A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing.
The private bed chambers of a medieval castle were typically accessed by a small passage at the top end of the great hall – often the bedrooms and living rooms of the lord and lady of the castle, and their close family or honoured guests, would be on the first floor of the structure.
Some buildings have secret areas built into their original plans, such as secret passages in medieval castles, designed to allow inhabitants to escape from enemy sieges. Other castles' secret passages led to an underground water source, providing water during prolonged sieges.
The great chamber was at the dais end of the hall, usually up a staircase. It was the first room which offered the lord of the household some privacy from his own staff, albeit not total privacy. In the Middle Ages the great chamber was an all-purpose reception and living room.
In a medieval castle, the rooms were often referred to as the Great Hall, the Keep, the Solar, the Chapel, the Kitchen, European by reason Author has 4.5K answers and 16.7M answer views Updated 5y.
Life in a medieval castle centered on the great hall, the castle's main room. Here the lord would eat, entertain guests, and conduct business. Each day, the lord and his family would enjoy a huge meal, waited on by pages and servants.
The typical features of a medieval castle were: Moat - a perimeter ditch with or without water. Barbican - a fortification to protect a gate. Curtain Walls & Towers - the perimeter defensive wall.
Castle Battlements and ParapetsThe raised sections of the battlement were known as merlons and the lower parts were called crenels. Crenels, sometimes called embrasures, were regularly spaced gaps in the castle battlement. Castle defenders could take protection behind the merlons and fire arrows from the crenels.
In medieval fortification, a bretèche or brattice is a small balcony with machicolations, usually built over a gate and sometimes in the corners of the fortress' wall, with the purpose of enabling defenders to shoot or throw objects at the attackers huddled under the wall.
Walls. Walls were generally built of stone within wooden frames designed to hold the stone in place while the mortar dried. For thick walls, the wall was usually constructed with a cavity that was filled with rubble rather than being solid stone.
Battlements were the square-shaped part of the walls around the top of the castle. They usually had a walkway behind them so that soldiers could stand there when looking out for potential threats. They were also useful for soldiers who were defending the castle during an attack.