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.
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 Guedelon 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 rigours of medieval construction...
Drop down? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
..and everyday life.
The fire is looking really good, you know.
How workers dressed...
Ooh!
..and ate...
You can really smell your food, Ruth. SHE LAUGHS
..and the art of combat.
Oh!
This is the story of how to build a medieval castle.
It's May, and the team have been immersed in the building works
alongside Guedelon's masons.
Perfect! Oh, good!
WOMAN SHOUTS IN FRENCH
They've learned how the castle was defended in times of war.
Every stone has to be in line because this is going to 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.
SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH Oh, yes!
..from paint to brighten the rooms...
When 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.
This is how many of us think of the interior of castles -
bare stone, echoey, damp, gritty under foot,
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 Guedelon 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 Guedelon 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 Guedelon.
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, so it's important to bear in mind,
of course, 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 Guedelon,
and the great tower adjacent to it,
will be dressed in the style of a 13th-century lord and his lady.
So this is currently the lord's chamber.
This is where the lord would sleep with his wife and his children.
It's certainly 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.
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 limewash 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 limewashed, but it's made such a difference
to the people who work in the kitchen because it's like...
Seems to sort of bounce off, doesn't it?
Turning on an electric light, absolutely.
I guess, in terms of hygiene, it made a difference as well.
Yeah, definitely, really. It sort of 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 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 limewashed because, in terms of visibility,
it just meant that 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.
Uh, the Tower Of London, the White Tower,
was named because it was limewashed on the outside.
The tower nearest the quarry, known as the quarry tower,
would have been a guardroom 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 going to 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?
We're just dampening the stone.
If you don't put water, mortar... Just, it just won't stick.
Won't... 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? Right. Shall I go first? Yeah, yeah.
Do you want to try? Give it a go. Let me get it wrong.
Yeah, I'm going to learn from your mistakes, my friend.
HE LAUGHS
Um, so, to do a turret like this, how long do you think it would take?
Two, three days. Two, three days, marvellous.
That's ten days for you, Tomo. For two masons.
At least ten days for me.
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 ruin 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.
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 Guedelon, 28,000 tiles have been created for the roof
of the great hall building alone,
a job 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, going to 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 be turned into paint.
So I'm going to 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 under foot 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.
THEY LAUGH 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.
An integral feature of castle design were the toilets.
They were known as garde-robe, 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.
Garde-robes were often built out of the castle walls
to allow the waste to drop down through the hole
to the ground or moat below.
Guedelon keeps a wooden grill 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 garde-robes?
There is little bits of evidence.
In the earliest of the manners books, which are aimed at pages
who are serving a knight, you know, they were 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 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 going to 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...
Yeah, yeah. ..wouldn't you, to keep a big community going.
SHE LAUGHS I mean, it, it gets very,
very dry in summer.
So, I mean, there's nothing to say that people didn't use...
I mean, you know as well as I do that, archaeologically,
all sorts of things turn up in cesspits. Yeah, yeah.
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. Unless...
It's perfectly possible. These privies...
It certainly needs a coat of render,
a coat of limewash, probably a loo seat.
I think a door might be a good idea too.
And a door! SHE LAUGHS
So you have take some, er... These fingers, grease is dripping.
Er, 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. You 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 want to upset the masons. No, don't do that.
So you can use this as well.
Right, OK. When you think the corners are OK,
you can just finish with...
Right, so...
But you're not just hitting it, are you? Sort of...
Looks like you're rolling a bit there. Yeah, a little bit.
If you're like doing like this.
Right, OK, so. You see.
It's almost like you're twisting it off as you make contact.
That's what's happening with you. With me it's 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's a problem, it's always with the corners.
Always something with the corners. OK, so if I...
So we 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. Masons will be happy.
OK, you put it there and we'll do like this.
HE WHISTLES With the greased block
normally it's 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. THEY LAUGH
Just beyond the castle walls,
Ruth is visiting Guedelon'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 going to start by grinding down the earths.
Valerie Hurtault is a ceramicist by trade
from a family of local potters.
She's in charge of pigments, paint making and decoration at Guedelon.
Oh, right. So these are the pieces that Tom was finding
in amongst the clay when he was doing the tiling.
IN FRENCH:
Paint's funny stuff. It's not the same as dye.
Dye stains the fibres of what you're dyeing.
So...so, if you get a wood stain, that is a dye for wood, um,
because it's dyeing 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 yellow still on there.
Yellow ochre is the other key colour
found in the natural Guedelon environment.
SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH
This really is the colour of Guedelon. 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 under foot, 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 Guedelon,
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 limewash,
made with one part lime and one part water.
What is that in French - limewash?
Is... Lait, lait de chaux.
Lait de chaux? Oh, milk of lime.
How can you tell it's good consistency?
Er, there's more... It's very good.
Is that... That's good? Yeah. 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 garde-robe.
Right, left,
English, French, droit, gauche.
And then it's down,
down,
down!
And it just gives a beautiful, beautiful texture.
I know at Guedelon 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 limewash, 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.
So this is the local yellow ochre earth. Oui, oui.
And we're cooking it... SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH
So we're trying to turn it red. Oui. SHE 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.
IN FRENCH:
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 haematite,
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,
think 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.
Vraiment rouge.
Look at that.
Just beyond the castle walls at Guedelon,
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.
Guedelon fires 4,000 tiles at a time.
Bruno Feval is the chief tile maker at Guedelon,
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 with an even temperature,
making each one hard, each one a very similar colour
and making sure there's no losses.
I mean, 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 - the kiln -
that water will expand cos 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 the 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 a... There was some roadkill,
so I shaved it.
Um, I know it sounds a bit of a weird thing to do.
SHE LAUGHS
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 going to mess around
trying to make a metal ferrule.
You just do something much, much easier and cheaper,
you go and get yourself a feather.
Cos, if you think about it, if I cut that bit off,
I've got a ready made tube.
I can take a little bit of thread and bind my hairs.
Just 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.
The rain is coming.
I've just got to get this finished because if these tiles get wet,
it'll 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,
Guedelon relies on sheets of 21st-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, Tomo!
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.
Valerie and her colleague Aurelie Paillard,
are using the Guedelon 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 limewashing the cheaper sandstone white
and then over-painting this
with a colourful, fake stonework pattern,
a look of grandeur and of wealth was created.
The transformation of this room is incredible, isn't it?
Yeah, to think it goes from bare stone, to render,
to limewash, 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. Yeah. It's impressive.
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.
It hasn't run. That's the danger, isn't it,
too much pigment on your brush.
Touch up that and I'll nip in there. SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH:
No, it's all going wrong. It's going wrong, it's looking awful.
Hideous!
Rrr-ah!
Yeah. I've seen worse.
Well, I know, but, you know, you can put yourself down.
THEY LAUGH
Oh, no! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Every aspect of Guedelon'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 Moutier,
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.
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 Guedelon with an authentic and illuminating resource
from which to draw inspiration for the interior decor of the castle.
This is the panel that we're particularly interested in
in terms of the work we're doing at Guedelon. 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. Yeah.
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.
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, uh,
the opportunity to retell the story in their way.
If there was any kind of friction... Right. ..between them and the church.
Look, we've got Eve here... Yeah. ..sashaying away, being very cheeky.
Giving the wink to Adam... Yeah. ..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 Moutier,
Sarah explains how the paintings on these walls
have informed the way in which Guedelon's interiors are decorated.
And because we don't have a lot of evidence of the types of paintings
that were inside castles... Right.
..we're always very careful to say to people,
"OK, we don't know if there was ever a bedroom painted
"in exactly the style that we've got at the castle..." Yeah, yeah.
..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
while 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... Yeah. ..we'd have to buy those pigments in
from further afield and they would have been more costly. Yeah.
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.
No. Castles are generally ruins but churches,
they're such a...an important historical reference.
No, that was that was certainly a challenge for us
in that we were aware that there are very few models
of the types of paintings... Yeah. ..that there would have been
inside castles at this time.
It was a very deliberate decision not to use the human figures.
Right. ..cos obviously these are depicting biblical stories.
Yeah. So we stuck very much with the flowers, the trees,
the geometric shapes.
Well, what we're wanting to do is offer people a vision of what
a 13th-century visitor might have seen...
Yeah. ..and to get over the fact that castles weren't bare stone,
empty places, they were decorated and they were full of colour.
HYMNAL MUSIC PLAYS
Another area of the castle,
which is the result of intense research
into 13th-century architecture, is the chapel.
Clement Guerard, the chief stone carver at Guedelon,
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 "piscines".
At Guedelon, 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.
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.
But, 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... Right. ..of this sacred space.
Where you'd have the holy water... Yeah. ..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. Yeah.
You've seen it being dressed earlier. Yeah.
But you can see the two dips.
Now, we had some priests visiting as we were wondering ourselves
why there were these two kind of recesses.
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 piscine, this hand basin,
is holy water. Yeah. And, as such, it can't just be thrown away. Yeah.
All the water will actually... And we're not talking
about 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 going to absorb... Yeah. ..that holy water
and essentially make this whole space even more sacred.
That's the idea.
So our mini, little temple here at Guedelon.
So it's been an opportunity obviously for the stonemasons
to use different techniques. Yeah.
And then there was a little bit of improvisation
that gave the stonemasons an opportunity to...
to kind of have a bit of freedom of movement. You can see...
Yeah. ..each column is slightly different.
Different. This is Matheus, 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.
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.
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 going to be a longer day.
I mean, the sun is setting in the sky.
We're going to 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.
We've been working since this morning without stopping
and now we are a bit tired.
It was, er... It was hard but now it's at a good temperature. Right.
And what sort of...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...
Right. ..we must stay at this temperature during two hours.
Oh, right, OK.
But are you happy? C'est bon, yeah? Yes.
Yes, we are.
Yes, it's a dream.
HE PLAYS A TUNE
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 going to 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 going to go?
Have you been good?
Will they be used in that castle?
Who knows?
TUNE CONTINUES
APPLAUSE
It takes several days for the kiln to cool down.
Peter's helping to unload the tiles and examine the results.
THEY TALK IN FRENCH
HE CLINKS TILES
You can hear this? Yeah, I can hear that. It's really, like...
This sound is perfect for us.
That ringing sound is what you're looking for.
HE CLINKS TILES
Hey, perfect sounds. Ah!
It's a good sound. So, um...
Why are you guys spitting on the tiles?
Oh, um, 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...
Yes. ..controlling them. You're listening to the sound. Yes.
If you're unsure, you spit on it.
If it goes in... Yeah. ..it's undercooked.
We can't spit on every one, there's 4,000.
We don't have enough...
But, uh, what happens if they... if they overcook?
Um, we have an example. So it was not for this firing,
it was for one before. Yeah.
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 was burst with time.
This is good. We've got plenty. Handmade.
Well, 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.
You know, I'm happy for you. You know? We're happy, too.
Er, especially with this firing, we're really happy.
Yes, we have a very good results. It's 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, limewashing, 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, the 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,
for the textiles to finally arrive.
Well, it emphasises that it's actually a living space
and not just a defensive building, doesn't it?
In moments like this, you look at this, you know,
yes, I could actually sit here and relax. Yeah.
It's not all about warfare when it comes to castles. Yeah.
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.