this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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Illustrations of history
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This magazine is for sharing artwork of historical events, places, personages, etc. Scale models and the like also welcome!
Generally speaking, actual photos of a historical item should go to [email protected]
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Photos of the past should go to [email protected]
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That drawing ... if there was the wherewithal to build such an intricate stone wall with a moat around the outside, I would think there'd be something more than just a simple tower keep. It's also really small. More likely, with a keep like that, wouldn't there be a (or a series of) wooden palisade(s) with ditches?
Medieval castles often weren't 'planned' in that sense - the original might have been a full-on traditional motte-and-bailey with a wooden palisade, but as the fortunes of aristocratic families wax and wane, they add (or subtract) from the work of their ancestors as their means allow.
Or it could just be the artist drawing what they liked, idk.
Oh absolutely, and in later eras, a fair amount of the adding-on was less for functional reasons and more for the flex.
I think that if there was an existing stone tower keep, and the ability to build a stone wall like that, the owner would have added more to the keep, and less to the wall. I'm also now thinking that the crenalations (especially on that tower) don't quite fit. In the age where that kind of tower would have been built, I don't think they were doing crenalations yet; on something that size, especially in that picture, with that wall, crenalations on the tower would have been purely decorative.
I think you're underestimating the size of the castle complex; there are multiple buildings within the walls. Also, they're expensive to build, maintain and use, so it's not that weird to keep things compact.