Warwick Castle - Thursday 25th February 2010

Homework:

1.) Read the following article and draw a mind-map about castles and how you think life in castles was during the Middle Ages. Use your dictionary to help you find the meaning of difficult words in the text.

Have fun!!!
Robi



Hint:

A Mind-map is a map and not a report. A mind-map is very useful to sum up and underline all the important information about a subject.

Warwick Castle (pronounced /wɒrrɪk/WORR-ik) is a medieval castle in Warwick, the county town of Warwickshire, England. It sits on a bend on the River Avon. The castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068. The river and cliff form natural defences.

Warwick Castle is the subject of many ghost stories. Fulke Greville is said to haunt the Watergate Tower, despite being murdered in Holborn; the Watergate Tower is also known as the Ghost Tower and for most of the year it is home to "Warwick Ghosts Alive", a short, live-action show telling the story of Fulke Greville's murder. The show uses live actors, sound, lighting and visual effects.

When you think of the Middle Ages, you might imagine knights, lords and ladies, jousting competitions and bloody battles, probably taking place in or around a castle. Castles were important staging points for conquests and defences of territories in medieval times. The designs and constructions of these fortresses varied greatly, and many survive today.

The Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary defines a castle as a "fortified group of buildings". But a more practical definition is that a castle was a fortification of the High Middle Ages (10th to 15th century) equipped with high walls, towers and a moat (fossato). The word "castle" comes from the Latin word "castellum," which means "fortified place." The French popularized the term "castle" in the Middle Ages. Castles served a primarily military purpose, they housed armies. Many castles were part of fortified towns and sheltered (host) the surrounding villagers in times of war. As time went on, castles also became residences for lords and kings. Near the end of the Middle Ages into the modern era, castles lost their military function and functioned as residences for the nobility or were abandoned altogether.

Castles vs. Palaces

Castles and palaces were stately homes for nobles and kings, but only castles had high curtain walls, towers and moats. Although palaces are large residences and may have walls around them, they do not have high curtain walls and were not designed for military purposes.

Bailey or Ward

From a military standpoint, the bailey, or courtyard, was a wide-open space. So any invading soldiers who made it through the gate into the bailey would be exposed to arrow fire from the outer walls and towers and the inner walls and towers.

The bailey also served as a marketplace for festivals and fairs, a practice field for drilling soldiers and training horses, and an area for tournaments. In the tournaments, knights fought with swords and shields on foot and jousted in arenas called lists (or list fields). In the later Middle Ages, baileys featured gardens and fountains.

Some castles didn't have inner walls, so the bailey also contained the towers, the keep (main residence) and auxiliary buildings (great hall, chapel, knight and servant quarters, kitchens and workshops).

Inside a Castle

The keep and the auxiliary buildings that supported castle life varied from castle to castle. Sometimes buildings (like the chapel, great hall and kitchens) were integrated into the keep, and sometimes they were separated.

The keep was the main residence of the ruling lord. It was made of stone and could be square or circular. Keeps could be attached to walls or freestanding. They had many functions.

Residential apartments contained beds and furnishings. They were usually heated by fireplaces, and light came through glass windows.

The great hall could be located in the keep or in separate buildings. In the earliest castles, like the one described in the epic poem "Beowulf," great halls were used for eating and sleeping. Later, they were used for entertaining and holding court. They usually had high ceilings and large fireplaces. The floors were usually stone or dirt.

Storage of food, beverages and gold was usually in the lower levels of the keep.

Defense (arrow loops, armoury, battlements) usually occupied the top levels.

Prisoners were kept in the dungeon (derived from "donjon"). Dungeons were usually in the upper parts of the keep because it made escape more difficult, but they were later moved to the lower levels.

Religion was important in everyday life during the Middle Ages. People went to church every day, usually morning mass. Most castles had their own chapels and priests, either in-residence or visiting. Chapels could be simple rooms in the keep or elaborate separate buildings.

Horses were essential in medieval life. Knights rode them into battle. They pulled carts. They were transportation, like your car. So they needed a garage called stables.

Wells and cisterns were collected water for the castle. Wells could be located within the keep or in the bailey. Cisterns collected rainwater from the roofs. Some castles had rudimentary plumbing that channelled water from cisterns to sinks.

Castles needed many craftsmen and artisans, including carpenters, farriers and blacksmiths, to maintain the buildings and grounds. Their workshops were usually separate buildings within the bailey.

Medieval Sanitation

So what happened when nature called while soldiers were defending the castle during a siege? They had several options:

• Toilets were merely holes in the towers. Wastes dropped below -- into the bailey, the base of the outer wall, the moat or cesspools (pozzo nero) contained within the tower.
• The garderobe (or gardrobe) was a room that projected from a wall. A hole in the floor allowed wastes to drop below.

Some castles had sanitary towers in the inner or outer walls. The wastes would drop into a cesspool in a pit (hole).