Castles Essay Research Paper Castles Seen By

Palaces Essay, Research Paper

Palaces

Seen By The Light Of A Thousand Candles

By

Katie Burke

& # 8220 ; Feudal society was defined by the palace, and was reflected in its development from a wooden defence construction to a stone architectural composite, with room for many houses within its walls. & # 8221 ; Castles emerged as portion of Europe & # 8217 ; s feudalisation, possibly every bit early as the 9th century. Frequently situated at cardinal locations, palaces were fastnesss that provided bases from which squadrons of knights could sit out to assail an enemy but were besides & # 8220 ; a ceter for administrating justness and distributing hospitality. & # 8221 ; The palace was non merely a fortress but besides a abode and place, a different construct from the Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian communal fortified burhs and strictly military Tudor castles. Many towns, seeking the shelter of a palaces & # 8217 ; walls, sprung up really near already-established palaces, as evidenced by towns with Chateau, chatel, and chastel in their names ( Chateau-Thierry, Castel sarrasin, Coucy-le-chateau, Hattonchatel ) . The earliest palaces still extant in any mode are Coue-la-Fontaine ( c. 900 ) and Langeais, built by Foulques Nerra by 994.

Methods of Construction

The really earliest palaces were made of timber- quick, easy, and ( realatively ) inexpensive. Unfortunately, they were vulnerable to deadening, banging, and ( most unsafe of all ) combustion, so the benefits of rock and timber together, but many had their palaces built wholly of rock ( except for the interior floors and the roof ) .

Palaces could dwell of a tower set atop a hill or mottee ( 15to 30ft. high ) surronded by a wall at the border of the top of the motte and a moisture or dry ditch at the underside. Natural hills were favored for theis as artificaial hills tended non to suport the intense weight of the rock edifices and walls. The wall was a lumber palisade or a rock shell wasll or outer curtain wall ( frequently with a wallwalk ) , and the full tower, wall, and motte construction was a shell maintain in the motte-and-bailey manner.

Defense and Discourtesy

When one desired to assail the enemy & # 8217 ; s palace, there was a assortment of ways one could travel about the procedure. If the construction was merely made of lumber, the occupation was ( comparatively ) easy. It could be battered, fire, or bored thryough with a terebrus or teretrus. If, nevertheless, the Godhead had had the foresight to utilize rock building, the walls of the drapes and towers were by and large imperviable to most assault tactics ( until the coming of heavy weapon warfare ) .

The heel of the Achilles that was the rock palace was the usage of excavation. Although useless against palaces built on a foundation of stone or an island, excavation was particularly effectual by utilizing the weight of the rocks against the enemy. A tunnel would bee bouilt under the wall, and foundation rocks would be removed. The palace was shored up by lumber beams so as non to fall in instantly. Then the lumber supports would be fired, and when they collapsed so did the wall ( or even better, a corner turret ) , go forthing a broad cut through which the enemy could fall. Such a thing happened when England & # 8217 ; s King John besieged Tochester Castle in 1215, and when Hubert de Burgh besieged bedford in 1224.

The 11th and the 12th centuries were the authoritative age of the support. In England and France, most palaces started as motte and Bailey types, with shell walls added subsequently to replace wooden palisades, and runing from 40-150 & # 8242 ; long. In Germany, the Bergfreid equivalent was a rock watchtower, less bulky than a support, frequently built on the acme of a mountain.

As for the form of palaces, after 1150 there was a displacement to round or polygonal towers from the previously-employed square and rectangular 1s. The superior defendability of a curving tower was due to the deficiency of crisp corners ( weak musca volitanss ) at which a sapper could pick, every bit good as extinguishing blind musca volitanss with a greater field of fire.

After 1125, the tower-keep became

more attractive to those edifice palaces. With three or more narratives to them, they would genrally dwell of a individual floor on each narrative: a storage country on the land floor, as with the hall-keep ; the hall on the first floor ; and the private chamber/solar above on the 2nd. The kitchen could be either following to or above the hall.

It is thought that Byzantine defence patterns influenced the increased accent on curain walls. The figure of margin towers in the drape wall increased as did the figure of curain walls themselves. Tather popular was the homocentric program, which was fundamentally a support at the centre of several rings of drapes, with the tallness of the wall increasing inside. The homocentric program was seen throughout England, France, Wales, and Spain, and was really popular with Edward I of England. German palaces, on the other manus, had been more strongly influenced by Carolingian defence theoretical accounts and, located as they were on high crags, had less need and want for such steps. The Low Countries relied on big fosses for excess defence.

The 14th and 15th centuries brought an addition in accent on confort, and a lessening upon defence. In malice of occasional resort to square or rectangular towers, the life abode itself was no longer considered a fortress, but a place. More straggling programs and larger window gaps were employed, and gateways increased in importance. By the fifteenth century, machicolations and turrets were constructed more for show than for any military practicality.

By mid-14th century the gatehouse had about completly supplanted the homocentric program and the support as the primary fastness. The gate had ever been considered the most vulnerable facet of a palace. It was normally protected by a lumber, or ideally stone, tower called the barbacan, a projected and protected attack to the gate. Stone barbacans were known every bit early as the twelfth century. The original manner of a transition through a individual tower evolved into the usage of two margin towers in the drape wall, really near together with the gate in between. Inventions in doors, lift bridges, and portcullises abetted by meurtieses made the gatehouse a dashing chance to breach. The King & # 8217 ; s Gate at caernarvonn had two lift bridges, six portcullises, and five doors in add-on to a battalion of loopholes and a right angled bend.

Luxury

Early palaces were anything but epicurean ; in fact, they were downright user-unfriendly. The ageless moistness of their walls was dealt with by hanging immense tapestries. To minimise the hazard of fire the hearth was located in the centre of the room, with fume lifting to get away through the Louvre, a hole in the lumber roof for that intent. As for convinience, particularly with tower supports, which normally had butt a individual room on each floor, go uping or falling stepss took up much of the twenty-four hours. It was uncommon to hold many, if any, Windowss on the lower floors except for pointer slits so illuming was minimum. It was, in general, a dank and glooming topographic point to populate.

It is dry that today most people hold a misty and fantastical perceptual experience of palaces, with tremendous banquets illuminated by the visible radiation from a 1000 tapers, demoiselles in hurt, darting Equus caballuss and every bit darting knights at tilts. The huge practicality of the great bulk of palaces would doubtless disappoint those who imagine Neuschwanstein when they think of palaces. Flat, knee bend, dark supports, more like bomb shelters in their efforts at impermeableness barely coincide with the thought of the lofty, elegant, ethreal Cinderella lookalikes with streamers winging from every pinnical. Romanticized history has done a ill service to the palace, doing it look to be something it is non. However, even a survey of the most useful palace can non ostracize a small stab of longing- the wish to emproider at a window in the solar while overlooking the peal Fieldss, the desire to rub elows amongst one & # 8217 ; s friends while dining to the music of folk singers and the visible radiation of a 1000 tapers.