.    LATER MEDIEVAL EUROPE    .

1000-1500

Architecture of the Middle Ages: Castles

Castles have always fascinated people, especially in modern times. But they were really built for a good reason.

Edinburgh, Scotland. This castle is right in the middle of the town!

The castle of London with its famous tower in the background

Trier Castle in Britain shows us how, with nice refurbishment, the old castles can be brought back to their original state

Chepstow castle in England, a powerful military machine

The great castle of Conway in Wales, with its many towers and advanced design

Sitting high up on a hill in England is the castle of Harlech

The flags wave at Grav in Belgium

Moving to France, here is Angers castle with its amazing gardens

Most large castles had a moat, like this one at Azay, France

Brissac castle in France stands 7 stories high, making it one of the tallest buildings of Medieval times in the world

Loches in France still has its moat and delicate mini-towers, showing that not all castlebuilding was for

military functions!

The castle of Chinon built by King Henry II of England in the 1100's as seen in 'The Lion in Winter'

Castle Mazanares in Spain is clearly built for defense, notice the arrow loops for the archers

Close up of the rock walls of a Spanish castle near Madrid

Zaragoza in Spain has a wonderful view downtown of its castle, from the city hall tower

Castle building was before palace building, as we can see, castles were no palaces in wintertime

Chillon in Switzerland sits on a spit of land on a lake for defense... and for scenery!

Some castles were rounded like this in Austria, to fit the grading of the land and for utility. Notice

the criss-crossing medieval Germanic housing pattern at the left top

This castle in Austria has both round and squared towers, with a gothic style chapel at the centerleft

This castle in south Germany is the one Walt Disney used as a model for Cinderella's castle at Disney World

The real life fairy-tale castle of Neuschwanstein in Germany

Wewelsburg in Germany is where Indiana Jones was filmed when he escaped from the Nazi guards

This castle of Ogrodzieniec in Poland was built in the 1300's- and is totally abandoned

This outstanding Polish castle almost seems to float on the trees, while from tower a person can see for miles

This Polish castle had a fishtank ceiling in its Great Hall, and the owner in the 1600's,

Krzystof Ossolinski, had a pond put in the courtyard for his pet otters and bears.

The castle in Lublin, Poland was built in the 1300's but the outside now dates from the 1800's when

the Russians used it as a prison, then during WWII the Nazis used it to torture freedom fighters

Malbork in north Poland was the headquarters of the Teutonic Knights, who built it in the 1200's

Prague, capital of the Czech Republic sports Hradcany, an entire castle complex almost a mile long

The Czech Republic's famous Hluboka castle with its many windows and high tower

Lining the great rivers in Europe, the Danube, the Thames, the Rhine, the Loire and the Vistula are plenty of

castles. This one dominates the capital city of Slovakia, a small country in Eastern Europe

The Hungarian castle of Visegrad was where the Hungarian kings of the old times

held feasts for nobles and kings from other countries.

The Hungarian castle Esztergom commands the Danube River

The city of Eger, Hungary grows around its old castle, which was once defended successfully by an all woman force,

who defeated a Turkish attack on it in the 1400's while the men were gone.

Ljubljana castle dominates the capital city of Slovenia, a beautiful place that most Americans have not heard of

This is Count Vlad the Impaler's castle in Transylvania, better known as _________

The Greek castle of Meteora, high in the mountains near Olympus

Castle Mir in White Russia has a hard past

The Medieval Town

One can still drive around Europe and find medieval towns in some places

 Artists vision of the medieval town in winter

 Site Design: David Tamm