17. When Castles Dominated the Medieval Landscape
Castles dominated settled landscapes throughout much of Eurasia, until gunpowder technology made them obsolete. Although they are best known as defensive structures, sheltering those within from more powerful foes without, castles also served offensive purposes: they provided a base from which raids could be launched. No castle was completely impervious to attack. Provided they were sufficiently numerous, determined, and willing to pay price in blood, attackers could escalade castles and storm their walls, batter their gates, or breach their fortifications. More often, if a castle was particularly formidable, enemies besieged them, cut them off from resupply, and hoped to starve out the defenders. Often, sieges were coupled with attempts to tunnel beneath and undermine a castle’s walls from below.
Location was key to a castle’s strength. Often situated on high ground, they had high walls, strong gates, and sometimes a surrounding moat filled with water. To maximize their defensive capacity, castle builders often incorporated ingenious innovations into their designs, to make storming them as dangerous as possible. One of the nastier design features was murder holes. As their name indicates, murder holes were intended to, literally, murder people. Passageways through the walls – often behind the main gate – would have holes up above. Through those openings, defenders could stab attackers below with spears, riddle them with arrows or crossbow bolts, or pour unpleasant things on them, such as boiling water, heated sand, or quicklime. Contrary to common perception, hot oil was almost never poured over attackers. Oil was expensive, and besieged defenders cut off from resupply were more likely to hoard, rather than throw away, such a precious commodity.
