![]() Its purpose was twofold to stop devices such as siege towers from reaching the curtain wall and to prevent the walls from being undermined. The MoatA moat was a defensive ditch with steep sides, and could be either dry or filled with water.Walkways along the tops of the curtain walls allowed defenders to rain missiles on enemies below, and battlements gave them further protection. To protect them from undermining, curtain walls were sometimes given a stone skirt around their bases. ![]() A typical wall could be 3 m thick and 12 m tall, although sizes varied greatly. ![]() They had to be high enough to make scaling the walls with ladders difficult and thick enough to withstand bombardment from siege engines which, from the 15th century onwards, included artillery. ![]() The part of the fortification between the towers. "Keep" was not a term used in the medieval period – the term was applied from the 16th century onwards – instead "donjon" was used to refer to central towers.Ĭurtain walls were the external main defensive walls enclosing the bailey. In the later Middle Ages, baileys featured gardens and fountains.Ī keep was the big tower and usually the most strongly defended point of a castle before the introduction of concentric defence. In the tournaments, knights fought with swords and shields on foot and jousted in arenas called lists (or list fields). The bailey also served as a marketplace for festivals and fairs, a practice field for drilling soldiers and training horses, and an area for tournaments. So any invading soldiers who made it through the gate into the bailey would be exposed to arrow fire from the outer walls and towers and the inner walls and towers. From a military standpoint, this courtyard was a wide-open space. It was a common feature of castles, and most had at least one. The barbican was built of stone and had towers with arrow loops and battlements.Ī bailey, also called a ward, was a fortified enclosure. Some bridges had an additional fortified structure in front or alongside them called a barbican. Some drawbridges were raised and lowered with a winch, and some had a center fulcrum that allowed them to pivot perpendicularly to form a wall. The bridge's retraction mechanism was usually located inside the gatehouse. Finally, the gatehouse had a heavy wooden door at the inner opening, which soldiers could shut and lock with braces. In the ceiling of the gatehouse tunnel, there were openings called murder holes through which defenders could drop objects and hot liquid. The outer opening of the gatehouse tunnel was covered by a grated wooden or iron gate called a portcullis. The gates were usually long tunnels with arrow-looped towers at either side of the entrance. Gatehouses were inside the wall and connected with the bridge over the moat, but they were more than just doorways. To overcome this, the gatehouse was developed, allowing those inside the castle to control the flow of traffic. The entrance was often the weakest part in a castle. The walls usually had arrow loops, and the tops could have hoardings or be crenellated or roofed. A later innovation, the rounded towers projecting out from the wall or at a corner gave a better view to the defenders. They were usually higher than the walls and constructed in the same manner. These tall, round or square structures were built into the length or corners of the castle walls.
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