Castles become obsolete
by Rit NosotroChange Over Time Essay
Why were castles were first built? Describe their purpose and design changes while they were used, and what led to them becoming obsolete?
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Summary:
Castles were built from the earliest times. They were built around palaces, cities, and towns. Often they were built of enormous thickness and of great height, others were surrounded by a moat, and others surrounded by towers. Some ancient castles date from periods so far back as the walls of Babylon and the wall of Ashur from about 1600 B.C.
The main reason castles were built was for defense. They were very often surrounded by a wall, which was usually supplemented by a strong shield wall at certain points. Slits protected the defenders, and enemy often also had to destroy a series of several gates, which slowed them down considerably. The main door or gate was protected by a long drawbridge and odd things were projecting over the gate, such as dead cows and other diseased animals, and from the gate boiling liquids and missiles could be dropped on the enemies below.
There were many parts and buildings in a castle. The largest refuge of the
people living in the castle was the stronghold, or keep. It was the tallest
and strongest building in the walls of the castle. It had an entrance that was
high off the ground and was accessible only with a removable ladder or wooden
bridge, which was difficult to raise and lower. In addition to being the watchtower
and a center point of the whole castle, the keep was also a symbol of status.
The main building that was lived in, the Great Hall, was called the Palas. The
castle chapel was often built in the gatehouse or one of the larger main towers,
and a small garden inside the walls grew herbs, flowers and vegetables in the
state of an emergency. Castles had large food and water supplies making a siege
incredibly difficult; it could take years to starve a well stocked castle. Offices
and service rooms were generally built in the outmost ward.
From the sixteenth century on, the walls of the castles had to be made increasingly
thicker and stronger in because of the development of artillery. A few, but
not many, castles were made into mighty fortresses. Instead, the nobility increasingly
moved to more comfortable residential castles. Many, were sumptuously ostentatious
and magnificent buildings.
During the third century B.C., the way war was done quickly progressed, so the
defense tactics were improved. Romans and Greeks already figured out a way to
use gateways in the defense of a fortress. Huge walls and towers were also common.
The Romans left rectangular buildings measuring about 60ft by 70 ft called milecastle.
Some of their more recent fortifications can be seen in Italy, Palestine, Gaul
and Britain.
About 500 A.D. the Byzantine fortifications of this period are among some of
the greatest works of military engineering of all time. In France, western Germany
and northern Italy, in the ninth century, the medieval castle was created because
the nobles began building fortifications since the insecurity increasing in
the region. Almost all new cities in Europe were built around castles which
became center of government, finance, and trade.
Peasants would lease land from the owner of the castle, and the people would
use the land for farms or for other occupations. Since they were only leasing
the land, each farmer had to give a portion of his crop, each blacksmith free
labor, each baker free food, and so on. In return, not only would the lord provide
the land, but also protection in times of conflict. Whenever a threat was approaching,
all the peasants would flee into the castle. There they would stay in cramped
quarters until it was safe to go out again. If the lord had a military force
to fight, he would command them to defend; if not, it was the peasant’s
job to defend the castle.
As the years passed, new weapons for mass destruction were invented and could
destroy castles quite easily. First came trebuchets capable of launching moderate
sized objects great distances. However, trebuchets were not mobile, and required
time to move them since they had to be disassembled and then reassembled. Next
came the siege onager which was a massive catapult capable of launching boulders
and smashing walls. However, the greatest blow came in the form of gunpowder.
The smaller mortars were barely effective, but they grew into much larger cannon
that could knock down a castle wall with sustained gunfire. Mortars were used
to fire cannonballs over walls into a courtyard to kill soldiers and cause general
damage. Cannons were used to shoot cannonballs directly into castle walls. Though
they were not very reliable, these weapons could knock down walls and they made
castles a pile of rubble in a very short time. Why spend a fortune on building
a castle, which could be blown apart, when the money could be spent on developing
artillery?
Castle defenses were of little help against continuous cannon fire. The use
of rounded walls might deflect a cannon ball but this would only be by luck.
If a cannon ball hit a rounded tower face on, it still would not do much damage.
Castles developed thicker walls in response to powerful cannons but this only
caused the development of even larger cannons. Eventually fortresses and other
buildings were built for defense but stone castles lost their effectiveness.
Castles had played an extremely important role in the everyday lives of medieval
people for nearly 600 years of prolific construction. Although fortresses would
spread throughout the newly colonized world, around the fifteenth century castle
building had become obsolete.
QuickQuiz:
Why were most castles build?
A. For storage
B. For defense
C. For houses for people
D. For prisoners of war
Where were offices and service rooms generally built?
A. By the Great Hall
B. Near the gate
C. In the outmost ward
D. By the keep
Who discovered a way to use gateways in defense of a castle?
A. Romans and Greeks
B. British and Russians
C. Welsh and French
D. Byzantines and Germans
4) What made traditional stone castles obsolete?
A) No one wanted to leave in them because they were dark and musty
B) They were too difficult to build
C) All the barbarians died, so there was no reason to for people to protect
themselves anymore.
D) Advanced siege weapons rendered castles useless.
Biography
http://www.castles.org/
http://www.castlewales.com/home.html
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/html
Britannica Encyclopedia
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