Castle Defenses that People Used in the Middle Ages

What did medieval people use in their castle defenses? They had to protect themselves from a lot of dangerous people.
People had multiple castle defenses in the Middle Ages. Some castle defenses included castle location, moat, and walls. Location mattered a lot. Moats helped to protect the castle from miners. Fortresses also had murder holes and machicolations, which were very similar. Murder holes were inside the gatehouse, while machicolations were stone hoardings. Everything was defensive! Towers were round because they were easy to protect, and even the stairs made life harder for invaders.
Why did the location of a castle matter? How were stairs a type of defense?

Castle Defenses: Castle Location and Moat

How did a castle’s location help with defense? The defenders had an easier time when the attackers couldn’t attack from three sides. Therefore, people built castles on top of cliffs or steep hills. If there wasn’t a suitable hill available, people sometimes created hills. However, it was simpler to find a crag or mountain pass.

After they constructed the castle, one of the best ways to add to the defenses was to dig a moat. Moats were ditches. Not all moats were full of water. When moats were full of water, they were usually not very deep. Sometimes, people planted spikes under the water. Sharpened stakes hurt to walk on! Even if there weren’t any stakes, the water was often disgusting. Castle waste went into the moat (toilet water and garbage).

Moats kept people and their siege engines away from the castle walls (see my post about siege engines here). Ladders and siege towers couldn’t get close enough to be effective. Battering Rams were also useless. Attackers also couldn’t fill in the moat without a hard time. People shot at them while they tried to fill in the ditches. It wasn’t a pleasant option.

People also couldn’t mine under a moat because the water would collapse the tunnels. Archers inside the castle could shoot at their enemy easier with the trench. It is hard to shoot straight down safely and accurately. Therefore, with the moat, the enemy was far enough away to be in the perfect position to shoot.

Castle Defenses: Walls and Towers

Castle walls were essential in castle defenses. They had two layers, the outside and inside of the walls. The outer walls were humungous rocks. People shaped and laid them like bricks. There were two outside walls. In between those, there was the inside wall layer. The inside was just rubble rock.

The rubble rock took up space and strengthened the wall. The castle could have fallen easier if there was only an outer wall. People often called the walls that encircled the castle “Curtain Walls.” Some fortresses had multiple Curtain Walls. Shield walls were taller than Curtain Walls.

Often, people made castle walls circular. Towers were also usually circular, especially later in the Middle Ages. Circular towers became popular because they were stronger than rectangular ones. Miners learned they could collapse entire walls by digging underneath the corners. Round walls and towers didn’t have that weakness.

The Gatehouse and Murder Holes

Battering Rams targeted one of the most vulnerable parts of a castle, the front door. Therefore, people made the gatehouse. The gatehouse was a space between the gate and the fortress. Inside, there were multiple gates and portcullises. There were also traps and murder holes.

People didn’t want intruders to survive the gatehouse. The gates were wooden; however, people often reinforced them with iron. Portcullises were like iron grates that could be raised and lowered that also fortified the gatehouse. People trapped the intruders between the portcullis and inner gates.

While the intruders tried to escape, people were up above using holes in the ceiling, called murder holes, to kill them. Archers could shoot arrows at them. People also poured boiling liquids on them. Oil was expensive. Therefore, it wasn’t common to pour oil on the intruders. However, they did pour boiling water and sometimes even quicklime on their prisoners.

Folks could also pour flaming tar on them. Sometimes the defenders dropped rocks on the intruders. Some castles had barbicans. Barbicans were long, narrow versions of the gatehouse, often in addition to the gatehouse. They were death passages full of traps. Sometimes people had to go in a single file. Then it was easier to kill them one at a time.

Castle Defenses: Archers and Machicolations

Archers and soldiers were a crucial part of castle defenses. People built castles with that in mind. Therefore, they made arrow loops. Arrow loops were narrow, especially on the outside. People shaped them like crosses to give the archers maximum vision.

However, the outer parts of the arrow loops were very narrow to keep the archers safe. In the early Middle Ages, people made wooden structures called hoardings, a structure that allowed the defenders to shoot, pour, or throw things down on invaders. Later on, people replaced hoarding with machicolations. Machicolations were projections built on the sides of castle walls for similar purposes as murder holes.

However, they were on the castle walls instead of inside the gatehouse. People poured boiling water out of them, dropped rocks out of them, and used them to shoot arrows at attackers underneath them.

Castle Stairs as a Defense

How are stairs a defense? For modern people, they aren’t! However, medieval people made sure everything in their castles kept them safe. Just in case invaders made it inside, people needed an advantage. They didn’t want to die.

Medieval stairs were super steep. Therefore, people could shove enemies down the stairs, and they would have a hard time stopping the fall. Medieval stairs were also going clockwise. Therefore, right-handed soldiers on the top of the stairs had an advantage. People built the stairs so that right-handed warriors going up the stairs struggled to fight.

Right-handed people going down had enough room to use their swords and defend themselves. Being left-handed was awful in the Middle Ages (superstitions said that it was a sign of witchcraft or the devil), so everyone used their right hand. Therefore, people were pretty safe from left-handed people, too!

What did you think of methods people used to defend themselves and their castles in the Middle Ages? How would you protect yourself if you were in their shoes? Let me know in the comments! Also, let me know if you have any questions.