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How Castles Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Chuck Jerry's over to my right. That would make
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: this Stuff you Should Know the most overheated, cramped, smelly,
• 0:22
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• 0:25
  Speaker 1: no overheated, because we were number three today in front
• 0:28
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• 0:32
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• 0:35
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• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Ira Glass. Let's just say that because people are gonna say,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: why don't you like this American life? I know that's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the that's the problem with having such a substantial library
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of podcast So when we go back, like fifty episodes
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and revisit a joke, only the really hardcore s Y
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: s K listeners know what we're talking about. You know.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: The people send an email and they get fifty episodes
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: back and they're like, h right, I wish I would
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: have held my tongue. Can we get on with this? Yeah,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: let's do it. Chuck did you ever? Were you ever?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: In the he man arguably the most homo erotic action
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: figure created that was I was a little old for that. Well,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it was right in my wheelhouse, as you would say.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: And I had a little toy that I like to
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: call Castle Gray School because that's what the manufacturers called it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Do you have you seen this? I've heard of it all.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It was. It was pretty awesome. The cartoon was horrendous.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Did you watch the cartoon? I was, I was too
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: old for that. How many times do you have to
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: go over my age? I don't know. Have you ever
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: heard of the Base City Rollers? I know them personally. Um. Anyway,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I had this little toy called Castle Gray School, and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it was this big plastic castle and it was pretty awesome.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It had embattlements, it had um tower, had towers, had
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it even had a little overhang hanging off the back
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: um and then the the front entrance the tunnel was
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a mouth with fangs coming down. And it was just
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: generally one of the cooler toys I own, to tell
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: you the truth. And now that I've read how castles work,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I could where I'd go back in time, stand next
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to my younger self and be like, this is the tower.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: This is Carl called the pork cullis, this is a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: murder hole, and don't start smoking. Yes, that's I would
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: say that to young self. Oh my god, if there's
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: one thing I could go back and change, well, if
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I had like three or four things I could go
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: back and change, smoking would definitely be one of them. Yeah,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: it'd be taller. Uh oh wait, things you can really change.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I don't. Time travel is no effect on your height.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I would tell myself to grow taller. Okay, just when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I still have the chance. Yeah, So let's talk castles, Chuck, okay, Josh.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The word castle, like everything almost it's Latin, comes from
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the word castell um, which means a fortified place. That's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: exactly what it is, and the French shortened it lazy
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: French people that they are from castellum to castle it
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: means the same thing. Uh. And castles are actually very
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: specific buildings. There's very specific speed features to them that
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: make a castle of castle um. They're generally European, although
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: there are some castle castles found in like the Middle
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: East in Japan, but for the most part they were
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: European in origin. In Germany, ten thousand of them in
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Germany alone, and they only actually existed for about five
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: hundred years. Are they only underwent construction for about five
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: hundred years during the High Middle Ages from the tenth
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to fifteen centuries. Yeah. So let's talk about the history
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: of castles, and and not just historic castles, but the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: beginning of castles. Where did they come from? Chuck? Well, Josh,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: they evolved from the ancient walled cities back in like
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Troy and Babylon and Jericho. They would have big walls
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: around on their cities for fortification. So it of all
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: from that into Uh. The first ones were called a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: grod I believe is how you pronounce that, or a groad,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and that consisted of basically wooden and earthen walls and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: then a gate with a moat around it. And that
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: would become one of the hallmarks of the castle was
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the moat. Yeah, you have to have a moat or
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: else it's just not a castle. It depended on the terrain.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Sometimes if you're on like a rocky peak, you didn't
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: have a moat because you couldn't and you didn't need it.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: But most castles are known for having moats. Yeah. That's
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: thank you for the correction, Chuck, love to be corrected. Uh,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: There's another kind of castle that um eventually became part
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: of the modern and by modern I mean High Middle
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Ages castle called a bird Freed, which you may suspect
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: as German, but it's actually based on a Roman design
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that they would use these watch towers along their frontier,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and those became the towers of later castles. Uh right, Josh.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I believe that brings us to number three, which was
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the Motte and Bailey castle. And that consisted of a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: mound which is the Mott, and that's within the open
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: courtyard which was the bailey, and that, of course, as always,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: is enclosed by a wall and a fortified gate. That's
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the key. Right. So you put all these things together,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: fill them with bloodthirsty knights and pooping horses, and you
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: have the castle as we as we recognize and love it,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the whole property. Yeah. Okay, so Mr smarty pants, you
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: don't always have to have a moat, right, but most
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of them did have modes, right, So you had a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: moat which is really just a ditch dug around the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: outer wall of the castle. Yeah. What I love about castles, dude,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: sorry to interrupt, is everything is so rudimentarily genius. He
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: sounded like me just now. It was all just genius.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: But it was so basic. They were like, well, we
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: don't people get in, so let's take a big ditch
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: around it. Well, let's build a big door with a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: big brace behind it. Yeah. Yeah, and if you there
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: seems to be a lot of um murderousness during this time.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It was very violent time. Um, so the most of
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the technology and ingenuity was based towards effectively killing people
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: in the most horrific ways you could imagine. Right, So
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the moat that was used to keep people out right,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and if it were you could fill it with water.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Everybody filled it with sewage human and otherwise. Right, you
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: don't see that in the movie. No you don't, because
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I can you imagine how badly that smelled. Um. And
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: if you had you could keep it dry, although again
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you would fill it with sewage anyway, and if you
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: kept it dry likely you would um bury sharpened steaks
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: coming out at all angles. So you could push people
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: into it and be like sinauris sucker, That's what they
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: would say in Japan. Yeah, so you got your moat,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you got your drawbridge, which you know lower the drawbridge
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: extends over the moat, you can get in and out
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: of the castle, and you've got that. You have the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: outer walls, right, and the outer wall actually, um, all
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: castles have outer wall, some have inner walls. We'll get
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to that in a second. But the outer walls are
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: actually two walls, right, um. So you have the one
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: wall and then a space and then another wall, and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: then in between the two walls you fill with you
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: backfill with rubble or stone or gravel or something to
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: really make these things just like brick houses right right.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And then some castles even had an outer outer wall
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: called a shield wall, which was even taller, right, so
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: people could walk along the inside wall, right and not
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: have their head lopped off with the flaming arrow exactly,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: which is true. They yeah, they did. That was a
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: lot of things were made of wood, um, especially in
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the early days of castles, and this would would probably
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: be pretty well, it's like a big tinder box is
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: what you were walking around in, So flaming arrow goes
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a long way. Yeah, it's very effective. Right. There were
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: also um overhangs that were initially made of wood that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I found pretty cool. Remember I mentioned Castle Gray School
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: had um a. Generally these things were called hoardings, and
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: they would have um arrow loops, which are basically just
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: narrow slits so you can shoot through right, and they
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: would hang over the front of the castle, so when
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: people were storming the front of the castle, um you
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: could you could shoot them with arrows the arrow loops.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: But they also had the coolest sounding things of all time,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: murder holes. Murder holes were holes, but you could shoot
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: arrows um. So basically, if you're standing on a hoarding,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: there are holes in the floor, so you could shoot arrows. Also,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you could pour hot oil, hot metals, hot whatever exactly.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And the way that the entrances were arranged the when
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you're walking in the entrance of the castle, right, you've
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: crossed over the drawbridge and now you're walking in the tunnel.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Um there's arrow loops on either side of you, and
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: then above there's murder holes. So if you were able
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to breach the drawbridge and the gate, you were subject
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to having sorts of hot, horrible stuff poured on you
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and you were in big trouble, not fun. Uh. The
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: other thing they had to for for defense and for protection.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: While defense is in defending yourself was the crenelation. Like
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: you know, when you see the top of the tower
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  Speaker 1: and it's one block is higher, then the next block
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: is low, the next block is higher. That was actually
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: uh purposely done that way, so you could, you know,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: soldiers could hide behind those blocks, peek around the corner
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and fire and arrow, and then hide behind the tall
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: block again. Right. And I would argue that crenelations are
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the most readily recognizable design of castle for sure. About
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you know, the little sand castle molds, even those have
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: crenilations on them. If if they don't have the crenilations,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: it's really just a big rectangle, Chuck, you were talking about,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: um guys hiding behind the blocks of crenelation and then
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: moving to the side and shooting an arrow. They also
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: designed staircases in a clockwise circular fashion. Coolest fact of
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the show right here, Do you want to take your buddy?
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: May I? Yes? Please? Okay? Uh, you're right clockwise while
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: going up. This is because at the time soldiers were
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: right handed. The fault with their right hand swung the
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: sword of the right hand. Um, if they were left
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: handed by nature, they were taught to fight with their
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: right because why because left handed people were considered evil
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: at the time. Actually, the word sinister means left handed,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: so weird, so they design it counterclockwise going up. So
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: if you're flying up the stairs to go fight somebody,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you had room on your right hand side to swing
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: your weapon and it wouldn't hit the wall. Don That
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: in That the coolest fact of the whole thing. It is.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And also if you're running up the stairs and you're
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: an archer, you can draw and you have plenty of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: room to draw an arrow and shoot it out of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: one of the arrow loops that too. Yeah, so Chuck,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that's the outer wall. We've got the crenelations, we've got
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: towers built into it, we have holdings in different variations
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: on the holding right. Uh, and then you have the
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: inner wall. Right inside the outer wall, you would have
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: what's called a bailey, right, which is basically is a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: big open courtyard. So anytime you see nights jousting like
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the heart throb Heath Ledger in a Night's Tale r
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I P right um, what they where where that joust
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: was taking place was actually inside the outside wall of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the castle. Yeah, and here's the thing you want to
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about the sieges later, but once you storm
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: into the castle. It's kind of like, great, we're inside,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: but it's also like, oh boy, we're inside, because now
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: you're trapped, and all the little dudes up there in
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the tower and on the walkways all of a sudden
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: just turned around and start firing flaming arrows down at
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: your head. Right, Because at the very least the castle
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: would have an outer wall and then some sort of
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: tower or inner fortification. A lot of castles actually had
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: an outer wall, then the bailey, and then an inner wall,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and then within that was the tower. So yeah, you
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: were just your toast basically if you made it in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and and you weren't, if you were feeling under the weather,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that they that was the day you died. U the courtyard, Josh.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: They also use it as a marketplace ace, and they
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: had festivals and fairs, they did soldier drilling, train horses.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And then later once uh you know, castles later on
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: became more for like the kings and the noblemen and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: less military in nature, and they were used for like
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: gardens and fountains that kind of thing, right, And uh
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: that when the nobleman actually lived in the castles, which
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: they did, but for the most part, castles were originally
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: made for military purposes, but then as the military technology advanced,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: castles became much less strong or able to withstand attacks.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: So the what was originally called the keep, actually what
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: was originally called the Don john right became the keep,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and the Jean or the Don Johnson it was usually
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: pastel um the uh, that became the keep, and that's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: where the lord of the manner, the whoever owned the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: feudal surfs lived right. The other thing, because obviously you
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: need a lot of people to keep up a castle,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: to work the kitchen, blacksmiths, carpenters. There were residential apartments inside, yeah,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: which you never really think about, you know, the fact
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: that they had people living there on site. So it's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: sort of like a little live workplace scene way back
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages. I just assumed that feudal lord
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: slaughtered all the workers afterwards, exactly. Yeah, um the uh.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: They're also Chapels Chuck. And there's a castle in Scotland
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and the name escapes me right now, but it is
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: supposedly the most haunted castle in the world and the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: reason why is one of the things that happened there
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: was the feudal lord, the the person who owned the castle.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: His brother was saying mass in the chapel of the castle,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and he came in and murdered his brother, beheaded him
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: while he was saying mass. It's probably bad luck that,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think. I think running over gravestones is on
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: par with that with your car. Yeah, it's pretty bad stuff. Yeah.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: That chapels they had lived in priests many times because
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: they went to church every day. Back then. They had
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the Great Hall inside the castle, which is what you
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you know when you see them drinking the meat and
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: feasting at the big table. It's in the great hall.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: They had storage obviously for their food and uh, the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: horse food and all that kind of stuff. And little
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: known fact inside the keep, most rooms were heated with
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: a fireplace. Yeah, I saw that that was worthy of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: putting in here. I thought that was interesting, Chuck. One
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: of the things that I hadn't thought of until I
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: read the article. It makes complete sense, is that um
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: castles needed to have a self sufficient water supply. So
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: you had to have a well within the castle walls,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: right Why Well, because if you were trapped in there
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get to the siege later on. Oh
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that was my segue into the seas. Well. You need
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to have your water because when people siege, they kind
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of basically surround you and say, no one's coming out
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to get anything, right for months long time, so you
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: better have your water and your food. And they said
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it just like that. I think, Actually, I thought you're
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: gonna mention the dungeon. That's what I didn't know. You're
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: moving on. Well, yeah, the dungeon was originally up high
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: when it was called the Don Johnson like you said, uh,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and then that became the keep and the dungeon was
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: moved down low down. So that was just another interesting
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: fact I thought was dungeons used to be like in
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the upper reaches. Yeah, you always think of dungeon is
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: below the ground, right, but they're harder to escape from exactly, dude, binga. Uh.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: The other thing they had, Josh, besides the wells because
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: they needed to get their water, was they used cisterns
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to collect rainwater. Very green living type of thing going on, right,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Very smart to do so though. Yeah. Um so, Chuck,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: we were talking about sieges, remember remember that. Yeah, back
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to sieges. So, uh, let's say that you are you
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: having a standing army within your castle and you're a
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: feudal lord, and may you may or may not have
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: just murdered your brother who while he was saying mass.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But otherwise everything's hunky dory. And then all of a
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: sudden and in eating army from another nearby lord uh
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: comes up. So you basically batten down the hatches. To
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: use a metaphor that doesn't really make any sense whatsoever
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: because it's nautical in nature. Um, but basically, you you
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you try to fight them off as much as possible.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: But also you've got all of your entrances closed and guarded,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and you've got people ready with hot oil at the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: murder holes and all that, and like we said, this
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: can last for months or years. Yeah, the impression I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: got was that a lot of times there was never
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: any fighting going on when they did the surround and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: wait you out technique, right, and it actually led to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the fewest casualties because a lot of times the invading
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: army could negotiate the surrender of the castle. Well true,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: but the other side of the coin is, if you're
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: going to be the army that surrounds the place, you
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: gotta have your food and water too, right, So people
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: inside the castle would use flaming arrows, catapults with flaming
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: boulders maybe um, and shoot them into the countryside to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: set it on fire so the the invading army couldn't
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: go get supplies from it, right yeah, and or for
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: a dround and hunting that kind of stuff. But you
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: could see some some invading army guy going the berries, right,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: they're on fire. That's what we counted on. Uh. The
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: other cool thing too, if you were the invading army,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you could catapult and this is not just for monty python.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: You could catapult like a dead cow, diseased cow, or
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: diseased human or disease dead human into all I guess
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a disease live humans. All bets are off. I'm not
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: dead yet, and you can catapult them over the wall
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this bovine diseased animal is
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: just like splattered in the middle of your keep and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you're in big trouble. Yeah. Uh. And I think probably
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the other reason that laying siege to well just waiting
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: that kind of siege um was favored. It was because
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the whole reason you're attacking this castle is probably get
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the castle, I would think, so, so you want as
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: little damage under the castle as possible, because if it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: took five I think or two to ten years to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: build a castle, yeah, you don't want to wait that time.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: You just go wait for some other schmow to build
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: his and invade it and then take it. Yeah, it's
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a good idea. Yeah, that's the broadwater way, right, Uh,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: one of the other ways, Josh. And this, this you
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: would think is right out of the cartoons, but actually happened.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: To get into a castle as you would use a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: scaling ladder and you would put a big, tall ladder
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and you would climb up it. But just like in
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the cartoon, you could just go up there and push
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the ladder off. What's the dudes are on it if
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you were strong enough, or you could shoot the flaming
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: arrows at their head, which is our our favorite technique,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: throw objects down, pour hot oil on them, same deal, right. Uh.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: To get around this, you could create a um what
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: are they called chuck A siege tower. Yeah, build your
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: own portable tower and you have some a bunch of
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: soldiers inside and they are waiting while some other soldiers
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: own on the ground or pushing this tower right up
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: against well as close as they can get to the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: castle and then the door opens and guys come streaming out. Yeah, dude,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: they would lower a plank across, you know, like a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: pirate ship would do. And let's say when they pulled
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: up to another pirate ship and they would storm that
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: way from up top. Yeah. I think that appeared in
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: like the the last Lord of the Rings movie. No,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I don't even say that. Yeah, they use that device
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in the Last Lord of the Rings movie. But Josh,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that is not my favorite. And when I was talking
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: about rudimentary genius, the battering ram, Oh yeah, you build
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: big door, we take a big pole smash door. You know.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: It's funny. The fuzz still use that today. Oh yeah,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: those little metal things. I want one of those. You
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: can get one. You can. Also you should probably dispose
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of the complimentary brass knuckles that come with your order there, right.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, the battering ram obviously was It was
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a big tool for the invading army and um some
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of them were covered in like shields to prevent the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: flaming arrow from hitting their head. Some were wide open,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and then to defend it once again, the rudimentary genius,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: they would like put they would slide like padding down
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: in front of the door. They're like, oh, here they
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: come in the battering and let's slew this mattress up
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: against the door, which again I think that that's used
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: in modern storming techniques by the fuzz and criminals. They
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: would shoot flaming arrows into the door as well. Yeah,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: because it was would so catch the door on fire
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and maybe you can weaken it a little bit. I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: think anytime there was wood, flaming arrows came into play, right,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Ye always had to have a flaming arrow at the ready.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Um castle's actually entered Decline, well, at least for military purposes,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: because of the invention of something we call the cannon. Yeah,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: once you had superior firepower, it doesn't matter how big
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: your wall is exactly. Oh, we've left out one siege
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: technique that I thought was awesome. The tunneling. Yeah, you're
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: gonna say that. They would this this sieging army would
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: dig a tunnel all the way under the sele walls, right,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and then they would they would use timber supports to
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: hold the thing up while they were digging. When they
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: finished digging, they would come back out set the tunnel
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: on fire. The timber supports would burn and the the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: wall above would collapse because there was no longer any support.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool and that awesome. Yeah that I didn't It
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: didn't make sense to me at first, but then I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: got it. So this is what you had to do
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to make a wall collapse. Then the cannon comes along
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and all you have to do is shoot a couple
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of cannonballs in the same place and then the wall collapses. Right,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So castle's kind of fell out of use. But strangely enough,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: history repeated itself. It actually came full circle because remember
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: we were talking about the the predecessors of castles were
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: earthen walls and would and that's what we went back
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: to because earthen walls, we found, could sustain the impact
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: of a cannonball. So like colonial forts, yeah, yeah, they
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: were made of earthen walls and wood, and they kind
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of replaced it, well, not replaced, but as far as
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: a military outpost replaced the castle exactly. And they were
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: also really speedy. Apparently the colonial army could put up
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a four in basically twenty four hours instead of two
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: to ten years. Yeah or thirty years, right, Oh, is
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: that how long some of them took? That's how long
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: one in the in Arkansas was taking. Oh yeah, let's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: talk about this guy. This um. Another freshman named Michelle
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Guillot and mary Lynn Martin worked on a project in
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: France called Project Guildon so out of my league with France,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and they they are basically building a castle in the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Bordeaux region of France using the old techniques. It started
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: expected to take about twenty five years. And I went
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to the website day and it looks pretty rad. It
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: looks pretty cool so far, it's like more than one
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: third finished and it's open to the public. It's open
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: well that's how they're paying for it with the tourist money. Yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. And they use all ancient tools,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: not ancient, but yeah ancient. No, not ancient, historic, but
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you could make the case that it's ancient, like wooden calipers. Um.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: They have a rope with knots tied in it to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: measure things out. They they're corrying the limestone by hand,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: carving the bricks by hand. They're transporting it from the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: quarry to the site by um horse, not just a horse,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: but a horse drawn wagon, right, And that's actually in
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the article. And then We got an email from Dana
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: in Arkansas who said, who turned us onto this guy?
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Before I read the article. He's actually doing the same
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: thing in Arkansas. Now, yeah, he said, I would build
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: one in Bodo and Arkansas random. It is random, but
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: it looks like it's gonna be awesome. Yeah, And it's
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: called the Ozark Medieval Fortress and it opens actually in
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: May of this year for the public, and I think
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: for like fifty bucks, you can go see the thing
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: in progress and once again, it's like a fifteen twenty
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: year project. Or you can go to a major regional
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: mall and have a nice chicken dinner at medieval times,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: or you could go see the first the Hearst Castle.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: They're like some rich dudes. Later on in the twentie century,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, I want Maya castle. What says
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that I own the labor of of America Castle. Herst
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Castle is awesome, though you ever been there? I haven't.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I've seen pictures. Really cool. And there's a castle in
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: my neighborhood. Yeah, there's a castle and Oakhurst. Have you
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: ever seen it? Jerry? Yeah, it's like, you know, a
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: five minute walked from my house. I walked by there
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: with the dogs all the time. Sweet. It's like a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you know, small house and it's got the tower and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: it's built up rock. I'll have to go check it out. Yeah,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I could probably find a picture of it. And there
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a castle that's uh a mausoleum that used to be
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: in the one of the mall parking lots Evandale Mall
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: parking lot. Oh now that that was. It's a walm
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: right now. But it wasn't a castle, but it was
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: a stone mausoleum. Okay, close enough. Yeah, I just this castle, No,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: curst is kind of cool. But every time I walk
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the dogs by there, some dude like pours hot oil
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: on me. So that's kind of off putting. Nice one, Chuck.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Anymore needs to be said after that, I don't think so.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: So if you want to learn more about castles and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: see some cool pictures of castles, actually there's a bunch
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: left in this article we didn't cover. Um, you can
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: type in castles in the handy search bar at how
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, which means it's time for listeners.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Mail Josh, I'm gonna call this uh email from Anna.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: She seems pretty cool and I think Anna is from
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: there was there Colon email from Anna Colon. She seems
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: pretty cool? Or was that? Or she seems pretty cool?
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: She does? I think she's polish said that inherently makes
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: her coola. Hi, Josh and Chuck, I have to thank
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: you for the Hiccup podcast. Does it reminded me of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: how special I am in my twenty seven years on
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: this planet. So she's either twenty seven or she's been
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: living on Earth twenty seven years. She's Martian and she's forty. Uh.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I've acquired exactly two superpowers, one of photographic olfactory memory,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: which I've had since childhood, and to the ability to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: cure my own hiccups just by thinking about them, which
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I perfected once I was of legal drinking age. The
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: latter superpowers made for a hilarious party trick. Basically, if
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I get hiccups while imbibing of the sweet Sweet booze,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: That's how I knew we'd like her. All I have
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: to do is pause for a second, concentrate on just
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the hiccups, and they go away within just a few moments.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Of course, strangers at parties don't know this, so I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: can pretend that I am plagued by uncontrollable hiccups, And
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the only way I'll get cured is if, say, for instance,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: someone does a keg stand or a guy gives me
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: a kiss. Pretty smart, wildly. Now, I know that with
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: great power comes great responsibility, so I have resisted the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: temptation to use this ability for evil so far. My
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: only hope is that I don't become so blinded with
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: power that I turned to the dark side and use
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: my hiccups to start a major war of influence on
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: an election, or influence an election anyway. How about a
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: future podcast on burp ing. Anna says that, and she
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: says cuteous to Chuck for having good taste of music.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Have you seen the Flaming Lips myself this year? And
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: her email signature she's written before has a Charles Bukowski quote.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It's the other way, and that she's cool. What is
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the best part of a writer is on paper? The
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: other part is usually nonsense nice, and it's probably followed
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: by a hiccup and a bourbon. Well thanks for that, Anna,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: we appreciate the email. It's pretty cool. Uh. If you
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: have a special power, if you have a great Bukowski quote,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: or if you can tell us your age in Martian years.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: We want to hear it. Put it in an email,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: spank it on the bottom, and send it to stuff
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Fo