Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/210

darts, and stones at the besiegers. On the wall, and projecting out from it were built at proper distances square or round towers, sometimes called bastions, generally one story higher than the wall so as to command it. The lower story of the walls and towers was often built with a batter, or slope outwards to strengthen, and also to keep the assailants farther from, the walls. Thus the defenders were not compelled to lean far over the parapet, and ex pose their bodies to the archers of the enemy who were placed at a distance to guard those engaged in undermining the walls. In one of the towers and sometimes in the wall near a tower was the postern gate at a considerable distance from the ground. This gate was used for the egress of messengers during a siege. The principal entrance or main gate of the castle was of great strength, and was usually flanked with strong towers having embattled parapets. It was made of wood, cased with iron, and was rendered doubly secure by an iron portcullis which slid downwards in grooves in the masonry. Within the outer wall was a large open space or court called the outer bailey, bayle, or ballium, in which stood commonly a church or chapel. On the inside of the outer bailey and sur rounded by a ditch stood another wall and parapet, with gate and towers similar to those on the outer wall. Round the inside of this inner wall were arranged the offices for the servants and retainers, the granaries, storehouses, and other necessary buildings. These constituted the inner bailey. Within all these was the keep, built sometimes on an artificial mound. It was a large, high, square or rectangular tower more strongly fortified than any of the other parts of the castle, and was the last resort of the garrison when all the outworks were taken. Its walls, from 10 to about 20 feet in thickness at the base, and diminishing towards the top, on which was placed an embattled parapet, often admitted of chambers and staircasss being constructed in thsm. On each side of the keep there was usually a flat Norman buttress, and at the corners were embattled turrets carried one story higher than the parapet, as may be seen

in the keeps of Rochester, Newcastle, &c.

FIG. 1. "Rochester Keep.

The entrance was on the first floor, and was reached by an open flight of steps, which could be readily defended, or by a staircase in a turret at one of the angles. The interior was divided by a strong middle partition wall, in which were openings for communication with the different apart ments. In this wall was the well of the castle, often of great depth, and with a shaft ascending through all the stories to the top of the keep. The several floors were of stone or wood. The basement floor contained the store rooms and the dungeon for prisoners, and had no lights from the outside. On the first floor were situated the soldiers apartments, guard-room, <fcc., lighted only by small loop holes. The second floor was taken up by the baronial hall in which the baron or governor and his retainers dined. The third floor contained, probably, the chapel and apart ments of the governor and his family. The two upper floors were lighted by small round-headed Norman windows. Although there were unquestionably great variations in the structure of castles, yet the most perfect of them were built on the plan above described. As an illustration we give a ground-plan of Dover Castle copied by permission from The Architect.

Fid. 2. Ground-Plan of Dover Castle.

The towers along the outer bailey wall (such as Avranches tower, Marshall s tower, and the Constable s tower in Dover Castle) were, in the case of royal castles, each protected by men of approved fidelity and valour, to whom estates were granted on condition of their performing castle-guard. Each had also to keep his particular tower in repair, and supply the requisite number of men to defend it during a siege. In process of time these services were commuted for annual rents, sometimes styled wardpenny and waytfee, but commonly castle-guard rents, payable on fixed days, undei prodigious penalties called sursizes. At Rochester if a man failed in the payment of his rent of castle-guard on the feast of St Andrew, his debt was doubled every tide while the payment was delayed. These were afterwards restrained by an Act of Parliament made in the reign of Henry VIIL, and finally annihilated, with the tenures by knight s service, in the time of Charles II, Such castles a3 were private property were guarded either by mercenary soldiers, or by the tenants of the lord or owner. Windsor, Warwick, Kenilworth, Conway, Carnarvon, and many others of the later Norman castles differ from the earlier ones chiefly in the structure of the keep, which contained in some instances an open quadrangular court, and had the chapel, the hall, and the state apartments arranged round the sides. The turrets at the corners and on the walls were of various shapes, round, square, and polygonal, and had embrasures and machicolations.

The machicolations were corbelled projections, with apertures between, down which stones could be thrown, or molten lead poured, on the assailants. The principal entrances were defended by large circular towers, with machicolations over the front of the gate, and sometimes more than one portcullis.

The Scotch castles were in general square or rectangular