The Functions of a Medieval Castle

The building of a castle was a monumental task; it required many laborers and took many years to complete. When a lord had decided to build a castle, he would hire a Master Builder to design and build the castle. He would choose a design for the castle. The castle was meant to be the fortress of the lord so it had to be strong. Castles had many different types of defense to protect the Lord and his family. The many types of defense that castles had meant that those attacking had to develop ever more strategic and powerful ways to attack the castle.
When the King or Lord had decided to build his castle, he would hire a Master Builder to design the castle and to hire the laborers for the building of the castle. Construction of the new stone castles took more than five years and more than one thousand workers (Jarrow 19). First castle builders choose a location with a military advantage (Jarrow 11). They used many different natural land formations to their advantage. Many of the castles in Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and Wales were built on steep hills and rocky out cropping that were nearly impossible to climb (Jarrow 19). Building the castles on the large hills gave the defenders a clear view of advancing attackers as Jarrow describes in his book:
Some castles where built in swamps or marshes or surrounded by water. The wet soft ground meant that attackers could not use heavy artillery pieces to attack the castle. Castles that were built on islands could only be attacked if the attackers had boats to take them to the islands (12).
This means that castles built in wet areas were often very well protected even if they could not see advancing attackers at a long distance.
Second, the Master builder and Lord had to ch...

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...e castle that would give them a military advantage or they would make a mound to give them one. There were many improvements made to the interior of the keep for the king and his family to have a more comfortable area to live in. They added more fireplaces to the rooms for warmth and began hanging large tapestry on the walls to help with drafts. They came up with many new way to defend the castle. The built large moats around the outer wall that could be over thirty feet deep. There were special holes for archers to fire threw and the safe viewing of the battlefield. They even built the stairs in the clockwise direction to give an advantage to defenders. With the improvements in castle design and defense attackers developed many attacking machines. They built large battering rams to pound the walls and strong trebuchets to throw large boulders from a long distance.