will be getting close to firing.
But it does mean it's gonna be a longer day. I mean, the sun is setting in the sky.
We're gonna go late into the night.
A tiler's trade depended on the local nobility's trust and the reliability of his product.
And the strict laws governing the standards of production were rigidly enforced.
Tiles must be correctly stacked.
The temperature must not be too high or too low.
The heat must be distributed evenly throughout the kiln.
If not, the results could be under-fired, over-fired,
or otherwise damaged tiles.
And a medieval lord would neither accept, nor pay for a single substandard tile.
Failed firing had serious consequences for a tiler's livelihood.
As darkness falls,
Peter and the team finally succeed in getting the temperature up to 1,000 degrees centigrade.
FLORIAN: We've been working since this morning without stopping
and er... now we are a bit tired.
It was er... it was hard, but now it's at a good temperature.
PETER: Right.
And what sort of colours are you looking for in there?
- It must stay orange. - Orange?
If it's white it's too much.
If you want the tiles to be fired evenly, we must stay at this temperature during two hours.
All right, OK. But are you happy?
- C'est bon, yeah? - Yes. Yes, we are.
- Yes, it's a dream. - Yeah.
(Man plays recorder)
Can you imagine... living in a world with no electric lights?
I mean, tonight we have the stars...
...we have the moon and we have the tile kiln.
4,000 tiles. They're just about to block this up with wood and they're gonna seal it in.
It's a lot of hard work at the coalface because this is industry.
Could you imagine what it must have been like to see a castle being built of stone
surrounded by these kilns that were firing flames into that night sky?
But sat back here, thinking about... perhaps the hell down there and the heavens up there.
And your tiles currently in purgatory.
Which way are they gonna go? Have you been good?
Will they be used in that castle? Who knows?
(Continues playing the recorder)
(Lively tune ends)
(Applause)
(Cockerel crows)
(Clucking)
It takes several days for the kiln to cool down.
Peter's helping to unload the tiles... and examine the results.
(Tiles clinking)
(Speaks French)
(Tiles clinking)
- You can hear this? - Yeah, I can hear it.
- This sound is perfect for us. - That ringing sound is what you're looking for.
- Eh, perfect sounds. - Ah!
- It's a... - It's a good sound.
Why are you guys spitting on the tiles?
Oh, to see... to see if it's good.
Cos sometimes the sound is not enough.
Right.
The sound can be in the middle, we don't know if it's raw or cooked.
So we can spit on it and if the saliva stay there, it's cooked.
If it's going inside the tile, it's not.
Every single tile coming out of this kiln you're quality controlling them.
You're listening to the sound. If you're unsure you spit on it.
- If it goes in it's undercooked. - We can't spit on every one. There's 4,000.
- We don't have enough saliva. - (Laughter)
But what happens if they... if they overcook?
Um... We have an example.
So it was not for this firing, it was for one before.
When it overcooks it's going like that.
So we have this bubble of gas inside and the bubble is going bigger.
And er... the tile will burst with time.
(Tiles clinking)
This is good. Got plenty. Handmade.
Well, I... I saw how hard you guys worked and how long it takes to make these tiles.
I mean, it's... it's good.
I'm pleased. I'm, you know, I'm happy for you.
We're happy too.
Especially with this firing, we're really happy.
Yes, we have a very good result. Very nice to have it.
The fired tiles are now used to floor the fully-rendered and lime-washed Quarry Tower.
It will take thousands more tiles
and several more years of rendering, lime washing and painting
before the entire castle finally looks like it might have done in the 13th century.
This is really starting to look like a finished castle, isn't it?
You know, with the tiles and the walls all plastered and painted.
It's starting to get that feel of a living space.
I'll be honest. I did not appreciate how much work and effort it would take
to get this stage actually happening.
You know, clay for the tiles, finding the paint.
But when you see it, it's unbelievable.
And I really can't wait.
I know it's a long time in the future yet... But for the furniture and the furnishings.
- Yeah. - For the textiles to finally arrive.
It emphasises that it's actually a living space and not just a defensive building, doesn't it?
And in moments like this, you're looking at this. "Yes, I could actually sit here and relax."
It's not all about warfare when it comes to castles.
RUTH: This is an entertaining space.
Next to the Great Hall, you can bring your more select guests in here
to wine them and dine them.
And perhaps a guest bed in here, and everybody else sleeping round on mats.
You can get the feel for that sort of convivial way of life.
I have to say, though, the medieval period - far more colourful than I thought it was.
Next time: The community of skills it takes to build a castle.
From the blacksmith, transforming metal...
...to the never-ending need for wood.
Plus, making a medieval watermill.
"Wow", is all I can say.
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