109 Fun Facts About Castle

The word "castle" comes from the Latin castellum, a diminutive of castrum. What does castrum mean?

The same root gives French château, Spanish castillo and Italian castello.

The word "castle" entered English shortly before which event?

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uses 'castel' in 1051 for strongholds raised by Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor, fifteen years before the Norman Conquest of 1066.

In its simplest terms, what is the academic definition of a castle?

The private and residential part matters: a castle was a home first, which separates it from a fort or a fortified city.

In castle terminology, what is a motte?

A motte is an earthen mound with a flat top, usually artificially raised, that carried a timber or stone tower above the enclosure below.

What is the ditch, wet or dry, that was dug around a castle's walls called?

A moat is the ditch around a castle, wet or dry; its main job was to stop attackers tunnelling under the walls, not to drown them.

A bailey, the fortified enclosure of a castle, is also known by what other name?

A bailey is also called a ward; larger castles had several, such as inner and outer wards, and the lord's best rooms often moved from the tower into them.

The word "bailey" comes from the Norman-French baille, meaning what?

Norman-French baille, or basse-cour, meant a low yard, the enclosed court below the motte; the English word bailey descends from it.

What did medieval people call the great tower, before 'keep' was applied in the 16th century?

Donjon was the medieval name for the great tower; the modern word dungeon is a corruption of it, which is how a lord's grandest tower became a byword for a prison.

What is a portcullis?

A portcullis is a metal-reinforced wooden grille that slid down grooves to seal a gateway; many gatehouses had two, trapping attackers in the passage between.

Which popular belief about murder holes, the openings above a gateway passage, is a myth?

The cost of oil and lead, plus the distance from the gatehouse to any fire, made the classic movie image impractical.

Arrowslits, the narrow vertical openings in castle walls, are also commonly called what?

Arrowslits are also called loopholes or arrow loops; the slit gave the defender a tiny target, though one cut too narrow also cramped the archer's aim.

Arrowslits did not become common in European castle walls until which century?

Arrowslits only became common in European castle walls in the 13th century, since builders feared they would weaken the wall; the East had used them at several levels for far longer.

What were machicolations?

Machicolations are wall-top projections with holes in the floor for dropping objects on attackers below; they did the job of wooden hoardings in permanent stone.

Machicolations were introduced into Western architecture as a result of what?

They had been used in Syria perhaps as early as the first half of the 8th century, long before Western knights saw them.

Which French château, fortified around 950, is the oldest known castle in Europe?

Château de Doué-la-Fontaine in Anjou began as a ground-floor hall around 900 and was raised into a fortified tower around 950, making it the oldest known castle in Europe.

It has been estimated that an average-sized motte would take 50 people roughly how long to build?

An average motte took about 50 people some 40 working days to raise; unskilled labourers could manage it, which is why the design spread so fast after conquests.

The Bayeux Tapestry shows attackers trying to do what to the wooden castle at Dinan?

The Tapestry shows soldiers with torches trying to set the timber castle at Dinan on fire; fire was the great weakness of wooden castles and an argument for stone.

Gunpowder artillery was introduced to Europe in which decade?

Gunpowder artillery reached Europe in the 1320s; the earliest picture of a cannon is in Walter de Milemete's manuscript of 1326, though guns only breached stone walls reliably in the 15th century.

As castles declined, what type of fortification replaced them for military purposes?

Star forts, angular artillery works of the trace italienne, replaced castles as military strongholds; they had no civil role, while lords moved into indefensible country houses.

Which castle is the longest-occupied palace in Europe?

Windsor Castle has housed English monarchs since Henry I in the early 12th century, making it the longest-occupied palace in Europe and the largest inhabited castle in the world.

Neuschwanstein Castle was commissioned by which monarch?

Ludwig II of Bavaria commissioned Neuschwanstein and paid for it from his personal fortune and heavy borrowing rather than state funds, threatening suicide if creditors seized it.

Neuschwanstein was built partly in honour of which composer?

Neuschwanstein was built as a tribute to Richard Wagner, its rooms painted with scenes from his operas such as Tannhäuser and Lohengrin; Wagner died in 1883 without ever visiting it.

The king who built Neuschwanstein lived in it for how many days in total?

The king slept at Neuschwanstein for just 172 days in total before his death in June 1886; the unfinished palace opened to paying visitors seven weeks later.

Neuschwanstein served as the inspiration for the Disneyland castle of which princess?

Neuschwanstein inspired Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle, and later Cinderella Castle; it has also appeared on film in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Great Escape.

Himeji Castle in Japan is nicknamed after which bird?

It is Japan's largest and most visited castle and looks, supposedly, like a bird taking flight.

Who completely rebuilt Himeji Castle between 1601 and 1609 after receiving it from Tokugawa Ieyasu?

Ikeda Terumasa, Ieyasu's son-in-law, was granted Himeji for his service at Sekigahara in 1600 and spent eight years rebuilding it, ringing it with three water-filled ditches.

Himeji Castle was registered as one of Japan's first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in which year?

Himeji was inscribed in December 1993 alongside Hōryū-ji, Yakushima and Shirakami-Sanchi; it survived wartime bombing and the 1995 Kobe earthquake, when a sake bottle on its top-floor altar stayed put.

According to Guinness World Records, which is the largest ancient castle in the world?

Prague Castle, covering almost 70,000 square metres, is the largest ancient castle in Guinness World Records; it has housed kings, Holy Roman emperors and Czech presidents.

Which Polish castle is the largest in the world measured by land area?

Malbork Castle in northern Poland is the world's largest castle by land area; it was the world's largest brick castle when completed in 1406 and became a UNESCO site in 1997.

Which crusading order built the brick fortress of Marienburg, now in northern Poland?

The Teutonic Knights, a German crusading order founded at Acre in the 1190s, began the castle in 1274 and named it Marienburg after Mary, mother of Jesus.

In 1457, who sold the fortress of Marienburg to King Casimir IV of Poland?

The Order's unpaid Bohemian mercenaries handed Marienburg to Casimir IV in lieu of their wages in 1457; it then served as a Polish royal residence until the partition of 1772.

Which Romanian castle is marketed abroad as "Dracula's Castle"?

Bran Castle near Brașov is sold to tourists as Dracula's Castle, although there is no evidence Bram Stoker knew of it and Vlad the Impaler is not known to have lived there.

Krak des Chevaliers in Syria was given in 1142 to which military order?

Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, handed it over, and the order rebuilt it into what T. E. Lawrence called perhaps the best preserved castle in the world.

How did the Mamluks reportedly persuade the garrison of Krak des Chevaliers to surrender in 1271?

The siege had lasted 36 days, and the fake order to give up did what the siege engines could not.

Edinburgh Castle stands on the plug of what?

Castle Rock is the plug of an extinct volcano that erupted about 350 million years ago, in the lower Carboniferous; glaciers later scraped away the softer rock around it.

Edinburgh Castle's One O'Clock Gun is fired daily except on Sundays, Christmas Day and which other day?

The One O'Clock Gun is silent on Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas Day; it began in 1861 as a time signal for ships in the Firth of Forth.

What is Mons Meg, displayed at Edinburgh Castle?

The great bombard was delivered to Edinburgh in 1457 and was returned from the Tower of London in 1829.

Research in 2014 identified how many sieges of Edinburgh Castle in its 1,100-year history?

The 2014 study counted 26 sieges over 1,100 years, giving Edinburgh Castle a claim to being the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in the world.

In which year did William the Conqueror begin the White Tower at the Tower of London?

William the Conqueror began the White Tower in 1078, using Caen stone from Normandy for its dressings; Londoners resented it as a symbol of Norman oppression.

At least how many ravens are kept at the Tower of London at all times?

At least six ravens must be kept at the Tower, with a spare or two; legend says the kingdom will fall if they leave, and a Yeoman Warder, the Ravenmaster, tends them.

The Crown Jewels have been on public display at the Tower of London since which year?

The Crown Jewels have been shown to the public since 1669, two years before Colonel Blood tried to steal them; the present Jewel House in the Waterloo Block opened in 1994.

Who gave the Tower of London a polar bear in 1252 that fished in the Thames on a chain?

Haakon IV, King of Norway, sent the bear in 1252; the sheriffs of London paid fourpence a day for its keep and it fished in the Thames on a long chain.

The Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley was commissioned by which French king?

Francis I began Chambord in 1519 as a hunting lodge, yet he spent barely seven weeks there in total during his reign.

What is the celebrated centrepiece of the Château de Chambord, sometimes attributed to Leonardo da Vinci?

The open double-spiral staircase at Chambord's heart lets two people climb at once without meeting, glimpsing each other only through small openings; Leonardo, who died in 1519, may have designed it.

How many staircases does the Château de Chambord have?

Chambord has 84 staircases, 440 rooms and 282 fireplaces; Henry James thought its roofline of towers and chimneys looked like a whole city.

Whose body was reportedly found and reburied on Edward I's orders during the building of Caernarfon Castle?

The Flores Historiarum says the body of Emperor Magnus Maximus was found in 1283 and reburied on Edward I's orders; Caernarfon's banded walls deliberately echo the imperial walls of Constantinople.

The Alhambra palace and fortress complex is in which Spanish city?

The Alhambra crowns the Sabika hill above Granada in Andalusia; building began in 1238 and the complex became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

The Alhambra was begun in 1238 by Muhammad I Ibn al-Ahmar, the first emir of which dynasty?

Muhammad I founded the Nasrid dynasty, whose emirs kept enlarging the Alhambra until their emirate fell in 1492; Charles V later planted a Renaissance palace beside their work.

Bodiam Castle in Sussex was built in 1385, ostensibly to defend against invasion from which country?

Its shallow moat was probably more about looking impressive than stopping miners, and the site had little strategic value.

Which Danish castle is immortalised as Elsinore in Shakespeare's Hamlet?

Kronborg at Helsingør is Shakespeare's Elsinore; Hamlet was first staged there in 1816, and on-site Hamlets have included Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi and Jude Law.

Chillon Castle on Lake Geneva is famous for imprisoning which Genevan monk and historian in 1530?

François de Bonivard, prior of St Victor in Geneva, was held in Chillon's dungeon from 1530 until a Bernese army took the castle in 1536; Byron's poem made him famous.

The much-photographed Eilean Donan in the Scottish Highlands was originally a stronghold of which clan?

Their allies the Macraes acted as bodyguards, earning the nickname "Mackenzie's shirt of mail".

The Hohenzollern Castle in Germany that stands today is which castle on that hilltop site?

The present castle is the third on the site: the first was destroyed in 1423 and the second fell into ruin, before Frederick William IV built this one between 1846 and 1867.

How many original tenshu (main keeps) survive in Japan?

Twelve original tenshu survive, including Matsumoto's, a National Treasure; the rest were lost to Meiji-era demolition, wartime bombing or fire and later rebuilt in concrete.

Which Welsh castle's water defences, made by flooding a valley, are among Europe's largest?

Caerphilly, begun by Gilbert de Clare in 1268, covers more than 30 acres; damming a stream created artificial lakes that rank among the most elaborate water defences in Britain.

Master James of Saint George, Edward I's castle designer, built which castle?

Beaumaris on Anglesey, begun in 1295, was Master James's last Welsh castle; his letter of 1296 asked for 400 masons, 2,000 labourers, 200 quarrymen and 30 boats bringing stone.

Dover Castle cost about how much to build between 1181 and 1191?

Dover's works of 1181–1191 cost about £7,000, a vast sum when a very small tower like Peveril cost around £200 and a great castle could swallow the income of several manors.

What is the fortified outwork of rampart, ditch and tower built in front of a castle gatehouse called?

A barbican was an outwork of rampart, ditch and tower built before the gatehouse in the later Middle Ages; it forced attackers along a single, exposed approach to the gate.

How tall was the stone tower at Château de Langeais, built in France in 992?

The Langeais tower stood 16 metres high and 17.5 metres across, with walls averaging 1.5 metres thick holding about 1,200 cubic metres of stone.

King John brought down a corner of Rochester Castle's keep in 1215 by burning the fat of forty what?

Pigs supplied the fuel: John ordered forty of the fattest sent at speed, the blaze went into a mine dug under the south-east corner, and that corner of the keep collapsed.

In a medieval castle, the small chamber known as a garderobe most commonly served as what?

A toilet is what the word usually means in a castle: a simple hole emptying down the outside wall, although a garderobe was first a secure store for clothes and valuables.

Leeds Castle stands not in the Yorkshire city of Leeds but near Maidstone in which English county?

Kent is the home of Leeds Castle, built on islands in a lake beside a village also called Leeds, and Henry VIII remodelled it for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Which Northumberland castle stood in for Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter films?

Alnwick Castle is the lived-in seat of the Dukes of Northumberland, and its turn as Hogwarts in 2001 and 2002 brought a surge of public interest.

Kissing a stone set in the battlements of which Irish castle is said to bring the gift of eloquence?

Blarney Castle, near Cork, asks a lot of its visitors: to reach the stone they must climb to the top and lean over backwards on the edge of the parapet.

Which stately home, seat of the Earls of Carnarvon, is the main filming location of Downton Abbey?

Highclere Castle also holds an Egyptian collection, because its 5th Earl employed Howard Carter in the search for the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Hever Castle was the childhood home of which queen, later beheaded by her husband Henry VIII?

Anne Boleyn spent her early youth at Hever, and after her execution Henry gave the castle to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, in their annulment settlement.

Which chess piece, often nicknamed a castle, joins the king in the special move called castling?

The rook is the only piece that castles with the king, and modern chess writing treats "castle" as an informal, old-fashioned name for it.

A 12th-century tale set the conception of which legendary figure at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall?

King Arthur was placed at Tintagel by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and a century later an Earl of Cornwall built the castle there to link himself to the legend.

The ruined Urquhart Castle, whose garrison blew up its own gatehouse, overlooks which Scottish loch?

Loch Ness stretches below the headland where Urquhart Castle stands, and its garrison wrecked the gatehouse themselves so that Jacobites could not move back in.

Which future king was invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle by his mother, the Queen?

Charles III followed a precedent set in 1911, when the future Edward VIII was invested there at the urging of David Lloyd George, a Welshman raised nearby.

Which monarch was crowned as a baby at Stirling Castle after the death of her father, James V?

Mary, Queen of Scots had been brought to Stirling Castle for safety that summer and was crowned in its chapel royal when she was only months old.

Which Scottish castle, bought by Prince Albert in 1852, is where Elizabeth II died in 2022?

Balmoral was bought from the Farquharson family for Queen Victoria's household, and Albert himself amended the architect's designs for the new house.

The Yeomen Warders, ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London, are better known by what nickname?

Beefeaters is a nickname of uncertain origin that the warders share with the Yeomen of the Guard, a separate corps of royal bodyguards.

Allied officers held in which German castle secretly built a glider in its attic in World War II?

Colditz held officers who kept escaping from other camps, and their glider was never flown because the castle was liberated soon after it was finished.

Which Scottish castle played Winterfell in Game of Thrones and Castle Leoch in Outlander?

Doune had already hosted Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which used its halls and kitchen for several different castles after other owners withdrew permission.

Which Russian word, meaning a fortress within a city, names citadels in Kazan, Novgorod and Moscow?

Kremlin is a general word, and many historic Russian cities have one of their own; Moscow's became so famous that the word alone can mean the Russian government.

According to Polish legend, which creature had its den in the hill beneath Wawel Castle in Kraków?

A dragon is said to have plagued Kraków until it was tricked into swallowing bait stuffed with sulphur, a ruse that one later telling credits to a cobbler.

Tunnels in the cliffs under Dover Castle were the headquarters for which World War II operation?

The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo, was directed by Admiral Bertram Ramsay from tunnels first dug as barracks during the Napoleonic Wars.

Which reformer hid in Wartburg Castle as Junker Jörg while translating the New Testament?

Martin Luther turned the New Testament into German in about ten weeks at the Wartburg, where legend has him hurling an inkwell at the Devil.

Which Shakespeare title character is thane of Glamis, the Scottish seat where the Queen Mother grew up?

Macbeth is thane of Glamis in the play, although the historical ruler of that name, who died in 1057, had no connection to the castle at all.

Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo, later a papal fortress, began as the tomb of which Roman ruler?

Hadrian commissioned the huge drum as a mausoleum for himself and his family, and the popes later turned it into a castle dedicated to the Archangel Michael.

Which English king built Château Gaillard above the Seine in just two years to defend Normandy?

Richard I, the Lionheart, began it in 1196, but within a decade the fortress had fallen to Philip II after a lengthy siege.

Edo Castle, seat of the Tokugawa shoguns, stood at the heart of which modern Japanese city?

Tokyo is the modern name of Edo, and after the last shogun resigned the castle grounds became the Imperial Palace.

Predjama Castle in Slovenia, seat of a notorious robber baron, is built into the mouth of what?

A cave gave the outlaw Erasmus of Lueg a refuge when he fled the vengeance of Frederick III, though the story ends with him killed after a long siege.

Which walled city restored by Viollet-le-Duc gave its name to a tile-laying board game?

Carcassonne nearly lost its ramparts: an 1849 decree to demolish them caused an uproar, the government backed down, and Viollet-le-Duc was brought in to restore them.

Which English city takes its name from a fortress built in 1080 by a son of William the Conqueror?

Newcastle began as the 'New Castle upon Tyne' that Robert Curthose raised in timber on his way home from a campaign in Scotland.

The corridors of Nijō Castle in Kyoto are famous for chirping floors named after which songbird?

Nightingale floors chirp because their nails rub against a clamp as the boards flex, and a sign at the castle says the sound was never intended as an alarm.

Which author died before he could finish 'The Castle', a novel published against his wishes in 1926?

Franz Kafka had told his friend Max Brod to destroy all his unpublished work, but Brod set about publishing it instead.

Which annual August spectacle of massed bands is performed on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle?

The Military Tattoo fills temporary grandstands on the castle esplanade each evening of its run, and around 220,000 people a year watch it live.

Which warlord began Osaka Castle in 1583, planning a gold-leafed tower to outdo Oda Nobunaga's?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi finished the castle in 1597 and died a year later; by 1614 Tokugawa Ieyasu was besieging the Toyotomi clan inside it.

Castel del Monte, the Apulian castle on Italy's one-cent euro coin, is famous for which ground plan?

Octagonal throughout, with an eight-sided tower at each corner, it was built in the 1240s by Frederick II, whose many other Apulian castles look nothing like it.

Which Welsh castle's seven-year stand in the Wars of the Roses is remembered in a famous song?

Harlech was held by the Lancastrians until Yorkist troops forced its surrender in 1468, the stand commemorated in the march "Men of Harlech".

What name is given to the deliberate wrecking of castles, widespread after the English Civil War?

Slighting was rarely blind destruction: because a castle was a home and an office as well as a stronghold, the wreckers weighed which of those roles to end.

Which rival of King Stephen is said to have slipped out of besieged Oxford Castle dressed in white?

Empress Matilda, in the popular telling, waited for the mill stream to freeze and crossed the snow in white as camouflage, slipping past Stephen's sentries at night.

Lady Mary Bankes led the defence of which Dorset castle through two sieges in the English Civil War?

Corfe was among the last royalist strongholds in southern England when it finally fell to an assault, and Parliament then ordered it wrecked.

Which architect, the first woman licensed in California, spent more than two decades building Hearst Castle?

Julia Morgan was first asked only for something more comfortable on the family's hilltop, a commission that grew into a castle under almost continual construction.

What was Warwolf, which Edward I ordered built for his 1304 siege of Stirling Castle?

A trebuchet believed to be the largest ever made, Warwolf filled thirty wagons in pieces, and by some accounts Edward insisted on testing it even after the garrison gave up.

The oubliette, a cell entered only by a ceiling hatch, is named after a French verb meaning what?

To forget is the sense of the verb oublier, apt for a basement room whose only way in or out was a hole high overhead.

On a castle battlement, what is each solid upright block between the gaps called?

A merlon gave an archer cover, the gap beside it is a crenel, and a run of the two is what makes a parapet crenellated.

What did the fletcher of a medieval castle make for its garrison?

Arrows were the fletcher's trade: strictly, the craftsman fitted the feather vanes, called fletchings, that keep a shaft flying straight.

What title was held by a noblewoman who attended a queen as a companion rather than a servant?

Lady-in-waiting was a post for women of rank, usually a step below the mistress they attended, who acted as her secretary, courtier and confidante.

After serving as a page from the age of seven, a boy training for knighthood rose to which rank?

Squire comes from a word for shield bearer, and from about fourteen the boy saddled horses and looked after a knight's weapons and armour.

The medieval butler's title comes from an Old French word for the officer in charge of what?

Wine bottles gave the butler his name, and his storeroom, the buttery, was named for its casks of drink and had nothing to do with butter.

In Tudor England, what did a gong farmer dig out and cart away, permitted to work only at night?

Human waste from cesspits was the gong farmer's load, work thought so off-putting that those who did it were nicknamed nightmen.

Which officer of a medieval castle bore a title that originally meant 'horse servant'?

The marshal began as a stable keeper, and as such men became trusted members of medieval courts the title climbed until it named the highest military ranks.

The mews of a medieval castle, a word later used for stables, first housed which animals?

Hawks were confined in a mews while they moulted, and the stable sense arose only because royal stables in London were built on a former hawk mews.

Besides castellan, what title was held by the officer who governed a medieval castle for its lord?

Constable comes from a late Roman title meaning count of the stables; in a castle the post covered the garrison, the defences and justice over the surrounding lands.

What was the duty of an almoner, a chaplain or church officer in a great medieval household?

Giving money to the poor was the almoner's office, and the title descends from the same Greek word that produced "alms".

Which title for the mistress of a castle later named a waist chain hung with keys and scissors?

Chatelaine first meant only the lady of the castle, who wore her keys at her belt; the ornamental chain that borrowed the name came much later.