Medieval Castle Essay

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.

Everyone has some kind of hope for the future, something that they want to achieve or experience. “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, is the real life story of Jeannette growing up in poverty and her experiences as a child. Jeannette’s father was an alcoholic man, he was very irresponsible when it came to taking care of his children. Rex still managed to keep an emotional connection with his children, and this helped shape the Walls kids into who they became and kept their family together. Throughout Jeanette's childhood, she was always moving from place to place, and was constantly struggling to keep her family together. Throughout the book, “The Glass Castle” was mentioned a multitude of times. “The Glass Castle” was representative

In Europe, the lords would build castles out of stone to protect themselves whilst the Japanese lords, known as Daimyo, built castles out of wood rather than stone.

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.

Children do not always need loving and supportive parents in order to grow up successful. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, not every child needs loving and supportive parents. Although they do love their children, Rex and Mary use very basic parental decisions; the children are very independent and raise themselves for the most part. With the right mindset, motivation and knowledge this can lead to success in life even through the hardest of times.

“Mom frowned at me. 'You'd be destroying what makes it special' she said, 'It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty'.” -Page 38 | I think that what Rose says symbolizes is that Jeannette is beautiful because even through everything she's gone through with her family, it has just made her a strong person, or the “Joshua Tree” in this case. |

The Middle Ages, also known as the Medieval era, though scarred with a history of violence and war, has given the world some of the most marvelous and beautiful pieces of art, particularly in architecture. The Middle Ages is the name given to the time period from the late 5th century to the 15th century, particular to European history. The construction of these types of buildings was a constant for various cultures for a thousand years. They can be categorized into three phases; Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque and Gothic. The most important buildings during medieval times were religious, defensive and governmental or power related.

Brattices (small wooden sheds) were also attached to wall by small jutting stones; these could be built quickly and were effective for defence. The holds for the brattices can still be seen today. The walls were filled with rubble beneath the initial layer to absorb the impact from cannon fire and stop the wall from crumbling. Crenulations on the top of the curtain walls had wooden flaps to allow archers to shoot from quickly and not get hit by enemy fire. We saw evidence of this on the Carisbrooke Castle fieldtrip, where there were small notches in the stone for the flap hinges.

Parker states, during the Hundred Year’s War, that major states of western Europe could reduce the vertical defense of a fortress to rubble within days, whereas a similar siege without gunpowder-backed artillery could take up to 6 months. It wasn’t until almost 100 years later when Niccolo Machiavelli, using his third technique of installing modern fortifications, provided an adaptation to bombardments that would allow fortresses to defy even the largest armies of the day. Machiavelli called for a fortress that reduced its height and increased the depths of existing walls, which would allow for them to absorb incoming fire more effectively.

They could defend from attacks as well as prepare to launch attacks of their own from their castles. Originally castles were made of wood and timber. Later they were replaced with stone to make them stronger. Castles were often built at the top of hills or where they could use some natural features of the land to help with their defense. After the Middle Ages castles weren't built as much, especially

Overall I think the best type of castle for the Normans to have built is a stone castle.

One reason why castles were important during the Middle Ages is because of their design. Castles were supposed to be designed as a base for military defense. Some of the hand were far from perfect. They consisted of a motte which was a mound of earth surrounded by a ditch and had a bailey which is where other buildings would be placed. Later in history stone castles started to emerge with lots of innovations from the previous designs of castles.

The loss of castles used for defence was another cause for instability, for example in the 1160’s Mointrere, Akbar and other castles were lost to Nur

This caused the need for castle designs to be changed. The first castles were mounds of earths which were built for defence as enemies had difficulties climbing over them. The Normans then developed the Motte and Bailey castle designs. "A Motte was a large mound of earth, and a Bailey was the flattened land beside the mound."[4] Motte and Bailey castles took a small amount of time to build and it was very hard to attack. Castle architects developed a way to further strengthen the Motte and Bailey Castle which was building "a shell keep - a thin ring of stone around the buildings on top of the castle Motte."[4] Castle architects then constructed a castle made from stone. Stone was much harder to be stormed by attackers and it was protected against fire. A new style of constructing castles developed which was the gothic style. Gothic castles were much more imposing and comfortable to live in. In 1270, concentric castles were then developed. "They had thicker outer walls and rings of extra outer walls."[4] Concentric castles were very expensive stone castles. In Northern Wales, Edward I built some concentric castles. After the development of cannons, castle walls were easily destroyable. The nobles then decided to turn the castles into imposing grand

The Burg Eltz is an early German castle that focused more on looks and the good medieval life of a royal rather than the hard lines and toil of a defensive fortress. Castles are considered to be large, fortified private residences. Castles started showing up during the 9th and 10th centuries. These fortifications provided a home base from which attacks could be launched, or as protection from enemy raids. Also, the structures served as symbols of power and centers of administration. Castles were first constructed from timber and earth, but had their walls replaced later on by stone. Even though gunpowder was introduced into Europe during the 14th century, it was not powerful enough to significantly affect the construction of new castles until