I can't even begin to imagine how long it took to gather all this information on castles.

I did watch till the end because i love history. Of any kind. Never knew the diference between fort - castel - palace. So thank you, atleast i learned something new today :D

the castle is an endlessly fascinating subject. not only its layout and the way it changed over time. but also the politics surrounding them and the locations they got built.

Everytime you post it's BANGER content. Love the thematic background music

I was kinda wondering that myself. Thank you Doug. Question when are you getting a castle? You deserve one.

I love the Midevil Total War music. This video was fantastic.

I'm researching castles for my school project, and I found your point that castles shifted into palaces and forts very interesting.

Very fascinating video. I'd be interested in learning more about the societal changes that led to castles no longer being used as places of residence by the nobility. The time period of castles being replaced by "bastion forts" seems to match up with the rise of absolute monarchy in Europe

Mice summary. And a very nice set of examples castles. Beale and that Italian city,/Castle in particular. Not everyone bails before the end...some of us are actually interested in the minutiae of the channel 😎👍

Spectacular video and lots of information packed in it. And yes, I watch right to the end

You left out one type of castle. The bouncy castle. lol

Ah that medieval 2 music in the background

I watched through, sir. I would’ve been happy for an explanatory outro!🙂

Fascinating video my dude and yes, I do watch till the end😎👍

I feel like from a societal point of view the move away from serfdom and, much later, the movement of people from the countryside to cities, made having large fortified administration centres less cost effective for landowners to upkeep

Excellent video Doug, I never knew..!

Great video. Loved it

Lord Doug has a certain ring to it.

the "giant arrow" seems to be the deflagration instead...

Don’t forget to like and comment to appease the almighty algorithm 😁👍🏼

That was outstanding. Thank you.

I would still argue that yes, they did, even if it wasn't overnight process via how much the design of fortifications changed, to the point that a lot ofl atter fortifications wouldn't really be recognised as a castle even by a person from late mediaeval period, and those that bear stronger resemblance declines in numbers. The fact that there's much discussion on whenever certain structures even count as a castle or nor after the growth of artillery in prominence in my opinion supports that notion. Still, great video, though I am slightly disappointed in its a bit eurocentric presentation, as the Ottoman sultanate adopted artilery train pretty early and famously used it very well in 1400s.

the trebuchet was the first medieval weapon replaced by gun power weapons due to the invention of cannons.

When the State took over the forming of the army. their was no real point for a Nobleman to build a defensive structure around his home. So you get a split between the forts and the noblemans estates.

The Castle converted to the Fort.

Long live Lord Brian!

Nice. A new Doug video

fort+palace=castle

My father in-law came from Palmanova

The overall picture you paint is really interesting and quite correct, but I hope you don't mind I give some constructive critique. The description of late 14th century siege artillery, and siege warfare in general, comes across as a bit haphazard. Although you say this yourself, the pictures you use as a handhold for this part of the video come from the 1460ies and 70ties, a century after the sieges they depict. Yet you take them as depictions of the by then outdated style of warfare. Unfortunately, they’re not. The Flemish illuminators working on them had no idea of how their ancestors fought their sieges, but rather depicted these events with the most up-to-date weaponry of their own time. Late 14th century siege warfare was quite different. Gunpowder artillery was already very prominent, but they still shared the scene with counterweight engines like the trebuchet and Couillard and they were the same (rather small) guns as used during field battles. The most important developments would come in the early 15th century with new forms of gunpowder, which allowed for safer firing, higher projectile acceleration (stone balls, the arrows of the middle and late 14th century were no longer in use), a growing size of artillery trains and a growing differentiation between types of cannon. The bombard, the siege piece par excellence, was developed in this period. At the siege of Calais in 1436, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, brought with him in excess of 300 artillery pieces of varying sizes. Discussing only castles in this regard also leaves out an important factor in the arms race between gunpowder and static defences which took place in the 15th century. If we look at the mainland, and especially France, Burgundy, the Netherlands and Italy, it is very clear that castles rapidly lose their status as a viable means of defence. This is because contrary to what many people believe, most castles were no huge complexes but rather small fortifications designed as staging posts for the cavalry warfare of the high Middle Ages. These buildings were easily destroyed by siege artillery. During the Ghent Revolt (1449-1453) for example, the Ghent militia occupied a series of small castles as a defensive perimeter against the army of the Philip the Good against whom they rebelled. These were quickly blown to pieces and the war was decided in a pitched battle at Gavere, which the Ghentenaars lost because of a fallen fuse detonating their stock of gunpowder for field artillery. Maybe surprisingly, the bombard also disappears in this period as it is replaced with large variants of cannon types that look more like what we see in the 16th century, like serpentines and veuglaires. Continuing to use the example of the Burgundian artillery train, Philip's son and successor, Charles the Bold, barely had to contend with castles in his many wars against France, the Holy Roman Empire, the duchy of Lorraine and finally and terminally, the Swiss Confederacy. The centrepieces of all these campaigns were invariably long drawn sieges of cities. Were the average castle proved impossible to withstand Burgundian siege artillery, the urban sieges of the 1460ies and 70ies rarely culminated in a victory for the besieging army. This had to do with a few factors. Firstly and as had always been the case with sieges in the Middle Ages, even large armies rarely exceeded the 20,000 soldier mark, making it very difficult to totally encircle a the miles long perimeter of a city. Secondly, the large population of a city gave it the advantage that it could quickly prepare earthen defenses when an army approached. The most important among these were earthwork bastions in front of gate houses, mostly filled with gunpowder artillery of its own, and sandhills raised against the inside of the city walls. Artillery projectiles where not yet explosive in this period, and battering down a wall section did not involve chipping solid pieces out of the wall (like what happens in Medieval II Total War for example) but putting continuing stress on the masonry until the succession of impacts made it tremble and collapse (somewhat like the glass of the office building in the Matrix rippling and shattering after Neo’s helicopter crashes into it). Because sand absorbed this impact, artillery batterings had less impact than they would on free standing walls, making actual breaches quite a rare occurrence . So while castles became obsolete in this period, sieges did not. They just moved to cities, which were virtually impregnable. In my discussion, I spoke mainly about Western mainland Europe and the principality of Burgundy, which I know most about, so please correct me if you think this is not fitting for other regions. Not talking about England or Scotland in this period also has another region, as it is not representative of the broader developments I just sketched. While mainland Europe experienced an almost continual upward trend in artillery technology and numbers, England lagged behind and even experienced a gunpowder decline because of the Wars of the Roses that shattered the central state resources needed to maintain a modern artillery train. It was only during the reign of Henry VIII that England started to come close to catching up with France. Scotland, being a rather small and less prosperous state, also suffered from a lack of economies of scale. The Scottish bombard mentioned in the video for example, was not a local product, but a gift of the aforementioned Philip the Good of Burgundy. Another problem I noticed is a lack of clear geographical and chronological references, especially when it comes to the development of the bastion and star fort. Apart from glancing references to Elizabeth I and Henry VIII, I got the impression that you placed the inception and construction of these fortifications in the 15th century, as all your previous discussions focussed mainly on that century and the preceding one. This is technically not incorrect, but I think you should make clear that starting from the 1450ies, there were experiments (mainly in Italy and spreading through Europe during the following decades) with different kinds of anti-gunpowder defences, which only gave rise to the (star-)fortress in the 16th century. This was the culmination of the complex development sketched above. High medieval warfare had been dominated by small skirmishes, raids and set piece sieges of castles. In the 14th and 15th century, this changed as castles could not stand up against gunpowder artillery. Pitched battles became more and more important, while city sieges were frequently attempted but rarely decisive. This was, however, only a lull of a few decades. In the 16th centuries, battles became larger and sieges more and more complex. Field battles had become bloody gambles of unseen proportions while earthwork defenses were capable of withstanding artillery barrages with ease. Unsurprisingly, generals opted more and more for a defensive form of warfare and sieges once more became the dominant form of battle. The bastion was a technology that was mainly used to defend cities, while fortresses served as logistical and strategic nodes in the manoeuvre warfare of this period. They did become more and more important at the close of the century, as star fortress design matured into its own. References: - Smith, R. D., & DeVries, K. (2005). The artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy, 1363-1477. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. - Kelly DeVries, “Gunpowder weaponry and the rise of the early modern state”, War in History, 5/2, 1998, 127-145. - Parker, G. (2004). The army of Flanders and the Spanish road 1567-1659: The logistics of Spanish victory and defeat in the Low Countries' wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. I hope this was useful and not too much of an info dump :D

did the English started colonising during Henry VIII's time?

Excellent video, Doug! I love the topic and your narration. You're like a less grating, less climate change denial-y Lindybeige :D