second floor of a stone structure, wood or stone?

[morganPotPie]

Hi All,

I've just recently started again on a map i've been making.
This is for Dungeons and Dragons campaign, so more of a medieval England feel.

The map itself is a stone structure (an abbey) with stone walls and stone floors. Stairways are also stone as of now.
Now that i am moving onto the second floor, I question:

Should the floors be made of wood or stone as well?

I've read that structures have wooden second floors for ease of support, manpower, and i'm sure some other reasons
however, i know going to castles and such, the second floors are almost always stone, unless i am incorrect?

The abbey itself I had planned on having in a remote mountain forest, so both resources are available.

If anyone could provide some insight, or could point me to somewhere to where i can do some research on similar matters, i would much appreciate it.

and here is the map thus far, in case it is helpful?


Thank you!

[Larb]

If your lower floor is vaulted (like a barrel vault or similar) then it will support a stone upper floor. That would be a good place to start reading if you're interested in looking at the architecture of it.

[tilt]

looking great. a lovely map. .. I have no real knowledge of this, but tree is easier to work with than stone. Much faster to cut one down and easier to carry and so forth - so I guess that price and time are the most important factors in determining how you build (surprise, surprise lol). If the abbey is built as a defensive position - which would make sense - then an upper stone floor would be better as it doesn't burn as easily

[morganPotPie]

awesome, thank you for the terms!

[morganPotPie]

Thank you! good thought on the fire/burning, it did not even cross my mind!

[Tenia]

Hey morganPotPie, as others said, wood is cheaper and easier and if you want to put a stone floor over large rooms you'll may want to place big discharging arches to support that.
On side comment on you map if you don't mind : The stairs.
- In medieval structures, stairs were just a crossing point from a level to another and were set up in such a way that they took up as little space as possible (and that is the primary purpose of spiral stairs), on the side of the structure/room, against the walls and sometimes outside the building, so a central spiral stairs in your main tower is quite uncommon, so are the other stairs with empty space around them.
- I suppose also that your stairs are going up and that the brightest steps are at the top ? If yes, beware because you could be catched by the Spiral Stairs Police ! Considering that the vast majority of people are right handed and that attackers went from the ground, spiral stairs in Strongholds (or any building that potentialy need to be defended) were going up in a clockwise direction to give defenders an advantage.
regards

[rdanhenry]

The central stairs with space all around is unlikely, but because it is much more difficult to construct and support the stairs without walls to build them into. Also, you would need safety railings for it not to be a falling hazard.

The clockwise stairs for defense is urban legend. If you are facing an intruder like a thief or spy, you don't know which side you'd be on. If you are facing invaders on your own interior stairs, you've already lost. In any case, direction of turn is far less significant an advantage than the height advantage to the man further up the stairs. The argument for defense is based on giving the sword arm room to swing, while the stairs are too narrow for anything except thrusting (and overhand blows if you're the one above). The trend for clockwise stairs (which was only a trend, not a rule) also held in non-military religious structures. It was probably just a matter of habit, and possibly it was easier for a right-handed builder to make them that way.

[Tenia]

Hi,
It may be an urban legend, if so it's a rumor relayed by all the guides of castles I've visited. Having tested it myself on a number of these clockwise spiral staircases, I can tell you that, yes, even if the staircase is narrow, you can use a sword and even an axe when you are upstairs and on the other hand you can't use a weapon properly if you are going up, so yes, it is a significant advantage for the defenders. The belief that "if you are facing an invader on your own interior stairs all is lost" is contradicted by all the examples of interior fortifications found in medieval castles and dungeons. I'll just quote here Viollet-le-Duc in his book "Essay on military architecture in the Middle Ages" (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt...-Le-Duc.langFR) :
"The enemy could enter the
city by climbing, or by a breach, without that for that reason
the garrison surrendered; then, closed in the towers which I
repeat, are as many strongholds, it resisted long, exhausted
the enemy's forces, made him lose a lot of people with every partial attack
because a large number of well barricaded doors had to be broken and
you had to fight hand-to-hand on tight and awkward spaces.
Were we taking the ground floor of a tower, the
upper floors still retained powerful means of
defense. You can see that everything was calculated for a doable every step fight.
The spiral staircases that gave access to the various floors
of the tower were easily and quickly barricaded,
in such a way as to render the assailants' efforts to mount
from one floor to another futile. Would the bourgeoisie of a city have wanted to
surrender, the garrison could guard itself against them and their
prohibit access to towers and curtains. It is a system of
adopted mistrust towards and against all."
I hope it is readable, made it with a deepl translation and corrected the most obvious errors.
Regards,

[rdanhenry]

Yes, it is a well-entrenched notion. But for all the many statements one can find on the web, there is a distinct lack of any citation of a medieval source for this idea. And the claim is almost always that stairs were always done this way, whereas they were not. See www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/CSGJournal2011-12X5stairs.pdf. Note that most of these examples have clockwise and anticlockwise stairs in the same castle, so the notion that the stairs go the other way because "the family was left-handed" as with the Clan Kerr castle. So, as an empirical fact, castle stairs may turn either way without being ahistorical.

[Falconius]

It was probably just a matter of habit, and possibly it was easier for a right-handed builder to make them that way.

It is just as easy for the builder one way or another. Nor is the right handed descending for purposes of defence a mere urban legend. Just because it is not a rule in all cases does not mean the commonly believed reason for it is bunk.