Castle (fortification)
A castle, in the context of fortifications, is a structure designed primarily to protect a feudal lord, their family, and associated retainers. Originating in Western Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries, early castles featured a motte, a conical earth mound topped with a wooden tower, alongside a palisaded courtyard known as a bailey. By the twelfth century, the design evolved to include robust stone towers, or keeps, and sturdy stone walls that replaced the wooden palisades. Defensive features such as barbicans, drawbridges, portcullises, and surrounding moats became common, enhancing their security. Beyond their defensive role, castles were also utilized for conquest, exemplified by William the Conqueror's construction of castles in England following the Battle of Hastings, and during the Crusades, when Europeans built fortifications in the Holy Land. By the sixteenth century, the rise of centralized governments and advancements in military technology, particularly siege cannons, led to the decline of castles as prominent fortifications in Europe. Meanwhile, in Japan, castles developed unique architectural styles with strong masonry walls and tiered keeps, continuing to serve as symbols of power until the seventeenth century, when government centralization curtailed their construction and significance.
Castle (fortification)
A fortification intended to protect a feudal lord, his family, and retainers. In Western Europe, castles were first built in the tenth and eleventh centuries by feudal lords who endeavored to fill the lawless power vacuum caused by the demise of centralized kingdoms (such as that of Charlemagne). These early castles consisted of a motte—a conical mound of earth topped by a wooden tower—and a palisaded courtyard called a bailey. Beginning in the twelfth century, kings and their most powerful vassals began erecting stone towers (keeps) in lieu of mottes and replaced the wooden palisades of the bailey with formidable stone walls, often made more defensible by towers. A barbican—a detached stone edifice with a drawbridge and portcullis—defended the main gate, and deep ditches or water-filled moats sometimes circumscribed the exterior walls. Castles occasionally transcended their original defensive purpose to become instruments of conquest. In 1066, for instance, William the Conqueror built two castles on the English coast to consolidate the conquest won on the field of Hastings. A series of castles built during the Crusades by Europeans in the Holy Land were based in offensive strategy. A gradual recentralization of government throughout Western Europe and the introduction of siege cannons in the fifteenth century had eliminated the castle as a feudal institution and fortification by the sixteenth century.
In Japan, impressive castles consisting of prodigious masonry walls, tiered keeps, and deep moats thrived even as the European castle was in decline. As in Europe, increasing centralization of government spelled an end for Japanese castles, as the shoguns of the seventeenth century began to limit the power and castle-building projects of warlords.