Explore the World with Alyssa & Camilla :)

Architect in Middle Ages. By Camilla Floriano

camillssa — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:33:53 +0000

http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=7777c855761a0607662015&skin_id=701&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Castles, cathedrals, and huts of the peasants are the buildings we are most common with the Middle Ages, but there was a great variety of other buildings constructed as well. Wharves, warehouses, workshops, mills, townhouses, farmhouses, barns, and public works such as bridges and city walls were all vital parts of Medeival Europe. But, the romantic appeal of castles and the inspiring size of the great cathedrals have assured those structures a marked place in the modern view of the Middle Ages and its buildings. Besides the visual and emotional appeal of castles and cathedrals, another equally important factor that has shaped our image of medeival buildings is the passage of time and the toll it has taken on these buildings, especially on the more mundane ones. Many of those buildings have been demolished, disappearing without a trace, except for the vestiges of their foundations or a glimpse provided by some old illustration. A few, though have survived, they have been used continously, since they were built and have been renovated and remodeled so many times and for so many different purposes that it is often very difficult to accurately discern their original shape and, in a few cases, purpose. Therefor, the disproportionally high number of major edifices such as castles and cathedrals that have survived to the present relatively intact, combined with the near extinction of the other buildings, especially the houses of ordinary medeival citizens, have contributed to the misconceptions about medeival living. For example, compared to the total number of houses that were built over the course of the Middle Ages, extremely few houses have survived to the present. Most houses were constructed primarily of wood and now all that is left of most of these buildings are tracings of foundations and the post holes, which are holes that contain the wooden posts or beams that made up the foundation of the building. The lack of more substantial evidence has left us with an immense gap in our view of the Middle Ages, a gap which has all too often been filled by the worst imaginings of a landscape dotted with wrecthed huts and hovels and of towns and cities crowded with shanties and lean-tos of the shoddiest and most haphazard construction. Picturing these imaginings, some people have thus concluded that the bulk of the population during the Middle Ages lived in sloppy dwellings that quickly disappeared without a trace. While some wretched houses certainly existed, the surviving examples and contemporary illustrations of medeival architecture suggest a different picture, one in which most houses and other buildings were solid and well built. Though some people in the Middle Ages were homeless or lived in soundless conditions, many homes, while far from palatial, were sound and substantial buildings and quite fit for human habitation in their day. As with houses, workshops, forges, kilns, and mills also have had a low survival rate, which contributes to a distorted view of medieval technology and commerce. While these industrial sites may not have been as large and productive as modern factories, they were still well developed production as modern factories, centers that provided a wide range of manufactured goods, includings clay pots, wooden barrels, swords, armor, household cutlery, furniture, and cloth. Producing all these items required a sophisticated infrastructure to supply the necessary raw and finished materials to the specialized craftsmen who satisfied the varied needs of the medieval consumers.

While building styles differed across medeival Europe and evolved over the course of the Middle Ages, the basic techniques and building materials were fairly normal. The difficulty of moving large volumes of construction materials, especially overland, meant that the abundance or scarcity of some buildings materials near the construction site often dictated which materials used. As they had been for centuries before and would be for centuries after the Middle Ages, stone, mortar, wood, metal, and clay were the primary materials for constructing buildings. Reinforced and pre-stressed concrete, steel girder construction, and the host of synthetic materials now commonly in use did not begin appearing until the 19th century. Still, as the number of significant ruins as well as intect structures support, medeival Europeans were quite as capable as the Romans of constructing beautiful and enduring buildings using and combining the basic elements available.

Wood, was the most common building material in the Middle Ages. With the exception of the lands immediately surrounding the Mediterrean, much of medeival Europe was covered in thick forests that provided a seemingly inexhaustible supply of timber, though population growth and centuries of building did deplete many forests, especially those nearest population centers. And all buildings used wood in some capacity. Many buildings were constructed almost entirely out of wood, from the framing for their walls and roofs to their siding and shingles. And even stone buildings required wooden construction both while being built, in the form of scaffloding, ramps, and frames to support arches until the mortar hardened, and in their final forms for fixtures such as floors, roof beams, window frames, doors, and some interior walls.

Clay, was used in a variety of ways in medeival construction. It was used to fill in cracks and gaps in wooden buildings to make them less drafty, in the same way that American pioneers filled the gaps and cracks in log cabins with clay or sod. Clay was also used to coat panels of wattle. The clay was usually mixed with other materials such as chopped straw and cow hairs to create a substance called daub. The coating of daub made the wattle more weather and draft-proof and had the added casual benefit of making the wattle slighty less vulnerable to fire, an important consideration when all heating, cooking, and artificial lighting was achieved by use of open flames. The daub was applied to the panels of wattle after the panels were constructed with the gridworks of beams that formed the walls of wooden buildings. Clay was also formed and baked to create bricks, a popular building material throughtout Europe, out especially in the Low Countries where stone suitable for building was in very short supply. In fact, this scarcity of stone caused the inhabitants of the Low Countries to be among the first Europeans to build castles almost entirely out of brick. Though somewhat less durable than many stone castles, these brick castles were as fireproof as stone ones.

Because of its durability, stone was the prefered building material. In many places, houses, churches, and other buildings were constructed of whatever types and sizes of stone was at hand, regardless of whether the stone was well suited for use in building or not. When using the stones gathered from around a building site and its immediate vicinity, stone masons used a technique called random rubble building in which they constructed the walls of the structure by carefully fitting and mortaring the rocks of random shape and size together. Some of the stones, such as those that formed window or door frames or the outside corners and edges of the building were dressed, but most were left rough and irregularly shaped with no two looking the same; hence the name random rubble. In addition to the primary building materials of wood, clay, and stone, several other materials were needed to construct buildings. While they were used in relatively small quantities, these materials were essential in making the completed building fit for habitation. Many large construction projects had temporary iron forges opened on site to make and repair tools as well as fasteners and other metal objects, such as hinges, that became part of the building. In some areas, most notably Italy, France, and the Byzantine Empire, smoths were already making iron rods for reinforcing stone buildings as early as the 12th century. These rods were typically secured at the bases of arches, connecting across the span of the arches to provide additional stability by tying the bases of the arches together. While some of the tie-rods and tie-beams may have been intended only as temporary measures to provide added stability until the mortar thoroughly set and the building had settled, the long-term effectiveness of such reinforcement was graphically proven earlier this century in France. A church at St.Quentin had many of the iron tie-rods removed from its arches during restoration in the 19th century. After the church was shelled during World War I, only those arches that still had their centuries-old tie-rods were still standing. Similar results have been seen in Italy and in the areas of Greece and Turkey formerly ruled by theByzantines where medeival buildings with timber or iron reinforced arches have proven more resistant than unreinforced arches to the stresses caused by earthquakes. Some medeival buildings such as palaces, monasteries, and some houses in the cities did have plumbing systems with leaden pipes and bronze taps that provided running water. A few even had boilers to provide flowing hot water. These buildings also usually had sanitation systems, including indoor latrines. However, many buildings, including most private residences, didn’t have these features and their occupants had to draw and carry their water from wells and rivers. If they needed hot water, they had to heat it up in a cauldron or in another large cooking pot. As for waste removal, they had to use outhouses or, in towns and cities, communal latrines rather than en suite facilities. Thus, in those buildings in which plumbing was minimal or nonexistent, the residents relied on picthers, pans, wooden tubs, and buckets rather than on permanent fixtures such as water faucets, sinks, and bathtubs for conveying and containing the water needed for cooking and cleaning. Heating buildings was a chronic problem in the Middle Ages. The Roman technique of constructing raised flooring and using the space underneath the floor as a conduit for warm air from furnaces disappeared with the collapse of the Empire. In most of Europe, people resorted to using braziers, open hearths, or fire-pits constructed in the middle of the ground floor. Drafts through the buildings appear to have prevented dangerous accumulations of carbon monoxide, and smoke from the fires filtered out of the building through a hole in the ridge of the roof. These vents were often fitted with louvered caps on the outside of the roof to keep the rain and wind out. Some of these caps were wooden but others were made of pottery and at least a few English pottery smoke vent caps that have survived from the 13th century are in the form of human heads with holes in the mouth, eyes, and ears to allow the smoke to escape. Regardless of their form, such vents were of limited use in clearing the smoke out of the building since they lacked a chimney to contain and guide the smoke from the fire to the outside. To fix this problem, medeival builders developed smoke hoods to catch the smoke and direct it out of the building. These hoods functioned and looked something like the vent hoods currently found in most kitchens over the range-top except, instead of being made of metal they were made of wood or wattle and covered in plaster to make them less flammable. However, they improved ventilation and increasing use of fireproof materials meant that buildings could be built with several fireplaces instead of a single central open hearth, thus compensating for lost heating. Despite these improvements over the course of the Middle Ages, Europe would have to wait until the 19th century for the development of central heating systems that finally passed those of the Romans.

Of all the thousands of structures built in medeival Europe, only a small percentage have been preserved. Wars, fires, and simply the passage of the centuries have all taken their toll. Houses, for example are among the most under-represented buildings in terms of numbers of survivals from the Middle Ages. No medeival landscape is imagined as complete without a castle, a massive stone structure with many high towers, a drawbridge, a moat, and thick walls topped with battlements. Still, most castles built in the Middle Ages were far humbler buildings, with quite a few made entirely of wood, especially during the first half of the Middle Ages. Of all the materials used,a ll castles served he dual functions of providing a home for a noble household while also serving as a military stronghold for both defensive and offensive purposes. Despite their very different forms and purposes, medeival castles and cathedrals shared some common ground. Both were the result of massive building programs that required careful planning and great expenditures of capital and labor. Thus, there were some similarities in how they were built. Another aspect shared was more common ground in the employement of internationally renowed architects. One example was Master James of St.George. In the 13th century, Master James designe and supervised the construction of castles for the count of Savoy until he was hired away by Edward I of England to oversee Edward’s ambitious castle building program in recently conquered Wales. Similarly, architects were bought in all the way from Italy to design and supervise the building of the great churches of 15th century Moscow.

The life of Peasants in The Middle Ages By:Alyssa Klein

camillssa — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:21:10 +0000

The life of Peasants

During The Middle Ages there were many different groups of people, peasant’s being one of them. Nearly ninety percent of the populations during The Middle Ages were peasants. The life of peasant’s was pretty difficult. Most peasants farmed to support and feed their families. Others were millers which grounded wheat or blacksmiths which took care of horse’s hooves, bakers or carpenters. The women on the other hand would stay at home and slave over a hot stove to cook for their husbands and children. They also helped their husbands with their jobs because of the lack of money. Peasants were mostly poor. They lived in tiny cottages with three rooms at the most. The homes had dirt floors and were made of wood, stone or branches. Most didn’t even have a bed to sleep on; they would lie uncomfortably on straw.

It is sad to say that even today there are peasants, which live under the same horrible conditions. For example in Africa, a large portion of the population is poor, living in tiny inferior homes with little or nothing to eat. It really makes you think about how grateful you are considering all we have! Now we have so many opportunities such as getting a good job and education.

Back then girls were not educated; they would stay home with their mothers and learn how to cook, clean, sew and keep the house running smoothly. The males would not begin schooling until the age of seven, if they made it that long. In the Middle Ages the fertility rates were very high, five percent of infants died during delivery and ten to twelve percent died before the were one month old. If they made it to the age of schooling they were taught important prayers, Latin, mathematics and songs. When the boys were old enough they will begin to work in the same field of their fathers and carried on the family name.

Peasants could get married at a very young age. Young ladies had to be twelve and the lads had to be fourteen, however most peasants married between the ages seventeen and twenty. Marriages were arranged by the parents of the couple. Most of the time, the couples hardly knew each other. I could not imagine how awkward it would be to marry someone you don’t love let alone even know. Once married the husband was the completely in charge. Wives were their property, literally. Men were allowed to beat their wife as long as she did not die. They also were the only ones to ask for a divorce. If you were a women married to an abusive horrible men that you could not stand, there was nothing you could do about it. However if you were a man you could get divorce in a blink of an eye. Women did not have many rights in this time period.

Peasants were not like slaves. They were free however, any thing they owned such as land, pets, houses and etc. belong to a manor. A manor is a small village in which peasants had to meet the requirements to live there. This peasant’s were called serfs. In the manor there is a lord that is in charge. In order to get complete freedom they had to be able to afford their own land. The lord of manor is basically the landlord of today. Peasants either paid them rent or worked for them as collateral.

The clothing they wore was hand made by the women. Unlike today they did not have the technology to make clothes, such as sewing machines. They wove coarse wool and linen into clothing. The men wore tunics and tights, and the women wore dresses. Since the poverty they had only one or two sets of clothing. On their feet would be clogs or leather-like shoes.

The Feudal System was the law system during The Middle Ages. Peasants and serfs were at the bottom of the chain. The King had complete power, then the Nobles, Lords and Villeins. This form of government worked of well and by the twelfth century it was eventually spread through all of Western Europe.

Religion was a main aspect of the peasant’s lives. It was taken very seriously, before The Feudal System; The Church was in charge. It had many austere laws that needed to be followed or the peasants could face the consequences. The main religions were Christianity and Catholicism, both practiced by many peasants.

Though their life was defiantly tough, the peasants found time to have fun! Many celebrations took place through out the year, for births, baptisms, Christmas and Easter. On these days the peasants would have huge feasts, with singing and dancing and just having a blast. This kept their sprits up and smiles on their faces.

We have evolved so much from The Middle Ages! Our way of living all together changed, from our jobs, housing, education, clothing and technology. Even though society evolved, we still face the some of the same problems, like poverty. Being citizens of the world, we work together to over come these issues as best we can. I’m proud that we have come so far and learn so much from our ancestors. Our future will only get better!

————————————————————————————————–

Work Cited Page

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/pdailylife.html

http://themiddleages.tripod.com/peasants.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/10949/fief/hipeasant.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/10949/fief/medfeudal.html

http://www.mce.k12tn.net/middleages/feudalsystem.htm

Fantasy v.s Reality By: Camilla Floriano

camillssa — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:25:08 +0000

In what ways does Hollywood depict the Middle Ages?

Hollywood has made many realistic things pertaining to the Middle Ages but, there was also a lot of fictional things too. For example most of the time when people think of the Middle Ages it reminds them of dragons, wizards, castles, kings, queens, witches, potions & spells and even knights on horses with those big swords swining at one another. Half of those things are true, but then again was there ever such thing as dragons, wizards and witches? I think not. There is such thing as castles, kings and queens… you could look it up just about anywhere and you’ll see this is in fact true.

MIDDLE AGES..Fantasy v.s Reality By:Alyssa Klein

camillssa — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:11:15 +0000

These Days the movies have incredible effects. Hollywood makes the Middle Ages very false. For instance dragons, witches and wizards. No one is one hundred percent sure what happened durring this time period because the people of the Middle Ages did not write about their lives, due to the lack of education. In reality, there is no possible way that dragons and other magical creatures ever exsisted. I believe that some actualizations are true;however the majority of them are just imaginative.

Punic Wars Video

camillssa — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:12:32 +0000

Click the link below to watch our video on the Punic Wars.

The Punic Wars

Romans v.s Carthaginans

The Punic Wars was a series of three wars. It took place between 264 B.C-146 B.C.

1st War – Rome was hardly victorious against Carthage, and won Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia.

2nd War – Hannibal lead the Carthaginians for 15 years winning battle after battle. The Carthaginians failed to capture Rome

Finally the Romans defeated Hannibal in the 2nd War.

The Carthaginians surrendered all its land, except for Africa.

In the Romans eyes they were still a threat, so Rome destroyed Carthage for good.

The Romans being undefeated, were then in charge of all the western Mediterranean.

Religions of Rome

camillssa — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:32:08 +0000

By: Alyssa Klein

Rome accepted other religions as long as the citizens showed loyality and respect by honoring the Roman gods. During this time period most of the population were polytheistic, they did not mind worshiping the Roman gods along with their own.

Some people practied Mystery Religion, this had secret rituals and promised rewards, such as equality between men and women. This was the cult of Isis, which was the most popular one. Others followers like the Roman soldiers idolized Mithraism, a Persian god who championed good over evil and also offered an afterlife.

After the death of Jesus, Christianity started to spread throughout the Roman Empire. It had a strong influence on Rome, causing their power to fade. When the western Roman Empire fell apart the church inherited many of its functions. Therefore the Christian way was preserved.

Heracles PowerPoint

camillssa — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:27:43 +0000

Heracles Powerpoint Sept 08'

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Greece’s Toughest People…SPARTA!

camillssa — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:25:19 +0000

By: Alyssa Klein

Spartans are located in Peloponneusus, in southern Greece. They were Dorians, which is one of three major groups in Anicent Greece. Being a strong indepentant nation, Sparta’s isolated themselves. They believed their way was the right way and looked down upon trade and wealth. Sparta’s government had a barbarous system of control. They had a council of elders and two kings, which created an assembly so that citizens can contribute in major decisions. Citizens were native male spartans, at least 30 years of age.

Military was number one priority in the Spartans eyes. Training started when you were a child, at age 7 they moved into the barracks, had a healthy diet, exercise and a lot of discipline! When the men turned 20 they could marry; however they were forced to live in the barracks until age 30.

Women had mainly one job, baring a healthy male child, so that he could keep the military tradition alive. Therefore the mothers had to stay in shape by eatting well and exercising, so they would have hale child. If the kids were sick, they’re mostlikely abandoned for death. In addition to being mothers, the Sparta women had the right to inherit property and handle the families estate while the men were in war.

Camilla’s View of Religion In The Ancient World

camillssa — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:53:58 +0000

Explain the importance of religion in Ancient societies: Egypt, Mesopotamia, & China

The religion is Egypt played a big role in their life and their afterlife. Egyptians believed in gods and goddesses, but different Egyptians believed in different gods. For example, there was Amon-Re, which was the sun god, Osiris and Isis, who were the gods of the underworld and their son, Horus, but those are only a few of the many Egyptian gods. Since the Nile river was really important to the Egyptians, so was Osiris. Osiris was important to them because he was the god of the Nile. He controlled the flood that fertilized the land. Both Osiris and Isis promised the Egyptians eternal life after death. All the Egyptians believed in the afterlife. They believed that their souls needed to pass a test to be able to have an eternal afterlife. Their belief in the afterlife was that they were going to live the same way they did on earth. They preserved the bodies before mummifying them. They removed their organs and rapped them in strips of linnen, the same they did with the bodies.

The chinese had complex beliefs that were practiced for thousands of years. They were like the Egyptians, they believed in many gods, they also believed in nature spirits. Shang Di was a goddess that brought plants and animals to earth. Shang Di only responded to ancestors of kings, no one else in the kingdom. The prizes the kinds got from Shang Di was a victory in war or ensuring good harvest. The chinese honored their ancestors by sacrificing food and other things. The chinese believed the universe reflected on two forces, ying and yan. Ying was the god that linked to Earth, darkness, and female forces. Yang represented Heaven, light and male forces.

Alyssa’s Views of Religion in The Ancient World

camillssa — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:12:12 +0000

Religion is a main aspect of culture. In Mesopotamia & Egypt Priest Kings were in charge; therefore religion was a major focus. Since they ruled the land, their beliefs and traditions were powerful and passed along to many civilians. Most Ancient people were polytheistic, which means they believe in many gods.

China on the other hand is a little different. Their religion is quite diverse, because they have many different languages, so it is hard to unite.

Overall religion is important to all people without having beliefs and traditions, the world would’nt be what it is today.