Question 1: Why were castles important in the
medieval period and what were some of the
major features they had?
Castles in the middle ages were a very important defence, simply because it is much easier to defend yourself
in a castle than on an open battlefield. The reason for this is simple. Imagine if you are a medieval general.
What would you rather? A thousand angry men with swords running at you vs your 500 men with bows, or
said 1000 angry men running at your giant stone fortress, trying to get through an impenetrable stone wall
while you stand on the top of the wall, laughing and pick them off with your bows.
I think it’s pretty obvious what the choice would be, and that in a nutshell is the major advantage of castles:
there is a gigantic wall between you and the guy that’s trying to kill you, you’re on top of it, and you can kill
him with your bow, and he can’t fight back. Repeat: he can’t fight back. I’m sure we can all agree that it’s a lot
easier to kill a guy that can’t fight back than a guy that can.
This was exemplified in the first Arab siege of Constantinople, in 717-718 CE. In this siege, the Arabs were
trying to take Constantinople from the Byzantines. The Arabs surrounded the city and built siege walls to
prevent to Byzantines from leaving their city. However, because the Byzantines had better ships, they were
still able to get supplies in by sea. This meant that they couldn’t be starved out, and even though they had
more soldiers, they couldn’t attack the city because it was too well defended. This allowed time for
reinforcements to come to the defenders aid, and they then routed the attackers
The interesting thing is that castles weren’t originally designed for this purpose. Originally, they were simply
residences for nobles, palaces basically because a gigantic stone place is pretty impressive, radiating power,
very important in the Middle Ages. Basically, “I am rich enough to afford to build a castle, therefore I am more
important than you, bow down to me”
Later, they were adapted into more military buildings, originally just to house a garrison (the lords army),
basically forming the lords base of operations and not being designed specifically for defence. Then they
realised how effective a castle could be in a defensive sense, and started using more defensively. Later on they
started to house lords and nobles, simply because they were much safer from attack than anywhere else.
Castles were the main form of defence in medieval times for about 500 years, until the advent of heavy
cannons and mortars which forced a return to the fortified cities of old, as walls do not stand up very well to
cannon fire, breaking down when attacked.
The main features of medieval castles were quite numerous. Most castles had a moat, although contrary to
what you would think these would not always be filled with water, due to lack of water. If they weren’t filled
with water they would have very sharp wooden stakes along the bottom. The purpose of the moats was
threefold, firstly to stop siege towers (big moveable towers that would be pushed up against a castle wall,
enabling attackers to jump onto the wall). The whole point of siege towers is to be up against the wall so the
attackers can attack, but they can’t be moved through water. Secondly, they could stop battering rams, as they
had to be up against a wall to be effective, and a moat stops them from doing that. Lastly, if an attacker tried
to mine under the walls, the moat would stop them from doing that.
Another major feature of castles was the walls. There are usually two walls in a castle, the outer (curtain) wall,
and the inner wall. The outer wall surrounded the entire castle, while the inner wall surrounded the keep
(housing the important buildings, e.g. the chapel, the great hall, the lords/knights quarters), and divided the
castle into different sections. The curtain wall was actually two walls, cemented together in some places with
limestone, and with rubble packed into the gap between the walls. Some castles had a much higher wall called
a shield wall, to protect the castle from catapults and the like.
On top of the wall there were crenellations, rectangular blocks with small gaps between them, so archers
could quickly look through the gaps and shoot, and then duck behind the blocks, thereby shielding themselves
from return fire. Walls had walkways on top of them, where defending soldiers would patrol during a battle,
these housed the crenellations. Inside a wall there were arrow loops, which archers would fire through, these
had the advantage of an unlimited time to aim and the attackers couldn’t shoot you back. Some walls had
small holes in the floor which defenders could shoot arrows or drop various objects through (e.g rocks, boiling
water, burning oil).
The only way past the walls was through the gatehouses. They were inside the wall, connected with the
drawbridge over the moat. They were long tunnels with arrow loops in towers either side of the entrance. In
the roof of the gatehouse there were murder holes (holes through which defenders could drop heavy
objects/hot liquid on attackers). The outer opening was protected by a portcullis, a grated iron/wood door
which could only be raised by a winch inside the gatehouse. Inside the gatehouse was the mechanism to raise
the drawbridge in case of attack.
At the corner of the walls there were towers. These towers were generally circular (to make them harder to
collapse if mined under). They were at a corner to give a better view to the defenders. They generally had
arrow loops in their walls, and some may have had crenellations on top. Inside a tower stairs were circular,
turning clockwise, narrow and very cramped. This gave the defender (at the top of the tower) an advantage
over the attacker; because soldiers were right handed (left handed people were considered evil in those days,
so even if you were a leftie you learnt to fight with your right). The defender had more room to swing his
sword, but an attacker could hardly swing his sword without hitting the (stone) walls.
The inner walls were very similar to the outer walls; they had many of the same functions (e.g crenellations,
arrow loops). They divided the bailey into different sections. The bailey (or ward) was a courtyard basically, the
centre of the day to day life of the castles inhabitants. It could also serve as a marketplace, practice field for
soldiers, jousting arena, or any number of different things. From a defensive standpoint, the bailey was a wide
open space, meaning the attackers had to run through it while the defenders could rain arrows on them from
above.
A castle was very important for defence in the middle ages, and it had many of the features mentioned here
(and more) that allowed it to function well.
Your basic medieval castle: