Seiges    

What Was A Siege?

A siege happened when there was an attacker who was trying to take the castle, and a defender who was trying to protect his castle.  Here are some things that an attacker might do to take the castle.  They might try to starve the defender out, dig a tunnel under the castle to break the walls, or they might try to use artillery to knock down the walls and gate. There were some interesting things the defender might do to stop an attacker.  They might put a bowl filled with water on the ground to detect underground movement, if they did they did they would dig a counter tunnel, they would also try to hook the artillery to stop it from destroying the gate, or they would drop mattresses to lighten the blows. If an attacker tried to climb the wall, the defender would push them away with poles.  Click on the photos above to see pictures taken at a mock siege tournament that Beowulf attended in October 2004.

Medieval Siege Weapons

The Siege Tower  

The siege tower proved to be a powerful weapon.  Soldiers would hide in the safety of a siege tower wile engineers pushed the tower to the wall. Once they were in range of the wall, soldiers lowered a small drawbridge onto the castles wall. After they did this  The soldiers poured out of the siege tower onto the castle wall. Siege towers could be modified to any height, even 100ft high! Some siege towers could carry lots of soldiers, or even more siege equipment!  Defending archers or pots of hot liquids were not harmful to a siege tower.

The Trebuchet

When there wasn’t a war going on, some of the commanders launched roses during tournaments at ladies attending the tournament with the trebuchet. But if the attackers had a trebuchet it turned from peaceful to deadly. Man powered the earliest trebuchets, but in time the trebuchet started to rely on a counterweight that sung an arm powerful enough to launch a heavy boulder. A second after the counterweight dropped, the device flung a heavy projectile [such as rocks] toward there target. The Trebuchet could fling projectiles hundreds of yards, toward a defending castle wall. Some trebuchets could launch stone boulders weighing up to 400 pounds, if that hit a castle wall it could do major damage. The attackers used them for flinging dung or rotting animals into the castle hoping to spread disease to the people living in the castle. If the trebuchet was set up to close to the castle the defending archers would attack the builders trying to launch a projectile at the castle wall.  

The Battering Ram                                                                                                             

The battering ram was used for knocking down the castle doors. To defend the battering ram they built a big shield out of wood, then they capped the wood with iron. People called the battering ram “The tortoise’’. They also called it tortoise because when they swung the log to devour their target, it looked like a tortoise’s head coming out of its’ shell. Castle defenders tried to burn down the battering ram with flaming arrows, but the attackers countered this by putting animal pellets on top of the battering ram to stop the burning.                                                                                                                                             

The Wall

The first walls were made of wood, and were valuable to attack from soldiers on the ground. Stonewalls came after the wooden walls, and the walls after that got thicker and taller. Some castles had more than one layer of wall. For example, a castle may have three layers of wall. The first layer was made to slow down attackers and give archers more time to shoot the knights or footmen. The second layer would slow down the army and make them use their boulders to knock down the walls. The final layer of the wall would be the strongest. It was made to protect the troops that had survived the siege.

Catapult

The catapult relies on a springy arm to launch a missile. The catapult called a mangon was in use since roman times.  It used tension by a wooden beam placed twisted ropes or hair to launch large stones toward the castle. 

Ballista

The ballista was an early seige weapon used by the Romans and was continued to be used in later time periods for launching javelin-like weapons great distances.  Sometimes they lit the projectiles on fire and launched them over the castle wall.

Medieval Drills and Jacks

The attackers used large homemade drills to bore holes through the walls of the castle which would weaken the composition of the wall, leading to it falling down.  They also tunneled below the wall of the castle, placed a wooden jack under the castle walls and cranked up the pressure to cause the wall to collapse.

Other

If a castle was being under siege the attackers had at least two options. The first option was to try to storm the castle. Their second option was to wait out the defenders. If the attacking army positioned itself all around the castle they could stop all supplies coming into the castle. Eventually if the defenders had no other ways of getting food or water, they would surrender.            

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