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Admittedly only skimmed some of the parts, but this one stood out to me: And large castles were incredibly difficult to take. In fact, up until the appearanc

Admittedly only skimmed some of the parts, but this one stood out to me: And large castles were incredibly difficult to take. In fact, up until the appearance and widespread adoption of (relatively) modern gunpowder artillery (late 15th / early 16th century) it was more common for a castle to surrender because it ran out of food. And that could take months or even years, a period during which besieging army would suffer from disease, possibly food shortage, and was vulnerable to relief forces. How was it possible for medieval technology to feed a population for years? Sea access to enable fishing seems the only option, but that seems like a prime target for the attackers to do their best to blockade the port and harass the fishermen.

bsder 3y ago
A castle doesn't necessarily have many people in it. If you have access to water, you can store quite a bit of food for a small number of people. The issue is that an army MUST forage. An army will burn up all the food in an area very quickly--at which point it must move. Now that you are moving, your back flank is vulnerable to the attackers which were in the castle. And you have a bunch of pissed off locals who hate you for eating all their food. There was a reason why "quartering of troops" was explicitly written into the US Constitution.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Not only that, an important thing to consider as the besieging force was to have at least triple the numbers of the garrison defending the castle.[1] So if a castle was garrisoned by a defending force of 2,000, you wanted at least 6,000 men as the besieging force to even stand a chance of winning the siege whether through killing or attrition. And this quickly grows exponentially for the besiegers as the defending force becomes bigger: If the defenders numbered 5,000 men, you wanted 15,000 men as the besiegers. So not only did the besiegers have a harder time fighting compared to the defenders, the logistical requirements and demands for the besiegers was significantly larger than anything the defenders had to deal with. [1]: https://www.quora.com/How-large-of-an-army-unit-in-medieval-times-is-needed-for-a-siege-attack-1 https://www.quora.com/How-large-of-an-army-unit-in-medieval-...
  - persnickety 3y ago
    Nitpick: you mean that it grows linearly, not exponentially.
lmm 3y ago
You don't put the population in the castle, just a fighting force, and you could have enough food (taken from the surrounding country in normal times) stored there to supply them for a year or more.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Castles weren't there to protect the peasants/farmers. They were there to house small military force and the nobility commanding them. Plus relatively tiny amount of workers. Vast majority of population were working farms. And they were taxed heavily enough that those owning the land had the year or two food stored.
  - lmm 3y ago
    Umm yeah that's what I said?
WalterBright 3y ago
Castles were terribly expensive and time consuming to build. Yet they dot the landscape. The only way that could happen is if they were effective.
- consp 3y ago
  They also have survivorship bias. Wooden palisades are effective but tend not to survive time.
  - Tomte 3y ago
    That argument only works in one direction: if castles had been ineffective, they wouldn't have been built so much. Yet every castle surviving is a castle that has been built. There are no castle at present that have never been built.
    - mcv 3y ago
      There are castles that have never played a role in a war, though. One of the most interesting castles in France, Bonaguil, is an almost perfectly designed castle with brilliantly designed defensive systems, but it was built in an area that never saw any major military campaigns. A theory is that the builder built it as a demonstration of his own skill in castle design.
      - willvarfar 3y ago
        It'd be a bit late to build the castle after the major military campaign, so the lack of campaigns doesn't mean the castles wouldn't get built in case of the future eventuality. It might go so far that perhaps the reason the area never saw major military campaigns is because of the defensibility of it's castles?
        mcv 3y ago
        I think most castles are still in the areas that saw the most fighting, although I don't have any good data on that. I know the Dordogne saw a lot of fighting, and it has a lot of castles that got upgraded regularly.
aldarion 3y ago
Castle garrisons were small. Even a large-ish castle probably didn't have garrison larger than 25 - 30. And food doesn't take that much space either. Consider how Age of Sail ships would spend months at sea without resupply, and how a castle has much more space available for storage. And even with medieval technology, you can make food that keeps long: salted, smoked or dried meat; dried fruit; marmelade; hardtack; and so on.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Also, fodder for animals + live animals themselves. Fresh meat provided the defenders with nutrients, plus especially pigs are great "cleaners", they eat just about everything.

bsder 3y ago

A castle doesn't necessarily have many people in it. If you have access to water, you can store quite a bit of food for a small number of people. The issue is that an army MUST forage. An army will burn up all the food in an area very quickly--at which point it must move. Now that you are moving, your back flank is vulnerable to the attackers which were in the castle. And you have a bunch of pissed off locals who hate you for eating all their food. There was a reason why "quartering of troops" was explicitly written into the US Constitution.

Dalewyn 3y ago
Not only that, an important thing to consider as the besieging force was to have at least triple the numbers of the garrison defending the castle.[1] So if a castle was garrisoned by a defending force of 2,000, you wanted at least 6,000 men as the besieging force to even stand a chance of winning the siege whether through killing or attrition. And this quickly grows exponentially for the besiegers as the defending force becomes bigger: If the defenders numbered 5,000 men, you wanted 15,000 men as the besiegers. So not only did the besiegers have a harder time fighting compared to the defenders, the logistical requirements and demands for the besiegers was significantly larger than anything the defenders had to deal with. [1]: https://www.quora.com/How-large-of-an-army-unit-in-medieval-times-is-needed-for-a-siege-attack-1 https://www.quora.com/How-large-of-an-army-unit-in-medieval-...
- persnickety 3y ago
  Nitpick: you mean that it grows linearly, not exponentially.

lmm 3y ago

You don't put the population in the castle, just a fighting force, and you could have enough food (taken from the surrounding country in normal times) stored there to supply them for a year or more.

Ekaros 3y ago
Castles weren't there to protect the peasants/farmers. They were there to house small military force and the nobility commanding them. Plus relatively tiny amount of workers. Vast majority of population were working farms. And they were taxed heavily enough that those owning the land had the year or two food stored.
- lmm 3y ago
  Umm yeah that's what I said?

WalterBright 3y ago

Castles were terribly expensive and time consuming to build. Yet they dot the landscape. The only way that could happen is if they were effective.

consp 3y ago
They also have survivorship bias. Wooden palisades are effective but tend not to survive time.
- Tomte 3y ago
  That argument only works in one direction: if castles had been ineffective, they wouldn't have been built so much. Yet every castle surviving is a castle that has been built. There are no castle at present that have never been built.
  - mcv 3y ago
    There are castles that have never played a role in a war, though. One of the most interesting castles in France, Bonaguil, is an almost perfectly designed castle with brilliantly designed defensive systems, but it was built in an area that never saw any major military campaigns. A theory is that the builder built it as a demonstration of his own skill in castle design.
    - willvarfar 3y ago
      It'd be a bit late to build the castle after the major military campaign, so the lack of campaigns doesn't mean the castles wouldn't get built in case of the future eventuality. It might go so far that perhaps the reason the area never saw major military campaigns is because of the defensibility of it's castles?
      - mcv 3y ago
        I think most castles are still in the areas that saw the most fighting, although I don't have any good data on that. I know the Dordogne saw a lot of fighting, and it has a lot of castles that got upgraded regularly.

aldarion 3y ago

Castle garrisons were small. Even a large-ish castle probably didn't have garrison larger than 25 - 30. And food doesn't take that much space either. Consider how Age of Sail ships would spend months at sea without resupply, and how a castle has much more space available for storage. And even with medieval technology, you can make food that keeps long: salted, smoked or dried meat; dried fruit; marmelade; hardtack; and so on.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Also, fodder for animals + live animals themselves. Fresh meat provided the defenders with nutrients, plus especially pigs are great "cleaners", they eat just about everything.