It's Medieval time!

Instead of dreaming of a home in the suburbs with a white picket fence, I've always imagined living high in the mountains in a medieval castle, complete with a drawbridge and all. You could guess how excited I was when I learned of a 13th century castle being built right here in Arkansas!

About 30 minutes south of Branson, the Ozark Castle Fortress is the project of the French architect, Michel Guyot, who wanted to build a medieval castle in the medieval way. He was inspired by Arkansas’ rural landscape and found it a perfect site for his fortress. “He created the concept of Guédelon consisting of building a real medieval castle from scratch, recreating at the same time the old skills required for such a construction: stone masons, stone cutters, carpenters, rope makers, wood cutters, carters...” Everything was financed by visitor entrance fees. Building started in June 2009 and has been open to visitors since May 2010. They are expecting the castle to be finished by 2030.

Be still my chain mail covered heart! I was giddy with anticipation as my boyfriend and I made the trip. It was a beautiful sight. Every one was dressed in 13^th century garb. Quarry workers were actually hammering limestone from the side of the mountain and transporting the rough rocks in carts (made by the carpenter) to the stone mason. I talked to the basket weaver for an hour who was putting the finishing touches on a tool basket for the carpenter (she needed to still get the rope for the handle from the rope maker). The blacksmith was creating a rough drill for the new trebuchet that was going up. All of these different skills were not just for show, but were actually being put into practice in a working setting.

Now comes the relevant part of the story. The last worker I met was the weaver. With her pasture of sheep beside her, she was in the middle of dying her latest skein of hand-spun wool. She was experimenting with different flowers and plants she got from the gardener as dyes. A dull yellow yarn hanging on the line to dry was dyed using a crushed up insect. She walked me through the process. After sheering the wool, she cards it, scraping the wool though two paddles with spiky teeth, getting the fibers to all go in one direction. Then, using a drop spindle, she hand spins the fuzzy wool into one long strand of yarn.

It truly was an eye opening experience. I was probably a little bit too excited to go. It’s a great example of how hard it was back then to get anything done. So much work goes into creating a tool basket. Labor had to be divide to get anything done! Being a weaver is a full time occupation. I was also talking to the rope maker, who was a volunteer fire woman in her modern life, and she said she wanted to be a builder, as she had previous experience in construction, but she wasn’t allowed to. I’m not sure if it was because they wanted to keep the sex divisions the same as back then to keep it as authentic as possible, or because the establishment didn’t think she could handle the work. Either way, it really opens your eyes to the divisions in labor both in type and sex back in the day.

I highly suggest everyone go check THIS place out. It’s awesome!