Early Medieval Architecture

The fortress itself is a legacy of the people who built it. Since it was originally constructed to defend Florida, it was qualified to withstand any attack. The material that was used for its construction and how they did it is easy on the eyes as well as efficient. It is one of the two fortresses built out of coquina; a soft limestone of broken shells with many advantages and the only one available at that moment. The military compound was constructed with more than 400,000 stone blocks, all crafted and set by hand (Neale). It turned out pretty well despite the fact that they thought it was a poor material. Because of its mixture, this particular stone was able to provide a long-live fortress with unpredictable benefits. One of these benefits is the ability to handle cannons which were the real strength of the fort. The shape is very peculiar and somehow prepared to keep the land safe. Moreover, it counts with a series of qualities that are far beyond description. Vaults, bastions, were all part of this innovation. Over the years, it has been repaired, remodeled, and improvements have been made. In addition to those changes, even walls were created with the purpose of not causing any damage and giving the fort the protection it required. Thanks to the measures that were taken, it is now considered a unique and miscellaneous

Spain has the most formidable castles in the world. Spain has more than 1000 Spanish castles recorded through history. The castles were built for various reasons. However, the primary reason was to stop the Arabs when they invaded Spain in 711. The Spanish built so many of them in fact. These castles were mostly concentrated in the northern part which was where the Arabs advanced when they attacked. And when the Spanish military moved to reconquer the peninsula towards the south, they built additional strongholds to prevent the Arabs from reclaiming Spain. These castles were known as Castilla.

The once subjugated Saxons were required to raise a knoll that was twenty-one meters high and surrounded by a dry trench. There were Wooden pikes or posts that protected the buildings on top of the knoll, while to in the south and east of the knoll there were yards that were protected by banks and ditches this all this was to set in motion the ground work for the castle of Norwich. Edward Boardman a Norwich born architect completed the Norwich Castle, a medieval and fantastic defense structure in the city of Norwich which was one of the greatest castles of its time because of its architecturally advanced structure, a symbol of military power, and a symbol of political control that was founded by the Normans.

In the 12th century Goodrich Castle, was replaced with stone. This decreased the level of destruction during wars. As a development of Stone Keep castles, concentric castles were built from 1250 onwards. The concentric design was copied from the castles in the Middle East; knowledge and understanding of design and structure came into England through returning crusaders (soldiers) during the 1200’s.

The wooden towers of a motte and bailey castle were removed and replaced with stone, because the towers were hollow, it was called a shell keep. Castles with a shell keep were better than the early Norman ‘motte and bailey castles’ because it was an expensive way of strengthening the motte, the fragile wooden fence around the motte was replaced with a stone wall. The castle engineers during the Norman period of time did not trust the motte to support the enormous weight of a stone keep, but the a common solution to that problem was to replace the wooden stakes enclosing the castle with a stone wall then building wooden buildings backing onto the inside of the wall. This construction was great because it meant that the walls could be thinner and lighter. The shell keep castles were less popular and were relatively short lived, the style stopped being popular very quickly. Castles like York castle Clifford tower have a stone

Everything what makes it difficult to see, for example dimming lights and dark thick walls are characteristics of this type of architecture. Overall you could say, that the count's castle looks like the cathedrals in the thirteenth century, it is a copy of a medieval building.

Castles in the medieval time period were more than just a home, but rather a safe haven for the whole town. The first castles were built in the tenth century in Western Europe. Castles played a crucial role in European history. However, by the end of the thirteenth century they had lost their military, political, and social significance and were being abandoned. Castles in the medieval and Anglo Saxon times, especially in European area, were built entirely for proper function towards protection from the outside world.

Castles began to be built with stone instead of timber and became stronger to withstand sieges. For example, castles included drawbridges and other features such as ditches, rivers and moats were built to encircle the castle. As the construction of castles improved and new innovations were integrated, concentric circle castles emerged in the 12th century. These were castles with an inner wall and an outer wall, hence the name, concentric, which means a circle inside another circle. The inner wall was higher than the outer wall which allowed archers to shoot over the outer walls and the outer wall was thicker to have a strong first line of defense. More important structures were built within the inner wall and the multiple walls construction made the castle more durable during the event of a siege or an attack. When an attack occurred, the concentric design of the castle resulted in many attackers getting struck in the middle of the inner and outer walls. The soldiers defended the castle took advantage of the situation and the attacker would be bombarded with traps, hot liquid and murder

One feature is an artificial or natural mound of earthen materials, called a motte. A motte could be up to 30 feet tall and was sometimes surrounded by a moat to keep attackers from scaling it and breaching the main defenses. On top of the motte was a donjon or wooden tower, the primary area of defense. There was an area on top of the tower to allow for the garrison to shoot the attackers from a higher angle. Lastly, a bailey was a courtyard surrounded by walls, ideally circular.

They came up with poles with hooks at the end that would hook on the rider's armor and pull them or make him fall off. They also made the halberg which was a axe, spear, and hook all in one. They would use the hook to pull riders off of there horse or stab them on the horse.("Medieval Weapons."). There was attacks that they would go for a castle. They would need special weapons, they were called siege weapons. They were the mongole, battering ram, siege tower, catapult, and trebuchet. The mongole was like the catapult in the sense it launched projectiles but they were different in their design. The mongole was a giant crossbow. The siege tower was used to cross walls of castles they would make it the same height or even taller than the wall they had to go over and it would protect anybody inside with ladders for the attack. The battering ram is simply a tree truck held up by rope or chain to a frame covered in wooden or sometimes steel in spots. It was used to protect the multiple soldiers inside that would work the trunk back and forth to hit doors or castle gates down so they could get in. The trunk would have a spike

There are many ways that kingdoms defended themselves with things like moats, bridges, walls (Morris & Exploring-Castles, n.d.). Luckily for the attackers, there are ways to get pass defences, such as battering rams for heavy doors. Also, mining was used to go under a defensive wall. If people thought that chemical warfare was a new thing, then those people were wrong. In medieval times, if a castle had wooden structures, then that castle was in grave danger of having it set on fire.

Concentric castles were made of stone and built primarily for protection and defense. The building of these concentric designs began in the 1200s. The castles consisted of thick walls surrounding the main castle, usually one large wall surrounding a smaller one. The walls were designed to create obstacles for anyone trying to attack the castle. The hard, tall walls made it difficult for the attacker to get at the castle and made it easier for the defenders to fire at them from above. Its symmetrical shape also made it easier for lookout men to see across the surrounding countryside. The concentric castles, as beneficial as they were, were also extremely expensive and time-consuming to build. As opposed to motte and bailey castles, which only took a few weeks to build, concentric castles required years of

The Gatehouse- was very important in castles during the Medieval Times. But where did this idea come from before medieval times. This is where they would hold there good’s.

Moats were a popular defence used back in the middle ages basically a moat is a deep wide ditch that is usually filled with water, and typically it is surrounding the castle as a protection from assault. Another popular defence that Muiderslot used is a drawbridge which is a moveable wooden bridge that would unravel across the castle’s moat. Typically these drawbridges are made of a wooden platform that is fixed to the castle wall and it would be raised by either rope or chains.

The Tower of London is one of the most famous and visited historic monuments in the world. For some people it conjures up images of Norman architecture and towering battlements, but most associate it with arms and armour, ravens, the Crown Jewels, Yeoman Warders, imprisonment, death and ghostly apparitions. But this does not do it justice: the history of the Tower and its buildings is a vast, fascinating and complex subject, intertwined with the history of the country of England, its government, its kings and queens, and its people and institutions. The castle's first four centuries, during the Middle Ages, saw the development of the layout of buildings that we know today and its