All about MACHICOLATIONS! the coolest castle defensive feature

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with a video dedicated in this subject you guys you know what I have to do and sorry headphone warning we've got to do it join with me if you want to magic your nature or if you didn't understand that Machiko lations why do I scream it because it's awesome alright so much you guys let's go into the deep dive of it now I have referred to matriculation zit many times I made a whole video dedicated on to why you know certain castle well basically medieval buildings but also castle things had an extension in the upper floors and I explained which equations in that video in that they are a design which enables the defenders of a castle to fire down on people who are adjacent to the castle wall in regular battlements and stuff like that the only way to fire down on people right at the castle base is to lean out in between the crenellations exposing yourself and firing down and you probably get shot and dead but by extending those battlements and having a gap in between that enables you to shoot right down while still remaining behind the battlements so very cool very clever design there is more to matriculation than just this okay there are questions that have arisen that you guys have asked me and stuff like that that I want to answer in this video this is the deep dive the detailed analysis and stuff of machicolations how they're built and also a lot of the whys and functionality behind them so I'll start with how they are built the Battlement needs to be extended off the rampart okay but not just off it needs to be extended so much so that there's a gap between the battlements and the ramparts to enable the holes in between but something needs to hold up those battlements and so you start with a thing called corbels now a Korbel is basically an extension of stone outside of the stone wall which enables you to rest something on top of it corbelling has been used in many architectural designs and constructions for things other than matriculation okay in actual fact corbelling is one method in which intermediate floors are actually put inside castles because you have the core ball and you can rest the beam that holds the floor on top of that core ball being made out of stone they have great compressive strength and could support take an amount of weight so the corbelling itself could be made out of separate parts or they could be made out of one solid chunk of stone there are many examples of different types of core balls that we can see from real castles that have survived through to the modern day that were built in the medieval period so we get our inspiration from all these references the thing is though there is a gap or a space in between these corbels and stone this depends okay because there are ways in which you can just get a larger kind of slab of stone put it right in between those you know corbels and spend the distance the problem is that slab if it gets put under too much pressure stone is usually great with pressure and so if the upper part of the stone is falling in it'll fall under compression and I'll be stable but the bottom part of the stone if that starts to get pushed down that bottom part could then come under tension and stone not good under tension okay and so there's a chance that that slab could actually break away and fall underneath it so the way in which you can make a more secure kind of span in between these cobbles is to make an arch an arch is this beautiful architectural structure in which all pressure and weight placed on it puts the supporting arch under compression and stone is great with compression becomes very stable and so one of the more secure methods in spanning a distance between the coals is by putting an arch there that is why we have arches between cobbles on many battlements with matriculation and such but all of them some of them have different designs just like a stone slab spanning the distance but these are the different designs that were implemented in historical battlements with matriculation because the matriculation is technically the whole alright and so the corbelling and the the span in between and they stone above it that's technically their battlements and the matriculation the whole and so right now we're talking about how the Battlement is able to be constructed and extended off the wall to enable machicolations but i'm actually describing the construction of the Battlement part itself now with the gaps in between these cobbles properly spanned and secured you can then build up on top of them and you can complete the Battlement of course comprised out of crenellations which are made through in two merlyn's the tooth and the Crennel the gap in between but there are some interesting questions that arise now with our michiko lated Battlement properly made and completed and that is well what kind of holes on the rampart a chance that you could fall through them and how big were they well it seems like the size of matriculation on it that they varied and it was came purely down to the architect and how big he wanted of course there would have been certain practical limitations okay you wouldn't want it too small that you couldn't throw large rocks through because matriculation they weren't just shot through me there as I said I've just heavy rocks throwing down on people adjacent to the wall that works really well too so you need big enough to accommodate rocks but you don't want it too big so because if it is too big the people down at the wall could shoot up through Mexico nations get you it will be far more difficult for them because they're further away but there is that chance and if it's too big as well there's a greater chance that if you misstep and you could actually fall through it and this is what the other questions people ask what do you do about the holes so there's a couple of answers that I've actually been now to find one with an actual historical you know reference point and others kind of just logical sense one answer is is that they could have made wooden basic covers for them okay and it wouldn't be too difficult you just make a couple planks of wood and maybe some guide you know bits underneath that slot into the matriculation covering the hole and you could have a rope pull or just a wooden handle fix to it to lift it out when they actually need to be used and then you're not gonna fall through while you're walking past them this next one was actually shared to me by one of my viewers and this is what I think I love about you guys I learned so much from you and you guys love castles and you can actually go to castles right cuz you might live closer to them I'm gonna straightly I for crying out loud but anyway and some of you guys this is them you send me pictures now unfortunately I'm sorry I can't remember your name and I can't find a picture I can I'm gonna put the picture here so he can look at them but right now it's lost okay but he's sitting this picture to me and I can recreate it on my 3d model and he was showing me the matriculation said he was asking me why it had to step up because it had this design where it had the RAM pod and before the matriculation I was actually a step a full step and then a bit of a span of stone in the mid situations and battlements and when I looked at addy who was asking me why and I was like that really looks to be kind of like a protection barrier if you're walking on this rampart you are far less likely to step through a hole if access to the hole is actually on a step higher than the path you're walking on so far less likely to fall through and so this could very well have been a safety measure put into the design of this castle and you wouldn't need the covers in the first place very possible it is speculation though I don't know definitively that's the kind of thing when you're looking at castle design and trying to backwards engineer the methodology it is ultimately comes down to a lot of speculation but the speculation that is most logical is most likely to be the case and I think this is a fairly logical answer but that step kind of makes a bit of a distance barrier between you and the Midd situations and this kind of comes into the next question that people have raised with me about these interesting architectural designs that we see on castles and it's that how close do you need to be to use them and I think people kind of get a misunderstanding that you have to be right over on top of them to use not really the case in regards to many of the defensive elements of a castle so we're not just looking at matriculates is there this is the same when firing in between the crenellations okay in the Crennel between the Merlin's and also firing through arrow loops on a castle from people actually going to castles and trying it out with you know bows arrows crossbows and things like that it was it's very difficult to use these things when you're standing right adjacent to them they often are standing about half a meter to a meter away from them and there's got their you know bow and arrow and they're shooting through that gap from a distance there's a couple of practical reasons that help determine why we think they were you know employed this way one is that it's actually easier to kind of angle your shot at a distance than when you're cramped into this alcove by being further away there's less chance that any arrow fire that actually goes through that arrow loop or between the Merlin's will hit you because the further out your way the more angular kind of distance you have for that era to miss I even an area that has an angle distance like this if you're closer that angle could hit you but if you're further away or suddenly there's a lot of area where that arrow will actually miss so it helps to stand a little bit far away and sorry even with Michiko lations if you need a shoot through them don't need to be right over on top unless they're really close to the wall but even if our close the law you can adjust lean out with your hands drop something on top of them shoot down keep a bit of distance keep yourself much safer than if you were right you know looking through the hole or having your head in between a mythic relations there's an interesting thing I've observed when studying matriculation zhan actual you know historical castles and it's the fact that the number of matriculation czar in the space in between right does not generally match or run in even concession to the crenellations above so what do I mean you don't generally have like to matriculate ins per every single Merlin or three to two or stuff like that it seems to be fairly random where they just mentioned out an appropriate distance but for each matriculation determined by the distance of the corbels and then when they came to the crenellations that you know the corbelling is holding up they measured that separately as well and however they ended up matching up was whatever I am way too OCD to do that even on my own castle so when I do like castles like the models I've been showing in stuff I always have the matriculation z' matching up in a correct kind of order to the morons above in such a way that there is always a matriculation that lines up with a Merlin specifically sometimes I have it evenly to the exactness where each Merlin has a matriculation why I do that design is that I feel if you needed to approach this whole to drop something down having something of higher you know cover protecting you was good if you have a meticulous in that's sitting right in between a quenelle and you need to move up well your head might you know be fairly vulnerable to arrow fire in between those two Merlin's but it's not to say that that's how it was done historically like I said there doesn't seem to be any direct matching up of the matriculation Zach or Billings to the crenellations above them but you can do that when you're designing castles and I kinda like into it because I'm OCD the other thing I want to point out is that matriculation so we're not just employed to hold up a Battlement okay as we see in many examples of historical castles upper parts and sections of castles towers and walls were extended and held up with corbelling with matriculated underneath with no actual Battlement it was just a wall with a roof and there are even more examples of different styles of matriculation being used separate to holding up you know a Battlement a crenelated Battlement yes there are different types of meticulous ins so there are some types of matriculation z' that kind of were used to house you know previous extensions or just sections of a wall that was just a bit of an extension and their roofed off that is sitting outside of the wall to either be used offensively and like I said in some cases for a garderobe which is basically castles toilet we also see this kind of limited use matriculation zhan like gate houses where just above the gate house there's an extension in your matriculation z' and much of the other battlements would do we're not corbelled or extended out with matriculation z' in between they just had regular you know Battlement but in the areas where they felt they were most needed or could be employed to a greater effect they had matriculation so they weren't used all the time that's the other thing we should really point out there are times where matriculation z' as hard as this is to admit there are times they just thought they're not needed specifically when it's extremely difficult to near impossible for the enemy to reach the wall and get adjacent to it if they're not even going to get there there's no need for matriculation so you just have a flat wall with a crenellations a top of it so there we go this has been a more deep dive onto these glorious things matriculation z' and answering many of their questions that you guys brought up thank you very much for watching i hope you've enjoyed and of course if you want to see more castle content and stuff remember to subscribe ring the bell so you don't miss an episode and you can also check out many other castle videos that I have on this channel I hope to see you there until then [Music] [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 748,298

Keywords: castle, castles, achitecture, design, stone, fortress, machicolations, battlement, crenelations, crenel, merlon, wall, walls, medieval, middle ages, crenulations, bailey, keep, arrow loop, building, buildings, wooden, jettying, corbel, corbelling, game of thrones, season 8, lord of the rings, skyrim, sword, swords, armor, armour, anime, top 10, top ten, analysis, audible, knight, knight's, king, lord, longsword, greatsword, history, historical, archeology, archeological

Id: _-VEgf57Ie8

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019