Medieval Castles! Youtube documentary

[General Retreat]

My local is Dover Castle - it's interesting just because of the sheer range of eras the different structures cover. The first verifiable structures were built by the Romans, of which a lighthouse still survives. It's perched on a cliff top that overlooks the harbour, and has historically been used to keep dirty sea-invaders from raiding Kentish orchards. This didn't work out so well in the 1066 Norman invasion, back when it was just a clay rampart.

The defenders surrendered without a fight, following which the Norman soldiers accidentally burned the town down. I would be sceptical as to

how you could accidentally set a town on fire, but William's guards also set fire to the cathedral he was being coronated in while the ceremony was ongoing because they were spooked by the sound of the English nobles cheering. Fire's just their thing.

The keep and concentric walls are from the 12th century onwards, with further additions and additional casements being constructed during the Napoleonic period. Interestingly, this is also when the first tunnels were dug into the cliffs, which were expanded into a full-on mole empire during WW2.


Still, Dover is quite top-heavy when it comes to massive fortresses, seeing as there are a further two additional Napoleonic bastions the opposite side of town. The general idea was to have overlapping gun placements, so if any one position fell to invaders the other two could level it before it posed too much trouble. All three positions (Dover Castle and two on the Western Heights) are also linked by a warren of tunnels that run under the town. A lot of them are lost and collapsed, but if you know where the entrances are there's still a fair bit to see.

[Rinan]

^Yes please do, I would very much like to see it.

There you go:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sorry for bad quality. But at least you can see what makes a high medieval castle different from a "regular fort". The medieval castle is a very specific kind of fortress, with a specific kind of function.

[Condottiere 40K]

[ArmoredCore]

Robert Bartlett in chapter 3 of 'The Making of Europe' explains the difference between later medieval castles and earlier fortifications. Earlier Anglo-Saxon fortifications, and those of Scandinavians, Eastern-Europeans, Romans, etc. had a rather great surface area - A great circumference of walls in order to be able to protect a large amount of people in times of crisis (And even cattle). From the 11th centuries things start to change in Western Europe; castles are a lot smaller in terms of square meters covered by defensive structures. Instead, we are dealing with small, tall structures that are not meant to defend entire populations. Instead, they're built to give a military edge to a small amount of people; the local feudal lord and his retinue, from which he can control his territory. The author has a beautiful graph comparing the size of different forts to make his point, I can upload it later this week if there's any interest.
That Egyptian 'fortress' looks amazing, by the way! Shame it's gone.

By the way, is the documentary any good?

Not disagreeing at all. A lot of it has to do with the nature of warfare and who is being fought against.
That said, a lot of smaller fortified palaces and forts which included residences for royals or lords were used in places like Armenia, Persia, Syria and elsewhere along with larger fortified cities.

For example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mshatta_Facade

Which presages a lot of the styles of art seen in later medieval tapestries and art.

Warfare in the East was normally over larger areas and distances but once you had fragmentation and the rise of local warlords you had the concentration of power in military strong points, with small fortified towers and fortress palaces. It was not the predominant nature of warfare in the East, but there were situations in various regions where such structures were necessary. And then again, a lot of them were not made of permanent materials like stone (as in the Buhen fortress), so they have not survived the ravages of time. (Aside from the large fortified cities of the Romans like Constantinople, Diyarbakir or other places, you had smaller Roman forts and fortified palaces that have not survived as well.) Once Islamic Spain devolved into squabbling between petty kingdoms you see the rise of such structures there. Similarly, Western Europe and the feudal society, meaning lands subdivided between feuding siblings fighting for power of course gave rise to the need for such structures. And of course the Levant during the crusades were another such environment. But quiet as it is kept, a lot of those structures were built by local architects and craftsmen and influenced by local traditions, including those of the Armenians, and not simply an import from the West. However, since Christian Armenia was gobbled up by the Ottomans there is a big gap in the history of Armenia and Christianity and their role in the crusades. In fact the first place conquered by the Crusaders was Armenia. And a lot of the Christian iconography and architecture in the West traces back to this relationship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armeni...dom_of_Cilicia

But no doubt, those castles in Britain, Spain and elsewhere are very excellent examples of small well defended fortress residences that take good advantage of terrain and have multiple layers of defensive elements.

An example of a small fortified Roman palace that did not survive:

http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/byco...of_diocletian/

Edit: actually it did survive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian%27s_Palace

[Condottiere 40K]

[Antiochus Seleukos]

Where's the castle from 0;00 - 1;20 ish?

[Condottiere 40K]

It's a secret.

[Condottiere 40K]

[ArmoredCore]

I like these recent castle documentaries. They provide a lot of very good concise information.
They even included the domesday book which is nice as well "lord of all he surveys"..... very meaningful indeed.

Games of Kings, thrones, towers, knights, pawns, bishops and queens.......