MASONRY AND ARCHITECTURE

The majority of houses in the middle ages were constructed of either wood or wattle and daub, but those used by the wealthy often had stone walls. The traditional tools of the mason are the hammer, compass, square and plumb-bob. Water-tables are used to ensure surfaces are level. Scaffolding was rarely used, and hoists were generally employed to lift heavy items to the top of walls. In the fourteenth century these were replaced by the slewing-crane, a device employing a horizontal wheel to make the lifting easier.

Cement is made from from sand and lime. Doors consist of single planks held in reveals by iron strap hinges, sometimes decorated by ornamental scroll-work that springs up from behind the door-jamb (this can make the door rather difficult to remove). Although glazed windows were reasonably common, even expensive buildings sometimes did without, and cheaper dwellings certainly lacked any.

By the thirteenth century, tiles and bricks were becoming increasingly popular alternatives to stone building materials. They are, however, more expensive and generally only used for decoration rather than for the structural walls.

The cheapest stone structures have rubble walls covered by a layer of plaster and lime-white. The total thickness of such walls is about three feet.

Roofs are usually thatched, although slates or semicircular tiles are used in some localities. Where stone was required as a load-bearing structure (e.g. in underground catacombs), simple rounded arches were generally used rather than vaulting.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS

The art of vaulting roofs gradually improved through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As this allows greater load-bearing, it meant that walls could be made thinner and roofs higher, supported by pillars and flying buttresses. The wall between these vaults was initially made of a thin layer of stone, but by the late fifteenth century, large windows were able to replace much of the wall.

The roof itself would consist of a network of vaulted ribs separated by a web of stone no more than six inches thick. The construction of foundations was improved by the invention of the pile driver in the fifteenth century.

All of this permitted much higher buildings to be constructed, allowing churches to be over a hundred feet high in some cases. In my campaign, the temples to many of the richer gods were rebuilt during this period to take advantage of the new techniques. Major guildhalls also benefited.

Stone cutting, or 'stereotomy', had become very highly skilled due to advances being made in the understanding of geometry and results in tremendously detailed carvings.

Moulded brickwork was used for windows, together with mullions and simple tracery. Because of the large size of windows that were now being constructed, they had to be held in place by systems of iron bars and transoms.

Protective roofs over stone vaults were now made to be self-supporting. Rafters no longer rested on the outside of the vault, but were braced from the inside. They were made to be narrower at the top than at the bottom, and the roof itself could be made much steeper than ever before. This was especially useful in areas where it was advisable to prevent the buildup of snow, and roofs there were sometimes constructed at up to 75 degree angles.

In the second half of the fifteenth century, yet further advances in building were made. Light and spacious palaces (or guildhalls etc.) were constructed with flat ceilings of brick and tile and domes 100 feet or more in height. Doubling the depths of rafters at the bending points allowed much wider eaves to be constructed - anything up to eight feet being possible.