Ruth Goodman's shows are fun to watch, because regardless of what she's doing, how covered in grime she is, what era she's living and working in, she exudes such a sense of joy, and a general giddy, "I cannot believe that I get to do this as my job!" attitude.

It's like watching the last couple seasons of Mythbusters. There's no doubt that they are having a grand time of it.

The mid-seasons added the build team (Keri, Grant (RIP) and Tory), and started what was, in my opinion, an unwelcome turn to "mainline television." They started adding more myths, more animations to explain things, and a lot of "Here's what we're going to do after the commercial!" and "Now that we're back from the commercial, here's what we've done!" sort of repeated filler - to the point that there was some subreddit that made versions without the filler and repeated content. It was a lot more "Here's the myth, here's the test" sort of TV, and mostly ignored the process.

The build team got along well enough for the first few seasons of it, but towards the later seasons with them, the tension and dislike between various people was obvious even on air. Kari and Tory couldn't stand each other, and the "pranks" on Tory went from "entertaining" to "genuinely mean."

The last few seasons were back to Adam and Jamie, focusing on the build, except with a budget and name recognition that allowed them to do basically anything they wanted - and you could tell they were loving it.

I know there's some contract drama and such behind the scenes as well, but the above is how it felt watching it. The last two seasons are easily my favorites, because they'd worked out how to do the show well, and they were able to test a lot of impressive-scale things that wouldn't have been an option earlier in the show.

In the last season or so of the build team, the dynamics had changed. Keri and Tory, who had gotten along fine before, seemed unable to keep their dislike of each other out of the show. It went from "Okay, that's a pretty funny prank" to "You are actively trying to hurt each other." At least as I recall it.

I don't know, maybe they worked it out. But I do recall a season or so that was genuinely uncomfortable to watch, because of the dynamics between people on the show - and it was a distinct change from previous seasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology#Examp...

In the 19th century mass production was starting and, but it wasn't until the late part that quality steel would have been available in quantity (a little steel would have come from refining iron ore, but most would have been iron). Iron doesn't harden like steel and so the hardening process they showed the blacksmith doing would have been questionable for tools. (though maybe they would have paid for expensive steel in stone cutting - I don't know) They did get hardening wrong - the yellow color is about tempering which is done after hardening. A blacksmith would know this difference, but probably couldn't explain it to the camera and just gave up.

Maybe a castle would have paid for steel tools, but I question if they could get it (any historian know more)? There were a number tools they used of iron that I suspect would have been wood instead.

The wagons seemed to have some advances that I don't think existed yet. Hard to tell because they don't show the wagons in detail, but I've read just enough about wagon development to suspect those were too advanced.

It appears they were using iron hammers on those stone chisels - that is iron wrapped around a wood handle - I'd expect wood mallets would be used instead. Why use expensive iron when a good wood head works just as well (or maybe better)

I also question if saws would have been available in that quantity. I believe they existed, though I'd expect a lot more work would have been done cutting to size with an axe type tool. I also suspect bronze wood tools would have been used - but here I don't know what would have been available in 13th century France.

They showed clothing - but unfortunately (as they admit) their sources are garments saints wore and those were preserved. That feels like looking at the suit Ronald Regan wore in office (something I expect would be preserved in a museum) and completely missing that common people in the 1980s probably were wearing blue jeans for labor, or in an office job they would have ditched the formal jacket. Worse would be preserving a bridesmaid dress (again, something I wouldn't be surprised to see preserved), but young girls probably were wearing blue jeans in 1980 except for those situations. This is something historians often lament - we get a lot of information on the rulers and priest classes - but little information on how the common person lived.

They also had a lot of horses. I would expect oxen to haul the wagons. They are slower, but much cheaper than a horse and work as well. Perhaps better given the state of yokes in those days.

those are the big ones. After that tons of youtube library books and so on. Just beware that at least half is false and you get to figure out which confident self proclaimed expert knows anything. (i at least admitted a lot of ignorance and speculation above)

Thus I will relax my criticism of using iron. If that was available nearby of course it would be used. Though I'm only relaxing as I still suspect they are using late 1800's refining to get the amount of steel needed for the chisels. (the hammers could still be pure iron - we don't see heat treatment used on them, and in any case hitting hardened steel on hardened steel will cause something to break). (case hardening would have been known in the 13th century and result in the needed steel, but that heat treats differently so I'm not sure what would have been used).

However even if good ore is found nearby, refining it takes a lot of energy (read wood) and so I would expect they avoid using iron just because of the amount of additional labor to make it.

Speaking of wood. Their blacksmith appears to be using coal not charcoal. This isn't clear, but they probably should be making the charcoal for the blacksmith onsite not using coal. Coal wasn't very important until 17th century England.

While I'm at it, I just noticed their great tower is round. I'm not sure if that would be correct. A cannon was becoming advanced enough to need round towers in the 13th century, but I'm not sure of the timelines, and the thickness of the walls matter. The Chinese built thicker walled castle and so they didn't see gunpoweder/canons as useful tools, but European castle walls were often (not always!) thin enough that a cannon could destroy them. Thicker walls would have then been used for castles in response, and also round towers so that the stones beside could help take the impact of a cannonball that otherwise would go through.

Speaking of stone. Odds are the small local lord would have built their castle out of wood not stone. Wood would have been much less likely to survive to today so we see ruins of stone castles while the wood burned or rotted away.

Since England had lots of surface coal deposits they started exploiting them in the 13th century for heating. It got so bad that they had to ban coal use in London in 1306 because of the air pollution. Depending on the locality and trade networks, blacksmiths from this era could have had plenty of coal.

The shift in the 17th century was running out of the easy surface deposits and switching to subsurface mining with chain pumps (driven by water wheels at first). That followed from centuries of development and resource exploitation.

I think the bigger problem is the distribution of knowledge. Would French blacksmiths know of coal’s usefulness in the same century as it becomes widely used? Maybe in the printing press era, but it’s a bit of a stretch in the 13th century.

is an almost meaningless statement in the context of producing quality iron and steel.

"Charcoal" is a reasonably consistent product, "Coal" is an entire spectrum that ranges from [thermal coal] through to [metallurgical (coking) coal].

In a quality production pipeline there's a seperation between means of generating furnace heat (can be electric arc, can be thermal coal fired, can be charcoal) and a means of sourcing carbon for bonding with raw iron ores (coking coal).

In the context of low grade iron and poor steel manufacture the distinctions matter less.