10 posts
Starving a castle was the slow way to win a siege. Instead of breaking the walls, the attackers closed every road in and out, then waited for food to run out. This guide explains why armies chose to wait, what a blockade…
What was a springald? It was a medieval siege engine that shot heavy bolts, a kind of giant mechanical bow built into a wooden frame. Castles and armies used bolt-throwers like it alongside stone-throwing catapults. This…
What was a battering ram? It was one of the simplest siege weapons of the Middle Ages: a heavy beam, usually a tree trunk, swung again and again against a castle or town gate until the gate broke. This post explains how…
What was a bombard? It was one of the first great siege guns: a huge cannon that fired heavy stone balls at castle and town walls. For centuries a strong stone wall could hold out for weeks or months. Bombards changed…
Undermining a castle meant attacking it from below. Miners dug a tunnel under the wall, held the roof up with timber, then burned the timber so the wall above fell in. It was slow, dirty and dangerous work, and it…
How long did a medieval siege last? The honest answer is anywhere from a few weeks to more than a year. English Heritage's accounts of sieges in England include one that ended after six weeks, one that ran from October…
A siege tower was a tall wooden tower on wheels, pushed up to a castle wall so soldiers could fight from the top and then cross onto the battlements. That is the short answer. The longer one is more interesting, because…
Trebuchet vs mangonel is a question with a messy history, because the people who wrote about these machines in the Middle Ages did not use the names as neatly as a textbook would like. Even today, two careful sources can…
Did arrows pierce plate armor? Mostly, no. The Royal Armouries, the UK's national museum of arms and armour, says good armor was quite effective against arrows, and that only a small share of shots probably got through,…
Trebuchet, mangonel, ballista, battering ram: you meet these names in history lessons and castle tours, often without a clear picture of how they worked. Medieval siege weapons were machines built to do one of four jobs:…