The categories are simple—stone, clay, wood, metal—but medieval builders must know their materials. Woods, for instance, vary in their qualities and uses.
Tables are useful ways to organize information, but they can be confusing. Rather than creating yet another table of wood uses, I have divided the information into categories:
. Bark . Coppice . Dye . Fine-grain . Firewood . Flavoring . Fodder . Fruit . Hardwood . Hedgerows . Indoor use only . Marshy or moist soil . Medicinal . Moisture resistance . Oil . Paper . Piles . Seeds and Nuts . Softwood . Special Uses . Superstition .
... and into brief articles on individual tree and shrub groups:
. Alders . Alder buckthorn . Ash . Beech . Birches . Box . Cherries, Plums, Blackthorn . Dogwood . Elder . Elms . Hazels . Hollies . Hornbeams . Junipers . Limes . Maples . Oaks . Pines . Poplars . Purging buckthorn . Rowans and Whitebeams . Service tree . Native shrubs . Willows . Yews .
