The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States,

Canada, and Mexico from their deep origins to our present epoch.

Join me, Mark Vinet, on this exciting, fascinating epic journey through time, focusing on the compelling,

wonderful, and tragic stories of North America's inhabitants, heroes, villains, leaders,

environment, and geography.

I invite you to come along for the ride!

Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, the unscripted show that celebrates unsung heroes,

Mythbust's historical lies, and rediscover the forgotten stories that changed our world.

I'm your host, Scott Rank.

Today's topic is, what exactly it took to build a 13th century castle?

A topic we've come back to over and over again on this podcast is that people in the past

were much more intelligent and handier than we give them credit.

People in the Middle Ages could build all sorts of things by hand, and they also had a level

of technology beyond what we would give them credit for.

Water mills and windmills provided primitive forms of mechanical power before the invention

of the steam engine, and there were harnessed in interesting ways.

For example, mill-powered tripamers allowed a level of industrialization, such as the

production of steel, of quantity and quality that was undreamed of by people in the Roman

Empire.

This is why you see the play armor of the Middle Ages, which is much more expansive

and much more high quality than the chainmail armor of the Crusades.

But building things was still very hard in the Middle Ages.

...