Castles and Fortified Cities of ...

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Castles and
Fortified Cities of
Medieval Europe
An Illustrated History
JEAN-DENIS G.G. LEPAGE
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Lepage, Jean-Denis.
Castles and fortified cities of medieval Europe :
an illustrated history / by Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7864-1092-2 (illustrated case binding : 50# alkaline paper) @
1. Fortification—Europe. 2. Fortification—Middle East.
3. Castles—Europe. 4. Castles—Middle East. 5. Military history, Medieval.
6. Military art and science—Europe—History—Medieval, 500-1500.
I. Title.
UG428.L47 2002
623'.194'0902-dc21
2002001351
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2002 Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
vi
The Design and Construction of Fortifications 132
The Evolution of Castles and Fortifications
in the 14th Century
Preface
1
1—The Decline of Fortifications from
the 5 th to the 9th Centuries
134
4—Transitional Fortifications in
the 15th and 16th Centuries
Roman Fortifications
5
The Barbarian Invasions
5
Gunpowder and Early Guns
178
The Merovingian Dynasty
8
The Development and Influence of Firearms
179
The Byzantine Empire
9
Siege Warfare with Firearms
184
The Arabs and Islam
11
Transitional Fortifications
186
The Catholic Church
13
Artillery Fortifications in the
Early 16th Century
The Carolingian Empire
13
193
The Scandinavian Invasions
17
The Bastioned System
200
Feudal Society
20
2—The Revival of Military Architecture from
the 10th to the 12th Centuries
Early Medieval Fortifications
5—European Towns from the
12th to the 16th Century
28
The Rebirth and Growth of Cities
250
Urban Emancipation
251
The Motte-and-Bailey Castle
29
Urban Fortifications
256
The First Masonry Donjons
37
Suburbs
258
Daily Life in Early Castles
54
Private Urban Fortifications
259
The Evolution of Castles in the 12th Century
59
Urban Militia
262
The Crusades
70
The Citadel
265
Medieval Siege Warfare
91
Medieval Urbanism
275
Garrison and Fighting Force
105
Religious and Public Buildings
291
3—The Evolution and Apogee of Medieval
Castles in the 13th and 14th Centuries
Conclusion
325
The Evolution of Castles in the 13th Century
107
Bibliography
326
The Internal Arrangement of Castles
123
Index
327
V
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Eltjo de Lang and Ben Marcato,
Simone and Bernard Lepage, Bebert le Breton, Anne Chauvel,
the abbot Jacques Jouy, Marta Vieira dos Santos,
Jeannette a Stuling and Jean-Pierre Rorive.
VI
PREFACE
Witnesses to centuries past, castles are still to be seen
everywhere in Europe today. Whether standing in ruins,
forgotten in dark forests, or well preserved and trans­
formed into hotels, museums, concert halls or offices,
they are places of mystery and greatness, the legacy of a
civilization that lasted for a thousand years. They are
treasures handed down to us from the Middle Ages, the
period conventionally dated from 476, when the Ancient
Roman empire collapsed, to 1453, when the capital of the
Eastern Latin Empire, Constantinople, was taken by the
Turks. Roughly speaking, then, the Middle Ages cover the
period between 500 and 1500.
In the popular imagination, the medieval era has
long been considered a bleak and barbarian period. In
fact, however, the European Middle Ages were not a mil­
lennium of unceasing violence and permanent disorder.
It is true that in the early Middle Ages, between the 5th
and the 9th century, civilization, knowledge and art were
in relative decay because of invasions and disorder. But
after the 10th century, three major influences (Ancient
Roman culture, Germanic customs and Christianity) were
working in combination to effect significant change on
medieval society. That combination reached its apogee in
the 13th century.
The brilliant and original medieval civilization was
marked in the 14th century by a series of catastrophes:
wars, epidemics, social and moral crises. In the 15th cen­
tury, the European world recovered and underwent tech­
nical, social and cultural transformations. The following
period, called the Renaissance, was in many ways a con­
tinuation of the Middle Ages but also an important
breakthrough that opened the planet Earth to exploration
and discovery.
Those ten medieval centuries mark a long and
difficult transition between the ancient Roman era and
the modern one. When the Middle Ages came to an end,
tribal and local organizations had vanished, and most
European nations had their own identity, their own lan­
guage, their own particularities. Nature had been brought
under man's dominion. The repartition of towns, villages,
communication axes, administrative limits and land­
scapes established by the end of the medieval period
would, on the whole, remained the same until the In­
dustrial Revolution in the second half of the 19th cen­
tury.
During the medieval millennium, the castle was a
common feature of the European landscape. The word
castle (coming from the Latin word
castellum)
conjures
up a whole range of images, from the sugary Walt Dis­
ney picture of a pinnacled fairytale palace to the dark and
sinister lair of Count Dracula. Legends abound of treach­
ery, hidden treasures, loyal heroes defeating evil dragons
and wicked barons, gallant knights rescuing damsels in
distress, and besieging forces doused with cascades of
boiling oil. Although some legends are based on histori­
cal events, in most such stories the portrayal of castles is
largely fiction. The historical reality of castles is some­
what more prosaic.
Originally a castle was an independent, fortified
dwelling place, probably exhaling a strong smell of farm.
Its original purpose was to shelter a lord, his family and
his men as well as to defend a territory. In time of war,
the peasants of the neighborhood could find refuge be­
hind its walls. The construction of a castle depended on
private initiative directly connected to feudalism; the
fortified buildings illustrate the decaying political and
military authority and reflect a social order based on lust
for power. In this sense a private "castle," designed for
daily life and occupied by both civilians and warriors, is
quite different from a "fort" (a stronghold built by the
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