Flooring In Medieval Times

Mosaics on the floor of the torcello cathedral in venice italy.

Flooring in medieval times.

In medieval times bundles of these plants were gathered up and spread across some castle floors and the dirt floors of many medieval churches and cathedrals. Fresh rushes were sometimes spread on top of the old rushes and at other times the entire floor was swept clean of old rushes and debris and scrubbed first. They required someone to dig the clay which had to be cleaned and homogenised until it could be worked. Straw was not needed to keep people from slipping on wet slate but it was used as a floor covering on most surfaces to provide a modicum of warmth and cushioning.

At first rough planks were laid across the floor. Tiles provided a far more upmarket floor surface. Like everything else in medieval times their production was very labour intensive. Because of the trees age and massive diameter the desirable heartwood was extremely tight grained making the lumber harder and more durable than the relatively immature wood of the same species that is harvested today.

Concrete plywood osb mohawk flooring. Artiquity oak hardwood in medieval oak finish. Early medieval art romanesque art and gothic art. Herbs we know were strewn in handfuls over the rushes and expected to stay underfoot to scent the air when trod upon.

Obviously this cannot be the proper interpretation of how rushes were used on the floors of castles. The history of wood flooring begins in colonial america when the first floors were wide thick planks cut from the continent s abundant old growth forests. Then these were sanded or smoothed by rubbing them with stone or metal. In the case of tile which was likely to be the most slippery straw was seldom used to cover it because it was usually designed to impress guests in the castles of more powerful nobles and in abbeys and churches.

Then it would be pressed into square wooden moulds. The earliest known wood floors came into use during the middle ages.