Reconstructing the Middle Ages

[Aeternitas]

Reconstructing the Middle Ages

Artisans in the Burgundy hamlet of Guedelon are building a medieval fortress from scratch. Expatica visits the 'open-air laboratory' and meets the workers who are passionate about medieval construction.



The medieval fortress is being built from scratch using authentic techniques.Every year more than 250,000 tourists visit an old quarry in the hamlet of Guedelon about two hours south of Paris, to chat up the workmen and marvel at the medieval fortress emerging, stone-by-stone, from the ochre-coloured ground.

"This is an open-air laboratory where we're building, not restoring," Marilyne Martin, the site director and co-founder of the eight-year old project told AFP.

Only medieval construction techniques are allowed and there are only 50 or so builders - half the number there would have been 800 years ago, although things do speed up a bit in the summer when up to 140 volunteers pitch in.

Here I am not just building, I'm doing archaeology. - stonemason Clement Guerard But the Guedelon project is more than an exercise in recreating an authentic medieval castle. "Dialogue with the visitors is just as important as building," explains Florian Renucci, the site foreman.


Self-sufficient

The privately-owned undertaking is the second most-frequented tourist attraction in Burgundy after the Hospice de Beaune, and has been financially self-sufficient since 2000, two years after it opened to visitors.



53 employees work 49-hour weeks on the medieval construction site."Our operating costs are less than EUR 2 million a year," Martin said, including salaries for the 53 employees paid year round even though the site is closed in winter, as it would have been in the Middle Ages.

"We work a 49-hour week during the summer, six days a week, and each of us has one weekend off in four," Martin said.

Guedelon is not, Renucci stresses, an open-air museum featuring demonstrations of different medieval construction techniques. "Here we are really building something so it's a proper work site. But if visitors want to ask questions then it's also part of the craftsman's job to answer." That, he said, is what makes the Guedelon unique.


No stress

Thierry Beaupain, a carpenter at the site for three and half years, interrupted work on a joist emerging from an oak tree he'd cut down earlier. "You have to be passionate about your job here, but there's no stress," he said. "Nobody's going to come and scold me for talking to you, because that's part of my job!"



A 3D image shows how the 'militarily perfect' castle will look when finished.It takes Beaupain a full day to make a three-meter joist. But even if the ability to make a perfectly squared-off joist by hand is of little use in the 21st century, he, like everyone else on the site, has no intention of returning from the past anytime soon.

He is far too happy in 1236, the imagined construction date chosen by the project leaders for this 'militarily perfect' castle inspired by those of King Philippe Auguste of France, who built the edifice which has evolved into the Louvre museum in Paris.

Archaeology in action

Clement Guerard, a stonemason with 15 years' experience, half of them at Guedelon, has no desire "to return to building bathrooms and kitchens. Here I am not just building, I'm doing archaeology." He also takes pleasure in training apprentices.

The only concession to modernity is the wearing of safety goggles as the stonemasons chip the stone, and helmets and harnesses when they are working on the walls.

You have to be passionate about your job here, but there's no stress. - carpenter Thierry Beaupain Thierry Darques, the edge-tool maker responsible for the forge, threw in the towel as a reporter for a regional newspaper seven years ago and trained as an edge-tool maker because there were only five left in France "and three of them were over 70." He hopes to achieve mastery of his craft "before I die."

One of the few women on the site, Aurelie Paillard, is in charge of the small medieval herb garden, a flock of sheep and a brand new hand loom. She looks pleased at the wide belt emerging from the loom and has ambitious plans to dress her fellow workers who currently all wear simple, practical tunics that evoke the Middle Ages without being costumes.


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