It's definitely an intimidation tactic. When the First Crusade
reached Nicaea in 1097, both the attackers and defenders
threw heads at each other. Hi, I'm Dr. Michael Fulton. I am an expert at siege warfare
and medieval fortifications. Today, we're going to be
looking at castle battle scenes in movies and TV and
judging how real they are. There's nothing far-fetched about sneaking into a castle or town. There are ways to do that, whether you're disguised as somebody or you're hiding in something. Kind of runs to the edge and says, "Hey you, stop that." There's a traditional
phenomenon called castle watch. You're really just watching, making sure that nobody
sneaks up on your castle. What you're trying to
defend your castle against is a large army, because it's very hard to take a castle unless you have a large army. It's hard to sneak up on a castle. If you're coming with an army, people know that army is coming. I think this is supposed
to be Kildrummy Castle, which, by this point, had a
very elaborate gate system. So just opening that gate would have been quite a challenge. Everybody's going to go to that gate. A gate like that would have
been a whole structure. So each gate to that structure would presumably have been
locked by someone on the inside. The idea of this small
party trying to rush against this small group
that are in the Great Hall, I kind of don't understand,
because a castle of this scale is going to have a lot more defenders, and you're going to have
to overcome them all. So your priority is really seizing the strategic parts of the castle. The Great Hall is not really one of them. Sleeping in the, or on the
floor of the Great Hall was a traditional thing to do. It's starting to go out of
fashion by this point in history. But if you were to look back
at say the 11th, 12th century, the king's retainers,
or the lord's retainers, his kind of high-ranking guys would have a lot of drinking parties and then just kind of pass
out on the floor around. There would be weapons around. You wouldn't need to
necessarily don your armor in order to defend a castle like this. That's much more helpful
in an open battle. Maybe a 2 if I'm being generous. Hey, archer, stay alive. The little screens there, those were very important,
because they stopped arrows. The moat or the ditch, this is the most basic
fortification element, other than some kind of a basic wall. This was supposed to be
the castle at Chalus. It's up on a hill, so I'm not sure if it
would have needed a ditch. But if it looked at all like this, where the ground is kind
of nice and approachable leading up, you're absolutely
going to have a ditch, because it's so easy. They put a lot of effort in
hanging these incendiaries on the gate. Why don't you just put it
at the bottom of the gate? Setting gates on fire is
a legitimate tactic here. It largely predates this period, though. If you have incendiaries
during this period, they are more likely
to look like tar than, well, presumably like gasoline, because you have to refine it. Men: Heave! (ram banging) The portcullis has
disappeared for some reason. So the portcullis designed like that, with that lattice structure, that was coming into
fashion around this time. Whether it is wood that has
been kind of coated with metal, or plated, or whether it's entirely metal, you see both variations. The whole point of it,
though, is that it is open so you can stick stuff
through it if you want. And if it's metal, presumably it means you
can't set it on fire, which is critical here, right? Traditionally, the gate
is the weakest part of a fortified enclosure,
because it's a hole, right? So you need to strengthen
that hole to make sure that it's not a point of
weakness or vulnerability. So through the 13th century, gates actually become the
strongest part of a castle instead of the weakest part, just because of the level of
development that goes into it. Kind of walking up to a gate,
trying to set it on fire, trying to use a ram against it. They've had a long time to think about these kind of siege tactics and to develop fortifications accordingly. So it's kind of anachronistic order. The siege tactics are
already a little bit outdated in this representation. These guys are trying. They haven't pulled it all
together as best as they could. These are terrible catapults. The stones seem to somehow speed up as they leave the basket. It should slow down from that point. If you look at how big
this chunk of stone is, it's significantly larger than the engine This is an element of
psychological warfare. It's definitely an intimidation tactic. When the First Crusade
reached Nicaea in 1097, both the attackers and defenders
threw heads at each other. It took place more often when
you had groups facing off a big, counterweight-style trebuchet, on top of a tower for a few reasons. It is heavy. So the tower actually has to
be able to support the weight of the engine. You get a little bit more range, but that horizontal range is actually less than the vertical height that
you've elevated the engine. If you put it on the
ground behind the tower, all of a sudden you
don't have to worry about supporting this engine
and all it stresses. And you actually get the
shielding of the wall in front to protect it from the enemy's machines, who are presumably trying to break it up. There is this desire or
need to make them really big and really impressive. So these were important weapons, but nowhere near as exciting To attack a big, curved wall is just like attacking any other wall. Rounded towers are designed purposely to deflect incoming artillery and such. Cohesively, a rounded tower is stronger because it doesn't have corners. So you don't have the same
kind of points of stress. So if you're trying to undermine a tower, a round tower is slightly
stronger than a square one. Cities built on cliffs that you'd attack. Why don't you just build
on top of the cliff? As real as an orc siege of
a make-believe city can be, I'm still going to have
to give this 1 out of 10. Night attacks can take place. There's nothing to say that they didn't or that they shouldn't. Are they trying to go through a gate? There are three ways to overcome a wall. You can go over it, in
which case you use ladders, siege towers, stuff like that. You can go under it, which
is not a great strategy because then you're kind of
emerging on the other side one by one if you tunnel under. Or you can go through, and
the best way to go through is actually to undermine the wall. Dig a big cavity underneath the wall. You prop up the wall
above with wooden posts. You throw a bunch of combustibles in. All that support gets burnt out. The wall above falls down. Lighting arrows on fire like
this, Hollywood loves to do it. It serves no practical value unless you're trying to set a
thatched roof cottage on fire. So they kind of got up to
the base of the wall here. This is a safe spot, in so
much as it's hard for archers to shoot arrows at them from here. But you can just drop
some stones over on them. It's economical. If you consider that every
arrow has to be made by hand, that's not a short
process to make an arrow. So when they're throwing off
all these volleys of arrows and shooting them off as fast as they can, that's not very efficient. You drop a bowling ball on somebody, and it stops them in their tracks. The Hound: Any man dies with a
clean sword, I'll --- corpse! Defenders exit a gate and try
and attack the besiegers -- that's reasonably common. The issue here is why. You would only do this if you needed to. Those attackers didn't have the
numbers they probably needed to overcome these defenses to begin with. In the medieval period,
leadership is directly tied to military performance and prowess. So for a commander, they have to be aware of what's going on if they are kind of a warrior figure, which the most effective
military kings usually were. So having someone on top of
the wall organizing things, definitely not beyond
the realm of possibility. I don't quite see what
they're going to accomplish once they reach the base of this wall. So I'm going to give this
one maybe a 3 out of 10. This is the siege of Rochester, 1215. Do whatever you can to
help your side get through, because if you're then
left alone on that wall, you're going to be killed yourself. So the very worst thing you can do is get to the top of the
wall and then be left alone. Priest: This way. Rarely you find women
actually taking a direct role in the fighting. But you do find relatively
frequent examples of women will bring weapons and supplies to people fighting. They bring particularly water and food. So there's absolutely a role for these kinds of people to play. The church is a very
logical place for them to be if they're not taking
part in the fighting. At this time, the importance
or the centrality of God in a conflict like this
would have been huge. Narrator: They were too cold to fight and too hungry. Sieges would last anywhere
from kind of weeks to months. When an army moves into enemy
territory, if there are crops, they will destroy them. For those inside the defensive perimeter, they're forced to make do
with the food that they have. Very rarely did strongholds
actually fall by force. The outer line of defenses might fall, but then those that are
still in the innermost part will surrender. If the attackers are not able
to impose a complete blockade, there might be actually supplies coming in to support the
defenders throughout the siege. You get this particularly
when you're talking about bigger cities being attacked. I've got to give them a 4 or 5 out of 10. This is not what Paris
looked like at the time. The big church in the
background, this is High Gothic. The palace right next to it, this looks suspiciously like
the papal palace in Avignon, which is 14th century, not 9th century. We love using the crossbows. There's anecdotal evidence here that they were kind of
introduced to the Franks at this point. So you've got guys kind of leaning through the crenels like this, which are the spaces between the merlons, the teeth on the walls. And at what point they came into use, these would have been
around at this point. So penthouses like these that
they're using for shelter are very important. This is a safe way to kind of
get to the base of the walls of the city. Usually, what you'd use
these for, particularly in later periods, is
undermining the city walls. So it's a means of getting
up to the city walls and then trying to dig a hole under them. How strong is this gate? Because really these are just some planks. Horses are important. The significance of mounted warriors is really growing throughout this period. In a siege though, horses tend
not to be terribly useful. Eating, they need to be fed. They produce waste, which
needs to be dealt with. So siege towers are an important
siege weapon in warfare. They are a great way to get people into an elevated position. The primary function of a siege tower really is to elevate attackers, as opposed to trying to get
them to the top of a wall. That might be a handy secondary purpose, hiding behind their parapet. So here, it's very helpful, but a ladder would be a much cheaper and cost-effective manner
to get up to the top. So I would rate this somewhere
around, I don't know, a 3 or a 4. The siege technologies
aren't exactly that accurate. It wouldn't be uncommon
to have castle gates open. If you were just guarding this gate against any kind of troublemakers, it's very believable that the guards would be down on the bottom floor. It's a lot easier to chase somebody down if you're already down there. For him to go around killing
people indiscriminately, that actually makes sense. Once someone gets into
the fortified enclosure, there's no protection for those within, unless some kind of peace
agreement is prearranged. So the whole point of a castle is you're having walls
do the work of defenders. The whole market kind of environment would usually be outside the castle. The environment inside the castle is catering only to those
really who live there or might need to take refuge there. It was a matter of
protecting who was in charge. Guard: Now, you're not allowed to enter. Lancelot: O, fair one,
behold your humble servant. You don't often find cases
where someone is lauded for single-handedly capturing a castle or some other fortification. More often, you will
find individuals praised for their conduct. The first person to set
foot on a defender's wall. So if you're the first
one up on your ladder, the first one up on your siege tower. Usually, that person gets special mention. To take a castle kind of
like we associate them, or we picture them, you're going to need a force
in at least the hundreds, probably the thousands. I have no idea what to offer this one. I believe this is a real castle. It's setting about a very
kind of rose-colored glasses day in the life of a castle. It's trying. I don't know. Just lobbing arrows at a distance is not an effective siege tactic or counter-siege tactic. So when you see archers, they
pull an arrow, they nock it, they draw, and then they kind of hold, then they shoot their arrows all at once. Again, this is inspired
by later musket tactics, where you have lines of
musketeers shooting off volleys, for the same reason that you would wait until the attackers got closer
to shoot a musket at them. Well, a ladder is just
propped up against the wall. They'd actually be quite sturdy and you'd reuse them sometimes. So this would have been
a difficult tactic, but a believable one. So the easiest way to try and make sure that ladder doesn't get used is either to break the ladder somehow, which is kind of hard
given the angles involved, or to take a long stick and
just try and push the ladder to the point where it
goes past the vertical and falls over backwards. So that's very believable. So you do have certain
accounts of machines like these that will, in some way,
hold something not friendly over the walls and then
drop it on the attackers. Usually, they're deployed
against a siege tower or something a little bit more impressive, because if it's just
guys coming up a ladder, you just drop some stones on them. You often find them in kind of, or being associated with sailors. You effectively have a mast and then a yard of some description, and it will then be
swung out over the wall. And using rigging that sailors
would be accustomed to, they can then drop
something on the attackers. The descriptions of these vary. Sometimes it's kind of
a ring that's on fire. Other times, it's something really heavy. Other times, you have
just a log with spikes kind of being hoisted
or tossed over the wall. I'm not an expert of East Asian warfare, but there's some good elements to this. There's also the obvious
fantasy aspect to it. So I don't know, maybe 4 out of 10.
