The Gatekeep

The player should take note of one vital aspect of castle design-the gatekeep. During the eleventh and most of the twelfth centuries, the gatekeep (a structure which protected the entrance way into the castle) consisted of two square towers on each side of the bailey wall. Towards the thirteenth century this was replaced by four towers, two at each end of the entrance way, connected by a short stone wall that provided excellent protection and bottled up the enemy in the event that the gatekeep was breached.

At this time however, the four towers were still squared block buildings. Drawing into the mid-thirteenth century these squared towers evolved into rounded or circular towers. By the fourteenth century the four towers had been connected by short hallways allowing freedom and security of troops within the guarded gatekeep. Now, troops were able to move freely from one tower to another without fear of being struck by enemy artillery.

With the invention and use of a guarded gatekeep, these buildings took on a more important role in fighting off invaders. Since they stood, literally, at the doorstep of the castle, the defenders inside had opportunities to sally forth outside the castle. In this way, they engaged the enemy, yet could quickly withdraw from the field of battle without endangering the castle itself.

As this principle of design took hold in Europe, additional defenses, called barbicans, were often built to protect the gatehouse. The barbican acted as a miniature bailey, extending walls at right angles from the castle’s fortifications. Any attack to the gatehouse then had to pass through a very narrow cleft, from which artillery and archers from within the gatekeep could rain death down upon the intruders. As time went by, these outer bailey walls also took on stone towers, mottes, ditches, drawbridges, or water filled moats to further strengthen the entrance way into the castle proper.