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Medieval carpentry, often described as one of the high points of historical woodworking, was pivotal in shaping the built landscape of the Middle Ages. Carpenters were responsible for everything from massive timber-framed buildings and wooden bridges to household furniture, carts, ships and agricultural tools. Working long before electric saws, planers or nail guns, these craftsmen relied on hand tools such as broadaxes, adzes, chisels, augers, mallets and frame saws. Though simple by modern standards, medieval carpentry tools were carefully forged and sharpened to deliver surprising precision and efficiency in both the workshop and on outdoor building sites.
The architecture of the Middle Ages—cathedrals, castles, market halls, townhouses and barns—showcases the sophisticated use of these tools to construct strong timber frameworks and intricate joinery. In many regions of Europe, the skeleton of a building was a lattice of heavy posts and beams, often cut from English oak, beech or other long-lived hardwoods. These timbers were joined with mortise-and-tenon joints, scarf joints, dovetails and wooden pegs, with little or no reliance on metal nails. Many of these timber frames still stand centuries later, a testament to the durability of medieval carpentry techniques and the deep understanding craftsmen had of wood, grain direction and structural loads.
For modern woodworkers, historically minded builders and students of architecture, medieval carpentry offers a rich toolbox of traditional hand-tool skills. By studying how these craftsmen selected, felled and converted trees into beams, how they laid out joints with simple measuring tools and how they assembled entire buildings with nothing more than muscle power and ingenuity, we gain a clearer window into medieval life. We also rediscover techniques that can still be applied to sustainable wood construction today.
One of the foundational tools in medieval carpentry was the felling axe. This heavy-duty axe, with its long handle and relatively thin, curved blade, was used to cut down trees and rough out logs at the forest edge. A skilled carpenter could undercut and backcut a large tree with surprising accuracy, controlling the direction of the fall to avoid damage to nearby timber and to make skidding or hauling easier. In many regions, the same axe might also be used to limb the tree and begin squaring the log.
The broad axe, by contrast, was the essential tool for shaping timber. Broad axes typically had a wider, straighter blade and often a single-bevel edge that let the carpenter “ride” the flat side along a chalk line, shaving the log down to a clean, flat face. With repeated passes, the carpenter could convert a round log into a square beam ready for layout and joinery. The felling axe and broad axe were complementary: one for bringing the tree down and roughing it out, the other for precise hewing and finishing of the timber faces.
Handles for these axes were almost always wooden, shaped to fit the user’s height and swing. In some regions, offset handles allowed the user to keep their knuckles clear of the timber while hewing. Understanding how to sharpen and maintain these cutting edges was as important as knowing how to swing them; a dull medieval axe wasted precious energy and left rough, tear-out prone surfaces that were harder to finish with planes and adzes.
Hewing was the primary method for turning round logs into square or rectangular beams. After the carpenter snapped a chalk line or scored the surface with a marking axe, he would stand on the log or beside it and strike along the grain with the broad axe, removing chips in controlled bites. The goal was not just to remove wood quickly, but to keep the face straight, true and slightly crowned so water would shed easily when the timber was used in an exterior wall or roof.
Once the main faces were hewn, finer shaping followed. In some shops, a technique akin to “planking” was used, where timbers were ripped or resawn and then refined with hand planes or adzes. These steps produced the flat, uniform surfaces needed for floor beams, tie beams, wall plates and sometimes even visible interior surfaces in halls and churches. Careful surface preparation also made it easier to mark accurate mortises and tenons, since layout lines stayed crisp on a smoothed, well-planed face.
To make more intricate cuts, medieval carpenters turned to frame saws and bow saws. A frame saw consisted of a thin, tensioned blade stretched between two arms of a wooden frame, tightened with a central stretcher and windlass. These saws were ideal for long, straight cuts—ripping boards from beams, trimming tenons to length, or cutting planks for floors, doors and shutters. On large construction sites, one carpenter might stand above the timber while another worked below, using a long pit saw in a similar frame to break down big stock.
The bow saw, with its narrower blade and curved wooden frame, excelled at curved or irregular cuts. It allowed carpenters to create arched braces, decorative tracery, shaped brackets and other non-straight elements that added strength and visual interest to medieval buildings. When combined with chisels and rasps, bow saws helped produce the flowing lines we see in surviving medieval wooden churches, screens and roof trusses.
Chisels and gouges were the fine-work tools of the medieval carpenter. Bench chisels with flat blades were used to pare mortises, clean shoulders, trim tenons and square up housings for beams. Heavier mortise chisels—with thicker spines and stout handles—could withstand blows from a mallet while levering out waste from deep mortises in oak or beech.
Gouges, with their curved cutting edges, were used for hollows, rounds and decorative details. They came into their own when carving capitals, moldings, bosses and symbolic motifs in churches, guildhalls and manor houses. Although there was overlap with the work of specialized woodcarvers, many carpenters possessed enough carving skill to embellish functional pieces such as chests, doors, beds and roof beams, turning everyday timber into storytelling surfaces.
No set of medieval carpentry tools was complete without wooden mallets and heavier mauls. Mallets delivered controlled force to chisels, gouges and other edged tools without damaging the tool handles. Their broad faces spread the impact, allowing long sessions of chopping mortises or paring joints with less risk of splitting handles or jarring the user’s wrists.
Heavier wooden mauls were used to drive large pegs, adjust stubborn joints during frame raising and nudge posts or braces into final position. During the dramatic moment when a timber frame was lifted into place—a ritual still echoed in modern “barn raisings”—carpenters moved along the structure with mallets and mauls, drawing joints tight and pinning them together with wooden pegs that locked the frame without modern bolts or screws.
Achieving smooth, even surfaces was crucial in medieval carpentry, especially for interior timbers, furniture and any element that would receive paint or decorative carving. Wooden planes—the ancestors of today’s hand planes—were the tools of choice. Each plane consisted of a carefully shaped wooden body holding an angled iron, often secured with a wooden wedge. By adjusting the iron’s projection, carpenters controlled the depth of cut and produced anything from whisper-thin shavings to heavier stock removal.
Differently shaped soles allowed medieval craftsmen to create flat surfaces, chamfers, beads and moldings. A smoothing plane might follow hewing and adze work to refine a beam face, while specialty molding planes added decorative profiles to beams, window frames, door rails and chest lids. These subtle details, combined with the warm color of seasoned hardwoods, gave medieval interiors much of their character.
Creating clean, accurate holes was essential for pegged joinery and for hardware such as iron straps, hinges and locks. Augers and hand drills were the primary tools for this work. Augers had long, spiral blades that pulled themselves into the wood as the user twisted a cross-handle or brace. They were ideal for larger holes such as those needed for drawbored pegs that locked mortise-and-tenon joints in place.
Smaller hand drills with straight bits could be used for finer work, including pilot holes for nails or spikes where metal fasteners were employed, or for small dowels in furniture. These manual drilling methods demanded patience and strength, but in skilled hands they produced remarkably accurate results. Careful boring, combined with good grain selection, is one reason so many medieval joints remain tight centuries after they were assembled.
Adzes were versatile shaping tools with the cutting edge set perpendicular to the handle—more like a hoe than an axe. Carpenters stood on beams or planks and swung the adze toward their feet in controlled arcs, peeling off chips and leaving a rippled, but surprisingly even, surface. This technique was especially useful for smoothing the tops of floor joists, squaring large timbers after hewing and hollowing troughs or shallow bowls.
Adze work required careful stance and balance, but it could be faster than planing large surfaces, especially on green timber. In some surviving medieval buildings, adze marks are still visible on the undersides of floorboards and beams—subtle fingerprints left by the carpenters who shaped them.
Drawknives and spokeshaves were indispensable for shaping curves, tapers and fine details in timber, beams and planks. A drawknife consists of a straight or slightly curved blade with handles at each end; the carpenter pulls it toward the body, shaving off curls of wood. This made it ideal for shaping rails, rounded edges, tool handles and curved braces.
Spokeshaves, with their small blade set in a compact body with two handles, offered even greater control on concave or convex surfaces. They were used to refine wheel spokes, chair parts and the gently curved members found in roofs and furniture. In combination, drawknives and spokeshaves allowed medieval carpenters to move beyond simple straight lines and add subtle ergonomic and aesthetic curves to everyday objects.
Even the best joinery fails if posts are not truly vertical and beams not truly horizontal. Medieval carpenters relied on simple levels and plumb bobs to keep their structures true. Early levels often used a water-filled trough or a plumb line suspended from a central point along a straight edge to indicate level; later versions incorporated glass vials, similar to modern spirit levels.
Plumb bobs—weighted objects suspended from a string—were invaluable for lining up posts, walls and tower corners over multiple stories. By marking where the string fell, carpenters could transfer reference points from floor to floor and ensure that tall timber frames rose straight and stable. The same basic principles guide modern builders, proving how enduring these medieval measuring tools really are.
Accurate layout was the invisible backbone of medieval carpentry. Scribes and compasses were the primary tools for transferring dimensions and marking cut lines. A metal or bone scribe could incise fine lines into wood more durably than charcoal or chalk, which smeared or vanished in the rain. Carpenters used these lines to position mortises, tenons, shoulders and housings with remarkable repeatability.
Compasses (or dividers) helped divide spaces evenly, step off repeated measurements and lay out circles or arcs for decorative work. In large timber frames, a master carpenter might work from a full-scale “lofting” layout drawn on a tracing floor, using dividers to copy measurements from the plan directly onto beams. This method, combined with simple geometry and proportional design principles, ensured that major structures were both strong and visually harmonious.
Medieval carpentry techniques were more than a collection of tools; they formed a complete approach to design and construction. Carpenters began by selecting appropriate species—durable oak for major timbers, lighter woods for infill and interior elements—and seasoning them as needed. They laid out frames with full-scale drawings, cut joints with an eye for grain direction and assembled components on the ground before raising them into place.
Mortise-and-tenon joinery was the workhorse connection, often reinforced with slightly offset pegs in a technique called drawboring that pulled joints tight without metal fasteners. Scarf joints spliced beams to span long distances; knee braces stiffened corners against racking. Careful attention to drainage, ventilation and roof overhangs helped these wooden structures shed water and resist decay, making them surprisingly durable alongside stone masonry.
By understanding and reviving these traditional construction methods, modern builders, timber-frame enthusiasts and historic preservationists can create new structures that echo the strength, beauty and sustainability of medieval carpentry. The same hand-tool skills that raised castle roofs and market halls can still be used today to build barns, cabins, garden structures and wood-rich interiors that feel timeless.
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