Why did stone keep castles change?

Why did stone keep castles change?

The wooden defences of motte and bailey castles were replaced by walls and towers of stone. Stone is more durable and resistant than wood and so it became the preferred building materials for castles. Stone castles were built taller and gave better protection against attack, fire and cold rainy weather.

What were the problems with the stone keep castles?

Stone castles were built on a square or rectangular plan. Attackers had to simply find a way of tunnelling underneath one of the corners to bring down a whole section of the castle. Siege weapons like the trebuchet could fire heavy rocks, if these missiles hit a flat surface there would be major damage to the castle.

What did stone keep castles look like?

The Stone Keep was a central feature of the castle, a stone tower built on the highest point. It was typically very tall with thick stone walls and is where the owners would have lived. Not all keeps were the same but there would have typically been: Battlements – on the top of the keep to provide defence.

Why was the keep built on a high earth mound?

A keep and a protective wall would usually be built on top of the motte. One contemporary account of these keeps comes from Jean de Colmieu around 1130, who described how the nobles of the Calais region would build “a mound of earth as high as they can and dig a ditch about it as wide and deep as possible.

What were the differences between Motte and Bailey and stone keep castles?

A motte-and-bailey castle consisted of two parts: a lookout tower and a place for people to live. A stone keep castle was a single dwelling built of rocks, making it harder to burn or attack, and surrounded by a moat.

What is the purpose of a keep?

It was usually either square or round. The keep was the center of castle life, often serving as the lord’s residence, and was usually the place of last refuge when defending the castle. Below are two views of the impressive Great Tower found at Raglan Castle, one of the finest in all of Wales.

Why did Motte and Bailey castles stopped being built?

Why did they stop building castles? Castles were great defences against the enemy. However, when gunpowder was invented the castles stopped being an effective form of defence. The medieval castle with its high vertical walls was no longer the invincible fortification it had been.

Why did castle designers change from timber to stone?

To avoid the perils of fire, improve durability and increase the castle defense capability, castle designers decided to replace (wherever possible) timber with stone. However, the evolution from the primitive motte and bailey castles (made entirely out of timber and earth) to the grand stone castles was not an overnight process.

Why did they replace the palisade with a stone wall?

As a compromise, a common solution was to replace the wooden palisade around the keep and the one surrounding the bailey with a stone wall. That’s how the so-called shell keep castles appeared. The idea behind a shell keep castle was to replace the wooden outer wall which had previously encircled the castle with a stone wall.

When did castles change from shells to stone?

Shell keep castles faded from fashion at the beginning of the 13th century as the entire castle design shifted from the motte-and-bailey style to fully fledged stone castles which were the next stage of castle development. Where time and money allowed, stone buildings were built over preexisting wooden towers.

Why did the Normans build the stone keep?

In the tenth and eleventh centuries the Anglo-Normans and French began to build stone keeps in square and circular design. Keeps made of stone were considerably stronger against enemy missiles and other offensive weapons, but they took a decade or more to build and could be prohibitively expensive.