What kind of wood was used to build timber framed houses in the medieval period?
Any wood would do, but the most useful wood was long and straight. Pine trees, spruce trees. plenty of them around. Birch wood was much too soft. Oak was much too hard. Ash was valuable- for bow staves, spears, etc. Oak was often used when you needed resistance to rot- eg when building fortifications. The timber was cut, supeficially burned then used for building. The amazing bit is that there are still pieces of this wood excavated in archeological digs, most dated app. 800-900 AD, but some much earlier.
