Why did castles have round towers?

Round towers, also called drum towers, are more resistant to siege technology such as sappers and projectiles than square towers. The round front is more resistant than the straight side of a square tower, just as a load-bearing arch. This principle was already understood in antiquity.



The transition from square towers to round towers in medieval castle architecture was a direct response to advancements in siege warfare and structural engineering. Square towers had a significant vulnerability: their corners. During a siege, attackers would practice "mining," where they dug tunnels under the corner of a tower and set fires to collapse the wooden supports, causing the entire corner to crumble. Round towers eliminated these weak points, as there were no corners to easily undermine. Structurally, round towers are also much more resilient against the impact of projectiles from catapults or trebuchets; a stone hitting a flat surface delivers its full force, whereas a stone hitting a curved surface is more likely to deflect or "glance off" without causing catastrophic structural damage. Furthermore, round towers provided a superior field of vision for defenders, eliminating "blind spots" that existed at the corners of square structures. By the late 12th and 13th centuries, this "cylindrical" design became the standard for defensive fortification across Europe and the Middle East.

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