Castles

Background Knowledge for Teachers

Castles:

The great age of castles began around 1000 AD and lasted for nearly 500 years.  They were built in an age of war as powerful strongholds to defend and control large areas of the surrounding countryside.  A castle was more than a fortress - it was also home for the lord, his family and followers, where they could live in style.  By the end of the 1400's, wars were being fought in open country, not around castles, and kings and nobles no longer needed to live in fortified homes.  Instead, they chose to live in more comfortable houses, and castles were left empty and deserted.

People:

In the Middle Ages, land was key to power and wealth - and the land was controlled from castles.  The most powerful person in the kingdom was the king and he allowed his nobles to hold land if they promised to support him against his enemies.  In turn, the nobles gave parts of their land to other knights who promised to fight for them.  This arrangement of giving land in return for service is called the feudal system.

Many towns in the Middle Ages were protected by a castle.  People who were loyal to the castle's lord settled these new towns.

The royal family was not considered part of the "public" society.  The king or queen had official coronations through which the authority and power of ruling were bestowed by "crowning".  The crown is a symbol of power and authority.

War games were popular.  Mock battles, called tournaments, involving hundreds of men were held in huge open fields.  They were meant to be displays of bravery and honor.  The most exciting contest was the joust - a head-on clash between two knights on horseback.  The aim was to knock your opponent off his horse with a wooden lance.  Jousting armor was heavier and stronger than battle armor and horses were protected with straw padding.  Even so, injuries and deaths were common.

Ranks of Nobility: 

King, Queen, Prince, Princess

Duke, Duchess

Baron, Baroness

Lord, Lady 

The Lord was responsible for law and order.  The Lady ran the household.  She knew how to read and write and keep accounts.  She was also responsible for teaching the daughters of other nobles.  She instructed them in nursing, household management, how to sew, sing and embroider.  Some noblewomen took part in outdoor pursuits, such as hunting.  Others passed their time making tapestry pictures woven from colored threads. 

Society was divided into three groups - people who either fought, prayed, or worked for their living. The fighting men were the Lords and knights who defended the king from enemies.  The

religious life were the bishops, priests, nun, and monk who served the needs of the many  Christians.  Many churches and cathedrals were built and most castles had their own chapel.  The working life  included craftsmen and peasants, who worked the land. 

Castle Residents:   

nobility
blacksmith
brewers: made wine and ale
butler:  looked after castle supplies
carpenter
chandler:  candle maker
constable:  in charge of castle while lord was absent
cook
esquire
ewerer: kept napkins and tablecloths clean, brought water for king
falconer: birds of prey, hunter
gong farmer: cleaned the toilet cess pits 
groom: cared for horses
huntsmen: maintaining game, fox
kennel grooms:  dog care
laborer
knight
laundresses
mason
merchant
miller- windmills turned heavy grinding stones to grind grains such as barley, rye and wheat for baking
moneylender
musicians: often played a gittern, a medieval guitar
nurse: cared for the babies
page
pantler:  looked after food supplies in the pantry
peasant
potter
priest
prisoner
scribe: copied and decorated books by hand
scullions - young boys who cleaned the cauldron and fetched water
soldier
squire: knight's assistant
spinner
steward - looked after castle finances and supplies
tailor
undercooks- chopped vegetables, plucked poultry, and pounded meat until it was tender.

There were many entertainers including: jugglers; jesters; minstrels singing ballads, love songs, or religious songs;  stiltwalkers, and traveling actors wearing masks and fancy dress called mummers.  A troubadour knew all the latest gossip and scandals at court.  He was expected to compose verses at a moment's notice, and to play at least two musical instruments. Occasionally, a dancing bear would appear at the castles to entertain the nobility.

A court jester, or fool, was like a clown wearing multicolored pants and shirt, a cap with dangling, jingling, jangling bells, shoes with curved-up toes and bells at the tips.  He told his jokes and stories, danced and pranced for the king, queen and other members of a royal court.

Castle Life

In times of peace, the castle was quiet for much of the year.  When the lord arrived for one of his visits or the king came to stay, the castle was filled with the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  While the lord was in residence, he inspected his lands, met his castle officials to make sure that everything had been running smoothly, passed judgment on prisoners, and entertained his guests with hunting, feasting, and perhaps a joust.  A lord with several castles spent only a few months a year at each.  The rest of the time he might be at the king's court or fighting overseas.

Education:

Few people in the Middle Ages knew how to read and write.  There were not many schools and most children never went to one.  Boys had more opportunity to learn than girls.

Books:  Books were made by monks.  One group of monks made the parchment pages and another group of monks wrote the letters.  A third group of monks did the illumination. These colored decorations included animals, human figures, branches with leaves, geometric designs, and ornamental letters.  A fourth group of monks bound the finished pages into books.

In the Middle Ages, scribes developed a system of writing that was easier to read than Roman reading.  They used capital and lower case letters, developed a system of punctuation, and left spaces between the words.

Clothing:  Fashion was very important in the Middle Ages because the wealthy dressed in rich costumes to impress each other.  Jewels, gold chins, and brightly colored clothes were worn on important occasions.  Tailors were paid to make the latest fashions. 

Ordinary people wore simple clothing made of cloth, animal fur, and leather.  They made their own clothes at home, using wool from sheep and linen from flax plants.  They spun thread on spinning wheels, and wove it into fabric on looms. Peasants wore simple tunics and shifts, wood stockings, cloaks, straw hats, hoods, and caps. 

Below his armor, a knight wore long stockings and a tunic that reached to his knees.  This shirt-like garment had sleeves and was made of linen or wool.  Over this tunic, the knight wore a sleeveless tunic open at the sides and fastened with a belt.  His cloak fastened at the shoulders.

Women of the early Middle Ages wore simple, loose tunics.  Later, they wore long dresses that were laced to fit the upper part of the body.  Women often plucked or shaved her hair at the front to make her forehead seem higher - a sign of beauty.  Girls and unmarried women wore their hair loose.  Married women covered their hair with a veil or a hood-like covering.

Women wore elaborate headdresses.  The hennin (a high, cone-shaped headdress) rose about 90 cm high and was draped with a veil.  Men wore a draped turban called a chaperon.  Animal furs were used to trim clothing:  ermine, marten, and sable for court lords and ladies; fox, otter, and rabbit for lesser nobility and the middle classes.

Food:  Most castles kept only a small amount of food in storage all year round.  But when the king or lord visited, the courtyard would ring with commands and the clatter of rolling barrels.  Servants filled the cellars and storerooms with sides of salty bacon and heavy sacks of grain and flour.  The steward would check old supplies to make sure that the grain for making bread had not gone moldy.  Most meat was smoked or heavily salted so that it would last through the winter.  Vegetables were dried or pickled.  Layers of fruit and meat were stored together in barrels and the fruit juices soaked into the meat and helped to preserve it.  Mushrooms and onions were often threaded on long strings and hung up to dry.

Every castle needed its own supply of fresh water and deep stone-lined shafts were dug to underground springs, and the water was raised in wooden buckets using a rope and a windlass.

Some castles kept honey bees as honey was used to sweeten food and drink.  Larger castles had their own fishponds, orchards, and vineyards, as well as gardens which supplied vegetables and herbs.  Cattle, sheep, and pigs were kept on surrounding farmlands.  The lord's hunting parties also brought back deer, wild boar, and pheasants from the forests for special treats. 

All kitchens had at least one big iron cauldron which was slung on a hook over an open fire.  Cauldrons were used for stews, soups, and sauces.  Sometimes they were packed with several dishes all cooking at once sealed in pottery jars, or cloth bags.

 The warmest part of the kitchen was in front of the blazing hearth.  A scullion turned a long pole on which meat was skewered for roasting. A dome shaped oven for baking bread was usually built into the side of the hearth.  It was heated with blazing brushwood and stayed hot for hours.

Many castles had their own well-tended garden for growing herbs and vegetables.

Kitchen:

Due to the danger of fire, the kitchen had its own separate building in the courtyard.  It was usually connected to the great hall by a covered passageway called a pentice.  Because of the distance it had to be carried, food was often cold by the time it reached the table.

Health:  Toilets were little more than holes with stone seats with the waste dropping into a cesspit or the moat.  Baths were luxuries that only the richest people could afford.  Rats were everywhere destroying grain and spreading disease.  They carried the fleas which spread the deadly sickness called the plague.  People knew nothing about germs that spread disease.  Young women died giving birth, and young men died of wounds received in battle.  Soap was often made from animal fat, wood ash, and soda.  Doctors often used herbal mixtures or bloodletting to treat their patients. 

Hunting:  In the early Middle Ages, Europe had huge forests which teemed with deer, wild boar, foxes, and bears.  But over the years, large areas of woodland were cut down and turned into farmland. Some areas were set aside for hunting and called royal forests.  Any peasants found poaching game faced harsh punishment.  Nobles hunted for the sport, but more so for the dinner table.  Hunting dogs were highly valued because they were specially trained to sniff out and track down their prey. 

Birds of prey were the most prized of all hunting animals.  Time and skill were needed to train them to catch smaller birds, hares, and rabbits.  Birds of prey (eagle, gyrfalcon, peregrine falcon, hawk) were kept in a long wooden shed called a mews and were looked after by the falconer. 

Prisoners:

In most castles, the prisoners were usually locked up in cellars or in a prison at the bottom of a prison tower.

Building a castle:

When a great stone castle was built, most of the work was done by muscle power. Carpenters would saw wood and assemble the scaffolding.  Blacksmiths made and fixed tools.  Masons shaped stones. Laborers hauled the heavy loads, mixed up the mortar for the walls, broke up stones, and dug trenches and wells. 

A castle could take 10 to 20 years to complete.

Building materials and supplies had to be brought in by river, sea, or land.  Ropes and pulleys were used to lift buckets of materials and beams.  Heavy stones were raised by a treadwheel crane turned by a man walking inside a giant wheel.

For extra strength, a castle's main walls were packed with stone rubble and flints mixed with mortar.  Walls could be between 6 and 16 feet thick.

Trades:  Many young boys in the castle towns became apprentices sent to live with the family of a master craftsman to learn his skills.  After seven years, they were free to leave and set up on their own. 

A master mason was hired to design the castle and take charge of its building.  Directly under him were freemasons, who carved the stone, and roughmasons, who built the walls. Tools used were a mason's ax, a chisel, and a mallet. 

Quarrymen (finding and cutting stones)

Plumbers

Cooper:  barrel-making

Carpenter:  Used an ax, awl, hand saw

The keep was the largest building standing in the heart of the castle.

Stone walls may have been covered with plaster and painted with bold colorful patterns, or hung with richly woven tapestries.  Slits in the walls, called loops, were designed so soldiers could fire arrows without danger of return fire.

The gatehouse consisted of two heavy wooden doors protected by the portcullis which slid down grooves to make a gate.  In some parts of the world, the wooden bars were covered with pounded lead.  In times of trouble, the gatehouse would have been well guarded, with soldiers on sentry duty day and night.  The sentries searched carts and baskets and asked strangers questions.  At night, at curfew hour, a bell was rung and the doors of the town were shut and barred.  No one could enter or leave until daybreak.

Chapels had rows of arched windows, finely carved stonework and a stone basins in one of the walls.  The basin would have held water to rinse the cup used during religious services.

Holes in the stonework of the outer wall would have held beams of wooden platforms called hourds.

Spiral staircases in the towers wind up and around to the rights.  An enemy knight fighting his way up would hold his sword in his right hand and would have had little space to use it properly.

The moat is a deep trench filled with water to keep the enemy at a distance.

Castle defenses:

Many castles were built on high ground with clear views of the surrounding countryside to prevent surprise attacks.  High walls and solid towers were the castle's main defense.  They kept out the attacking soldiers, and the parapets (walls with jagged tops) provided the defenders with a safe view over the surrounding land.  By building the castle on a high point, the defenders had gravity on their side.  Attacking warriors had to struggle up a slope to reach the stronghold while facing a devastating shower of arrows from the defenders on the walls.

1. Hourds - Wooden hourds were fitted to the battlements.  Caps in the floor of the hourds allowed soldiers to drop missiles onto the heads of anyone below.

2.  Battlements - The tops of the walls had solid parts called merlons, which helped shelter the defenders during an enemy attack.  The defenders could fire through gaps called crenels, which had wooden shutters for extra protection.

3.  Drawbridge - The drawbridge could swing up like a seesaw so that no one could cross the ditch.

4.  Portcullis - The portcullis slid down grooves in the stone walls.  It was fixed to ropes and was operated by winding gear in the upper part of the gate house.

5.  The barbican - The barbican was a walled area in front of the inner gatehouse.  If an enemy reached it, he would be fired at from all sides by the castle defenders.

6.  Machicolations - These were the stone versions of the wooden hourds.  The battlements projected outward so that missiles could be dropped through overhanging chutes.

7.  Tower defenses. In case the enemy used flaming arrows to set fire to the timber defenses, woods hourds were made fireproof by stretching damp hides across their roofs.

Warriors and arms:

In peacetime, a castle was guarded by just a small garrison of men, of about 12 soldiers armed with longbows and crossbows.  Sometimes, local men who owed their lord military service would also be put on guard duty.  They were usually poorly equipped, so the castle armorer had no make sure there was always a ready supply of weapons, bowstrings, and arrows.

In times of war, a king would call on his lords and their knights to fight.  Each knight had to provide his own armor and warhorse.  Kings often hired mercenaries to make up a strong fighting force.  Deadly weapons included longbows with steel tipped arrows, swords, shields, daggers, crossbows, axes, and maces.

Each knight decorated his shield and tunic with a special badge so that he would be recognized.  Heraldry was the system used to design these badges.  The men who designed coats of arms were called heralds.  They made sure that no two designs were the same, and they recorded them in books called armorials.  Coats of arms were passed down from one generation to the next and showed that you came from an important family.

Fighting men - Ordinary soldiers fought on foot and were protected by a simple padded tunic or by bits of armor they had found on a battlefield.  Most fought with a knife, a halberd (a blade fixed to a long pole) or perhaps a sword.

Knights could afford to be better equipped with a sword, horse, and armor.  In battle, a knight used a lance to knock his enemies off their horses.  But his most treasured possession was his sword. Knights were expected to be honorable and brave, to protect the weak, and to respect women.  Training to be a knight started at age 7, when a boy was sent to another noble family as their page to serve meals, help the lord dress in the morning, and to learn how to ride and fight with a sword.  At age 14, the page became a knight's esquire, and expected to follow his master into battle to look after his horses and armor.  Most esquires had become knights by the time they were 21 years old.

Armor:  The first knights wore a hauberk made of chain mail - hundreds of small metal rings linked together.  Over time, solid plates of armor were added to protect the chest, knees, thighs, and arms.  By the 1420's, the whole body was covered by a suit of armor.  Plate armor was made from silvery steel.  It could take up to an hour for a knight to dress for battle.  He put on padded underclothes while his esquire brought out the armor which could weigh from 40 - 55 pounds.  Even though it looked difficult to move around in, it was actually quite flexible and offered good protection against the cuts and blows of a sword or mace but not the crossbow or longbow which could pierce the plate armor.