MEDIEVAL WARFARE

The Art of Castle Building and the Effect of Artillery

Most of the homes of medieval aristocrats were heavily fortified places of the sort usually referred to as castles.  These tended to be dark and drafty.  To afford better protection and to help keep out as much of the cold air as possible, castles had relatively few windows, and these windows were usually on upper floors where they were less vulnerable to attack. 
Castle:  the heavily fortified home of a fairly well-to-do member of the warrior class.   The medieval castle was the chief architectural expression of the feudal age, comparable to the cathedral in the religious sphere.  It served not only as a dwelling, but also as the center of local authority and as a refuge for the population in times of disorder.  Although the original castles were made of wood, as the Middle Ages progressed, they came increasingly to be constructed from stone.  The word is derived from the Latin 'castra,' a word meaning the fortified camp in which a Roman legion was quartered.  During the centuries of disorder which accompanied the fall of Rome, private individuals began to construct fortified dwellings of their own.  Such a dwelling became known as a castellum, or "little castra", hence our word, castle.
Castellan:  most commonly used word for the keeper of a castle.
Site Selection:  Whenever possible, such structures were erected on an easily defensible spot, such as a hilltop or behind the natural protection afforded by a stream.  If these natural features were not available, it might be constructed on an artificial mound, surrounded by a man-made ditch.
Motte and Bailey Castle:  developed on the continent of Europe, this form of castle very common around the year 1000.  Constructed by digging a large ditch, then piling the earth in the center to form an artificial hill that became the strongest point in the fortification.  Attached to this motte were one or more baileys, courtyards enclosed by wooden palisades in which the living quarters, storehouses, and stables were built.  If the bailey was overrun, the defenders could withdraw into the motte which towered above.  The motte would eventually evolve into the keep or donjon.  This form of fortification appears to have been introduced into England by William the Conqueror as a means of defending his conquered kingdom.
Parts of a Castle:
Moat:  the man-made ditch surrounding the castle, sometimes filled with water.  Also known as a fosse.
Palisade:  the wooden stockade fence enclosing early castles.
Drawbridge:  a bridge across the moat (or moats), which could be drawn up in time of attack. There might be several drawbridges incorporated into the castle defenses.
Gateway:  entrance through the walls.  Site of the drawbridge, it was usually the most heavily reinforced part of the castle.
Hoardings:  wooden superstructure built on the top of the wall to aid in defense against attack; they were cantilevered out from the wall, to permit the occupants to drop or pour materials (rocks, boiling water, molten lead down upon attackers and their machines that had reached the base of the wall.  The fact that hoardings were constructed of wood made them vulnerable to fire.
Donjon or Keep:  the main tower in the castle.
Crenellation:  vertical openings cut into the top of the castle wall with stone uprights on either side that gave the wall its typical shape; their presence made it easier for a defender to fire through them at an attacking enemy while sheltering behind the raised part of the wall on either side to avoid return fire.
Machicolation:  permanent stone galleries extended outward from the top of the tower, they permitted the defender to accomplish the same destruction of those directly below as he would from a hoardings, but the fact that they were made from stone rendered them impervious to fire.
The earliest castles were built primarily of wood.  By later medieval standards, they were quite primitive structures - blockhouses of rough-hewn logs, sometimes containing just a single large room with narrow slits for windows which let in a minimum of light.  Such a structure would be surrounded by a wooden stockade (the palisade), with the earth pushed up around it to give it added strength.  Every so often, along the length of this stockade, the builder might strengthen the defenses by putting up a tower.  Outside the stockade would be the moat.
As the medieval centuries passed, the castle underwent major changes:
(1)  An increase in the number of different buildings within the castle complex:  Originally, the main building might serve a number of functions - fortress, residence, storehouse and stable all combined into one structure.  However, over the course of centuries, new buildings were erected, each to serve a special function.  The creation of separate stables and storehouses, as well as new residential wings, provided the castle's inhabitants with greater space and privacy.
(2)  The switch from wood to stone as a building material:  With the cultural decline following the fall of Rome, the use of stone in construction had become far less common throughout the west.  Over the medieval centuries, however, the west relearned the the art of the stone mason and the techniques of stone architecture.  As a material stone was more durable than wood, especially in respect to the greatest danger faced by wooden structures, i.e. fire.
The process of (re)learning to use stone seems to have been stimulated by increasing contact with the eastern Mediterranean, where both the Byzantine Empire and Islam were culturally far ahead of the west.  Eventually, the central wood blockhouse was replaced by a multistory stone tower known as the donjon or keep which became the center of the defense system.
Even with the switch-over to stone, wood continued to be an important building material in the construction of castles.  For one thing, some parts of what was generally a stone structure (eg. roof and floor) continued to be regularly made of wood. On the whole, Stone work tended to be more expensive and required the hiring of the specialized craftsmen known as masons.  Consequently, even the wealthiest aristocrats would build stone dwellings only on their more  important estates; making due elsewhere with wood or a combination of wood and stone.   
(3)  The move from square to round forms:  The original structures, constructed of heavy wooden logs, had tended to be more or less square or rectangular in shape.  This had been carried over into the original stone castles, in which the buildings and the towers lining the walls were square.  Eventually, however, two related factors encouraged a switchover to rounded structures: 
(a)  The re-introduction and increasing use of siege artillery around the time of the crusades gave medieval armies an effective means of attacking castles. 
(b)  Fortress architects discovered that rounded walls were more resistant to artillery than square walls. 
Major forms of siege artillery:
1.  Catapult:  a.  a torsion weapon (power derived from the twisting of rope)
2.  Ballista:  a giant bow firing an oversized arrow (sometimes also referred to as a catapult)
2.  Trebuchet:  a tension weapon (power derived from pulling one arm).  Came in three forms:
a.  Pull trebuchet:  a team of men (or occasionally women) did the pulling
b.  Hybrid trebuchet:  a team combined with a counterweight to supply power
c.  Counterweight trebuchet:  counterweight solely responsible for firing
Although more resistant, rounded forms did not entirely supercede square/rectangular ones.  Many later castles contain a combination of square and rounded towers and buildings.  However, it is safe to generalize that more and more, round elements replaced square ones; especially at those points in the defenses most exposed to attack by siege artillery.
(4)  The creation of concentric fortifications:  Concentric fortifications were simply a system of walls within walls.  In attacking these multi-layered defensive structures, an enemy might manage to overrun the outer wall, only to encounter another wall which he would have to attack.  Since this inner wall was usually stronger and built on higher ground than the one he had just captured, the fact that he held the outer wall was not of much use to him.  He was still exposed to fire from above.  Furthermore, it would often be harder to find a good spot from which to bring his siege artillery to bear against this inner wall.
By the late twelfth century, the engineers and masons of western Europe had combined to construct the great stone fortifications which dominated the rural landscape (many of which survive, at least in part, into the modern world).  As engineering feats, many of these massive structures rivaled the great gothic cathedrals of the age.  (Some historians estimate that the greatest of these contained as much stone as the Great Pyramid.)
Examples:  
1.  Krak des Chevaliers (Crusader castle built by the Hospitalers in Syria)
2.  Chateau Gaillard (Huge fortress in Normandy built by Richad the Lionheart
3.  Coucy le Chateau (Built by the Lords of Coucy north of Paris, its keep was the largest ever built
Similiar techniques of fortification were utilized to defend entire cities.  Some of the most well preserved walls include:
1.  Carcassonne (southern France)
2.  Avila (central Spain)
3.  Evora (Portugal)
The wonton destruction of Coucy by the German general, Erich von Ludendorff during the First World War symbolizes the way in which so much of human history disappeared into oblivion during the violent Twentieth Century.