Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) EditionReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) Edition
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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