Knights

If you were not from a noble household, being a knight was prohibited. It was a complex and detailed process, which took about 7-8 years. Firstly, at the age of 7, the young boy would leave his own household to join another’s where he would become a pageboy. Throughout this stage, the boy will develop education and be apart of ordinary lessons. Next, when he is 14, the regular teachings will come to an end and he will have training for growing into a great knight including learning how to ride horses, wrestle, swim, they played fighting games against each other, examined weapons and how to correctly use them and of course, improved their fitness to prepare them for their futures. He is now a squire and to he must do several traditional things before he is a knight. They involve:

• ·      Bathing to wash away his sins
• ·      Dressing in white tunic to show pureness (also a red robe which symbolized he is ready to be wounded in God’s service)
• ·      Fasts for 24 hours straight, spending the whole night praying
• ·      At dawn he confesses his sins
• ·      His sword is blessed by a priest
• ·      He makes a promise to stay loyal, brave and protect the poor/weak
• ·      Finally the king strikes the knight with the flat of his sword

Knights had the job of protecting people and fighting in the king’s army, which in return, they were given land. Although as the years went on, war started dying out a little and knights started becoming bored and uninterested, so they decided to have a little fun. The tournament called “jousting” was invented, where two knights on horses run towards each other with a lance (3m stick like object) and the whole aim is to knock the opposition off his horse.

Religion

Religion was an incredibly large part of life in the medieval times. It was compulsory to be Catholic and you had no say in what religion you believed in. The church hierarchy was very straightforward and involved the Pope at the top, following by the Cardinal, then Archbishop, next the Bishop and finally Parish Priest. The people of the medieval times were forced into believing that if you did not pay a tax to pray you were sent to hell after dying, whereas if you paid, you would go to purgatory and remain there until freed of sins, with protection against hell. The Pope was an unbelievably powerful person. He had the power to start war at anytime, owned one third of the land of Western Europe, was amazingly wealthy and was often up against the king, in terms of leadership. The daily life of a priest consisted mostly of memorising the bible, doing chores, eating, praying and sleeping. 

Castle Report

To my dear King William,

I am writing to tell you that the enemy has launched a large attack using fire lit anima carcass’s blasted from trebuchets, battering rams and mangonels. The soldiers who have not been allocated to one of these jobs either have swords, bow and arrows or axes so we must have a strong defensive system. I have also had word by a group of our men spotting some sappers digging beneath our castle and a siege tower approaching.

I have decided that our first move should be to take down the sappers, fire arrows back at the attackers and our moat has already taken care of the siege tower, not allowing it to come in reach of our concentric castle.

After that it will be necessary to shake off the remaining soldiers climbing up the round towers, use the Greek Fire method which can only be put out using urine and kill off a large portion of attackers using our murder holes.

I believe that we will win because our strong defence and weapons will protect the castle and defeat our enemies. 

How did castles change over time?

The first castles were built in 1066 when the Normans took over England. They were called ‘Motte and Baliey’ castles and they were built to make a clear statement that the Normans were there to stay. Motte and bailey castles were easy and quick to build and mere made of wood, however in 1087, the Normans decided that the Motte and Baliey castle needed an improvement as they were easily burnt and rotted quickly. The next castle design was called the ‘Square Keep’ castle, which was made from around 1087-1154. They were made of stone, were made tall so enemies were easily spotted, were strong, lasted long, made surprise attacks difficult and were very large. Although these castles were very great compared to the previous castles, enemies would often surround the outside, waiting for up to months and months for the insiders to either come out and fight so they could get past and get more food or simply die from starvation and/or dehydration.

In 1154-1216, many ‘Shell Keep’ castles were built. These castles were made of stone, very strong and had round walls which made it easier to organise a defence. Although some disadvantages were they took a long time to build, had weak gateways which were easy to attack and because it was made from heavy stone, it would collapse easily if were on a motte. Finally (in 1216-1277) ‘Concentric’ castles were built. They were the largest, strongest and most expensive castles of all four listed above. They were easy to defend with although on top of all the positives there were negatives including them being extremely time consuming (when building) and had very thick/hard walls.