Castles

One of the oldest references to the mobile siege tower in ancient China was ironically a written dialogue primarily discussing naval warfare.

Kaiserburg castle is in Nuremburg, Germany.

Castles usually have a mote, towers, and long halls. They also have special defenses inside and outside of the structure.

The White Tower in the Tower of London.

The largest siege tower ever erected was the Helepolis was an ancient siege engine invented by Polyidus of Thessaly and improved by Demetrius I of Macedon and Epimachus of Athens for the unsuccessful siege of Rhodes, based on an earlier, less massive design used against Salamis (305--304 BC).

The Helepolis was essentially a large tapered tower, with each side about 130 feet (41.1 m) high, and 65 feet (20.6 m) wide that was manually pushed into battle. It rested on eight wheels, each 15 feet (4.6 m) high and also had casters, to allow lateral movement as well as direct. The three exposed sides were rendered fireproof with iron plates, and stories divided the interior, connected by two broad flights of stairs, one for ascent and one for descent. The machine weighed 160 tons, and required 3,400 men working in relays to move it, 200 turning a large capstan driving the wheels via a belt, and the rest pushing from behind. The casters permitted lateral movement, so the entire apparatus could be steered towards the desired attack point, while always keeping the siege engines inside aimed at the walls, and the protective body of the machine directly between the city walls and the men pushing behind it.

The Helepolis bore a fearsome complement of heavy armaments, with two 180-pound (82 kg) catapults, and one 60-pounder (27 kg) (classified by the weight of the projectiles they threw) on the first floor, three 60-pounders (27 kg) on the second, and two 30-pounders (14 kg) on each of the next five floors. Apertures, shielded by mechanically adjustable shutters, lined with skins stuffed with wool and seaweed to render them fireproof, pierced the forward wall of the tower for firing the missile weapons. On each of the top two floors, soldiers could use two light dart throwers to easily clear the walls of defenders.

because the treaties could have been broken

The disadvantages of round keep castles:

1) First of all, they stuck out like a sore thumb! Here you have a fortress made with all those nice looking square walls and gates and then there in the middle is a silly round tower. They looked really dumb and so no one respected them. They also insulted everyone's architectural sensibilities and the resulting anger made them the first place to be attacked. "Tear down the goofy tower" was the battle cry so often heard.

2) They were not easy to defend! When under attack, the lord of the keep would yell. "Everybody to the north wall!" Of course since the whole tower was round (and thus only encircling one wall) the defenders were completely confused about where to go.

3) Last of all was the biggest disadvantage of a round keep. The kings in those days were generally obese blockheads and thus couldn't get into their own tower. The old saying, "you can't fit a square pig into a round hole" comes from this situation.

Kind of. King, Queens, and other royalty lived in a castle. Knight's and lords lived in manors, which were large estates that also came with slaves to work the land.

Saint Edward the Confessor built the castle of England as the principal residence for monarchs. Adjoined to the castle, there was the royal burial church, which Saint Edward built for his burial and those of the royal family.

Chepstow Castle was built in fits and starts over the period of 1067 to 1300. I did not find any record that indicate how much of this time was actually spent on construction, but the impression I get is that it was not much more than 20 or 25 years.

a boy would start training at the age of 7 as a Page. As a page he learned to hunt and to uphold the ideas of chivalry. By the age of fifteen or sixteen he became a squire. as a squire his education in the art of war began. he learned to ride a horse in Battle, to use a sword, a shield, and a long spear called a lance. the typical squire officially became a knight around the age of twenty one.

Knights Lived In A Variety of places, including Castle Towers. So, yes they did.

Chepstow castle was built in 1067. it was the first stone castle built for defence as well as a base to attack the welsh. with the castle being situated on a cliff next to the river wye it made it very hard for the welsh to use any method of attack, without losing half their army. king William the conqueror gave William Fitz Osborne the land if he built the castle as well as produced an army for the king.

you glue Popsicle sticks together, by searching on computer how it looks like and then you can paint it or you could rap paper around and you can also add details to it. And i think then you are done.

No, castles were not often parts of manors. Most manors were held by members of the untitled lesser nobility, who could not afford to build castles. In many cases, the most they could afford to build was a relatively comfortable manor house.

The manor was an agricultural estate. One of its early purposes was to provide a knight with the land and production needed to provide for his horses. It also gave him an income to cover the costs of armor, and so on. It was a large estate, usually with a village, where serfs lived and there might be small workshops. It had a manor house for the lord. And it had lots of land so the food for all its residents could be grown. There were tens of thousands of these estates in a country like England or France.

If the lord was quite wealthy and felt the need to do it, he might fortify the manor house, in which case the manor house looked rather like a castle. But there were fundamental differences between a castle and a fortified manor house, one of which was that the fortified manor house did not have a ward or keep. This meant that the fortified manor house was very much smaller.

Castles usually required some sort of special permission from a monarch to be built. Kings very often had unlicensed castles torn down. The numbers of castles were kept down, so as to prevent their use in rebellions. Only people considered trustworthy had them, and these people were either royal or of the highest levels of nobility.

Construction on Arundel Castle began on December 25, 1067, as a motte and bailey structure. According to the source below, it was built in 1068. The original motte and bailey structures were often built within less than a year, so it is believable that it was finished by the end of that year.

There were several reasons for the decline in castle-building around the end of the 15th century.

Castles were cold, draughty, uncomfortable places since their primary role was as a stronghold, not as living accommodation. Wealthy nobles wanted huge, magnificent, comfortable living places that would impress others, so they began to build "castles" with less emphasis on defence and more emphasis on comfort. Windows became larger as the price of glass reduced, huge fireplaces and chimneys were incorporated, gardens, arbours and terraces included in the grounds and comfortable rooms became a priority. These "castles" were essentially stately homes and were often impossible to defend, sited more for the picturesque setting rather than for military defensibilty.

Another factor was the development of cannon and mortars. These became gradually larger in scale and capable of destroying castle walls from a distance, or lobbing huge missiles into the castle interior. Stone walls and towers were no match for gunpowder.

Castles were replaced by grand houses and (as defensive structures) by artillery forts equipped with cannon - those built by Henry VIII at Deal and elsewhere are typical. They have very low, curved walls and earthworks to deflect incoming cannonballs and layers of artillery arranged to fire in all directions.

A castle is a fort. It was designed to be a place where people could stay in times of trouble. Typically it had a raised area called a motte, a curtain wall or palisade, and an open area within the wall called a bailey. Early castles were made of wood, and later ones made of stone. The stone castles usually had a large building called a keep, which often looked like a large tower. There was a gate house with a gate that could be easily defended. Often the castle was surrounded by a moat and getting to the gate meant crossing a drawbridge. The moat was often full of water.

There is a link to an article on castles below.

go to armour archives and they have patterns so you can make them in metal, its the same prinicple really without the hammering if you are using a diffetent material.

You can visit the castle, but it isn't actively used for defense anymore.

It is used as a tourist attraction now.