Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
A castle could be built only with permission of the King. A
typical castle had a stone building of about four floors [a keep] on a
small, steep hill. Later it also had an open area surrounded by a stone
curtain-wall with towers at the corners. Around the outside of the wall
were ditches and banks and perhaps a moat. One traveled over these via
a drawbridge let down at the gatehouse of the enclosing wall. On either
side of the gatehouse were chambers for the guards. Arrows could be
shot through slits in the enclosing walls. Inside the enclosed area
might be stables, a granary, barracks for the soldiers, and workshops.
The only winter feed was hay, for which the horses, breeding animals,
milkcow, and workoxen had a priority over other animals. The bulk of
the cattle were usually slaughtered and salted.
The castle building typically was entered by an outer wood
staircase to the guard room on the second floor. The first [ground]
floor had a well and was used as a storehouse and/or dungeons for
prisoners. The second floor had a two-storied great hall, with small
rooms and aisles around it within the thick walls. There was also a
chapel area on the second floor. There were small areas of the third
floor which could be used for sleeping. The floors were wood and were
reached by a spiral stone staircase in one corner of the building.
Sometimes there was a reservoir of water on an upper level with pipes
carrying the water to floors below. Each floor had a fireplace with a
slanted flue going through the wall to the outside. There were latrines
in the corner walls with a pit or shaft down the exterior of the wall,
sometimes to the moat. Furs and wool clothes were hung on the walls
there in the summer to deter the moths. The first floor had only arrow
slits in the walls, but the higher floors had small windows.
Some curtain-wall castles did not have a central building. In
these, the hall was built along the inside of the walls, as were other
continuous buildings. The kitchens and chapels were in the towers.
Lodgings were in buildings along the curtain-walls, or on several
floors of the towers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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