Castle
A castle is in the beginning a medieval construction intended to protect the lord and to symbolize his authority within the Fief.
The first castles were built out of wood often on a rise in ground (feudal mound castrale or ), then hones some in order to resist the new weapons of war. They were called the strong Châteaux.
With the Rebirth, the kings de France, imitated soon by their vassal, decided to no longer build or arrange their castles for defense but for their approval and their comfort.
Contrary to the urban Palate, the castle with the characteristic, very early, to indicate a residence seigneuriale or princely rural. It can also be a question of the element of the defense of a city, residence seigneuriale or not. It is the case, in particular, of the Château of Nantes, or of the first castle of the Louvre, which lost this title of castle when it became seat of the royal capacity and was integrated into the city. Consequently, it was called Palais of Louvre.
Genesis of the European castle
The castle (or manor house as old French) of the Moyen-âge is not the Roman Castellum ; it would be rather the ancient villa provided with defenses extérieures.
When at the 10th century, the Normands were definitively established on part of the territory of the France, they built strengthened residences, and these residences preserved a special character, at the same time political and feudal. The Norman castle, at the beginning of the feudal period, is distinguished from the French or frank castle; it is always connected to a territorial defense system, while the French castle preserves its Germanic origin a long time; it is the residence of the gang leader, isolated, defendant his own field against all, and not holding no account of the general defense of the territory. To render comprehensible to us in few words, the frank lord does not have a fatherland, it has only one field; while the Norman lord seeks, at the same time, to defend its field and the territory conquered by its nation. This distinction must be made first of all, because it has an influence, not only on the position of certain feudal residences, but on the adopted defense system. The Norman equivalent of the frank castle is the manor.
For more precise details on these first castles, to refer to the article strong Castle.
Remain seigneuriale
The use of fortifications for the residences seigneuriales was maintained until XVe century, even later. But with the return of peace at the end of the War One hundred Year old, like by the construction of castles by the kings of France in the Loire Valley, of many aristocrats set up residences open on the campaigns surrounding. The concern is not then any more with protection, but with the decoration. A particular concern from now on is granted to comfort. There exists today more than 300 Loire ch4ateau. Thereafter, with the displacement of the court in Île-de-France, it is in this area that the majority of the seigneuriaux castles were set up. Thus were built the castle of Dampierre or that of Be worth-the-Viscount.
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