Flooring In Medieval Times

Fresh rushes were sometimes spread on top of the old rushes and at other times the entire floor was swept clean of old rushes and debris and scrubbed first.

Flooring in medieval times.

They required someone to dig the clay which had to be cleaned and homogenised until it could be worked. Then these were sanded or smoothed by rubbing them with stone or metal. The earliest known wood floors came into use during the middle ages. Then it would be pressed into square wooden moulds.

Tiles provided a far more upmarket floor surface. Because of the trees age and massive diameter the desirable heartwood was extremely tight grained making the lumber harder and more durable than the relatively immature wood of the same species that is harvested today. In medieval times bundles of these plants were gathered up and spread across some castle floors and the dirt floors of many medieval churches and cathedrals. Mosaics on the floor of the torcello cathedral in venice italy.

Like everything else in medieval times their production was very labour intensive. Fragrant often medicinal herbs were sprinkled among the rushes partly to sweeten aging rushes and partly to discourage bugs and molds. Obviously this cannot be the proper interpretation of how rushes were used on the floors of castles. Artiquity oak hardwood in medieval oak finish.

The top treads would be buried in rushes in one passage. In the case of tile which was likely to be the most slippery straw was seldom used to cover it because it was usually designed to impress guests in the castles of more powerful nobles and in abbeys and churches. Early medieval art romanesque art and gothic art. Concrete plywood osb mohawk flooring.

At first rough planks were laid across the floor. The history of wood flooring begins in colonial america when the first floors were wide thick planks cut from the continent s abundant old growth forests.