A typical medieval floor was mainly made of clay, stone or fired clay tiles. According to the surviving records, however, we can state that „wooden floors“ were also used at least since the Middle Ages, especially in our latitudes. In southern Europe, the use of stone was more widespread.

The use of wood expanded gradually along with the need of man to protect himself from dampness and cold in residential houses. From primitive wooden floors in the form of tongs and twigs on compacted clay, they evolved into floors made of foshen and planks on pillows. In particular, soft conifers were used in growing lengths of up to 7 m, such as fir, spruce or pine. These were placed across the room on narrow beams, so-called pillows, with or without the use of nails. During the felling, the strongest trees were selected and the widest possible center section was manually cut from the center of the trunk, which could be as much as a meter wide. This formed a radial section of the trunk, and thus no twisting deformations occurred. The individual planks were smoothed by planing on the construction site, as was the surface of the planks. This physically demanding work was usually done by young journeymen. This was captured in Gustave Caillebotte’s most famous flooring painting from 1875, Les Raboteurs de parquet.

We wrote for the magazine Podlahy PROFI 1|2020