Bohemian houses?

I would say part of central Europe. But in his words about the border between central (German-ic) and Eastern (Slavic) Europe is actually wisdom. :thumbsup:

Log (timber) houses are quite common in Bohemia. About the furnace, well, the big house seems weird to me but I believe they studied period rural architecture properly and they know what they are doing. :slight_smile:
I haven’t notice a door of the furnace (for baking purposes), is there somewhere a door?

The above house is a timber framed house like I said, I expected those ones just not logs stacked on top of each other with joints at the sides.

But the google search is amazing, love the way it’s build with squared off sides.

Regarding the furnace: It’s really slender and long, to fire it up entirely would use a lot of wood. It just seems awfully big for a single rural house. I would love to see some more information about it or whether it is found elsewhere in Europe.

They do seem rather big yeah, some have a largely empty central room (to store the harvest or something?) Two pantries stocked with food and a living room without beds.

Not so far from the game location:
http://www.google.cz/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hlinsko.cz%2Ffoto%2F19%2F2273.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hlinsko.cz%2Fmesto%2Fcestovni-ruch-turistika-pamatky%2Fhistoricke-pamatky%2Flidova-arch&h=809&w=1144&tbnid=RLIbPxz99ZO34M%3A&zoom=1&docid=EiAzfCTaQfRFcM&ei=JTxMVOzBIMeQPfm2gPgN&tbm=isch&ved=0CDAQMygQMBA&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=153&page=1&start=0&ndsp=34

http://www.google.cz/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fi.idnes.cz%2F11%2F082%2Fcl6%2FHRO3af780_143144_2663018.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fusti.idnes.cz%2Fchomutovsky-skanzen-rozsiruje-expozice-fp3-%2Fusti-zpravy.aspx%3Fc%3DA110507_142916_usti-zpravy_zep&h=375&w=630&tbnid=nCd0YNYaLxIQTM%3A&zoom=1&docid=1Me3gQIuCa9pxM&ei=JTxMVOzBIMeQPfm2gPgN&tbm=isch&ved=0CEYQMygcMBw&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=329&page=1&start=0&ndsp=34

Have been thinking about the same since the first videos of the game came out.
I have minimal knowledge about late medieval houses in this area, but in Denmark Timber framing houses was the norm. So that was what I expected.

Not loghouses.


From Landscape of Medieval Bohemia

Thanks. So we are talking a real difference in how they build houses. In Bohemia compared to “Germany” north of it.

Atm we are talking farmhouses in a village.
How about houses in cities? where they the same?

In “Germany” Timber framing was pretty common in the cities.

I think pretty common is understating it :smile:

As far as I know timber framing (Fachwerk) was not pretty common in central Bohemia. There are a few Fachwerk-buildings build by mostly by german builders, but mostly in the west at the border of bavaria. The bohemian Fachwerk is more diagonal and tighter in comparison to the german style Fachwerk.

2 Likes

Thanks. Guess I learned a bit about housing in Bohemia. :slight_smile:
My education focused on medieval Denmark.

Some of the town houses were built rather of stone. There is even one original gothic house preserved in the centre of Prague:

After the reconstruction and expansion executed by King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fourth (who founded a built the New Town of Prague with three large squares - the Horse Market - today’s Venceslaus Sq., the Cattle Market - Charles Sq. and the Hay Market - Senovážné sq. and the network of wide streets you can still admire in the centre of the town out of the borders of the Old Town) Prague became one of the largest towns of the whole Europe (it is stated Prague was exceeded by only Constantinople and Rome but I suppose Cordoba and Sevilla were larger and towns such as Bologna was about the same size) and the most important town of the Holy Roman Empire blessed by the first University established “north of the Alps”.

There you can see the extent of Old Town (brown) with Jewish ghetto (yellow) with the castle (red) and the castle quarter (orange) and the town of “Malá strana” (Little side) on the left bank of the Vltava river - that was Prague until 1348. The large pink area on the right side of the river is the New Town, founded about 1348 and built during the rule of Charles the Fourth which almost trippled the area of the town. I suppose most of the New Town was build of stone in fact.

Even during romanesque era only Regensburg had as many stone houses as Prague and there were some stone houses in other important towns of the Bohemian realm - Kuttenberg, Eger, Iglau, Krumlau and the Realm of House of Vítkovci, Budweis etc.

2 Likes

Ah medieval houses, there aren’t many left of those :frowning:

But I doubt Prague was ever the biggest city in Europe, I don’t think it comes even close if this table on Wikipedia is correct.

It appears to be bigger than Antwerp and London after the plague but smaller than four Italian cities (not counting Rome), Naples and Paris.

How much of Prague are we actually going to see in the game?

PS, does anyone have some more information about the long furnace type thing in two or three of the houses?

In this time period Prague was the third biggest city in the whole Holy Roman Empire. But about number of people, there was a “bigger” cities like Venice, Genoa, Rome and a few others.

Prague will be not in the game. At least not in Act 1. I doubt in any other. There was other interesting and important towns as Kutna hora (also a lot of easier to portrait in-game).

Making a large city would be rather impossible. If it was to be made in the real size.
But Iam looking so forward to going to “town” and taking a closer look at the buildings.


Here in Denmark our oldest surviving timber framing house is from early 16th century.
But we do have some 2000 medieval churches… most from the 12th and 13th century. And almost all of them are still in use.

Actually Rome was smaller than Prague. It was a destitute place when the Pope came back to it.

Anyways I am looking forward to seeing towns in the alpha.

As I have said I quite doubt Prague was amongst the very biggest late 14th century cities. Italian cities such as Bologna, Firenze, Naples, perhaps even Venice, Genoa and Milano were probably larger. Siena was about the same size if I am not mistaken. I suppose Seville and Cordoba could have been larger (definitely were larger before) and perhaps even Palermo and Granada. Medieval Fés (in Africa admittedly) was inhabited by about 150-300k people, Marrakech and declining Constantinople about 100k. Cairo perhaps even half milion.

But nevertheless Prague is supposed to have been the biggest city of the Empire and of the whole Europe “north of Alps”.

Definitely we can not be sure about it :smiley:.

About medieval houses, perhaps you should search for Krumlau / Český Krumlov, Kuttenberg / Kutná Hora and perhaps even Telč and Slavonice if you are interested in late rennaisance buildings. :smiley:

I am more interested in the rural houses right now.

Do you know what the purpose of the white plaster on one side of the house is?

Well that depends on whether you are talking above the alps literally or above the alps in latitude

Ad north of the Alps: “Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe, east of France and north of the Alps.” - Wiki about Universitas Carolina. It’s widely used term. It means: north of the Alps except Paris, Toulouse, Oxenaforda and Cambridge. (Or France and England.)
Frankly, it’s the oldes by about sixteen years (Krakow 1364). No big deal. But it set the trend.

I forgot Novgorod in my humble list of great late medieval European cities. :cry:

Ad white plaster: I don’t understand what you mean. The walls were commonly limed (it was not exactly plaster). Is there a house with just one white side in the game? I didn’t notice.

Ah well that clears it up, I was talking about Europe not just central Europe.

Yeah a lot have wood on one side and lime on the other, If you give me a second ill snap a picture.

2 Likes

This thread is gold already!
thx for all the links and illustrations