Success in warfare during the Middle Ages
depended on one thing and one thing only...can you break through
your enemies' castle walls?
When you get right down to it, the main focus of all war efforts
during the Middle Ages was the castle and the keeps' walls.
The only way to get at your enemy was to bust down the walls
that protected them or to cause destruction on the other side of
the walls. Despite being coined "The Dark Ages", the
Medieval era was certainly one of innovation, from the arts to
weapon making to the art of warfare weapons.
Since most warriors died in combat whether they were mortally
injured or not, most generals and knights tried the siege
technique on their assailants instead. Siege was basically
building up your castle or villages' walls so they are tall
enough that no one can climb them, strong enough that people
cannot break them down, and sturdy enough to hold up against
repeated attacks. Then, you and your villages stay inside
the walls and wait for your attackers to run out of supplies and
leave. This proved to be a rather successful way of
defending one's self, however, the concept of siege can easily
be turned against you. Sometimes the attackers were the
ones to wait until those inside the castle walls ran out of
supplies. But, as you can imagine, this whole process took
months and sometimes years to complete successfully.
Because of how the feudal system was set up, most castle walls
enveloped a village and plots of land--making it somewhat easy
to sustain a whole village within the safety of the walls.
This is why knights and other medieval warriors to devised
schemes and warfare weapons to use to infiltrate the protection
of the castle walls. Though the trebuchet, or catapult was
not invented during the Middle Ages (it was actually first
invented during the Classical period in Greece), it's mechanics
were perfected during the supposed Dark Ages. Besides
trebuchets, many other great war machines were invented to break
down the castle walls. There were enormous battering rams
that took 50 stout men to carry to knock down the castle doors.
Also perfected were siege towers, which consisted of basically
just a tower on wheels. Inside the tower, there were
archers and swordsmen at the ready hiding behind narrow slatted
windows. The tower brought them up above the castle wall
so they could rain down arrows and blows to the interior of the
castle walls.
Medieval siege weapons were certainly no joke. Artisans
tried to make them as destructive as they could possibly be, so
you can find replicas with a multitude of sharp spikes and other
lovely dangerous weapons. If they couldn't break through
the castle walls, with a terrifying siege weapon, you could just
scare your enemies to death.
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