Château
Château de Chenonceau in the Loire valley, France
A rural château in France.
A château (plural châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally - and still most frequently - in French-speaking regions. Where clarification is needed, a fortified château (that is, a castle) is called a château fort , such as Château fort de Roquetaillade. Care should be taken when translating the word château into English: it is not used in the same way as "castle" is in English, and most châteaux are more appropriately described as "palaces" or "country houses" in English than as "castles". For example, the Château de Versailles
is so called because it was located in the countryside when it was
built, but it does not bear any resemblance to a castle, so it is
usually known in English as the Palace of Versailles.
The urban counterpart of château is palais,
which in French is applied only to grand houses in a city. This usage
is again different from that of the term "palace" in English, where
there is no requirement that a palace must be in a city, but the word
is rarely used for buildings other than the grandest royal residences.
The expression hôtel particulier is used for an urban "private house" of a grand sort.
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Concept
If a château is not old, then it must be grand. A château is a "power house" as Sir John Summerson dubbed the English (and Georgian Irish) "stately homes"
that are social counterparts of châteaux. It is the personal (and
usually hereditary) badge of a family that represents the royal
authority at some rank, locally. Thus this word is often used to refer
to a residence of a member of the French royalty or the nobility, but
some fine châteaux, such as Vaux-le-Vicomte were built by the essentially high bourgeois, but recently ennobled, tax-farmers and ministers of Louis XIII and his successors.
A château is supported by its lands (terres), comprising a demesne that renders the society of the château largely self-sufficient, in the manner of the historic villa system of Rome and the Early Middle Ages. (Compare manorialism and hacienda.) The open Roman villas of the time of Pliny the Elder, Maecenas or emperor Tiberius began to be walled in, then fortified in the 3rd century,
and evolved into castellar "châteaux." Even in modern use a château
still retains some enclosures that are the distant descendants of these
outworks: its fenced-off forecourt, with gates that could be closed and
perhaps with a gatehouse
or keeper's lodge, and its supporting outbuildings, like stables,
kitchens, breweries, bakehouses, and lodgings for menservants in the garçonnière. Aside from the entrance cour d'honneur, the château may have an inner cour ("court"). Beyond, on the private inner side, the château faces a park that is enclosed, no matter how simply or discreetly.
In Paris, the original châteaux of the Louvre (originally fortified) and Luxembourg (originally in the suburbs) have lost their château name and have becomes "palaces" as the growing city enclosed them.
In the United States, the term château took root selectively. In the Gilded Age resort of Newport, Rhode Island, even the châteaux were always "cottages". But north of Wilmington, Delaware, in upscale rural "Château Country" centred on the powerful Du Pont family.
In Canada, especially in English, "château" more often refers to a hotel than a house. It applies only to the largest and most elaborate of the railway hotels built during the golden age of Canadian rail, such as the Château Lake Louise in Lake Louise, Alberta, the Château Laurier in Ottawa, Ontario, the Château Montebello in Montebello, Quebec, and most famously the Château Frontenac in Quebec City.
In other French speaking regions in Europe such as Wallonia in Belgium the word Château
is also widely used and has the same significance. There was a strong
French influence on the architecture of these noble dwellings in
Belgium. Fine examples are the 17th century Château des Comtes de Marchin and the 18th century Château de Seneffe.
French Châteaux
Loire Valley
The Loire Valley (Vallée de la Loire) is home to more than 300 châteaux.
They were built between the 10th and 20th centuries, first by the
French kings and soon followed by the nobility, which have caused the
valley to be called "The Garden of France".
The courtyard of the Château des ducs de Bretagne, Nantes
Château of Dampierre-en-Yvelines: domesticated Baroque at the centre of Louis XIV's inner circle
Château de Boisclaireau, residence of the Gueroust family, Counts of Boisclaireau, in the Loire Valley
Dampierre-en-Yvelines
(illustration, right), built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, 1675-1683 for the duc de Chevreuse, Colbert's son-in-law, is a French Baroque château of manageable size. Protected behind fine wrought iron double gates, the main block and its outbuildings (corps de logis), linked by balustrades, are ranged symmetrically around a dry paved and gravelled cour d'honneur. Behind, the central axis is extended between the former parterres, now mown hay. The park with formally shaped water was laid out by André Le Notre. There are sumptuous interiors. The small scale (compared to Vaux-le-Vicomte for example) makes it easier to compare it to the approximately contemporary Het Loo, for William III of Orange. These really are "Mansart roofs."
Bordeaux
There are many estates with true châteaux on them in Bordeaux, but it is customary for any wine-producing
estate, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Château". This
is true whether the building itself is a magnificent palace or a shack.
If there were any trace of doubt that the Roman villas of Aquitaine
evolved into fortified self-contained châteaux, the wine-producing
châteaux would dispel it. On the other hand there are many beautiful
châteaux in the Bordeaux region still depicting this Roman villa style
of architecture, an example of this being Château Lagorce in Haux.
Castles
Windsor Castle is an official residence of the monarch of the United Kingdom and is over 900 years old.
A castle is a defensive structure seen as one of the main symbols of the Middle Ages.
The term has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact
meaning, but it is usually regarded as being distinct from the general
terms fort or fortress in that it describes a building which serves as a residence of a monarch or noble and commands a specific defensive territory.
Roman forts and hill forts were the main antecedents of castles in Europe, which emerged in the 9th century in Carolingian France. The advent of cannon and gunpowder changed the needs of warfare in Europe, limiting the effectiveness of the castle and leading to the rise of the fort.
Similar constructions in Russia (Kremlin) and feudal Japan (Shiro) are also considered castles.
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Definition
Castle comes from the Latin word castellum. This is a diminutive of the word castrum, which means "fortified place". The word "castle" (Castell) was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote this type of fortress, then new to England, brought in by the Norman knights. In Spain, a fortified dwelling on a height for the administering authority retains its Moorish name of alcázar, whilst shiro also figure prominently in Japanese history, where the feudal daimyō inhabited them.
A French castle is a Château-Fort, for in French a simple château connotes a grand country house at the heart of an estate,
with non-military, purely residential function. When European castles
were opened up and expanded into pleasure dwellings and power houses
from the late 15th century, their "castle" designations, relics of the feudal age, often remained attached to the dwelling, resulting in many non-military castles and châteaux.
In Germany there are two names for what would be called a castle in English, Burg (Burh) and Schloss. A Burg is a medieval structure of military significance, while a Schloss
was built after the Middle Ages as a palace and not for defensive
purposes. However, these are not usually palaces in the French style,
but instead are styled on medieval mountain castles and fairytale
notions, and from all appearances are often castles to an English
speaker.
In Celtic countries, Caer or castell (Welsh), dún and caisleán (Irish), dùn and caisteal (Scots Gaelic) are used.
In spite of the generally accepted definition, the word "castle" is sometimes used to mean a citadel (such as the castles of Badajoz and Burgos) or small detached forts d'arrêt in modern times and, traditionally, in Britain it has also been used to refer to prehistoric earthworks (e.g. Maiden Castle). The use of the Spanish equivalent castillo can be equally misleading, as it can refer to true castles and forts (eg. Castillo de San Marcos); terms such as Fortaleza ("fortress") are in similar situations.
The Norman "White Tower", the keep of the Tower of London, exemplifies all uses of a castle: city defence, a residence, and a place of refuge in times of crisis.
Defining features
The chief distinguishing features of castles, as opposed to other defensive structures, can be defined as follows:
- Castles were places of protection from an invading enemy, a place
of retreat. This is the purpose behind such stereotypical castle
features as portcullises, battlements and drawbridges.
- Castles were also offensive weapons, built in otherwise hostile
territories from which to control surrounding lands, as forward camps.
In particular, during the High Middle Ages,
castles were often built for territorial expansion and regional
control. A castle was a stronghold from which a lord could control
surrounding territory.
- Castles were either built as, or evolved into, residences for the monarch or lord who built them.
These three purposes distinguish the castle from other fortresses —
which are usually purely defensive (like citadels and city walls) or
purely offensive (a military camp) — or edifices that are entirely
residential in nature, like palaces. Castles such as the Tower of London served as prisons.
The Moorish Alhambra demonstrates an impregnable fortress evolving into a Royal palace after the Reconquista.
Evolution
A castle was not only a bastion and place for detention of prisoners
but also a social place where a knight or lord could entertain his
peers. Over time the aesthetics of the design increased in importance,
as the appearance and size began to reflect the prestige and power of
the occupant.
Castles were built as defensive measures and offensive weapons, but
often over time comfortable homes evolved within the fortified walls.
An example is the Windsor Castle, first built as a Norman Conquest fortress; today a home to the Queen of the United Kingdom. The Alhambra in Al-Andalus incorporated both defensive and residential features, but after the Reconquista unified Spain, its importance shifted and it became a palace under Charles V.
Architecture and development
Early castles
Ambleside Roman fort, Cumbria.
Antecedents
From as early as Neolithic times (between 8500 BC-2500 BC), people built hill forts to protect themselves. Many earthworks survive today, along with evidence of palisades to accompany the ditches. The Romans commonly encountered hill forts (called oppida) built by their enemies. Though primitive, they were often effective and required extensive siege engines and other siege warfare techniques to overcome, such as at the Battle of Alesia. The Romans own fortifications (castra)
varied from simple temporary earthworks thrown up by armies on the
move, to elaborate permanent stone constructions, notably the milecastles of Hadrian's Wall. Roman forts were generally rectangular with rounded corners. The Roman engineer Vitruvius was the first to note the three main advantages of round corner towers: more efficient use of stone, improved defence against battering rams and improved field of fire. It was not until the 13th century that these advantages were rediscovered.
The first castles
The earliest recorded structures universally acknowledged by
historians as 'castles' were built in the late 9th century, and
included wood, earth and stone structures.
Roman fortifications, or, when possible or needed, other edifices, were
often turned into castles or similar structures during the early Middle
Ages. A famous example is that of the Hadrian's Mausoleum in Rome, which is known to have been used as a fortress as early as 537, during the Gothic War. Other late Antiquity-early Medieval castles survive in Brescia and Trento in Italy
One of the earliest representations of a castle from the Bayeux Tapestry.
Construction of new castles in Europe is attested from the Carolingian
era, but their construction seems to have been related mainly to the
defence of frontiers and state properties, and the right to fortify was
a royal privilege. As early as 864, Charles the Bald
issued an edict ordering the destruction of private fortifications
erected without his permission. However, changes took place from the
late 9th century, probably under the pressure of raids by the Vikings and Magyars, and due to the general decline of the Carolingian Empire, and the consequent loss of centralized authority, which resulted in a proliferation of castles. There was also frequent fortification of cities, monasteries, ports and rural settlements in this period. In 906, a deacon in Verona asked Berengar I of Italy for permission to build a castle in Nogara "due to the heathens ravages".
As the Carolingian Empire broke up into duchies and counties,
factions struggling for power created a military infrastructure, to
protect their rights, their domains, and their followers. It is within
this historical context that feudalism
began to emerge. The early castle formed an integral part of feudalism:
it provided a residence for the lord; provided protection for his
followers as guaranteed by their feudal oaths of loyalty and
allegiance, while the garrison of the castle was made up of the lord's
followers, as per their feudal obligations. Many examples of defensive
programs as part of feudalism exist. In the 10th century for example,
in the Loire Valley, Fulk Nerra embarked on a massive castle-building program to control his county of Anjou, and neighbouring Touraine. In Normandy
at around the same time, a military state emerged with a dense network
of castles and feudal allegiances. Similar arrangements with regards to
defensive and holding of territory also occurred in other parts of
Europe around this time.
Castles were introduced to the British Isles around the early 11th century, by Norman-French followers of King Edward the Confessor. When William the Conqueror executed the Norman Conquest of England,
he brought with him the practice of building a castle to protect and
hold the land, by then quite familiar on the mainland of Western Europe
Residential Towers
Some of the earliest recognizable castles were essentially fortified
residential halls, enclosed by a defensive wall. Halls which functioned
as habitation for an important person, chieftain or lord, and his
followers, had existed since the earliest times all over Europe. During
the times of uncertainty which followed the collapse of Carolingian
authority, it became necessary to more strongly fortify the habitation
and possessions. As a result the wooden halls were replaced by much
stronger stone buildings as early as the 10th century. Examples include
Langeais and Doué-la-Fontaine.
Motte-and-bailey
The wooden palisades surmounting mottes were often later replaced in stone, as in this example at Gisors.
The motte-and-bailey
is a plan common to many early castles. An essential feature of this
type was a circular mound of earth surrounded by a dry or water-filled
ditch and flattened at the top. Around the crest of its summit was
placed a timber palisade, a tower, possibly residential. This moated mound was styled in Old French motte (Latin mota), a word still common in French place-names. In addition to the mound, a bailey or basse court of horseshoe shape was usually appended to it, so that the mound stood on the line of the enceinte. The latter housed the domestic quarters, stables, stores, a forge and a water well. These earthworks were dug from the perimeter area, leaving a defensive ditch. In many cases the motte seems to be a later addition to an already existing wooden settlement, surrounded by a wood palisade. Lewes Castle, built by Gulielmus de Warenne, is an unusual example, as it featured two mottes. Wooden castles were built up until the 12th century.
A description of this earlier castle is given in the life of St John, Bishop of Terouanne:
| “ | The rich and the noble of that region being much given to feuds and bloodshed, fortify themselves ... and by these strongholds subdue their equals and oppress their inferiors. They heap up a mound as high as they are able, and dig round it as broad a ditch as they can ... Round the summit of the mound they construct a palisade of timber to act as a wall. Inside the palisade they erect a house, or rather a citadel, which looks down on the whole neighbourhood. | ” |
Defensive features
Keep
Most castles, even from the earliest times, followed certain
standards of design and construction. Generally, the central feature of
the castle was the keep, or donjon, the main commanding tower.[1] The primary function of the keep varied, but usually it was a residential structure functioning as a redoubt
in times of trouble, but could also be used as a secure storage area,
or, later, as a prison. In motte and bailey castles, the keep typically
surmounted the motte. Many early castles and certain later ones were
nothing more than simple towers. The tower houses of Britain and Ireland, as well as peel towers,
are examples of this type. Most, however, required outer walls of some
sort. The keep was contained within the walls or attached to the walls.
The area delineated by the walls was known as the bailey or the court, and the enclosure known as the enceinte.
Enceinte
The enceinte
of the castle is another recognizable feature. Essentially the enceinte
is the entire fortified enclosure of the castle precincts. In some
cases this area was demarcated by a simple defensive wall or barrier.
More often the wall was surmounted by a walkway to defend the castle.
As with Roman and earlier architecture, projecting flanking towers were
usually added to the wall to improve defence. Later castles were built
on a concentric plan, where enceinte walls (also called curtain walls)
and towers formed two rings around the keep, resulting in an inner and
an outer court, pushing the enemy further from the core walls and keep.
Carcassonne,
France, showing the classic features of the enceinte walls, defensive
ditch, cylindrical flanking towers, a gatehouse, and wooden defensive
structures
Gatehouse
The gates were a weak point in the defenses of castles, so gatehouses could be strengthened with flanking towers, a turning or removable bridge, doors, and a heavy portcullis. There would often be multiple portcullises, with arrow slits
in the sides of the gate passage, allowing the defenders to trap the
enemy and kill them within the gate. Additionally, gates were often
placed in such a manner as to channel attacking forces against a series
of perilous defensive fortifications, enabling the defenders to defend
on their terms. Many gatehouses had a second body. Archers in the
second body could shoot down at their enemies while they were
defenseless.
Additional features
Castles featured an array of defences to delay the attackers'
progress towards the keep. Moats and ditches formed the most obvious,
as these would have to be filled in before heavy siege engines could be moved towards the walls.[4] Overhanging wooden hoardings could be constructed if a castle was under threat. These covered walkways would allow several lines of fire.[1] Later, permanent fixtures known as "machicolation" were built in stone. Perhaps the most notable features of castle defence were the crenellations and merlons, which offered relative cover for archers.[1] "Murder holes" and embrasures might be built into the walls and gatehouse so projectiles could be launched at the attackers.
Construction
- See also: Medieval technology and Stonemasonry
Construction of a large tower, with scaffolding and masons at work.
Castles were constructed of wood, stone and also brick. A large
number of contemporary accounts have survived that explain how castles
were built. A large skilled workforce was needed to construct castles,
including ditch diggers, stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and
engineers. Medieval machines and inventions, such as the treadwheel crane, became indispensable during construction, and techniques of building wooden scaffolding were improved upon from Antiquity.
Nevertheless, castles could take many years to complete, although the
time needed depended greatly from type, location, resources, time
period, construction materials, etc.
Finding stone was the first concern of medieval builders, and a major preoccupation was to have quarries close at hand. There are famous examples of some castles where stone was quarried on site, such as Chinon, Château de Coucy and Château Gaillard.
Yet even without the usual costs of transport, it is estimated that as
many as 800 stonemasons would have been used in building Château de
Coucy in the early 13th century, as well as perhaps 800 other craftsmen. Beaumaris Castle in Wales, has surviving records from 1295–96 which describe 200 quarrymen, 400 stonemasons and as many as 2000 minor workmen.
Castles, not surprisingly were expensive to build, considering workers
and materials. For example, costs for Beaumaris, which was in and of
itself part of a bigger castle program, was £14,500 (roughly $8–9
billion in today's money).
In some cases, transporting stone over large distances was altogether impractical, and in the Low countries, a lack of good building stone meant that castles were generally brick. Brick castles were predominant in Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Later developments
Innovation and scientific design
Frederick II's Castel del Monte
in Puglia has no keep at all: rising on a strategic high point, it
consists of an octagonal structure with eight massive polygonal towers.
During the Crusades, opportunities were afforded to western engineers to study the massive fortifications of the Byzantine Empire
as well as fortifications built by the Islamic inhabitants of the Holy
Land. The buildings they encountered in the late 10th century featured
innovations which were not common in Europe at that time. This included
in part regularly-spaced flanking towers of round or variable
construction, and geometric scientific design. This revolutionized the
art of castle-building in Europe, which henceforward followed these
principles.
Designers soon realized that a second line of defences should be built within the main enceinte, and a third line or keep inside the second line,
while a wall must be flanked by projecting towers. Thus from the
Byzantine engineers, European castles derived the principle of mutual
defence of all the parts of a fortress. The donjon of Western Europe
was regarded as the fortress, the outer walls as accessory defences; in
the East each envelope was a fortress in itself, and the keep became
merely the last refuge of the garrison, used only when all else had
been captured. Many scholars have noted that in the 13th century there
was a tendency toward the strengthening of the enceinte, and a reduced role of the keep in both military and residential context.
Château-Gaillard, showing the wall encircling the keep.
In Richard I of England's fortress of Château-Gaillard Les Andelys,
the innermost ward was protected by an elaborate system of strong
appended defences, which included a strong tête-de-pont protecting the Seine bridge.
The castle stood upon high ground and consisted of three distinct
enceintes or wards besides the keep, which was in this case merely a
strong tower forming part of the innermost ward. Frederick II's Castel del Monte in Puglia has no keep at all: built on high ground, it is an octagonal structure with eight polygonal corner towers.
Round towers, rather than square towers, were now becoming common,
with the finest examples of their employment as keeps being at
Conisborough in England and at Falaise and Coucy in France. Siege artillery of the 13th century was primitive, but it was realized that against mining and battering rams, corners in castle stonework were more vulnerable than a uniform curved surface.
Krak des Chevaliers: a concentric castle built with both rectangular and rounded towers.
The next development was the extension of the principle of successive lines of defence to form what is called the "concentric" castle, in which each ward was placed wholly within another which enveloped it. This was inspired by the Walls of Constantinople,
and thus places built on a flat site became for the first time more
formidable than strongholds perched upon rocks and hills, where some
points could not be as heavily fortified as others for lack of space.
In these cases, the fall of the inner ward by surprise, escalade,
or even sometimes by ordinary siege, entailed the fall of the whole
castle. The adoption of the concentric system precluded any such
mischance, and thus, even though siege engines improved during the 13th
and 14th centuries, the defences of strong concentric castle, or
naturally inaccessible castles, retained its importance during the Late Middle Ages.
Construction of castles in this period was often connected to the
necessity to establish a strong central power against local
fragmentation, or in newly conquered lands: examples are the large
building programs of Edward I of England in Wales, Philip I August of France, the Ezzelino IV da Romano and the Scaligers in northern Italy, Frederick II and Charles I of Anjou in southern Italy (often reusing former Norman or even Byzantine and Lombard structures), King Denis I in Portugal, and notably the Teutonic Knights in their conquest of Pagan lands in Prussia and Poland. In Germany, stone structures appeared in Hesse, Thuringia, Alsace and Saxony,
commissioned by the powerful local aristocracy. Structures in northern
Germany were usually simpler, often taking advantage of water streams.
Response to the advent of gunpowder
The advent of gunpowder
in the Middle Ages signalled a change in the purpose of a castle - from
being purely a military building, it became increasingly a residential
one. From the Renaissance onward, this loosening of military importance allowed for a more aesthetic approach to construction, for example the Castello Estense of Ferrara in Italy, the castles of Valderrobres and Manzanares el Real in Spain and the series of highly decorated castles built (or rebuilt) in France along the Loire starting from the 15th century
Whilst siegecraft had consisted of throwing machines such as trebuchets,
the primary aims in the construction of castle walls were height and
thickness. However it became almost impossible to follow this ideal to
cope with ever more powerful cannons.
Existing castles which retained military importance were updated as far
as practically possible to cope with new siege technologies. One
example is the English fortress of Bodiam, built from 1385, provided with opposite slit to allow firing from arquebuses.
But inevitably, those fortifications previously deemed impregnable
eventually proved inadequate in the face of gunpowder. These included:
Friesack Castle, which was reduced in two days during February of 1414
by Frederick I with "Heavy Peg" (Faule Grete) and other guns; Constantinople, the massively strong walls of which were breached in 1453 by the Ottomans after lengthy cannon bombardment; Nanstein Castle (Franz von Sickingen's
stronghold at Landstuhl, which was ruined in one day in 1523 by the
artillery of Philip of Hesse. Architects of the Late Middle Ages and
Renaissance, many of whom were also renowned as engineers, were called
to plan countermeasures; e.g. Guillén Sagrera, Giuliano da Sangallo the Younger, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Leonardo da Vinci. Viollet-le-Duc, in his Annals of a Fortress,
gives a full account of the repeated renovations of a fortress (at an
imaginary site in the valley of the Doubs), the construction by Charles the Bold
of artillery towers at the angles of the castle, the protection of the
masonry by earthen outworks, boulevards and demi-boulevards, and, in
the 17th century, the final service of the medieval walls and towers as
a pure enceinte de sfireti.
The rounded walls of Sarzana Castle showed adaptation to gunpowder.
The general adoption of cannons led therefore to the disappearing
(or to the loss of importance) of majestic towers and merlons. Walls of
new fortresses were thicker and angulated, towers became lower and
stouter. Examples of the late type of castle-fortress are that in Sarzana (Italy), that built by Henry VIII of England in Deal, the Fort de Salses constructed by Ferdinand II of Aragon and the Imperial Castle of Nurnberg.
In the end, the introduction of gunpowder led to a disappearing of
traditional castles, in the meaning of a building intended for both
military and residential roles. This transition began in the 14th
century and was fully underway by the 15th. In the 16th century the
feudal fastness had become an anachronism. Here and there we find old
castles serving in secondary roles, as forts d'arret or block-houses in mountain passes and defiles, and in some few cases, as at Dover,
they formed the nucleus of purely military places of arms. Normally
castles, when they were not let to fell into ruins, became peaceful
mansions, or were merged in the fortifications of the town which has
grown up around it.
Fortaleza Ozama, Santo Domingo - first castle built in the Americas.
In the Viollet-le-Duc's Annals of a Fortress the site of the
feudal castle is occupied by the citadel of the walled town, for once
again, with the development of the middle class and of commerce and
industry, the art of the engineer came to be displayed chiefly in the
fortification of cities. The baronial "castle" assumes pan passu
the form of a mansion, retaining indeed for long some capacity for
defence, but in the end losing all military characteristics save a few
which survived as ornaments.
However, some true castles were built in the Americas by the Spanish and French colonies.
The first stage of Spanish fort construction has been termed the
"castle period", which lasted from 1492 until the end of the 16th
century. Starting with Fortaleza Ozama, "these castles were essentially European medieval castles transposed to America." Among other defensive structures (including forts and citadels), castles were also built in New France towards the end of the 17th century. Where artillery was not as developed as on the battle-fields of Europe, some of Montreal's outlying forts were built like the fortified manor houses of France. Fort Longueuil, built from 1695–1698 by a baronial family, has been described as "the most medieval looking fort built in Canada".
The manor house and stables were within a fortified bailey, with a tall
round turret in each corner. The "most substantial castle-like fort"
near Montréal was Fort Senneville, built in 1692 with square towers connected by thick stone walls, as well as a fortified windmill. Stone forts such as these served as defensive residences, as well as imposing structures to prevent Iroquois incursions.
To guard against artillery and gunfire, increasing use was made of earthen, brick and stone breastworks and this redoubts, such as the geometric fortresses of the 17th century French Marquis de Vauban. These soon replaced castles in Europe, and eventually castles in the Americas were superseded by bastions and forts.
Revival castles and the castle as a country house
Neuschwanstein - perhaps the most famous 19th century neo-romantic castle in the world.
From the late 18th century to the early 20th century, as a manifestation of a romantic interest in the Medieval period, and as part of the broader Gothic Revival
in architecture, many so-called castles were built. These Castles had
no defensive purpose, but incorporated stylistic elements of earlier
castles, such as castellation and towers. These features were personified in the Scottish Baronial style. Most of them were country houses. These revival or "mock" castles were particularly common in the British Isles, for example Belvoir Castle and Eastnor Castle. Edwin Lutyens' Castle Drogo
was the last flicker of this movement in England. In Ireland, a
considerable number of vast, complicated mock-castles were built,
including Belfast Castle and Castle Oliver. Famous revival castles in other countries include Neuschwanstein in Germany, Miramare in Italy, and Castillo de Chapultepec in Mexico.
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