Not every castle is actually a castle. Today, the word "castle" we call almost any significant building of the Middle Ages, be it a palace, a large estate or a fortress - in general, the dwelling of a feudal lord of medieval Europe. Such everyday use of the word "castle" is at odds with its original meaning, because a castle is, first of all, a fortification. Inside the castle territory there could be buildings for different purposes: residential, religious, and cultural. But still, first of all, the main castle function is defensive. From this point of view, for example, the famous romantic palace of Ludwig II, Neuschwanstein, is not a castle.

Location, and not the features of the structure of the castle - the guarantee of its defensive power. Of course, the layout of the fortification is important for the defense of the castle, but it is not the thickness of the walls and the location of the loopholes that makes it really impregnable, but the correctly chosen construction site. The steep and high hill, which is almost impossible to get close, the sheer cliff, the winding road to the castle, which is perfectly shot from the fortress, determine the outcome of the battle to a much greater extent than all other equipment.

Gates- the most vulnerable place in the castle. Of course, the fortress had to have a central entrance (in times of peace, it happens, you want to enter beautifully and solemnly, not all the time the castle is defended). When capturing, it is always easier to break into the entrance that already exists than to create a new one, destroying massive walls. Therefore, the gates were designed in a special way - they had to be wide enough for carts and narrow enough for the enemy army. Cinematography often sins by depicting a castle entrance with large wooden gates that can be locked: such would be extremely impractical in defense.

The inner walls of the castle were colored. The interiors of medieval castles are often depicted in gray-brown tones, without any cladding, just like the inside of the bare cold stone walls. But the inhabitants of medieval palaces loved bright colors and lavishly decorated the interior of their living quarters. The inhabitants of the castles were rich and, of course, wanted to live in luxury. Our beliefs are connected with the fact that in most cases the paint has not stood the test of time.

Large windows are rare for a medieval castle. As a rule, they were absent altogether, giving way to multiple small window "slots" in the castle walls. Besides the defensive purpose, narrow window openings protected the privacy of the castle's inhabitants. If you come across a castle structure with luxurious panoramic windows, most likely they appeared at a later time, as, for example, in the Roctailiad castle in the south of France.

Secret passages, secret doors and dungeons. While walking around the castle, you should know that somewhere under you lie corridors hidden from the eyes of an ordinary person (perhaps someone is wandering around them today?). Potny - underground corridors between the buildings of the fortress - allowed to move unnoticed within the fortress or leave it. But the trouble is, if a traitor opened a secret door to the enemy, as happened during the siege of the castle of Corfe in 1645.

Storming the castle was not such a fleeting and easy process as it is portrayed in the movies. The massive attack was a rather extreme decision in an attempt to capture the castle, putting the main military force at unnecessary risk. Castle sieges were carefully thought out and took a long time to implement. The most important thing was the ratio of the trebuchet, the throwing machine, to the thickness of the walls. It took the trebuchet from several days to several weeks to punch a hole in the castle wall, especially since just a hole in the wall did not guarantee the capture of the fortress. For example, the siege of Harlech Castle by the future King Henry V lasted for about a year, and the castle fell only because the city ran out of provisions. So the rapid attacks of medieval castles are an element of film fantasies, not historical realities.

Hunger- the most powerful weapon when taking a castle. Most castles had reservoirs for collecting rainwater, or wells. The chances of the castle inhabitants to survive during the siege depended on the supply of water and food: the option to "sit out" was the least risky for both sides.

For the defense of the castle didn’t need as many people as it seems. Castles were built in such a way as to allow those inside to calmly fight off the enemy, making do with small forces. Compare: the garrison of the Harlech castle, which held out for almost a whole year, consisted of 36 people, while the castle was surrounded by an army numbering hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers. In addition, an extra person on the territory of the castle during a siege is an extra company, and as we remember, the issue of provisions could be decisive.

We have indicated earlier how the churches adapted to the needs of defense, and also what obstacles were created on bridges and roads against the advance of the enemy army; the most important monument of military architecture are city fortifications and castles.

The fortifications of the city consist of a fence and a citadel, or castle, which simultaneously serves as a defense against the enemy and a means to keep the population in obedience.

The fencing of the city is reduced to curtains, towers and gates, the location of which depends on the terrain and the details of which have already been described by us. Let's start with an overview of the lock device. The castle was almost always located closer to the city wall: in this way the lord better protected himself from rebellion. Sometimes they chose a place even outside the city fortifications - this was the location of the Louvre near Paris.

Just as the fortifications of the city consist of a fence and a castle, so the castle, in turn, is subdivided into a fortified courtyard and the main tower (donjon), which served as the last stronghold for the defenders when the enemy had already taken possession of the rest of the fortress.

In the beginning, living quarters played no role in the defense. They were grouped at the foot of the main tower, scattered around the courtyard, like pavilions in a villa.

Choisy's opinion that at first the feudal lord's dwelling was outside the donjon tower, at its foot, is wrong. In the early Middle Ages, in particular in the 10th and 11th centuries, the donjon combined the functions of defense and housing for a feudal lord, while the donjon housed outbuildings. See Michel, Histore de l "art, vol. 1, p. 483.

Choisy dates the castle of Loches to the 11th century, while this castle has a precise date: it was built by Count Fulke Nerra in 995 and is considered the earliest surviving castles (stone) in France. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

In the castles of the 11th century, like Langeais, Beaugency, Loches, the entire defense force was concentrated in the main tower, not to mention some of the secondary structures.

Only by the XII century. the annexes combine with the main tower to form a defense ensemble. Since then, all structures are located around the courtyard or at the entrances to the courtyard, opposing the attack with their walls. The new plan finds its first application in Palestinian Crusader installations; here we see a courtyard surrounded by fortified buildings with a main tower - a donjon. The same plan was applied in the castles of Krak, Mergeb, Tortos, Ajlun, and others, erected during 70 years of Frankish rule in Palestine and representing the most important structures of the military architecture of the Middle Ages.

Also in the fortresses of Syria, the Franks for the first time use the device of defensive structures, in which the main fortress wall is encircled by a less high line of fortifications, representing the second fence.

In France, these various improvements appear only in the last years of the 12th century. in the castles of Richard the Lionheart, especially in the Andely fortress.

At the end of the XII century. in the West, the formation of military architecture comes to an end. Its most daring manifestations date back to the first quarter of the 13th century; these are the castles of Coucy and Chateau Thierry, erected by large vassals during the period of civil strife, in the childhood of Saint Louis.

From the beginning of the XIV century, the era of disasters for France, there are very few monuments of military architecture, as well as religious architecture.

The last castles that can be compared with castles of the 12th and 13th centuries are those that protect royal power under Charles V (Vincennes, Bastille), and those that feudal lords oppose to it under Charles VI (Pierrefonds, Ferte Milon, Villers Coterre).

In fig. 370 and 371 show in general terms the castles of the two main epochs of feudal claims: Cucy (Fig. 370) - the period of the childhood of Saint Louis, Pierrefonds (Fig. 371) - during the reign of Charles VI.

Consider the most important parts of the building.

Main tower (donjon). - The main tower, which sometimes itself constitutes a whole castle, is so arranged in all its parts that it can be defended independently of the other fortifications. Thus, in the Louvre and in Kusi, the main tower is isolated from the rest of the fortress by a moat dug in the courtyard itself; the main tower in Kusi was supplied with a special supply of provisions, had its own well, its own bakery. Communication with the castle bodies was maintained by means of a removable gangway.

In the XI and XII centuries. the main tower was often located in the center of a fortified fence, at the top of a hillock; in the XIII century. she is deprived of this central position and placed closer to the wall so that she can be helped from the outside.

The idea of ​​changing the position of the donjon tower in the castle of the XII and XIII centuries. due to military-defense considerations, it is not justified by Choisy. The central position of the tower-donjon in the castle, more precisely inside the fence-wall of the castle, in the XI-XII centuries, as well as the change in this position in the XIII century, can be explained by considerations of not only defense, but also architectural, artistic order. In such. the position of the keep in the XI and XII centuries. one can see the presence of compositional features of monuments of Romanesque art (architecture, painting, etc.), where we often see the coincidence of the semantic and compositional centers with geometric ones. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

Square towers are found in all eras, and from the XI and XII centuries. no others remained (Losch, Falaise, Chambois, Dover, Rochester). The round tower appears in the 13th century. Since that time, round and square towers have been built on a par, with or without corner turrets.

The opinion that round donjons began to appear only in the 13th century. and that from the XI and XII centuries. only square towers have survived - it is wrong. From the XI and XII centuries. Donjons have been preserved, both square and oblong - rectangular. Usually, vertically arranged flat and wide buttresses (or shoulder blades) ran along the outer walls; a square turret with a staircase adjoined the walls. In the earlier towers, the staircase was attached, leading directly to the second floor, from where it was already possible to penetrate the inner staircase to the upper and lower floors. In case of danger, ladders were removed.

By the XI-XII centuries. include French castles: Falaise, Arc, Beaugency, Bru, Salon, La Roche Crozet, Cross, Domfront, Montbaron, Saint Susan, More. Later (XII century) include: the castle of Att in Belgium (1150) and French castles: Chambois, Chauvigny, Conflans, Saint Emillion, Montbrune (c. 1180), Moncontour, Montelimar, etc.

At the end of the XI century. there is a polygonal tower: the hexagonal donjon of the castle of Gizor (department of Ere) belongs to 1097; it is possible that this tower was also rebuilt. This also includes the polygonal donjon of the 12th century. in Karentane (now in ruins), as well as a slightly newer donjon - in Chatillon. The donjon of the Saint Sauveur castle is elliptical. Round towers-donjons have castles of the 12th century. Chateauden and Laval. By the middle of the XII century. the dungeon of the castle in Etampes (the so-called tower of Ginette) belongs, which is a group of four round, as it were, fused towers; the keep of Houdan Castle, built between 1105 and 1137, is a cylinder with four adjoining circular turrets. Chateau Proven has an octagonal dungeon with four adjoining circular turrets. Some castles have two dungeons (Niort, Blanc, Verno). Of the donjons of the second half of the 12th century, which retained their rectangular shape, we note Niort, Chauvigny, Chatelier, Shatomur. Finally, in the XII century. the turrets appear in the guardrail of the keep. See Michel, ref. cit., vol. 1, p. 484; Enlart, Manuel d "archeologie francaisi, vol. II. Architecture monastique, civile, militaire et navale, 1903, p. 215 et seq .; Viollet le Duc, Dictionnaire raisonne de l" architecture francaise, 1875. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

The main round tower is Kusi; square shape - Vincennes and Pierrefonds. The main towers at Etampes and Andely have a scalloped outline (Fig. 361, K).

In the XIII century. the main tower serves exclusively as a refuge (Kusi), in the XIV century. it is adapted for living (Pierrefonds).

The evolution of the purpose of individual buildings of the castle went from the combination in the keep of the functions of housing, defense and economic (more precisely, storage functions, storerooms) - in the period of Romanesque architecture, to the differentiation of these functions - in the Gothic era. Later, by the end of the Gothic and the beginning of the Renaissance (from the end of the XIV century,), in connection with a shift in all areas of culture, in particular in connection with the appearance of artillery, a new redistribution of functions takes place. Donjon and other fundamental buildings of the castle are allocated for housing, that is, the castle begins to turn into a palace, and the defense is transferred to the approaches to the castle - walls, moats and bastions. Finally, in the era of absolutism, the castle completely (or with the smallest exceptions) loses its defensive functions, ceases to be a fortress and finally turns into a palace or a manor house; along with this, the fortress receives its independence as a military defense structure, which is part of a single system of offensive and defense of the noble and noble-bourgeois state. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

Rice. 372 shows a sectional view of the main tower at Kusi. For defense, there are: a ring-shaped fence around the tower, encircling a wide ditch and including a gallery for countermines, at the top - stocks of shells for mounted shooting, laid on the upper platform. The walls are not cut through with loopholes, like the walls of ordinary towers, and the halls located inside the floors are barely lit; this tower is not adapted either for permanent housing or for defense with light weapons: it is a redoubt, where, obviously, small defenses were neglected and everything was prepared for the last defensive effort.

Castle buildings. - The buildings located in the fence are the barracks for the garrison, a large gallery serving as a place for court and meetings, a hall for festivities and gala dinners, a chapel and, finally, a prison.

The gallery, the "big hall", is the main room. The vaults make it an ice-cold vaults, the thrust of which is perceived along the entire length only by vertical walls, would turn out to be fragile if undermined with a glanders; the large hall is covered only with a wooden roof (Coucy, Pierrefonds).

When the hall is two-story, then for the same reasons that we talked about about the towers, vaults are allowed only on the lower floor.

To make the spread of the vaults the least dangerous, it is reduced by the introduction of intermediate abutments; These abutments never have supporting elements in the form of buttresses protruding outward, which could facilitate access for the enemy. If there are buttresses, then they are placed on the side of the courtyard. From the outside, a blank wall serves as a support.

The chapel is located in the courtyard of the castle: this arrangement reduces the inconvenience arising from its vaults. In the castle of Coucy and in the palace in the ancient part of Paris (Palais de la Cite), the chapels were two-story, with one floor being on the same level with the living quarters.

The prisons are usually located in basements; in most cases, these are dark and unhealthy rooms.

As for the torture hall and wells, only in a few cases is it possible to establish this purpose with certainty: usually torture rooms are mixed with kitchen buildings, and simple latrines are mistaken for rooms for prisoners.

In the living quarters, as in the fortifications, the architect strove primarily for the independence of the individual parts: as far as possible, each room has a separate staircase, which completely isolates it. This independence, coupled with a certain complexity of the plan, in which it is easy to get confused, served as a guarantee against conspiracies and surprise attacks; all complex transitions were done on purpose.

Rice. 370.

Rice. 371.

Rice. 372.

For a long time the comforts of housing were sacrificed to the defense. The living quarters were cramped, had no external windows, except for small openings that looked out into the courtyard, gloomy from the high walls.

Finally, in the last years of the XIV century. the need for comfort gains an advantage over the precautions of defense: the lord's dwelling is also being illuminated from the outside.

The illumination of the seigneur's dwelling (castle) with windows pierced in the outer fortress wall is explained not only by the fact that the feudal lords' need for comfort receives in the XIV century. preponderance over the precautions of defense, and a change in the defense system - when earthen fortifications, etc., are being erected in front of the castle, to which the main functions of defense are transferred when artillery is put into action. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

In the Château de Coucy, both large rooms were redesigned under Louis Orleans: they had windows to the outside. The same lord who built the castle Pierrefonds gave the living rooms in the main tower a convenient location.

The Louvre, built under Charles V by the architect Raymond du Temple, was one of the first castles with a library and monumental staircase.

The plan for the Château de Vincennes seems to have in mind mainly the objectives of defense. Castles of Chateauden, Montargis - at the same time I am comfortable dwellings and fortresses. Such are the palaces in the ancient part of Paris, built under Philip the Handsome, the palaces-residences of the Dukes of Burgundy in Dijon and Paris, and the palace of the Counts de Poitiers.

Castle Crac des Chevaliers (French. Crac des Chevaliers - "Castle of the Knights"). Syria

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE DEFENSE SYSTEM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Let's return to the overview of the fortresses in the true sense of the word. We have already looked at them from the point of view of the defense system; we will try to establish precisely the origin of this system and the changes that it is experiencing as it approaches a new time, when firearms also begin to take part in the attack.

Origin. - The most ancient fortresses, sharply differing in their appearance from the monuments of the Byzantine Empire, are located in Normandy or in areas subject to its influence: Falaise, Le Pen, Donfron, Losh, Chauvigny, Dover, Rochester, Newcastle.

There are still reports of the existence on the territory of France and Germany of wooden fortifications-castles in the 9th and 10th centuries, that is, in the so-called Carolingian time, but we have no reason to consider them a product of Byzantine influence and talk about their similarity with the corresponding structures of Byzantium IX-X centuries, all the more so. Choisy wants to establish three stages in the development of Western European fortifications, taking as a basis a very shaky and methodologically incorrect criterion of borrowing.

Linking the appearance of early castles in Western Europe with the influence of Byzantine culture, Choisy reflects the theory that existed in Western European science, which recognized the influence of Byzantine culture and art as the main or significant factor in the formation of Romanesque art. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

These castles of the XI and XII centuries. consist of only one square tower (donjon), surrounded by walls. It is the embodiment in solid materials of the palisade blockhouses that the Norman pirates erected as refuge and strongholds on the coasts where they carried out their pirate raids.

Although the Norman fortresses impress with their size, at the same time they testify to the fact that the art of military defense was at that time in its infancy. Only by the end of the XII century. in the fortresses built by Richard the Lionheart, ingenious constructions appear for the first time.

Andely Castle creates an era in Western military architecture. It implements a skillfully designed tower plan without "dead corners"; in it we find the earliest application of the idea of ​​mashikuli, which took about two more centuries to become widespread.

The time of the construction of Andely's castle coincides with the return of Western European knighthood from the third crusade, that is, with the era of the formation of defense art in Syria.

Even before the Andely castle, Krak and Margat had fences with double lines of fortifications, methodically coordinated, walls with mashikuli and an impeccable system of flank cover. The fence of the castle of the Counts of Ghent, built in 1180, as Gyolafua noted, with its architectural details resembles Iranian art. Gyolafoy sees in these conversions evidence of Eastern influences; and everything seems to confirm this continuity.

Choisy is a supporter of the theory of borrowings and influences, which in the field of medieval culture and art stood, in the person of its largest representatives, on orientalist positions: these researchers were looking for the sources of the emergence and development of medieval culture in the East. From the point of view of the conclusions of this theory, they are trying to resolve the issue of the origin and formation of the medieval castles of Dieulafoy, and after him the Choisy. Both the first and the second completely bypass the theory of the origin of the medieval castle from the late Roman turres or burgi, i.e. towers (see note 1), which had different shapes: square, round, elliptical, octagonal and complex - semicircular outside, but tetrahedral inside ... Some of these towers, or rather their foundations, were used in the construction of feudal castles, some were turned into church towers, and some remained in ruins (see Otte, Geischen. Baukunst in Deutschland, Leipzig 1874, p. 16).

The theory of the origin of a medieval castle from burgi, operating with a number of valuable facts and interesting considerations, still suffers from schematism and does not take into account the cultural interactions with which the development of a medieval castle is associated. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

We have already given a description of a fortified front in two lines of defense. It applies equally to the French fortifications of Andely and Carcassoia, to the Syrian castles of Krak and Tortosa and to the Byzantine fortifications of Constantinople, or, going back to antiquity, to the fortified places of Iran and Chaldea. All data suggest that. these building techniques - as ancient as the Asian civilization itself - were introduced by the crusaders.

Local options. - However, different countries, inspired by the traditional principles of the East, managed to give military architecture their own special character: just as cult art has its own schools and successively changing centers, serf architecture also has its centers.

In the 11th century, during the era of William the Conqueror, the building of fortress was awakened, apparently, in Normandy. From there it is transferred to Touraine, Poitou and England.

In the 12th century, when the "holy land" was conquered by the crusaders, Palestine was the classical fortification country. Here, in the colossal fortresses that the Middle Ages left us, apparently, the system was formed, the principles of which were brought to France by Richard the Lionheart.

Then, during the 13th century, the center moves to the Ile de France, from where the cult art was already spreading. Here the type of medieval castle is finally formed, and here we find its fullest application; it was in central France that it was built in the 13th century. the castle of Coucy, at the end of the XIV century - Pierrefonds and Ferte Milon. The fortifications of Carcassonne and Aigues Mortes, built under the rule of the royal seneschals, belong to the same school.

Choisy establishes three stages, three stages in the development of a medieval castle: the first, as indicated, is the period of Byzantine influence, the second is the period of the spread across Europe of the type of castle that developed in Normandy, and finally, the third is the time of the influence of the fortifications of Syria and Palestine, even Iran; local variants include the Ile de France castles (XIII century), the type of which spreads throughout France in the XIII-XIV centuries. Thus, following Choisy, here we can talk about the fourth stage - the period of influence of Ile de France. About the successive connection between the specified structures of the XII-XIII centuries. and buildings of the XI century. and with earlier Choisy he is silent, since this would contradict the theory accepted by him.

The question of the origin of the medieval castle is one of the particulars of the problem of the formation of medieval architecture and should be resolved in the same plane as the questions concerning the formation of other architectural types, in particular religious buildings - Western European basilicas. Assimilating the ancient heritage and the heritage of various "new" peoples (in particular the Normans) who conquered Europe, the new class - feudal lords - adapted the remaining burgi to the needs of housing and to the tasks of defense and attack in a feudal war. Among the typological diversity of burgi or turres, a square tower begins to displace other forms, but at the same time it itself changes its shape: the type of rectangular tower with its own characteristics becomes predominant. In this essentially new type, medieval castles began to be built in the 9th-10th centuries; at first, these were mainly wooden structures, then stone ones, which during their development could not help but master a number of features of similar structures in other countries (compare the change of the T-shaped basilica, the so-called early Christian, into a cruciform Romanesque basilica). The successive connection (but not borrowing) of the medieval castle and the late Roman castella and burg is emphasized in the names of the castle: in Germany "Burg", in England - "Castle". approx. ON THE. Kozhin

Fortifications closest to the French type are found in the Germanic countries: in Landeck, Trifels and Nuremberg. Flank covers are more rare here; with this exception, the overall system remains the same.

In England, the castle initially followed the form of a tower (donjon) of a Norman fortress. But, as the feudal regime gives way to the authority of the central government, the castle turns into a villa, the buildings of which are located in a barely fenced space and which from the XIV century. retains only the decorative side of the defenses.

In Italy, the fortress has a simpler appearance: the towers are usually square or octagonal, the plans are correct, as in the castle of Frederick III, known as Castel del Monte; in the latter, all buildings are inscribed in an octagonal plan, with towers at eight corners.

The Neapolitan castle was a square fort with adjoining towers. In Milan, where the dukes were related to the great builder of fortresses, Louis of Orleans, there was a castle, the plan of which was generally close to the French type. In general, Italy from the 15th century. is an agglomerate of small republics. Its military architectural monuments are mainly city walls and fortified municipal halls, not castles.

The Milan castle, the plan of which is close to a square (rectangular), is equipped with towers both in the corners and in the calculation of the flank defense. When establishing the distance between the towers and in other features, Vitruvius' instructions were apparently used, but taking into account the new conditions of defense in connection with the introduction of firearms. Vitruvius in De Architectura, Book 1, Chapter V. says:

"2. Further, the towers should be taken out of the outer part of the wall, so that during an attack of enemies it would be possible to hit their sides facing the towers from the right and left with projectiles. Most importantly, care should be taken that the approach to the wall during an attack was not easy, for why circle it along the edge of the steep so that the roads to the gate do not lead directly, but to the left. For if this is done this way, the attackers will be facing the wall with their right tank, an uncovered shield. The outline of the city should not be rectangular and not with protruding corners, but rounded so that the enemy can be observed from several places at once, cities with protruding corners are difficult to defend, since the corners serve as a cover for enemies rather than for citizens.

3. The thickness of the walls, in my opinion, should be made such that two armed men walking along them towards each other could freely disperse. Then, through the entire thickness of the walls, beams of burnt oil-tree should be laid as often as possible, so that the wall, connected on both sides by these beams, like braces, will forever retain its strength: for such a forest can not be damaged by rot, nor bad weather, nor time, but it is both buried in the ground and immersed in water, it is preserved without any damage and remains always suitable. So, this applies not only to the city walls, but also to the retaining structures, and all those of their walls, which should be built in the thickness of the city, being fastened in this way, will not soon undergo destruction.

4. The distances between the towers should be made so that they are no further than the flight of an arrow from one another, so that the attack of enemies on any of them can be repelled with scorpions and other throwing weapons, shooting from the towers and from the right and from left side. And the wall adjoining the inner parts of the towers must be separated by intervals equal to the width of the towers, and the transitions in the inner parts of the towers must be made cobbled and without iron fasteners. For if the enemy occupies any part of the wall, then the besieged will break such a platform and, if they manage quickly, they will not allow the enemy to penetrate the rest of the towers and walls without the risk of headlong flying down.

5. Towers should be made round or polygonal, for quadrangular ones are more likely to be destroyed by siege weapons, because the strikes of the rams break off their corners, while when they are rounded, they, as if driving wedges to the center, cannot cause damage. At the same time, the fortifications of the wall and towers turn out to be the most reliable in connection with the earthen ramparts, since neither rams, nor tunnels, nor other military weapons can damage them. "

For an illustration of the Milan castle, see the book S.P. Bartenev, Moscow Kremlin, 1912, vol. 1, pp. 35 and 36. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

The Italian school, apparently, had a rather strong influence on southern France: the connection between the two countries was established by the Angevin dynasty. The castle of King Rene in Tarascona was built according to the same plan as the Neapolitan castle; the papal palace in Avignon, with its large square towers, is in many ways reminiscent of an Italian fortress.

The influence of firearms. - The defense system described by us, designed almost exclusively for an assault, for undermining with a glanders or for a frontal attack with ladders, it seemed, should have been abandoned. From the moment firearms made a long-range attack possible. But this did not happen. The cannon appears on the battlefield since 1346; but for a whole century the defense system did not reckon with this new power, which can be explained by the slow development of siege artillery. The most skilful application of the medieval defense system comes from this transitional age; the great era of battlement-based defense art coincides with the period of internal unrest during the reign of Charles VI. Pierrefonds date back to around 1400.

In the castle of Pierrefonds, as can be seen in the illustration in the book of Choisy, there are not only corner towers, but there are also towers in the walls, in the middle of each side of the fortress. These intermediate towers are essential for flank defense and give some reason to assume that Vitruvius' instructions were taken into account not only in Italy, but also in Northern Europe. approx. ON THE. Kozhin

The only innovation, the appearance of which was caused by new means of attack, consisted in small earth embankments that covered the guns and were placed in front of the walls with towers and mashikuli.

At first glance, one method of defense seems to exclude the other, but the engineers of the 15th century. judged differently.

In those days, the cannon was still too imperfect a weapon to destroy walls from afar, despite the enormous size of the shells it threw out. To punch a hole, individual strikes are not enough, you need to concentrate accurate shooting at a certain point; but the sight was not accurate, and the shooting caused only a concussion, which could destroy the parapet, but not punch a hole. They fired only with "bombs", and their impact on the wall was of little danger. The high walls were able to withstand the action of this rudimentary artillery for a long time. The means employed at Pierrefonds were sufficient: batteries installed in front of the walls kept the attacker at a distance. If the enemy crossed the line of fire of the forward batteries, then he had to put his artillery under fire from the fortress or dig underneath; in the first case, the advantage of the defenders was given by hinged fire from the ridge of the fortress walls, in the other, the Gothic fortification completely retained its significance.

The resulting combination of the two systems will continue to exist until the firearms acquire sufficient aiming accuracy to punch holes at a distance.

Among the first fortresses with platforms or casemates for firing guns, it is necessary to name: in France - Langres; in Germany, Lubeck and Nuremberg; in Switzerland - Basel; in Italy, the Milan castle, in which bastions with casemates were covered by curtains, still equipped with massive towers with mashiculi.

In the XVI century. earthen fortifications are considered almost the only serious defense; they stop counting on the towers, and the farther and wider windows are cut through their walls. However, they continue to persist - especially in those countries where the feudal system left its deep imprint - the external forms of the defense system, which, in fact, have already been abandoned: the castle of Amboise with massive towers was built under Charles VII, Chaumont - under Louis XII, Chambord - under Francis I.

The traditional parts of the castle are adapted, as far as possible, for other purposes: in the Chaumont castle, inside the round towers, there are more or less well-inscribed square rooms; in the Chambord castle, the towers serve as offices or stairwells; mashikuli turned into a deaf arcature. These are completely free decorative options based on the motives of ancient fortress architecture.

A new society has been created, the needs of which are no longer satisfied by medieval art - it needs a new architecture. The general foundations of this new architecture will be created in accordance with the new requirements, and the forms will be borrowed from Italy. This will be the Renaissance.

Auguste Choisy. History of architecture. Auguste Choisy. Histoire De L "Architecture

Has led to a boom in castle construction, but the process of building a fortress from scratch is far from easy.

Bodiam Castle, East Sussex, founded in 1385

1) Carefully choose the place to build

It is imperative to build your castle on an elevated position and at a strategic point.

Castles were usually erected on natural elevations, and were usually equipped with a link to the external environment, such as a ford, bridge or passage.

Historians have rarely been able to find evidence of contemporaries regarding the choice of the site for the construction of the castle, but they still exist. On September 30, 1223, 15-year-old King Henry III arrived in Montgomery with his army. The king, who successfully conducted a military campaign against the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Iorvert, was going to build a new castle in this area to ensure security on the border of his possessions. The English carpenters were given the task of preparing the timber a month earlier, but the king's advisers had only now determined the place for the construction of the castle.



Montgomery Castle, when it began to be built in 1223, was located on a hill

After a careful survey of the area, they selected a point at the very edge of the ledge above the Severn valley. According to chronicler Roger Wendoversky, this position "looked impregnable to anyone." He also noted that the castle was created "for the safety of the region from the frequent attacks of the Welsh."

Advice: Identify the places where the topography rises above the transport routes: these are natural sites for castles. Keep in mind that the design of the castle is determined by the place of construction. For example, a castle will have a dry moat on a ledge of outcropping.

2) Have a workable plan

You will need a master bricklayer who can draw plans. An engineer who is versed in weapons will also come in handy.

Experienced soldiers may have their own ideas for the design of the castle, in terms of the shape of its buildings and their location. But they are unlikely to have knowledge of the level of specialists in design and construction.

To implement the idea required a master mason - an experienced builder, whose hallmark was the ability to draw a plan. Understanding practical geometry, he used simple tools such as a ruler, square, and compasses to create architectural plans. The master masons presented the drawing with the building plan for approval, and during the construction they supervised its construction.

When Edward II ordered the tower to be built at Narsborough, he personally approved plans and demanded construction reports.

When Edward II began in 1307 to build a huge residential tower at Narsborough Castle in Yorkshire for his favorite Pierce Gaveston, he not only personally approved the plan drawn up by the London master mason Hugh Tichmarshevsky - probably drawn in the form of a drawing - but also required regular construction reports. ... From the mid-16th century onwards, a new group of professionals called engineers increasingly began to take on a role in the development of plans and the construction of fortifications. They had the technical knowledge of the use and power of cannons, both for defense and for attacking castles.

Advice: Plan loopholes for a wide angle of attack. Shape them according to the weapon you use: archers with large bows need large slopes, crossbowmen need smaller ones.

3) Hire a large group of experienced workers

You will need thousands of people. And not necessarily all of them will come of their own free will.

Great efforts were required to build the castle. We do not have documentary evidence of the construction of the first castles in England since 1066, but from the scale of many castles of that period it becomes clear why some chronicles claim that the British were under the yoke of building castles for their Norman conquerors. But from the later time of the Middle Ages, some estimates with detailed information have come down to us.

During the invasion of Wales in 1277, King Edward I began building a castle in Flint, northeastern Wales. It was erected quickly, thanks to the rich resources of the crown. A month after the start of work, in August, 2,300 people were involved in the construction, including 1270 excavators, 320 woodcutters, 330 carpenters, 200 masons, 12 blacksmiths and 10 coal burners. All of them were driven from the surrounding lands under an armed escort, who made sure that they did not defect from the construction.

Periodically, foreign specialists could be involved in the construction. For example, millions of bricks for the rebuilding of Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire in the 1440s were installed by a certain Baldwin "Docheman", or Dutchman, that is, "Dutchman" - obviously a foreigner.

Advice: depending on the size of the workforce and the distance it has traveled, it may be necessary to provide them with accommodation at the construction site.

4) Ensure the safety of the construction site

An unfinished castle on enemy territory is very vulnerable to attacks.

To build a castle on enemy territory, you need to defend the construction site from attacks. For example, you can enclose a construction site with wooden fortifications or a low stone wall. Such medieval defense systems sometimes remained after the construction of the building as an additional wall - for example, in the castle of Bomaris, the construction of which began in 1295.

Bomaris (English Beaumaris, Wall. Biwmares) is a city on the island of Anglesey, Wales.

Safe communication with the outside world is also important for the delivery of building materials and provisions. In 1277, Edward I dug a canal to the Kluid River directly from the sea and to the site of his new castle in Rüdlan. The outer wall, built to protect the construction site, extended to the quays on the banks of the river.

Rüdlan castle

Security problems can also arise during a radical reconstruction of an existing castle. When Henry II was rebuilding Dover Castle in the 1180s, the work was carefully planned out so that the fortifications would provide protection for the duration of the renovation. According to the surviving decrees, work on the inner wall of the castle began only when the tower had already been sufficiently renovated for a guard to be on duty.

Advice: Building materials for the construction of the castle are large and voluminous. If possible, it is best to transport them by water, even if it requires building a dock or canal.

5) Prepare the landscape

When building a castle, you may have to move an impressive amount of land, which is expensive.

It is often forgotten that the fortifications of the castle were built not only at the expense of architectural techniques, but also at the expense of landscape design. Huge resources were allocated to move land. The scale of the Normans' earthworks can be considered outstanding. For example, according to some estimates, the embankment erected in 1100 around Pleshi Castle in Essex took 24,000 man-days.

Several aspects of the landscape work required serious skills, especially the creation of ditches. When Edward I rebuilt the Tower of London in the 1270s, he hired a foreign expert, Walter Flandersky, to create a huge tidal ditch. Ditching under his direction cost £ 4,000, a staggering amount, almost a quarter of the cost of the entire project.

An 18th century engraving of the Tower of London plan from 1597 shows how much land had to be moved to build ditches and ramparts.

With the increasing role of cannons in the art of siege, the earth began to play an even more important role as an absorber of cannon shots. Interestingly, experience in moving large amounts of land has allowed some fortification engineers to find work as a garden designer.

Advice: Reduce time and costs by excavating masonry for the castle walls from the moats around it.

6) lay the foundation

Carefully bring the mason's plan to life.

By using ropes of the correct length and pegs it was possible to mark the foundation of a building on the ground in full size. After the foundation ditches were dug, work began on the masonry. To save money, the responsibility for the construction was assigned to the senior bricklayer instead of the master bricklayer. In the Middle Ages, clutches were usually measured in childbirth, one English genus = 5.03 m. In Workworth, Northumberland, one of the most complex bachets stands on a lattice of genera, possibly for the purpose of calculating construction costs.

Warkworth Castle

Often the construction of medieval castles was accompanied by detailed documentation. In 1441-42, the tower of Tatbury Castle in Staffordshire was destroyed and a plan for its successor was drawn up on the ground. But the Prince of Stafford, for some reason, was dissatisfied. The king's master mason, Robert of Westerley, was sent to Tatbury, where he held a meeting with two senior masons to design a new tower at a new location. Westerley then left, and over the next eight years, a small group of workers, including four junior bricklayers, built the new tower.

Senior masons could be recruited to validate the quality of the work, as was the case at Cooling Castle in Kent when the royal mason Heinrich Hewel evaluated the work carried out from 1381 to 1384. He criticized the deviations from the original plan and rounded down the estimate.

Advice: don't be fooled by the master mason. Get him to make a plan that makes it easy to budget.

7) fortify your castle

Finish the building with sophisticated fortifications and specialized timber structures.

Until the 12th century, the fortifications of most castles consisted of earth and logs. And although later the preference was given to stone buildings, wood remained a very important material in medieval wars and fortifications.

Stone castles were prepared for attacks by adding special battle galleries along the walls, as well as shutters that could close the gaps between the battlements to protect the defenders of the castle. All this was made of wood. Heavy weapons used to defend the castle, catapults and heavy crossbows, springalds were also built of wood. The artillery was usually developed by a highly paid professional carpenter, sometimes bore the title of engineer, from the Latin "ingeniator".

Storming the castle, drawing of the 15th century

Such experts were not cheap, but could cost their weight in gold as a result. This, for example, happened in 1266, when Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire resisted Henry III for almost six months with catapults and water defenses.

There are records of camp castles made entirely of wood - they could be transported with you and erected as needed. One such was built for the French invasion of England in 1386, but the Calais garrison captured it along with the ship. It was described as consisting of a wall of logs 20 feet high and 3,000 paces long. Every 12 steps there was a 30-foot tower capable of sheltering up to 10 soldiers, and the castle also had unspecified protection for riflemen.

Advice: Oak wood gets stronger over the years and is easiest to work with when it is green. The upper branches of the trees are easy to transport and shape.

8) Provide water and drainage

Don't forget about the "amenities." You will appreciate them in case of a siege.

The most important aspect for the castle was efficient access to water. These could be wells supplying water to certain buildings, for example, a kitchen or a stable. Without a detailed acquaintance with the medieval well mines, it is difficult to give them their due. For example, at Beeston Castle in Cheshire, there is a well 100 m deep, the top 60 m of which is lined with hewn stone.

There is some evidence that complex plumbing systems existed to bring water to the apartment. The tower of Dover Castle has a lead pipe system that brings water to the rooms. It was fed from a well with a winch, and possibly from a rainwater harvesting system.

Effective disposal of human waste was another challenge for the castle designers. Lavatories were collected in one place in buildings so that their shafts were emptied in one place. They were housed in short corridors that trapped unpleasant odors and were often equipped with wooden seats and removable covers.

Thought room at Chipchase Castle

It is now widely believed that toilets used to be called "wardrobes." In fact, the vocabulary for toilets was vast and colorful. They were called gongs or gangs (from the Anglo-Saxon word for "place to go"), nooks and crannies and jakes (French for "john").

Advice: Ask the master mason to plan out comfortable and secluded latrines outside the bedroom, following the example of Henry II and Dover Castle.

9) Decorate as needed

The castle should not only be well guarded - its inhabitants, possessing a high status, demanded a certain chic.

During the war, the castle must be protected - but it also serves as a luxurious home. The noble gentlemen of the Middle Ages expected their dwelling to be both comfortable and richly furnished. In the Middle Ages, these citizens traveled with servants, things and furniture from one residence to another. But home interiors often had fixed decorative features, such as stained glass windows.

Henry III's tastes in the setting are recorded very carefully, with interesting and engaging details. In 1235-36, for example, he ordered that his hall at Winchester Castle be decorated with images of the world map and the wheel of fortune. Since then, these decorations have not survived, but the well-known King Arthur Round Table, created possibly between 1250 and 1280, remains in the interior.

Winchester Castle with King Arthur's round table hanging on the wall

The large area of ​​the castles played an important role in the luxurious life. The parks were created for hunting, a jealously guarded privilege of the aristocrats; gardens were also in demand. The surviving description of the construction of Kirby Maxloe Castle in Leicestershire says that its owner, Lord Hastings, began to lay out the gardens at the very beginning of the construction of the castle in 1480.

In the Middle Ages, rooms with beautiful views were also loved. One of the thirteenth-century groups of rooms in the castles of Leeds in Kent, Corfe in Dorset and Chepstow in Monmothshire was named gloriettes (from the French gloriette - diminutive of glory) for their magnificence.

Advice: The interior of the castle should be luxurious enough to attract visitors and friends. Entertainment can win battles without having to expose oneself to the dangers of combat.

There are few things in the world more interesting than the knightly castles of the Middle Ages: these majestic fortresses breathe evidence of distant eras with grandiose battles, they saw both the most perfect nobility and the most vile betrayal. And not only historians and experts in military affairs are trying to unravel the secrets of ancient fortifications. The Knight's Castle is interesting to everyone - a writer and a layman, an avid tourist and a simple housewife. This is, so to speak, a mass artistic image.

How the idea was born

A very turbulent time - in addition to the big wars, the feudal lords constantly fought with each other. Neighborly, so that it is not boring. The aristocrats fortified their homes from invasion: at first, only a ditch would be dug in front of the entrance and a wooden palisade would be erected. With the acquisition of siege experience, the fortifications became more and more powerful - so that the ram could withstand and the stone cores were not afraid. In antiquity, this is how the Romans surrounded the army with a palisade on vacation. The Normans began to build stone structures, and it was only in the 12th century that the classical European knightly castles of the Middle Ages appeared.

Turning into a fortress

Gradually, the castle turned into a fortress, it was surrounded by a stone wall, into which high towers were built. The main goal is to make the knight's castle inaccessible to attackers. At the same time, be able to monitor the entire district. The castle must have its own source of drinking water - suddenly a long siege is ahead.

The towers were built in such a way as to hold any number of enemies for as long as possible, even alone. For example, they are narrow and so steep that a warrior walking in second cannot help the first in anything - not with a sword or a spear. And it was necessary to climb them counterclockwise so as not to hide behind a shield.

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Imagine a mountain slope on which a knight's castle is erected. Photo attached. Such structures were always built at a height, and if there was no natural suitable landscape, they made a fill mound.

A knight's castle in the Middle Ages is not only about knights and feudal lords. There have always been small settlements around and around the castle, where all kinds of artisans settled and, of course, warriors guarding the perimeter.

Those walking along the road are always turned with their right side to the fortress, those that cannot be covered with a shield. There is no high vegetation - do not hide. The first obstacle is the moat. It can be around the castle or across between the castle wall and the plateau, even crescent, if the terrain allows.

There are ditches even within the castle: if the enemy suddenly managed to break through, movement will be very difficult. If the soil is rocky - a ditch is not needed, digging under the wall is impossible. The earthen rampart right in front of the moat was often with a palisade.

The bridge to the outer wall was made in such a way that the defense of the knight's castle in the Middle Ages could last for years. It is lifting. Either the whole or its extreme segment. In the raised position - vertically - it provides additional protection for the gate. If a part of the bridge was raised, the other was automatically lowered into the moat, where the "wolf's pit" was set up - a surprise for the most hasty attackers. The Knight's Castle in the Middle Ages was not hospitable to everyone.

Gate and gate tower

Knight's castles of the Middle Ages were most vulnerable just in the area of ​​the gate. Latecomers could enter the castle through the side gate via the lifting ramp, if the bridge was already raised. The gates themselves were most often not built into the wall, but were arranged in the gate towers. Usually bivalves, from several layers of boards, were sheathed with iron to protect themselves from arson.

Locks, bolts, cross beams, sliding across the opposite wall - all this helped to hold out in the siege for quite a long time. Behind the gates, moreover, a powerful iron or wooden lattice was usually lowered. This is how the knightly castles of the Middle Ages were equipped!

The gate tower was arranged so that the guards guarding it could learn from the guests the purpose of the visit and, if necessary, treat them with an arrow from the vertical loophole. For a real siege, holes for boiling tar were built in there.

Defense of a knight's castle in the Middle Ages

The most important defensive element. It should be tall, thick and better if on a plinth at an angle. The foundation underneath it is as deep as possible - in case of undermining.

Sometimes there is a double wall. Next to the first high one there is a small inner one, but impregnable without devices (ladders and poles that remained outside). The space between the walls - the so-called zwinger - is being shot through.

The outer wall at the top is equipped for the defenders of the fortress, sometimes even with a weather canopy. The teeth on it existed not only for beauty - it was convenient to hide behind them at full height in order to recharge, for example, a crossbow.

The loopholes in the wall were adapted for both archers and crossbowmen: narrow and long - for a bow, with an extension - for a crossbow. Ball loopholes are a fixed but rotatable ball with a shooting slot. Balconies were built mainly decorative, but if the wall is narrow, then they were used, retreating and letting the rest pass.

Medieval knights' towers were almost always built with convex towers at the corners. They protruded outward to fire along the walls in both directions. The inner side was open so that the enemy who penetrated the walls would not gain a foothold inside the tower.

What's inside?

In addition to the Zwingers, other surprises could be expected outside the gates of the intruders. For example, a small closed courtyard with loopholes in the walls. Sometimes castles were built from several self-contained sections with powerful internal walls.

There was always a courtyard inside the castle with a household - a well, a bakery, a bathhouse, a kitchen and a donjon - the central tower. Much depended on the location of the well: not only health, but also the life of the besieged. It happened that (remember that the castle, if not just on a hill, then on the rocks) was more expensive than all the other buildings of the castle. The Thuringian Kuffhäuser Castle, for example, has a well over one hundred and forty meters deep. In the rock!

Central tower

Donjon is the tallest structure of the castle. From there, the surroundings were monitored. And it is the central tower that is the last refuge of the besieged. The most reliable! The walls are very thick. The entrance is extremely narrow and located at a high altitude. The staircase leading to the door could be pulled in or destroyed. Then the knight's castle can hold the siege for quite a long time.

At the base of the keep was a basement, a kitchen, a pantry. Further there were floors with stone or wood floors. The stairs were wooden, with stone floors they could be burned to stop the enemy on the way.

The main hall was located on the whole floor. Heated by a fireplace. Above, the rooms of the family of the owner of the castle were usually located. There were small stoves decorated with tiles.

At the very top of the tower, most often open, there is a platform for a catapult and, most importantly, a banner! Medieval knightly castles were distinguished not only by chivalry. There were cases when the knight and his family did not use the donjon for housing, having built a stone palace (palace) not far from it. Then the donjon served as a warehouse, even a prison.

And, of course, every knight's castle must have a temple. The obligatory inhabitant of the castle is the chaplain. Often he is both a clerk and a teacher, in addition to his main job. In rich castles, churches were two-story, so that the gentlemen would not pray next to the rabble. The owner's ancestral tomb was also built within the boundaries of the temple.

You write about the baron in the castle - if only you can imagine how the castle was heated, how it was ventilated, how it was illuminated ...
From an interview with G.L. Oldie

At the word “castle”, the image of a majestic fortress arises in our imagination - the hallmark of the fantasy genre. There is hardly any other architectural structure that would attract so much attention from historians, experts in military affairs, tourists, writers and fans of “fairytale” fantasy.

We play computer games, board games and role-playing games where we have to explore, build or capture impregnable castles. But do we know what these fortifications really are? What interesting stories are associated with them? What do the stone walls hide behind them - witnesses of entire eras, grandiose battles, knightly nobility and vile betrayal?

Surprisingly, the fact is that the fortified dwellings of feudal lords in different parts of the world (Japan, Asia, Europe) were built according to very similar principles and had many common design features. But this article will focus primarily on medieval European feudal fortresses, since they served as the basis for the creation of a mass artistic image of the “medieval castle” as a whole.

The birth of a fortress

The Middle Ages in Europe were a turbulent time. Feudal lords on any occasion arranged small wars among themselves - or rather, not even wars, but, in modern language, armed "showdowns". If a neighbor had money, it had to be taken away. Lots of land and peasants? This is simply indecent, because God commanded to share. And if knightly honor is offended, then here it was simply impossible to do without a small victorious war.

Under such circumstances, the large aristocratic landowners had no choice but to strengthen their homes with the expectation that one fine day neighbors may come to visit them, whom they do not feed with bread - let someone kill them.

Initially, these fortifications were made of wood and did not in any way resemble the castles known to us - except that a moat was dug in front of the entrance and a wooden palisade was placed around the house.

The courtyards of Hasterknaup and Elmendorv are the ancestors of castles.

However, progress did not stand still - with the development of military affairs, the feudal lords had to modernize their fortifications so that they could withstand a massive assault using stone cannonballs and rams.

The European castle has its roots in antiquity. The earliest structures of this kind were copied from Roman military camps (tents surrounded by a palisade). It is generally accepted that the tradition of building gigantic (by the standards of that time) stone structures began with the Normans, and classical castles appeared in the 12th century.

The besieged castle of Mortan (withstood the siege for 6 months).

Very simple requirements were imposed on the castle - it must be inaccessible to the enemy, provide observation of the area (including the nearest villages belonging to the owner of the castle), have its own source of water (in case of a siege) and perform representative functions - that is, show the power and wealth of the feudal lord.

Beaumari Castle, owned by Edward I.

welcome

We make our way to the castle, which stands on a ledge of a mountain slope at the edge of a fertile valley. The road goes through a small settlement - one of those that usually grew up near the fortress wall. Simple people live here - mostly artisans, and warriors guarding the outer perimeter of protection (in particular, guarding our road). This is the so-called "castle people".

The scheme of castle structures. Note - there are two gate towers, the largest one stands separately.

The road is laid in such a way that the aliens are always facing the castle with their right side, not covered by a shield. Directly in front of the fortress wall there is a bare plateau, which lies under a significant slope (the castle itself stands on an elevation - natural or embankment). The vegetation is not high here so that there is no cover for the attackers.

The first obstacle is a deep ditch, and in front of it is a shaft of excavated earth. The moat can be transverse (separating the castle wall from the plateau), or crescent-shaped, curved forward. If the landscape permits, the moat surrounds the entire castle in a circle.

Sometimes ditches were dug inside the castle, making it difficult for the enemy to move around its territory.

The bottom near the ditches could be V-shaped and U-shaped (the latter is the most common). If the soil under the castle is rocky, then the ditches were either not made at all, or they were cut down to a shallow depth that only impedes the advance of the infantry (it is almost impossible to dig under the castle wall in the rock - therefore the depth of the ditch was not decisive).

The crest of an earthen rampart, lying directly in front of the moat (which makes it seem even deeper), often carried a palisade - a fence made of wooden stakes dug into the ground, pointed and tightly fitted to each other.

A bridge over the moat leads to the outer wall of the castle. Depending on the size of the moat and bridge, the latter supports one or more supports (huge logs). The outer part of the bridge is fixed, but the last section of it (right next to the wall) is movable.

The scheme of the entrance to the castle: 2 - gallery on the wall, 3 - drawbridge, 4 - lattice.

Counterweights on the gate lift.

Castle gate.

This drawbridge is designed so that in an upright position it covers the gate. The bridge is propelled by mechanisms hidden in the building above them. Ropes or chains run from the bridge to the hoisting machines through the wall openings. To facilitate the work of the people serving the bridge mechanism, the ropes were sometimes equipped with heavy counterweights, which took some of the weight of this structure onto themselves.

Of particular interest is the bridge, which worked on the principle of a swing (it is called "overturning" or "swinging"). One half of it was inside - lying on the ground under the gate, and the other stretched across the moat. When the inner part rose, blocking the entrance to the castle, the outer one (which sometimes the attackers had already managed to run into) sank down into the moat, where the so-called "wolf's pit" was arranged (sharp stakes dug into the ground), invisible from the side, while the bridge is down.

To enter the castle with the gates closed, there was a side gate next to them, to which a separate ladder was usually laid.

The gates are the most vulnerable part of the castle, usually they were not made directly in its wall, but were arranged in the so-called "gate towers". Most often, the gates were double-winged, and the gates were hammered together from two layers of boards. To protect them from arson from the outside, they were upholstered with iron. At the same time, in one of the doors there was a small narrow door, through which one could only be bent over. In addition to locks and iron bolts, the gate was closed by a transverse beam lying in the wall channel and sliding into the opposite wall. The crossbeam could also be inserted into hook-like slots in the walls. Its main purpose was to protect the gate from being dropped by attackers.

There was usually a descending grate behind the gate. Most often it was made of wood, with the lower ends bound with iron. But there were also iron gratings made of steel four-sided rods. The lattice could descend from a gap in the arch of the portal of the gate, or be behind them (from the inside of the overhead tower), dropping along the grooves in the walls.

The lattice hung on ropes or chains, which in case of danger could be chopped off so that it quickly fell down, blocking the path of the invaders.

Inside the gate tower there were rooms for the guards. They kept watch on the upper platform of the tower, asked the guests about the purpose of their visit, opened the gates, and, if necessary, could strike from a bow all those who passed under them. For this, in the arch of the gate portal there were vertical loopholes, as well as “resin noses” - holes for pouring hot resin on the attackers.

Resin noses.

All on the wall!

The most important defensive element of the castle was the outer wall - high, thick, sometimes on an inclined plinth. Treated stones or bricks formed its outer surface. Inside, it consisted of rubble stone and slaked lime. The walls were placed on a deep foundation, under which it was very difficult to dig a tunnel.

Often double walls were built in castles - a high outer wall and a small inner one. An empty space appeared between them, which received the German name "zwinger". The attackers, overcoming the outer wall, could not take with them additional assault devices (bulky ladders, poles and other things that could not be carried inside the fortress). Once in the zwinger in front of another wall, they became an easy target (for archers, there were small loopholes in the walls of the zwinger).

Zwinger at Laneck Castle.

A gallery for defense soldiers ran along the top of the wall. From the outside of the castle, they were protected by a solid parapet half a man's height, on which stone battlements were regularly located. Behind them you could stand at full height and, for example, load a crossbow. The shape of the teeth was extremely varied - rectangular, rounded, in the form of a swallow's tail, decoratively decorated. In some castles, the galleries were covered (wooden canopy) to protect the warriors from bad weather.

In addition to the battlements, behind which it was convenient to hide, the walls of the castle were equipped with loopholes. The attackers were fired through them. Due to the peculiarities of the use of throwing weapons (freedom of movement and a certain firing position), loopholes for archers were long and narrow, and for crossbowmen they were short, with widening on the sides.

A special type of loophole is a ball loop. It was a freely rotating wooden ball fixed in the wall with a slot for firing.

Pedestrian gallery on the wall.

Balconies (the so-called "mashikuli") were very rarely installed in the walls - for example, in the case when the wall was too narrow for the free passage of several soldiers, and, as a rule, performed only decorative functions.

At the corners of the castle, small towers were erected on the walls, most often flanking (that is, protruding outward), which allowed the defenders to fire along the walls in two directions. In the late Middle Ages, they began to adapt to storage facilities. The inner sides of such towers (facing the castle courtyard) were usually left open so that the enemy who burst into the wall could not gain a foothold inside them.

Flanking corner tower.

Castle from the inside

The internal structure of the locks was diverse. In addition to the aforementioned zwingers, behind the main gate there could be a small rectangular courtyard with loopholes in the walls - a kind of "trap" for the attackers. At times, castles consisted of several “sections” separated by inner walls. But an indispensable attribute of the castle was a large courtyard (outbuildings, a well, premises for servants) and a central tower, also known as “donjon”.

Donjon at the Vincennes castle.

The life of all the inhabitants of the castle directly depended on the presence and location of the well. Problems often arose with him - after all, as mentioned above, castles were built on elevations. The solid rocky ground also did not facilitate the task of supplying water to the fortress. There are known cases of laying castle wells to a depth of more than 100 meters (for example, the Kuffheuser castle in Thuringia or the Königstein fortress in Saxony had wells more than 140 meters deep). It took one to five years to dig the well. In some cases, this consumed as much money as all the internal buildings of the castle were worth.

Due to the fact that water had to be difficult to get from deep wells, issues of personal hygiene and sanitation faded into the background. Instead of washing themselves, people preferred to take care of animals - first of all, expensive horses. It is not surprising that the townspeople and villagers wrinkled their noses in the presence of the inhabitants of the castles.

The location of the water source depended primarily on natural causes. But if there was a choice, the well was dug not in the square, but in a fortified room to provide it with water in case of shelter during a siege. If, due to the peculiarities of the occurrence of groundwater, a well was dug outside the castle wall, then a stone tower was erected above it (if possible, with wooden passages to the castle).

When there was no way to dig a well, a cistern was built in the castle, collecting rainwater from the roofs. Such water needed purification - it was filtered through gravel.

The military garrison of castles in peacetime was minimal. So in 1425, two co-owners of the Reichelsberg castle in the Lower Franconian Auba entered into an agreement that each of them exhibits one armed servant, and two gatekeepers and two guards are paid together.

The castle also had a number of buildings that ensure the autonomous life of its inhabitants in conditions of complete isolation (blockade): a bakery, a steam bath, a kitchen, etc.

Kitchen in the Marksburg castle.

The tower was the tallest structure in the entire castle. She provided the opportunity to observe the surroundings and performed the functions of the last refuge. When the enemy broke through all the lines of defense, the population of the castle took refuge in the keep and withstood a long siege.

The exceptional thickness of the walls of this tower made its destruction almost impossible (in any case, it would take a huge amount of time). The entrance to the tower was very narrow. It was located in a courtyard at a considerable (6-12 meters) height. The wooden staircase leading to the inside could be easily destroyed and thus block the path of the attackers.

Entrance to the keep.

There was sometimes a very high shaft inside the tower, going from top to bottom. She served as either a prison or a warehouse. The entrance to it was possible only through a hole in the vault of the upper floor - “Angstloch” (German - frightening hole). Depending on the purpose of the mine, the winch lowered prisoners or provisions there.

If there were no prison rooms in the castle, then the prisoners were placed in large wooden boxes made of thick boards, too small to stand up to their full height. These boxes could be installed anywhere in the castle.

Of course, they were taken prisoner, first of all, to obtain a ransom or to use the prisoner in a political game. Therefore, VIPs were provided according to the highest class - guarded chambers in the tower were allocated for their maintenance. This is exactly how Friedrich the Handsome "spent his term" in Trausnitz castle on Pfeimd and Richard the Lionheart in Trifels.

Chamber at Marksburg Castle.

The tower of the Abenberg castle (12th century) in section.

At the base of the tower there was a basement, which could also be used as a dungeon, and a kitchen with a pantry. The main hall (dining room, common room) occupied an entire floor and was heated by a huge fireplace (it spread heat only a few meters, so iron baskets with coals were placed further along the hall). Above were the chambers of the feudal lord's family, heated by small stoves.

At the very top of the tower there was an open (less often covered, but if necessary, the roof could be thrown off) platform where a catapult or other throwing weapon could be installed to fire at the enemy. The standard (banner) of the owner of the castle was also hoisted there.

Sometimes the donjon did not serve as living quarters. It could well be used only for military-economic purposes (observation posts on the tower, dungeon, food storage). In such cases, the family of the feudal lord lived in the "palace" - the living quarters of the castle, standing apart from the tower. The palaces were built of stone and had several floors in height.

It should be noted that the living conditions in the castles were far from the most pleasant. Only the largest carpets had a large knightly hall for celebrations. It was very cold in the donjons and rugs. The fireplace heating helped, but the walls were still covered with thick tapestries and carpets - not for decoration, but to keep warm.

The windows let in very little sunlight (the fortification nature of the castle architecture affected), not all of them were glazed. Toilets were arranged in the form of a bay window in the wall. They were unheated, so visiting the sanctuary in winter left people with a unique experience.

Castle toilet.

Concluding our “excursion” around the castle, one cannot fail to mention that there was necessarily a room for worship (temple, chapel) in it. Among the indispensable inhabitants of the castle was a chaplain or priest, who, in addition to his main duties, played the role of a clerk and teacher. In the most modest fortresses, the role of the temple was played by a wall niche, where there was a small altar.

Large temples had two floors. The commoners prayed below, and the gentlemen gathered in a warm (sometimes glazed) choir on the second tier. The decoration of such rooms was rather modest - an altar, benches and wall paintings. Sometimes the temple played the role of a tomb for the family living in the castle. Less commonly, it was used as a refuge (along with the keep).

Many tales are told about underground passages in castles. Of course, there were moves. But only a very few of them led from the castle somewhere to the neighboring forest and could be used as an escape route. As a rule, there were no long moves at all. Most often, there were short tunnels between individual buildings, or from the keep to the complex of caves under the castle (additional shelter, warehouse or treasury).

War on land and underground

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the average size of a military garrison of an ordinary castle during active hostilities rarely exceeded 30 people. This was quite enough for defense, since the inhabitants of the fortress were relatively safe outside its walls and did not suffer such losses as the attackers.

To capture the castle, it was required to isolate it - that is, to block all routes for the supply of food. That is why the attacking armies were much larger than the defending ones - about 150 people (this is true for the war of the middle feudal lords).

The food issue was the most painful. A person can live without water for several days, without food - for about a month (at the same time, one should take into account his low combat effectiveness during a hunger strike). Therefore, the owners of the castle, preparing for a siege, often went to extreme measures - they drove out of its borders all the commoners who could not benefit the defense. As mentioned above, the garrison of the castles was small - it was impossible to feed an entire army under siege conditions.

The inhabitants of the castle rarely launched counterattacks. This simply did not make sense - there were fewer of them than the attackers, and outside the walls they felt much calmer. Food outings are a special case. The latter were carried out, as a rule, at night, in small groups that walked along poorly guarded paths to the nearest villages.

The attackers had no less problems. The siege of castles sometimes stretched out for years (for example, the German Turant defended from 1245 to 1248), so the question of the rear supply of an army of several hundred people arose especially acute.

In the case of the siege of Turanta, chroniclers claim that during all this time, the soldiers of the attacking army drank 300 fuders of wine (a fuder is a huge barrel). This amounts to about 2.8 million liters. Either the scribe made a mistake, or the constant number of besiegers was more than 1,000.

Summer was the most preferred season for starving out the castle - it rains less than in spring or autumn (in winter, the inhabitants of the castle could get water by melting the snow), the harvest was not yet ripe, and the old stocks were already over.

The attackers tried to deprive the castle of a source of water (for example, they built dams on the river). In the most extreme cases, "biological weapons" were used - corpses were thrown into the water, which could provoke outbreaks of epidemics throughout the district. Those inhabitants of the castle who were captured were mutilated and released by the attackers. Those returned back, and became involuntary parasites. In the castle they might not have been accepted, but if they were the wives or children of the besieged, then the voice of the heart outweighed considerations of tactical expediency.

The inhabitants of the surrounding villages who tried to deliver supplies to the castle were treated no less cruelly. In 1161, during the siege of Milan, Friedrich Barbarossa ordered the hands of 25 citizens of Piacenza, who were trying to supply the enemies with provisions, to be cut off.

The besiegers set up a permanent camp near the castle. It also had some of the simplest fortifications (palisades, earthen ramparts) in case of a sudden attack by the defenders of the fortress. For protracted sieges, a so-called "counter-castle" was erected near the castle. Usually it was located higher than the besieged, which made it possible to conduct effective observation of the besieged from its walls and, if the distance allowed, to fire at them from throwing guns.

View of the Eltz castle from the Trutz-Eltz counter-castle.

The war against castles had its own specifics. After all, any more or less high stone fortification represented a serious obstacle for ordinary armies. Direct infantry attacks on the fortress could well have been crowned with success, which, however, came at the cost of great sacrifices.

That is why a whole complex of military measures was necessary for the successful capture of the castle (the siege and starvation was already mentioned above). Undermining was one of the most time-consuming, but at the same time extremely successful ways to overcome the defenses of the castle.

The excavations were made for two purposes - to provide troops with direct access to the courtyard of the castle, or to destroy a section of its wall.

So, during the siege of Altwindstein Castle in Northern Alsace in 1332, a sapper brigade of 80 (!) People took advantage of the diversionary maneuvers of their troops (periodic short attacks on the castle) and for 10 weeks made a long passage in solid rock to the southeastern part of the fortress ...

If the castle wall was not too large and had an unreliable foundation, then a tunnel broke through its base, the walls of which were reinforced with wooden struts. Then the spacers were set on fire - just under the wall. The tunnel collapsed, the base of the foundation sagged, and the wall above this place crumbled to pieces.

Storming the castle (miniature of the 14th century).

Later, with the advent of gunpowder weapons, bombs were planted in the trenches under the castle walls. To neutralize the undermining, the besieged sometimes dug counter-tunnels. Enemy sappers were poured with boiling water, bees were launched into the tunnel, feces were poured there (and in ancient times, the Carthaginians launched live crocodiles into Roman tunnels).

Curious devices were used to detect the trenches. For example, large copper bowls with balls inside were placed throughout the castle. If a ball in any bowl began to tremble, it was a sure sign that a tunnel was under way nearby.

But the main argument in the attack on the castle was siege machines - catapults and battering rams. The first ones were not much different from those catapults that were used by the Romans. These attachments were equipped with a counterweight to give the throwing arm the greatest force. With the proper skill of the "gun crew", the catapults were quite accurate weapons. They threw large, smoothly hewn stones, and the range of the battle (on average - several hundred meters) was regulated by the weight of the shells.

A type of catapult is a trebuchet.

Sometimes barrels filled with combustible materials were loaded into the catapults. To deliver a couple of pleasant minutes to the defenders of the castle, catapults threw the severed heads of prisoners to them (especially powerful machines could throw even whole corpses over the wall).

Storming the castle with a mobile tower.

In addition to the usual ram, pendulum ones were also used. They were fixed on high mobile frames with a canopy and were a log suspended from a chain. The besiegers hid inside the tower and swung the chain, forcing the log to hit the wall.

In response, the besieged lowered a rope from the wall, at the end of which steel hooks were fixed. With this rope, they caught the ram and tried to lift it up, depriving it of mobility. Sometimes a gape soldier could get caught on such hooks.

Having overcome the rampart, breaking the palisades and filling up the moat, the attackers either stormed the castle using stairs or used tall wooden towers, the upper platform of which was level with the wall (or even higher). These gigantic structures were doused with water to prevent arson by the defenders and rolled up to the castle along the plank flooring. A heavy platform was thrown onto the wall. The assault group climbed up the inner staircase, went out onto the platform and with a fight invaded the gallery of the fortress wall. This usually meant that in a couple of minutes the lock would be taken.

Silent glanders

Sapa (from the French sape, literally - a hoe, saper - to dig) - a method of fragments of a ditch, trench or tunnel to approach its fortifications, used in the 16-19 centuries. Known flap (quiet, secretive) and flying glanders. The work was carried out with a cross-over ditch from the bottom of the initial ditch without the workers coming to the surface, and the volatile work was carried out from the surface of the earth under the cover of a previously prepared protective embankment made of barrels and sacks of earth. In the second half of the 17th century, engineers appeared in the armies of a number of countries to carry out such work.

The expression to act "quietly" means: sneak, walk slowly, unnoticed, penetrate somewhere.

Fights on the stairs of the castle

From one floor of the tower, one could get to another only by a narrow and steep spiral staircase. The ascent along it was carried out only one after another - it was so narrow. At the same time, the warrior who walked first could only rely on his own ability to fight, for the steepness of the turn of the loop was selected in such a way that it was impossible to act with a spear or long sword from behind the leader. Therefore, the battles on the stairs were reduced to a single combat between the defenders of the castle and one of the attackers. Precisely the defenders, because they could easily replace each other, since a special extended area was located behind them.

All locks have clockwise staircases. There is only one reverse-twist lock - the fortress of the Wallenstein Counts. When studying the history of this genus, it was found that most of the men in it were left-handed. Thanks to this, historians realized that such a design of the stairs greatly facilitates the work of the defenders. The most powerful blow with the sword can be applied to the side of your left shoulder, and the shield in the left hand best covers the body from this direction. All these advantages are available only to the defender. The attacker can only strike to the right side, but his striking hand will be pressed against the wall. If he puts the shield forward, he will almost lose the ability to operate with a weapon.

Samurai castles

Himeji Castle.

The least we know about exotic castles - for example, Japanese.

Initially, samurai and their overlords lived in their estates, where, apart from the watchtower “yagura” and a small moat around the dwelling, there were no other defensive structures. In the event of a protracted war, fortifications were erected in hard-to-reach areas of the mountains, where it was possible to defend against superior enemy forces.

Stone castles began to be built at the end of the 16th century, taking into account European achievements in fortification. An indispensable feature of the Japanese castle is the wide and deep artificial ditches with steep slopes that surrounded it from all sides. Usually they were filled with water, but sometimes this function was performed by a natural water barrier - a river, lake, swamp.

Inside, the castle was a complex system of defensive structures, consisting of several rows of walls with courtyards and gates, underground corridors and labyrinths. All these structures were located around the honmaru central square, on which the feudal lord's palace and the high central tenshukaku tower were erected. The latter consisted of several, gradually decreasing upward, rectangular tiers with protruding tiled roofs and pediments.

Japanese castles were usually small - about 200 meters long and 500 meters wide. But among them there were also real giants. So, Odawara Castle occupied an area of ​​170 hectares, and the total length of its walls reached 5 kilometers, which is twice the length of the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.

The charm of antiquity

Castles are still under construction. Those of them that were in state ownership are often returned to the descendants of ancient clans. Castles are a symbol of the influence of their owners. They are an example of an ideal compositional solution, which combines fusion (defense considerations did not allow the picturesque distribution of buildings across the territory), multi-level buildings (main and secondary) and the ultimate functionality of all components. Elements of the castle architecture have already become archetypes - for example, a castle tower with battlements: its image sits in the subconscious of any more or less educated person.

French castle Saumur (14th century miniature).

Finally, we love castles because they are simply romantic. Knightly tournaments, receptions, dastardly conspiracies, secret passages, ghosts, treasures - in relation to castles, all this ceases to be a legend and turns into history. The expression “walls remember” fits perfectly here: it seems that every stone of the castle breathes and hides a secret. I would like to believe that medieval castles will continue to preserve an aura of mystery - after all, without it, they will sooner or later turn into an old heap of stones.