File:Medieval and modern times; an introduction to the history of western Europe form the dissolution of the Roman empire to the present time (1919) (14596490337).jpg

Identifier: medievalmodernti01robi (find matches)
Title: Medieval and modern times; an introduction to the history of western Europe form the dissolution of the Roman empire to the present time
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Robinson, James Harvey, 1863-1936
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, New York (etc.) Ginn and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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rundled up to the walls of a besieged castle and then swung back and forth by a group of soldiers, with the hope of making a breach. The men were often protected by a covering over the ram similar to the one at the foot of the mound. This was the typeof castle that prevailed for several centuries after Charle-magnes death. There are no remains of these wooden castlesin existence, for they were not the kind of thing to last very long,and those that escaped being burned or otherwise destroyed,rotted away in time. About the year 1100 these wooden buildings began to be re-placed by great square stone towers. This was due to the factthat the methods of attacking castles had so changed that woodwas no longer a sufficient protection. The Romans when they about noobesieged a walled town were accustomed to hurl great stonesand heavy-pointed stakes at the walls and over them. They hadingenious machines for this purpose, and they also had ways of Improvedmethods ofattack leadto use ofstone towns
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Fig. 30. Movable Tower This attacking tower was rolled up to the wall of the besieged townafter the moat had been filled up at the proper point. The soldiers thenswarmed up the outside and over a bridge onto the wall. Skins of ani-mals were hung on the side to prevent the tower from being set on fire 96 The Age of Disorder; Feudalism 97 protecting their soldiers when they crept up to the walls withtheir battering-rams and pickaxes in the hope of making a breachand so getting into thetown. But the Ger-man barbarians whooverran the RomanEmpire were unaccus-tomed to these ma-chines which thereforehad fallen into disuse.But the practice oftaking towns by meansof them was kept upin the Eastern Empire,and during the Cru-sades, which, as weshall see, began abouti ioo (see Chapter IX,below), they were in-troduced once moreinto western Europe,and this is the reasonwhy stone castles be-gan to be built aboutthat time. A square tower(Fig. 31) can, how-ever, be more easilyattacked than a roundtowe

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