How tall were medieval castle walls

The outer walls of castles usually seem to be a bit lower, to permit archers to fire over them. A castle wall I presume you mean the curtain wall would normally be thick enough for there to be a walkway behind the crenellations.

So anywhere between 6 and 10 feet? Height could be at a guess anywhere between 30 and 50 feet. Since a fortification's purpose is to make a position stronger, the dimensions and style would be unique to that location. There was not a formula. And given your date range fashion and the response to artillery would lessen the height and increase the width. The outer wall thing appears to be to do with visibility and psychology as much as anything. Why are you wanting to know. Pre-gunpowder walls were tall and relatively thin as MArgard says — 10 feet or so for general defensive walls, and up around feet for important walls, like around gates.

You also have to consider that some walls were feet thick the thin way, but they could be 60 feet plus in the direction of attack for gate house passage walls. Once you get to gunpowder, walls get much thicker — I think Duffy says 3 times thicker than they were high, and that is just for masonry walls, which were often backed up with large amounts of soil.

I'm talking normal European castles here. I've been on dozens of Swiss, North Italian and Eastern French castle walls, and they are not that big.

Two people need to pass, obviously, but they don't need that much space. Four feet behind the crenelations is enough, six feet is very generous for a manorial castle.

For instance, the medieval castle walls had arrow-loops which were vertical slits used to shoot arrows at the enemy. There were also Machicolations which were openings from the parapets constructed on the medieval castle walls. Heavy stones and boiling liquid could be thrown from these openings. On the outer side, the castle moat also served to protect the medieval castle walls.

Medieval castle walls become increasingly important defences for a medieval castle during the late medieval ages, particularly after the Norman Conquest of England. During the same period, concentric castles also became important which had outer and inner walls to provide for better defence.

Various parts of the medieval castle walls were designed to provide effective protection for the castle. Copyright - - - Medieval Chronicles. Share this:. More Info. Popular Pages Home. A variant of a machicolation, set in the ceiling of a passage, was known as a murder-hole. Machicolations were more common in French castles than their English couterparts, and when used in English castles they were usually restricted to the gateway as at 13th-century Conwy Castle. Machicolations were later used for decorative effect with spaces between the corbels but often without the openings, and subsequently became a characteristic of the many non-military buildings, for example, Scottish baronial style, and Gothic Revival architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Maciolations are in effect stone versions of hourdes. They represent an additional level of sophistication and expense. Like hourdes they enabled defenders to shoot at and drop things on their attackers, while minimising the risk of danger themselves. The great advantages were. Where the expense was too great for full scale machilations around a wall, a cheaper alternative was to build them just over weak spots like doors and gateways.

This is the origin of the brattice - see below. It has holes in the floor and usually arrow loops or gun ports in the sides. It is a sort of miniature macicalation, invariably placed to defend a specific weak point such as a doorway.

In apearance brattices can look very like latrines - but latrines are never placed over doorways! A Brattice at Carcassonne missing its front and side walls.

A Brattice at Carcassonne - this one is later than the one above. It has a gun port at the front rather than an arrow slit. A Brattice at Carcassonne. Note the adjacent arrow loops. Meurtrieres are holes designed for defenders to kill attckers. Projectiles can be thrown or shot at the attackers while the defenders remain relatively safe.

They can conveniently be divided into two classes: holes in floors "Murder Holes" for dropping dangerous substances or shooting at attackers and holes in walls, such as arrow loopholes, used for shooting projectiles.

For arrows they are called arrow slits or arrow loops archeres and for guns they are called cannoniers canoniers. Attackers would naturally go for a castle's weak points, and the these weak points generally included entrances. For this reason entrance gates were heavily reinforced, often provided with extensive defensive works called barbicans.

Typically the attackers would need to pass a number of obstacles, and the defenders would try to pick the attackers off as they were occupied overcoming these obstacles. Typically these obstacles would include steep inclines, ditches or moats furnished with draw bridges, and port cullises often a series of purtcullises. As attackers were finding a way through a door or portcullis they would be shot at by the defenders. A simple hole in the floor of the structure over a gateway provided a convenient way not only to shoot attackers, but also to drop things on them.

Attackers selected the least pleasant possible items to throw on their enemies. In the popular imagination this was invariably boiling oil, but there does not appear to be a single documented insatnance of oil being used. We do however know of boiling water, molten lead, and even heated sand all of which could penetrate armour more easily than other weapons. Other favoured materials included large stones. Attackers approaching an external gateway would be faced by a series of obstacles.

A strong wooden gate would be set behind a port cullis. In this photograph a portculis would drop between the second and thiird arch. This is the view looking up. The slot at the botto is for a port cullis. The slot at the top is a type of murder hole. An arrowslit is a thin vertical aperture in a fortification through which an archer can launch arrows. It is alternatively referred to as an arrow loop, loop hole, or archere, and sometimes a balistraria. The interior walls behind an arrow loop are often cut away at an oblique angle so that the archer has a wide field of view and field of fire.

Arrow slits come in a remarkable variety. A common form is the cross. The thin vertical aperture permits the archer large degrees of freedom to vary the elevation and direction of his bowshot but makes it difficult for attackers to harm the archer since there is only a small target to aim at. Arrow slits can often be found in the curtain walls of medieval battlements beneath the crenellations.

The invention of the arrowslit is attributed to Archimedes during the siege of Syracuse in — BC. Slits "of the height of a man and about a palm's width on the outside" allowed defenders to fire bows and scorpions an ancient siege engine from within the city walls.

Although used in late Greek and Roman defences, arrowslits were not present in early Norman castles. In these early examples, arrowslits were positioned to protect sections of the castle wall, rather than all sides of the castle. In the 13th century, it became common for arrowslits to be placed all around a castle's defences.

In its simplest form, an arrowslit was a thin vertical opening, however the different weapons used by defenders sometimes dictated the form of arrowslits.

Openings for longbowmen were usually tall and high to allow the user to fire standing up and make use of the 6 ft 1. Those for crossbowmen were usually lower down as it was easier for the user to fire whilst kneeling to support the weight of the weapon. It was common for arrowslits to widen to a triangle at the bottom — called a fishtail — to allow defenders a clearer view of the base of the wall. Immediately behind the slit there was a recess called an embrasure; this allowed a defender to get close to the slit without being too cramped.

The width of the slit dictate the field of fire, but the field of vision could be enhanced by the addition of horizontal openings; they allowed defenders to view the target before it entered range. Usually, the horizontal slits were level, which created a cross shape, but less common was to have the slits off-set called displaced traverse slots as in the remains of White Castle in Wales. This has been characterised as an advance in design as it provided attackers with a smaller target, however it has also been suggested that it was to allow the defenders of White Castle to keep attackers in their sights for longer because of the steep moat surrounding the castle.

When an embrasure linked to more than one arrowslit — in the case of Dover Castle defenders from three embrasures can shoot through the same arrowslit — it is called a "multiple arrowslit". Some arrowslits, such as those at Corfe Castle, had lockers nearby to store spare arrows and bolts; these were usually located on the right hand side of the slit for ease of access and to allow a rapid rate of fire.

Arrow loops needed to provide cover as a close as possible to the walls. This is one reason why towers were used along the defensive walls - they provided a way to defend the neighbouring walls. Arrow slits were angled in such a way that they could provide cover as close as possible to the foot of the wall.

Arrow slits were not always regarded with romanic affection. In the nineteenth century many castles were used at workshops, stores and peasant accommodation. To keep out the weather holes like arrow slits would often be blocked up. On the right is an example from Carcassonne, where the slit has been filled with Toulouse brick, preserving the outline of the original hole. Arrow loops needed altering in later times to allow their use by firearms.

Late Medieval and Early Renaissance castles have cannoniers for guns rather than archeres for arrows. The hole is just large enough to pass through an arquebus and the vertical slot for sighting it. Often, once a castle was taken, it would be occupied by its new masters and it would continue its function of holding down a strategically important area.

Occasionally this was not done. Perhaps the castle could not be held because forces were needed elsewhere as happened during the Cathar Wars , or because it was untenable with a large hostile population again as happened during the Cathar Wars.