British Castles

A detailed Summary of British Castles

Great Britain's castles exemplify artistic characteristics and were essential elements in the lives of kings, lords, nobles, and chieftains. The word castle means a building or group of buildings usually intended as a residence of a king, lord, noble, or chieftain. There are many different types of castles, and the features about them are simply amazing. Warfare was also an important issue involving castles. They had to have some means of protection.

The castles reached their fullest development in the medieval period, even though fortified building had been around much earlier. The castles created a feudal system, which gave them their greatest importance. The feudal system was divided into three classes: the knights and nobles, clergy, and peasants. The knights and nobles' job was to defend society, the clergy was to pray, while the peasants had the duty to till the soil and support other classes (Collier's Encyclopedia 532). The origin of has been traced back to the late Roman times when men placed themselves under a man stronger and wealthier than themselves (Rowling 31). The knights lived in castles built upon hilltops or in the bend of rivers. There they received vessels, held meeting: and upo

Was considered to be a last line of defense. They were surrounded by a stone curtain wall, which was defended by several towers. The wall was very thick, as, much as nine or ten feet thick and maybe 40 foot in height. The wall has an apron like based on it to thicken the wall base, and causing solid or liquid material (Simpson 14). A later design to these towers was a gatehouse. The gate caused a weak defense so they later surrounded it by a pair of Towers. These other towers would allow attackers to be defeated from above or on the side of the gatehouse. A portcullis was also used to protect the gate with a metal grate (Remfry 2).

Warfare was very important with the lords of the castles. A good built castle could rarely be taken down by a direct attack. During a siege, the attacking army would surround the entrance of the castle and prevent supplies from entering (Mfeinberg 1). The army would literally starve everybody to make him or her surrender. This would take months or even years, and in this time they would demolish the castles appearance with weapons. The most common of these weapons was a catapult, which would hurl stones at the castle wall and at the defenders. A catapult could also be used to hurl other things at the castles such as heads or bodies. That would get very messy! It could also be used to hurl things at one point of the wall because they were so accurate. This could cause the castle to crumble. Another weapon of the middle ages was a ballista. This was a huge crossbow that hurled arrows the size of trees. It could also be used to hurl large stones (Brown 64). This would really start to destroy the castles in little to no time at all. A different siege weapon was a battering ram brought close to the gate and rammed until broken (Mfeinberg, Siege warfare 1). Other methods were used to get around the wall. A rolling tower, the height of the wall, was used to get close to the wall and drop soldiers at the top of the wall.

Castles on cliffs were common and made it hard for the enemy to attack. There was good visibility to see attackers and made an excellent source of water and supplies. A castle with access to supplies could withstand a siege longer than one that did not. A moat was added to castles to make them stronger. A moat is a large ditch that went around the castle, filled with water. It also contained a drawbridge that limited access to the castle. Another addition to a castle were arrow loops, which were small slits in the wall that allowed archers a long field of fire and made him hard to hit. On the top of the wall crenellations served a purpose of arrow loops. A crenellation is an alternating pattern of high a low spots that affords an archer a place to hide (Mfeinberg, siege warfare 1). Instead of an archer, a crossbowman was used but a second assistant was needed to reload a second crossbow. Since windows were the only source of natural light, secesses behind them were the size of small rooms. They had built in seats behind them. For security windows near the bottom of the castle were very narrow, whereas the top ones were wide (Macaulay 31).

In the kitchen the cook and his staff turned the meat on a spit and prepared stews and soups in iron pots hung over the fire on a hook and chain that could be raised and lowered for different temperatures. Some of there meat was pork, beef, mutton, poultry, and game. When the boiling meat was ready it was lifted out of the pot with an iron meat hook, a long fork with a wooden handle and prongs attached to the side. The soup was stirred with a long-handled slotted spoon. Salting or smoking preserved the meat. Most common was to keep the meat alive int'l ready for use. On fast days they served fish (Gies, 113).

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Approximate Word count = 2541
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History