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Murder Holes, Machicolations, and Other Medieval Warfare Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 6, 2020 34 min

Pike and shot - Pike and Shot : Campaigns — A pike and short formation, with pikemen protecting those wielding firearms while they reloaded. Pintrest

38. Machicolations: Another Nasty Castle Design Feature

Machicolations atop a castle wall and turret. Quora

Related to castle murder holes are machicolations: openings in the corbels, or the parts jutting out from the top of walls. As with murder holes, stones, boiling water, heated sand, quicklime, and other unpleasant things could be dropped from machicolations on enemies at the base of the wall.

A box machicolation jutting out of a Maltese castle’s walls. Wikimedia

Originating in the Middle East, machicolation designs were brought back to Europe by Crusaders. By the thirteenth century, their use was widespread in the west, especially in France. While larger castles featured traditional machicolations all around the walls and towers, a variant known as the box machicolation became widespread in smaller fortresses, especially atop the castle’s gates.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.