>> NARRATOR: Towers... torture... and trebuchets. Mottes, moats and murder holes. These fortifications aren't your Disneyland variety. Sleeping Beauty doesn't have the guts to live here. Now, "Castles & Dungeons" on <i> Modern Marvels.</i> <font color="#FFFF00"> Captioning sponsored by</font> <font color="#FFFF00"> A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS</font> >> NARRATOR: This is Conway Castle. King Edward I of England built this mighty stronghold in the late 13th century to help hold a recently-conquered area of Northern Wales. Conway represents, perhaps, the pinnacle of medieval castle construction. It appears formidable even today. After more than 700 years, the sophistication of design is still clearly evident. Massive walls. Projecting towers. Crenellated top. Heavily fortified entrance. Conway is only one of hundreds of castles that dot the European landscape. They might look different depending on where they are or when they were built, but all castles were multi-faceted wonders of construction. >> PAMELA MARSHALL: It's complex because it needs to fulfill so many functions. It needs to be oppressive. It needs to be defensive. It needs to be a home. It needs to be a palace. It needs to be used as a treasury. It needs to be used as a courthouse. It needs to be used for a whole gambit of reasons, and the architecture, um, reflects all of these. >> NARRATOR: Castles were some of the most imposing structures ever built, withstanding both bloody assaults... and the test of time. >> WILLIAM ALLCORN: A well- defended castle would almost always win against anything but a very determined and very strong siege. >> NARRATOR: In an unruly period, they represented order to some... subjugation to others. >> MARSHALL: The importance of the castle is as much to oppress the psyche of the population as it is to literally oppress the population. >> NARRATOR: Castles were homes, residences of kings or nobles. That's what differentiates them from other fortifications. They were built to protect a king's or nobleman's territory. (<i> crowd shouting</i> ) Soldiers or men-at-arms lived there as well to guard the castle. It was a base where a lord could launch an attack, and it was a refuge from his adversaries. When most people think of castles, fortifications like Conway are what they think of. But the first structures now known as castles date back at least another 300 years to the tenth century and an even more unruly age. >> ALLCORN: When times are unsettled, when there's not a strong central government, you have noblemen running around and bandits running around, and it's a natural thing to want to do to fortify your home, to protect yourself. >> NARRATOR: The term "castle" is a derivation of the Latin word "castellum" for fortress. Many experts believe the first European castles originated in what is today France. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, Europe was a dangerous place to live with weak, ineffective governments and constant raids from Vikings, Arabs, Berber pirates and, occasionally, a disgruntled neighbor. This turbulent atmosphere stimulated the rise of feudalism in Europe, a system whereby a king granted territory to lords who in return owed the king allegiance. The lords in turn granted smaller parcels of land to lesser nobles who owed allegiance to them. Below these nobles were knights, the fighting class of the feudal system, who in return for land grants rendered military service to their overlords. The introduction of feudalism combined with a weak central government incapable of adequately protecting its citizens gave rise to the first castles. One of the earliest and most popular designs was the motte and bailey castle, basically a giant mound of earth, a motte, with a wooden tower built on top. The courtyard, or bailey, was enclosed by a tall timber wall. >> MARSHALL: This is a model of a motte and bailey castle which is based on excavations at a castle built in the 11th century. Here is the defensive ditch and a rampart, and then on top of the rampart was a timber wall called a palisade. And it has crenellations. There's evidence that these timber castles were plastered over, so that from a distance, they would look like stone. Here's the classic motte, like an upturned pudding basin with a ditch separating the motte from the bailey. On top of the motte was a timber tower, and this would have contained the private residential apartments. Other buildings would have comprised stables and workshops and places for storage of food and a certain amount of small livestock, such as chickens. >> NARRATOR: Easy to build, motte and bailey castles spread across Europe. William, Duke of Normandy, defeated the English King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 to capture the English crown. (<i> crowd shouting</i> ) (<i> horse neighing</i> ) He brought motte and baileys with him to help control his newly conquered land. He built Lincoln Castle in 1068. And like many surviving motte and bailey castles, it has evolved over time. But the motte still stands 40 feet high. >> EDDIE GRANTHAM: That is a motte over there. That's the original motte. That's the Lucy tower. It was a last bastion of defense. If this castle was attacked, that's where we would escape to, into the actual keep. >> NARRATOR: The tower, or what eventually came to be called the keep, also served as the castle owner's home. Being higher than the enemy served several strategic advantages, so builders tried to push towers and walls taller. (<i> crowd shouting</i> ) As the enemy came up with new tactics or weapons, castle architecture evolved to face the new threats. But the timber fortifications of the early medieval period eventually disappeared thanks largely to one enemy it couldn't defend itself against... fire. >> MARTIN DE LEWANDOWICZ: But castle evolution in general is very simple, and somebody more intelligent than I has called it a bloody spiral. In other words, fire attacks the wooden castle, build it in stone. Corners are structurally weak, build it round. People go through walls, build them thicker. People go over walls, build them higher. In other words, it's all respond in defense. >> NARRATOR: As the Middle Ages progressed, so did castle architecture. Simple earth and timber structures submitted to exponentially more complex strongholds. Stone fortifications sprouted from the countryside, dominating the landscape and frequently the people around them. >> JOHN GOODALL: They often talk about the beauty of strength. The idea of looking at a building with impossibly wide ditches, incredibly high walls which are massively thick, with fortifications that seem impenetrable to the beholder. That is the beauty of fortification. >> NARRATOR: But the real beauty is how they were built. Stone and sweat, mortar and muscle combined to form structures that seemed like they would last forever. "Castles and Dungeons" will return on<i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: We now return to "Castles and Dungeons" on <i> Modern Marvels.</i> In the early medieval period, castle builders turned from wood to stone construction. The more money the builder had, the more elaborate and massive the fortifications became. Several of the most imposing castles in all of Great Britain were the result of one man's resolve. >> DE LEWANDOWICZ: In 1283, Edward the First, the King of England, conquered Gwyneth, not Wales, just Gwyneth. Wales was a land of many different states, not unified politically. One of these states in the north and the west is called Gwyneth, and that is what Edward the First conquered. Edward the First was, in essence, doing the "John Wayne." He was moving west, the natives were hostile, and so he built forts. And that's what this castle is. It is a fort. Here we have a garrison of soldiers in a fort in the frontier with the hostiles outside. >> NARRATOR: In the late 13th century, King Edward the First ordered the modification or construction of more than ten magnificent castles. Among others, Conway, Chirk and Caernarfon are enduring examples of Edward's dominating presence in Northern Wales. To many scholars, the Edwardian castles represent the apex of medieval castle construction. They're designed like machines, every architectural detail devoted to defense... as well as psychological intimidation. Having stood for 700 years, these castles are stunning. But the way they were built might be even more impressive to us today. >> DE LEWANDOWICZ: There's nothing magical about the way they built. They built by power, uh, manpower. And they had three and a half thousand of them to actually do it. Earth-moving equipment? One and a half thousand men with shovels in their hand. That was their earth-moving equipment, and, boy, could they move earth. >> NARRATOR: By utilizing thousands of craftsmen and laborers, Edward's castles went up fast. Conway was built in just four and a half years. Like subcontractors on a modern skyscraper, castle construction required over 100 different crafts including carters, carpenters, blacksmiths and masons. The brilliant architect, Master James of St. George from Savoy, coordinated the remarkable construction effort. James designed several of Edward's castles as well as supervised construction... which occurred simultaneously at different sites. James' castles were big, broad and tall. Caernarfon boasts 13 towers, the tallest stretching 128 feet into the sky. Building something this complicated took precise planning from the very beginning. James' castles incorporated construction aids, such as scaffolding support holes-- or putlog holes-- into the structure itself. >> NEVILLE HORTOP: The main construction of the castle, the building of the walls, was achieved by building a large wall to this height, then to put a log on the wall protruding to a vertical log here. Then scaffolding constructed, and they could carry stones up the scaffolding, placing them on the wall to allow the mason to stand on the wall and raise it further for again another beam to meet another horizontal and to have some more scaffolding and repeat the process as we climb up and up, and eventually, getting to the top. >> NARRATOR: The walls at Caernarfon, which are seven to nine feet thick, were built by constructing interior and exterior "face" walls with congruent stones, and sandwiching smaller, unshaped stones-- rubble-- in mortar in between. Filling the center with rubble saved time and effort. For the face walls, masons cut large, yet manageable stones. The limestone came from the Isle of Anglesey, ten miles away. To set the stones they even had human- or animal-powered cranes and winches. They used a plumb bob to make sure the finished structure ended up square and level. But it took more than the mason's sheer will to hold stones together. Castle builders used lime mortar, which had been used since Roman times, to keep the stones in place. Making lime mortar started with burning the limestone. >> DE LEWANDOWICZ: That limestone is put into kilns. From 45 miles down the coast come ships that carry coal, and the coal is put into the kilns. And the coal is burnt, the limestone is burnt, and that produces quick lime. Now, the quick lime is then mixed with sand and water, and that makes lime mortar. And that's what holds this castle together. >> NARRATOR: At Caernarfon, masons used tough, light- colored, limestone as the basic building blocks. Around windows, arrow slits and corners, which demanded more detail work, builders used softer, conglomerate sandstone, which was easier to work than limestone but darker in color. The two disparately colored stones made an interesting design, but the pattern was incidental to the actual function of the stones. Workers covered castle walls with plaster made of sand, water, quicklime and sometimes horsehair. This helped keep the lime mortar, which held the castle together, from washing out of the joints. Then painters whitewashed the walls. >> DE LEWANDOWICZ: The majority of those dark, gray, cold castles that we see today were, in fact, beautiful white jewels. And it gets more interesting, because castles on the inside were all plastered and painted, too. Just like our homes are plastered and painted, castles were multi-million-pound buildings, and boy, did they look it in their day. >> NARRATOR: Another surprise: the Dark Ages weren't as dark as popularly believed. >> DE LEWANDOWICZ: All castles had glass in their windows. We tend to think of castles as being bare and dark and cold, but like all churches, all castles had glass in their windows. Medieval glass is made in a very simple way. You take a blob of glass and a blowpipe, and you blow a bubble. You then put that bubble on what is known as a cooling table, and you roll it. You end up with something that's shaped like a can, all right? Then what you do is, you cut off the two ends of the can, so now you have a tube of glass. You slit it down the middle, and it folds out onto the cooling table. By that process, you can only make small pieces of glass. And those small pieces of glass were always joined together with bits of lead. >> NARRATOR: With an army of thousands, James of St. George created a magnificent group of castles which Edward hoped would help finally suppress the Welsh. To a large extent, Edward was successful, but the king's castles cost a king's ransom. >> DE LEWANDOWICZ: The 13 castles and the two wars cost him seven and a half years' income. He was bankrupt 14 years after this castle was started. Now, I know this is an alien concept to the United States of America, overspending on defense. But, you know, it used to exist in Britain 700 years ago, and some would argue, it's a great old British tradition that continues to this day. >> NARRATOR: Castles cost a lot... but they weren't your average family home. And there was definitely no welcome mat at the front door. They were designed to hold people out and decimate those who tried to breach their defenses. Castles were killing machines. "Castles and Dungeons" will return on<i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: We now return to "Castles and Dungeons" on <i> Modern Marvels.</i> Castles may have had glass windows... and pretty painted walls. But that had nothing to do with their primary purpose. >> JOHN FRANCE: The whole principle of the castle by the end of the 12th century is to establish means by which the maximum firepower can be brought to bear at any vulnerable spot. >> NARRATOR: Nearly every architectural element of a castle served a defensive purpose. >> MARSHALL: The crenellation was designed to defend them. They could stand behind the merlons, which are the parts that stand up, and when they wanted to loose an arrow, they could move to a crenel, which is the gap in the middle. >> NARRATOR: Castles were designed with multi-layered defenses. An enemy had to confront several lines of defense before taking the castle. It all started with a great location. Before construction began, castle planners looked for sites with existing natural obstacles. A nice cliff or a solid peninsula worked well. Anything to hinder an assailant's approach. In the flatlands, where rocky cliffs didn't exist, moats were popular. A castle builder dug a ditch, or moat, around a castle as one more obstacle for the enemy to confront. The surrounding ditch, which did not necessarily contain water, could be quite broad-- 30 feet or more. Sometimes sharpened stakes were imbedded in the moat. But even if it didn't have stakes or wasn't filled with water, the charge up the embankment of the moat to get to the castle walls while being shot at was extremely difficult and harrowing. And no, there were never crocodiles, hippos or dragons living in the moat. On the other side of the moat stood the wall and imposing towers. From these, archers showered arrows on the enemy. Towers projected from the walls to give archers a clear shot at the base of the neighboring tower. The Edwardian castles were specifically built to take advantage of one of the most lethal weapons of the day: the crossbow, a weapon capable of piercing armor at close range. An experienced bowman could shoot perhaps three to four bolts a minute. Castle builders constructed loopholes or arrow slits in the towers and sometimes in the walls to protect their archers. A loophole was a thin vertical opening in the wall where the archer could take aim and fire. The slit splayed out inside the wall to give bowmen maneuverability. >> FRANCE: Each loophole covers a specific arc, so the archer is firing a bit like a modern machine gun defense and all the arcs intersect in a carefully designed castle. So there's no point at which an attacker can, as it were, just simply walk through without paying a price. >> NARRATOR: The walls themselves could be massive: 20 feet thick at the base or more. Castle walls were wider at the bottom and tapered at the top. >> FRANCE: The bottom of a castle wall, you'll often see a sloping mass of stone called a batter. Stones dropped from above, from the top of the wall, onto the batter, will break up and spray shrapnel at the attackers. So it's a bit like dropping hand grenades. >> NARRATOR: For attackers, there were only three ways to defeat a wall: go over it, under it or through it. But before a direct assault, one option was to bombard the castle with the medieval equivalent of tomahawk missiles. >> WILLIAM ALLCORN: A trebuchet is a long arm that has a heavy weight on one end and has a sling on the other end. And what you loaded into there are typically large stones. You then use the counterweight to heave that stone against the walls of the castle. >> NARRATOR: Stones were thrown at the top of the walls, the most vulnerable spot. (<i> crowd gasping</i> ) If the castle didn't submit, the enemy could mount a direct assault. But those inside the fortification definitely held the advantage. >> ALLCORN: The most important defensive mechanisms in any castle are those that defend the gateway because the gateway is the most vulnerable point of any fortification. It's the part that's not solid stone. >> NARRATOR: If an attacker survived the onslaught of arrow fire and made it through the moat, he could look forward to a warm welcome in the gatehouse. >> MARTIN LEWANDOWICZ: Let's pretend that we've actually done it. We've crossed the moat, we're standing on our bridge, which is down, we're lucky, because normally there'd be a great drop straight down into the moat. But from either side now, we're threatened by those arrow-slits. So we want to get out of this, and so we make our first major mistake and we actually go into the gateway to get out of the fire. Now the first line of defense in the gateway proper is the portcullis. Now, people think portcullises were made of iron. No, they were usually made of wood. The portcullis is raised and lowered in a groove. Here's a groove. Portcullises were things you could look through, things you could shoot through, but you couldn't walk through. Let's pretend we get beyond there. Well, beyond there, our next line of defense is this wooden gate. It's a reconstruction, but it's a fair reconstruction. It's about five inches thick. And you, attacking it, would hit it with a big battering ram or potentially you would set fire to it. Now, look at the arrow-slits to either side. From there those crossbow bolts are going to be firing into us. But now, look up. Above your head small square holes, "murder holes," operated from above and a nice big rock is posted down on your head. And then you make probably your last mistake-- you move on. You don't want to go back into there, into the gateway. You don't want to go in there, and so you move on into the center of the castle. But when you get into the center of the castle, look what happens. Look up there, at those arrow- slits up there. And, of course, people begin shooting. Those that were firing out now turn around and shoot inwards and you're surrounded. There is nowhere to go. Do you want to stand here and die? Do you want to go back through that gateway and die? Or do you want to go through a door and die? And a castle is a trap like a noose: the harder you pull, the further you go, the worse off you are. >> NARRATOR: Despite the incredibly elaborate defensive characteristics of the castle, if a besieger had enough men supplies and time, and was willing to make big enough sacrifices, the castle would fall. >> LEWANDOWICZ: Corners are structurally weak. The place you ideally tunnel is, of course, the corners. You drive a tunnel under the corner, you prop it up with timber props, you pack the tunnel with brushwood, you light the brushwood, the brushwood burns, the props burn, the tunnel collapses, the corner collapses, and the walls collapse. End of castle. >> NARRATOR: "Castles and Dungeons" will return on <i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: We now return to "Castles and Dungeons" on <i> Modern Marvels.</i> A man's home is his castle. Or in this case, a castle was a man's home. And like any residence, it had the basics: bedroom, bathroom, dining room, entrance way, dungeon... Dungeon? >> ALLCORN: "Dungeon" is an interesting word. We think of a dungeon as being a dank hole where people were locked up. But the term really comes from the French word<i> donjon,</i> which is the name for the keep of the castle. Now, how it got that other meaning is not real clear. Virtually every nobleman had some occasion to lock somebody up. He might not have had a full- fledged prison, but there was always somebody he didn't like. >> PAMELA MARSHALL: This is what's popularly known as an oubliette, or a bottle prison. There are two possibilities-- either it was used for storage-- but it has to be said that the access is a bit awkward for getting your stores in and out-- or it was used as a rather unpleasant prison for retaining people. And it's formed with a corbelled vault, that means the walls go up more or less straight, and then the stones start to edge in to make a sort of beehive shape. Oubliette comes from the French word<i> oublier,</i> "to forget," the implication being that they threw prisoners into these and forgot all about them. Um, I can't see that happening. Why would they want to forget about a prisoner? Either you're holding them for ransom or he's a political prisoner or he's a normal miscreant, in which case he's going to be hauled up for trial fairly soon and dealt with. >> NARRATOR: Chirk Castle boasts a double-decker prison. >> JILL BURTON: We have two levels of dungeon. The upper level has a fireplace and it's probably a room where we would have kept prisoners that you could sell for ransom. People that you wanted kept safe, but they were worth money. They could be gentry, they could be people captured in battle. The lower dungeon is a little more unpleasant. 15 French prisoners were kept in that dungeon for seven years after the Battle of Agnicourt. There is light from three arrow slits, but even in the middle of the day, it is still pretty dark down there. We presume there to have been straw on the floor. It's always stays a constant temperature, about 54 degrees. >> NARRATOR: Besides being a jail, a residence and an economic center, the castle also served as a courthouse. Nobles were the law of the land and although the accused might not spend much time in prison before his court date, the pre-trial questioning could be, well, torture. >> GUERRERO: Torture is keeping someone alive for as long as you can. And inflicting often as much pain as you can, without killing them, of course. The rack, I think was so famous because there's so many things that you can do while somebody is on the rack. Normally you're stretching them; you're stretching their limbs. At that point, you can burn them, you can beat them, you can cut them. >> NARRATOR: There were all kinds of horrifying torture instruments used, especially during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Things that stretched... crushed... poked... ripped... and were quite literally a pain in the rear. But the extent to which people were tortured in the early medieval age, at least, has been greatly exaggerated in books and movies. >> ALLCORN: Torture was an accepted means of extracting information, although every castle says here's the room where the torture occurred, that's probably stretching things a bit. >> NARRATOR: Few castles actually had torture chambers. Most criminals were simply fined and released or promptly executed. The dungeon was by far the worst guest room in the castle. But the rest of the fortified residence could be quite nice. And like any well-designed domicile today, the perfect home started with a good layout design. >> HORTOP: Conwy castle-- you never dared build a castle unless you had a water supply. Now, outside is a river, saltwater. The tide comes in from the ocean and yet ten yards away happens to be a freshwater spring. If there had not been one, there would be no castle. This well is 91 feet deep and supplied the water for the castle. >> NARRATOR: If the castle was besieged, it wouldn't last long without freshwater. Some had cisterns to collect rainwater. But if the castle wasn't being attacked why drink water when you could have beer? >> HORTOP: This is the center of the whole social life and atmosphere of the castle. It is really in here. If the king's in this castle he wants everyone together in the banquet hall. Let us imagine a banquet now. Let us imagine a big fire in here and a big fire in there. Across that wooden wall there is a high table for the king and the queen and their friends. These white walls are now covered in flags and bunting. Here are further long tables for the soldiers. And the servants are rushing in from the kitchens and they're bringing the meat and the chicken and the veal and the venison, the pork and the fish, the goose and the duck. They start eating at 5:00 and three hours later they're still eating. It's now 8:00 and the music starts from the minstrels here. The servants are rushing around with the wine and the beer. Now, it's a cold evening and they have a big, warm fire in here. Their stomachs are bulging with the meat and the chicken and the veal and the venison. And they're pouring in the beer and the wine. Well, it's midnight and the king says, "Bed now. Come on. Bed." because we're going to do this again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And there's a banquet in here every night while the king is present. >> NARRATOR: After a night of food and fun in the great hall, the king would retire to his bedchamber. >> LEWANDOWICZ: Here we are in a living room in a castle. In the basement nobody lives. There are three living floors. The first thing you notice is this: the fireplace. Look at the size of this. But of course you'd need something that big to warm something this big. The floor area of this single room is as big as any modern apartment. It's huge. The walls would be plastered. The walls would be painted. And if you look over here, what you see is a lovely window seat. Now the view from that window is stunning, out over the seas, out over the land. And you lean against your beautifully plastered wall, looking at your beautiful view, with your big fireplace burning in your hearth. >> NARRATOR: After consuming so much beer at dinner, nature would undoubtedly be calling before morning. Fortunately, each living floor had at least one garderobe. >> LEWANDOWICZ: Now an army marches on its stomach and one of the necessary byproducts of that is you have to have lavatories, bathrooms, washrooms, rest rooms. Now when we look in here today, what we see is a slate slab. But originally that would have been a wooden seat with a hole in it. Underneath that slate slab is a shaft. A shaft like a chimney, only in chimneys things go up and here hopefully, updraft allowing, things went down-- down into the river that came up to the castle's walls. >> NARRATOR: While other windows in the castle might have glass, the ventilation window in the garderobe did not. This helped keep noxious ammonia gas from rising up the shaft and collecting. So it might not have been deadly, but it was still foul- smelling, and pretty cold in the winter. But these amenities and fine accommodations only got better as time went on. By the 15th century, wealthy nobles couldn't decide whether to build fortifications or opulent palaces. The political environment as well as new methods of warfare eventual led to the castle's decline. But not before builders constructed some of the most stunning structures of all time. >> NARRATOR: "Castles and Dungeons" will return on <i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> ANNOUNCER: We now return to "Castles and Dungeons," on<i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: Castles represented the perfect fusion of form and function... masterfully constructed... at once intimidating... yet beautiful. With the progression of time, the simple elegance of the Edwardian castle style was replaced by more ornate designs. In countries like Spain, castle architecture reached art form. These embellished Spanish fortifications were among the last true castles built... ...the product of a 700-year-old struggle between Christians and Muslims for control of the Iberian peninsula. In 711 the Moors from northern Africa invaded and eventually conquered what is today Spain. The Christians fled north. But over the next seven centuries, Christian kings fought the<i> Reconquista,</i> the reconquest of Spain. As the Christians slowly retook territory, they built hundreds of castles. The region of Castile gets its name from the numerous strongholds once covering the landscape. Here, even the Christian castles demonstrate a Moorish influence; one of the most magnificent is the Alcazar de Segovia. >> FRANCE: The Alcazar-- that's really a demonstration of royal strength. It's a way of saying to the people in the countryside, "It's the king whose in charge." >> NARRATOR: Perched on a cliff carved over eons by two intersecting rivers, the Alcazar dominates the surrounding countryside. >> CUNILLERA: Well, this castle was built in the 12th century, but the construction lasted a lot of time. During all the Middle Ages, from the 12th century until the 16th century, and was built by the Christian kings to have here a court. >> NARRATOR: The castle underwent many changes and additions over the centuries. In a country inhabited by both Christians and Muslims, the Alcazar exhibited a blending of both cultural influences. Here, fortification met ornamentation. >> CUNILLERA: The workers, they were, in part... they were Muslims but they were living in this kingdom. What they call<i> mudejars.</i> <i> Mudejar</i> is a Muslim that had their religion, the culture, the language, but was living among Christian people. >> NARRATOR: The Moorish influence reached inside as well. Every inch was elaborately adorned. Some of the greatest artisanship could be found on the ceilings. It took over a year just to restore this one. Architects and military strategists spent centuries refining the function of castles. That is, until one invention blew a big hole in all that work. >> FRANCE: Why did the castle decline? Two reasons. First place, people invented gunpowder, and cannons could knock down walls. Took them time to perfect it, but in the end, a castle with high walls was no longer defensible. Second reason, well, the world changed. Centralized government became stronger, kings became<i> real</i> kings; they didn't depend on lords anymore. And they didn't like lords having castles. >> NARRATOR: By the 15th century, nobles in much of Europe started building luxurious homes instead of fortifications. Slowly, many of these mighty fortifications fell into disuse. Some were purposely torn down by cautious kings. Several Edwardian castles were partially dismantled after the English civil war in the mid- 17th century. Others were gradually deconstructed by villagers needing building material. >> ALLCORN: In the 19th century there was a sort of rebirth of castles. Not in the traditional defensive sense, but in the architectural sense. An attempt to build structures that looked like old castles, that captured the romanticism that was perceived to have come from the Middle Ages. Many people in the 19th century wanted to recapture that period. >> NARRATOR: Although castles may have disappeared, our fascination with them has never waned. >> GOODALL: The idea of things being beautiful because they are fortified is rather like the idea of a car being beautiful because it looks as though it goes very fast. That sense of theater in castle architecture is a tremendously important element of castles. It's slightly dangerous and magnificent and powerful at once. <font color="#FFFF00"> Captioning sponsored by</font> <font color="#FFFF00"> A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS</font> Captioned by <font color="#00FFFF"> Media Access Group at WGBH</font> access.wgbh.org
