wood

Medieval shoes had merely a thin sole. To prevent this from wearing out too fast, but also in order to prevent the feet from getting wet, people wore wooden shoes called "trip". These are a kind of wooden slippers which could be worn over the shoe. Experiments show that such shoes are worn out after a couple of months. Probably the medieval people then bought a new pair or had the old ones fixed.

Probably, there were already tradesmen in iron and coal. Iron came form Germany, Sweden and the UK. Here there are locations where iron ore is found at the surface. Coal came from Germany...

Indeed the hand saw is frequently used in our medieval village. But we use the axe even more: for construction wood, fire wood, you name it. The saw dust and small pieces of wood which remain are not thrown away...

Two methods were used to make fire. One was by striking a special piece of iron (strike-a-light) on a piece of flint. The other method is by friction of wood on wood. The strike-a-light was most common. Sometimes people used the back of a knife to strike sparks. Friction of wood on wood (“the old-fashioned way”) was used at religious occasions...

No beds are known from the Netherlands from the early Middle ages. In Oseberg and Gokstad (Norway) two beds were found. They look surprisingly modern: they even have a slatted bed base...

Remains of roofs are rarely preserved so we know little about them. They may have been thatched but at that time people did not grow corn with long stalks as rye later in Middle Ages and modern times and...

Apart from the prehistoric and early medieval large castles, all the way into the High and Late Middle Ages, there were wooden castles. Partly these were, like...

They did not have chimneys in our sense of the word, but from at least the Bronze Age we presume that makeshift chimneys, for example made from wicker and daubed with clay would take smoke from hearths through ceilings...

With wood and turf. A hearth can be found in virtually all excavated houses. Often this is a round spot with a lot of charcoal and orange burned clay. The hearths sometimes were constructed on small platforms...

Āraiši lake fortress was attacked and destroyed in the late 10th century, and was never rebuilt. When the foundations settled and the water level in the lake rose, the building remains and artefacts ended up underwater, and in these anaerobic conditions they were preserved up to the present day...