Medieval Castle Research Paper

I have Medieval Weapons , I will start with the Crossbow and it is a weapon used in the Middle Age, consisted of a tiller, made of wood and often decorated with horn ivory or bone, to one end of which was attached a short bow. The medieval crossbow was an important weapon in the medieval combat environment. It was primarily used for military purposes. The weapon was used by armies all over the world and dramatically changed the way battles were fought.Initially, this was just made from wood, like the ordinary bow, but was replaced by stronger and more powerful composite bows made from several layers of horn and sinew glued together.

As knights increased their social standing, with some becoming nobles, the idea of owning a castle became a common idea. War was often a way for one side to gain large amounts of wealth, which allowed more castles to be built. This allowed for the development of many different types of castles.

Castles were extremely important during 1066 – 1500 and they changed overtime to get more protection. A castle is a fortification that was used in the middle ages to protect territory against an invasion. They were important during these times because many kings and lords wanted to show off how wealthy they are and they used them as bases, controlling their land and people from a higher point.

There were many advantages in building motte and Bailey castles. Firstly they were easy and quick to build, unlike stone castles which could take up to 20 years to build. This was useful because this meant that the Normans could build a castle quickly and could therefore establish enough protection, to build stone castles. Secondly Motte and Bailey castles were constructed out of wood and this was easy to acquire, unlike stone which had to be transported all the way from France. This was useful because it meant that a Motte and Bailey castle was easy to build and would hardly

In the medieval period they had many weapons to protect themselves and to fight with. One of the most common weapons was the sword. They used the sword for fighting in battles, this wasn’t the only weapon they used. They also used the very first crossbows and regular bow and arrow. They used catapults to launch big rocks and anything to crush buildings and people.

I am certain you have seen a picture of a castle with its surrounding body of water called the moat. The moat is the castles defense mechanism from attacking parties, both by tunneling under the castle walls and wall approaches. Castles without moats are extremely vulnerable to attack.

Castles were the main form of protection for most people living during the Medieval Period. The main purpose of the castle was for the defense of the

A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the castle fall to an adversary. The first keeps were made of timber and formed a key part of the moat-and-bailey castles. People began to build stone keeps during the 10th and 11th centuries; these included Norman keeps, with a square or rectangular design, and circular shell keeps. Stone keeps carried considerable political as well as military importance and could take up to a decade to build.

The life of a lord and a lady in old times was nowhere comparable to a common marriage in modern days. The lord and the lady would live somewhere to protect them from any surprise attacks, usually being a castle. The castle would be made by stone so it could not be burnt down by enemies. The castle would have bedrooms, a kitchen, an office, and a “party” room among many other essential parts. The castles had many servants that did the work for everybody in the castle such as cooking and cleaning. There were also knights that helped defend everyone in the castle.

In Medieval times, you'd have found a drawbridge along part of this modern wooden bridge into Bodiam Castle. Curiously, the earliest drawbridge designs were fussier and a bit harder to explain. At the most basic level, they could just be an unsecured piece of long wood, which was removed when attackers were nearby. A different system worked a bit like a set of hands on a clock. The wooden drawbridge was rotated across the moat, like a big-hand reaching from 3-o'clock around to 6. Another system - which we nowadays call the ‘bascule’ - was a see-saw type arrangement, with a complex counterweight on either side to draw one side up whilst the other went

Castles were a very important part of the Medieval times. They had many different rooms and places in the the castles. There is the great hall, dungeons, Lord cambers, the garden towers walls and alot more. This will be about all of the castles rooms and places.  The great hall and Dungeons were very differnt from each other

The high medieval Welsh princes and Gaelic Irish lords are comparable in several ways. Both had to contend with the ever-growing presence of the Anglo-Normans and were able to maintain some form of native rule throughout the period (“Gaelic lordly settlement” 209). Furthermore, castles played a significant role in the proceedings whether built or captured and whether they were of native origins or Anglo-Norman. This can be attributed to their capabilities of withstanding various scales of warfare and being one of the means of displaying lordly rank (“Settlement and Society” 97). However, the functions, characteristics, and prevalence of castles are not necessarily uniform across the three groups. Using the historical and

With the introduction of gunpowder, cannons became the most prominent weapon for sieges. The idea of the cannon is not to fire projectiles into the opposition’s fortress or territory, but to directly strike the defensive walls. As proximity to the defensive walls increases, the effectiveness of the cannon increases. Through these innovations, the cannon became a significant tool used in the

Castles were the core of a society in the Middle Ages, acting as a fort and defense. One of the first castles meant to as a defense fort was the motte-bailey castle, one of the earliest fortifications of the Middle Ages. The motte and bailey castle date back to the early ‘s, . This design would have the castle upon an elevated set of land known as the motte. The motte was surrounded by a defensive ditch which also separated the motte from the palisade, this was known as the bailey. A bridge connected the motte to the lower bailey, this construct was meant to guarantee that the keep, the stronghold or center of the kingdom, was harder to get to during invasions. Surrounding the entire kingdom was a wooden fence that contained a girded and barbed

Motte and Bailey Castles were the first castles brought by the Normans in 1066. They were wooden and kept on an “an artificial mound” called a motte (Johnson). The castle would be surrounded by an enclosed courtyard called a bailey. The whole area would be surrounded by a “ditch and palisade” for extra protection (Johnson). The mote would be used as a final fighting destination when the castle itself had been breached.