Sounds like Wrocław. In Wrocław you had to pay from the land your building occupied so they started to be thin but tall while in Lviv law was more loose so ppl over there build their homes wide and short. Both cities make beauty contrast
My family has worked construction for at least 4 generations in the Pacific Northwest and I can definitely see this happening. We do ALOT to avoid taxes and permits (legally).
In Belgium, up to the 20th century, they had a tax calculated by the amount of doors and windows your building had. That way, they didn't need to actually enter the buildings, just count the amount of openings. So people began to brick their windows and doors up to a minimum. Its still visible today on buildings from that period, you'll see where a window used to be but its completely filled up with bricks.
Actually, that's a great hypothesis: burglary prevention. In ancient Rome, the ground floor was the cheapest due mostly to security concerns. Your concept makes a lot of sense. It would be damned hard for the average burglar to creep around that outcropping. The next question is, do we have evidence of locks between the ground and second floor?
An historian tell me, this is also (in some countries) because of the taxes you had to pay for the area of your house in contact with the ground. So people were building more space on the first floor to have bigger houses, with less taxes haha.
Another reason for having the overhang on timber buildings might have been to provide a wider roof to shed rainwater and snowmelt away from the foundation.
They used to throw their trash out onto the streets from their windows in medieval times. Maybe it was to prevent dumping on the floor below's heads or the ground floor porch🤔
Just about the same thought i had. But it might also be because of having an overhang to seek cover under when raining. Also maybe you'd have to pay some land/ground/area tax for the ground or area your building occupies. So building higher, and with overhang you get more area without having to pay additional area/ground tax... if that makes sense.
There was another reason. Medieval houses didn't have gutters. These old houses wattle and daub houses would deteriorate by the water running of the walls. If you jet out the floor above, the water will not run down the entire length and dampen the walls. In Europe lots of older house have walls leaning over. This was done on purpose for the same reason.
In addition to water drainage, this also included garbage and excrement, which was often just tossed out the window (no plumbing at the time of course)
I don't know if there already existed these kind of ladders which you have to extend by pulling a rope. If so, even with a very small overhang, these were useless to reach the top of the wall.
But it’s surrrrrre nice to have even a bit of overhang where there’s an accepted practice of tossing pots full of piss out without regard to anyone who might be below.
@@duudsuufd Why? Because they had to be leaned against the wall to begin with, while pulling up the extension bit of the ladder? Sure, if they had to do it that way, it would make it very difficult or downright impossible. But why wouldn't they have ropes attached somewhere at the ladders top 1/3? You know, so to enable the ladder being pulled slightly out from the wall to surpass the jutting?
@@Superknullisch Yes, that is what I meant (not always easy to explain such things in English). But if they need men to pull the ladder slightly back, which is possible, these men have to stand in the 'fire line' so they were more easy to attack than those already against the wall.
No. Ladders don't need to lean against the whole wall. Just a point of contact near the top. Plus ladders don't come in 1 size. When attacking, all ladders would be made to the exact size they needed before attacking.
In 500 years a guy in a shirt with some modern day item on it, will sit in a piece of IKEA furniture, and talk about why we build skyscrapers the way we did. And properly come to the conclusion. It looked good.
Radja Amidala just like how hundreds of years ago, Shads ancestor wore a shirt bearing cave man clubs and sat in an antique chair telling people why cave men did things the way they did. It is the family profession of Shads.
You forgot an obvious one mate, it assists with water shedding during rain. Even stone needs to shed water because the mortar would erode from water pooling up and freezing/thawing. This was especially important during the more frigid conditions during the 14th century. All your other points were awesome and I learned a lot. I'll be mindful of them as we develop our medieval castle seige game. Thanks for the awesome video!
This video was actually very interesting and well done. No offense, but I didn't have high hopes at the beginning and I actually ended up watching the whole thing glued to the monitor. Well done.
Small advice here : perhaps when you define something (like jettying), when it's a word that is not commonly used, you should write it somewhere on the screen in your video. It would makes it way easier to learn, understand and remember, especially for the foreigners like me :) I understand english well but since it's not my native language, that would be greatly appreciated. By the way, I love your videos !
Jettying of houses became so bad that they were very close at the top floors. This contributed to rapid spread of fire because it could easy jump across streets. After the Great Fire of London they were banned in the UK as a result.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I imagine that at times the roofs would get ridiculously close together, eliminating the need for the fire to jump very much at all. Yikes.
Some cities had a new-cobble-stone street every few years, since the dirt piled up and no-one bothered to remove it. In other places it was thrown over the city wall until it became a rampart... You have no idea how bad it must have smelled: excretion, animals, food-waste, moldy stuff (old hay, wood and leather pieces)...
Having the upper floor overhang the lower wall is first and foremost a physics issue. It directs the stresses evenly downward through the wall into the ground, rather than placing a sideways force on the wall. Also, having this overhang tends to protect the top of the wall from the elements, keeping rain from entering the structure through the top juncture of the floor and the wall. This was important during the development of mortar and more modern joining techniques.
I was informed by a structural engineer that the overhang was designed to let water run off the buildings and protect it. Such buildings do not have gutters or a gully but this system worked well as an alternative.
I live in germany and here in my local town you jettyed because u only paid taxes for the bottom floor. that is atleast the information i got from the local museum.
vegard herøy Possibly. Here in the States I've heard something similar, but in regards to the width of a house. So in some older cities houses are long but thin.
The same pattern or modifications of it can be found all around europe in older settlements. Either be it long houses or several houses build in a row . The most plausibel explanation is that in medival cities , the main reason for taxation was the bulding and maintaining of citiywalls, while in more rural aereas the main reason for community taxes was the building an maintanining of road, so a taxation of either space or roadlength your building or property takes make perfect sence. What strenghents the hypothesis in my opinion is the fact that this style of building was mostly discontinued after citywalls became more and more obsolet and gouverment became more and more centralized. But that doesn't disprove that it might be a fasion thing too.
+vegard herøy That sounds like myth to me. Broadly similar to the bakers dozen myth in the english speaking world. Why? Because it's not even remotely a Germanic phenomenon and it's unlikely that such a specific tax system with such a specific loophole would be that common throughout Europe. It also doesn't explain why you would go to the effort in a situation where you own more than just the land that the structure is sitting on.
why would it have to be a germanic phenomenon? "germany" at the time was also so extremely decentralized,as was most of europe. And with the state of the european states and the lack of unity when it comes to laws, why would it not be a common loophole? The last part of your comment i do not quite understand, idk if it is my lack of understanding of the english language or your formulation, but could u please expand on it so i can perhaps give you a more detailed response?
You're looking at it backwards. For that specific loophole to exist in so many places, tax laws would have to be nearly identical in all those places. That is unlikely specifically because of the extreme decentralization. For the last part, I guess maybe there is a language/cultural barrier there that would need some explanation. A dozen is 12. A bakers dozen is 13. The myth goes: This comes from an old English fraud law with a very harsh penalty. To ensure that they complied with the law, bakers would include an extra muffin/biscuit/whatever. The problem is that it's not something exclusive to England. Other cultures also traditionally commonly sell baked goods in multiples of 13. The real reason for this one probably has to do with the layout of baked goods on a rectangular pan.
Just found your channel and I have been obsessed with Knights and Medieval history my whole life. I wish we could live in a world that looked a bit more medieval. (I'll still keep my showers and luxuries, but still). Thanks for all you do!
Shad, seriously, why the heck did i not get lucky enough to have you be my history teacher in school. I sucked at history and it was one of my worst subjects. But tbh i already learn more from your vids than i ever did in history class all my years of school. And you make it more entertaining to listen to as well
Okay, if you have no patience for the first half of the video: Reason 1: when you build a first floor on a (usually stone) foundation, you might as well have the floor beams overhang a bit to maximize floor space. Reason 2: the physics where the weight on the outer edges of these beams counteract sagging in the middle of the beam. Reason 3: design choice
2 seems like only reason thus was done, people in the 1500s didnt care how stuff looked. building the upper layer smaller makes the beams bend, bend beams don't only apply downward force, but also outwards, making your building collapse.
Reason 4: Cost of materials. Stone first floors being more expensive than the upper wooden floors. (Ground floors being stone, to avoid wood rot) Reason 5: Ground floor zoning issues.
Interesting reasons, but wrong for the UK at least! This style of timber property was used as a work-around for land-tax. A property was taxed on its ground-floor footprint - this enabled larger properties (tall & with jetties) to exist with a lower tax. Another example of this in UK architecture is a 'Tax Window' - a window that has been bricked up to save on a window tax that existed in the 17-19th Centuries in Western Europe. Your other points may have merit, but the key reason for Tudor-age properties of this style is the Tax reason!
Jasem Kashani except the viking settlers were doing it in york, it was done by the Norman settlers, pretty sure Romans also did it in some cases... it was being done long before the tudors despite your reason being why the style became more popular
In France, I was told in school that the reason was taxes related as well. Don't know the reason why viking could have done it in York, but the Norman probably did it because they were French
yes, I also wondered why he didn't get to that (about tax). also for the castles he didn't get to the point why it was not a problem defensively if the battlement was extended outward without the use of machicolations.
I remember hearing a similar explanation about A-frame style houses. Supposedly, at one point, a tax was put on walls, so people started building houses with as much roof as possible to save money. Might be bullshit though, I haven't read into it much.
I always assumed one of the reasons for the very small overhang on castles was rain and snow. When you have a slight extension on an otherwise uncovered wall, all the rain and snow is going to drip off that extension instead of down the entire wall, thus keeping the erosion of the overall wall reduced. In turn, it is cheaper to reface and repair just the crenelations of the wall rather than the entire wall.
WHAT???? In Medievil Times, Dragons were a serial Issue in Germany. Thats, why people call that Time "Evil"... Although, in that Time they named the Dragons "Inquisition"... No Scales, but killing with Fire... Now, the Dragons are still alive... Someones very well fed in Rome and someones, very hungry in the Middle East... But Dragons will be still Dragons... Where is the Stormborn to tame them?
Other bonuses are, it creates larger overhang diverting rain run off farther away from foundation and doorways, windows. Also in timber frame construction, corners especially end up with a lot of material removed for joinery, jettison helps minimize joints all in the same place. IT creates covering around perimeters like a porch with haiving to build one.
This. And the same applies to castles, which, of course, were generally covered in plaster and whitewash, not bare stone. When you make an immense effort to build something like a castle, you wouldn't want it to start crumbling and looking like a ruin in your lifetime, due to the mortar in the joints being washed and eroded away. Plus, a smooth wall is much harder to assaut than a bare stone wall, which is basically a climbing course. The overhang, minute as it may be, acts to divert the rain from the upper sections of the wall, which were the hardest to repair, for obvious reasons. This has been done throughout history and still today, though we usually resort to zinc to cap off walls, at least in Portugal. Well, my two cents.
I don't know if you are right but I suspect you are. I lived in a 15th-16th century house that had some walls made of wattle and daub or lime or something like that and the walls were always wet in the winter. The walls were not jettied, so there was an obvious problem, that would have been seen and dealt with somehow.
This was also my guess. When water can get directly to your foundation. Walls start to lean outwards as a consequence to wet ground outside and dry ground inside. Protection of foundations of such old buildings (no concrete) from water has major stabilizing effects. Also there are some convenience benefits, you have a rain protected passage to a nearby toilet and you can hang and dry crops.
Great, now I'm planning Minecraft ramparts. 2-3 blocks thick with stone fences 'floating' a block off the edge, extending one down every so often to give it a proper corbel-y look. Just have to grab a mod that lets you do stone-brick walls. Only question is the spacing on the corbels.
Plus, with jettying, you have the benefit that if you pour your chamber pot out of the window, it won't land on the person looking out the window downstairs. =P
+phallus36 Yeah, me too, in fact, while the wet-rotting factor is undoubtedly sound, I still believe that chamber pots are likely the primary driving factor. Perhaps a comprehensive art historical study of medieval paintings could reveal the pedestrian walking patterns most common in that period. I myself would not tend to stray too far from any building's foundation, whether due to the soft rotting caused by rainfall, or the possibility of hard waste raining down from above.
There were also toilets on the upper floors which were just a hole in the overhang. So you just sit on the hole and release your waste straight into the street.
I agree it looks brilliant. I'm from the Netherlands and we have our own style of medieval buildings, but nothing compares to British cottages surrounded by quaint pubs and shops and beautiful hills outside the villages.
Are you sure of this? Because, based on the little I know of today Greece, there is more chance that the house isn't finished cause of the lack of money of the owner than a will of flood taxes. Because Greeks had a big economic crisis, and a very bad taxes system ^^'
Well...I still prefer my theory! It’s so when you’re throwing your poop out onto the street it don’t hit your house wall lol Great video though! Very informative.
I agree... any medivil street would have a gutter (Sewer as with the Romans) running down the centre and throwing out of the window your PissPot in the morning was quite normal. If you were a Time travelor you would not have to put up with stink because of the STENCH!
It is because of the poop in the streets that people created high heeled/soled shoes. Also, usually the bottom ruffle on the ladies dressese were brown/black or dark blue for the poop reason too. Urine they saved in pots outside their doors for the tanners.
Pros: temperature control, maximizing the use of your grazing land, security. cons: moisture (can be mitigated by contouring and construction methods), few windows/poor indoor light (can be mitigated by directionality of the outer wall). - Underground/hillside houses were even built during the westward expansion of America.
@@MonkeyJedi99 they were commonly called sod houses and were used for the first few years, while the actual house was being built. they were then used most often for storage or shelter for livestock.
Ben Nipius Me: Oh, scrolling through TH-cam recommended videos... nothing good to watch... *sigh* AND THEN... NOTIFICATION *insert Latin angelical singing*
Yep me too, and now I want a castle like house with Machicolations, so I can shoot people with a musket who are sieging said Castle of mine. 11:30 here.
Joey Frye During Mance Rayder's massive assault on The Wall, archers had to expose themselves to shoot a enemies that were too close to the structure. This is most evident when they want to repel the climbers, they had to be set perpendicular to the face of The Wall using ropes. Had there been any machicolatioooons, perhaps they could have killed Mag The Mighty, and Grenn would still be alive. But now his watch has ended...
old video I know, but I've always mimic/recreated this medieval house style when playing minecraft, both in creative and survival, even if it takes longer, it just looks so nice! Another reason I think they did it this way, is because the lower section, was usually used or storage and tools, or working tables outside, so it ALSO provides shadow on sunny days and cover on rainy days. Stone walls also give a small lv. of defense by having the "living floor" lower and not at ground Lv. (same in minecraft. except it provides shadow (hiding) for zombies or skeletons.
I thought that it was so it would be harder to climb up the wall if the wall stuck out as you climbed. That would stop or slow an intruder from climbing in a window in an upper floor.
This was the exact same reason I was taught for the higher floors extending over the ground floor. They wouldn't be able to scale the wall if they couldn't reach the wall with their legs once their ropes were secure.
Medieval architecture is fascinating! I especially enjoy the dichotomy between the overhanging ‘jettying’ of upper stories in western architectural development, contrasted with the ziggurat-like decreasing size of upper floors in more primitive stone-only construction techniques.
Such a great video! I used this technique on my farm house in Minecraft, using a very similar layout with stone on the first floor and wood on the second floor with a slight overhang. Of course I didn't know what I was doing or why it worked, my building was based on some other Minecraft houses I'd seen, but it's really cool hearing why jettying works and why it was used historically. Great stuff, I always think of you as "the sword guy" but I really enjoy this kind of historical study. 👍🏻
in AOE2, if you don't research "murder holes", your towers and castles can't shoot arrows at enemies who are attacking in close range. Now I learned better.
I love this style of architecture as well. When I was in Belgium I got to go to a town where they built the builds as per their original construction, this not only let me see this, but also Victorian and Gothic styled architecture,all next to one another. I was a very interesting trip, the city was also called Zeebrugge for those who are interested.
If you ever have the chance, you should visit Bruges itself, the city of which Zeebrugge is the port. There, large amounts of the original medieval architecture are still preserved and even protected. Many other European cities also still have large parts of their old city center preserved the way they were in (late-)medieval times.
Joey Frye, Wolf Blade is being a grammar nazi. You said "your awesome." "Your" indicates possession, as in "Your name is Joey Frye" You wanted to say "You're awesome." "You're" is a contraction of "you are," used to indicate a quality or action. "You are awesome." "You are reading this comment."
Hi! Thanks for your great work! In France, the lower part of the building was less big because the taxes the owner had to pay were based on the size of the footprint (on the size of the lower part), so by having a small lower part they paid less taxes.
In most cities taxes depended on the size of the ground floor. The overhanging roofs also kept some of the rain away from the stressed lower walls. You could build the upper floors with as much overhang as you wanted, so long as carriages and knights on horseback were able pass through. That's why often a second floor had even more overhang than the first. And it's not illogical that tax laws were so similar throu out northern europe. They needed a simple and easy to enforce tax system. And the wealthy people, the only ones who could afford houses in the city centre, wouldn't have liked tax officers walking through their houses measuring the size of their bedrooms. That's also why many smartass local lords tried to counter that loophole with additional taxes, like taxes on the number of doors to the side alleys, the number of windows facing the main street etc. Stuff a small number of not too smart city officals could put onto paper without even being noticed by the house owners. There weren't many non-violent ways for the aristocrats to make money so they copied what others did.
There weren't many nonviolent ways for the lords and royalty to make money because might meant right in the medieval period. That was an extremely violent time, hence why towns, castles and mansions had to be fortified.
+Phil Spaces That's exactly what I thought - that it was so people wouldn't drench their children with turds and pee ...just random passersby, hahahaha
Pretty sure that reason is one of the main reasons for overhangs on medieval buildings. There is even a scene in Blackadder II where he is trying to sell his house and goes to great lengths to use long estate agent like words to describe the lavatorial overhang..... to which his prospective buyer matter of factly responds "you poop out the window?", the joke being that that was exactly what she was looking for.
If i recall correctly (documentary knowledge) this was carried on for long after just medieval times.... excavation of the streets of NYC shows that this happened historically in cities of America as well. it is truly amazing that even animals wont s#!t where they live and sleep.... leave it to humans
Absolutely agree!! Plus if you're poor (think Monty Pithons paesants) and own no buckets, you could just overhang the butt outside and go on with morning rites. Fantastic 👍
Funny - I had three predictions as to why this would be and you touched on none of them. 1) Defensively I figured having extended ramparts would make it more difficult to have people trying to scale the walls, maybe not with ladders, but for sure with ropes. 2) chamber pots. Having an extension means if someone on the third and the second floor are chucking out their night soil at the same time, they're far less likely to dump it on one another. 3) taxes - if you're taxed on square footage of your house, having a smaller bottom floor might result in less taxes, particularly in cities. The reasons you cited make a lot of sense, don't get me wrong, but I found myself amused that I was sure I'd know the reason and not so much.
MrsRCharlton : In Holland they had narrow houses. There was a large beam and a pulley system on the top floor. The inner stairways were too narrow to bring furniture up. You open large doors on each floor and winch your furniture up the outside.
MrsRCharlton, I am so happy that someone was able to actually state some of the reasons. Fortunately my "Ancient Civ/Middle Ages professor mentioned them. Taxes was the main reason, because a house was taxed on the ground space it was using. And secondly, getting rid of sewage was another huge reason. People never walked in the middle of the street because that was where all the manure/urine was thrown out into the streets. And having an overhang allowed pedestrians walk close to the building and not have all that crap land on to them. All it would take is for someone to throw manure on a noble only to have same noble kick the door down and cut off your head. Incidentally, this is where the tradition of lower rank walking on the left of higher rank originated. Walking on the right side of the street, the highest ranking person was able to walk under the overhand. The lower ranks were more exposed because they occupied the left. That's why today, the enlisted soldier walks to the left of the sergeant, who walks to the left of the captain, who walks to the left of the colonel.
That was what I thought as well, about the scaling. But look at the actual castles, they're almost all less than a couple feet out. That doesn't really make it any more difficult to scale with rope. But, the machicolations would make it very easy for defenders to fuck you up while you're scaling, so there's that.
Curious. I took a class many decades ago that covered in part medieval architecture and they explained this jettying style on taxes differently. Since buildings were taxed on the basis of their square footage on the ground level, many built the ground floor as small as possible to reduce their taxes. The upper floors could then be expanded upon without increasing their taxes.
I thought that may be a reason, but I would also have asumed that who ever was calling the shots would have amended the tax law pretty quickly to plug that loophole.
I have no clue. I know nothing about architecture, buildings, or anything remotely close. However, I would wager the poeple of the time weren't building design geniuses either.
The 'Shambles' in the city of York, UK is a great example of these buildings. Cobbled streets and lots of medieval buildings overhanging onto the streets. Very cool and beautiful architectural style imo. Great vid Shad!
For the first part (Timber Buildings), my first thought was that they did it because they needed to chuck their chamber pots into the street and they didn't want to be hitting the people below them and getting it in their windows.
Rax Taz, that is indeed true! AstralStorm, If you land your dump on top of hats of unsuspecting pedestrians they will cluelessly carry your shit far away from your house.
I've been wondering about this for a decade now. It seemed too structurally unsound to make sense, but now that I've hear the counter balance theory behind it, this is making all the sense. Oh, and Machicolation. Glorious Machicolation.
Another “insignificant detail” is why all these castles even exist. I learned about it growing up, but saying anything bad about Muslim invaders is racist today!
As if everyone who needed to be defended against were Muslim... As if Muslim rulers didn't face the same issues against Crusaders and the like... It's not a religion-specific thing, it's a human thing.
Depipro I get your point, but it differs based on time period. The muslim empire was huge and was made through aggressive expansionism with a holy war. In the 8th century they ruled from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus river despite having originated from just a small part of the Arabian Peninsula. The first crusade was started because the Byzantine Emperor asked for aid against the Seljuk Turks that they had lost a lot of territory to, and the Pope turned it into a movement to recapture the Holy Land that was originally lost to the Islamic expansion back in the 7th century.
You forgot something! You want an overhang, because you want water, away from the wall at all times. Just a little bit overhang, makes the water fall, instead of hugging the wall.
I haven't watched any of your videos before and am not familiar with your channel, but I stumbled upon this one and was pleasantly surprised how interesting and educational it was. That was very enjoyable. I really appreciate the amount of research that you put into this.
I also liked the groovy chair. I appreciate the ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES especially the spiky chair back which makes life more difficult for back-stabbings.
As many people have no doubt commented already, at least in London, there was a tax on the amount of room your foundation could take up so eventually people got around that because the space above the first floor didn't have any restrictions on it, taxes speaking. this is why the Great London Fire(s) were so devastating, because they easily jumped from wooden building to wooden building; they were jettied to the high heavens, many were thought to be so close on the third and fourth floors that you could shake your neighbour's hand if you both leaned out your windows.
About the jetting on rural area... The biggest concern I would have is constant or consistent mud from the rain outside. There's also a Canadian study on roofing where roofs that extend by at least 2 feet reduce the weathering of the wall below.
it's especially usefull back before reliable rain jackets or umbrellas. People would often stand around under the eaves of houses during the rain and also reudces weathering on the walls. That also helps reduces leaks, cracks, etc. in the walls by directing rain
@@arthas640 You seem to have a misconceiption that they had reliable raincoats back in the ancient days (even before medieval times). Our modern "wax jacket" is based on that concept, and this is nothing the people back then would have not used. So the argument about clothing and accessories that offer protection against rain, are invalid. (but the rest is true)
@@tristanellis-mascoll1171 just look at wool, if it is lanolised (lanolin applied to the wool garment) it becomes pretty waterproof but still breathable
@@Mezza I think I have a typo in my statement. The first sentence is missing a "did not", since I am referring to wax jackets as rainproved options that are long known. Also I am talking about misconceiption. This would not apply in contradiction to the statement of Arthas Menethil, if I would agree with him. But thanks for telling me the other options that would have been used back in medieval times.
@@tristanellis-mascoll1171 I was agreeing with you (I didn’t see the typo, and read it as you meant) I was just adding to your comment. People seem to think that people just walked around in the rain with no way of keeping themselves dry which was extremely important as they didn’t have many changes of clothing.
I think I know why we like this type of design. Sensitive neurons react when they encounter a stimulus they "like": a light wavelength, a sound frequency, different orientations in space... Neurons in the primary visual cortex (which by the way is located in the back of the head, the farthest away from the eyes, oddly enough) like lines in different angles or orientations. I think we like this type of style because it is more stimulant than a flat wall. Look for "primary visual cortex orientation columns" in Google Images if you're interested. This columns represent lots of neurons that react to the same orientation arranged in columns. Once you start studying the brain, you realise how tidy the "cables" are.
I would imagine weathering may be a big reason why you would add them on castles without the machicolations. It will cause far less water to be running down the side of the walls during storms. This will limit how much rain can damage your castle's finish, probably would limit a lot of the ugly mineral staining streaks going down the walls as well for the same reason. This keeps most of the water from flowing directly down the face of the castle and keeps the bulk of it falling several inches away from it. This also seems to be more common on the inner castle proper as well, where the walls are much taller and it is less practical to be staging defenses from the top, those towers would be more for observation I would imagine. If the enemy has already breached your out walls where the machicolations would be far more useful, then you are already well on your way to being screwed anyhow, heh.
I think weathering wasn't much of a concern with castles, it happened much more slowly back then (no acid rain) and the jettying is so far up. But weatherng was a very big concern with whattle and doub. And of course you can keep your stuff dry if the higher floor(s) hang out far enough, like with the big barn.
Was about to write something similar, even in the present a huge amount of the thought and consideration in construction deals with water, rain and drainage. Enclosed walls would no double suffer from water pooling, similar to a gutter you would want to offset the draining from cascading down the wall which outside of the obvious erosion of mortar would lead to dampness problems internally with rock being somewhat porous.
I was told once, and I don't even remember where, a version of this. The water is absorbed by the stone, and fills in the hand hewn gaps, making the castle damp inside, when you have the corbels the rain is channeled off the stones, and only the very corners (at the rampart or roof intersection) get wet. Later, the concrete mortar used would be very susceptible to water absorption, as well as disintegration (poor mix/quality of material). This would also have the effect of moving the water away from the structure, and although thick castle walls have a foundation, it is just hand cut stone, if only the outer part was to get wet, the outer most stones would sink into the ground faster, causing the walls to crumble/collapse. As far as in the villages, i believe it was likely a result of taxes first, water mitigation second, and proved to be popular after those by the waste disposal part. I also seem to remember the birth of sidewalks was from roman times and a "sanitary measure"
You forgot a major reason: Safety. Normally the living and sleeping quarters would be on the 2nd and/or 3rd floor (if available). Having sleeping quarters upstairs prevents wild animals and bugs from getting easy access to them. Not to mention thieves, cutthroats, rogues and other rabble. Most building would have a secured trap door separating the ground floor from the upper floors.
the small extended battlements are part of blocking intruders, walking up a wall with a 50cm extended battlement means the angle of your rope is closer to 90 degree(you cant push your feet into the wall for grip) if a wall had an inward battlement wall or a flat battlement wall a rope tossed up would angle towards the wall you were climbing giving you an advantage when scaling it. also a anchor running up the wall (because you tossed it to far forward) will bounce back or hit the bottom of the battlement instead of have a chance to hook the wall.
Wait a minute here! Are you trying to tell me that instead of paying your local mages guild a few septims to teleport you to another location, people in the medieval era walked? Yeah right, you just try convincing the citizens of Morrowind to walk anywhere. The second you step outside a building... BAM! Cliff Racers everywhere! OH GOD! I have literally killed millions but they just keep coming....... Screw Morrowind! I am moving to Cyrodiil. What could possibly go wrong there?
the land was just as expensive but they had laxer property laws. i think nowadays most countries/citys you are allowed to overhang the street when building a new building.
More than ten times as many. Literally. Global population in as of April 2017 is estimated at roughly 7.5 billion. The exact decade varies, but all estimates put the global population reaching 750 million sometime in the 1700s.
Still, most of houses have very low amount of floors (1-2), cover a lot of space and have as big fenced garden around them as possible, at least whenever you get out of city centers. Walking distance? What is it, we've got all kinds of crap like buses, trams and so on. Who cares that we are fat and get completely exhausted after 3 kilometres of walking. Thats why whenever I've got time, I always walk, as long as my destination is within 1 hour of walking distance.
Recently discovered your stuff Shad, and I've enjoyed everything I've watched, but this is your best imho. Really, really interesting and informative. Cheers mate!
There is another reason why this style is needed, and its purely practical. When i build plane wall there were always some spiders that could clime up the wall but when i added extension to it, they were helpless. Minecraft is more realistic than people realize.
My old history teacher told me that the small overhang on castles (the ones you talked about in the end) were not only made as decoration but also still had a protective use. As you mentioned at the start, when the "bad guys" got too close to the wall, the "good guys" on top of the wall had a very difficult time reaching the "bad guys". The baddies could still easily take a shot at the goodies before stepping back into cover. By extending the machicolations out, even only a tiny bit, the baddies would have to step out further to reach the goodies, giving the people on the wall more time to take a shot at them. So yes! It did look good and was used often times as decoration, but in the meantime served a protective purpose and strategic thought.
You know I saw this on my recommendations and just stared at the title for a bit and then I went, you know, that's a good fucking question! :/ And then I clicked. So good job.
Suuucker!!! Ha Haaa... Huh? what, me...? errr... uuum..oh, yah, same, I guess. oops! Some click-bait is worth eating! ;-) I wish you could see the thumbs up/ thumbs down ratio prior to clicking... good stuff tends to have a 10:1 ratio or better, though 100:1 is quite rare. Lots of rancid clickbait is 2:1 or less ... but, too, political divide skews many votes... we need Machicolations to keep away those Machicolatioooons Deniers!
Guess before watch: It's Because of taxes and that stuff Ok, so I was wrong, but in my defense there are swedish records of taxes on houses in cities being based on the ground area of the house. Btw, this was probably one of your best videos and I hope you make more content like this.
martyn kalendar my guess is, that it is because of the fact, that if you would empty your chamber pots, it woud be good if you didnt cover your neighbours under you with your excrements :D
In Norway, on many old 1800 century-ish, buildings the top floor will look something like that because there was a tax on the number of floors you could have. Complicated rules on first and last floor etc. Look it up if you care. Because now you know it exists...
I seem to recall England once having a tax on the number of windows in a building - and so, the owners would brick the windows up. So the idea of taxing according to the building's footprint isn't as strange as some other ideas. :-)
A fascinating video! I've visited dozens of medieval castles & houses while remaining ignorant of this. I particularly like your videos because you correct yourself when you've made mistakes previously! Rather than consider this a negative I see it as evidence that you continue to question and research, uncovering new/alternative explanations for well known features. In this way, History is similar to Science. We collect evidence and come up with a explanation but remain willing to revise this hypothesis (and any derived conclusions) based on new data or a reinterpretation of the existing evidence. Your videos prove that while the past itself doesn't change History evolves as our understanding improves!
As a person strongly into architecture and living in a place with a huge amount of really old buildings and a strong representation of this old style (even in new buildings) I may want to suggest an additional practicality for this overhang. The overhang provides the ability to have windows (not the huge ones we know on today's buildings, but the barely one hand tall but long ones at least in my place). These kind of windows are often placed right under the overhang which provides two big benefits. First the structural benefit, since having a window on top of a stone wall right under the timbers makes it really easy to finish the top of the window, because no arch is needed. This adds to Shads point of the structural benefits of the overhang stabilizing the timbers. Second and the main thing I want to point out is these kind of windows need no glass to prevent rain the from getting into the building. Since the overhang provides a sufficient amount of protection against rain. While natural light and ventilation is till sufficient. This is practical enough that even newly build buildings today have this feature. (Same benefit is also used in traditional Japanese buildings, where the walkway around the building prevents most of the rain from getting to the outer walls. This allows the iconic "paper" walls and doors to be a thing in the first place without being hugely impractical.) Sorry for the long text, but that is the shortest version I could manage to write to get the point somewhat home. (I just saw the age of this video and highly doubt this comment section is still really alive nevertheless I think it is worth pointing out)
On the castle defense, they do that in the game "Rust". People will build outward with those holes so they can shoot down at players attacking their base.
Your videos have been really helpful. I play Minecraft, and one of my favorite things to do is build castles. So having videos like yours helps me build more realistic and appealing castles. So from now on Shad I'll always include machicolations in my Minecraft castles.
You should not just get all your info on wiki. Some of the reasons you listed are known to be very unlikely- and one of the most likely contributing factors you totally missed - simply that houses were taxed according to their ground floor area. So to get the most house for the smallest tax bill - small bottom floor with bigger upper floors = win. Also, it did ofcourse become a 'fashion' so was used in cases where tax was not an issue too later.
I would say it’s a harsh accusation to level at him. From my knowledge on what he does regarding his videos, he doesn’t usually (this could be an exception, I’m not omniscient) make it unless he has a pretty good understanding of it through various means. I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong about him having got this stuff from wikis and whatnot, but it’s a bit of a harsh accusation to level at him. Other than that you make a good point, of course people would do what they could to avoid taxes, by keep in mind not every country in the world did taxes the same way, nonetheless, interesting little tidbit
Actually, it was mainly to do with Taxes...which is why later on many windows were blocked off due to taxes being layed upon the number of windows a building had. Just a note some of his facts are wrong or slightly off but I very much doubt it has to do with Wikipedia in particular.
i know that arguemnt. And i always wondered why the authorities presumably didn't look past this little trick. Ususally people who make taxes are not that stupid. Maybe this reason is a common misconception. No proof though.
I watch at 0.25 speed and I then realise what a drunken night out with this guy would be like XD Actually genuinely enjoyed this, first time seeing his videos. You have my like, good day to you
Just a small fact from someone who has worked in and studied masonry (building things with stone and brick) for several years. Overhanging parts stop/hinder rain from washing down the wall as much and stop it from washing away the soft lime mortar(the glue like stuff used to join brick and stone) they used back then. A well built stone wall with a big wooden structure over the top of it wouldn't need any repair work for hundreds of years. However, one constantly exposed to rain would need the mortar repaired every few months. Even on a castle where it was all stone, if you had a big overhang at the top, you'd only need to repair the top section regularly, everything underneath would be much less maintenance heavy. So it might also be a measure to reduce maintenance costs and requirements and to make the structure last longer.
@@championazhan2180 I've always done this to keep spiders from crawling over lol. I know torches keep them away but I like to do both for maximum protection. Looks pretty as well
It seems kind of odd that this would be one of your more popular videos considering how its a kind of obscure topic that wouldn't seem to have mass appeal, but then again this is one of my favorite topics you've ever covered so maybe its a little more interesting than one might presume.
Medieval architecture is a niche topic??? Somebody needs to get out a little more in the western world. From my personal experience, interest peaked around 15-17. And he has a point, we still seem to find this design pleasing, just seeing the thumbnail is clickbait-y. All that said, this is the first video of his I've seen so I've no idea what other content there is. Recommended got it right this time
a thumbnail that looks pretty with arrows pointing and you think "wot'?" then looks at title and now you're like "huh?" a question with an answer thats simpel to explain +history is interesting
Historian: So why did you design it this way? Aesthethic, efficiency, or protection?
Architect (avoiding taxes) : *Money!*
Sounds like Wrocław. In Wrocław you had to pay from the land your building occupied so they started to be thin but tall while in Lviv law was more loose so ppl over there build their homes wide and short. Both cities make beauty contrast
@@krzysztof765 and that argument still holds to this day
My family has worked construction for at least 4 generations in the Pacific Northwest and I can definitely see this happening. We do ALOT to avoid taxes and permits (legally).
Avoiding taxation is natural, understandable and noble.
In Belgium, up to the 20th century, they had a tax calculated by the amount of doors and windows your building had. That way, they didn't need to actually enter the buildings, just count the amount of openings. So people began to brick their windows and doors up to a minimum. Its still visible today on buildings from that period, you'll see where a window used to be but its completely filled up with bricks.
A minecraft player would say: "to stop the spiders getting over the wall" as overhang prevents the spiders from getting to the top of the wall
Actually, that's a great hypothesis: burglary prevention. In ancient Rome, the ground floor was the cheapest due mostly to security concerns. Your concept makes a lot of sense. It would be damned hard for the average burglar to creep around that outcropping. The next question is, do we have evidence of locks between the ground and second floor?
That’s exactly what I was thinking when I saw the title/thumbnail
that and to have a spot to enjoy the outdoors at ground level without being rained on! but then you make a tower with canopied balconies. itsa gg!
@@fatribz rain flies at an angle, you'd have to rum round the outside of the castle every time the wind changes direction
@@angluneenon oo true. I meant in minecraft where we don't have wind (unfortunately, maybe)
An historian tell me, this is also (in some countries) because of the taxes you had to pay for the area of your house in contact with the ground. So people were building more space on the first floor to have bigger houses, with less taxes haha.
This. Thank you.
Isn't this still a thing today?
Since you are being taxed by ground surface area.
@@Catalistic Today should be constructed area, not only ground floor
I heard the same thing about the taxes.
Yep i learned that too
Another reason for having the overhang on timber buildings might have been to provide a wider roof to shed rainwater and snowmelt away from the foundation.
They used to throw their trash out onto the streets from their windows in medieval times. Maybe it was to prevent dumping on the floor below's heads or the ground floor porch🤔
Just about the same thought i had. But it might also be because of having an overhang to seek cover under when raining.
Also maybe you'd have to pay some land/ground/area tax for the ground or area your building occupies. So building higher, and with overhang you get more area without having to pay additional area/ground tax... if that makes sense.
There was another reason. Medieval houses didn't have gutters. These old houses wattle and daub houses would deteriorate by the water running of the walls. If you jet out the floor above, the water will not run down the entire length and dampen the walls.
In Europe lots of older house have walls leaning over. This was done on purpose for the same reason.
Exactly, and stone walls don't need water if you want them to last.
In addition to water drainage, this also included garbage and excrement, which was often just tossed out the window (no plumbing at the time of course)
Pieter UR SO RIGHT ,!!!!!
Pieter ALSO BALCONEYS WERE MADE TO THROW GARBAGE IN THE STREET OR GUTTER THATS Y MEN WOULD WALK ON THE STREET SIDE I THINK!!!!!!!!
@@ratankabidge8589 It wasn't happening that often. Here a video about it: th-cam.com/video/iJw2ow7jBnc/w-d-xo.html
Overhangs on castles also help to make setting ladders up against the wall more difficult.
I don't know if there already existed these kind of ladders which you have to extend by pulling a rope. If so, even with a very small overhang, these were useless to reach the top of the wall.
But it’s surrrrrre nice to have even a bit of overhang where there’s an accepted practice of tossing pots full of piss out without regard to anyone who might be below.
@@duudsuufd Why? Because they had to be leaned against the wall to begin with, while pulling up the extension bit of the ladder? Sure, if they had to do it that way, it would make it very difficult or downright impossible. But why wouldn't they have ropes attached somewhere at the ladders top 1/3? You know, so to enable the ladder being pulled slightly out from the wall to surpass the jutting?
@@Superknullisch Yes, that is what I meant (not always easy to explain such things in English).
But if they need men to pull the ladder slightly back, which is possible, these men have to stand in the 'fire line' so they were more easy to attack than those already against the wall.
No. Ladders don't need to lean against the whole wall. Just a point of contact near the top. Plus ladders don't come in 1 size.
When attacking, all ladders would be made to the exact size they needed before attacking.
In 500 years a guy in a shirt with some modern day item on it, will sit in a piece of IKEA furniture, and talk about why we build skyscrapers the way we did. And properly come to the conclusion. It looked good.
a lot of features on many sky scrapers are decorative, in some cases additions to claim bonus height.
It will be Shads descendant, I'm sure lol
Radja Amidala just like how hundreds of years ago, Shads ancestor wore a shirt bearing cave man clubs and sat in an antique chair telling people why cave men did things the way they did.
It is the family profession of Shads.
It will be his great x50 grandson and he will be selling stylish shirts as well
skyscrapers are not designed to look good that's why they look like giant blocks of cement
You forgot an obvious one mate, it assists with water shedding during rain. Even stone needs to shed water because the mortar would erode from water pooling up and freezing/thawing. This was especially important during the more frigid conditions during the 14th century. All your other points were awesome and I learned a lot. I'll be mindful of them as we develop our medieval castle seige game. Thanks for the awesome video!
This video was actually very interesting and well done. No offense, but I didn't have high hopes at the beginning and I actually ended up watching the whole thing glued to the monitor. Well done.
Small advice here : perhaps when you define something (like jettying), when it's a word that is not commonly used, you should write it somewhere on the screen in your video. It would makes it way easier to learn, understand and remember, especially for the foreigners like me :)
I understand english well but since it's not my native language, that would be greatly appreciated. By the way, I love your videos !
thank you for spelling it out, i was confused on how to spell jettying!
I got frustrated I couldn't find out and came searching for this comment
Should've made a shirt with 'jettying' on it
Jettying of houses became so bad that they were very close at the top floors. This contributed to rapid spread of fire because it could easy jump across streets. After the Great Fire of London they were banned in the UK as a result.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I imagine that at times the roofs would get ridiculously close together, eliminating the need for the fire to jump very much at all. Yikes.
It also causes a reduction in air movement and could make foul smells linger on the streets, especially when they were used as an open sewer.
It'd be great for any thieves looking to jump from roof to roof to cross the city.
Some cities had a new-cobble-stone street every few years, since the dirt piled up and no-one bothered to remove it. In other places it was thrown over the city wall until it became a rampart...
You have no idea how bad it must have smelled: excretion, animals, food-waste, moldy stuff (old hay, wood and leather pieces)...
Its also why town squares were so popular, because that was the only place someone could experience sunlight.
I’ve lived in Germany and they had a lot of houses like that in the villages and I loved it.
nobody cares
This video made me realize just how beautiful medieval houses looked. Thank you, Shad, for teaching me something today. :D
You know content is good when you didn't know you wanted it. Thanks for the video
... and watched all of it :) Yes :)
Nah, you know it's good when you look down and realize... "damn that was almost 20 minutes?" And wish it was longer..
I have absolutely no idea why or how this popped up in my recommended videos, but I'm glad it did. I actually learned something.
Same here, lol
Same for me. I don't usually watch architecture videos. Don't know why this was recommended, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. You have my sub, Sir.
Same
Same here. Probably because I was watching GOT-related videos. I'm not complaining though.
same here but i subscribed quickly :)
Having the upper floor overhang the lower wall is first and foremost a physics issue. It directs the stresses evenly downward through the wall into the ground, rather than placing a sideways force on the wall.
Also, having this overhang tends to protect the top of the wall from the elements, keeping rain from entering the structure through the top juncture of the floor and the wall. This was important during the development of mortar and more modern joining techniques.
Your two answers are the best of many good reasons: when the foundation erodes so goes the roof.
"Have you ever wondered why?"
Nope, but I'm sure glad you brought my attention to this because now I'm wondering.
I thought it was because they shit out of windows
Goddamn Larry you're everywhere lol
No- they shat through the machiculations
GoDoFcRaP42 typically on invading foreigners trying to steal your Castle
As a Dane I would def shite out me window if. say a swede attacked me walls.
They were more civilized than that. They shat and pissed in chamber pots and threw THAT out the window.
I liked the point about using physics to reduce the sagging of the beams.
ditto
Yes. That actually makes sense. In masonry, it's called corbelling.
I was informed by a structural engineer that the overhang was designed to let water run off the buildings and protect it. Such buildings do not have gutters or a gully but this system worked well as an alternative.
I live in germany and here in my local town you jettyed because u only paid taxes for the bottom floor. that is atleast the information i got from the local museum.
vegard herøy Possibly. Here in the States I've heard something similar, but in regards to the width of a house. So in some older cities houses are long but thin.
The same pattern or modifications of it can be found all around europe in older settlements. Either be it long houses or several houses build in a row . The most plausibel explanation is that in medival cities , the main reason for taxation was the bulding and maintaining of citiywalls, while in more rural aereas the main reason for community taxes was the building an maintanining of road, so a taxation of either space or roadlength your building or property takes make perfect sence. What strenghents the hypothesis in my opinion is the fact that this style of building was mostly discontinued after citywalls became more and more obsolet and gouverment became more and more centralized. But that doesn't disprove that it might be a fasion thing too.
+vegard herøy
That sounds like myth to me. Broadly similar to the bakers dozen myth in the english speaking world.
Why? Because it's not even remotely a Germanic phenomenon and it's unlikely that such a specific tax system with such a specific loophole would be that common throughout Europe. It also doesn't explain why you would go to the effort in a situation where you own more than just the land that the structure is sitting on.
why would it have to be a germanic phenomenon? "germany" at the time was also so extremely decentralized,as was most of europe. And with the state of the european states and the lack of unity when it comes to laws, why would it not be a common loophole?
The last part of your comment i do not quite understand, idk if it is my lack of understanding of the english language or your formulation, but could u please expand on it so i can perhaps give you a more detailed response?
You're looking at it backwards. For that specific loophole to exist in so many places, tax laws would have to be nearly identical in all those places. That is unlikely specifically because of the extreme decentralization.
For the last part, I guess maybe there is a language/cultural barrier there that would need some explanation.
A dozen is 12. A bakers dozen is 13. The myth goes: This comes from an old English fraud law with a very harsh penalty. To ensure that they complied with the law, bakers would include an extra muffin/biscuit/whatever. The problem is that it's not something exclusive to England. Other cultures also traditionally commonly sell baked goods in multiples of 13. The real reason for this one probably has to do with the layout of baked goods on a rectangular pan.
Just found your channel and I have been obsessed with Knights and Medieval history my whole life. I wish we could live in a world that looked a bit more medieval. (I'll still keep my showers and luxuries, but still). Thanks for all you do!
"I just thought that it would look cool"
- medieval architect
"plus, you can shit from your window"
- the same medieval architect
Shad, seriously, why the heck did i not get lucky enough to have you be my history teacher in school. I sucked at history and it was one of my worst subjects. But tbh i already learn more from your vids than i ever did in history class all my years of school. And you make it more entertaining to listen to as well
Maybe they played Minecraft and wanted to keep spiders out....
I was just about to write about my Minecraft anti-spider fortifications. :D
Well I haven't seen the entire video yet, but preventing rats from climbing was another reason.
good thought, although did they have minecraft
Everyone knows its half slabs around the edges that keeps spiders from climbing up and over.
Thank you. you made my day netter😂
Okay, if you have no patience for the first half of the video:
Reason 1: when you build a first floor on a (usually stone) foundation, you might as well have the floor beams overhang a bit to maximize floor space.
Reason 2: the physics where the weight on the outer edges of these beams counteract sagging in the middle of the beam.
Reason 3: design choice
This comment is underappreciated and im good on watching the commercials.
2 seems like only reason thus was done, people in the 1500s didnt care how stuff looked.
building the upper layer smaller makes the beams bend, bend beams don't only apply downward force, but also outwards, making your building collapse.
u r the boss
Reason 4: Cost of materials. Stone first floors being more expensive than the upper wooden floors. (Ground floors being stone, to avoid wood rot)
Reason 5: Ground floor zoning issues.
Nick Koiter yet it looks cool now when you are stuck with High Ranches and odd shaped modern houses that look like crap.
Interesting reasons, but wrong for the UK at least! This style of timber property was used as a work-around for land-tax.
A property was taxed on its ground-floor footprint - this enabled larger properties (tall & with jetties) to exist with a lower tax.
Another example of this in UK architecture is a 'Tax Window' - a window that has been bricked up to save on a window tax that existed in the 17-19th Centuries in Western Europe.
Your other points may have merit, but the key reason for Tudor-age properties of this style is the Tax reason!
Jasem Kashani except the viking settlers were doing it in york, it was done by the Norman settlers, pretty sure Romans also did it in some cases... it was being done long before the tudors despite your reason being why the style became more popular
This is the explanation I heard when I went to Germany.
In France, I was told in school that the reason was taxes related as well. Don't know the reason why viking could have done it in York, but the Norman probably did it because they were French
yes, I also wondered why he didn't get to that (about tax).
also for the castles he didn't get to the point why it was not a problem defensively if the battlement was extended outward without the use of machicolations.
I remember hearing a similar explanation about A-frame style houses.
Supposedly, at one point, a tax was put on walls, so people started building houses with as much roof as possible to save money.
Might be bullshit though, I haven't read into it much.
I always assumed one of the reasons for the very small overhang on castles was rain and snow. When you have a slight extension on an otherwise uncovered wall, all the rain and snow is going to drip off that extension instead of down the entire wall, thus keeping the erosion of the overall wall reduced. In turn, it is cheaper to reface and repair just the crenelations of the wall rather than the entire wall.
Quality upload Shad I had never thought about that and the animations were really well done!
Why do medieval buildings overhang their lower floors? BECAUSE DRAGONS, THAT'S WHY!!!
but, WHAT ABOUT DRAG- oh.. never mind.
Ohhhhhoh
Oh
oh
i hate you
Brun Grisâtre No, because the Katana is the best sword ever!!
WHAT????
In Medievil Times, Dragons were a serial Issue in Germany.
Thats, why people call that Time "Evil"...
Although, in that Time they named the Dragons "Inquisition"...
No Scales, but killing with Fire...
Now, the Dragons are still alive...
Someones very well fed in Rome and someones, very hungry in the Middle East...
But Dragons will be still Dragons... Where is the Stormborn to tame them?
"Did you forget to take your meds? " Placebo
Other bonuses are, it creates larger overhang diverting rain run off farther away from foundation and doorways, windows. Also in timber frame construction, corners especially end up with a lot of material removed for joinery, jettison helps minimize joints all in the same place. IT creates covering around perimeters like a porch with haiving to build one.
MisterSoul99 - Agreed, no gutters and downpipes either.
This. And the same applies to castles, which, of course, were generally covered in plaster and whitewash, not bare stone. When you make an immense effort to build something like a castle, you wouldn't want it to start crumbling and looking like a ruin in your lifetime, due to the mortar in the joints being washed and eroded away. Plus, a smooth wall is much harder to assaut than a bare stone wall, which is basically a climbing course. The overhang, minute as it may be, acts to divert the rain from the upper sections of the wall, which were the hardest to repair, for obvious reasons. This has been done throughout history and still today, though we usually resort to zinc to cap off walls, at least in Portugal. Well, my two cents.
I don't know if you are right but I suspect you are. I lived in a 15th-16th century house that had some walls made of wattle and daub or lime or something like that and the walls were always wet in the winter. The walls were not jettied, so there was an obvious problem, that would have been seen and dealt with somehow.
That's what I was thinking. *thumbs up*
This was also my guess. When water can get directly to your foundation. Walls start to lean outwards as a consequence to wet ground outside and dry ground inside. Protection of foundations of such old buildings (no concrete) from water has major stabilizing effects. Also there are some convenience benefits, you have a rain protected passage to a nearby toilet and you can hang and dry crops.
I was waiting for him to tell us jettying on stone is: MACHICOLATION!!
It's to help keep hormone driven teen from climbing in and out of your house!
JamcalX Overhangs: Stopping your neighbours from defiling your daughters since the 10th Century A.D!
Nah it's clearly a templar design to stop assassins from climbing the wall to the roof.
and those damn minecraft spiders!
Also stopping invading Saracens from climbing in and defiling you and your daughters, since the 7th Century AD
Great, now I'm planning Minecraft ramparts. 2-3 blocks thick with stone fences 'floating' a block off the edge, extending one down every so often to give it a proper corbel-y look. Just have to grab a mod that lets you do stone-brick walls. Only question is the spacing on the corbels.
I got here totally by accident. But i'm glad i did. I learned something today. Thank you!
Paulo Brasil i
same!
Plus, with jettying, you have the benefit that if you pour your chamber pot out of the window, it won't land on the person looking out the window downstairs. =P
for some reason that's the first thing I thought of, and you don't get the walls below all poopy
+phallus36 Yeah, me too, in fact, while the wet-rotting factor is undoubtedly sound, I still believe that chamber pots are likely the primary driving factor. Perhaps a comprehensive art historical study of medieval paintings could reveal the pedestrian walking patterns most common in that period. I myself would not tend to stray too far from any building's foundation, whether due to the soft rotting caused by rainfall, or the possibility of hard waste raining down from above.
I always thought that was the reason, but these reasons are more convincing. That's like a side benefit I guess.
There were also toilets on the upper floors which were just a hole in the overhang. So you just sit on the hole and release your waste straight into the street.
Zzyzx Wolfe Ha! But you won't be able to see if someone is standing outside right under the overhang O_O
I agree it looks brilliant. I'm from the Netherlands and we have our own style of medieval buildings, but nothing compares to British cottages surrounded by quaint pubs and shops and beautiful hills outside the villages.
You missed a point, during the time there was a land tax which applied to the footprint of the building, but didn't apply to the upper floors.
Saw that coming.
Much like the varying taxes assessed on windows in different eras.
it might also make it so rodents and other pests couldn't climb up the walls.
soundspark not when their completely upside down on the over hang.
And those taxes on windows led to walled windows to don't pay taxes :D
Are you sure of this? Because, based on the little I know of today Greece, there is more chance that the house isn't finished cause of the lack of money of the owner than a will of flood taxes. Because Greeks had a big economic crisis, and a very bad taxes system ^^'
Well...I still prefer my theory! It’s so when you’re throwing your poop out onto the street it don’t hit your house wall lol
Great video though! Very informative.
it also helps keep stains from developing if you use the ol' "lean yur ass out the window" pooping strategy.
I agree... any medivil street would have a gutter (Sewer as with the Romans) running down the centre and throwing out of the window your PissPot in the morning was quite normal. If you were a Time travelor you would not have to put up with stink because of the STENCH!
@Craig Hill: I just asked if anyone had mentioned that! Totally agree.
It is because of the poop in the streets that people created high heeled/soled shoes. Also, usually the bottom ruffle on the ladies dressese were brown/black or dark blue for the poop reason too. Urine they saved in pots outside their doors for the tanners.
That was my conclusion as well ....bring out your dead?!!
I never realized I would find medieval upper floor overhangs so interesting! And everyone who watched this now has a new favorite word.
thattheresagirl Whats the word?
thattheresagirl Is the bird the word?
xD
Timber.
Machicolatiooooooooons!!!
Hobbit holes. Pros vs Cons of a underground house in medieval times.
Can you imagine raw timber against all of that humidity?
Pros: temperature control, maximizing the use of your grazing land, security. cons: moisture (can be mitigated by contouring and construction methods), few windows/poor indoor light (can be mitigated by directionality of the outer wall). - Underground/hillside houses were even built during the westward expansion of America.
Flooding would be fun.. 😂
@@MonkeyJedi99 they were commonly called sod houses and were used for the first few years, while the actual house was being built. they were then used most often for storage or shelter for livestock.
me: I will go to sleep
me two seconds later: ooh shad uploaded a new video!
Ben Nipius Me: Oh, scrolling through TH-cam recommended videos... nothing good to watch... *sigh*
AND THEN...
NOTIFICATION
*insert Latin angelical singing*
It's 5:30 pm for me when he uploaded. I'll go to bed later, and not lose sleep :D
Yep me too, and now I want a castle like house with Machicolations, so I can shoot people with a musket who are sieging said Castle of mine. 11:30 here.
+Nothing.
Lacrimosa Dies Illa Qua Resurget Ex Favilla Judicandus Homo Reus
Lacrimosa Dies Illa Qua Resurget Ex Favilla Judicandus Homo Reus
He always uploads around 1 pm (east Europe). And I have to watch it each time!
I do it in Minecraft to keep the spiders out
That's ingenious.
Or, you could just make sure your roof overhangs
Spiders cant climb cellar-type flat surfaces?
@@Stribog1337 your a year late on that one bud, just like I am lol
Many an archer of the Night's Watch died due to The Wall's lack of machicolatioooons!
Luis Héctor Parra DeLaRoche please elaborate. a man must know
Luis Héctor Parra DeLaRoche please elaborate. a man must know
Joey Frye During Mance Rayder's massive assault on The Wall, archers had to expose themselves to shoot a enemies that were too close to the structure. This is most evident when they want to repel the climbers, they had to be set perpendicular to the face of The Wall using ropes. Had there been any machicolatioooons, perhaps they could have killed Mag The Mighty, and Grenn would still be alive. But now his watch has ended...
green is alive in the books.
"We don't need no fancy machicoolatchions if we have a big ass blade that sweeps the wall against climbers!"
old video I know, but I've always mimic/recreated this medieval house style when playing minecraft, both in creative and survival, even if it takes longer, it just looks so nice!
Another reason I think they did it this way, is because the lower section, was usually used or storage and tools, or working tables outside, so it ALSO provides shadow on sunny days and cover on rainy days. Stone walls also give a small lv. of defense by having the "living floor" lower and not at ground Lv. (same in minecraft. except it provides shadow (hiding) for zombies or skeletons.
Was it not simply because in Elizabethan and Tudor times, property taxes were paid on the amount of ground space a house took up?
Yeah, taxes was the first reason came to mind before I watched this.
This was my first thought and was going to post same comment. How did he not know this???
Aunt Jen-Jen because he an american.
Amenhotep Pimpernel III he's obviously not...
He seems pretty American to me.
I thought that it was so it would be harder to climb up the wall if the wall stuck out as you climbed. That would stop or slow an intruder from climbing in a window in an upper floor.
Raymond Mundt lol this isn’t assassins creed
Raging Russian Doesn't mean people can't find a way to climb
I heard the same. that it's sth like ladder protection
This was the exact same reason I was taught for the higher floors extending over the ground floor. They wouldn't be able to scale the wall if they couldn't reach the wall with their legs once their ropes were secure.
probably an accidental benefit
I didn't knew that medieval architecture could be so interesting.
These overhangs help to prevent spider zombies from climbing over your fortress. That's why they were made.
nelmaven know*
OpenGL4ever well, in minecraft that works
Medieval architecture is fascinating! I especially enjoy the dichotomy between the overhanging ‘jettying’ of upper stories in western architectural development, contrasted with the ziggurat-like decreasing size of upper floors in more primitive stone-only construction techniques.
Such a great video! I used this technique on my farm house in Minecraft, using a very similar layout with stone on the first floor and wood on the second floor with a slight overhang. Of course I didn't know what I was doing or why it worked, my building was based on some other Minecraft houses I'd seen, but it's really cool hearing why jettying works and why it was used historically. Great stuff, I always think of you as "the sword guy" but I really enjoy this kind of historical study. 👍🏻
Me reading your comment:
you: " I used this technique on my farm house..."
me: "Cool!"
you: "...in Minecraft..."
me: "Oh......."
in AOE2, if you don't research "murder holes", your towers and castles can't shoot arrows at enemies who are attacking in close range. Now I learned better.
Machicolations, are LITERALLY murder holes, if you think about it haha!
Unless you play the Teutons, then you get murder holes for free c:
They did build out, on cantilevered platforms. I thought that's what the holes were for.
I love this style of architecture as well. When I was in Belgium I got to go to a town where they built the builds as per their original construction, this not only let me see this, but also Victorian and Gothic styled architecture,all next to one another. I was a very interesting trip, the city was also called Zeebrugge for those who are interested.
If you ever have the chance, you should visit Bruges itself, the city of which Zeebrugge is the port. There, large amounts of the original medieval architecture are still preserved and even protected. Many other European cities also still have large parts of their old city center preserved the way they were in (late-)medieval times.
You didn't visit Brugge wtf?
was only stopping by in Belgium, after spending the day in Zeebrugge, I had to head out to Estonia.
That's a shame. Brugge is one of the most beautiful cities in Western Europe IMHO.
I literally use like half of your videos to win arguments with people. your awesome. keep up the good work.
Wanna know an argument you won't win? WRONG "YOUR".
what?
and I love your videos shad
Joey Frye, Wolf Blade is being a grammar nazi. You said "your awesome." "Your" indicates possession, as in "Your name is Joey Frye" You wanted to say "You're awesome." "You're" is a contraction of "you are," used to indicate a quality or action. "You are awesome." "You are reading this comment."
Sir, I'm a grammar communist, I have 0 affiliation with the German National Workers Party
Hi! Thanks for your great work! In France, the lower part of the building was less big because the taxes the owner had to pay were based on the size of the footprint (on the size of the lower part), so by having a small lower part they paid less taxes.
In most cities taxes depended on the size of the ground floor. The overhanging roofs also kept some of the rain away from the stressed lower walls.
You could build the upper floors with as much overhang as you wanted, so long as carriages and knights on horseback were able pass through. That's why often a second floor had even more overhang than the first.
And it's not illogical that tax laws were so similar throu out northern europe. They needed a simple and easy to enforce tax system. And the wealthy people, the only ones who could afford houses in the city centre, wouldn't have liked tax officers walking through their houses measuring the size of their bedrooms.
That's also why many smartass local lords tried to counter that loophole with additional taxes, like taxes on the number of doors to the side alleys, the number of windows facing the main street etc.
Stuff a small number of not too smart city officals could put onto paper without even being noticed by the house owners.
There weren't many non-violent ways for the aristocrats to make money so they copied what others did.
There weren't many nonviolent ways for the lords and royalty to make money because might meant right in the medieval period. That was an extremely violent time, hence why towns, castles and mansions had to be fortified.
Excellent video. How form followed function, and ended up as fashion.
good job
I honesty thought it was so when you dumped things out your window, it wouldn't end up leaking down the lower levels of your house...
+Phil Spaces That's exactly what I thought - that it was so people wouldn't drench their children with turds and pee ...just random passersby, hahahaha
Pretty sure that reason is one of the main reasons for overhangs on medieval buildings. There is even a scene in Blackadder II where he is trying to sell his house and goes to great lengths to use long estate agent like words to describe the lavatorial overhang..... to which his prospective buyer matter of factly responds "you poop out the window?", the joke being that that was exactly what she was looking for.
Chamber pots were used before they got flush toilets. Had to dump it out a window back then into the street.
If i recall correctly (documentary knowledge) this was carried on for long after just medieval times.... excavation of the streets of NYC shows that this happened historically in cities of America as well. it is truly amazing that even animals wont s#!t where they live and sleep.... leave it to humans
That was my first thought, too!
I thought the lack of indoor plumbing might have to do with it.
Dumping the pot out the window and not hitting the floor below... priceless
Absolutely agree!! Plus if you're poor (think Monty Pithons paesants) and own no buckets, you could just overhang the butt outside and go on with morning rites. Fantastic 👍
I don't think that was common Practice. I mean they had gong farmers.
Funny - I had three predictions as to why this would be and you touched on none of them. 1) Defensively I figured having extended ramparts would make it more difficult to have people trying to scale the walls, maybe not with ladders, but for sure with ropes. 2) chamber pots. Having an extension means if someone on the third and the second floor are chucking out their night soil at the same time, they're far less likely to dump it on one another. 3) taxes - if you're taxed on square footage of your house, having a smaller bottom floor might result in less taxes, particularly in cities. The reasons you cited make a lot of sense, don't get me wrong, but I found myself amused that I was sure I'd know the reason and not so much.
MrsRCharlton : In Holland they had narrow houses. There was a large beam and a pulley system on the top floor. The inner stairways were too narrow to bring furniture up. You open large doors on each floor and winch your furniture up the outside.
MrsRCharlton, I am so happy that someone was able to actually state some of the reasons. Fortunately my "Ancient Civ/Middle Ages professor mentioned them. Taxes was the main reason, because a house was taxed on the ground space it was using. And secondly, getting rid of sewage was another huge reason. People never walked in the middle of the street because that was where all the manure/urine was thrown out into the streets. And having an overhang allowed pedestrians walk close to the building and not have all that crap land on to them. All it would take is for someone to throw manure on a noble only to have same noble kick the door down and cut off your head.
Incidentally, this is where the tradition of lower rank walking on the left of higher rank originated. Walking on the right side of the street, the highest ranking person was able to walk under the overhand. The lower ranks were more exposed because they occupied the left. That's why today, the enlisted soldier walks to the left of the sergeant, who walks to the left of the captain, who walks to the left of the colonel.
MrsRCharlton I always thought it was to prevent scaling as well. But I've only watched GOT and LOTR so I'm biased.
My first thought was the contents of chamber pots were chucked out the window, so overhangs were needed. Second thought was tax on land used.
That was what I thought as well, about the scaling. But look at the actual castles, they're almost all less than a couple feet out. That doesn't really make it any more difficult to scale with rope. But, the machicolations would make it very easy for defenders to fuck you up while you're scaling, so there's that.
It's so that the Assassin's could climb up and run on the rooftops to later then jump off and perform an air assassination
No it is not no one builds there house to get somebody killed
Fatbones Gaming you missed the joke lol
Noah Garcia oh ok
It's easier to fit haystacks underneath.
We AC players are forever corrupted.
Curious. I took a class many decades ago that covered in part medieval architecture and they explained this jettying style on taxes differently. Since buildings were taxed on the basis of their square footage on the ground level, many built the ground floor as small as possible to reduce their taxes. The upper floors could then be expanded upon without increasing their taxes.
Cleetus Smith interesting, thanks for sharing!
Well you would be right. =)
I thought that may be a reason, but I would also have asumed that who ever was calling the shots would have amended the tax law pretty quickly to plug that loophole.
If this was the actual reason would it not be better to actually build slightly smaller but more floors (smaller for stability), I am geuinely asking
I have no clue. I know nothing about architecture, buildings, or anything remotely close. However, I would wager the poeple of the time weren't building design geniuses either.
The 'Shambles' in the city of York, UK is a great example of these buildings. Cobbled streets and lots of medieval buildings overhanging onto the streets. Very cool and beautiful architectural style imo. Great vid Shad!
For the first part (Timber Buildings), my first thought was that they did it because they needed to chuck their chamber pots into the street and they didn't want to be hitting the people below them and getting it in their windows.
I was thinking they could cut a hole in a seat by the window and take a dump.
Unsurprisingly enough, that was how it was done in some medieval castles. But not homes, why would you want to have a dump near your home?
When you gotta go, you gotta go!
Phil Case so did I
Rax Taz, that is indeed true!
AstralStorm, If you land your dump on top of hats of unsuspecting pedestrians they will cluelessly carry your shit far away from your house.
I've been wondering about this for a decade now.
It seemed too structurally unsound to make sense, but now that I've hear the counter balance theory behind it, this is making all the sense.
Oh, and Machicolation.
Glorious Machicolation.
I never bothered to learn about such a seemingly insignificant detail...
...but now I need more.
Some bother. And they build and grow KNOWLEDGE.
Another “insignificant detail” is why all these castles even exist. I learned about it growing up, but saying anything bad about Muslim invaders is racist today!
As if everyone who needed to be defended against were Muslim... As if Muslim rulers didn't face the same issues against Crusaders and the like...
It's not a religion-specific thing, it's a human thing.
.. Driving us further back into medieval times.
Depipro I get your point, but it differs based on time period. The muslim empire was huge and was made through aggressive expansionism with a holy war. In the 8th century they ruled from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus river despite having originated from just a small part of the Arabian Peninsula.
The first crusade was started because the Byzantine Emperor asked for aid against the Seljuk Turks that they had lost a lot of territory to, and the Pope turned it into a movement to recapture the Holy Land that was originally lost to the Islamic expansion back in the 7th century.
Please tell me more about this "walking" activity
Yeah that's gibberish!
Might Jettying be inspired by battlements? "Look we got this cool castly stuff on our house."
Jan Plewa
Or possibly the other way around?
+Garret LeBuis "oh look I got this normal house shit on my epic castle"
+Kaumoo 😂😂😂😂😂
You forgot something! You want an overhang, because you want water, away from the wall at all times. Just a little bit overhang, makes the water fall, instead of hugging the wall.
John Strand Good for rainfall, but also if you're throwing buckets of gross stuff out of the windows into the street.
John Strand : Also gargoyles are fancy rain spouts. This keeps run off from the roof off the walls.
or you have a wrinkle like that, preventing the water from crawling towards the wall media4.bauemotion.de/media/59936/images/1754253px335x447.jpg
and its cool , this houses are also symbol of wealth
I haven't watched any of your videos before and am not familiar with your channel, but I stumbled upon this one and was pleasantly surprised how interesting and educational it was. That was very enjoyable. I really appreciate the amount of research that you put into this.
I also liked the groovy chair. I appreciate the ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES especially the spiky chair back which makes life more difficult for back-stabbings.
The Whalens Ditto, multiplied, for YOUR inane comments on this page.
What locations are the photos in the first half of the video?
As many people have no doubt commented already, at least in London, there was a tax on the amount of room your foundation could take up so eventually people got around that because the space above the first floor didn't have any restrictions on it, taxes speaking. this is why the Great London Fire(s) were so devastating, because they easily jumped from wooden building to wooden building; they were jettied to the high heavens, many were thought to be so close on the third and fourth floors that you could shake your neighbour's hand if you both leaned out your windows.
About the jetting on rural area... The biggest concern I would have is constant or consistent mud from the rain outside. There's also a Canadian study on roofing where roofs that extend by at least 2 feet reduce the weathering of the wall below.
it's especially usefull back before reliable rain jackets or umbrellas. People would often stand around under the eaves of houses during the rain and also reudces weathering on the walls. That also helps reduces leaks, cracks, etc. in the walls by directing rain
@@arthas640
You seem to have a misconceiption that they had reliable raincoats back in the ancient days (even before medieval times).
Our modern "wax jacket" is based on that concept, and this is nothing the people back then would have not used.
So the argument about clothing and accessories that offer protection against rain, are invalid. (but the rest is true)
@@tristanellis-mascoll1171 just look at wool, if it is lanolised (lanolin applied to the wool garment) it becomes pretty waterproof but still breathable
@@Mezza
I think I have a typo in my statement.
The first sentence is missing a "did not", since I am referring to wax jackets as rainproved options that are long known.
Also I am talking about misconceiption.
This would not apply in contradiction to the statement of Arthas Menethil, if I would agree with him.
But thanks for telling me the other options that would have been used back in medieval times.
@@tristanellis-mascoll1171 I was agreeing with you (I didn’t see the typo, and read it as you meant) I was just adding to your comment. People seem to think that people just walked around in the rain with no way of keeping themselves dry which was extremely important as they didn’t have many changes of clothing.
I think I know why we like this type of design. Sensitive neurons react when they encounter a stimulus they "like": a light wavelength, a sound frequency, different orientations in space... Neurons in the primary visual cortex (which by the way is located in the back of the head, the farthest away from the eyes, oddly enough) like lines in different angles or orientations. I think we like this type of style because it is more stimulant than a flat wall. Look for "primary visual cortex orientation columns" in Google Images if you're interested. This columns represent lots of neurons that react to the same orientation arranged in columns. Once you start studying the brain, you realise how tidy the "cables" are.
I would imagine weathering may be a big reason why you would add them on castles without the machicolations. It will cause far less water to be running down the side of the walls during storms. This will limit how much rain can damage your castle's finish, probably would limit a lot of the ugly mineral staining streaks going down the walls as well for the same reason. This keeps most of the water from flowing directly down the face of the castle and keeps the bulk of it falling several inches away from it. This also seems to be more common on the inner castle proper as well, where the walls are much taller and it is less practical to be staging defenses from the top, those towers would be more for observation I would imagine. If the enemy has already breached your out walls where the machicolations would be far more useful, then you are already well on your way to being screwed anyhow, heh.
I think weathering wasn't much of a concern with castles, it happened much more slowly back then (no acid rain) and the jettying is so far up. But weatherng was a very big concern with whattle and doub. And of course you can keep your stuff dry if the higher floor(s) hang out far enough, like with the big barn.
Was about to write something similar, even in the present a huge amount of the thought and consideration in construction deals with water, rain and drainage. Enclosed walls would no double suffer from water pooling, similar to a gutter you would want to offset the draining from cascading down the wall which outside of the obvious erosion of mortar would lead to dampness problems internally with rock being somewhat porous.
I was told once, and I don't even remember where, a version of this. The water is absorbed by the stone, and fills in the hand hewn gaps, making the castle damp inside, when you have the corbels the rain is channeled off the stones, and only the very corners (at the rampart or roof intersection) get wet. Later, the concrete mortar used would be very susceptible to water absorption, as well as disintegration (poor mix/quality of material).
This would also have the effect of moving the water away from the structure, and although thick castle walls have a foundation, it is just hand cut stone, if only the outer part was to get wet, the outer most stones would sink into the ground faster, causing the walls to crumble/collapse. As far as in the villages, i believe it was likely a result of taxes first, water mitigation second, and proved to be popular after those by the waste disposal part. I also seem to remember the birth of sidewalks was from roman times and a "sanitary measure"
Ian S I worked building natural stone walls for a decade, and that's the reason we put overhangs on our walls.
Man these comments are so ignorant. I heard Americans were dumb, but this is incredible.
You forgot a major reason: Safety. Normally the living and sleeping quarters would be on the 2nd and/or 3rd floor (if available). Having sleeping quarters upstairs prevents wild animals and bugs from getting easy access to them. Not to mention thieves, cutthroats, rogues and other rabble. Most building would have a secured trap door separating the ground floor from the upper floors.
I was waiting for the machicolations shout. I was not disappointed.
the small extended battlements are part of blocking intruders, walking up a wall with a 50cm extended battlement means the angle of your rope is closer to 90 degree(you cant push your feet into the wall for grip)
if a wall had an inward battlement wall or a flat battlement wall a rope tossed up would angle towards the wall you were climbing giving you an advantage when scaling it.
also a anchor running up the wall (because you tossed it to far forward) will bounce back or hit the bottom of the battlement instead of have a chance to hook the wall.
This is great, I always wondered about why the upper floors extended out from the ground floor. Something I can impress my wife with.
"MACHICOLATIONS!!"
*Roll credits*
I was totally waiting for that lol!
or Murder Holes.
Wait a minute here! Are you trying to tell me that instead of paying your local mages guild a few septims to teleport you to another location, people in the medieval era walked? Yeah right, you just try convincing the citizens of Morrowind to walk anywhere. The second you step outside a building... BAM! Cliff Racers everywhere! OH GOD! I have literally killed millions but they just keep coming....... Screw Morrowind! I am moving to Cyrodiil. What could possibly go wrong there?
*mehrunes dagon hops out of an oblivion portal*
Him: So what did you do today?
Me: I watched an 18 minute documentary on why old houses tend to have staggered floor plans.
Him: Cool.
Me: Yeah...
being an archictecture student this is probably gonna be useful for me in real life
I am happy for you in that case.
Is this "him" a special someone in your life? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
land was also expensive then as it is now.
the land was just as expensive but they had laxer property laws. i think nowadays most countries/citys you are allowed to overhang the street when building a new building.
I wish cities were still made with walking distance in mind. I prefer to walk, and it'd be great for the environment.
To be fair, there are a lot more people around now.
More than ten times as many. Literally. Global population in as of April 2017 is estimated at roughly 7.5 billion. The exact decade varies, but all estimates put the global population reaching 750 million sometime in the 1700s.
so? thats not my fault
Still, most of houses have very low amount of floors (1-2), cover a lot of space and have as big fenced garden around them as possible, at least whenever you get out of city centers. Walking distance? What is it, we've got all kinds of crap like buses, trams and so on. Who cares that we are fat and get completely exhausted after 3 kilometres of walking.
Thats why whenever I've got time, I always walk, as long as my destination is within 1 hour of walking distance.
Dev Lightning Dude, I was agreeing with you.
Recently discovered your stuff Shad, and I've enjoyed everything I've watched, but this is your best imho. Really, really interesting and informative. Cheers mate!
This was fascinating, you have earned a new subscriber.
There is another reason why this style is needed, and its purely practical. When i build plane wall there were always some spiders that could clime up the wall but when i added extension to it, they were helpless. Minecraft is more realistic than people realize.
I'm visiting Kent at the moment and I literally had this question in my head today, then I saw this video! Thanks.
My old history teacher told me that the small overhang on castles (the ones you talked about in the end) were not only made as decoration but also still had a protective use. As you mentioned at the start, when the "bad guys" got too close to the wall, the "good guys" on top of the wall had a very difficult time reaching the "bad guys". The baddies could still easily take a shot at the goodies before stepping back into cover. By extending the machicolations out, even only a tiny bit, the baddies would have to step out further to reach the goodies, giving the people on the wall more time to take a shot at them. So yes! It did look good and was used often times as decoration, but in the meantime served a protective purpose and strategic thought.
You know I saw this on my recommendations and just stared at the title for a bit and then I went, you know, that's a good fucking question! :/ And then I clicked. So good job.
I did the same thing
So dumb. How did you not learn this in school, when you were 6 years old?
Not ev.ery.b.ody is an it.chy ro.bot
Suuucker!!! Ha Haaa... Huh? what, me...? errr... uuum..oh, yah, same, I guess. oops! Some click-bait is worth eating! ;-) I wish you could see the thumbs up/ thumbs down ratio prior to clicking... good stuff tends to have a 10:1 ratio or better, though 100:1 is quite rare. Lots of rancid clickbait is 2:1 or less ... but, too, political divide skews many votes... we need Machicolations to keep away those Machicolatioooons Deniers!
Me too!
Guess before watch:
It's Because of taxes and that stuff
Ok, so I was wrong, but in my defense there are swedish records of taxes on houses in cities being based on the ground area of the house.
Btw, this was probably one of your best videos and I hope you make more content like this.
martyn kalendar my guess is, that it is because of the fact, that if you would empty your chamber pots, it woud be good if you didnt cover your neighbours under you with your excrements :D
Rexxaris638 ...this was my guess as well...
In Norway, on many old 1800 century-ish, buildings the top floor will look something like that because there was a tax on the number of floors you could have. Complicated rules on first and last floor etc. Look it up if you care. Because now you know it exists...
I seem to recall England once having a tax on the number of windows in a building - and so, the owners would brick the windows up. So the idea of taxing according to the building's footprint isn't as strange as some other ideas. :-)
martyn kalendar you're not wrong, affordability is the right answer and that's the same thing as taxes.
A fascinating video! I've visited dozens of medieval castles & houses while remaining ignorant of this.
I particularly like your videos because you correct yourself when you've made mistakes previously!
Rather than consider this a negative I see it as evidence that you continue to question and research, uncovering new/alternative explanations for well known features.
In this way, History is similar to Science. We collect evidence and come up with a explanation but remain willing to revise this hypothesis (and any derived conclusions) based on new data or a reinterpretation of the existing evidence.
Your videos prove that while the past itself doesn't change History evolves as our understanding improves!
As a person strongly into architecture and living in a place with a huge amount of really old buildings and a strong representation of this old style (even in new buildings) I may want to suggest an additional practicality for this overhang.
The overhang provides the ability to have windows (not the huge ones we know on today's buildings, but the barely one hand tall but long ones at least in my place). These kind of windows are often placed right under the overhang which provides two big benefits.
First the structural benefit, since having a window on top of a stone wall right under the timbers makes it really easy to finish the top of the window, because no arch is needed. This adds to Shads point of the structural benefits of the overhang stabilizing the timbers.
Second and the main thing I want to point out is these kind of windows need no glass to prevent rain the from getting into the building. Since the overhang provides a sufficient amount of protection against rain. While natural light and ventilation is till sufficient. This is practical enough that even newly build buildings today have this feature. (Same benefit is also used in traditional Japanese buildings, where the walkway around the building prevents most of the rain from getting to the outer walls. This allows the iconic "paper" walls and doors to be a thing in the first place without being hugely impractical.)
Sorry for the long text, but that is the shortest version I could manage to write to get the point somewhat home. (I just saw the age of this video and highly doubt this comment section is still really alive nevertheless I think it is worth pointing out)
On the castle defense, they do that in the game "Rust". People will build outward with those holes so they can shoot down at players attacking their base.
Doesn't matter what time period you're in, something medieval will find usefulness in architecture.
+That Bad BLU Spy As long as we find useful to throw/launch stuff at people
Your videos have been really helpful. I play Minecraft, and one of my favorite things to do is build castles. So having videos like yours helps me build more realistic and appealing castles. So from now on Shad I'll always include machicolations in my Minecraft castles.
was just thinking of going back to minecraft as I was watching this
Dude that's exactly what I'm doing now
When I thougt of an answer I instantly remembered I did that in Minceraft so that spiders coudnt climb to the roof
You should not just get all your info on wiki. Some of the reasons you listed are known to be very unlikely- and one of the most likely contributing factors you totally missed - simply that houses were taxed according to their ground floor area. So to get the most house for the smallest tax bill - small bottom floor with bigger upper floors = win. Also, it did ofcourse become a 'fashion' so was used in cases where tax was not an issue too later.
^this.
Zombaid ^
I would say it’s a harsh accusation to level at him. From my knowledge on what he does regarding his videos, he doesn’t usually (this could be an exception, I’m not omniscient) make it unless he has a pretty good understanding of it through various means. I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong about him having got this stuff from wikis and whatnot, but it’s a bit of a harsh accusation to level at him. Other than that you make a good point, of course people would do what they could to avoid taxes, by keep in mind not every country in the world did taxes the same way, nonetheless, interesting little tidbit
Actually, it was mainly to do with Taxes...which is why later on many windows were blocked off due to taxes being layed upon the number of windows a building had. Just a note some of his facts are wrong or slightly off but I very much doubt it has to do with Wikipedia in particular.
i know that arguemnt. And i always wondered why the authorities presumably didn't look past this little trick. Ususally people who make taxes are not that stupid. Maybe this reason is a common misconception.
No proof though.
Keep it up with the "Machicolatioooons!" and we're going to end up with the successor to "Excelsior!"
Great video and great info.
I'd love to hear him yell "Machicolatioooons!" at least once an episode. Make it a catch phrase :D
*playing D&D, when we have to defend a castle keep*
Me: "Are there Machicolations?"
DM: "Wha...?"
Huh... I came across this video in a suggestion after watching a Linus Tech Tips video.... Now I know how I can build medieval buildings in games.
Same here but I don't understand the relevance and I believe this guy missed the obvious waste highlighted by other comments
or you can build old german houses
I watch at 0.25 speed and I then realise what a drunken night out with this guy would be like XD
Actually genuinely enjoyed this, first time seeing his videos. You have my like, good day to you
Lol
Just a small fact from someone who has worked in and studied masonry (building things with stone and brick) for several years. Overhanging parts stop/hinder rain from washing down the wall as much and stop it from washing away the soft lime mortar(the glue like stuff used to join brick and stone) they used back then. A well built stone wall with a big wooden structure over the top of it wouldn't need any repair work for hundreds of years. However, one constantly exposed to rain would need the mortar repaired every few months. Even on a castle where it was all stone, if you had a big overhang at the top, you'd only need to repair the top section regularly, everything underneath would be much less maintenance heavy. So it might also be a measure to reduce maintenance costs and requirements and to make the structure last longer.
*Minecraft intensifies*
I made a house using this video
I'm about to build something based on this video.
I like to build this kind of houses in minecraft
@@championazhan2180 I've always done this to keep spiders from crawling over lol. I know torches keep them away but I like to do both for maximum protection. Looks pretty as well
@@Numbingbird yup it does look
It seems kind of odd that this would be one of your more popular videos considering how its a kind of obscure topic that wouldn't seem to have mass appeal, but then again this is one of my favorite topics you've ever covered so maybe its a little more interesting than one might presume.
Medieval architecture is a niche topic??? Somebody needs to get out a little more in the western world. From my personal experience, interest peaked around 15-17. And he has a point, we still seem to find this design pleasing, just seeing the thumbnail is clickbait-y. All that said, this is the first video of his I've seen so I've no idea what other content there is. Recommended got it right this time
a thumbnail that looks pretty with arrows pointing and you think "wot'?" then looks at title and now you're like "huh?" a question with an answer thats simpel to explain +history is interesting
The popularity was because of the teaching of the word "machiculations"which I will be sure to use next I play Scrabble.
Egypt: We built pyramids.
Europeans: Let's built the opposite profile instead!
@Bruno LaFoure
U got a lil drool on ur chin bro
@Bruno LaFoure Google the Bosnian Pyramids
@Bruno LaFoure
Is this an evolution of the WeWuzKangs meme?