What is the description of the structure and style of medieval castles in Europe?

Castle is the product of the Middle Ages in Europe. The period from 1066 to 1400 is the heyday of building castles. European aristocrats fought for land, food, livestock and population. Intensive wars led aristocrats to build more and more castles to defend their territory.

Art of Castle Architecture —— Romanesque and Gothic

In the process of development, castle architectural art has mainly formed two representative styles. Romanesque and Gothic, among which Romanesque is also called Norman in Britain, and the two styles have a sequential relationship in time, which have had a far-reaching impact on the future development of architectural art.

Romanesque, also known as Romanesque, means "the shadow of Rome", was popular in western Europe in11-2 century, but it was not recognized until 19 century. At first, Degville, a French historian in the19th century, referred to a country that used Roman (Latin) from a linguistic point of view.

Romanesque castles were developed in the period when the defensive function of castles was most emphasized. Their appearance is a summary of the 700-year war history in Europe before. Most of the architectural styles of castles draw lessons from ancient Roman architecture and Byzantine architecture. On the one hand, there is no condition to accumulate castle architectural art after years of war, so the past architectural techniques are used nearby. On the other hand, the defensive warfare in ancient Rome is still in use.

The most important feature of Romanesque architecture is its semicircular and cylindrical vault inherited from the ancient Romans. Tube arch is the representative of architecture in this period, which is generally used in pilaster and closed arcade, which is both three-dimensional and artistic. There are also round towers, which are difficult to destroy. Other architectural features include the use of narrow windows, semicircular arches, low domes and door frames selected layer by layer as decorations. Due to the extensive use of columns and vaults of various shapes, the whole building has achieved a solid, heavy, balanced, stable and saturated aesthetic effect. The narrow windows are in sharp contrast with the vast space inside, which makes the light inside the castle dim and deep, giving people a mysterious and dark feeling. To give you an intuitive understanding, the castle in ico is a typical Romanesque castle, specifically Norman Castle in Scotland. I believe that everyone who has played it still remembers the stocky, mysterious and profound beauty of the Roman castle.

The situation in Britain is quite special. Being harassed by the vikings for a long time, their buildings were influenced by the Nordic architectural style. Viking bows used natural bent tree trunks, which were quickly applied to buildings, resulting in a unique architectural form in England and Northern Europe in which wooden columns were connected to the roof, and formed Britain's own Romanesque architectural style, which was called "Norman style". Norman style is also a kind of Roman style.

Romanesque architecture has been developing in a higher and greater direction during its development. However, the pipe arch is very heavy and requires huge walls and buttresses. This restricts the pursuit of height and size of the castle. These reasons led to the birth of Gothic architecture.

Gothic pushed the architectural art of the castle to a new height, and the medieval sky after 12 century was outlined by these straight outlines. The bright sunshine projected from the colored mosaic glass window makes people feel like a lifetime ago, like a dream.

Contrary to Romanesque, Romanesque architecture is secular architecture affecting religious architecture, while Gothic architecture is religious architecture affecting secular architecture. This is related to the hardships of medieval life, and people pinned their hopes on ethereal religion. At that time, people's religious piety was unimaginable, and Notre Dame was accumulated by the hard-earned money of poor old women. 1 140 the first gothic building appeared in France, which was converted by Saussure, the dean of saint-denis Abbey. It was a church. The original intention of reconstruction is to make the church building reflect the three ideals of light, number and height. Saint-denis Church caused a sensation as soon as it was completed, and then this architectural style spread all over Europe. Twenty-five years after the church was built, every parish that sent people to attend the ceremony stood a Gothic church leading to heaven. Gothic architectural style has more influence on the castle than on the church in time. It takes about a century at night, which is completely the result of the changes of the times.

It is generally believed that the word "Gothic" was first put forward by Raphael, a great painter in16th century, especially referring to the architecture in northern and central Europe before the Renaissance. This word is full of derogatory meanings and is synonymous with "barbarism". Later, George vasari, an art historian, went on to call all the arts between ancient Europe and the Renaissance Gothic, in order to highlight that the Renaissance was a reform of classical culture. However, this name is too much.

Gothic architecture gives people a feeling of being above others. Architects used sagittal bending and cross arch in Roman architecture to improve it, and made curved rib arch as skeleton to extend it upwards, and used pointed arch to design its span at will. There are almost no walls in the whole building, and there is a tall and big window between the main faces of the skeleton. The internal skeleton structure of this building is exposed with vertical lines and strong arrows, which makes its interior wide, high and bright; The external structure is also exposed, and the combination of vertical wall pier and overhead flying arch, as well as the small spire and huge window opening of the buttress forest, also gives people a feeling of rising. For the rising sense of Gothic style, modern psychologists believe that tall and straight visual objects can make people feel a strange sense of reverence psychologically, just as people will feel a sense of shock and piety when they see rugged mountains, waterfalls and high tides. This is very conducive to the expression of religious themes, so it is widely used in churches. The Gothic architectural style of the castle is entirely out of its exquisiteness.

The beauty of Gothic castle lies in its luxurious interior decoration, which is mainly reflected in these two points-glass mosaic windows and sculptures. Glass mosaic window is the symbolic feature of Gothic architecture. Because of the almost frame-like structure of Gothic architecture, windows occupy the whole wall between columns, making sculptures and murals have no walls to paste, so people naturally have to think about the decoration of windows. Due to the limitation of technical level, people can't make very pure glass, which has various colors because of impurities. On the other hand, inspired by the mosaic art along the Mediterranean coast, the unique Gothic glass mosaic window art was born. When the sun shines through the mosaic window, colorful light creates amazing beauty on the mottled and strange wall. In addition, sculpture did not develop until this era, although the previous Greek and Roman civilization had developed the sculpture art to a high level. However, due to the long-term negative attitude of Christianity towards idolatry in the Middle Ages, there was a long vacuum in sculpture art at that time. Since the 1 1 century, with the new round of architectural competition, in order to highlight luxury and prosperity, citizens gradually added sculptures to churches and castles, and craftsmen also created freely. Sculpture was widely used as decoration in Gothic castles, which stimulated the development of this art and had positive significance for the later Renaissance.

The process that Gothic architectural style is widely used in castle construction is also the process that the defensive function of the castle is gradually lost because of the invention of gunpowder. In the process of changing from Romanesque to Gothic, it gradually lost its rigorous appearance and became more and more open to the outside world. There are skylights at the top of the tower, windows overlooking the river and surrounding countryside on the front of the tower, and lowered arcades, carved buttresses and stairs appear in the inner courtyard. Of course, these are all bought with the firmness of the castle.

At that time, the lords' pursuit of Gothic castles was crazy. Many masons not only maintained their castles, but also got good salaries. What's more, the Countess of Beye, Albeida, beheaded her architect to ensure that no one would build a castle to compete with her. It is horrible for a woman's vanity to develop to this point.

Gothic art is the highest achievement in the development of castle architecture in European feudal society and the summary of its culture and art. Gothic castles are very popular in games because they are extremely exquisite. For example, Devil's City and Devil's Cry are all works, especially Devil's City, which uses a lot of Gothic architectural elements such as spires, mosaics and statues. Everyone who has played has their own experience, so I won't say much here.

Throughout the art history of castle development, we can find an interesting phenomenon. Just like any practical art, the successful and credible techniques and methods accumulated in its development process, as well as the intimate and comfortable image, are always used and appeared repeatedly (this can refer to our current popular culture, and there are many similarities between the two). So when a Roman-style castle appears in front of us, it's hard to say whether it is a Roman architecture in the 3rd century, a European Roman architecture in 1 1 century, an English Norman architecture, a neoclassical retro architecture in16th century, or something in the future. Of course, a finer classification can help us distinguish the differences between these buildings. What I'm talking about here is nothing more than explaining the gradual development of architecture. The development of the history of European castles or extended buildings is progressing in this spiral.

The medieval castle has the special value of preserving medieval art, and its concentrated medieval aesthetics makes its charm last forever.

Military-the Main Line of Castle Development

The military is the main line of the castle from birth, prosperity to extinction, which runs through the development of the castle.

The birth of the castle stems from its political environment. Generally speaking, castles are the product of political division and separation of powers.

For example, in medieval Europe, due to the implementation of fief system, land ownership was dispersed to nobles and knights, and it was politically fragmented. There are various feudal political entities, large and small, all over the country. No one can tell the boundaries between them clearly, and no one can completely clarify the connection between them. Wars caused by various reasons often broke out among feudal nobles at all levels, so they always prepared for wars and often participated in wars. All nobles are equivalent to military generals, and their bannermen constitute the officers and men at all levels to which they belong. It is these large and small wars all over Europe that make the defensive function of the castle gradually prominent. Take Germany as an example. In West Germany alone, there are 6.5438+0.5 million existing ancient castles, which fully reflects the feudal regime of medieval Germany. In addition, the medieval war technology and concept also determined that the medieval war was a defensive war. At that time, the castle was the most reliable way of defense, enough to resist the rapid attack of cavalry and turn the sudden quick victory into a war of attrition. Therefore, the lords built castles extensively to ensure that their estates and property were inviolable.

Let's take a look at Japan, which is also famous for its castle culture. The political environment of Japanese castles from birth to prosperity is similar. During the Warring States Period and Edo Period, Japan was in political chaos because of the implementation of the Mufu system, where land and troops were concentrated in the hands of Mufu and Mingfu. No matter in the attack to seek their own best interests, or in the defense to protect vested interests, vassals built castles and military strongholds centered on solid defense for their own territorial rule.

These two examples are very different from our situation in China. In China, we practiced a powerful centralization of authority for most of the feudal society, so there were few cases of political division and armed separatism. In the war, there were no strong castles, but the Great Wall was built to resist foreign aggression. Both the Great Wall and the castle are defensive buildings, but compared with the Great Wall, the castle has secular functions such as residence and symbol, so once its defensive function disappears due to historical evolution, the Great Wall stops developing, while the castle continues to develop as a secular building.

Therefore, the castle is a defensive building to protect the personal and property safety of the territory.

The military function of the castle has always affected its development. Generally speaking, the authoritative point of view holds that the main development period of castles is from the appearance of Tugangcheng Castle in the 9th century to the appearance of gunpowder weapons in14th century, which is what medieval military experts call the "castle period".

As mentioned earlier, castles are fortifications by nature. As early as the 3rd century in Rome, because of the splendid civilization and outstanding city life in ancient Rome, huge public buildings and exquisite artistic and cultural products were concentrated in the city. So whenever the war came, the Romans had to take the city as the focus of defense. Especially in the 3rd century, due to the unprecedented pressure faced by the Roman Empire, under the dual pressure of barbarian invasion and civil war, high requirements were put forward for the city's defense. Capturing the castle in resistance through ancient wars requires good siege technology and several months of military supplies. Rome's defense in depth strategy gave full play to the role of a large number of castles.

However, there are still some differences between ancient Roman castles and medieval castles, because the development of ancient castles is not always smooth sailing, because of political and economic reasons, there have been many setbacks during this period. In medieval Europe, social economy was very underdeveloped, and political fragmentation led to feudal separatism, and productivity showed a downward trend. Moreover, from the 3rd century to the 9th century, Europe was dominated by nomadic economy, and there was no need for strong castles to defend its property. At that time, the construction technology and scale of buildings were far less than those of ancient Rome, and the corresponding structural technology and artistic experience were gradually lost. Ancient Rome was in ruins, both materially and spiritually.

Generally speaking, medieval castles in the exact sense do not include the fortifications of ancient Rome, and generally refer to masonry castles that appeared in the 9th century and lasted until14th century. The reason why castles appeared at this time was mainly because the European economy changed from nomadic economy to farming economy, and people's property and residence were fixed, so strong castles were needed to protect their lives and property. Although the development of castles in this period took an independent road, the castle construction technology in ancient Rome and the concept of defensive war more or less affected the development of castles in the Middle Ages. Many medieval castles were built on the abandoned ruins of ancient Roman castles in order to avoid the trouble of digging foundations. /kloc-After 0/4th century, with the birth of the igniter, the castle gradually lost its military function and became a secular residence, but the architectural ideas and styles born when the castle was built in the Middle Ages still seriously influenced it.

The history of the castle is the history of long-term disputes, the history of separatist regimes everywhere, and the history of strong beams resisting each other. For the sake of power and interests, and for the sake of dynasty hegemony, those princes with different ranks and sizes covet each other and guard against each other, and wars are frequent. Under the conditions at that time, the best way to consolidate the territory, base itself on self-protection, or combine attacks is to "build castles." Therefore, this industry is very popular in continental Europe. Year after year, day after day, the princes competed to do their best, cutting mountains and quarrying stones, running around day and night, and castles stood one after another among the beautiful mountains and rivers. In order to build these castles, people have spent countless manpower, financial resources, material resources and time, and countless lives have died. But now, whether it is the overlord of Megatron, the hero of Megatron, or the robber who takes the mountain as the king, all of them are entrusted to the soil with his residual sword and stirrup, and they are gone. Only those castles eroded by wind, frost, rain and snow and baptized by war and gunfire are mottled, and the dilapidated castles tell the past visitors about its past glory.

A castle that is getting stronger and stronger

The development of castles is developed with the development of war technology and economic prosperity.

The first medieval castle in Europe was built in the northwest of France in the ninth century. It was mainly built for civil war and against the sudden attack of Viking. This is a typical and simple mound wall castle. To be exact, it is only the prototype of the castle. The castle of Tu Gang City Wall is built on the high ground made of mud dug during trench digging, surrounded by waterless moat to protect the city. Enclose it with a thick wooden fence with pointed boards. In the meantime, towers will be built every once in a while, and the number of towers depends on the financial resources of the lords. The center of the enclosure is the central fortress of the whole castle, which is the main tower of the castle. To get into the main tower, it needs to be supported by many pillars and cross the trench until it reaches the bridge at the entrance of the upper fence in Tu Gang. Its defense idea is to use wooden walls to resist small attacks. Once the wall is broken, the main tower of the castle is the last line of defense of the castle. In the future, castles with military functions all adopted this structure, including the defensive tactics adopted in the war, and later castles basically did not change much in this respect.

Tu Gang City Wall Castle does not require high construction technology and cost, nor does it require terrain selection. However, its shortcomings are obvious, that is, its firmness can not meet the requirements, and it can only defend against small-scale attacks, and its construction scale is relatively small. Around the 1 1 century, with the development of war technology and the revival of towns, the castles in Tugang City could not meet the defense requirements more and more, so stone castles became popular at this time. The first Crusade greatly promoted the popularity of stone castles in continental Europe. Because a large area of conquered land can only be stationed by a few left-behind knights, the solidity of the castle is extremely emphasized. Inspired by the tall walls and strong fortresses of the Byzantine Empire, knights used stones to build bigger, stronger and more complicated stone castles. These castle architectural patterns were also brought to western Europe by returning knights and soon spread in western Europe. Stone castles generally use stone curtain walls to replace the wooden pointed lath fences around the walls. The curtain wall is built by cutting stones layer by layer, and gaps are left at intervals at the top of the curtain wall to form battlements with holes. There is a square defensive tower every twenty or thirty meters along the curtain wall, which is convenient for archers to shoot and defend the castle. Because the square tower has an obvious shortcoming, that is, its four corners are not inclusive enough and are easy to be destroyed. Therefore, in the 12 century, the technology of Byzantines and Arabs was used for reference, and circular or semi-circular towers were built which were easier to defend. The main tower of the castle has the dual characteristics of the residence of the Lord and the last place, which makes its design extremely exquisite. Early stone castles were generally rectangular, which was due to the consideration of internal layout and comfort. However, as the last line of defense, it also has the disadvantage of insufficient tolerance of four corners, so the construction of the main building of the castle tends to be cylindrical or polygonal, and the inside. There are some simpler designs, just a close-up high wall around the main tower of the square castle, which is called "building a wall". This design of the inner side of the outer ring does not give the enemy any plane display, and the stress points are scattered, which makes it easier to defend, while the interior uses the dome and buttress to carefully design a tall and empty space, which is convenient for living and magnificent.

Reinforced stone castles began to appear after13rd century, and James of St. George, a talented British architect, designed the strongest castle in history. This architectural style is called "Axis Ring Castle". The castle has two concentric walls, which reinforce the outer wall. The inner wall is much higher than the outer wall, in order to give the archers on the inner wall a wider field of vision and shooting range, thus forming a cross fire between the inner wall and the outer wall. A circular tower was built at each of the four corners of the inner ring, so that the importance of the main tower of the castle became unimportant. Later, the main tower was completely omitted, because the well-designed tower and concierge could stand independently even when the enemy attacked the inner wall. A huge lake will be dug around the castle as a moat, and the river will be drawn from other rivers and lakes. Generally, the "axis ring castle" is expanded on the basis of the original old city.

/kloc-after the 0/5th century, the appearance of large caliber artillery made the military position of the castle disappear rapidly, and the military castle was gradually abandoned. On the other hand, due to the liberalization of trade, the arrival of the era of great navigation and the migration of the population in the jurisdiction, all the nobles and the poor began to pursue a more open and comfortable life, and they did not want to huddle in a narrow castle, so the castle became less important.

Housing and Commerce —— The Second Main Line of Castle Development

The castle provides a solid defense for its owners and lords, and it is also where they live. In addition to the lords, there are retainers and a large number of servants to maintain the daily operation of the castle, and of course there are garrisons. Farmers or tenant farmers are scattered in the manor around the castle, crowded in small, simple, dark and damp huts, and only when the war comes, they are crowded in the castle with their livestock and movable property. At that time, John, a British praise poet, described this life in this way: "The rich live in castles and the poor live in huts. God divided them into high and low levels and arranged the rich and the poor. " People at that time were really idealistic.

The architectural style of the castle has always been influenced by its defensive function and residential function. As mentioned above, the design of the inner side of the outer circle of the main building of the castle is also the result of mutual compromise between the two architectural purposes. In the early days of the castle's development, its owner always tried his best to make it more comfortable without destroying its firmness. For example, as mentioned above, domes and buttresses are used inside to carefully design tall and empty spaces. Even so, the life of the nobles is quite primitive. Until the end of 14, the defensive function of the castle gradually lost, and the castle completely took art and life as its development goal, and no longer required firmness. Castles in this era are generally exquisite and luxurious, showing the hedonistic tendency of the nobility.

The Crusades brought luxurious oriental hedonism culture to European aristocrats, large and small, and painted a beautiful vision of paradise on earth. This ideal of pursuing material life strongly aroused the yearning of nobles and knights for a better life, which, of course, was based on the hardships of farmers. Reflected in the construction of the castle, it gradually moved towards refinement and artistry, from pragmatism to artistry. The ruler is indifferent to the power of the people and enjoys himself. Some rulers regard castles as palaces for pleasure, and choose high places with beautiful scenery and convenient bird's eye view (of course, it is not contradictory to build castles on high places for defense). For example, Theodore Kius II, the German-born emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, can be said to be an outstanding representative in this regard. He carefully selected the site for this purpose and built the palace on the top of the mountain by the sea in order to overlook the surrounding scenery and the spectacular sea. Although the enjoyment of these nobles aggravated the hardships of farmers, it also increased the class contradiction between them. However, it promoted the formation of the artistic style of the castle. The truth is a little scary. Behind the exquisite Gothic castle are the blood and tears of serfs. The art of feudalism itself serves the rulers and is based on the suffering of working people at home and abroad.

The normal operation of the life of the Lord and his servants in the castle requires a lot of services and businesses. Generally, in addition to the main building where the Lord lives, there are stables, stoves, storerooms, warehouses, bakeries, laundry rooms, churches and servants' wooden houses in the city walls. The nobles' growing yearning for luxury life put forward higher requirements for business. Cities began to develop around castles by gathering population, developing settlements and forming cities. Cities whose place names end in "-burg" in German all developed from a central castle. For example, Hamburg, the largest port in Germany and the second largest city on the Elbe River; Duisburg is the largest inland port in Europe and the leading steel industry base in Germany, located on the Rhine River. Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-anhalt, is a famous big city. There are countless small and medium-sized cities. The word "Burgess" also came from this. In addition, castles are mostly built in places with convenient transportation and estuaries (for defensive reasons, these places have defensive value), which is very convenient for the development of commercial trade. With the development of trade, these castles gradually formed a trade chain or trade network, which accelerated the formation of its surrounding cities. Especially the castles along the river developed very fast, because the traffic in the Middle Ages was the most convenient in the river. Especially famous, such as the Rhine, Danube and Main.

Business can only develop if there are merchants, but merchants must be mobile and must be recognized as free by law. Although many businessmen are sons of serfs attached to castles, they have actually been liberated by themselves because they left their hometown. In this way, it broke the bondage of land to people in feudal society and prepared for the later capitalism. From this perspective, the development of the castle itself excavated the grave for the feudal society symbolized by the castle.

Of course, the development of castles is not all positive. For example, while maintaining the peace of one side, the castle also increased the confrontation between feudal lords and the central government, which became an obstacle to the formation of a unified nation-state. Moreover, many abandoned castles became the bandits' nests of wandering knights, which not only provided strongholds for the bully lords who ransacked their homes, but also became the portals for feudal lords to set up checkpoints at will and seize business trips, which had a negative impact on commercial circulation and regional economic development.