In a lot of movies, cartoons, etc. I’ve seen old castles or mansions with secret passages or rooms that can be opened by pulling a book from a bookshelf or something similar to that. I can’t think of any examples at the moment… Oh wait, I’m sure I’ve seen this on Scooby Doo and there was a revolving bookcase in Young Frankenstein (I think). Anyway, I want to know if this was something that was commonplace at some point in time, and if not, how did the idea originate.
This also got me thinking about another thing- trap doors. The kind that are secretly triggered and open below where a person is standing, usually leading to a dungeon or something of that sort.
If anyone knows anything about this stuff, please respond.
During periods of religious warfare or persecution in England, concealed rooms or cubbyholes were created in quite ordinary homes to hide members of the clergy, to insure that they, and the whole family, were not executed.
There was certainly a lot of hiding places build not only in castles but also ordinary in houses during troubled times. In most cases, people would simply dig up a “room” under, say, their barn and conceal the entrance. One can can see many of these shelters in really old farms (if you happen to be interested…it’s not really something impressive).
There are also many local accounts (or tales?) about tunnels supposedly dig up to allow people to escape from a besieged castle, and ending in one place or another, sometimes kilometers away from the castle, but when you check them up, assuming that there’s actually something to find, it usually turns up to be merely a tunnel some meters or at most a couple dozen meters long, which actually was originally a storage area or one of these shelters I was refering to. Of course, sometimes, you can’t fully explore them because they’ve collapsed, so you can’t be absolutely certain the tunnel wasn’t actually long enough to be a secret escape way. But the odds are against it.
As for actual “secret passages” with things to pull or push to open them, I would assume there wasn’t a lot of them, because I visited many castles, and i’m pretty certain they would show such a peculiar feature to the visitors. And it happens that I never saw one. However, I heard about two such secret passages which are shown to tourists (But not in middle-age castles…I suppose building such a thing required a technical knowledge people had not at this time. I believe one of them is in a XVII° century castle). So, though such secret passages did exist, IME, they were very uncommon. You could find little hide-outs, say under the floor or behind a large chimney, but these weren’t elaborate secret rooms as depicted in movies/cartoons.
My understanding is that the idea of old castles being riddled with secret passageways, portraits with eye-holes, etc. was a staple of Gothic fiction, and originated with Mysteries of Udolpho.
The point is that having a castle with a secret passage works some excitement into the plot. It is a device used in fiction because it’s exotic and unheard of, except in fiction(!) where it’s quite common. Just as in real life very rarely was someone replaced with a look-a-like to fool the bad guy/enemy it happens all the time in fiction.
There was a hidden door for butlers/housekeeping staff in the movie Remains of the Day. Was that filmed in a real manor house, or on a set? And if the latter, did its hidden door have any basis in reality?
I’ve been taught about “oubliettes” at school, and saw a lot of them in castles. However, it seems that this is essentially folklore. According to modern sources and studies, these “dungeons” were actually (at least in most cases) dug up and used for food storage (the temperature would be rather fresh, even during summer, in these holes) rather than to imprison people. I remember a castle visit which included a speech about the awful fate of the people thrown in the “oubliette” and let there to starve. But when I asked the guide about the possible use of this hole for food storage, she admitted to it, and told me that most probably nobody was ever imprisonned there.
Now, there could have been such a thing as an “oubliette” (which basically is nothing more than a particulary unpleasant prison cell), especially given the etymology of the word (one wouldn’t want to forget about stored food). But in most cases, what is usually called an “oubliette” and shown in medieval castles never was used to imprison people.
I’ve been taught about “oubliettes” at school, and saw a lot of them in castles. However, it seems that this is essentially folklore. According to modern sources and studies, these “dungeons” were actually (at least in most cases) dug up and used for food storage (the temperature would be rather fresh, even during summer, in these holes) rather than to imprison people. I remember a castle visit which included a speech about the awful fate of the people thrown in the “oubliette” and let there to starve. But when I asked the guide about the possible use of this hole for food storage, she admitted to it, and told me that most probably nobody was ever imprisonned there.
Now, there could have been such a thing as an “oubliette” (which basically is nothing more than a particulary unpleasant prison cell), especially given the etymology of the word (one wouldn’t want to forget about stored food). But in most cases, what is usually called an “oubliette” and shown in medieval castles never was used to imprison people.
I should have remembered this story I heard on the radio a couple of weeks ago during the trial, and which is indeed totally on-topic. I found the story really fun, because it really looks like a detective story scenario (a mix of “Sherlock Holmes” and “The name of the rose”.
Though suddenly something baffles me. The link you gave refers to this story happening in France. However, though I’m probably mistaken, I clearly remember that on the radio, they told this story took place in Italy (or perhaps the broadcaster was mistaken).
Interesting. It tried a search for “oubliette” and “food,” but couldn’t come up with anything that discusses this theory. Would you happen to have any links?
It makes some sense. I have seen ice houses in the southern US which served a similar function. They were dug into the earth, and filled with large blocks of ice in the wintertime. Then over the course of the summer, the ice would gradually melt, slowly enough to keep the icehouse cool for storage of dairy products. (The ice could also be chipped for cool drinks in the summer.)
Perhaps the oubliettes served a similar function. Two things bother me about that idea, though. First (as you noted) is the etymology of the word (from oubliere - to forget), which is at least somewhat suggestive of use as a dungeon.
Second is the design of the oubliettes. As I understand it, there were no stairs descending into them, and they had sheer walls. The only access was by trap door. (Did the oubliettes you have seen conform to that design?) Seems like that would make it difficult to retrieve food. I guess it could be raised and lowered on a rope or something.
The ice houses I have seen around here are “walk-ins”.
I’m not arguing with you, by the way, just trying to think it through. I can certainly imagine how a folklore of “dungeons” might have grown up around these mysterious pits.
Hmmm. Upon further review, it looks like “oubliette” is often used interchangeably with the word “dungeon,” whether or not the place of imprisonment is constructed with a trap door and sheer walls.
Which leaves us back at square 2: Were those structures with trap doors and sheer walls used as dungeons or for food storage?
