CASTLES OF GREAT BRITAIN

Defensive Features:

Most castles, from the earliest times, followed certain standards of design and construction. Central to the castle was the keep, or "donjon", the main commanding tower. Many early castles and certain later ones were nothing more than simple towers. The tower houses of Britain and Ireland, such as Blarney Castle, are examples of this type. Most, however, required outer walls of some sort. The tower was contained within the walls or attached to the walls. There was often more than one set of walls, creating inner and outer courts, the latter known as a bailey. Later castles were built on a concentric plan, where two heavily towered walls formed two rings around the keep.

Castles often featured an array of defences to delay the attackers' progress towards the keep. Moats and ditches formed the most obvious, as these would have to be filled in before heavy siege engines could be moved towards the walls. The gate was a weak point in the defences, so this could be strengthened with flanking towers and a heavy portcullis. In Russian castles, a single tower with a double gate running through it ("nadvratnaa bashnya") would be used instead. "Murder holes" and embrasures might be built into the walls and gatehouse so projectiles could be launched at the attackers.

Overhanging wooden hoardings could be constructed if a castle was under threat. These covered walkways would allow several lines of fire. Later, permanent fixtures known as "machicolation" were built in stone. Perhaps the most notable feature of castle defence were the crenellations and merlons, which offered relative cover for archers.

Construction:

Castle building was a very common task as boundaries were pushed and territory conquered. The walls would most commonly go up first, in order to protect workers such as stonemasons during later stages of construction. Castles could take many years to complete, although the time needed depended greatly from type, location, resources, time period, construction materials, etc. For example, a castle built on top of a hill would generally take much longer to build than a castle located on terrain that was easier to build upon. While a Norman motte and baily castle could be constructed in a year or less, a large stone castle could take decades. Castles may have also been partially constructed in one generation and later generations filled in and added on. As time passed, stronger castles were built.

During the Middle Ages, a stronger need for security emerged, leading to the building of concentric castles. Concentric castles took far longer time to complete but they provided many lines of defence. Normally the outer wall would be finished first and then the rest; to protect the workers and the people already inhabitating the castle. The most famous example of concentric castle is the Krak des Chevaliers in the Holy Land, provided with no less than three wall lines. The L-plan also emerged in the Middle Ages; this design allowed defenders to fire upon invaders of the neighbouring wing. Examples of this design which have survived to the second millennium are Muchalls Castle and Neidpath Castle. Also, towards the rise in stone castles, many wooden motte and bailey castles would have the wall on the motte covered with a stone barrier, rather than build an entire new castle.

Response to the Advent of Gunpowder :

The advent of gunpowder in the Middle Ages signalled a change in the purpose of a castle - from it being purely a military building, it became increasingly a residential one. From the Renaissance onward, this loosening of military import allowed for a more aesthetic approach to construction, for example the Castello Estense of Ferrara in Italy, the castles of Valderrobres and Manzanares el Real in Spain and the series of highly decorated castles built (or rebuilt) in France along the Loire starting from the 15th century.

Whilst siegecraft had consisted of throwing machines such as trebuchets, the primary aims in the construction of castle walls were height and thickness. However it became almost impossible to follow this ideal to cope with ever more powerful cannons. Existing castles which retained military importance were updated, as far as practically possible, to cope with new siege technologies. One example is the English fortress of Bodiam, built from 1385, provided with opposite slit to allow firing from arquebuses. But inevitably, those fortifications previously deemed impregnable, eventually proved inadequate in the face of gunpowder. These include Friesack Castle (which was reduced in two days (during February 1414), by Frederick I with "Heavy Peg" (Faule Grete), and other guns; Constantinople (the massively strong walls of which were breached in 1453 to the Ottomans after lengthy cannon bombardment); and Nanstein Castle (Franz von Sickingen's stronghold at Landstuhl, was ruined in one day in 1523 by the artillery of Philip of Hesse). Architects of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, many of whom were also renowned as engineers, were called to plan countermeasures; e.g. Guillén Sagrera, Giuliano da Sangallo the Younger, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Leonardo da Vinci. Viollet-le-Duc, in his Annals of a Fortress, gives a full account of the repeated renovations of a fortress (at an imaginary site in the valley of the Doubs), the construction by Charles the Bold of artillery towers at the angles of the castle, the protection of the masonry by earthen outworks, boulevards and demi-boulevards, and, in the 17th century, the final service of the medieval walls and towers as a pure enceinte de sfireti.

The general adoption of cannons led therefore to the disappearing (or to the loss of importance) of majestic towers and merlons. Walls of new fortresses were thicker and angulated, towers became lower and stouter. Examples of the late type of castle-fortress are that in Sarzana (Italy), that built by Henry VIII of England in Deal and the Imperial Castle of Nurnberg.

In the end, the introduction of gunpowder led to a disappearing of traditional castles, in the meaning of a building detaining both military and political power roles. This transition began in the 14th century and was fully underway by the 15th. In the 16th century the feudal fastness had become an anachronism. Here and there we find old castles serving in secondary roles, as forts d'arret or block-houses in mountain passes and defiles, and in some few cases, as at Dover, they formed the nucleus of purely military places of arms. Normally castles, when they were not let to fell into ruins, became peaceful mansions, or were merged in the fortifications of the town which has grown up around it.

In the Viollet-le-Duc's Annals of a Fortress the site of the feudal castle is occupied by the citadel of the walled town, for once again, with the development of the middle class and of commerce and industry, the art of the engineer came to be displayed chiefly in the fortification of cities. The baronial "castle" assumes pan passu the form of a mansion, retaining indeed for long some capacity for defence, but in the end losing all military characteristics save a few which survived as ornaments.

However, some castle-like structures were also built in New France by the French settlers towards the end of the 17th century. Québec served as the only fortified city in the Americas, centred around the Citadelle of Quebec. Where artillery was not as developed as on the battle-fields of Europe, some of Montréal's outlying forts were built like the fortified manor houses of France. Fort Longueuil, built from 1695-1698 by one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in New France, has been described as "the most medieval looking fort built in Canada". The manor house and stables were within a fortified bailey, with a tall round turret in each corner. The "most substantial castle-like fort" near Montréal was Fort Senneville, built in 1692 with square towers connected by thick stone walls, as well as a fortified windmill. Stone forts such as these served as defensive residences, as well as imposing structures to prevent Iroquois incursions.

To guard against artillery and gunfire, increasing use was made of earthen, brick and stone breastworks and redoubts, such as the geometric fortresses of the 17th Century French Marquis de Vauban.