Medieval Living

I spent the weekend building a Medievalish cart for my grandson – turns 7 next week. Lots of fun for him to push around the property, helping Grandma with her gardening chores. In the process, I became quite curious about how they would have built such a thing back-in-the-day. Of particular curiousity was the means of constructing the wheel. Now mine was simply assembling some 1 x 8s to make a solid wheel. However, a proper wheel would have been made with a hub, felloes (spokes) and a rim. How did they do that in Medieval days? I spent quite a bit of effort trying to find a website that give some insight into hand-made wheels – after several hours I had almost given up! But being the tenacious web hound that I am, I found an extremely interesting video from the 1930s that showed a craftsman constructing the hub, cutting the felloes, and attaching the rim pieces. While not Medieval, I would think that the craft of making a wooden wagon wheel was not much different. So, for those of you who have also wondered about the wheelwright’s profession, here you go! From SVT, here is the wheelwright at work. Oh – I have to forewarn you, its in Swedish, so if you are like me and don’t speak a word of Swedish, just enjoy the film. I found it a fascinating view!