Most of the time, life was peaceful, but sometimes another country, Baron, or Lord might lay siege.       The first order of battle was to surround the area to cut off all supplies coming in. Then giant trebuchets (mammoth catapults), mangonels (small catapults), battering rams, belfries and other siege equipment were set up to hack away at the weakest parts of the defenses. Once all the troops were ready, which mostly consisted of infantry, who were  armed with glaives, swords, or pikes. Gates were usually the only way to get inside defenses, so gates were heavily armed. Belfries, which were large wooden siege towers on wheels, were rolled up to the side of the wall, and troops would also try to get in that way.

     But in many cases, in battle, the castle could not be captured. In this case, the attackers would just wait. Since no supplies could come in, the starving defenders were forced to surrender.

    Trickery was also used sometimes. In one siege against the castle of Carcassone, the defenders put the little grain they had left into the hollow carcass of a dead pig.  Then they catapulted it over. The attackers thought that the castle's defenders had so much food that they could feed grain to their pigs. So they went away.

    In one siege of Edinburgh castle, the defenders were safe from attack on top of the steep hill that the castle stood on. So the soldiers came disguised as merchants carrying valuable cloth. They then stormed inside the castle and captured it.

   

 

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