How the Medieval Cannon Changed Castle Design

Castles are, perhaps, the most familiar symbol of the medieval era in Europe, and the advent of the cannon is often seen as the beginning of a new age. So did these weapons of war cause the old fortifications of the past to lose their purpose, and how quick was the death of the castle as a defensive fortification? This image here is the earliest known illustration of a gun in medieval Europe, and it dates back to 1327. The earliest uses of gunpowder and the details surrounding it are a bit of a mystery, and there are references in the 1200s of weapons that may be very early gunpowder weapons, but guns really start appearing in the later 1300s. This clearly is not a heavy cannon designed to tear down a wall, instead it seems to be an anti-personnel gun. It's aimed at this doorway, so perhaps it could have been used to smash through wooden doors with this giant arrow. So all of this starts to answer one of our questions, the advent of the cannon certainly wasn't this instant thing that made castles immediately obsolete. Let's have a look at another illustration, this time of a slightly later battle. This is an illustration of the Seed of Mortagne in 1377, although it's worth noting that the illustration is from a chronicle dating around 100 years later. We can see here two different types of gun in use, the smaller anti-personnel cannons can be seen firing at the defenders from the structure built by the attackers, here on the left, but below that we can see cannons being used as artillery pieces, although it's important to note that they're clearly not the centrepiece of the attack. Non-gunpowder weapons are still heavily prevalent. This illustration is of the Siege of Bordeaux in the same year, 1377, and we can see the cannons here as seemingly playing a more dominant role in the siege, and they're certainly not small anti-personnel weapons, these artillery pieces are massive. They're designed for attacking the structure of the castle itself, so was it around this time, in the late 1300s, that cannons became a part of warfare and castles became pointless? No, not quite, and there are several reasons for this. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the cannon when it comes to medieval warfare is just how expensive, and therefore exclusive, it was. Actually effective gunpowder artillery that can break down walls can only be afforded by states and monarchies. A king may have a cannon, but your generic lord, er, Brian, does not. This has quite a large effect on medieval warfare in general. Private warfare, as it were, suddenly becomes less viable because these smaller parties can no longer afford the tools for the job, and naturally, as these new weapons of war become more effective, exclusive, and expensive, it becomes somewhat of a novelty and a status symbol to actually own one. In 1436, James I of Scotland moved south to attack Roxburgh Castle with a mighty Scottish army, hoping to strike while the English couldn't retaliate as they were off fighting the Hundred Years' War. Showing off that he was a king with a modern army, James brought with him an artillery train, with a gun that had been made for him in France, and inscripted with the words For the illustrious James, worthy Prince of the Scots, magnificent King, when I sound off, I reduce castles. I was made at his order, therefore I am called Lion. When we're reminded that the heldry of Scotland was a lion, we can further understand how these cannons had a purpose beyond just knocking down castle walls. It symbolised the king's power, his status, and his place as a major European ruler. It didn't quite work out for James, however, as the English did respond, and a relief force quickly gathered and marched towards him. Given their previous defeats in the field, and the general reluctance of medieval armies to commit to field battles, James and his Scottish forces quickly retreated, having to leave his guns behind, lion ending up in the hands of the English. So in this situation, James' new cannons weren't so effective. But it's worth noting that all of this happened over half a century after the sieges of Bordeaux and the other one, so the effective use of cannons against castles is clearly quite a slow process. An event in 1460 gives us at least part of another reason as to why. King James I of Scotland's successor was James II, and he seemed to have similar ambitions to his father. While England descended into civil war and was, again, very distracted, James II mustered a Scottish army and marched, like his father, to Roxburgh Castle with an artillery train. For reasons that I won't go into now, but would probably make a very interesting video later, it was considered beneath a nobleman, especially a king, to have anything to do personally with the operations of the cannons. However, for some reason, James decided to stand next to them while they fired, and unfortunately for him, the cannon he stood next to misfired. James II lost his leg, and later his life. While this is an example that is often brought up to show just how dangerous and unreliable medieval guns were, it wasn't ridiculously common. Cannons were used in medieval warfare, and to an increasingly great effect. If they were more dangerous to the operators than those they were meant to be firing at, it's unlikely they would have continued to be used. Yet it still does show that these cannons weren't totally reliable. They were more effective in this siege than in 1436, however, as Roxburgh Castle did eventually surrender. No relief force came this time. So even by this time, even though cannons worked and would often do a great deal of damage to castles, they didn't stop the use of castles in warfare. Medieval siege warfare wasn't quite as bloody or brutal as it may initially come across. Most sieges didn't really have much combat in them, and instead ended in some sort of surrender agreement. Agreements between the attackers and the defenders often even happened at the beginning of sieges. Neither side wanted to lose men to fighting, so often the agreement would say something like, if there's no relief force from your lord slash king within three weeks, we have the castle and you get to go home. The circumstances of war would usually dictate the details of these agreements. For example, if the attackers wanted to move on quickly, then the agreement might be more generous and might allow the defenders to leave with all their possessions after a shorter period of time. Of course, if the defenders refused to come to any agreement and no relief force arrived, then they risked execution when they eventually surrendered or even when the castle was taken by force. These kinds of terms didn't just disappear with the advent of the cannon. In addition, if the attackers wanted to take the castle so they could use it to control the surrounding lands for themselves, then blowing loads of holes in it isn't really very helpful. And yet cannons were still a danger to castles, and castles had always evolved to try and match the methods that were being deployed against them. Cannons do drastically change standing fortifications, but, like the development of the cannon itself, the change is rather slow. One of the first additions to castles, and indeed the easiest to do, was the addition of gun ports into towers and gatehouses. This starts to come about in the early 1400s, so actually castles themselves are using gunpowder in the defense, again using guns for that early anti-personnel role. A less simple and easy structure is the artillery tower, although, at least in England, this was an incredibly rare structure and wasn't tied to the castle. The only really surviving example of this is Cow Tower in Norwich. It's essentially a massive tall tower which can hold gunpowder weapons, smaller anti-personnel ones, and larger ones that could use the tower's height to fire over the town walls and into any attacking forces on the higher ground around the city. So while these artillery towers weren't particularly common, it does show that there were structures being built with gunpowder weapons directly in mind as early as the very end of the 1300s. Given the shorter range of the earliest artillery weapons, structures like the Barbican became more common in an attempt to simply drive the attackers further away from the castle walls. The increase in these structures being built actually shows that the range of gunpowder weapons is increasing, which is obviously a big factor in what castles need to do to be able to be useful in this new gunpowder age. As the range sharply increases, the defenses that have to be built suddenly take a sharp turn. The tall round stone towers that were so effective before are suddenly very susceptible to attackers, to cannon fire, and so the replacement is very, very different and it comes in the form of the Bastion. During this massive change, not all of the new defenses are bastions, but they represent the very different way of defending a castle that evolves. The most notable change from tower to bastion is the size. Height is no longer desirable. Earth is also being incorporated into the defense now, as earth can absorb the impact from a cannon far more effectively than stone, which would just shatter. The shape of the bastion is very important too, and that's because they're not just designed to allow gunfire outwards into the surrounding area, but also to protect each other. If a particular bastion is under attack, you don't put soldiers in that one, instead you put guns and troops in the adjacent bastions which allow for overlapping lines of fire. These complex lines of fire are much more complicated defense strategies than before, but such massive changes come with quite a large and obvious problem. This is Carisbrook Castle, a place of strategic importance on the Isle of Wight since before the Norman Conquest. The round Norman keep on the Mott was the beginnings of this castle that grew and evolved around it, each new addition being added to the existing defenses. Although, as a quick side note, I don't want to give the impression that all castles, or even this one, were constantly being upgraded to keep up with the times. It was more of a when needed and when it could be afforded. Either way, those upgrades could usually be incorporated into the existing defenses, but the defensive upgrades made during Elizabeth I's reign that we can see at Carisbrook totally bypass all of the old defenses. So was this it? Were the old castles never really used again? Was it field battles from now on? Not really, no. Older castles were still used in warfare, but eventually there was a split between the two main aspects of a medieval castle. The more domestic, even political aspect of the castle, and the military side of it. And this brings in some interesting historiographical debate. When does a castle stop being a castle? Because the domestic and military sides of a castle are both quite important in the medieval castle. If you take away the domestic side, are you just left with a fort? If you take away the military side, are you just left with a palace? And yet there were almost purely military structures built that were called castles. There's a lot to say about the castle building program that Henry VIII initiated to prepare the nation for a possible French or Spanish invasion, especially when it comes to how it was different to previous castle building programs. But I'd like to focus more on the castles themselves. Remember, this is slightly before Elizabeth I, so before the bastions around Carisbrook Castle were built. One of the castles that was built as part of this program was Deel Castle, the center castle in a chain of three built across the southeast coastline, an area which had been deemed both an optimal landing zone for an invading army and one that was lightly defended. We can already see great differences in castle building just in these details, but I won't touch on that for now. One look at Deel Castle and it's obviously very very different from your traditional castle. The most obvious difference is how much lower it sits. It doesn't want to be a big target for cannon fire. It doesn't have as much interest in being tall and impressive, and instead looks much more bunker-like. It's actually built into this ditch that's carved out around it, meaning that if there was an assault on the castle, the outer walls would be more of an obstacle. While there is a residential area in the center, it's really just there for the garrison. An older castle may be able to cater for a king and his court, but Deel certainly couldn't. Although interestingly, after the castle was built, Henry did take his court and the ambassadors from France and Spain to go and have a look and see how cool his new castle was. So its prestige and physicality is still an important aspect, but certainly not as much and not such a focus as it was before. These new artillery fort-style castles in England continue to evolve to match with the standards of their European counterparts. The constant warfare of the Italian city-states had meant that the defences in that part of Europe had evolved quicker to deal with the more common use of cannons. That's where the bastions originally came from. It was an Italian style of defence, and it took a little longer to make its mark on the British Isles. We can see a more modern defence plan in one of Henry VIII's later castles, Southsea Castle, which was incorporated into the already existing city walls around Portsmouth. And yet, because of the absence of constant warfare actually within the British Isles, these Italian style defences are actually very rare. Portsmouth is one of only two cities that has them, but Southsea Castle is one of the less impressive defences around the home of the Royal Navy. In the higher ground overlooking the city, and in the coastal area around the docks, massive extensive defences were built in the mid-1800s to protect the naval base from a possible French invasion. Some of these were well equipped to also defend Portsmouth from a land-based attack. In Europe, entire towns had extensive and complicated defences, the likes of which were not seen at all in Britain. Palminova in northern Italy is one of the best examples of this, with multiple complex layers of defences packed with earth surrounding the town. And this was built much earlier than the defences around Portsmouth. Palminova was built at the end of the 1500s. But at this point, these definitely weren't castles, and not all cannon-based defences were this massive either. In the 1800s, Britain used Martello Towers as coastal defences, which were often just a massive gun on a small squat stone tower. Look, I'm getting carried away, these definitely aren't castles, but I think we've managed to answer our original question. Did cannons make castles obsolete? No, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. Castles began to split into two different types of structures, defences and residential buildings. Of course, medieval castles were still around and being lived in, but eventually that became very uncommon. The biggest group of events that knocked the medieval castle tradition was the English Civil War, which happened in the mid-1600s. Many were used, mainly by royalists who actually had castles, and as bases for military action. This of course meant they would come under attack from now much more efficient cannon fire, and many were heavily damaged both during the war and the events after it of a great deal of the surviving castles. Even after the restoration of the monarchy, very few castles were moved back into by the old aristocratic families, partly because most had been destroyed or seriously damaged and it would have cost a lot to rebuild them, but also partly because larger manor houses, mansions and palaces had been solidified as the fashion of the times. These too were of course cheaper to run than a castle. Well, that's it for this video. I'm not going to make a long explanatory outro because apparently no one watches this far through anyway, but I'll talk more about the channel in a couple of weeks. I hope you're all doing well and stay safe.