by Joseph Gies
But the final role of the European medieval castle seems to be that of tourist attraction. In Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and elsewhere, with the aid of a guide or a guidebook and some imagination, one can stand in the grassy bailey and re-people the weathered stone ramparts and towers and the vanished wooden outbuildings with archers and knights, servants, horses, and wagoners, the lord and lady and their guests, falcons and hunting dogs, pigs and poultry—all the unkempt, unsafe, unsavory but irresistibly appealing life of the thirteenth century.
Glossary of Castle Terms
Glossary of Feudal Terms
Great Medieval Castles:
A Geographical Guide
A CATALOG OF EVEN THE MOST IMPORTANT and interesting medieval castles could occupy a volume, and the following list is only a sampling. The many post-medieval castles whose battlements served purely decorative purposes long after military and economic history made them otherwise obsolete are excluded. Even nineteenth-century America built such replicas, in a profusion that justified a recent book on “American castles.” Those below all belong to the Middle Ages. Within each region they are listed chronologically, in accordance with the local historical development of the castle.
ENGLAND
English medieval castles embrace the whole history of castle-building, from the eleventh-century motte-and-bailey (of which many earthwork traces remain, some crowned by later shell keeps) to the mighty Edwardian fortresses of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, whose formidable curtain walls, gatehouses, and towers, built on carefully chosen sites, represent the ultimate in medieval defensive works.
Berkhamsted. 25 miles northwest of London. One of the earliest Anglo-Norman castles, with both motte and bailey surrounded by wet moats; the ruins of a shell keep; thirteenth-century outworks.
Warwick. 75 miles northwest of London. A motte-and-bailey fortified by William the Conqueror in 1068, converted to a shell keep late in the eleventh century, with fourteenth- and fifteenth-century walls and towers and residential buildings of the seventeenth century.
York. 250 miles north of London. Two motte-and-bailey castles, built in 1068 and 1069, the former now surmounted by Clifford’s Tower (1245).
Windsor. 20 miles west of London. The Round Tower, shell wall built about 1170 on a motte constructed in 1070, previously guarded by a wooden tower; curtain walls built by Henry II late in the twelfth century and by Henry III in the thirteenth; chapel and residential buildings by later kings.
Launceston. Cornwall. Stone shell wall added in the twelfth century to motte of 1080; round inner tower built in the thirteenth century.
Totnes. Devon. Motte of 1080 enclosed by a late twelfth century shell wall; hall built in the bailey below in the thirteenth century; shell wall rebuilt early in the fourteenth century.
Restormel. Cornwall. Twelfth-century shell wall with projecting square tower; domestic quarters, barracks and chapel added in the thirteenth century around the inside of the wall with a central court.
White Tower (Tower of London). Rectangular keep built in 1080, 90 feet high to the battlements, originally of three stories, divided internally by a cross-wall; the topmost story, with the great hall, solar, and chapel, rises the height of two floors; entrance was by a forebuilding, now destroyed; the towers of the inner curtain and parts of the walls themselves date from the late twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, such as the Wakefield Tower, where the Crown Jewels are kept, and the Bloody Tower, where the little princes Edward V and his younger brother Richard are believed to have been murdered on the instructions of Richard III, and where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned. Both towers were built in the reign of Henry III.
Colchester. 50 miles northeast of London. Rectangular keep built in 1087, with three stories.
Rochester. 25 miles east of London. Great keep with a parapet 113 feet high and corner towers rising 12 feet higher, built in 1130, with three residential floors above a basement; the entire building is divided internally from top to bottom by a cross-wall; entrance is in a forebuilding.
Dover. Rectangular keep built in the 1180s by Henry II, 83 feet high, with turrets at the corners 12 feet higher, three stories, entrance to the main (third) floor in a forebuilding that also contains two chapels; keep divided internally by a cross-wall into two large halls in each story, with chambers in the walls; curtain walls of the thirteenth century.
Kenilworth. 80 miles northwest of London. Rectangular keep called Caesar’s Tower, built 1150-75, of exceptionally powerful construction, walls 14 feet thick, strengthened by buttresses and massive corner turrets; two stories, one large hall in each story, original entrance to the second story by external stairs; curtain walls of the thirteenth century; great hall built by John of Gaunt in the fourteenth century.
Orford. 75 miles northeast of London on the Suffolk coast. Built 1166-70, circular internally, multiangular externally, with three large square turrets; three stories, hall on the second floor, forebuilding containing entrance porch at the second-story level, with chapel above; spiral stairway to the basement and battlements in one turret, chambers in the other turrets.
Conisborough. 145 miles north of London. Built 1180-90, tall cylindrical tower with very thick walls supported by six massive buttresses the height of the building, commanding the whole front of the keep; vaulted basement, three upper floors, original entrance at the second story reached by a drawbridge; sloping base to prevent attackers from approaching close to the keep.
Pembroke. Wales. Round keep built about 1190, 54 feet in diameter, 80 feet high, with four stories; the entrance to the second story is by stairs in a forebuilding leading to a drawbridge before the doorway; a spiral stairway from the entrance floor leads to the basement and the upper floors and battlements; halls and living rooms are in the inner bailey near the keep.
Edwardian Castles of Wales. Most of them are in a good state of preservation: Beaumaris, Caernarvon, Caerphilly, Conway, Denbigh, Flint, Harlech, Kidwelly, Rhuddlan.
FRANCE
Like England, France has extant castles representing all the architectural types.
Langeais. On the Loire. Rectangular keep built by Fulk Nerra about 1010, with three stories: first and second floors for storage, hall on the third story; the rest of the present castle was built by Louis XI in the fifteenth century.
Loches. On the Indre, south of the Loire. Four-story rectangular keep built about 1020, 122 feet high, with a large forebuilding; thirteenth-century curtain walls, fifteenth-century Round Tower and square Martelet Tower.
Gisors. Normandy. Shell keep built early in the twelfth century, four-story tower with irregular octagonal plan added by Henry II of England on the motte late in the century; Tour du Prisonnier added in 1206—a round keep incorporated in the curtain wall, with three vaulted stories entered at third-story level from a wall-walk on the curtain on one side, a postern at the same level on the other side, stairways to lower floors from the third story, the tower a self-contained residence.
Arques. Near Dieppe. Great rectangular keep built by Henry I of England about 1125, with four stories; entrance on the third story by a stairway built around two sides of the keep and protected by an outer wall; partition wall dividing the lower three floors each into two large halls with no communication between them except by a complicated system of wall passages and stairways; top floor command-post undivided. The castle is now known as Arques-la-Bataille because of Henry IV’s victory there in 1589 in the French civil war.
Houdan. 30 miles west of Paris. Built about 1130, square on the inside, circular on the outside, with four projecting semicircular turrets; two very high stories, ground floor storeroom, second-story hall with chambers in three of the turrets, spiral stairs in the fourth leading to battlements and basement, original entrance in this turret twenty feet above ground reached by a drawbridge from a wall-walk on the curtain wall of the castle, now destroyed.
Etampes. 30 miles south of Paris. Built about 1160, large four-lobed three-st
ory keep built around a central pier, vaulted great hall on the second story, chambers on the third story, entrance midway between floors, probably reached by a wall-walk and drawbridge from the curtain, now destroyed.
Châteaudun. 70 miles southwest of Paris on the Loir River. Round keep built early in the twelfth century, one of the earliest and best preserved of its type; 95 feet high, containing three floors, the lower two covered with domes; entrance on the second floor; chapel and block of residential buildings built by Joan of Arc’s companion-at-arms, Dunois.
La Roche Guyon. On the Seine 35 miles northwest of Paris. Round keep built in the last half of the twelfth century on a precipitous cliff, with ascent from the riverbank by subterranean stairways and narrow ledges cut through the rock; a central tower is surrounded by a chemise and an outer wall, and all three are prow-shaped, the prow pointing away from the cliff and toward the line of approach from above.
Château Gaillard. Normandy. Built by Richard the Lionhearted in 1198 on a precipitous cliff 300 feet above the Seine, with three baileys arranged in line; the keep, in the inner bailey, on the edge of the precipice, is circular and thickened by a prow at the side toward the bailey; the keep was once protected by machicolations (now destroyed), one of the earliest examples of stone machicolations in Western Europe; the great hall is near the keep in the inner bailey; the curtain of the inner bailey is protected by corrugations on its outer face rather than by wall towers; the curtains of the outer and middle baileys are strengthened by circular wall towers.
Chinon. On the Vienne. Three groups of buildings: the Fort St. Georges, where Henry II of England died in 1189; the Château du Milieu, where Joan of Arc met the Dauphin in 1429; and the Château du Coudray, with its Tour du Coudray, built by Philip Augustus early in the thirteenth century, a round keep with stairways along the inside of the walls, guarded at each turn by machicolations, leading to the upper stories. The Templars were held for trial in the Tour du Coudray in 1308.
Angers. On the Maine near its juncture with the Loire, on the site of an earlier castle built by Fulk Nerra of Anjou. Great curtain wall built by Louis IX, 1230-40, with seventeen round towers with thickened bases rising almost half the height of the towers, two posterns, a chapel and residential quarters, no keep.
Tour de Constance. Aigues-Mortes, Provence. Built in the mid-thirteenth century, a large circular keep isolated by a moat at one corner of the city’s fortifications, originally a castle in itself before the town walls were built; two vaulted stories with large halls over a small basement.
Fougères. Brittany. Represents many periods of castle building, from the foundations of a round keep razed by Henry II of England in 1166 to the thirteenth-century curtain walls, the Melusine and Gobelin Towers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the fifteenth-century Surienne and Raoul Towers; the stone columns that supported the second story of the great hall can still be seen in the inner bailey; entrance to the castle is protected by a moat, a barbican, and four towers. Fougères is unusual in that it is built on a plain, with the neighboring town on a hilltop.
Najac. Southern France. Built 1250-60, a three-story vaulted round keep consisting of one of the corner towers of a rectangular curtain wall equipped with an elaborate system of stairways and passages; the entrance to the keep on the ground floor is protected by a moat and drawbridge, and a spiral stairway rises from the entrance to the upper floors and battlements; the great hall is on the second story; all operations were directed from the keep, and each section of the defensive system was capable of being isolated by barriers.
Vincennes. On the eastern edge of Paris. Early fourteenth century, great 170-foot-high keep containing the king’s living quarters, isolated from the rest of the castle by a chemise and a wide moat, and strongly fortified; a first-story basement and kitchen, royal apartments on the second and third stories; the fourth story occupied by attendants, the fifth by servants, the sixth used for defense.
Pierrefonds. 45 miles northeast of Paris. Built by Louis d’Orléans, count of Valois, 1390-1400, on a rocky height; strong double curtain walls, the inner defended by eight round towers; barracks and service quarters built around the inner courtyard; the count’s residence in a tall keep near the gate, capable of independent defense; approach route between curtain walls around the whole enclosure, then through a barbican and across a drawbridge; restored in the nineteenth century by Viollet-le-Duc.
ITALY
Italian castles belong to four classes: Dark Age castles; Norman fortresses built after the conquest of southern Italy beginning in the 1040s; castles built in the thirteenth century by Frederick II all over Italy and Sicily, sometimes on the foundations of Norman castles; and castles built by the despots in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many of them in the cities.
Canossa. Emilia. Picturesque ruins of a tenth-century fortress perched on a rock, scene of the famous barefoot-in-the-snow penance of Emperor Henry IV in 1077 during the investiture controversy with Pope Gregory VII.
Bari. Southern Italy. Castle built by the Norman ruler of Sicily, Count Roger I, in 1131, and rebuilt in 1233 by Emperor Frederick II; corner towers and inner court added in the sixteenth century.
Barletta. Southern Italy. Eleventh-century Norman castle rebuilt by the Hohenstaufens, enlarged by Charles of Anjou late in the thirteenth century.
Capuan Castle. Naples. Built by the Normans in the eleventh century, remodeled by Emperor Frederick II in the thirteenth century.
Castel Nuovo. Naples. Built by the Angevins in 1282, modeled on the castle of Angers; five round towers added in the fifteenth century by Alfonso I of Aragon.
Castles of Frederick II. Characteristically, these have rectangular enclosures with square corner towers. Lucera, a great square tower with an enclosed court, and a curtain wall added late in the thirteenth century by Charles of Anjou; Gioia del Colle, Apulia; Prato, northwest of Florence; Gravina, Apulia, a hunting castle; Castello Ursino, Catania, a rectangular enclosure with round towers; Castel del Monte, Apulia, octagonal with eight octagonal towers and inner octagonal court.
Gradara. On the Adriatic coast south of Rimini. Square castle with round corner towers built in the thirteenth century by the Grifi family, afterward owned by the Malatestas and the Sforzas; here Giovanni Malatesta is supposed to have murdered his wife, Francesca da Rimini, and her lover, Paolo, in the tragic love story immortalized by Dante.
Castello di Sarzanello. North of Pisa. Built by the Luccan despot Castruccio Castracane in 1322; thick triangular curtain wall with round towers, surrounded by a deep moat, with a square keep commanding a bridge that links the enclosure to a detached bastion.
Scaliger Castle. Verona. Built by Can Grande II della Scala in 1354 on the Adige River, with the square tower of the keep guarding a fortified bridge.
Castello della Rocca. Cesena (near Rimini). Castle of the Malatestas, built about 1380, with a polygonal inner bailey on top of a hill and an outer bailey running down the slope; the inner bailey is surrounded by powerful walls with towers at the angles, and protected by a strongly defended gatehouse and a small barbican; the approach to the barbican is intercepted by cross-walls forming a winding passage with gateways at the turning points.
Castello d’Este. Ferrara. Built about 1385, on level ground, with a rectangular curtain that has square towers at each corner; guarded by moats and four gatehouses with drawbridges; living quarters are built around an internal courtyard.
Castello Visconteo. Pavia. Built by the Visconti family in the late fourteenth century, surrounded by walls nearly 100 feet high, punctuated by square corner towers.
Castello San Giorgio. Mantua. Built by the Gonzagas in the late fourteenth century; a square enclosure with powerful square corner towers and machicolations; surrounded by a deep moat.
Castello Sforzesco. Milan. A huge square brick castle, the largest castle in Italy, built by Francesco Sforza in 1412 on the site of a Visconti fortress of 1368, with curtain walls 12 feet thick, a gatehouse, and tw
o great round towers at the front corners; the interior is divided into one large and two small courtyards, and the smallest, the rochetta, which comprises the inner fortress, is guarded by a square tower with machicolations.
SPAIN
Spain, like Italy, has some of the oldest castles in Europe. Those of Spain fall into four categories: Muslim castles, before the twelfth century; castles of the Christian military orders, late twelfth and early thirteenth century; castles built during the Reconquest to protect important centers; and castle-palaces of the fifteenth century. The Muslim castles, which were later imitated by the Christian military orders, were typically built of tapia, a combination of pebbles and mortar, and were rectangular, with square wall towers and a square extramural tower; points in the curtain walls needing stronger defense were protected by pentagonal towers. Later Christian castles were often of brick.