castle type of fortified dwelling characteristic of the Middle Ages. Fortification of towns had been in practice since antiquity, but in the 9th cent. feudal lords began to develop the private fortress-residence known as the castle. It served the twofold function of residence and fortress because of the conditions of medieval life, in which war was endemic. The site of the castle was preferably on a defensible height. England and France, in general, did not afford such inaccessible locations as did the Rhine valley in Germany.

The Early Castle

The castle of W Europe was a Norman creation, an outgrowth of the 10th- and 11th-century mound castle, which consisted of a great artificial mound of earth, the motte, surrounded by a dry ditch, or fosse, and surmounted by a wooden blockhouse and its encircling palisade. Until well into the 12th cent., the only English development was the occasional substitution of a massive masonry keep inside the palisade—a form typified in the Tower of London . As siegecraft (see siege ) was evolved, provisions were made for an aggressive defense.

A castle that became the model for many English and Norman castles was the formidable castle built at Arques in Normandy by Henry I of England. A square donjon, or keep, was set against the strong outer walls of masonry; the entrance was protected by a double gate, two flanking round towers, and advanced earthworks. The place enclosed by the outer circuit of walls was usually divided into two courts, or baileys, by a palisade. Subterranean passages made detection of underground forays easy.

The Fully Developed Castle

In the Middle East the Crusaders developed great castles with double circuits of curving outer walls and towers or turrets to overlook all sections of the wall. The form of these castles had an influence throughout the Continent and the British Isles. Thus early in the 13th cent. the medieval castle, a mixture of Norman, English, and Byzantine elements, reached its full flower, as typified in the Château Gaillard on the Seine in France and in Alnwick and the Conisborough in England.

In general, the castle was planned for security; the living quarters were rude, poorly lighted, and without provisions for comfort. Typically, the keep contained the living quarters of the lord and his family, the rooms of state, and the prison cells. Two independent systems of walls, each a fortress in itself, extended around the keep; the sections of the walls were flanked by towers, usually round, and the principal entrance was protected by strong gate towers, the massive gateway, with its portcullis and drawbridge, and the barbican, or advanced outwork. The defenders operated from galleries at the tops of walls and from the flat roofs of towers, whose battlements were provided with recesses with flaring sides, called embrasures, and openings, or machicolations, for shooting and dropping missiles on the attackers. The fully developed castle was thus marked by successive series of defenses; the fall of the outer works did not necessarily mean the loss of the entire castle.

With the use of gunpowder and consequent perfection of artillery , the castle lost its military importance. The manor house replaced the castle as the residence of the wealthy landowner, but the architectural influence of the castle has persisted even to the present day, when crenelations and towers are still found in country houses and some urban structures.

See château .

Bibliography

See S. Toy, History of Fortification from 3000 BC to AD 1700 (1955); W. D. Simpson, Castles in Britain (1966); A. Weissmüller, Castles from the Heart of Spain (1967); W. Anderson, Castles of Europe from Charlemagne to the Renaissance (1971); P. Warner, The Medieval Castle (1972).

castle A fortified building for the defence of a town or district, doubling as the private residence of a baron in the Middle Ages. Although also called ‘castles’, Celtic hill-forts, Roman camps, and Saxon burhs were designed to provide refuge for whole populations; archaeological evidence suggests that in England fortified private residences date from the 9th century. The ‘motte and bailey’ design of the 11th century comprised a palisaded ‘motte’ (a steep-sided earthen mound) and a ‘bailey’ (an enclosure or courtyard) separated from the motte by a ditch. Both were surrounded by a second ditch. Initially timber-built, and often prefabricated for rapid assembly, many were later rebuilt in stone. Design modifications in the 12th century included stone tower keeps to replace the motte. The keep (the rounded form was called a shell keep) combined strong defence with domestic quarters. The need to extend these quarters meant that the courtyard had to be protected by a line of towers joined by ‘curtain’ walls. In the 12th century the concentric castle (one ring of defences enclosing another) was developed from the model of the castles built by the Crusaders, who themselves had copied the Saracens. At the end of the 13th century, EDWARD I of England, following a policy of subduing north Wales, built a series of castles, including those at Caernarvon, Conway, Harlech, and Beaumaris. Design improvements saw the further development of rounded towers, which were more difficult to undermine, machicolations, which enabled objects to be dropped or poured on the besiegers, massive gatehouses, and refinements to the battlements, or crenellations, along the walls. The invention of cannon had made castles obsolete for defensive purposes by the middle of the 16th century.

castles. There is limited annalistic evidence to suggest that Gaelic Irish lords were building castles or caisléin in the late 12th century just prior to the Anglo‐Norman invasion. However, these military fortifications, which also served as administrative and judicial centres, were first constructed in large numbers by the Anglo‐Normans in earth and wood, either as motte and baileys or as ringwork castles, to overawe the island during their military campaign. The first stone structures appeared within a decade at Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, and Trim, Co. Meath, with strong rectangular keeps located in the centre of a ward delimited by curtain walls. Royal castles were also built at major population centres such as Dublin and Limerick at the start of the 13th century. A major variant in castle design was the circular keep at places like Dundrum, Co. Down. As the century progressed, the keep ceased to be separate and was incorporated into the curtain walls as an entrance gateway. This is best represented by Roscommon, constructed at the end of the 13th century against the Gaelic Irish of Connacht. But economic difficulties and the changing nature of warfare in the 14th century led to the start of the construction of up to 7,000 tower houses, small single stone towers with a defended bawn. A few large castles were built in the 15th century, such as Cahir, Co. Tipperary, by the Ormonds. The era of castle construction ended in the 17th century with the increasingly efficient use of siege cannon.

Terry Barry

cas·tle / ˈkasəl/ • n. a large building or group of buildings fortified against attack with thick walls, battlements, towers, and in many cases a moat. ∎  a magnificent and imposing mansion, esp. one that is the home or former home of a member of the nobility. [in names] Castle Howard. ∎  inf. Chess old-fashioned term for rook² . • v. [intr.] [often as n.] (castling) Chess make a special move (no more than once in a game by each player) in which the king is transferred from its original square two squares along the back rank toward the corner square of a rook, which is then transferred to the square passed over by the king. ∎  [tr.] move (the king) in this way. DERIVATIVES: cas·tled / ˈkasəld/ adj. ( archaic ).

castle a large building or group of buildings fortified against attack with thick walls, battlements, towers, and in many cases a moat. The word is recorded from late Old English and comes from Anglo-Norman French and Old Northern French castel, from Latin castellum, diminutive of castrum ‘fort’.
The Castle was a name for the former Irish viceregal government and administration, of which Dublin Castle was the seat.
castles in Spain visionary unattainable schemes; the expression is recorded from late Middle English, and it is possible that Spain, as the nearest Moorish country to Christendom, was taken as the type of a region in which the prospective castle-builder had no standing. An alternative expression, castles in the air, is recorded from the late 16th century.

castle Fortified house or fortress, usually the medieval residences of European kings or nobles. Castles evolved from a need for strategic fortresses that could accommodate several households and provide shelter in times of war. Built of wood or masonry, castles were located on a raised site and sometimes surrounded by a water-filled moat. Walls were thick and high enough to withstand attack, with parapets to enable defenders to manoeuvre between the turrets.

Castle

any structure or pile of objects more or less in the shape of a castle.

Examples: castle of cards (modern); of fine manchet [the finest kind of wheaten bread], 1791; of march-pane [‘marzipan’], 1627.

castle XI. — AN., ONF. castel, var. of chastel (mod. château) :- L. castellum, dim. of castrum entrenchment, fortified place, fort.

Castle as affix, see main name, e.g. for Castle Bolton (N. Yorks) see Bolton.

Castle. See Cassels.

castle •hassle, Kassel, passel, tassel, vassal •axel, axle •cancel, hansel, Hänsel, Mansell •transaxle •castle, metatarsal, parcel, tarsal •chancel • sandcastle • Newcastle •Bessel, nestle, pestle, redressal, trestle, vessel, wrestle •Edsel • Texel •intercensal, pencil, stencil •pretzel • staysail • mainsail • Wiesel •abyssal, bristle, epistle, gristle, missal, scissel, thistle, whistle •pixel • plimsoll •tinsel, windsail •schnitzel, spritsail •Birtwistle •paradisal, sisal, trysail •apostle, colossal, dossal, fossil, glossal, jostle, throstle •consul, proconsul, tonsil •dorsal, morsel •council, counsel, groundsel •Mosul • fo'c's'le, forecastle •bustle, hustle, muscle, mussel, Russell, rustle, tussle •gunsel • corpuscle •disbursal, dispersal, Purcell, rehearsal, reversal, succursal, tercel, transversal, traversal, universal •Herzl