Why are towers so important in castle defense?
Why are towers so important in castle defense? Castle towers were designed to give an unobstructed panorama of the countryside around a fortress, so lookouts could spot oncoming attackers.
What is the highest tower in a castle?
The tallest medieval castle tower ever built is generally considered to be the Chateau de Coucy keep, or donjon, which measured 55 m high and 35 m wide. Located in Picardy, France, it was constructed in the 1220s by Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy, and was destroyed in April 1917 during World War I.
What was the main defense of a castle against attacks?
Outer curtain walls Those valiant enough to make it across the moat were faced with the highly forbidding outer curtain wall. Surrounding the courtyards of castles, outer curtain walls were often built to imposing heights of over 30 feet and were thick enough to withstand attacks from battering rams.
Which part of the castle was heavily defended?
The Keep or Donjon A keep was the big tower and usually the most strongly defended point of a castle before the introduction of concentric defence. Keep was not a term used in the medieval period – the term was applied from the 16th century onwards – instead donjon was used to refer to central towers.
What is the most defensive castle ever built?
1. Murud-Janjira – Murud, Maharashtra, India. The Murud-Janjira is a massive island fortress located off the coast of India. The fort is completely surrounded by 40' high walls and 19 rounded bastions.
What is the defensive wall of a castle called?
A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town.
What was the weakest part of a castle and how did they protect it?
The weakest part of the castle's defenses was the entrance. To secure access to the castle, drawbridges, ditches and moats provided physical barriers to entry.
What is the safest part of a castle?
What other rooms were there in a Medieval castle? At the time of Chr tien de Troyes, the rooms where the lord of a castle, his family and his knights lived and ate and slept were in the Keep (called the Donjon), the rectangular tower inside the walls of a castle. This was meant to be the strongest and safest place.