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By William Cregan 7O
12/22/2011
There have been many different types of castles, mainly in the middle ages.
They were all different shapes and sizes and used for different purposes. New
inventions in weaponry, tactics and ideas differed the way castles were built
over the course of history. When William the Conqueror invaded England he
brought his Castle building skills with him, For example:
King William, closely after defeating the king before him; Harold Godwinson,
he set out making quick and efficiently made castles to use as bases, because
of the fact he still didn’t rule the whole country yet. Theses Castles were called
‘Motte and Bailey Castles’ due to the fact that the castles had two main parts.
The Castles were made almost entirely out of wood because it was easy to
move from place to place (unlike stone). These types of buildings were spread
out around the country to stop Anglo-Saxon rebel raids, they were often built
near water supplies and towns. The ‘Motte and Baileys’ were always on high
ground and not near forests so William’s forces could have optimum view on
the grassland surrounding the castle.
However, the castle had weaknesses, mainly with the materials. Firstly, the
wood (which was used to make the castles) could catch fire, this meant that
the attackers would shoot arrows of fire at the castle and people inside would
probably burn to death. Secondly, the wood would rot, meaning that
eventually the castle would decapitate and fall onto itself. Thirdly, the Motte
was not a natural hill, it was a big unstable mound of mud, earth and soil,
which meat that the keep was very slowly sinking onto itself, this also meant
that an attempt of building on the keep even more meant that a heavy
material (rock, stone, etc) would sink into the Motte and damage it badly.
Finally, the walls surrounding the castle where not very tall, this meant that
rebel attackers could throw things into the Bailey, they threw: Dead animals;
to spread disease around the castle, arrows on fire; to burn the castle down
and rocks; not that effective though. These factors meant that the Motte and
Bailey had a great risk of problem.
When William felt he had fully gained the country, he started to make stronger
and more permanent castles, with better defence and greater sizes.
These Castles were made of stone for strength and so the Castle could last
longer which meant that the Castles were more in a permanent state than its
wooden predecessors. The stone’s strength meant that it could be built upon
and be very tall, this meant
that that the people/soldiers
could see miles of land
surrounding the castle which
also meant that if there was
an army coming at the castle
the occupation of the castle
could prepare for the oncoming attack. The castle’s defence was also a major
strong point of the design, sometimes the square keep castle’s walls were 10
feet thick, which meant for the castle attacker’s spears, arrows etc would be
close to completely useless against this type of castle.
Like the Motte and Bailey Castle, the Square Keep Castle also had a couple of
weaknesses. Firstly, if the enemy surrounded the castle, stopped the supplies
and just waited, the population of the castle would most likely starve to death
or surrender, this factor meant an easy win for the opposition. Secondly, the
attackers could dig under the castle and knock the corners down (this was
called the sapping method), this meant that the opposition would be able to
get inside the castle easily and slaughter the occupation of the castle.
These Castles were much bigger, more complex and had greater defence than
their predecessors. They were most associated with Edward the 1st, he built a
few of this type of Castle in the North-West region of Wales. More soldiers
were able to live in the castle along with weapons, food, materials and armour.
The Castle’s defence was a
complex system of ‘Curtain
walls’, the furthest walls out
were the smallest and got
taller the more central the
wall was, they did this so
each lookout team in each
tower were able to see
around them. They wall
closest to the keep would
have been the highest to help
the defenders and give them the edge in the battle because of the height
advantage. Each set of walls had its own entrance, this meant that attackers
would have to fight their way through each entrance to get to the keep
because of the fact that each entrance was heavily guarded.
Towers in Concentric castles were not square based like their predecessor.
They were usually circular or polygonal due to fact that the Stone/Square keep
castles were able to be knocked down at the corners using the ‘sapping’
method. Being circular gave the tower good stability and prevented the
chance of toppling over. All of Edward’s Castles were built by the sea this
meant that trying to cut off the supplying of the castle was quite hard due to
the fact that the use of transport was boats that came to the back of the castle.
The designer of the castle was known as ‘Master James of St George’ from
Savoy; an extremely skilled architect who created the Castles in Wales such as
Caernarvon.
This castle had only one major weakness; the castle was extremely expensive
and hard to build, Caernarvon Castle would have cost £27,000 then but 3.5
million pounds in today’s money.
A skilled worker building the castle would’ve been paid as little as 3p – 4p a
day, this was because the large majority of his income was spent on building
the castle.
Following the death of Edward the 1st in 1307 and Master James in 1309, the
building of castles in in England went downhill and completely ended in
Scotland, this was because the kings after Edward were focused on making
luxurious palaces to live in.
One of the main reasons that the importance of castles reduced is because of
the invention of gunpowder, the reason that some of the greatest castles fell
was often due to canons, their power could smash castles to the ground with
ease. This called for castles designers to massively strengthen their defence
and it sometimes payed off. After this adaptation Castle building carried on
into the 16th century and beyond.
A non-aggressive reason of the decline was political, this was because a lot of
new kings wanted a place of luxury to live in instead of the cold, dirty and
smelly Castle option. This happened due to the death of the respectable
‘Master James’ and Edward the 1st.
The next reason was Money issues, for example, Caernarvon (one of Master
James’ great creations) as I said would had cost Edward the 1st the equivalent
of 3.5 million pounds, a ludicrous amount of money on a castle compared to
the basic Motte and Baileys. Often the Fall off Castles was because it was more
expensive to defend than attack, this made them a little obsolete due the the
fact that it was a waste of time making a ludicrously expensive building that
could be destroyed with canons .
I believe that the invention of Castles was a fantastic breakthrough and the
way they evolved over the centuries was also great. But due to why the era
died was because of newly discovered weaponry, politics and economic issues.
This luxurious castle is home to the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and is a
widely popular tourist attraction. The word ‘Belvoir’ means beautiful view in
French but is pronounced as ‘Beaver’. This exiting castle is one of the 4 castles
that were built on the estate because the others were destroyed, one on the
Tudor war, one in the Civil war and the other burned down. This was because
the Castle’s purpose was to be luxurious as a pose to defensive and strong. The
current Castle was finished in the 19th century. The Architect on building the
castle was called James Wyatt.
The main parts of all the stunnning interior are: the state dining room, The
Elizabeth Saloon, The Regent’s Gallery and The Military Splendour. All having
expesive furniture and artwork in them. The Castle also has other rooms, there
is a cooking room, a nursery room, a state room and a nursery room. The
Castle holds many pieces of artwork by famous artists at the time, some of the
artists are: Gainsborough, Reynolds, Holbein and Poussin.
The beauty of the castle isn’t all behind closed doors, the grassland, hills and
forest holds more artwork and beauty, there is a fountain at the centre of the
fantastic gardens surrounding it All of the beauty of the Garden was created by
Elizabeth, the 5th Duchess with James Wyatt and 40 Gardeners who looked
after it, now there are 3.