The different types of medieval CASTLES

[Music] greetings I'm shad and this video has been in the making for a very long time a detailed breakdown of the types of medieval castles the reason why it's taken so long is that this subject is a very sophisticated and complex thing I didn't want to leave out any types of castles but the more I learnt about castles the more I've come to realize is how diverse this subject really is so instead of holding off so long to the point that this video never gets made I'm going to make this video to the best of my current ability what this means is that this video is not going to be an exhaustive list I'm sure you're going to be able to find a type of Castle that doesn't necessarily fit in with the definitions I'm about to explain indeed it's interesting to find out that many common types of castles some of the very most common don't have an official academic definition even when they fall within a clearly identifiable type and in those cases I'll simply be defining them as best I can in fact in some instances I'll be prescribing a definition that I've made up myself simply because it seems like no one else has done this before or at the very least I haven't been out to find it and my definitions aren't going to be something that I'm gonna try and link to myself I'm going to be using the most intuitive and descriptive way of defining a type of castle as I can so when someone hears the word they could clearly understand the type of Castle this is categorizing now I'm not gonna try and define the different types of castle keeps because a castle keep can really be made in any way so long as it's fortified in many instances they keep was the whole castle this is in the cases where the castle didn't have the outer walls such as tower houses or fortified manor houses and so trying to categorize all the different ways in which aqip can be designed when those designs are pretty much infinite well you can kind of see how superfluous such an endeavor would be having said that though there are some certain key distinct common styles of castle keep such as the Norman keep the shell keep but when you get into the real nitty gritty it becomes ultimately pointless the next thing we need to understand when we try and define that different types of castles is that many castles fall into multiple categories and so without any further ado let's get right into it and I'll start with the two most common castle design styles and what's really interesting about this is that I have not found an official categorical academic definition for this design type when they are so common and prominent and perhaps it's because these design types are so intuitive that people can just really define it by describing it for instance the first one is what I will call the enclosed castle an enclosed castle is simply a castle that has a keep a main fortified building that is enclosed surrounded by an ulcer defensive wall historic examples of these types of castles is the Tower of London Rochester Castle and gravensteen castle with many many more the outer wall could have multiple defensive buildings a part of it that linked the wall together or attached to it on the inside a key defining feature about this is that the primary defensive building is not attached to the outer walls they can be a wall leading from the outer walls to the inner keep but the main fortified building itself does not form a part of the outer wall and that is the enclosed castle the next very common type of castle which again is one that I found no official academic definition for is what I will call the linked castle now you might think this is not too intuitive by naming this type the linked castle but once you hear me explain it I think you will agree with me the key defining feature of the linked castle is at the main primary defensive building and not just the main primary one but most of the primary defensive buildings form a part of the outer wall or help link the outer wall together hence linked castle they're all linked together some beautiful historical examples of linked castles is mattis odd beaudion castle Porchester castle castle chillon macarthur castles one of them being chateau dare pol errands now it's interesting about this definition that I call the linked castles is that there are actually more official more academic definitions of castles that fall within the linked castle definition but a really subcategories because they're more defined and more specific one of them being the Philippian Castle this is a far more specific linked castle design usually defined by having a set gatehouse for primary towers in each corner of the outer walls one of them being much larger and you could define that as they keep or tangshan depending on how you define the Great Hall the Great Hall usually sitting on the other side of the gatehouse in between the two rear towers attached to the walls a perfect example of what you would identify as a Philippian castle is Castle Gettle on which actually isn't a historical castle it's a modern recreation of the Philippian Castle currently being built in France another interesting subcategory of the linked castle doesn't really have an official definition but a more cultural deviation or separation in design which is why I call it the Germanic castle because it was far more common and prominent in the Germanic medieval lands the key defining feature of what I call the Germanic castle is that the primary fortified tower is separated distinctively from the primary fortified living quarters there's not a lot of these type of castles that have survived to the modern day the best example of the surviving Germanic castle is a beds in castle but there are many ruins of this castle type that would be now to kind of work backwards and figure out what they would have looked like originally which archeologists have done and redrawn them which gives us a clear indication of this castle type was actually quite common within this region in fact one of the best resources where you can see this type of castle recreated is actually the video game Kingdom Come deliverance I've done reviews of the castles in this game and a review of the video game overall for its general historical accuracy and it's brilliant they really did a phenomenal job at recreating medieval Bohemia this type of castle is the clearest historical example where the primary living quarters were separated from a primary defensive building the fortified defensive tower of this type of castle which I call the Germanic castle is called the burg freed and the fortified living quarters generally was called the palace he al-aas though there might have been more general terminology for them in translation I would call the primary fortified tower that Don John and the fortified living quarters the keep even though originally keep wasn't the word we used to find the primary fortified building keep comes from the word pipe which is a general definition for a shell key and as I explained in my video on castle towers most of the primary fortified buildings would have been called the Don John and Don John and keep can be considered synonymous in that sense it's just that now language has evolved and I find it very useful is that there is a difference in the definitions of Don John and keep and we can apply that in a very useful sense when the primary fortified living quarters is actually separated from the primary fortified tower the best example is being this type of castle the germanic castle but this isn't the only instance historically where the primary fortified towers actually separated from a primary fortified living quarters and that was kind of two primary fortified towers that actually had a separation in their utility or the way in which they were employed most germanic castles fall under the linked castle category though i do suspect i haven't been out of finding any examples which is why i put it as a subcategory of linked but I do suspect there's probably examples of the Germanic Castle type which actually fall under the enclosed castle definition so the fortified tower and the fortified living quarters is disconnected from the outer wall and is enclosed by it and so in that instance it would be an enclosed Germanic castle instead of a linked Germanic castle another interesting type of linked castle is distinctive enough that it deserves its own sub category as well it is what I call the towered castle not tower castle tower word castle it's different to many other types of linked in that it is basically comprised of a wall that is linked together by large towers and that's it they can have internal smaller buildings that's attached to the outer wall but the primary fortified buildings are the towers that link the walls together the two best examples of what I define as a tower castle would be conovan castle and Conway castle all the primary and most important rooms of this castle are located within the towers that connect the walls together the reason why I wouldn't classify beaudion castle as a towered castle is that all the buildings that connect its outer walls together really you know similar towers rhodium has more variety in the towers that are linking its walls together with a primary gatehouse it comes close to what I would call a towered castle and maybe out of stretch you could but I think it doesn't really fall so neatly within this category as Carnarvon and Conway does now there might actually be more subcategories of linked castles so if you do know of any please do share them in the comments below the next more common kind of primary castle definition or type is one that doesn't fall under their linked castle or enclosed castle category and you kind of say these three are the main castle types even though there are more as just the later castle types will generally be the castle type I'm about to describe now or a linked castle or a be an enclosed castle as well as the definition that I'll explain so the one I'm about to explain now is again the next most distinctive type which is simply the unwalled Castle which is fully self explanatory it is a fortified defensive building without an outer wall around it now I've come across the incorrect notion that some people have had that the defining feature of a castle is that it must have a wall around it and this is completely incorrect you can find many historical examples of castles that don't have outer walls and they would fall under this category of the unwalled Castle you have Praja Mikasa you have many of the Scottish tower houses which are most definitely fortified Castle and then you have the castle watchtowers like peel towers the difficult thing in trying to define all the different subtypes and categories of the unwalled castle is that the unwalled castle is simply a fortified keep and they can be designed in any way that anyone wants really but having said that there are certain more common types of unwalled castles that have had definitions placed to them one being the tower house two great examples of castle tower houses is cluck Manon tower and bothwick castle but there are many historical fortified tower houses that clearly fall under the castle definition as well as castles in general that don't have outer walls like Praja my castle the tower house sometimes can be as basic as a sealed-off square kind of building that doesn't necessarily even have crenellations but it's made of thick stone without any large windows where someone can climb up and crawl in through the door is strong sturdy and can be locked off and is basically fully sealed off and protected from anyone outside but then you also have tower houses that do have some measure of battlements upon them as well which just enhances their defensive capacity another classic type of unwalled castle would be the fortified manor house now having said that you can have fortified manor houses that do have walls around them and so they could be also another sub classification of an enclosed castle or linked castle but when they don't have a wall around them they would also fall under this classification of an unwalled castle and a fortified manor house is pretty self-explanatory sometimes they were just a manor house with a moat around them that had a bridge that could be removed and replaced that is a type of castle sometimes they had more fortifications and battlements on the building structure itself that they didn't necessarily need to be made out of a stone either another sub classification is one that I've already mentioned is the Peale Tower which is essentially a watch tower that was placed on the border between England and Scotland the thing that defines apeal tower separates were just a standard watch tower was that someone actually lived in them they're a very small unwalled type of castle now you could also certain classic keep styles if they didn't have a wall around them as a type of unwalled castle like a Norman keep that didn't have a wall around it it could just be called this is the Norman keep style of unwalled castle this is the same with a shell keep but there are actually additional styles of keeps that I haven't even met how to find a set definition for and sometimes they're one-off but other times their design style has been reproduced and when they're reproduced I feel they deserve their own definition I just haven't been how to find them for instance like I'll get this key this is a very interesting distinct style of keep it's an enclosed castle just by itself but if this keep was built without a wall what style of unwalled castle would it be there what type of keep would you classify it as here's another interesting style of keep that could be its own sub classification of an unwalled castle villas built just by itself but as I mentioned before you can design different styles of keeps and indeed unwalled castles in really an infinite number of styles and configurations so it's ultimately impossible to categorize them all just if there are enough examples of styles of unwalled castles or just keeps being built in the medieval period well then they do kind of deserve a set classification for them I just haven't been able to find out if some of these more unique key designs have an official definition when I really feel because they're so distinctive they should technically be one around already I just haven't been now to find it so I'm more reluctant to classify it myself but just to let you know that there are more distinctive unique styles of keeps that could be sub classifications of an unwalled castle the next castle types I'm about to describe will generally also be either a linked castle or an enclosed castle the first one that I'll explain now is what I call the pol II Ward castle or the poly warded castle this is another castle type that was very clear and distinctive in its design that deserved its own category which I was not able to find an official academic definition for so I had to make the name myself and it is simply defined as a castle with multiple separate wards or Bailey's it's important to understand what I mean when I say separate because this is not a concentric castle which thankfully is an established academic definition of a type of castle which simply means a castle within a castle or a Bailey ward within another Bailey award that's enclosed by another one right so a poly warded castle would be a castle that has a Bailey award that is literally separate to outside of the primary or main Ward or Bailey and you need to move through one of these separate Bailey's to get to the primary one some great examples of this style of castle is Corfe castle with several external Bailey's that you have to actually move through to get to the main central Bailey and keep as well as Chateau Boyard now I believe that's how it's pronounced its spelt Gilad but I'm not good with French pronunciation but I'm going with Goya but it is a beautiful castle design and will also technically be both are linked Castle and a concentric castle as well as this category a poly watered Castle and what's great and very useful about these definitions is that they can be put together you can define Chateau goyard very accurately as an enclosed concentric poly warded castle and I should have explained that pulley is a prefix that is added to adjectives or nouns which indicate many or multiple for instance polygamy means multiple wives poly anything generally means multiple of something and so poly ward or poly warded means more than one Ward or Bailey and I go with ward because poly Bailey or poly Bailey did that that doesn't seem nearly as good and there are many examples of poly warded castles so this is a very useful and needed definition there is actually a sub definition to the poly watered Castle which is an official academic definition that many have actually heard of before and that is the motte-and-bailey Castle the motte-and-bailey Castle is very much a poly watered Castle it's even in the name the Bailey is describing an enclosed section a Bailey that is separate to the mots which is the foundation of the main two of tower of course a motte-and-bailey is a more specific type of Holly watered castle because it's one of the earliest types of castles we have on record and more predominantly made of wood and has some very distinctive features like the Motte specifically whereas a regular poly watered Castle doesn't need the main defensive tower to be on a mont but do you see how all these definitions are working very classic iconic castle types fit perfectly within these broader definitions the next definition which we already mentioned is of course the concentric castle which means a castle within a castle specifically a castle that has an outer wall that is surrounded by a secondary outer wall they can be either a linked castle or an enclosed castle to fall under this category best examples of concentric castles is bow Marus castle or harlech Castle but as we showed before even Chateau goyard being a poly watered castle is also technically a concentric castle because its main primary Bailey the small one that is linked to the primary key is surrounded by another secondary wall forming another Bailey which is also separate to an additional Bailey award that is disconnected completely which you have to travel through to get to it Chateau goyard is just amazing Castle as defensive and such a good example of many Carson types so these are the primary medieval castle types and definitions that I have been out to find and figure out through my own research I do believe this list is fairly comprehensive but that of course doesn't discount the possibility that I might learn of more for instance I do feel there might be more specific types of linked castles such as the Philippian Castle and so I just haven't been out to learn of them yet but the main ones are fairly categorical enclosed linked or unwalled the thing is I do have to point out that these are the definitions that I've been out of learn of medieval castles okay Castle as a term is something that has evolved over time and so there are further kind of castle types that fall outside of these categories but they also fall outside of the medieval period for in you could say the Schloss is a type of castle sauce is actually a German word that refers to a castle that isn't really a castle it's not fortified in English we would always refer to these castles as castles like neuschwanstein is a perfect example it's not actually a properly fortified medieval castle but we would definitely call it a castle still many chateaus i referred to as castles and they would then also fall under this category that i would define as a schloss another interesting example is Windsor Castle it is being renovated and added on to so many times that it has lost its fortified validity to be considered a proper true medieval castle though it did exist in the medieval period and was fortified once upon a time but now it has open windows and lower floors and everything like that it is still most definitely a castle it's even a historical medieval castle but it's not a properly fortified castle and many of its supposed fortifications are there purely for aesthetics another example of buildings we'd most definitely cold castles in the modern day but aren't real medieval castles are say Scots peroneal castles which are really manor houses that have fake fortifications and battlements on them purely for aesthetics the most official definition for castle in the modern day kind of means any building that looks castle like but for those types of ones I would generally put under their own category as perhaps schloss castles fake castles chateaus but if you've learned anything from this video is that there are many castle types and I hope I've been out of define more accurately and more specifically the medieval castles so we can get a much better understanding of them thank you very much for watching I hope you have enjoyed and of course I hope to see you again so until that time [Music] you

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 413,126

Keywords: castle, castles, medieval, middle ages, history, historical, fortress, citadel, conan exiles, machicolations, crenelations, crenulations, merlon, don jon, donjon, keep, tower, burgfreed, baily, ward, bailey, knight, knight's, king, king's, gatehouse, gate house, curtain wall, wall, ramparts, skyrim, game of thrones, lord of the rings, dungeons and dragons, dnd, d&d, stronghold

Id: Hv6Yl45g1y4

Length: 22min 19sec (1339 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 07 2019