Construction

**Medieval Construction Methods, Masonry, Carpentry, and Thatching **
Medieval buildings varied a lot in appearance and materials. There were many forests in Northern and Western Europe; so many houses and buildings were made out of wood. Wood was also used to build buildings in China, Korea, and Japan. Oak was a very desirable wood to build with. Around the Mediterranean Sea, buildings were made out of bricks, stones, and a mixture of mud and straw. During the 1100's, more and more building were made of stones because the forests were getting diminished. The walls were layered many times, up to seven feet thick, in houses that were built with stones or bricks to keep the cold and weather out. Many times stones or bricks were used to build important buildings like churches or courthouses. The one downfall to building with stone is that it was hard to get the stone to the building site, so they built the house near rivers or quarries. Many roofs were made of slate, tile, and wooden shingles. There were many different shapes and sizes of buildings with these few different materials.

Medieval buildings were built many ways. People built wooden houses in an upside down "V" shape with a thatched roof. Arches were also popular in medieval times. They were used to support the building because they did not need any other support because the pieces applied pressure to the others to keep the arch up. Vaults were like domes and popular on top of big buildings. Because of new techniques people started making buildings larger and larger by adding more levels. Building styles came by trial and error; if one would collapse they would tweak the design a little bit and try again.

There were many techniques to build these structures. In the beginning of Medieval times people would build without blue prints or plans. People’s skills were passed down from father to son. The invention of metal tools helped building a lot. Because of new techniques people started making buildings larger and larger by adding more levels. For building with wood people would put numbers on the pieces of wood before they constructed the building so they knew what piece goes where. Scaffolding and ladders were used to build high buildings. Romans were very good masons, but after the fall of the Roman Empire, many of the masonry skills were lost. To cut the stone, two people would put wooden pegs into holes in a larger stone and pounded them to crack it into many little brick sized stones. This was a one shot deal, if it cracks the wrong way you have to start over again. Masonry was also very expensive.

Works Cited
 * “Building Techniques.” Medieval World. Ed. Sally MacEarchern. Vol. 1. Danbury, CT: Grolier Educational, 2001. 63-66. Print.
 * “Construction, Building.” The Middle Ages: An Encylcopedia for Students. Ed. William Chester Jordan. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996. 222-225. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 12 Mar. 2010.
 * Kunz, M. “Bruederstrasse 26.” Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation, 1 May 2007. Web. 31 Mar. 2010. .