[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Treachery was always a possibility, and many castle and city gates wereopened by people who expected to receive large rewards for their treach-ery.Ingenious tricks and disguises also played a part (Documents 43 and53).Although castles were often turned into prisons in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, medieval prisons were small.Writers of romanticfiction have made much of dungeons and torture, but medieval justicewas usually direct and swift.Traitors were usually killed before they couldescape to enjoy their reward.The only prisoners worth keeping were thewealthy nobles who were held for ransom.For them the great tower madean excellent and secure prison (Documents 37 and 41).Important cap-tives lived in luxury; King John of France lived in a London palace,hunted in the royal preserves, and was not eager to return to France.CHATEAU GAILLARD: RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED S CASTLE AND ITS HORRIBLE ENDRichard the Lion Hearted, who became king of England in 1189, hadinherited Aquitaine (western France) from his mother Eleanor and Nor-mandy and Anjou and England from his father Henry.As Duke ofNormandy and Anjou, Richard was a vassal of the king of France, buthe controlled more land in France than did the French king.AlthoughRichard had been an ally of Philip Augustus in the Third Crusade, in1192 he went to war with the king over his French lands.Richard builtChateau Gaillard (he called it the cocky castle ) on a cliff above theSeine north of Paris to defend his claims to Normandy (Figure 15).Hebegan his castle in 1196 and boasted that he finished it in a year (in factit may never have been completely finished).Having experienced theadvantages and defects of the great crusader castles, Richard put all hisexpertise to work in the design of his Norman fortress.Richard chose an excellent site, in the territory of the archbishop ofRouen, who objected strenuously until Richard paid him a handsome sumfor the land.The site is a narrow plateau, about 600 feet long and at most200 feet wide, surrounded by deep ravines leading down to the riverSeine.On one side a narrow spit of land links the site to its hinterland.A walled town (Les Andelys) stood at the base of the cliff, and Richard 34 MEDIEVAL CASTLESFigure 15.Chateau Gaillard, Les Andelys, France.Richard the Lion Heartedclaimed to have built his cocky castle on the border of Normandy in only ayear, but no one believes he did.The walls, towers, and courtyards of the hugecastle cover the narrow hill top, creating a system of barricades known as a de-fense in depth.An independent fortification at the left blocks access to the mainstructure, whose great tower still rises above the walls at the right.The area isroughly the size of two modern football fields.Photograph: Marilyn Stokstad.also built a tower on a small island in the river.Dams and obstacles inthe water inhibited an enemy s approach from the river, while duringpeacetime these river defenses enabled the castle s commander to sup-port the garrison by levying tolls on the river traffic (see Chapter 3, Fig-ure 23).Richard also raised money by selling rights of citizenship toresidents of the town.The castle consists of three separate units along the plateau.An at-tacking army had to approach the castle along this land route, capturingone fortification after another.First, a walled outer bailey, which was builtlike an independent castle, blocked the approach.Huge round towers de-fended its curtain wall.From this outer bailey, a bridge with a drawbridgeover a very deep moat led to the gate into the middle bailey.Again acurtain wall with one rectangular and three round towers enclosed a largearea where Richard built his inner bailey with its tower.This fortress-within-a-fortress became a concentric (double-walled) castle with a wallthat resembled a series of round towers.Rising at one side of this cor-rugated wall and commanding the river side of the castle was the greattower.This tower had massive walls about sixteen feet thick and a bat-tered base that made mining virtually impossible.Its massive pointed keelalso deflected blows, and inverted buttresses supported a fighting gallery. The Castle as Fortress 35As long as Richard was alive to command and reinforce it, the castlestood securely.But Richard died in 1199, and his brother John was notan effective general.Philip Augustus moved to the attack, laying siegeto the castle in the summer of 1203.The constable of the castle wasRoger de Lacy of Chester, who had sufficient supplies and a large garri-son of about 300 men to hold the castle for King John.Roger expectedto hold out for as long as a year, while the English king gathered resourcesto relieve the castle.The town and the river fort soon surrendered to the French king, andthe siege of the castle began in earnest in August.About 1,500 civiliansfrom Les Andeleys fled to the safety of the castle and added to the strainon the provisions.Aware that he probably could starve the castle intosubmission, Philip built ditches, walls, and timber towers around the cas-tle to prevent supplies from entering.These fortifications were beyondthe defenders arrow range, so they could not destroy or even harass theattackers.With nothing to do but stand guard, the castle garrison un-doubtedly suffered from a loss of morale during the long winter.Two months into the siege, Roger de Lacy realized he could not feedall the people who had taken refuge within the castle walls.He evictedthe oldest and weakest who could not help in the defense, and the Frencharmy permitted them to leave [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Treachery was always a possibility, and many castle and city gates wereopened by people who expected to receive large rewards for their treach-ery.Ingenious tricks and disguises also played a part (Documents 43 and53).Although castles were often turned into prisons in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, medieval prisons were small.Writers of romanticfiction have made much of dungeons and torture, but medieval justicewas usually direct and swift.Traitors were usually killed before they couldescape to enjoy their reward.The only prisoners worth keeping were thewealthy nobles who were held for ransom.For them the great tower madean excellent and secure prison (Documents 37 and 41).Important cap-tives lived in luxury; King John of France lived in a London palace,hunted in the royal preserves, and was not eager to return to France.CHATEAU GAILLARD: RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED S CASTLE AND ITS HORRIBLE ENDRichard the Lion Hearted, who became king of England in 1189, hadinherited Aquitaine (western France) from his mother Eleanor and Nor-mandy and Anjou and England from his father Henry.As Duke ofNormandy and Anjou, Richard was a vassal of the king of France, buthe controlled more land in France than did the French king.AlthoughRichard had been an ally of Philip Augustus in the Third Crusade, in1192 he went to war with the king over his French lands.Richard builtChateau Gaillard (he called it the cocky castle ) on a cliff above theSeine north of Paris to defend his claims to Normandy (Figure 15).Hebegan his castle in 1196 and boasted that he finished it in a year (in factit may never have been completely finished).Having experienced theadvantages and defects of the great crusader castles, Richard put all hisexpertise to work in the design of his Norman fortress.Richard chose an excellent site, in the territory of the archbishop ofRouen, who objected strenuously until Richard paid him a handsome sumfor the land.The site is a narrow plateau, about 600 feet long and at most200 feet wide, surrounded by deep ravines leading down to the riverSeine.On one side a narrow spit of land links the site to its hinterland.A walled town (Les Andelys) stood at the base of the cliff, and Richard 34 MEDIEVAL CASTLESFigure 15.Chateau Gaillard, Les Andelys, France.Richard the Lion Heartedclaimed to have built his cocky castle on the border of Normandy in only ayear, but no one believes he did.The walls, towers, and courtyards of the hugecastle cover the narrow hill top, creating a system of barricades known as a de-fense in depth.An independent fortification at the left blocks access to the mainstructure, whose great tower still rises above the walls at the right.The area isroughly the size of two modern football fields.Photograph: Marilyn Stokstad.also built a tower on a small island in the river.Dams and obstacles inthe water inhibited an enemy s approach from the river, while duringpeacetime these river defenses enabled the castle s commander to sup-port the garrison by levying tolls on the river traffic (see Chapter 3, Fig-ure 23).Richard also raised money by selling rights of citizenship toresidents of the town.The castle consists of three separate units along the plateau.An at-tacking army had to approach the castle along this land route, capturingone fortification after another.First, a walled outer bailey, which was builtlike an independent castle, blocked the approach.Huge round towers de-fended its curtain wall.From this outer bailey, a bridge with a drawbridgeover a very deep moat led to the gate into the middle bailey.Again acurtain wall with one rectangular and three round towers enclosed a largearea where Richard built his inner bailey with its tower.This fortress-within-a-fortress became a concentric (double-walled) castle with a wallthat resembled a series of round towers.Rising at one side of this cor-rugated wall and commanding the river side of the castle was the greattower.This tower had massive walls about sixteen feet thick and a bat-tered base that made mining virtually impossible.Its massive pointed keelalso deflected blows, and inverted buttresses supported a fighting gallery. The Castle as Fortress 35As long as Richard was alive to command and reinforce it, the castlestood securely.But Richard died in 1199, and his brother John was notan effective general.Philip Augustus moved to the attack, laying siegeto the castle in the summer of 1203.The constable of the castle wasRoger de Lacy of Chester, who had sufficient supplies and a large garri-son of about 300 men to hold the castle for King John.Roger expectedto hold out for as long as a year, while the English king gathered resourcesto relieve the castle.The town and the river fort soon surrendered to the French king, andthe siege of the castle began in earnest in August.About 1,500 civiliansfrom Les Andeleys fled to the safety of the castle and added to the strainon the provisions.Aware that he probably could starve the castle intosubmission, Philip built ditches, walls, and timber towers around the cas-tle to prevent supplies from entering.These fortifications were beyondthe defenders arrow range, so they could not destroy or even harass theattackers.With nothing to do but stand guard, the castle garrison un-doubtedly suffered from a loss of morale during the long winter.Two months into the siege, Roger de Lacy realized he could not feedall the people who had taken refuge within the castle walls.He evictedthe oldest and weakest who could not help in the defense, and the Frencharmy permitted them to leave [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]