The Medieval Castle
...ls and rooms, or simple tasks as shoeing the horses became the main concern within the castle walls. Also during peacetime, the fortress served as a stage for courtly love, state banquets, and a trading place. Although these social gatherings often took place, the use of the castle during conflict occurred more frequently due to the attempts to overthrow them. In order to obtain land that was privately owned, invaders had to overthrow the lords castle and defeat his military personnel. Seizing a castle of such complex architecture and immense size took a large army as well as superior techniques to reach the inside of the fort. Attacks on castles were made in four ways: missiles, arrows, and - 3 - stones would be thrown to devastate the battlements, climbers would try to scale walls, sappers would undermine the structure, and starvation would weaken the defenders physically and morally. At the top of the assault tower there was a parapet, a protective wall at the top of a castle around the outer side of the wall-walk. Within the parapet were battlements, which contained crenels (open spaces), allowing defenders on the wall areas to fire projectiles as well as opening fire on the oncoming invaders. One method of attacking a castle was to destroy these battlements using hand-held weapons, causing the guards to have a place to defend and retaliate from. Another form of invasion was to escalade, or scale the walls by using a variety of methods. Attackers would sometimes use a kind of drawbridge or beam and place it at the base of the assault tower; others would climb ladders constructed on the lattice principle, or the invaders would hook ropes onto the battlements and climb up them. An additional way that a castle would try to be seized was undermining it. Although it could be effective, the process was usually tedious and slow, causing the sapper, the person doing the undermining, to eventually give up. Also, if the castle was built on solid rock or surrounded by marsh and water, undermining would not have been an option, causing other methods to be used. The final reasoning in which a castle would be taken over was due to the starvation of the military personnel. Since castles tended to be built in the countryside, during times of war it was difficult to bring in extra supplies, such as food. Due to the lack of good nutrition, the knights would become physically weak and unable to fight. Along with the - 4 - numerous techniques that the invaders had, the defenders retained just as many ways to defend their castle by using the castle itself as a defense mechanism. The medieval castle was designed in order to sustain attacks, but the design and architecture within the walls was also used as a way to counterattack their opponent. Castles could provide a network for defense of a springboard for attack. The numerous defense systems within the fort included moats, drawbridges, a portcullis, and battlements. The moat is probably one of the oldest parts of the fortification, consisting of simply digging a trench around the fort and usually filling it with water. This created an obstacle in which the attackers had to overcome in order to get closer to the walls of the castle. Entry to the castle was through gateway, but getting there took going over a drawbridge above the moat. The drawbridge could be pulled back on a platform in front of the gate or hinged on the inner side and raised with chains, so it stood against the face of the gate, forming a barrier. Behind each gateway was a vertical sliding door, or portcullis, usually made of oak and shod with iron and operated above by chains, ropes, or pulleys, creating an additional barricade. The most useful device within the castle walls was the battlements that were constructed within the parapet. The crenels in the battlements were used as places for guards to attack the climbers scaling the walls. The non-open part of the battlement, known as the merlon, would be five to six feet wide and stand between six and ten feet high. In order for the battlements to become less - 5 - hazardous, shutters were hung on hinges from the top and gave sufficient cover to the archer and gave him time to select a target below. Not only did the architecture of castles serve as an obstacle to overcome, but the location of the stronghold also provided a hindrance on the invading army. Castles were usually built in remote places in the countryside around hedges, steep slopes, or marshy areas. By doing this, the fort would either enhance a natural obstacle or create an entirely fresh one on its own. Although the concept of a castle was a genius idea and it was used greatly during battle, new concepts began to take form causing the decline of the castle. The decline of the castle took place in the late Middle Ages for two main reasons: the weakening of feudalism and the discovery of gunpowder. The principle figure in the European society changed to be the king instead of a lord or baron. Many of the kings disapproved the building of castle...