MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN/ MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN CASTLES

Parts of a castles

Types of castles

Types of castles (different)

Stronghold Heaven – castle history

British Castles

Chateau Life

German Castles

Castles were initially designed and built to hold down conquered territory. They served to intimidate and strike fear into the local peoples. They were also places of refuge, and places for the lords to live. They were also impressive symbols of the power and wealth of their owners.

In the middle ages, society was organized in a system called feudalism. Kings rewarded their nobles with fiefs (grants) of land, in return for military services. The nobles rented fields to the peasant-farmers, or serfs, also in exchange for services. After  about 1300 the system declined as towns grew, people began to pay rent in cash, and kings hired professional soldiers to fight wars.

If a king or noble wanted to keep control of an area of land, he needed soldiers and a fortified base for them to live in. From here, they could patrol the district for about 16km - around the distance they could ride out and back in a day. 

In the 900s some lords started building stone Keeps. The Keep was a large stone tower that could house the lord, his family, his servants, and a hall in one building. This was stronger then the Motte and Bailey Castle, but it also took longer to build.

It was also cramped in the Stone Keep, so richer lords started building Courtyard Castles, which were used in the crusades, instead. This type of castle consisted of a Keep surrounded by other buildings (such as the Blacksmith, Chapel, Hall, and Stables) all surrounded by a wall and sometimes a dry ditch and later a moat. By the 1200s, Concentric Castles started becoming popular. These consisted of two or (rarely) more rings of thick walls.Ó

Ó Stronghold Heaven

Fortifications were a defence structures for protection from enemy attacks. Fortification developed along two general lines: permanent sites built in peacetime, and emplacements and obstacles hastily constructed in the field in time of war.

As long as weapons remained relatively primitive, permanent fortifications predominated. The art of fortification developed in earliest times with the building of earthworks made up of layers of mud, sticks, rocks, and the like. These soon were developed into walls, then into palisades and elaborate wooden stockades. In the Middle East walled cities appeared very early. Those of Mesopotamia had walls of mud or sun-dried brick built to withstand invaders. The citadel, a fort or fortified section within the city, also appeared early. Phoenician cities were strongly walled and offered sturdy resistance to Assyrian, Persian, and Macedonian attackers. Major developments in permanent fortification were made by the Romans, who constructed walls along the Danube and Rhine and in England. Some of these had elaborate systems of watchtowers, with provisions for garrisoning men along the walls. In E Asia the famous Great wall of china  was an even more ambitious undertaking of the same type.

To overcome advances in fortification, siegecraft evolved, and devices such as battering rams, scaling ladders, catapults, and movable towers appeared. As siegecraft became more effective, walls were made higher and thicker—often 30 to 40 ft (9.1–12.2 m) thick. The Romans, with their engineering skill, also developed field fortifications in their camps. However, with the breakdown of Roman authority and the increase in raids and incursions by invaders from the North and the East, fortification on the grand scale was largely replaced by local fortifications.

The Crusades helped further the development of fortifications. Similar structures were used in the chaotic warfare of feudal China, India, and Japan. In the West many castles and citadels, notably those of the Moors in Spain, were defensible against all but a long siege.

A castle was a type of fortified dwelling characteristic of the Middle Ages. Fortifications of towns had been in practice since antiquity, but in the 9th cent. feudal lords began to develop the private fortress-residence known as the castle. It served the twofold function of residence and fortress because of the conditions of medieval life, in which war was endemic. The site of the castle was preferably on a defensible height. England and France, in general, did not afford such inaccessible locations as did the Rhine valley in Germany.

A castle that became the model for many English and Norman castles was the formidable castle built at Arques in Normandy by Henry I of England. A square donjon, or keep, was set against the strong outer walls of masonry; the entrance was protected by a double gate, two flanking round towers, and advanced earthworks. The place enclosed by the outer circuit of walls was usually divided into two courts, or baileys, by a palisade. Subterranean passages made detection of underground forays easy.