,
Bosnia, built around a prehistoric central fortified settlement or
acropolis (existed there cca. 17/16th c. to the end of the
Bronze Age, cca. 9/8th c. BCE), surrounded by
cyclopean walls (similar to
Mycenae) dated to the 4th c. BCE.
Antecedents fort in
Malta, built during the
Tarxien phase and used until the
Bronze Age. The earliest fortifications originated in the
Fertile Crescent, the
Indus Valley, Europe, Egypt, and China where settlements were protected by large walls. In
Northern Europe,
hill forts were first developed in the
Bronze Age, which then proliferated across Europe in the
Iron Age. Hillforts in Britain typically used
earthworks rather than stone as a building material. Many earthworks survive today, along with evidence of
palisades to accompany the ditches. In central and western Europe,
oppida emerged in the 2nd century BC; these were densely inhabited fortified settlements, such as the
oppidum of Manching. Some oppida walls were built on a massive scale, utilising stone, wood, iron and earth in their construction. The
Romans encountered fortified settlements such as hill forts and oppida when expanding their territory into northern Europe. In the medieval period, castles were influenced by earlier forms of elite architecture, contributing to regional variations. Importantly, while castles had military aspects, they contained a recognisable household structure within their walls, reflecting the multi-functional use of these buildings.
Origins (9th and 10th centuries) The subject of the emergence of castles in Europe is a complex matter which has led to considerable debate. Discussions have typically attributed the rise of the castle to a reaction to attacks by
Magyars,
Muslims, and
Vikings and a need for private defence. The breakdown of the
Carolingian Empire led to the privatisation of government, and local lords assumed responsibility for the economy and justice. However, while castles proliferated in the 9th and 10th centuries the link between periods of insecurity and building fortifications is not always straightforward. Some high concentrations of castles occur in secure places, while some border regions had relatively few castles. It is likely that the castle evolved from the practice of fortifying a lordly home. The greatest threat to a lord's home or hall was fire as it was usually a wooden structure. To protect against this, and keep other threats at bay, there were several courses of action available: create encircling earthworks to keep an enemy at a distance; build the hall in stone; or raise it up on an artificial mound, known as a motte, to present an obstacle to attackers. While the concept of
ditches,
ramparts, and stone walls as defensive measures is ancient, raising a motte is a medieval innovation. A bank and ditch enclosure was a simple form of defence, and when found without an associated motte is called a ringwork; when the site was in use for a prolonged period, it was sometimes replaced by a more complex structure or enhanced by the addition of a stone curtain wall. Building the hall in stone did not necessarily make it immune to fire as it still had windows and a wooden door. This led to the elevation of windows to the second storey – to make it harder to throw objects in – and to move the entrance from ground level to the second storey. These features are seen in many surviving castle keeps, which were the more sophisticated version of halls. Castles were not just defensive sites but also enhanced a lord's control over his lands. They allowed the garrison to control the surrounding area, and formed a centre of administration, providing the lord with a place to hold
court. contains one of the earliest representations of a castle. It depicts attackers of the
Château de Dinan in France using fire, a major threat to wooden castles. Building a castle sometimes required the permission of the king or other high authority. In 864 the King of West Francia,
Charles the Bald, prohibited the construction of
castella without his permission and ordered them all to be destroyed. This is perhaps the earliest reference to castles, though military historian R. Allen Brown points out that the word
castella may have applied to any fortification at the time. In some countries the monarch had little control over lords, or required the construction of new castles to aid in securing the land so was unconcerned about granting permission – as was the case in England in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest and the Holy Land during the
Crusades. Switzerland is an extreme case of there being no state control over who built castles, and as a result there were 4,000 in the country. There are very few castles dated with certainty from the mid-9th century. Converted into a donjon around 950,
Château de Doué-la-Fontaine in France is the oldest standing castle in
Europe.
11th century From 1000 onwards, references to castles in texts such as charters increased greatly. Historians have interpreted this as evidence of a sudden increase in the number of castles in Europe around this time; this has been supported by
archaeological investigation which has dated the construction of castle sites through the examination of ceramics. The increase in Italy began in the 950s, with numbers of castles increasing by a factor of three to five every 50 years, whereas in other parts of Europe such as France and Spain the growth was slower. In 950,
Provence was home to 12 castles; by 1000, this figure had risen to 30, and by 1030 it was over 100. Although the increase was slower in Spain, the 1020s saw a particular growth in the number of castles in the region, particularly in contested border areas between Christian and Muslim lands. Despite the common period in which castles rose to prominence in Europe, their form and design varied from region to region. In the early 11th century, the motte and keep – an artificial mound with a palisade and tower on top – was the most common form of castle in Europe, everywhere except Scandinavia. The
Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century introduced a style of building developed in
North Africa reliant on
tapial, pebbles in cement, where timber was in short supply. Although stone construction would later become common elsewhere, from the 11th century onwards it was the primary building material for Christian castles in Spain, while at the same time timber was still the dominant building material in north-west Europe. Historians have interpreted the widespread presence of castles across Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries as evidence that warfare was common, and usually between local lords. Castles were
introduced into England shortly before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Before the 12th century castles were as uncommon in Denmark as they had been in England before the Norman Conquest. The introduction of castles to Denmark was a reaction to attacks from
Wendish pirates, and they were usually intended as coastal defences. At the same time, castle architecture in mainland Europe became more sophisticated. The
donjon was at the centre of this change in castle architecture in the 12th century. Central towers proliferated, and typically had a square plan, with walls thick. Their decoration emulated
Romanesque architecture, and sometimes incorporated double windows similar to those found in church bell towers. Donjons, which were the residence of the lord of the castle, evolved to become more spacious. The design emphasis of donjons changed to reflect a shift from functional to decorative requirements, imposing a symbol of lordly power upon the landscape. This sometimes led to compromising defence for the sake of display. but by the late 12th century the number of castles being built went into decline. This has been partly attributed to the higher cost of stone-built fortifications, and the obsolescence of timber and earthwork sites, which meant it was preferable to build in more durable stone. Although superseded by their stone successors, timber and earthwork castles were by no means useless. This is evidenced by the continual maintenance of timber castles over long periods, sometimes several centuries;
Owain Glyndŵr's 11th-century timber castle at
Sycharth was still in use by the start of the 15th century, its structure having been maintained for four centuries. At the same time there was a change in castle architecture. Until the late 12th century castles generally had few towers; a gateway with few defensive features such as arrowslits or a portcullis; a great keep or donjon, usually square and without arrowslits; and the shape would have been dictated by the lay of the land (the result was often irregular or
curvilinear structures). The design of castles was not uniform, but these were features that could be found in a typical castle in the mid-12th century. By the end of the 12th century or the early 13th century, a newly constructed castle could be expected to be polygonal in shape, with towers at the corners to provide
enfilading fire for the walls. The towers would have protruded from the walls and featured arrowslits on each level to allow archers to target anyone nearing or at the curtain wall. , Portugal These later castles did not always have a keep, but this may have been because the more complex design of the castle as a whole drove up costs and the keep was sacrificed to save money. The larger towers provided space for habitation to make up for the loss of the donjon. Where keeps did exist, they were no longer square but polygonal or cylindrical. Gateways were more strongly defended, with the entrance to the castle usually between two half-round towers which were connected by a passage above the gateway – although there was great variety in the styles of gateway and entrances – and one or more portcullis. in
Cheshire, England, was built in the 1220s, and has an entrance between two D-shaped towers. When seeking to explain this change in the complexity and style of castles,
antiquarians found their answer in the Crusades. It seemed that the Crusaders had learned much about fortification from their conflicts with the
Saracens and exposure to
Byzantine architecture. There were legends such as that of Lalys – an architect from
Palestine who reputedly went to Wales after the Crusades and greatly enhanced the castles in the south of the country – and it was assumed that great architects such as
James of Saint George originated in the East. In the mid-20th century this view was cast into doubt. Legends were discredited, and in the case of James of Saint George it was proven that he came from
Saint-Georges-d'Espéranche, in France. If the innovations in fortification had derived from the East, it would have been expected for their influence to be seen from 1100 onwards, immediately after the Christians were victorious in the
First Crusade (1096–1099), rather than nearly 100 years later. Remains of Roman structures in Western Europe were still standing in many places, some of which had flanking round-towers and entrances between two flanking towers. The castle builders of Western Europe were aware of and influenced by Roman design; late Roman coastal forts on the English "
Saxon Shore" were reused and in Spain the wall around the city of
Ávila imitated Roman architecture when it was built in 1091. A well-sited castle that made use of natural defences and had strong ditches and walls had no need for a scientific design. An example of this approach is
Kerak. Although there were no scientific elements to its design, it was almost impregnable, and in 1187
Saladin chose to lay siege to the castle and starve out its garrison rather than risk an assault. Civilian settlements are often found in the immediate proximity of these fortifications. After the First Crusade, Crusaders who did not return to their homes in Europe helped found the
Crusader states of the
Principality of Antioch, the
County of Edessa, the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the
County of Tripoli. The castles they founded to secure their acquisitions were designed mostly by Syrian master-masons. Their design was very similar to that of a Roman fort or Byzantine
tetrapyrgia which were square in plan and had square towers at each corner that did not project much beyond the curtain wall. The keep of these Crusader castles would have had a square plan and generally be undecorated. While castles were used to hold a site and control movement of armies, in the Holy Land some key strategic positions were left unfortified. Castle architecture in the East became more complex around the late 12th and early 13th centuries after the stalemate of the
Third Crusade (1189–1192). Both Christians and Muslims created fortifications, and the character of each was different.
Saphadin, the 13th-century ruler of the Saracens, created structures with large rectangular towers that influenced Muslim architecture and were copied again and again, however they had little influence on Crusader castles.
13th to 15th centuries in
Syria is a concentric castle built with both rectangular and rounded towers. It is one of the best-preserved Crusader castles. In the early 13th century, Crusader castles were mostly built by
Military Orders including the
Knights Hospitaller,
Knights Templar, and
Teutonic Knights. The orders were responsible for the foundation of sites such as
Krak des Chevaliers,
Margat, and
Belvoir. Design varied not just between orders, but between individual castles, though it was common for those founded in this period to have concentric defences. The concept, which originated in castles such as Krak des Chevaliers, was to remove the reliance on a central strongpoint and to emphasise the defence of the curtain walls. There would be multiple rings of defensive walls, one inside the other, with the inner ring rising above the outer so that its field of fire was not completely obscured. If assailants made it past the first line of defence they would be caught in the killing ground between the inner and outer walls and have to assault the second wall. Concentric castles were widely copied across Europe, for instance when
Edward I of England – who had himself been on Crusade – built castles in Wales in the late 13th century, four of the eight he founded had a concentric design. It was common for castles in the East to have arrowslits in the curtain wall at multiple levels; contemporary builders in Europe were wary of this as they believed it weakened the wall; arrowslits did not compromise the wall's strength, but it was not until Edward I's programme of castle building that they were widely adopted in Europe. The greatest period of castle building in Spain was in the 11th to 13th centuries, and they were most commonly found in the disputed borders between Christian and Muslim lands. Conflict and interaction between the two groups led to an exchange of architectural ideas, and Spanish Christians adopted the use of detached towers. The Spanish
Reconquista, driving the Muslims out of the Iberian Peninsula, was complete in 1492. Although France has been described as "the heartland of medieval architecture", the English were at the forefront of castle architecture in the 12th century. French historian François Gebelin wrote: "The great revival in military architecture was led, as one would naturally expect, by the powerful kings and princes of the time; by the sons of William the Conqueror and their descendants, the
Plantagenets, when they became dukes of
Normandy. These were the men who built all the most typical twelfth-century fortified castles remaining today". Despite this, by the beginning of the 15th century, the rate of castle construction in England and Wales went into decline. The new castles were generally of a lighter build than earlier structures and presented few innovations, although strong sites were still created such as that of
Raglan in Wales. At the same time, French castle architecture came to the fore and led the way in the field of medieval fortifications. Across Europe – particularly the Baltic, Germany, and Scotland – castles were built well into the 16th century.
Advent of gunpowder in
Transylvania (built between 1446 and 1480) was one of the biggest in Eastern Europe at that time. ,
Utrecht, Netherlands. Artillery powered by gunpowder was introduced to Europe in the 1320s and spread quickly. Handguns, which were initially unpredictable and inaccurate weapons, were not recorded until the 1380s. Castles were adapted to allow small artillery pieces – averaging between – to fire from towers. These guns were too heavy for a man to carry and fire, but if he supported the butt end and rested the muzzle on the edge of the gun port he could fire the weapon. The gun ports developed in this period show a unique feature, that of a horizontal timber across the opening. A hook on the end of the gun could be latched over the timber so the gunner did not have to take the full recoil of the weapon. This adaptation is found across Europe, and although the timber rarely survives, there is an intact example at
Castle Doornenburg in the Netherlands. Gunports were keyhole shaped, with a circular hole at the bottom for the weapon and a narrow slit on top to allow the gunner to aim. This form is very common in castles adapted for guns, found in Egypt, Italy, Scotland, and Spain, and elsewhere in between. Other types of port, though less common, were horizontal slits – allowing only lateral movement – and large square openings, which allowed greater movement. Ham is an example of the trend for new castles to dispense with earlier features such as machicolations, tall towers, and crenellations. Bigger guns were developed, and in the 15th century became an alternative to siege engines such as the
trebuchet. The benefits of large guns over trebuchets – the most effective siege engine of the Middle Ages before the advent of gunpowder – were those of a greater range and power. In an effort to make them more effective, guns were made ever bigger, although this hampered their ability to reach remote castles. By the 1450s guns were the preferred siege weapon, and their effectiveness was demonstrated by
Mehmed II at the
Fall of Constantinople. The response towards more effective cannons was to build thicker walls and to prefer round towers, as the curving sides were more likely to deflect a shot than a flat surface. While this sufficed for new castles, pre-existing structures had to find a way to cope with being battered by cannon. An earthen bank could be piled behind a castle's curtain wall to absorb some of the shock of impact. Often, castles constructed before the age of gunpowder were incapable of using guns as their wall-walks were too narrow. A solution to this was to pull down the top of a tower and to fill the lower part with the rubble to provide a surface for the guns to fire from. Lowering the defences in this way had the effect of making them easier to scale with ladders. A more popular alternative defence, which avoided damaging the castle, was to establish bulwarks beyond the castle's defences. These could be built from earth or stone and were used to mount weapons.
Bastions and star forts (16th century) , as used in
Copertino Castle in Italy, was developed around 1500. First used in Italy, it allowed the evolution of artillery forts that eventually took over the military role of castles. Around 1500, the innovation of the angled
bastion was developed in Italy. With developments such as these, Italy pioneered permanent artillery fortifications, which took over from the defensive role of castles. From this evolved
star forts, also known as
trace italienne. For a variety of reasons, not least of which is that many castles have no recorded history, there is no firm number of castles built in the medieval period. However, it has been estimated that between 75,000 and 100,000 were built in western Europe; of these around 1,700 were in England and Wales and around 14,000 in German-speaking areas. Some true castles were built in the
Americas by the
Spanish and
French colonies. The first stage of Spanish fort construction has been termed the "castle period", which lasted from 1492 until the end of the 16th century. Starting with
Fortaleza Ozama, "these castles were essentially European medieval castles transposed to America". Among other defensive structures (including forts and citadels), castles were also built in
New France towards the end of the 17th century. In Montreal the artillery was not as developed as on the battle-fields of Europe, some of the region's outlying forts were built like the
fortified manor houses of France.
Fort Longueuil, built from 1695 to 1698 by
a baronial family, 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. Although castle construction faded towards the end of the 16th century, castles did not necessarily all fall out of use. Some retained a role in local administration and became law courts, while others are still handed down in aristocratic families as hereditary seats. A particularly famous example of this is Windsor Castle in England which was founded in the 11th century and is home to the monarch of the United Kingdom. In other cases they still had a role in defence.
Tower houses, which are closely related to castles and include
pele towers, were defended towers that were permanent residences built in the 14th to 17th centuries. Especially common in Ireland and Scotland, they could be up to five storeys high and succeeded common enclosure castles and were built by a greater social range of people. While unlikely to provide as much protection as a more complex castle, they offered security against raiders and other small threats.
Later use and revival castles is a 19th-century
historicist (
neoromanesque) castle built by
Ludwig II of Bavaria, inspired by the
neo-romanticism of the time. in
Mexico City, the
neo-classical imperial residence of
Maximilian I of Mexico in the 19th century. , a 20th-century country residence in
Wardija, Malta, designed with castle-like features. According to archaeologists Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham, "the great country houses of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries were, in a social sense, the castles of their day". Though there was a trend for the elite to move from castles into country houses in the 17th century, castles were not completely useless. In later conflicts, such as the
English Civil War (1641–1651), many castles were refortified, although subsequently
slighted to prevent them from being used again. Some country residences, which were not meant to be fortified, were given a castle appearance to scare away potential invaders such as adding
turrets and using small windows. An example of this is the 16th century
Bubaqra Castle in
Bubaqra, Malta, which was modified in the 18th century. Revival or mock castles became popular as a manifestation of a
Romantic interest in the Middle Ages and
chivalry, and as part of the broader
Gothic Revival in architecture. Examples of these castles include
Chapultepec in Mexico,
Neuschwanstein in Germany, and
Edwin Lutyens'
Castle Drogo (1911–1930) – the last flicker of this movement in the British Isles. While churches and cathedrals in a Gothic style could faithfully imitate medieval examples, new country houses built in a "castle style" differed internally from their medieval predecessors. This was because to be faithful to medieval design would have left the houses cold and dark by contemporary standards.
Artificial ruins, built to resemble remnants of historic edifices, were also a hallmark of the period. They were usually built as centre pieces in aristocratic planned landscapes.
Follies were similar, although they differed from artificial ruins in that they were not part of a planned landscape, but rather seemed to have no reason for being built. Both drew on elements of castle architecture such as castellation and towers, but served no military purpose and were solely for display. A toy castle is used as a common children attraction in playing fields and fun parks, such as the castle of the
Playmobil FunPark in
Ħal Far, Malta. ==Construction==