Talk:Medieval fortification

Slave Labor

While it is surprising that there needed to be church councils as late as the early 1100s,

Manpower in the Medieval era in traditional governments in Europe consisted mainly of slave labor and low-class laborers.

still strikes me as uninformed. Considering castellation didn't pick up until after the Norman conquest of England, it seems entirely specious to argue that the manpower (in the army or construction trade) was mainly (even commonly) slave labor, as distinct from the serfs and villeins. -LlywelynII (talk) 09:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Church councils? Adam Bishop (talk) 12:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There is evidence that labourers were actually quite wellpaid http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/medievalprices.html http://www3.telus.net/Quattrocento_Florence/economy.html An English labourer circa 1300 earned around 1 or 2 pounds a year comparable to the annual revenue of the crown at 30,000. Which would mean that at the very most the crown could only afford 15,000 labourers in a year (and nothing else). Bunnyman78 (talk) 11:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted however that most unskilled labour in those cases would not be paid labour but peasants performing their serjanty services, with 'labourers' being semi-skilled or skilled labour, like bricklayers, stonecutters, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.135.191.153 (talk) 13:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

grand daughter going to England on fall brake don't at this time how long.

some years ago I went to England for a month. The two cities I enjoyed the most was Bath and a "walled City" which was not far from London, but don't remember the name. Please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandra Bar. (talk • contribs) 22:51, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

edits reverted

Hello all,

I've reverted a couple edits with Rollback. The edits were unexplained removed content and have been undone.

FockeWulf FW 190 (talk) 17:42, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Chronological mess

This article is all over the place. The usual way that medieval fortifications are described is to start with the earliest ones and work forwards in time. This is because there was an arms race between the architects of fortification and the engineers who had to overcome them. Placing the fortifications in chronological order helps to explain why as well as when developments took place.

For example the early stone castles of northern France and England were a replacement for Motte-and-bailey castles of which Rochester Castle is a good example.

It was realised that having a very strong keep as a citadel, while allowing the gates to be a week point was not the most practical design and over time the major fortifications moved from the keep to the gatehouse. For example at Warwick Castle the original keep was abandoned and a strong gatehouse was built.

During the same period it was realised that the corners of towers were vulnerable to attack so round towers became popular as did an outer but weaker defensive wall. The result were castles like Beaumaris.

Of course Beaumaris was built from scratch in a marsh. Other factors such as continuous upgrading of fortifications as happened at the Tower of London or Dover Castle means that castles could end up with many features from different times.

Also the terrain plays an important part in castle design. Edward I placed most of his castles in Wales close to the sea so that if they were besieged by the Welsh then supplies and reinforcements could be sent by sea. Designs of castles like Edinburgh Castle is obviously in part dictated by the terrain in developing a strong geographical defensive point at a strategic location. However in some cases this lead to a specific category of caste defences such as the German Schildmauer or castle shield wall.

This is a sketch of how this article could be restructured to make it more useful to readers who have little knowledge of castles because at the moment this article is of little help.

-- PBS (talk) 13:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)