In video games, books and movies, strongholds like castles and such are constantly patrolled-day and night-by pairs of guards, armed and armored, with others at stations in front of important doorways. Of course, any noise will bring a troop of more guards from the room where they have been waiting for just such an occurrence.
This is obviously ridiculous. Castles were working buildings, and the cost of such security measures would be too high to justify them.
But how well were such places guarded? Were there actual, dedicated guards, or was the possibility of infiltration by a sneaky individual so unlikely as to be ignored?
Medieval castles did indeed have guards; the castellan was in charge of security. The castle guard, or mesnie, included household knights, squires, men-at-arms, a porter, and watchmen. Despite this, even in royal castles/residences break-ins could and did happen. Henry III of England was almost assassinated at Woodstock in 1238 when a knife-wielding man climbed through an open window and made for the king’s bedchamber. Fortunately for Henry, he was spending the night with his queen, Eleanor of Provence, in her bedchamber. A lady-in-waiting, Margaret Bissett, who was saying her prayers, heard the assassin sneaking in, and called for help.
Other people are going to be able to give more detailed answers, but I thought I’d start by pointing out that castles would have different states of readiness. During wartime, I do expect that you’d see guards on patrol and ready to respond to any emergency very quickly. Peacetime would be quite different. (In this sense, it’s not going to be so different from military operations at any place or time in history.)
One important fact is that medieval armies travelled as fast as the slowest soldier could walk. So you’d just need one look-out posted to see an army coming towards you, to give yourself time to get all the other soldiers on guard.
In addition, you’d usually have workers out in the fields around the castle. Since those workers had allegiance to the lord of the castle, if they saw enemy soldiers they’d be able to send one of their number to run to the castle to warn them. (They might all want to run to the castle, since inside the walls would be safer with an enemy army around.)
Usually there’s some sort of guard posted at the gate to watch people going in and out if it’s busy place. I assume if they were expecting trouble, there would be extra vigilance. One of the things done during times of trouble (or routinely) was to clean away the bushes and other cover for a ways outside the walls to watch for intruders.
Plus, usually there was teh outer keep with more of the work-day parts fo a castle - stables, servants quarters, etc - and a an inner, better fortified keep which would have its own guard. Plus, being a more restricted area, there would be a lot less traffic in and out, the gates would probably not be as wide open as the main outer keep gate.
So even if it was easy to use some ruse to get close to and attack the main gate guardpost, odds are the racket and the bystanders would alert teh inner keep/donjon guards, who would close off that part.
OTOH, even vigilance during war was not perfect. Which castle in France was it, that was taken by some soldiers climbing the privy chimneys or whatever they were called? Nice enclosed chimneys leading from the moat to the top of the walls, a little slick but obviously climb-able…
I’m guessing you’re asking about Medieval castles?
I know very little about those, but some of the oldest castle-like fortresses are those from ancient Egypt, and they would actually fill the moats with Nile crocodiles as extra protection.
With no guns, I would suposse a moat filled with crocodiles was very effective keeping unwanted guests out, although of course this would only work in warm places where the cold-blooded reptiles could thrive, and besides they were just as likely to eat your own men as well as the enemy’s…
There’s mentions in a couple medieval chronicles – such as the 12th century *Lamberti Ardensis Historia Comitum Ghisnensium *-- of castle residents, including noble ladies, swimming in the moat on hot summer days!
Peasants from the surrounding environs would often take refuge behind the castle walls. If you were ye olde peasant, you would rightfully be afraid of a marauding foreign army who might burst into your home, seize anything of value, and take liberties with your daughters. This is what happened during the final siege of Chateau Gaillard in winter 1203-4, when the castellan Roger de Lacy evicted the peasantry from the castle (being unable to support them any longer). They couldn’t cross the French lines (who were surrounding the castle) and horribly, many of them starved to death.
I have been to one castle, the Burghausen on the German/Austrian border. I cannot tell you how many were a typical garrison but I can tell you that getting into that fortification, really a series of connected fortifications, would be very difficult. The entire place was a man trap. There was a stair well that ascended from ground level to the last and most fortified section, climbing the stair case you have almost no cover and big sections where you are basically blind, yet the defenders have excellent cover and clear sightlines with multiple fall back points. If an attacker made it through one section and into a section that the defense had used for cover, the attacker would find no cover from the next point. Very cleverly built, great for defense bad for the attackers.
The point being that a small group of men could hold off a very large group of men for a long time at high cost to the assault team. I think that is the point of a castle anyway.
In my travels in Europe, in particular the UK, I’ve seen castles perched on steep hills with 2 foot thick walls that were often times 20 feet high. Sometimes there was a 50 foot wide moat that would be very difficult to cross without being noticed.
The turret or tower windows, if there were any, were too small to climb through but archers inside could point their bows out through them. The entrances (if there was more than one) was easily defended by a few soldiers who would be on the walls or in the Portcullis directly above the drawbridge.
Attacking a castle such as this was no small feat and would have involved dozens or hundreds of well armed men. The design of at least some castles made unauthorized entry difficult if not impossible.
Now if I had an army and could lay siege for months that’s a different story, but a few guys trying to get in wouldn’t be all that easy from what I could tell.
A castle in many ways was designed to have the smallest garrison possible while still being effective. This allowed the castle to outlast enemy sieges by reducing the amount of mouths to be fed. Remember that most warfare in the middle ages was siege warfare. The usual yearly service owed by a knight to his lord was 40 days. This was not always the case, but it shows that sieges didn’t have to last years but just a few months at most before the attacking army evaporated from it’s own hunger and debts of service lapsing. Thus castles were designed with the best possible defenses to allow a few to hold off many.
Not very. If anybody wanted to get in, they were asked Who goes there?, and they replied with first name only, were taken at their word, and if the name was familiar, the moat bridge was lowered. I guess really good lying skills came at a later date.
That, by the by, would have been no exceptional castle. Some of them were incredibly tough, with masonry walls much thicker than a mere two feet and able to resist cannon fire. Some medieval castles held up as late as World War 1 (and a few even formed strongpoints for larger defenses in WW2).
The Marksburg, for instance, lay at the top of a very steep hill. I was in a pack of teens, including several student athletes, who went up that hill. Despite not carrying anything of note, we arrived exhausted and out of breath; now imagine going up it in armor, or trying to get a battering ram up the hill. The walls are extremely thick, and even penetrating the outer defenses might not get you much.
Harlech is, if anything, worse.
Note that in fact, many of these castles were never taken in battle or siege; they only changed hands due to a war settlement or some such.
Fort Ticonderoga was taken very easily by a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold. There were no causalities.
That particular castle/fort had very poor security.
Well, that’s a different thing. After the arrival of gunpowder – specifically, mobile cannons – castles were replaced by forts, which were considerably easier to scale if poorly manned (as was the case at Ticonderoga).
The Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine was garrisoned by 2,000 men when it was occupied by the British during the 18th century. It required a larger complement than most forts because it was built of the patently useless (for defense against heavy guns, anyway) coquina, a sort of limestone filled with bits of seashell.