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Objectives:

Understanding social organisation during the Renaissance, ways of life, hygiene, and all the concrete aspects of the day-to-day life of a travelling court composed of thousands of people in temporary residence at a royal château.





Sequence 1: the royal court, its organisation and its needs

In the classroom, the workshop leader familiarises pupils with the way the court was organised in the days of François I. They get to know about the court’s component services: royal bedroom, food and wine, stables, hunting, clergy, and “pleasure menus” – not forgetting, of course, the military household and the many guests.
Basing themselves on the resulting social pyramid, pupils draw up an inventory of court needs in terms of accommodation, hygiene, food, leisure activities, spiritual life, and so on.

Sequence 3: who stays where?

In the château itself and armed with a plan thereof, pupils try to determine what different rooms were used for with regard to needs expressed (kitchens, stables, bedrooms, privies, studies, oratories, banqueting halls, etc.).

Sequence 4: reconstitution of a typical lodging

Pupils are split up into teams, each with a predefined role, and then have to fit out a life-size replica of a typical Renaissance lodging, positioning decoration and furniture in the most appropriate places and justifying their choices.