Did ROMAN CASTLES exist and what did they look like?

hey guys just want to quickly remind you about the first shadow versity meet-and-greet if you haven't heard about it already I have mentioned in a previous video so I'll just do it quickly here I'm gonna be at the abbey medieval festival in culture Queensland Australia sorry for you guys who are international on the 13th and 14th of July they're the official meet-and-greet is on the 14th itself you're gonna get to meet me in person I'll film a live video there's gonna be competitions we're just get to interact hanging out and have a lot of fun so that's the 14th of July at the Abbey medieval festival link in the description below greetings I'm Chad and I want to talk to you a little bit about Roman castles and there's an important question we should ask ourselves before addressing this subject and it's this did Roman castles even exist the answer is yes and no it's complicated which is the reason why I'm making this video the difficulty arises in the complex nature of the specific definition of a castle because though it is a bit specific is also a bit broad as well the most specific and official definition for the word castle is a fortified medieval residence a private home fortified for the individual being medieval specifically if you reference castle without any prefix to it you are automatically referring to something of the medieval period in Europe but the idea of fortified residence isn't something that's unique to the medieval period we do find examples of them existing outside of them which is why we can kind of say well look there are kind of castles outside of the medieval period but we add an important prefix to make the distinction between the medieval castle and a different type of castle like a Japanese castle and in this sense kind of Roman Castle but again did Romans have fortified private residences yes and no there are four close approximates to the Roman Castle and what's interesting about this two of them actually have the name of the route original origin of the word castle itself the custom which translates into fort or fortress and the cast heirloom which translates to small fort or Watchtower and then we also have the door Moss which was kind of like an upper-class home for a Roman citizen and the villa each one of these structures are Castle like in some way but it's important to remember those two words castrum and castellum both don't translate to castle even though these are the root original words for castle and what's interesting you have the different pronunciation for the plural version of them which is that I think a sucker come alright to get the proper pronunciation of these words because I'm just gonna butcher them through the whole video and also to understand the etymology in origin the context we need to get in the Italian man himself a modern-day Roman Mellotron I really need help hi their method on here so Castel loom castra what do these words mean and how did the Romans use them well a quick note on my pronunciation of Latin terms please keep in mind I'm using classical Latin pronunciation not ecclesiastical Costra as military camps is a solid translation it also had a series of metal image used in funeral inscriptions and legal texts metronomy is a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another with which its associated for example when you say the lands belonging to the crown it don't actually mean that these lands belong to the crown the object now to you you don't write castra can mean the army it can mean military service and metaphoric usage of castra can mean political party all of these eventually were fully integrated in the official language and used in legal texts in castra Irae castra bugera another example is the expression mother castro room which was an honorary title for the wife of the Emperor first attested with Faustina wife of Marcus Aurelius so we have a few possible variants of Castro so the legionary encampments permanent ones were called castro stati were standing camps the less permanent one where castra i stiva for summer camps this is because summer was the military campaign season in castra i stiva the soldiers would be housed in tents for the winter instead the soldiers used a castra Habana winter camps which had barracks and more solid materials including stone walls and public built okay dr. shad if I go ah Thank You mate and guys if you do not know who the Metatron is you have to go check out his YouTube channel it is phenomenal we're good friends me in the Metatron he makes superb content has just recently made a couple of videos reviewing and also doing a historical analysis of sukira shadows secur secur secur secur shadows die twice which is a bit of a contradiction because that name should be sakura shadows died a couple of thousand times before he finished his game now the cast theorem which is the roman fort or fortress looking at the more fortified versions which have ramparts towers and crenellations these are all very strong castle like elements but it's missing a key distinctive feature and that is a larger primary tower or great tower that has a defensive position either attached to the wall or inside the walls one of the features that you'll notice with roman fortresses is that all the defenses are on the outside they're generally in a square formation as well they pale of squares fragments not to say that's a universal thing they of course had sometimes rounded half towers and round kind of things but generally therefore it's always in a square format and the fortification defenses all on the outside there are no internal divisions making fallback positions or a primary fallback tower that if any of the Bailey was taken or in this case just kind of the internal courtyard no main fortified building to fall back - you did all castles have a primary keep no some actually had several some castles had those defensive towers that kind of wrapped around the outer wall large enough to basically be individual keeps inner of themselves Purvi example is canavan castle in this case there's no separate main primary defensive tower it has several of them but in any regard in all of those instances were kind of missing those on the Roman fortress but not in every instance there are cases where the roman fortress designed the castrum matches quite strongly classic castle design and this is generally a difference in their size their footprint if their footprint is much smaller and they have a much larger primary defensive tower or several that Roman fortress can match a castle by design but not necessarily by definition because this fortress is not someone's private residence in a lot of instances Roman fortresses were much larger because they were housing a very large were soldiers to the point that they would be considered the size of villages or even small cities such fortresses are too large to be considered castles but if those fortresses have a smaller footprint and match classic castle design we have more justification to call that structure a Roman castle kind of it's still not someone's private residence but was every castle a private residence there were medieval castles that were not someone's residence but were purely military fortresses the cracked a Chevalier is a primary example I can give and another great example is malbork castle the headquarters the Teutonic Knights military fortresses not someone's private residence and these castles were being but what we have to understand about these castles is they're the exception to the definition they don't define it most medieval castles and I mean the larger majority of them were much smaller and was someone's private home but because there are some examples of castles that were purely military fortresses could we extend that you know definition to a Roman fortress not really these castle fortresses that I mentioned are still defined as castles primarily because these are still medieval structures with castle design elements and fortifications remember the word castle specifically refers to a medieval building which is why there's some more allowance for those fortresses in the medieval period to be defined as castles because they are medieval and share all the defensive elements even though they're not really someone's home they can kind of get away with it it's harder to extend that to Roman fortresses and don't get me wrong there are some very loose applications of the definition of castle in the modern day really now - any castle like building but those are referring to those buildings that have a distinct medieval flavor and in contrast to this a Roman fortress as a distinct Roman flavor so it is more difficult to apply the classic medieval distinction yet also having said that there's not much medieval about a Japanese castle and we generally call them a type of castle but again these are more so that the Japanese castle does match the medieval definition of a castle a bit closer because they are someone's home yet those Roman fortresses that match general castle design well we are more entitled to call them castle like at least design just not definition some great examples of Roman fortresses that match the castle design is the ain armed el daba did fortress it's a late Roman fortress that very much matches conventional castle design another great example the quasar beshear Modine fortress again this is a late Roman fortress about 100 something ad and it has larger defensive towers with a define Bailey and even a gatehouse and so out of any Roman fortresses that you would be justified in calling at Roman Castle well these are two of the best examples okay so let's move on to the next possible contender for a Roman like castle and that is the castellum or Watchtower small fort specifically castellum plural Castella has several possible meanings the word castellum could mean a settlement non fortified or a fort that has defensive function or capability furthermore it also has a very specialized meaning a third usage a castellum within the context of architecture could be a building which was used to distribute water from aqueducts in latin castellum aqua but we only find this usage in legal texts rather than literally once in this case they had nothing to do with the military of course the usage pattern of this word was highly dependent on context and it changed over time a man-made or natural fortification or elevated position is not an inherent trait of the castellum settlement types it could be fortified or not a fortified settlement is only one aspect of its usage in Roman times alternatively a castellum can also mean a bastion a tower a part of the defensive fortifications of a city as seen in comparison with the castra a Castel Lumas a smaller fortification as evident from the diminutive nature of the term the Romans had a huge variety of settlement types ranging from rooms killing das Mauna Kea Colonia aqueduct war Goose Presidium the relationship with other Roman settlement types with which the word Castel dome is paired or contrasted also gives us a hint as to its meaning and usage the Romans were rather complex people when cast aluminum stead fortifications is then elevated of an equal to KI with us boobs and a balloon the word Colonia and Mooney keep Yuma never appeared together with Costello now these are legal administrative categories of settlement so probably castellum as a term as much less of a legal administrative word Costello may denote fortified settlements as well as purely military forts standalone or integrated into a larger fortification system such as a guard tower or a bastion but in this case usually belonging to a major city a Costello is always a fixed installment building unlike castra that may denote a mobile camp castra can be permanent or not epigraphic evidence shows the standalone Castella was smaller than castra because custer could accommodate an entire leg you so in Legion and even more building inscriptions indicated that Castella were built by an auxiliary Co horse or by legionary vexedly @eo but not a full legion of Xillia teo plural bec celia Tiana's was a detachment of a roman legion formed as a temporary task force created by the roman army of the principle or only Roman Empire this is interesting because again it's such a complex visiting about what is defined as a castle some people think a castle has to have an outer wall that's incorrect there is a thing called at our house in the medieval period where it was just a single fortified tower okay and if I had crenellations and battlements it was absolutely a castle there are some examples of tower houses that didn't have fortified in battlements ramparts crenellations at the top but there was secured in that they didn't have large windows will be with us you know climb through only one access point stuff though it is no I wouldn't call them castles though it's just regular tower houses so not every tower house was a castle but if they had the right fortifications they could be and what's interesting about this for the castellum or Roman watch tower they do have enough fortifications that you could say alright that David is very much castle like are they someone's residence though generally know there are watchtower for a small military unit in fact even though I don't know of a specific case I'm certainly willing to bed this that there were some Roman outposts and watchtowers that when Rome lost its influence over some of these is where they had these watchtowers people would have moved into them and they became some of the earliest medieval castles that we define as castles the classic Motte and tower design but even if it's not on a mod if it has fortified tower and someone's living in it that is a castle the difference between this very same building that we're looking at is a matter of how it is applied it's now become someone's residence because the actual Roman detachment that was housed in that outpost has left someone else has moved in it's big enough for because this is the thing like these towers are easily as big if not bigger than some of the standard homes of the very very earliest medieval period because most of the homes in this period was a single room and if your single room house could be in a defendant tower why not so the castell loom or watchtower is a pretty close contender for a Roman like castle so much so that if you would just take the Romans out and put a person living in it it becomes a castle but Romans did have private residences okay I'd do any of their actual homes qualify as castles well the closest contender is the normals this is an upper-class type of Roman home what's interesting about the Damas is it doesn't really have windows on the outside okay it follows a similar structure to what you find with a castle in that it rings around itself forming somewhat of a Bailey or walled structure with an internal opening yet sometimes this internal opening was so small that it was just a skylight above the thing is they were made for security as well they rarely had windows on the outside and if they did have windows that was the exception to the rule more often than not no windows you'll get your outside light in your dorms from your atrium and you're sealed off central courtyard and had a single primary entrance this is where they comparisons kind of stopped because after that there's no real fortifications and there's no ways to enable the residents of this home to actively repel shoot back upon anyone trying to assault their home it makes it more difficult for people to get in no windows to climb through and have to climb up onto the roof yep having said all this the only thing that the Roman dormice would need for it to qualify quite soundly as a castle like almost by definition therefore thing is missing is not in the mid your period is not medieval structure a castle is distinctly medieval okay but to call it a Roman castle the only thing that's missing is a defensive tower if you added some type of defensive Tower Watchtower to the Roman bombers you would have what I would happily call a Roman castle this is the thing it's not outside the realms of possibility that that did not happen historically I don't know of any specific cases if any of you know some specific cases please share them in the description below so it's like a Roman Damas with some type of fortified component okay a defensive Tower or better yet ramparts and crenellations absolutely we have this is someone's home this is a Roman castle the thing is though Romans did fortify their residences to a bit larger degree but they didn't really need to do that too much with the doors they wanted protect against thieves but the Roman domus was usually in a Roman village or town of some kind and they could rely on the military or the outer wall of the city to protect them what if you had a residence that was not in a fortified or protected village or city and this is where we get the Roman villa all right now I had to believe there are cases of the Roman villa having a defensive wall around the outside because you had to protect yourself and if this is a particularly wealthy Roman citizen they could hire personal guards to protect their home and this would be a pretty good contender for a Roman Castle if it has those proper fortifications some type of defensive tower and outer wall crenellations if it's just a home that is somewhat secure with Guardsmen at it still doesn't qualify as a true castle a true castle has proper fortifications and defensive elements in its design and so there we have it these are the areas in which we can find at least castle like structures in Rome but what I want to just end this off on now is what would Roman Castle design look like and we can get our information on this from the castrum the fortresses and the castellum the watchtowers what's interesting about Roman style fortifications is that you do have crenellations crenellations and ramparts is such a specific and important element of castle design and the Romans had this what they didn't have is of course one of my favorite things you know and it's been a while since I've done done it well okay so headphone warning had docked not to my knowledge I actually feel they had the architectural know how to do so so if you find any instances of actual room and matriculation 's share them with me but as a general rule not okay even if you find some instances these would be the exceptions the general rule roman fortifications did not have matriculation just straight up that's it the other thing you find is a lot of squares okay mostly square towers there are some instances I found of rounded half towers but as a general rule of thumb if you're gonna put a tower on any Roman fortification and even that this includes if you want to make a kind of Roman s castle or a castle that was a Roman fortification in the past which did happen okay where remember fornication three adopted and then someone's living in and they've become castles okay and you want it to look you know older or predating medieval period and the so hence a Roman flavor square towers including on the walls or if it's an individual Watchtower Square not round and sometimes even on the watchtower stuff they had fairly large windows so is this is this a weakness because people the inner enemies can just shoot right through them well what we can infer quite strongly is that they would have some type of wooden barrier in front of it okay protecting any potential arrow fire coming through and this wood barrier most likely would be a shudder of some kind that you could open shoot down and shut to protect yourself in any opening in a stone structure in Roman times you're going to look at rounded arches not peaked arches peaked arches is a feature of Gothic architecture which is also seen on medieval castles but when you get to Roman architecture it is rounded arches rounded arches for the doorways and rounded arches for the windows the other thing the roofs on Roman style fortifications and buildings generally we usually had a low peak on them these higher more narrow peaked roofs that are kind of more classically adopted on castles and this is the same for medieval castles it's generally much higher not always they can be lower peaked roofs on medieval castles but what you can also see is higher peaked roofs and I've actually made a whole video looking at their roof design of medieval castles so go check out our video I'm kind of happy with that and that's one of my favorite but generally speaking Roman ones thought one okay and this is if it's like a line drew or even if it's a round roof on some kind of rounded tower usually if it's round it's certainly a half tower on fortified walls and if it's just a single tower by itself always square but again low peaked and that's basically it lots of squares and rectangles low Peaks rounded arches crenellations and so at the end of this whole video I actually think the real best contender for a Roman Castle would actually be those Roman military fortresses that were later adopted as someone's home in the medieval period as castles themselves and so you could call them very much a Roman like castle which is Roman Castle you couldn't just say it is a castle because look at this whole video it's a complex sophisticated subject okay and so just saying it's a castle doesn't do Justin to the sophisticated nature of what a castle is but there's some pretty damn close contenders and I think there are some things that you could say it says good close it's a Roman Castle almost kind of stuff that's complicated still thank you for watching guys I hope you've enjoyed big thank you for the Metatron for his contribution please do go check him out he's such an awesome guy an awesome channel I hope to see you next time and until then [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 309,518

Rating: 4.9307041 out of 5

Keywords: castle, castles, roman, medieval, middle ages, history, historical, fortress, watchtower, tower, castra, castello, castrum, keep, donjon, crenelations, crenulations, machicolations, fort, gatehouse, skyrim, game of thrones, lord of the rings, top ten, top 10, romans, centurion, domus, villa, fortified

Id: -kKznRZmrVI

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2019