Castles

[Cicciograna]

Hi Playground! I've always been fascinated by castles, and I wanted to learn something more about them. Do you know comprehensive sites or, more preferably, historically accurate books about these massive pieces of architecture, about their rooms, usual furniture, decorations, day-to-day life, plans and the like?
I was particularly interested in those castles whose main purpose was defense, so I'm looking for strategic and tactical tips employed during warfare, means to counteract a siege and all this sort of things.
Again, I appreciate sites on the Net, but I'd prefer books.

Thank for your help!

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Well, just to start, a funny fact about castles: there is a region in Europe called Castilla, literally meaning "land of castles". If you like castles, ready a trip there. You'll be amazed.

[Spiryt]

Czech Republic and Slovakia have ridiculous amount of interesting castles on their small territories.

[Bouregard]

Northern parts of italy have some awesome ones. Oh and here in germany are some fine ones too.

[Mauther]

There's loads of info out there. For my money, check anything covering Krak des Chevaliers in Syria. It was a knights hospitaler castle, argueably the greatest crusader castle ever made. Could only be taken by subterfuge. I don't recall its name, but there is one castle, supposed to be absolutely kick ass on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Can't recall its name though. And of course possibly the greatest castle of all time could be the city of Byzantium itself.

[Cicciograna]

Northern parts of italy have some awesome ones.

Consider that I live in Napoli, Italy, and in my city there are three big castles: Castel Dell'Ovo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castel_dell%27Ovo), Maschio Angioino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschio_Angioino) and Castel Sant'Elmo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castel_Sant%27Elmo)...

[DSCrankshaw]

Consider that I live in Napoli, Italy, and in my city there are three big castles: Castel Dell'Ovo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castel_dell%27Ovo), Maschio Angioino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschio_Angioino) and Castel Sant'Elmo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castel_Sant%27Elmo)...

I'm jealous. There's a dearth of castles in the US for some strange reason...

[Cyrion]

It's about cathedrals rather than castles, but to get some of the flavor of architecture and building at that time and on that scale, check out Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. It's the story of a man who sets out to build a cathedral.

I'm sure an Amazon search will turn up lots of material.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Yeah, I wonder why that could be ?

I'm chalking it up to the natives being too lazy to make some awesome ones.

@V Internet sarcasm. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

[Cicciograna]

Pardon me, but this scarcity depends from the fact that US is a relatively young nation. The three castles that I've pointed to belong to three different and very hetherogeneous periods of Italian history: Napoli in particular has been under countless dominions, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Spanish, French and finally Italians, and all have left their hand in my city, in an arc that spans almost 3 millennia...

[SDF]

First you move the rook next to the king, then put him on the other side.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

England still has plenty of castles if you know where to look; however, castles here were usually involved in garrisoning and local administration unless there was war with the Scots or Welsh, in which case they would be involved in defending the borders. There's a good cross-section of different types of castle here, too; largely introduced by the Normans, new waves of castle building came in whenever the English fought in extensive foreign wars, taking influences from the Holy Land and France. Don't forget that since England at various times controlled half of France, many French castles and other defensive structures are of English construction, especially on the north coast. The English utilised many other defensive structures as well, such as abbeys and town walls.

Good luck in your investigations. :smallsmile:

[Mando Knight]

I'm jealous. There's a dearth of castles in the US for some strange reason...

We've got a few forts here and there, but any honest-to-goodness castles in the US are all privately owned things. One of my dream homes is a custom-built palatial castle...

[Athaniar]

Stronghold Heaven at Heavengames has a pretty extensive list (http://stronghold2.heavengames.com/history/cw) on castles.

[Grimlock]

Probably the mightiest castle builder in British history was Edward I- or Edward 'Longshanks'- apparantly he was bloody tall!

Anyhoo- he built loads of castle to control Wales and Scotland after he invaded them. If you're interested in castles read up on him- a fascinating man. Not as much of a bastard as Bravehart made him out to be, but still not a nice man! However, a great soldier adn castle builder!

[Ranna]

there is a variety of castle structures, square, mote and bailey, rounded, Keep style castles, they evolved with the war technology before technology started to advance faster than you could build a castle

I have also always loved em they are the only bit of history I can remember (this is shockingly when I was 12 i.e over 10 years ago)

It depends on where you live as to your local castles that can be visited. But they are often national sites and very accessible

I was looking at them the other-day (was planning a trip to Cornwall - lots of castles there) and came across a nice website but I am really horrified that I cannot remember it im so sorry!!!!

There was also a brilliant castle I visited in Normandy too, I think it began with a B.. I must look it up and return.

Also Bolsolver (sp) castle is a lovely place too I do like castles!!


@V: What are the good bits?

[banjo1985]

Wales has some awesome castles. but I'm afraid in the UK most of them have been rather commercialised as tourist attractions. Nothing wrong with that of course, but you do tend to get a rather slimmed down history of the place with the 'good bits' missed out. :smalleek:

[Brother Oni]

There are a couple of major technological and cultural influences on castle development.

In Europe, the main one was gunpower - pre-cannon era and post cannon era castles are very different, especially in their outer walls (post cannon ones have rounded towers to help deflect the cannon balls and often have cannon of their own to return fire).


Japanes castles are very different to western ones, since siege weaponry was never well developed or built into the style of warfare, plus you're in a major earthquake zone.
Castles tended to be built like mazes, thus the sieging troops would get lost in the layout and separated, enabling the defenders to repel with smaller numbers or just whittle them down piecemeal.
There is also a much bigger emphasis on anti-infiltration measures in Japanese castles as well; the nightingale floor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingale_floor) in one castle I went to still worked.

[Amiel]

If there are castles within your general area and if you find it worth your while, exploring them might be an idea. Some castles, those that are open to the public, may hold tours; I would be especially interested in going at night. With a tour, you could see, first hand, how each castle was constructed, laid-out/planned, defended et al. Plus, there's always the educational aspect of it all.

[Ranna]

There are a couple of major technological and cultural influences on castle development.

In Europe, the main one was gunpower - pre-cannon era and post cannon era castles are very different, especially in their outer walls (post cannon ones have rounded towers to help deflect the cannon balls and often have cannon of their own to return fire).


Japanes castles are very different to western ones, since siege weaponry was never well developed or built into the style of warfare, plus you're in a major earthquake zone.
Castles tended to be built like mazes, thus the sieging troops would get lost in the layout and separated, enabling the defenders to repel with smaller numbers or just whittle them down piecemeal.
There is also a much bigger emphasis on anti-infiltration measures in Japanese castles as well; the nightingale floor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingale_floor) in one castle I went to still worked.



Ooooh thats ace maze castles!!!!!! I read about the nightingale floor didnt know one still worked though that is pretty ace too!

[UnChosenOne]

Castles? Well, Finland 've got only few of them. For example the northmost medival european stone fortress and the northmost medival european stone fortress still standing.

[HellfireLover]

The area I live in has a number of residential castles (still used as family homes) and smaller lookouts called Peel Towers. Smailholm Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smailholm_Tower) is probably the best of these, and I spent quite a bit of time there when I was younger (we used to bike out to spend time there.) It's situated on a rocky outcrop and has good views of the surrounding area. In addition, some of the large houses in the area were fortified as defensive towers - see Traquair House (http://www.traquair.co.uk/content/brief-history-traquair-and-family).

Some residential castles, like Thirlestane (http://www.thirlestanecastle.co.uk/thirlestanecastle.cfm), have been modified from their original design by later additions.

[Stadge]

Ah castles, whilst I can't think of anything right now about the decorations or day to day life, a couple of years back I wrote essays on the use of castles in the Norman Conquest and feature sof castles in the Crusader States, so if you want I can try and find them and either email the actual thing or just pick out some of the books I used for the research?

Real castles are a tad bit too late for the history I'm specialisng in now, (got to love the 'dark ages' :smallsmile:), but I'm close to some pretty amazing libraries so I'll have a look the next time I head to one of them.

[Cicciograna]

Ah castles, whilst I can't think of anything right now about the decorations or day to day life, a couple of years back I wrote essays on the use of castles in the Norman Conquest and feature sof castles in the Crusader States, so if you want I can try and find them and either email the actual thing or just pick out some of the books I used for the research?


That would be great: please, take advantage of one of the nigh infinite number of free file hosting sites to pass me your work.

[Eldan]

Switzerland has a few, actually, like the Aarburg...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aarburg-Burg-02.jpg
http://www.jhl.ch/pix/mitglieder/aarburg.jpg


or the Chateau de Chillon, which is cool for being built halfway into a lake.

http://www.mediapart.fr/files/u51011/chateau-haut-chillon.jpg


Hmm. The only one really open to the public around where I live is the Kyburg. Pretty small, belonged to the Habsburgs for a while.
http://www.website-analyst.co.il/lucdesk/Kyburg_1976.jpg

[Totally Guy]

Today I visited Knaresborough castle. And Mother Shipton's cave.

Knaresborough castle is more of a glorified bachelor pad that's mostly fallen down...

Old mother Shipton's well was impressive. It turns things to stone. They had petrified teddy bears for sale. And a museum full of crazy crap celebrities have turned to stone in the past. From a queen's shoe to John Waynes hat.

[Mauther]

Japanes castles are very different to western ones, since siege weaponry was never well developed or built into the style of warfare, plus you're in a major earthquake zone.
Castles tended to be built like mazes, thus the sieging troops would get lost in the layout and separated, enabling the defenders to repel with smaller numbers or just whittle them down piecemeal.
There is also a much bigger emphasis on anti-infiltration measures in Japanese castles as well; the nightingale floor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingale_floor) in one castle I went to still worked.

Its my firm belief that the nightingale floor is a historical fallacy. Its really just faulty contractor work that some one upsold.

Shogun: "Nakumura! My floor squeaks when I walk on it, waking my wife. I paid you good money and you ripped me off. I'm going to cut off your head!"
Nakumura: "Whoa, hold up there... uh that's a design FEATURE. Its supposed to do that so...uhm...huh??? uh...so you can catch assassins trying to sneak in? Yeah that's it. All the rage down in Kyoto. Big hit with the whole anti-ninja scene."
Shogun: "Nakumura, your brilliant! Keep your head."
Nakumura: "Thank you sir."

[Brother Oni]

Its my firm belief that the nightingale floor is a historical fallacy. Its really just faulty contractor work that some one upsold.


In case you weren't being droll, the cutaway section they had showcasing all the actual mechanics behind the floor puts paid to that theory.

In any case, a craftsman would have been a peasant. Any samurai would have been able to take his head whenever he wanted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiri_sute_gomen) - they didn't need an excuse of crappy flooring.

[Nameless]

I'm suppressed no one has mentioned Transylvania.

We also have quite a few Castle here in ol' Britannia.

[GolemsVoice]

There are regions in Germany where you can't walk for an hour without tripping over some castle, like Bavaria. The city I live in even has one, it was the local seat of power until Napoleon decided he wanted non of this. It was also bombed by the Allies, but only a bit, ans I think it was stormed once in the middle ages.
An extra platform had to be build after cannons got into play, since they discovered that you could shoot the castle at your leisure from a nearby mountain, so they build their own cannons to shoot back.
It is also said to be haunted! A medieval Lady wanted to marry a man who was divorced (or his wife died, don't remember) and had two kids. When she asked his parents, they answered "Four eyes stand between the marriage", and she, thinking they meant the children, stabbed out their eyes.
She died when she made a pilgrimage to a nearby church, on her knees.

[Eldan]

Oh, and to prove that not all castles are impressive, huge fortresses with towers and walls and moats:
Castle Zuckenriet, about 10 minutes from where I live.

http://www.burgen.ch/images/burgen_CH/SG/sg_zuckenriet10KLEIN.jpg

And I've seen smaller ones. Mind you, it's still pretty defensible, no windows on the first two floors, stone walls, only one door, and that one is massive.

[Vizzerdrix]

Yeah, I wonder why that could be ?

I'm chalking it up to the natives being too lazy to make some awesome ones.

@V Internet sarcasm. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

:smallannoyed:


Yeah? Really?

[Eldan]

Obviously, none of the natives ever built defensive structures, since, as we know today, they all lived in leather and hide tents out in the plains.

Was that sarcastic enough or need I add more?

[Yora]

Oh and here in germany are some fine ones too.
Only in the south. In the north the ground is almost completely flat, soft, and wet, and there are no natural sources of rock. Even if you could afford transporting all the stones (or made it of [bricks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbork_Castle)), and found a suitable location, there was barely any strategic value, because you could just give it a wide berth, without any hills or mountains that would restrict movement.
What we do have are fortified cities, and some rather impressive ones.