Castles and donjons
"Storm of the castle of love" is a very popular story of the Middle Ages. 13x12,5 cm. Ivory. 1320–1350 Pay attention to how the castle of that time seemed to the creator of this carved little thing. Two towers, a wall, a gate, and a donjon behind. Castle Museum Willeveck. Pays de la Loire (Lands of the Loire)
Battlements of their gray towers
As if pouring a little visible light,
And he is strange and terrible,
Silent fire of past victories
Their proud face is decorated.
Underground bridges and ditches, -
closed estates,
Here at night you can hear the cry of an owl
Ghosts roam here.
"Jane Wilmore's Castle". Reader by stories Middle Ages
(Grade 6), part 2, M., 1998, p. 282–283
Ancient castles and fortresses. Literally, another material about castles just came out, and immediately VO readers began to contact me: “write more”, and someone asked specific questions, how castles of different eras differed, what, say, were the features of their architecture, then I want them to delve deeper into this topic.
Actually, there are a lot of my notes on castles on VO, but they will have to be searched for on the profile among 1 articles on 780 pages, which will take time. Therefore, it makes sense in the next material to tell a little about the general history of castles, and only then talk about something completely new ...
The first stone castle in England, built at Chepstow in 1067–1071. The two towers in the photo were added in 1200. Photo by Rory Lawton
The Normans built the first castles in Europe
So, castles began to be built primarily in Normandy already in the XNUMXth century. The reason is this: after the death of Charlemagne, a huge empire collapsed. The sons and grandsons of Charles got deeper into territorial strife, the central government withered and collapsed, and the raids of the Vikings, who on their boats rose up the rivers farther and farther into the depths of France, became more frequent.
So it happened that in the north and west of France, people, both the poor and the nobility, were faced with the need to take care of their own protection. In an effort to protect their possessions from enemy encroachments, the nobles began to recruit knights and other warriors to their service, and surround their dwellings with walls and ramparts, turning an ordinary house into a fortress.
Such castles or fortresses in Latin texts were called differently, but the essence of all the names was the same: castrum, castellani, munitio, municipium or oppidum - these were fortifications that were also symbols of power at the same time. Riders from such a castle could control the area around it within a radius of 15-20 km, and this distance allowed them to return back on the same day.
Motte and bailey: XNUMXth century Norman wooden castle.
Illustration by A. Sheps from the book “Knights. Locks. Weapon» (Rosman, 2005)
Initially, the fortifications were very simple and functional. It was based on a mound, natural or artificial (motte), surrounded by a courtyard (bailey) with one or two rows of log palisades. In the center of such a fortification, there was a large square-shaped wooden house, three or four floors (the first one was often completely filled with earth!), Connected by a staircase with a basement for supplies in the thickness of the embankment itself.
The houses of the peasants and artisans who served the master were inside the outer fence and were also protected. The high cost and laboriousness of stone construction at the early stage of castle construction determined the relatively low frequency of its use.
The tower of the Counts of Flanders in Ghent began to be built in the 1180s. And here's what it looks like cutaway. Below is a prison and rooms for visitors of low rank, as well as a kitchen; above the donjon itself with halls for housing and a chapel. But the gallery at the top with battlements and turrets could only be built on in the XNUMXth century.
Illustration by A. Sheps from the book “Knights. Locks. Weapons (Rosman, 2005)
Soon the wooden donjon tower (from Norwegian donjon - tower) became the lord's house. The term was used not only to refer to these towers themselves, but could also serve as a synonym for the entire barrow (motte) or the castle grounds. Otherwise, donjons are called "big towers".
Orford Castle - in the county of Suffolk in the southeast of Great Britain, from which only one donjon has survived, but what a! Photo geograph.org.uk
In this photo, the holes in the base of the tower attract attention. These are the openings of the latrines for draining sewage. In fact, they tried to merge them into the moat, but here all the "grace of the womb" came out behind the tower outside the castle wall. Outhouses on such towers were built on different floors, one above the other. The top one was sometimes made right under the open sky. Photo geograph.org.uk
Then the donjons, as well as the walls surrounding them, began to be built of stone, and again it was in Normandy, as there is written evidence relating to the large tower of the ducal fortress of Rouen, built in the middle of the 942th century by Duke Richard I the Fearless (996–XNUMX ).
The same donjon is a bird's-eye view. Photo geograph.org.uk
According to the chronicles, he also ordered the construction of a fortified palace in Bayeux, and the heirs of the duke, inspired by his example, continued the tradition. In England, conquered by the Normans in 1066, the construction of castles was continued due to the need to keep the subjugated Saxons in check. That is, they, in the language of modernity, exported stone castle construction, first to England, then to Southern Italy and Sicily.
Of course, in the same England, the houses of the noble Saxons - Tans, were also fortified and had a fence, but they cannot be attributed to castles, since belonging to a castle was determined by the number of storeys of the building. Roughly speaking: there are walls and a tower - that means a castle, there are walls, but there is no tower - just a fortified estate, especially if all the buildings are wooden, and the area is small!
Donjon Orford. Chapel. Photo by Richard Nevell
It is possible that the Normans built towers also because they had a strong psychological impact on the local population, accustomed to one-story houses with a gable thatched roof, like a skyscraper on a provincial. In particular, this is how the castles of the Normans were assessed by a contemporary of the conquest, Orderic Vitalis (1075–1142), who saw in their stone masses the key to the success of the conquest.
Donjon Orford. Upper hall. Photo by Richard Nevell
The stone towers, which later became known in England as keeps (from the word “keep”, first appeared in 1586), originally had a very complex internal architecture, as we can see from at least these plans for the donjon of Orford Castle, made in 1840. On the left to the right: from the first floor to the roof
Moreover, they began to build stone castles immediately after the conquest, already in 1067. It was from stone that William Fitz-Osburn built his castle in Chepstow in 1067-1071, to which in 1200 the Earl of Pembroke added two more towers, and his sons added a gatehouse and a barbican (a building that defends the drawbridge). And it was Chepstow that became the first castle in Great Britain, which was completely built of stone.
Interestingly, the main tower of Chepstow (completed in 1072) is distinguished by the fact that it has a very thin wall from the side of the river, that is, the attitude of the builders to saving materials was very reasonable. Photo by Jeffrey L. Thomas
Plan of Chepstow Castle 1825
By the beginning of the 600th century, there were at least XNUMX castles in England. And at the end of the century, it was the donjon that became the object of creative experiments of builders and customers - polygonal and round donjons appeared.
Donjons - towers for life in a difficult situation or a symbol of power?
Donjon of the French castle of Chambois. Photo by Romain Breguet
And this is his machicolation - throwing stones at people's heads and pouring stuff like that ... Photo by Romain Breguet
Some castles in the same England were built by kings in order to curb the willfulness of their feudal lords. So, in the 1165th century, Hugo Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, controlled the lands in the Orford area in Suffolk and was one of those barons who refused to obey the authority of King Stephen, and then Henry II Plantagenet. Henry did not like this autocracy, and in XNUMX he began to build a castle in Orford, the tower of which has survived to this day and is remarkable in two respects - its unique shape and unusually complex internal construction.
Donjon Chambois in section
But most importantly, all the records and accounts related to the construction of the castle have been preserved. Thanks to them, it is known that its construction in the years 1165-1173 cost 1 pounds, most of which was spent in the first two years. Since food was ordered for the castle in 413, it is obvious that by this time its construction was largely completed, since people settled there.
"Castle Storm". The castle itself, as you can see, has several towers, and one is central, higher than the others. Miniature from Ancient History before Caesar, 1325-1350. Naples, Italy. British Library, London
The spread of castle building, however, did not mean at all that absolutely all castles of the early Middle Ages copied the “motte and bailey” scheme and looked like one another like two drops of water.
So, William the Conqueror in 1060 in Cana built an impressive castle with an area of about 30 hectares. And it was precisely the castle - that is, the place where the residences were. Moreover, at first the walls did not have towers, but they were completed only in the XNUMXth century, and for some reason at different distances from each other.
Since 1150, polygonal and round towers have come into fashion. For example, a similar polygonal donjon tower 28 meters high was built at Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire. Photo by Rob Bendall
Donjon of Conisbrough Castle in section
And this is how its internal structure and decoration was modeled in our days. The drawing shows the donjon around 1180 and its three main chambers. Historic England (illustrated by Peter Urmston)
In the XNUMXth century, donjons increasingly began to be built round, but their walls were strengthened with buttresses. Inside, on one floor there was one large room, and in the thickness of the wall - fireplaces and latrines. However, at the same time, the seigneur's own living quarters could already be located in the courtyard of the castle, and he and his family moved to the tower "chambers" in case of a threat of attack.
View of the castle from a bird's eye view. The tower, as can be clearly seen, was covered with a roof. Photo english-heritage.org.uk
Today, some rooms in the castles have been restored, and we can judge how they looked at that distant time. This is how, for example, the chamber of the owner of Chepstow Castle looked like. Photo english-heritage.org.uk
And this is the well in the basement of the donjon of Orford Castle. Photo by Ashley Dice
By the way, already at that distant time, at least, the nobility began to take care of their cleanliness and even take a bath. Although this required firewood to heat water, a cloth to lay on the bottom of a wooden bath, aromatic oils - that is, the pleasure was both troublesome and expensive. In any case, it is known that the English king John the Landless (1167-1216) took a bath ... once a month and it cost him five pence, which was the weekly earnings of many categories of British workers of that time.
By the way, it was from 1150 to 1250 that the period of a real construction boom began, when castles began to be built throughout Europe not by tens, but by thousands! So in the end, more than 15 thousand castles were built in it.
But not all of them appeared in these years. Later, they were also built in considerable numbers. But what kind of castles they were will be discussed in the next article.
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