Curly Brunette Girl Shows Off Her Navel Piercing And Tattoos On The Red Antique Chair In The Old Castle Room With A Balcony Terrace

Castles had their origins in the 9th and 10th centuries. This period saw the emergence of a social and military elite in the Carolingian Empire that was based upon mounted warfare. Fighting on horseback was a costly and time-consuming endeavour, requiring specialised equipment and trained horses. For their efforts, knights were granted land by the lords for whom they fought. The link between knight and lord was the basis of feudalism, and could go higher up the social scale with loyalties between lords, dukes, princes, and kings. When the Carolingian Empire collapsed in the 9th and 10th centuries, so did effective centralised administration, and it fell to the landed elite to take control. This led to the privatisation of government, and local lords assumed responsibility for the local economy and justice. Although castles were private buildings, lordship was a public office and the holder had a responsibility to protect his peasants. There is a traditional view that feudalism led to the break-down of society that contributed to the downfall of the Carolingian Empire. However, modern academic opinion is that feudalism was a successor to previous government rather than a rival. The building of a castle sometimes required the permission of the king or other high authority. The King of West Francia Charles the Bald prohibited the construction of castella without his permission and ordered them all to be destroyed in 864. This is perhaps the earliest reference to castles being built without permission, breaking the feudal agreement between lord and vassal. However, military historian Allen Brown points out that the wording may be misleading as at the time terms such as castellum and castrum were used to describe any fortification. There are very few castles dated with certainty from the mid-9th century. Converted into a donjon around 950, Châteaux Doué-la-Fontaine in France is the oldest standing castle in Europe. The Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century introduced a style of fortification developed in North Africa reliant on tapial, pebbles in cement, where timber was in short supply. From an early stage, they used castles to secure their conquests; a particularly good example of early castle built by Muslims in Spain.
Allen Brown asserts that the breakdown of society associated with the decline of the Carolingian Empire and the subsequent absence of a working state made feudal ties more important. The rise of castles is not solely attributed to defence of the new feudal lords' lands, but as a reaction to attacks by Magyars, Muslims, and Vikings. It is likely that the castle evolved from the practice of fortifying a lordly home. The greatest threat to a lord's home or hall was fire as it was usually a wooden structure. To protect against this, and keep other threats at bay, there were several courses of action available: create encircling earthworks to keep an enemy at a distance; build the hall in stone; or raise it up on an artificial mound, known as a motte, to present an obstacle to attackers. While the concept of ditches, ramparts, and stone walls as defensive measures is ancient, raising a motte to exploit the advantages of height is a medieval innovation. A bank and ditch enclosure was a simple form of defence, and when found without an associated motte is called a ringwork; when the site was in use for a prolonged period, it was sometimes replaced by a more complex structure or enhanced by the addition of a stone curtain wall. Building the hall in stone did not necessarily make it immune to fire as it still had windows and a wooden door. This led to the elevation of windows to the first floor – to make it harder to throw objects in – and to change the entrance from ground floor to first floor. These features are seen in many surviving castle keeps, which were the more sophisticated version of halls and contained the lord's household. Castles were not just used as defensive sites, but also to enhance a lord's control over his lands. They allowed the garrison to control the surrounding area, and formed a centre of administration, providing the lord with a place to hold court.
From 1000 onwards, references to castles in texts such as charters increased greatly. Historians have interpreted this as evidence of a sudden increase in the number of castles in Europe around this time; their interpretation has been supported by archaeological investigation which has dated the construction of castle sites through the examination of ceramics. The increase in Italy began in the 950s, with numbers of castles increasing by a factor of three to five every 50 years, whereas in other parts of Europe such as France and Spain the increase was slower. In 950, Provence was home to 12 castles, by 1000 this figure had risen to 30, and by 1030 it was over 100. Although the increase was slower in Spain, the 1020s saw a particular growth in the number of castles in the region, particularly in contested border areas between Christian and Muslim. Despite the common period in which castles rose to prominence in Europe, their form and design varied from region to region. In the early 11th century, the motte – an artificial mound surmounted by a palisade and tower – was the most common form of castle in Europe, everywhere except Scandinavia. While Britain, France, and Italy shared a tradition of timber construction that was continued in castle architecture, Spain more commonly used stone or mud-brick as the main building material. Although stone construction would later become common elsewhere, from the 11th century onwards it was the primary building material for Christian castles in Spain, while at the same time timber was still the dominant building material in north-west Europe.
Castles were introduced into England shortly before the Norman Conquest in 1066. The motte and bailey remained the dominant form of castle in England, Wales, and Ireland well into the 12th century. At the same time, castle architecture in mainland Europe became more sophisticated. The donjon was at the centre of this change in castle architecture in the 12th century. Central towers proliferated, and typically had a square plan, with walls 3 to 4 m (9.8 to 13 ft) thick. Their decoration emulated Romanesque architecture, and sometimes incorporated double windows similar to those found in church bell towers. Donjons, which were the residence of the lord of the castle, evolved to become more spacious. The design emphasis of donjons changed to reflect a shift from functional to decorative requirements, imposing a symbol of lordly power upon the landscape. This sometimes led to compromising defence for the sake of display. Historians have interpreted the widespread presence of castles across Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries as evidence that warfare was common, and usually between local lords.