Medieval knight's castle. Medieval castles in Russia. Hever Castle, England

Medieval castle buildings

People at all times had to protect themselves and their property from the encroachments of their neighbors, and therefore the art of fortification, that is, the construction of fortifications, is very ancient. In Europe and Asia you can everywhere see fortresses built in ancient times and the Middle Ages, as well as in modern and even modern times. It may seem that a castle is just one of all the other fortifications, but in reality it is very different from the fortifications and fortresses that were built in previous and subsequent times. The large Celtic “dunes” of the Iron Age, built on the hills of Ireland and Scotland, and the “campuses” of the ancient Romans were fortifications, behind whose walls in case of war the population and armies took refuge with all their property and livestock. The "burghs" of Saxon England and the Teutonic countries of continental Europe served the same purpose. Ethelfreda, daughter of King Alfred the Great, built the burgh of Worcester as a "refuge for all the people." The modern English words "borough" and "burgh" are derived from this ancient Saxon word "burn" (Pittsburgh, Williamsburg, Edinburgh), just as the names Rochester, Manchester, Lancaster are derived from the Latin word "castra", which means "fortified camp" . These fortresses should in no way be compared to a castle; The castle was a private fortress and the home of the lord and his family. In European society during the late Middle Ages (1000-1500), a period that can rightfully be called the era of castles or the era of chivalry, the rulers of the country were lords. Naturally, the word "lord" is used only in England, and it comes from the Anglo-Saxon word hlaford. Hlaf- this is “bread”, and the whole word means “distributing bread”. That is, this word was used to describe a good father-intercessor, and not a martinet with iron fists. In France, such a lord was called seigneur, in Spain senor, in Italy Signor, Moreover, all these names are derived from the Latin word senior which means “elder” in translation, in Germany and the Teutonic countries the lord was called Herr, Heer or Her.

The English language has always been distinguished by great originality in word formation, as we have already seen in the example of the word knight. The interpretation of the sovereign lord as a lord distributing grain was generally true for Saxon England. It must have been difficult and bitter for the Saxons to call this name the new powerful Norman lords who began to rule England starting in 1066. Exactly these lords built the first large castles in England, and until the 14th century the lords and their knightly retinue spoke exclusively Norman-French. Until the 13th century they considered themselves French; most of them owned lands and castles in Normandy and Brittany, and the very names of the new rulers came from the names of French cities and villages. For example, Baliol is from Bellieu, Sachevreul is from Saute de Chevreuil, as well as the names Beauchamp, Beaumont, Bur, Lacy, Claire, etc.

The castles that are so familiar to us today bear little resemblance to the castles that the Norman barons built for themselves, both in their own country and in England, since they were usually built from wood rather than stone. There are several early stone castles (the great tower of the Tower of London is one of the surviving examples of such architecture, almost unchanged), built at the end of the 11th century, but the great era of stone castle building did not begin until about 1150. The defensive structures of early castles were earthen ramparts, the appearance of which has changed little in the two hundred years that have passed since the construction of such fortifications began on the continent. The world's first castles were built in the Frankish kingdom to protect against Viking raids. Castles of this type were earthen structures - an oblong or rounded ditch and an earthen rampart, surrounding a relatively small area, in the center or on the edge of which there was a high mound. The earthen rampart was topped with a wooden palisade. The same palisade was placed on the top of the hill. A wooden house was built inside the fence. Apart from the mound, these buildings are very reminiscent of the pioneer homes of the American Wild West.

At first, this type of castle dominated. The main structure, raised on an artificial hill, was later surrounded by a moat and an earthen rampart with a palisade. Inside the area, bounded by a rampart, there was a castle courtyard. The main building, or citadel, stood on top of an artificial, rather high hill on four powerful corner pillars, due to which it was raised above the ground. Below is a description of one of these castles, given in the biography of Bishop John of Terouen, written around the year: “Bishop John, traveling around his parish, often stopped in Marcham. Near the church there was a fortification, which can rightfully be called a castle. It was built according to the custom of the country by a former lord of the area many years ago. Here, where noble people spend most of their lives in wars, they have to defend their home. To do this, they fill up a mound of earth as high as possible, and surround it with a ditch, as wide and deep as possible. The top of the hill is surrounded by a very strong wall of hewn logs, with small towers placed around the circumference of the fence - as many as funds allow. A house or large building is placed inside the fence, from where one can observe what is happening in the surrounding area. You can enter the fortress only through a bridge that starts from the counter-scarp of the ditch, supported by two or even three pillars. This bridge goes up to the top of the hill.” The biographer further tells how one day, when the bishop and his servants were climbing the bridge, it collapsed, and people fell from a height of thirty-five feet (11 meters) into a deep ditch.

The height of the mound was usually from 30 to 40 feet (9-12 meters), although there were exceptions - for example, the height of the hill on which one of the Norfolk castles near Thetford was placed reached hundreds of feet (about 30 meters). The top of the hill was made flat and the upper palisade surrounded a courtyard of 50-60 square yards. The extent of the yard varied from one and a half to 3 acres (less than 2 hectares), but was rarely very large. The shape of the castle territory varied - some were oblong, some were square, and there were courtyards in the shape of a figure eight. Variations were highly variable depending on the size of the host condition and site configuration. After the site for construction was chosen, the first step was to dug it in with a ditch. The excavated earth was thrown onto the inner bank of the ditch, resulting in a rampart, an embankment called with scrape. The opposite bank of the ditch was called, accordingly, the counter-scarp. If possible, a ditch was dug around a natural hill or other elevation. But as a rule, the hill had to be filled in, which required a huge amount of earthwork.

Rice. 8. Reconstruction of an 11th century castle with a mound and courtyard. The yard, which in this case is a separate enclosed area, is surrounded by a palisade of thick logs and surrounded on all sides by a ditch. The hill, or mound, is surrounded by its own separate ditch, and at the top of the hill there is another palisade around a tall wooden tower. The citadel is connected to the courtyard by a long suspension bridge, the entrance to which is protected by two small towers. The upper part of the bridge is liftable. If the attacking enemy captured the courtyard, then the defenders of the castle could retreat across the bridge behind the palisade at the top of the embankment. The lifting part of the suspension bridge was very light, and retreaters could simply throw it down and lock themselves behind the upper palisade.

These were the castles built everywhere in England after 1066. One of the tapestries, woven a little later than the event depicted, shows Duke William's men - or, more likely, Saxon slaves collected from the area - building the mound of Hastings Castle. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1067 tells how “the Normans built their castles throughout the country and oppressed the poor people.” The Domesday Book records houses that had to be demolished to build castles - for example, 116 houses were demolished in Lincoln and 113 in Norwich. It was precisely such easily erected fortifications that the Normans needed at that time in order to consolidate their victory and subjugate the hostile English, who could quickly gather their strength and rebel. It is interesting to note the fact that when a hundred years later the Anglo-Normans, under the leadership of Henry II, tried to conquer Ireland, they built exactly the same castles on the conquered lands, although in England itself and on the continent large stone castles had already replaced the old wooden-earth fortifications with mounds and palisades.

Some of these stone castles were completely new and built on new sites, while others were rebuilt old castles. Sometimes the main tower was replaced with a stone one, leaving the wooden palisade surrounding the castle courtyard intact; in other cases, a stone wall was built around the castle courtyard, leaving the wooden tower on the top of the embankment intact. For example, in York, the old wooden tower stood for two hundred years after a stone wall was built around the courtyard, and only Henry III, between 1245 and 1272, replaced the wooden main tower with a stone one, which remains to this day. In some cases, new stone main towers were built on top of old hills, but this only happened when the old castle was built on a natural hill. An artificial hill, built just a hundred years ago, could not withstand the heavy weight of a stone building. In some cases, when a man-made hill had not settled sufficiently at the time of construction, the tower was erected around the hill, incorporating it into a larger foundation, as, for example, at Kenilworth. In other cases, a new tower was not built on the top of the hill, but instead the old palisade was replaced with stone walls. Residential buildings, outbuildings, etc. were erected inside these walls. Such buildings are now called fencing(shell keeps) - a typical example is the Round Tower of Windsor Castle. The same ones are well preserved in Restormel, Tamworth, Cardiff, Arundel and Carisbrooke. The outer walls of the courtyard supported the slopes of the hill, preventing them from sliding, and were connected on all sides with the walls of the upper fence.

For England, the main buildings of castles in the form of towers are more typical. In the Middle Ages, this building, this main part of the citadel, was called a donjon or simply a tower. The first word in the English language has changed its meaning, because nowadays, when you hear the word “dungeon”, you imagine not the main tower of a castle citadel, but a gloomy prison. And naturally, the Tower of London retained its former historical name.

The main tower formed the core, the most fortified part of the castle's citadel. On the ground floor there were storage rooms for most of the food supplies, as well as an arsenal where weapons and military equipment were stored. Above were the guard quarters, kitchens and living quarters for the soldiers of the castle garrison, and on the top floor lived the lord himself, his family and retinue. The military role of the castle was purely defensive, since in this impregnable nest, behind incredibly strong and thick walls, even a small garrison could hold out as long as supplies of food and water allowed. As we will see later, there were times when the main towers of the citadel were subjected to enemy assault or were damaged so that they became unsuitable for defense, but this happened extremely rarely; usually castles were captured either as a result of treason, or the garrison surrendered, unable to withstand hunger. Problems with water supply rarely arose, since there was always a source of water in the castle - one such source can still be seen today in the Tower of London.

Rice. 9. Pembroke Castle; shows a large cylindrical keep built in 1200 by William Marshal.

Enclosures were quite common, probably because they were the easiest way to rebuild an existing castle with a courtyard and mound, but the most typical feature of a medieval, and particularly English, castle is the large quadrangular tower. It was the most massive structure that was part of the castle buildings. The walls were gigantic in thickness and were installed on a powerful foundation capable of withstanding the blows of pickaxes, drills and battering guns of the besiegers. The height of the walls from the base to the jagged top averaged 70-80 feet (20-25 meters). Flat buttresses, called pilasters, supported the walls along their entire length and at the corners; at each corner such a pilaster was crowned with a turret on top. The entrance was always located on the second floor, high above the ground. An external staircase led to the entrance, located at right angles to the door and covered by a bridge tower installed outside directly against the wall. For obvious reasons, the windows were very small. On the first floor there were none at all, on the second they were tiny and only on the next floors they became a little larger. These distinctive features - the bridge tower, the outer staircase and small windows - can be clearly seen at Rochester Castle and at Hedingham Castle in Essex.

The walls were made of rough stones or rubble, lined with cut stone inside and out. These stones were well worked, although in rarer cases the external cladding was also made of rough stones, for example in the white Tower of London. At Dover, a castle built by Henry II in 1170, the walls are 21-24 feet (6-7 meters) thick; at Rochester they are 12 feet (3.7 meters) thick at the base, gradually decreasing to 10 feet at the roof. (3 meters). The upper, non-hazardous parts of the walls were usually somewhat thinner - their thickness decreased on each subsequent floor, allowing a little gain in space, reducing the weight of the building and saving building material. In the towers of such large castles as London, Rochester, Colchester, Hedingham and Dover, the internal volume of the building was divided in half by a thick transverse wall that ran through the entire structure from top to bottom. The upper parts of this wall were lightened by numerous arches. Such transverse walls increased the strength of the building and made it easier to lay floors and build roofs, since they reduced the spans that had to be covered. In addition, transverse walls were also beneficial from a purely military point of view. For example, in Rochester in 1215, when King John was besieging the castle, his sappers dug under the north-west corner of the main tower and it collapsed, but the defenders of the castle moved to the other half, separated by a transverse wall, and held out for some time.

The more massive and taller main towers were divided into a basement and three upper floors; in smaller castles, two floors were built on the base, although there are, of course, exceptions. For example, Corfe Castle - very high - had only two upper floors, just like Guildford, but Norham Castle had four upper floors. Some castles, such as Kenilworth, Rising and Middleham - all of which looked long in plan and not particularly high - had only a basement and one upper floor.

Rice. 10. Main tower of Rochester Castle, Kent. Built in 1165 by King Henry II, the castle, besieged by King John in 1214, was taken after the north-west corner tower was excavated. The modern round turret was built to replace the one that had collapsed by Henry III (the original text says that this happened in 1200, which is impossible, because Henry was born in 1207. – Transl.). The bridgehead tower is visible on the right of the picture.

Each floor was one large room, divided in two if the castle had a transverse wall. The ground floor was used for storerooms: provisions for the garrison and fodder for horses, food for servants, as well as weapons and various military equipment were stored there, among other things necessary to ensure the functioning of the castle in times of peace and war - stones and wood for repairs, paints, lubricants, leather, ropes, bales of fabrics and linens, and probably supplies of quicklime and fuel oil that were poured on the heads of the besiegers. Often the top floor was divided into smaller rooms by wooden walls, and in some castles, such as Dover or Hedingham, the main room - the hall on the second floor - was made double-height; the hall had a very high vault, and there were galleries along the walls. (The main tower of Norwich Castle, which now houses a museum, is designed in this way and gives an idea of ​​what it looked like in real life.) The larger main towers had fireplaces on the upper floors, many of the early examples of which survive to this day.

Rice. eleven. The main building of Hedingham Castle in Essex, built in 1100. On the left side of the picture you can see the stairs leading to the front door. Originally, as in Rochester, this staircase was covered by a tower.

Stairs leading to all floors of the main building were located in its corners; they led from the ground floor to the turrets and out onto the roof. The stairs were spiral, twisting clockwise. This direction was not chosen by chance, since the defenders of the castle had to fight on the stairs if the enemy broke into the castle. In this case, the defenders had an advantage: naturally, they tried to push the enemy down, while the left hand with the shield rested against the central pillar of the stairs, and there was enough space for the right hand, which operated the weapon, even on the narrow stairs. The attackers were forced, overcoming resistance, to make their way up, while their weapons constantly collided with the central pillar. Try to imagine this situation when you find yourself on a spiral staircase, and you will understand what I mean.

Rice. 12. The main hall of Hedingham Castle in Essex. The arch, stretching from left to right in the figure, represents the upper part of the transverse wall, dividing the volume of the castle into two halves. The cross wall, very thick on the ground floor, turns into an arch on the upper floor, which helps lighten the weight of the building and make the main hall more spacious.

On the upper floors of the main building, many small rooms were built directly into the wall. These were private quarters, rooms in which the lord of the castle, his family and guests slept; latrines were also located deep within the walls. The toilets are very cleverly designed; medieval ideas about sanitation and hygiene are not as primitive as we tend to think. The latrines of medieval castles were more comfortable than the latrines still found in rural areas, and they were also easier to keep clean. The toilets were small rooms protruding from the outer wall. The seats were made of wood; they were located above a hole that opened outward. All, so to speak, waste, like in trains, poured directly onto the street. Dressing rooms in those days were evasively called wardrobes (translated from French, “wardrobe” literally means “take care of the dress”). In Elizabethan times, the euphemism for privy was the word "jake", just as we in America call a privy "john", and the English use the word "lu" for the same purpose.

The spring or spring was extremely important to the survival of the inhabitants and defenders of the castle. Sometimes, as was the case in the Tower, the source was located in the basement, but more often it was brought to the living quarters - it was more reliable and more convenient. Another feature of the castle, which at that time was considered absolutely necessary, was the house church or chapel, which was located in the tower in case the defenders were cut off from the courtyard if it was captured by the enemy. An excellent example of a chapel is located in the main tower of the white Tower of London, but more often chapels were located at the top of the porch that covered the front door.

At the end of the 12th century, important changes were planned in the architecture of the main tower of the castle. The towers, rectangular in plan, despite the fact that they were very massive, had one significant drawback - sharp corners. The enemy, remaining practically invisible and inaccessible (you could only shoot from the turret located at the top of the corner), could methodically remove stones from the wall, destroying the castle. In order to end this inconvenience and reduce the risk, round towers began to be built, such as the main tower of Pembroke Castle, built in 1200 by William Marshal. Some towers had an intermediate, transitional appearance, so to speak, a compromise between the old rectangular design and the new cylindrical one. These were polygonal towers with obtuse beveled corners. Examples include the towers of Orford Castle in Suffolk and Conisborough Castle in Yorkshire, the former built by King Henry II between 1165 and 1173, and the latter by Earl Hamlin of Warenne in the 1290s.

The stone walls that replaced the old palisades around the castle courtyards were built based on the same military engineering considerations as the main towers. The walls were built as high and as thick as possible. The lower part was usually wider than the upper part in order to provide strength to the most vulnerable section of the wall, and also to make the surface of the wall sloping so that stones and other throwing weapons thrown from above would bounce off the lower part, ricochet and hit the besieging enemy more strongly. The wall was crenellated, that is, it was crowned with structural elements, which we now call loopholes, located between the battlements. Such a wall with loopholes was constructed as follows: along the top of the wall there was a fairly wide passage or platform, which in Latin was called alatorium, from which the English word comes allure- wall balustrade. On the outside, the balustrade was protected by an additional wall 7 to 8 feet high (about 2.5 meters), interrupted at equal distances by transverse slot-like openings. These openings were called embrasures, and the sections of the parapet between them were called Merlons, or teeth. The openings allowed the castle defenders to shoot at the attackers or drop various projectiles on them. True, for this, the defenders had to show themselves to the enemy for some time before hiding again behind the battlement. To reduce the risk of defeat, narrow slits were often made in the battlements, through which the defenders could shoot from bows while being in cover. These slots were located vertically in a wall or in a battlement, were no more than 2-3 inches (5-8 centimeters) wide on the outside, and were wider on the inside to make it easier for the shooter to manipulate the weapon. Such shooting slots were up to 6 feet (2 meters) high and were equipped with an additional transverse slot just above half the height of the slot. These transverse slits were intended to allow the shooter to throw arrows in lateral directions at an angle of up to forty-five degrees to the wall. There were many designs of such slots, but in essence they were all the same. One can imagine how difficult it was for an archer or crossbowman to hit such a narrow gap with an arrow; but if you visit any castle and stand at the shooting slot, you will see how clearly the battlefield is visible, what an excellent view the defenders had and how convenient it was for them to shoot through these slots with a bow or crossbow.

Rice. 13. Reconstruction of the flank tower and wall of the castle courtyard from the 13th century. The tower is cylindrical on the outside and flat on the inside. On the inside of the tower you can see that a small lift sticks out of the wall, with the help of which ammunition was supplied to the defenders who were behind the fence inside the platform on the tower. The high roof is made of thick wooden rafters covered with tiles, flat stones or slate. The crown of the tower under the roof is surrounded by a wooden fence. One can imagine that the attackers, having overcome the ditch filled with water, came under fire from archers located in the tower at its top and behind the gallery fence. The pedestrian area at the top of the wall is shown, as well as the buildings adjacent to the wall in the castle courtyard.

Of course, the flat wall surrounding the castle has a lot of disadvantages, since if the attackers got to its foot, they became inaccessible to the defenders. Anyone who dared to lean out of the embrasure would be immediately shot, but anyone who remained under the protection of the battlements would not be able to cause any harm to the attackers. Therefore, the best solution was to dismember the wall and build watchtowers or bastions along its perimeter at equal intervals, which protruded forward, beyond the plane of the wall into the field, and through rifle slits in their walls, the defenders were able to shoot from loopholes in all directions, that is, shooting through the enemy in the longitudinal direction, along the enfilade, as they expressed it in those days. At first, such towers were rectangular, but then they began to be erected in the form of half-cylinders protruding from the outer side of the walls, while the inner side of the bastion was flat and did not protrude beyond the plane of the wall of the castle courtyard. The bastions rose above the upper edge of the wall, dividing the pedestrian parapet into sectors. The path continued through the tower, but if necessary it could be blocked by a massive wooden door. Therefore, if some detachment of attackers managed to penetrate the wall, then it could be cut off in a limited section of the wall and destroyed.

Rice. 14. Various types of shooting slits. In many castles, rifle slits of various shapes were located in various parts of them. Most slits had an additional transverse slot, which allowed the archer to shoot not only directly in front of him, but also in lateral directions at an acute angle to the wall. However, they also made slits that did not have a transverse part. The height of the rifle slits ranged from 1.2 to 2.1 meters.

Castles seen in England today are usually flat topped and unroofed. The top edge of the walls is also flat, except for the battlements, but in those days when castles were used for their intended purpose, the main towers and bastions often had steep roofs, which can still be seen today in the castles of continental Europe. We tend to forget, looking at such dilapidated castles as Usk in Dover or Conisborough, which did not withstand the onslaught of inexorable time, how they were covered with wooden roofs. Very often, the upper part - parapets and walkways - of walls, bastions and even main towers was crowned with long wooden covered galleries, which were called enclosures, or in English hoarding(from the Latin word hurdicia), or sail. These galleries extended beyond the outer edge of the wall by approximately 6 feet (about 2 meters), and holes were made in the floor of the galleries to allow the attackers at the foot of the wall to be shot through, stones to be thrown at the attackers, and boiling oil or boiling water to be poured on their heads. The disadvantage of such wooden galleries was their fragility - these structures could be destroyed using siege engines or set on fire.

Rice. 15. The diagram shows how fences, or “lintels,” were added to the castle walls. They were probably placed only in cases where the castle was threatened with siege. In many castle courtyard walls you can still see square holes in the walls under the battlements. Beams were inserted into these holes, onto which a fence with a covered gallery was placed.

The most vulnerable part of the wall surrounding the castle courtyard was the gate, and at first close attention was paid to the defense of the gate. The earliest way to protect a gate was to place it between two rectangular towers. A good example of this type of protection is the construction of gates in the 11th century Exeter Castle, which has survived to this day. In the 13th century, the square gate towers gave way to the main gate tower, which was a merger of the two previous ones with additional floors built above them. These are the gate towers of Richmond and Ludlow Castles. In the 12th century, the more common way to protect the gate was to build two towers on either side of the entrance to the castle, and only in the 13th century did gate towers appear in their completed form. The two flanking towers now join into one above the gate, becoming a massive and powerful fortification and one of the most important parts of the castle. The gate and entrance now turn into a long and narrow passage, blocked at each end porticles. These were doors that slid vertically along gutters carved in stone, made in the form of large gratings made of thick timber, the lower ends of the vertical beams were pointed and bound with iron, thus the lower edge porticles was a series of sharpened iron stakes. These lattice gates were opened and closed using thick ropes and a winch located in a special chamber in the wall above the passage. In the “bloody tower” of the Tower of London you can still see portico with a functioning lifting mechanism. Later, the entrance was protected with the help of "mertières", deadly holes drilled into the vaulted ceiling of the passage. Through these holes, objects and substances common in such a situation - arrows, stones, boiling water and hot oil - rained down and poured on anyone who tried to force their way through to the gate. However, another explanation seems more plausible - water was poured through the holes if the enemy tried to set fire to the wooden gates, since the best way to penetrate the castle was to fill the passage with straw, logs, thoroughly soak the mixture with flammable oil and set it on fire; they killed two birds with one stone - they burned the lattice gates and fried the castle defenders in the gate rooms. In the walls of the passage there were small rooms equipped with rifle slits, through which the defenders of the castle could use their bows to shoot at close range the dense mass of attackers who were trying to break into the castle.

In the upper floors of the gate tower there were rooms for soldiers and often even living quarters. In special chambers there were gates, with the help of which the drawbridge was lowered and raised on chains. Since the gate was the place that was most often attacked by the enemy besieging the castle, they were sometimes provided with another means of additional protection - the so-called barbicans, which began at some distance from the gate. Typically, the barbican consisted of two high, thick walls running parallel outward from the gate, thus forcing the enemy to squeeze into the narrow passage between the walls, exposing himself to the arrows of the archers of the gate tower and the upper platform of the barbican hidden behind the battlements. Sometimes, to make access to the gate even more dangerous, the barbican was installed at an angle to it, which forced attackers to go to the gate on the right, and parts of the body not covered by shields became targets for archers. The entrance and exit of the Barbican were usually very intricately decorated. At Goodrich Castle near Herfordshire, for example, the entrance was made in the form of a semicircular vault, and the two barbicans covering the gates of Conway Castle looked like small castle courtyards.

Rice. 16. Reconstruction of the gates and barbican of the Arc Castle in France. The Barbican is a complex structure with two drawbridges covering the main entrance.

The Gate Keep, built in the mid-14th century by Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (grandfather of Earl Richard), is a good example of a compact watchtower and barbican combined into a superbly designed ensemble. The gate tower is built in the traditional plan of two towers connecting at the top over a narrow passage, it has three additional floors with tall crenellated turrets at each corner, rising above the battlements of the walls. Ahead, outside the castle, two battlements form another narrow passage leading to the castle; at the far end of these barbican walls, beyond them, there are two more towers - smaller copies of the gate tower. In front of them is a drawbridge over a water-filled moat. This means that the attackers, in order to break through to the gate, first had to use fire or sword to make their way through the raised drawbridge, which blocked the path to the first gate and the porticoes located behind them. Then they would have to fight their way through the narrow passage of the Barbican. After this, finally finding themselves in front of the gate itself, the attackers would be forced to cross the second ditch, break through the next raised bridge and porticoes. Having accomplished these feats, the enemy found himself in a narrow corridor, showered with arrows and doused with boiling water and hot oil from numerous mertiers and rifle slits in the side walls, and at the end of the enemy’s path the following porticoes awaited. But the most interesting thing about the design of this gate tower was the truly scientific way in which the battlements, arranged in steps, covered each other. First came the walls and turrets of the barbican, behind them and above them rose the walls and roof of the gate tower, over which the corner turrets of the gate tower dominated, the first pair was located below the second, from each subsequent shooting platform it was possible to cover the one located in front below. The turrets of the gate fortification were connected by transitional hanging arched stone bridges, so the defenders did not have to go down to the roof to move from one turret to another.

Today, when you enter the gate leading to the courtyard and main tower of a castle such as Warwick, Dover, Kenilworth or Corfe, you cross a large expanse of mown grass in the courtyard. But everything here was different in those days when the castle was used for its intended purpose! The entire space of the courtyard was filled with buildings - most of them were wooden, but there were also stone houses among them. Along the walls of the courtyard there were numerous covered rooms - some stood next to the wall, some were built directly into its thickness; there were stables, kennels, cowsheds, all kinds of workshops - masons, carpenters, gunsmiths, blacksmiths (a gunsmith should not be confused with a blacksmith - the first was a highly qualified specialist), sheds for storing straw and hay, dwellings for a whole army of servants and hangers-on, open kitchens, dining rooms , stone rooms for hunting falcons, a chapel and a large hall - more spacious and spacious than in the main tower of the castle. This hall, located in the courtyard, was used during the days of peace. Instead of grass, there was tightly compacted earth or areas paved with cobblestones or even paving stones, or, in a very few castles, the courtyard was covered with a mess of impassable mud. Instead of tourists idly resting in the shadow of the ruins, people constantly walked here, busy with their daily work. Food preparation took place almost continuously, horses were fed, watered and trained all the time, cattle were driven into the yard for milking and driven out of the castle to pasture, gunsmiths and blacksmiths repaired armor for the owner and soldiers of the garrison, shoed horses, forged iron objects for the needs of the castle , carts and carts were being repaired - there was an incessant noise of continuous work.

Rice. 17. The figure shows one method of constructing a drawbridge.

A. An open drawbridge, such as the Barbican Bridge at Arc Castle. The bridge is attached by a chain to two powerful horizontal beams, each of which is hinged to the tops of pillars dug vertically into the ground. The chains attached to the edges of the bridge, with their other ends, were attached to the outer ends of the horizontal beams, and weights were attached to their opposite ends that balanced the weight of the bridge. These rear ends of the weighted horizontal bars were connected to winches by chains. Since the weights balanced the weight of the bridge, two people could easily lift it. B. This picture shows the drawbridge located in front of the castle gate itself. The principle of its operation is the same. The inner, weighted ends of the horizontal beams are located behind the walls of the castle; the beams themselves are passed through holes in the wall directly above the entrance. The outer ends protrude beyond the walls. When the bridge was raised, the horizontal beams were placed in special slots in the wall and sunk flush with the wall; in the same way, the bridge deck lay in a special recess in the wall, and its plane in the raised state merged with the outer surface of the wall. Some drawbridges were simpler - they were raised on chains attached to the outer edge of the bridge deck, passed through holes in the wall and wound on a winch gate. True, lifting such a bridge required great physical effort due to the lack of a counterweight.

The huntsmen and grooms were also busy all the time, since there was a whole army of animals in the castle - dogs, falcons, hawks and horses, which had to be looked after and trained and trained in preparation for hunting. Every day, parties of deer or small game hunters - hares and rabbits - were sent from the castle, and sometimes expeditions of wild boar hunters were equipped. There were also people who liked to hunt birds with falcons. Hunting, driven or falconry, which was apparently the main component of the leisure of high society of the time, was a much more important part of everyday life than we tend to think. With such a rush of eaters living in the castle, all the game caught in the hunt went into the cauldron.

Despite the fact that the type of castle with a courtyard and a main tower was the main one in continental Europe and in England throughout the Middle Ages, one should not think that this type was the only one. The diversity stemmed from the fact that during the 13th century, castles began to undergo reconstruction and improvements in order to keep up with progress in siege art and innovations in methods of defending fortresses. For example, Richard the Lionheart was an excellent military engineer; It was he who introduced many new ideas into practice, rebuilding previously erected castles such as the Tower of London, and implementing all the innovations in the large castle of Les Andelys in Normandy, in his famous castle Chateau-Gaillard. The king boasted that he could hold this castle even if its walls were made of butter. In fact, this castle fell just a few years after its construction, unable to withstand the onslaught of the French king, but, as in most such cases, the gates were opened to the winner by traitors inside the castle.

In that century, many old castles were expanded and completed; new towers, gatehouses, bastions and barbicans were erected; Completely new elements also appeared. The old wooden fences on the walls were gradually replaced by stone hinged loopholes. These loopholes essentially reproduced in stone the shape of old wooden fences - open galleries. Such hinged loopholes are a characteristic feature of 13th-century castles.

Rice. 18. One of the towers of the castle of Sully-sur-Loire; hinged loopholes are visible around the edge of the tower roof and along the upper edge of the wall. In this castle, the ancient roofs of the 14th century have been preserved unchanged to this day.

But at the end of this century, a completely new type of castle appeared in England, several of which were built in Wales. After Edward I seized power twice - in 1278 and 1282, this king, in order to retain what he had won, began to build new castles, just as King William I began to build for the same purpose two centuries earlier. But Edward’s buildings were strikingly different from their predecessors - castles built on bulk hills, surrounded by wooden palisades and earthen ramparts. In short, the new type of architecture lacked the main tower, but the walls and towers of the courtyard were significantly strengthened. At Conway and Caernarvon castles, the outer walls reached almost the same height as the previous main towers, and the flanking towers became simply prohibitively huge. Inside the walls were two more open courtyards, but they were smaller than the courtyards of the older, more extensive and open castles. Conway and Carnarvon were not built according to the correct plan, their architecture was adapted to the features of the terrain on which they were built, but the castles of Harlech and Beaumarie were built according to the same type of plan - these were quadrangular fortresses with very high strong walls and large cylindrical (drum) corners towers. In the castle courtyard there was another concentric wall with bastions. There is no space here to describe this type of castle architecture in detail, but at least the basic idea is now clear to you.

The same principle formed the basis for the construction of the last real castle in England - powerful high walls connecting the corner towers. At the end of the 14th century, new types of castles were built - such as Bodiam in Sussex, Nunney in Somerset, Bolton and Sheriff Hatton in Yorkshire, Lumley in Durgham and Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey. The last castle was not quadrangular in plan, but round, with an internal concentric wall. This castle was razed to the ground by order of Parliament during the English Civil War, and not even a trace of it remains. We know about its appearance only from ancient drawings. The internal structure of these castles is not characterized by buildings scattered around the courtyard or attached to the walls; all rooms were built into the walls, they were turned into more orderly and comfortable places for work and living.

Rice. 19. It is shown how the hinged loopholes were constructed.

Later than the end of the 14th century, the architecture of the classic English castle fell into disrepair - the castle was replaced by a fortified manor house, for which home comfort and convenience were much more important than defense capability. Many castles built in the 15th century were quadrangular in plan, and most were surrounded by a moat; the only defensive structure left was the double tower covering the entrance. At the end of this century, the construction of such structures finally ceased, and the Englishman's castle turned into his ordinary home. In the 16th century, the great era of English estate building began.

This remark, of course, does not apply to continental castles; on the continent, socio-political conditions were completely different. This is especially true in Germany, where civil wars continued until the end of the 16th century, and castles were still in great demand. In England, the need for such fortified buildings remained only in the Welsh Alps and on the Scottish border. In the Welsh Alps, old castles were used for their intended purpose even in the 15th century; indeed, a completely new castle was built at this time near Raglan in Monmouthshire. It was very similar to the castles of Edward I, and was built around 1400 by Sir William of Thomas, known as the Blue Knight of Gwent, and his son Sir William Herbert, who later became Earl of Pembroke. One feature strikingly distinguished this castle from the castles of Edwardian times - a free-standing tower with a hexagonal plan, surrounded by its own moat and rampart with bastions. This is a separate castle located in front of the main castle. This building went down in history as the “yellow tower of Gwent”. This is a late example of new construction in a region where military clashes could be expected; on the northern borders, wars were fought almost constantly and without interruption. The raids of the Scots, who stole cattle, and the retaliatory punitive raids of the British did not stop. In such conditions, it was necessary to turn every estate, every village farm into a fortified castle. As a result, so-called saws, small quadrangular fortresses. Typically, such a fortress was a strong, dull, simple, but strong tower with a small courtyard, which was more like an ordinary village courtyard, and not at all a castle courtyard, surrounded by a high, flat, battlemented wall. Most of these saws were indeed ordinary farms, and when robbers appeared in the distance, the owner, his family and workers locked themselves in the tower, and herded the cattle into the yard. If the Scots took the trouble to besiege the fortress and break into the courtyard, then the people found refuge in the tower - they drove the cattle into the basement, and they themselves climbed to the top floor. But the Scots rarely engaged in sieges. They were always in a hurry to swoop in, grab everything that was in bad shape, and go home.

This text is an introductory fragment.

Guarding the castle In addition to serving in the field, knights were also required to perform garrison service in a particular castle of the king or baron. At first these responsibilities were quite independent of each other. The castle especially needed protection precisely in those times when