Timber Frame Construction

[cnelson]

I will probably have the roof lift off, but that is because all of my houses will be peasant huts and not the sixteenth century tudor most of you seem to do It does irk me when I see so many Rennaisance houses in a medeival setting, nut I'll get into that later.

Actually, what you call Tudor is really wattle and daub (or timber frame, half-timbered, or lath and plaster--there are differences between them but those are largely irrelevant for the purpose of their rendering in Lego bricks and plates, though half-timbered is the most accurate description for what most of us do in Lego). Those methods of construction built a frame out of timbers and filled the spaces between timbers with woven branches and coated them with mud, clay, dung (blech), and straw. This was typically whitewashed, giving the characteristic white-and-black look. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattle_and_daub) wattle and daub construction was used as early as the Neolithic period!

Tudor architecture has several notable features other than simply the look of wattle-and daub. Chief features of Tudor architecture are the steeply-sloped roofs, gables, turrets, mock crenellations, jettied upper stories, large fireplaces and chimneys, the use of the four-centered arches, mullioned windows, and floor-to-ceiling panelling with linen-fold patterns. Tudor architecture commonly features infilling of herringbone-laid brick patterning between the timbers rather than wattle and daub, depending on the wealth and prominence of the owner. (Tudor construction went on a building boom when Henry VIII confiscated Church property and went building-crazy to show his prestige.)

Probably one reason that we think of wattle and daub as being a Renaissance-era construction technique is that most prior buildings have not endured.

As to the propensity for Lego builders to use half-timbered style, most of us are not overly concerned with historical accuracy, preferring to create pleasing structures of a never-was time. The half-timbered look renders itself very well in Lego and is easy to construct with only a Creator tub or two.

If I were to be irked by anything about historical accuracy in others' construction (actually, I can't exempt my own buildings! ), it's that most castles and buildings are stylistically uniform, rather than reflecting the ongoing building from small keep to great castle and walled town that occurred over many decades and centuries!

Carl

[Emperor James]

Cnelson, you are mostly correct, but the wattle and daubhouses mostly have stone bases, which is basically the difference between wattle and daub and tudor. We can also infer that they are very late medeival or early rennaisance because they are buildings like fletchers shop, spearmakers shop, scribes shop, etc. There were no shops until the later middle ages when there came into existence towns, and there certainly wouldn't be towns all or mostly of tudor until the middle ages.

[cnelson]

I suspect that most builders mean shop in the connotation of workshop, rather than a retail establishment. They had to have a place to work, regardless of time period.

Stone was probably not used in any non-military or non-ecclesiastical building during the medieval period (thus most stone-based MOCs are of a never-was time). Stone bases aren't the difference either. Tudor architecture is noted by a combination of typical features, one of which is half-timbered construction (and it was far more common in Tudor-era buildings to have brick infill than wattle and daub).

It's highly unlikely that even in the late medieval or early Renaissance period there were whole towns of Tudor architecture--most buildings built to Tudor style during that period were large manors bequeathed by the king to his favored vassals!

Carl

[Emperor James]

I suspect that most builders mean shop in the connotation of workshop, rather than a retail establishment. They had to have a place to work, regardless of time period.
Carl

However, they hardly would have had such precisely named buildings. Spearmakers and Fletchers would work under an armourer or in a smaller area a blacksmith, though admittedly the fletcher might have had a small establishment off to the side. Other non aggricultural employments would mostly have been inside the castle or manor house, or as an extra activity for peasants.

An admin needs to split this.

[Jojo]

Hello!


I'm not at all able to add anything to the topic. I just want to say how much I enjoy and appreciate such (hopefully) well-founded explanations.


Bye
Jojo

[cnelson]

Hm, now that I've done a bit of reading I've come to doubt whether the average castle would have had a skilled weapon and armor maker. Certain geographical areas (the German Rhineland, southern Germany, the Lombardy region of northern Italy, Paris) developed reputations as arms manufacture centers. Highly-specialized guilds grew up within these areas--for example, the Venetian smiths had a guild for sword-makers and a guild for makers of scabbards, belts, and armor and the Parisian crossbow makers were divided into those who made the weapons and those who made bolts. The manufacture of armor itself was the product of many craftsmen--the smith to forge it, women to sew the linings, and artists to decorate it.

Weapons-making was an elaborate process as well--Sutton states that an early medieval sword blade might require 128 heatings and 43 hours, and an additional 32 hours for hilt, belt, and scabbard. (Hence the sword as a sign of knighthood and nobility.) The sword might require 500 kg (1100 lbs) of charcoal! Composite bows may take a year to manufacture to allow wood to age properly.

Mass-production, naturally, developed where the raw materials (iron, charcoal, wood, and water) were most available.

Many polearms were agricultural implements turned to military uses, so I don't think a spearmaker would be that common. You'd probably find a poleturner who would mount the metal part on a long pole instead.

In light of that, I would think that it be more likely for a medieval town to not have a place of arms manufacture than to have one.

Carl

[SavaTheAggie]

Stone was probably not used in any non-military or non-ecclesiastical building during the medieval period (thus most stone-based MOCs are of a never-was time). Stone bases aren't the difference either. Tudor architecture is noted by a combination of typical features, one of which is half-timbered construction (and it was far more common in Tudor-era buildings to have brick infill than wattle and daub).

Carl

I find this hard to believe. I'm not saying you're wrong mind you, I am NO expert. However, I find it hard to believe stone wasn't widely used in residential homes, at least in rural areas. You see, in farming areas of europe and northeastern North America (and of course elsewhere), when you go and plow a new field (or an old one sometimes!) you hit a TON of stone.

The long and 'quaint' stone walls that surround the farmlands of England and Scotland weren't built because they simply could be built or to differenciate one man's land from another. They were built so the farmer would have SOMETHING to do with all the rock that he kept ramming into with his plow. I would think that it wouldn't be a stretch that stone would be used to build homes in the same way, simply by using available material, and from a very early period pre-dating and throughout the medieval era.

Granted, urban homes would have smaller supply of stone, but then again, a farmer nearby may want to get rid of his excess stone and sell it for a very cheap price, or even give it away, just to get it off his land.

But like I said, I'm no expert. I'm just going by what my experience has taught me.

--Anthony

[cnelson]

I'm no expert either, but I'm basing this opinion on a few different facts: stone was expensive to quarry, difficult to work with, preparation of mortar was skilled labor, and many castles were looted for their stone after their military use had ended.

The stone walls that decorate the British Isles (OT-one of my favorite memories is watching the fog lift in north Wales and seeing how many stone fences it revealed: irregular, meandering lines set on the bright green background) are generally held together by gravity rather than masonry, which limited the height of them to, well, fence-height rather than being building-height.

I like your reasoning about the farmers getting rid of what was in their plow-path! Brings to mind the idea of an industrious farmer taking something that caused him trouble and turning it into an asset.

As an aside, most of our MOCs are made unrealistic too by the large number of windows in them, due to their lack of insulation, sparsity of craftsmanship, lack of 12" miter saws (oh ho ho!), and the cost of glass.

But, I don't feel that it's appropriate to hold MOCs to historical standards unless they purport to be built to historical standards. I'd rather view or build a nice-looking building than an accurate hovel!

(EDIT: BTW, I'm only considering medieval building here--the Renaissance in northern Europe and the Tudor period probably can't be clearly separated. You're probably more and more right as time progressed.)

Carl

[cnelson]

Interesting side note, from The Sutton Companion to Castles:

"There is little evidence of brick-making following the Roman withdrawal and the earliest known English bricks appeared in the eastern counties in the mid-twelfth century. It is surprising that the English for so long failed to recognise the obvious advantages of brick for domestic buildings: baking bricks on site or using local kilns was considerably quicker and cheaper than quarrying, dressing and transporting stone. Eventually, it was the inexorable depredation of the forests for building timber, combined with the immigration of Flemish weavers into East Anglia during the fourteenth century, that encouraged a quickening appreciation of the brick architecture of the Low Countries and the development of a brick-making industry along the east coast in the fifteenth century."

Confirms that stone was a prized commodity and that timber was widely used for construction to the point of widespread deforestation leading to development of alternative technologies (hey, maybe there's hope for our petroleum addiction after all!).

One more interesting, though only tangentially-related, note:

"The dimensions of bricks were first standardised in 1477 to conform to the grasp of the brick-layer's fingers and thumb."

If you win a million dollars from Regis Philbin with that last factoid, I'm owed a set or two at least.

Carl

[Legomaat]

The whole story of cnelson about the Tudor is mainly correct but is only valid for English speaking countries at that time. In Holland, for instance, there was no Tudor styled house at all. (Except some 19th century imitations later on). That doesn’t mean that there were no wattle and daub buildings. But you have to remember that this is only a way of building and not an architectural style. The most (Dutch) medieval houses were built of a timber frame finished with boards. They had a substructure of brickwork to prevent it from early decay.
During the Renaissance period, these houses got their typical leaded glass front on the ground floor, and slowly but steadily they turned from wooden constructions to brickwork with wooden floors.

Due to a lack of natural stone in the Low Lands, the art of making bricks started from early on, so they were relatively cheap and of a good quality. Nearly all the Dutch castles were built of brick. So it was not a too big (financial) problem to use it for the houses too. The mean reason to use bricks however, was the fear of the great town fires.

The change from medieval to Renaissance did not happen on a certain day, but took place gradually over a period of hundred years. Thereby, every country has its own development during that period. There is a distinctive difference between the Italian, the French, the Dutch and the English Renaissance, and only in England the Tudor style became popular.

Having all said this; you have to remember that only the more of less rich people could have their profits of those changes. For the poor folks, who have no money to spend whatsoever, their dwellings have to be as cheap as possible. And that means there is no real change in style at all for the common housing during all the centuries.

Mmm…., Sounds familiar, even in these days….