In 1494, the armies of the French king Charles VIII invaded Italy to capture the kingdom of Naples.
They swept through the country, bombarded, and destroyed many castles. This invasion signaled the end of the castle as a stronghold of defense. For centuries, it had been the dominant fortification in Western Europe for the defense of kings, nobility, and townspeople. Ancient cities were often walled to keep out invaders, and within the walls, there was usually a citadel – a strongly built fortification occupying the highest or militarily most advantageous position.
A castle is much like a walled city, with its citadel contracted into a smaller space. Castles were basically fortified locations. The word itself comes from the Latin castellum. Up to the 6th century, fortifications were primarily communities in which most of the population lived. But in the middle of the 6th century, the armies of the Byzantine Empire began to build strong forts as defensive positions. For the next few centuries, castle building was confined to the Byzantine Empire. Later, hordes of Islamic warriors who swept out of Arabia to conquer the Middle East, North Africa, and much of Byzantine territory also started building such forts.
Western Europe had no such works during the Dark Ages from the 5th through the 9th century. However, castle building began in France in the late 9th century as local lords and kings consolidated power. The construction of castles quickly spread to other areas. It was not until the 12th and 13th centuries, after the Crusaders returned from their wars against Islam in Palestine, that castles as imposing as those of the Byzantine or Islamic empires were constructed in Europe.
Many of the stone castles of the late Middle Ages still stand. Some are tourist attractions in various states of repair along the Rhine River from Mainz to Cologne in Germany, dotted about the French countryside, or perched on hilltops in Spain. The original French castles had been built on open plains. Later ones, however, were situated on rocky crags, at river forks, or in positions where advancing enemies would find approach extremely difficult, if not impossible. The fortifications became more elaborate with time, with considerable attention paid to making the living quarters more comfortable.
A typical castle was usually guarded on the outskirts by a surrounding heavy wooden fence of sharp-pointed stakes called a barbican. It was intended to prevent surprise attacks by delaying the advance of assailants and giving those within the castle compound time to prepare to resist and attack. Inside the barbican stretched the lists, or wards: strips of land that encircled the castle. The lists served as a road in time of peace and as a trap in war; once within the barbican, the enemy was in the range of arrows shot from the castle walls.
In peacetime, the lists also served as an exercise ground for horses and occasionally as tournament grounds. Between the lists and the towering outer walls of the castle itself was the moat, usually filled with water. Across it stretched a drawbridge, which was raised every night. At the castle end of the drawbridge was the portcullis, a large sliding door made of wooden or iron grillwork hung over the entryway.
It moved up and down in grooves and was raised every day and lowered at night. In times of danger, it blocked the way to the heavy oak gates that served as doors to the castle compound. These gates were so large that they were rarely opened except on ceremonial occasions. A smaller door was built into one of them to provide easy entrance and exit for those who lived in the castle. A person known as the chief porter was charged with the responsibility of making sure that only friends passed through. The outer walls of most castles were massively thick, sometimes as much as 15 feet.
At intervals, there were high towers, each a small fort with provisions to withstand a long siege. Wooden balconies were hung over the outer edges of the wall when an attack was expected. During an attack, large stones were thrown, or boiling oil was poured from the balconies onto anyone trying to climb the wall. The wall and the towers had hundreds of narrow openings through which defenders could shoot arrows and other missiles. Inside the walls was the bailey, or courtyard. At intervals around the bailey were the stables, a carpentry shop, and other shops.
