Marilyn Stokstad Quotes

When a strong central authority protects borders and reduces internal crime, people have little need for fortified dwellings, although the rulers may build walls and towers to define legitimate residents and defend the country against external threats. When central authority breaks down, however, individuals are more likely to fortify their homes. The presence of castles in the landscape indicates a decline in stability and peace.

An alternate career path for a woman lay in the Church, where as a nun she escaped the dangers of childbirth. In the convent she could hold any position except that of priest, and as an abbess or prioress she had great power and responsibility.

Ninth-century castles were relatively small and simple affairs designed to safeguard a relatively small number of people and intended as a refuge during times of trouble.

Warfare had become endemic in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe. Castle building used up the resources of the land as every landholder from the king and great nobles to the small landholders fortified their dwellings. Constant skirmishing, brigandage, and open warfare at home and abroad meant that people poured vast resources into training and equipping warriors and building castles and siege machines. The motte and bailey castle with its great tower, as the keep or donjon is called in medieval documents, was admirably suited as a defense against local skirmishes.

Whether looming over the land as a symbol of a ruler’s authority or providing a setting for displays of wealth and power in spectacular feasts and tournaments, castles made a visual statement about their owners. All ar chitecture has symbolic overtones, and the castle is a potent image.

Castles were more than military posts; they were the centers of political and economic power. As government headquarters they were built to impress the local population as well as visitors and rivals. While power was spread among great tenants-in-chief in a system of delegated government, castles in each territory were places where local lords collected taxes, settled disputes, and administered justice.

The siege warfare of the Middle Ages consisted of blockading the castle in hopes of destroying it or taking it over for one’s own use. In peacetime castles controlled the surrounding land, but when hostilities broke out they provided passive resistance and served as a base of operations.

Chateau Gaillard had utilized the last of the newly built, huge great towers, and Rochester had depended on its early twelfth-century tower. During the course of the thirteenth century defense shifted to a towered wall, the enceinte or enclosure castle. Two plans emerged: the castle could rely on a series of courtyards, which had to be taken one after another, or on a concentric defense in which a second wall entirely surrounded the inner wall.

Were castles really as rough and rugged as their owners? The answer seems to be, “not necessarily.” Castles were indeed rough and rugged fortresses, the product of an essentially elite, masculine warrior society, what today we call a feudal society. But they were also among the finest buildings of their times—secure, well-built residences that supported the complex rituals of noble life. To understand how castle form came to meet castle function, we must look briefly at the castle’s social and economic underpinnings.

Constant warfare, especially against the Muslims, gave rise to a new type of military man—one who combined the character and role of both monk and warrior. These knights, organized into military orders, served officially under the Pope but were essentially independent. Their grand master was both an abbot and a general. They lived under a modified Cistercian rule, and they took monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. As monks, in theory they owned nothing; for example, their horses and armor were loaned to them by the order. In practice they became a wealthy and often arrogant standing army. Having studied Byzantine and Muslim castles and warfare, they built huge castles that changed castle design in Europe.

When an attacking force laid siege to a castle, they used techniques and weapons not unlike those developed by the ancient Romans. First they surrounded the castle in order to cut off all avenues of escape and resupply. They also built a camp ringed by ditches and palisades to secure their own position. Then they built siege engines—great stonethrowing devices—which they hoped would break down the castle walls. Although the knights’ chivalric code gave pride of place in warfare to a charge on horseback with lance or to hand-to-hand combat with swords, military engineers skilled in the mechanics of offensive engines had to first break through the walls. To breach the walls the army used battering rams, various kinds of projectiles, and mines. In other words they tried to go through, over, or under the walls.

The castle was far more than a walled and turreted fortress; it was an instrument of social control and the symbol of power, authority, and wealth.

Women played a greater role than might be expected in this elite warrior society, as heiresses and chatelaines in charge of castles (see Documents 44–53). Since land was the basis of status and power, estates were kept intact by being passed on to the oldest son rather than being divided among all the children. In spite of high infant mortality and short life expectancies, a family hoped that at least one son survived to inherit lands and titles. Younger sons hoped to gain an estate of their own by marrying an heiress.

A sharp contrast existed between the upper classes who constantly moved from manor to manor and the peasants who were tied to the land and lived in agricultural villages outside the castle walls. Yet economic opportunities expanded for both groups.

Never as neat or well organized as many descriptions suggest, in essence feudalism involved the exchange of grants of land for military and political service, sealed by personal oaths between the lord and the vassal. The castle has been called the perfect architectural expression of the European feudal age.