Basic Information
A castle is a fortified building that also serves as a place of residence. If it serves solely as a military base it is more properly termed a fortress (or fort if smaller) - or (occasionally, and usually if attached to an urban area) a citadel - but all of these terms tend to be used quite promiscuously. They are normally a feature of feudal or semi-feudal states - less advanced forms of government can rarely afford them and better organized states tend not to enjoy leaving fortified locations in private hands.
Besides acting as a residence, a castle normally controls something - it may only secure an area of valuable farmland, but it will quite frequently be places close to a pass, a bridge (or other river crossing), a harbour or even a strategic crossroads.
Early castles tended to be built more for defence than comfort but some later examples are fortified in name only and are mainly stately homes rather than defensive works.
Other language terms are schloss (German) and chateau (French).
The population of a castle will normally consist of the Lord and his family (or a castellan who controls the place in his absence), a garrison and their support staff - there will not normally be a large number of civilians present who aren't directly related to the business of the place, but a castle near a frontier might also operate an inn or trading post.
Due to it being the residence of a feudal noble (and, usually, the largest building for miles) the castle would often end up being a local seat of government as well.
Common locations inside a castle will include:
Fortifications - pre-gunpowder
- Keep (or donjon) - the central strongpoint and final redoubt of the castle.
- Gatehouse - a defensive structure build around the gate, which can be quite large and heavily populated. In real life, the usual location of the prison cells.
- Barbican - an additional defensive structure built on the outside of a gatehouse for added security.
- Motte - an artificial hill built as part of the defences. Usually to put the [keep on.
- Bailey (or ward) - an area of land enclosed within the walls.
- Moat - a wet or dry ditch outside a wall as an extra obstacle.
Fortifications - post-gunpowder
- Glacis - an earth ramp, protecting the walls from direct fire.
- Ravelin - an outwork of the main defences, usually open to fire from the castle itself to make it hard to hold if captured.
- Caliver - a raised artillery platform placed to fire over the walls from one of the baileys.
Service areas
- Smithy - and other workshops (e.g. fletcher, leatherworker, carpenter, stonemason, powder mill, gunsmith). A castle smith would normally be expected to be highly skilled and able to work as a farrier, weaponsmith and armourer as well as doing general iron work for the castle, although such skilled men were not always to be had.
- Kitchen - often a different building for fire safety.
- Stables
- Kennels
- Mews
- Cart/wagon storage
- Artillery store (if required)
- Armoury and / or arsenal - may well be co-located with the smithies.
- Magazine (in the black powder era)
- Houses (for all those not living in part of the fortifications)
- Chapel (if not included in the fortifications)
- Courthouse (if a seat of government)
- Exchequer (if a seat of government) - valuables will normally be stored in the keep though.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- These are pretty much part of the furniture for a medieval/fantasy campaign: if the PCs aren't based out of one, they probably work for someone who is.
- In a post-medieval campaign, they are better used for anachronistic colour.
