keep, English term corresponding to the French donjon for the strongest portion of the fortification of a castle, the place of last resort in case of siege or attack. The keep was either a single tower or a larger fortified enclosure.
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Build thick walls and battlementsThe castle also has high 'curtain walls' which protect the castle's inner and outer 'wards' or 'baileys'. These are the courtyard areas inside the walls where important buildings like the keep, or perhaps stables and storehouses would have been built.
The Keep or DonjonA keep was the big tower and usually the most strongly defended point of a castle before the introduction of concentric defence. Keep was not a term used in the medieval period – the term was applied from the 16th century onwards – instead donjon was used to refer to central towers.
A castle was built to withstand attack from enemy. Castle builders added many defensive features to make their castles difficult to attack. Many castles were built on high ground with clear views of the surrounding land. Attackers were easy to shoot whilst swimming or rowing across the moats filled with water.
What other rooms were there in a Medieval castle? At the time of Chr tien de Troyes, the rooms where the lord of a castle, his family and his knights lived and ate and slept were in the Keep (called the Donjon), the rectangular tower inside the walls of a castle. This was meant to be the strongest and safest place.
The weakest part of the castle's defenses was the entrance. To secure access to the castle, drawbridges, ditches and moats provided physical barriers to entry.
Particularly large towers are often the strongest point of the castle: the keep or the bergfried. As the gate is always a vulnerable point of a castle, towers may be built near it to strengthen the defences at this point.
Gatehouses, the most vulnerable point of the castle, often became mini-castles in themselves, as at Dunstanburgh Castle, with towers and barbicans guarding their approaches, as at Helmsley Castle. Walls were made taller to stop missiles being flung over them, and to give extra velocity to missiles aimed at attackers.
If they had enough supplies, they were VERY GOOD INDEED for the most part 'till cannons got powerful enough to start rendering them obsolete. There's a reason some of castle sieges ended by treachery from within, a HUGE number ended with surrender of the defenders due to starvation, and very few ended by assault.
The keep was the most essential part of a castle and could be defended even after castle walls had been breached. Keeps were originally called donjons, the French term for stronghold. The basement was sometimes used as a prison or dungeon, which became too easily confused with donjon, so the term keep was adopted.
Most domestic servants would have slept in shared chambers in either the cellars or attics of the castle buildings. There might also be simple buildings outside the castle for herdsmen, mill workers, wood-cutters, and craftspeople such as rope-makers, candle-makers, potters, basket-weavers, and spinners.
THE SOLDIERSThey'd be commanded by the constable or castellan, who stood in for the owner and lived in his own rooms (there's a Constable's Gate at Dover Castle). The soldiers slept in a dormitory.