Caen Castle
This is the castle that William the Conqueror built before
he left to conquer England, to defend his own territory in Normandy, in
France. William built this castle around 1050 AD.
Like other medieval castles, the Caen castle had a moat
around it. The moat was very deep so that enemies could not batter down
the walls on the other side. If they climbed down into the moat, it would
be easy to shoot them with arrows or drop rocks on them to kill them.
The only way you could get into the castle was by crossing
the moat on a wooden drawbridge. Here is a picture of one of the drawbridges
(this was such a big castle that there were a lot of drawbridges).
When enemies came, the people in the castle pulled up
the drawbridge so nobody could get in. When you went over the drawbridge,
you also went through a big strong wooden door, with an iron gate called
a portcullis in front of it. The portcullis is gone now, but you can still
see the slots carved in the stone wall for the portcullis to slide up and
down.
If enemies did get through the portcullis, they would
still be in the little hallway you can see in the back, trying to break
down the wooden door on the other side. People inside the castle could drop
rocks and pour boiling water on them through holes in the ceiling.
Once you were inside the walls, you would see a lot of
buildings that were used for different things: barns, toolsheds, chicken
coops, houses for people to live in, meeting halls and courthouses, big
halls for people to eat in, and many workshops for carpenters, weavers,
and so on. This building is a meeting hall that was mainly used for people
to come pay their taxes or to discuss money questions with William's treasurer.
Click here for a project about castles, or here to compare William's castle to the walls of Cairo, in Egypt, built about the same time.
Or, watch a movie about juggling inside the castle!
To find out more about medieval castles, check out these books on Amazon.com or at your library:
Castle, by David Macaulay
Eyewitness:
Castle (Eyewitness Books)
by Christopher Gravett ,Geoff Dann (Photographer) (2000)
Make
This Model Medieval Castle (Usborne Cut-Out Models)
by Iain Ashman (1997)
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