Flooring In Medieval Times

Early medieval art romanesque art and gothic art.

Flooring in medieval times.

They required someone to dig the clay which had to be cleaned and homogenised until it could be worked. Straw was not needed to keep people from slipping on wet slate but it was used as a floor covering on most surfaces to provide a modicum of warmth and cushioning. Herbs we know were strewn in handfuls over the rushes and expected to stay underfoot to scent the air when trod upon. Artiquity oak hardwood in medieval oak finish.

Fragrant often medicinal herbs were sprinkled among the rushes partly to sweeten aging rushes and partly to discourage bugs and molds. 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. 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. 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. Concrete plywood osb mohawk flooring. 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. 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. Though the middle ages neither begin nor end neatly at any particular date art historians generally classify medieval art into the following periods. Then it would be pressed into square wooden moulds. Mosaics on the floor of the torcello cathedral in venice italy.

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. The top treads would be buried in rushes in one passage.