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//-->Castles andFortified Cities ofMedieval EuropeAn Illustrated HistoryJEAN-DENIS G . G . LEPAGEMcFarland & Company, Inc., PublishersJefferson, North Carolina, and LondonLibrary of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication DataLepage, 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 - 7 8 6 4 - 1 0 9 2 - 2 (illustrated case binding : 5 0 # 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, 5 0 0 - 1 5 0 0 .I. Title.UG428.L47 2002623'.194'0902-dc212002001351British Library cataloguing data are available© 2 0 0 2 Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage. All rights reservedNo part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopyingor recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publisher.Manufactured in the United States of AmericaMcFarland & Company, Inc., PublishersBox 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640www.mcfarlandpub.comCONTENTSAcknowledgmentsPreface1—The Decline of Fortifications fromthe 5 th to the 9th CenturiesRoman FortificationsThe Barbarian InvasionsThe Merovingian DynastyThe Byzantine EmpireThe Arabs and IslamThe Catholic ChurchThe Carolingian EmpireThe Scandinavian InvasionsFeudal Society2—The Revival of Military Architecture fromthe 10th to the 12th CenturiesEarly Medieval FortificationsThe Motte-and-Bailey CastleThe First Masonry DonjonsDaily Life in Early CastlesThe Evolution of Castles in the 12th CenturyThe CrusadesMedieval Siege WarfareGarrison and Fighting Force3—The Evolution and Apogee of MedievalCastles in the 13th and 14th CenturiesThe Evolution of Castles in the 13th CenturyThe Internal Arrangement of Castlesvi1The Design and Construction of Fortifications 1 3 2The Evolution of Castles and Fortificationsin the 14th Century1344—Transitional Fortifications inthe 15th and 16th CenturiesGunpowder and Early GunsThe Development and Influence of FirearmsSiege Warfare with FirearmsTransitional FortificationsArtillery Fortifications in theEarly 16th CenturyThe Bastioned System5—European Towns from the12th to the 16th CenturyThe Rebirth and Growth of CitiesUrban EmancipationUrban FortificationsSuburbsPrivate Urban FortificationsUrban MilitiaThe CitadelMedieval UrbanismReligious and Public BuildingsConclusion2502512562582592622652752913253263271781791841861932005589111313172028293754597091105107123BibliographyIndexVACKNOWLEDGMENTSI 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.VIPREFACEWitnesses to centuries past, castles are still to be seeneverywhere in Europe today. Whether standing in ruins,forgotten in dark forests, or well preserved and trans­formed into hotels, museums, concert halls or offices,they are places of mystery and greatness, the legacy of acivilization that lasted for a thousand years. They aretreasures handed down to us from the Middle Ages, theperiod conventionally dated from 476, when the AncientRoman empire collapsed, to 1453, when the capital of theEastern Latin Empire, Constantinople, was taken by theTurks. Roughly speaking, then, the Middle Ages cover theperiod between 500 and 1500.In the popular imagination, the medieval era haslong been considered a bleak and barbarian period. Infact, however, the European Middle Ages were not a mil­lennium of unceasing violence and permanent disorder.It is true that in the early Middle Ages, between the 5thand the 9th century, civilization, knowledge and art werein relative decay because of invasions and disorder. Butafter the 10th century, three major influences (AncientRoman culture, Germanic customs and Christianity) wereworking in combination to effect significant change onmedieval society. That combination reached its apogee inthe 13th century.The brilliant and original medieval civilization wasmarked in the 14th century by a series of catastrophes:wars, epidemics, social and moral crises. In the 15th cen­tury, the European world recovered and underwent tech­nical, social and cultural transformations. The followingperiod, called the Renaissance, was in many ways a con­tinuation of the Middle Ages but also an importantbreakthrough that opened the planet Earth to explorationand discovery.Those ten medieval centuries mark a long anddifficult transition between the ancient Roman era andthe modern one. When the Middle Ages came to an end,tribal and local organizations had vanished, and mostEuropean nations had their own identity, their own lan­guage, their own particularities. Nature had been broughtunder man's dominion. The repartition of towns, villages,communication axes, administrative limits and land­scapes established by the end of the medieval periodwould, on the whole, remained the same until the In­dustrial Revolution in the second half of the 19th cen­tury.During the medieval millennium, the castle was acommon feature of the European landscape. The wordcastle (coming from the Latin wordcastellum)conjuresup a whole range of images, from the sugary Walt Dis­ney picture of a pinnacled fairytale palace to the dark andsinister lair of Count Dracula. Legends abound of treach­ery, hidden treasures, loyal heroes defeating evil dragonsand wicked barons, gallant knights rescuing damsels indistress, and besieging forces doused with cascades ofboiling oil. Although some legends are based on histori­cal events, in most such stories the portrayal of castles islargely fiction. The historical reality of castles is some­what more prosaic.Originally a castle was an independent, fortifieddwelling place, probably exhaling a strong smell of farm.Its original purpose was to shelter a lord, his family andhis men as well as to defend a territory. In time of war,the peasants of the neighborhood could find refuge be­hind its walls. The construction of a castle depended onprivate initiative directly connected to feudalism; thefortified buildings illustrate the decaying political andmilitary authority and reflect a social order based on lustfor power. In this sense a private "castle," designed fordaily life and occupied by both civilians and warriors, isquite different from a "fort" (a stronghold built by the1 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]