When many hear the word "prison", a chill runs through their bodies. Immediately, images of the Middle Ages, prison torture and bullying come to mind. Such pictures formed the basis of many films. Distant times are largely shrouded in legends, but we are trying to remove the veil at least in this way.

Today, modern man no longer associates prison with bullying and torture. The reason for this was the change in society, the worldview of people, the existence of laws. Nevertheless, in the course of the evolution of mankind, the prison has already become one of its attributes.

First of all, this is an indicator of the humanization of society, because isolation is much more humane than execution. Do not forget about the practical side of the issue - prisoners do community service. Today all over the world they try to get rid of the death penalty as a capital punishment, replacing it with life imprisonment.

However, while declaring such a measure as humane, we know little about the living conditions of the prisoners themselves. But they can be completely different - someone undergoes rehabilitation or enjoys comfort, and someone suffers torture and humiliation. Let's talk about the ten most brutal prisons of the modern world.

Rikers Island is New York's largest prison. Since 1932, this ultra-modern city has hosted this prison, which is famous for its numerous cases of cruelty and violence. There are frequent riots, to suppress which special forces are sent. Not so long ago, up to 1000 clashes between the authorities and prisoners took place in this prison every year. However, the new laws somewhat mitigated the situation, because now a prisoner who attacked a cellmate or a guard can be sentenced to an additional prison term. As a result, the number of riots dropped to 70. Nevertheless, according to the opinions of people released from there, the conditions in this prison are worse and more dangerous than even in the most criminal areas of New York. Today, the island-prison contains about 14 thousand inmates, but the prison itself is known as a place where beatings, sexual scandals and abuse of staff flourish.

Syrian military prison in Tadmore. Goose bumps can run through the skin after the information that medieval instruments of torture with sticks, ropes and axes are still used there. You can often hear about sophisticated bullying of local prisoners, while it is worth remembering that among them there are completely innocent people. In addition to criminals, the prison also contains political prisoners. The most famous prisoner of Tadmor, the poet Faraj Berakdar, described this place as "the kingdom of death and madness."

La Sante. Civilized Europe can also "boast" of its cruel prison - La Sante is located in Paris, the only one, by the way, in the capital. The institution was built in 1867. During World War II, political prisoners were also kept here, including members of the Resistance. Today, a depressing atmosphere constantly hovers over the prisoners. As a result, the prisoners are in such a state that they are ready to swallow rat poison, bang their heads against the wall, eat forks just to end their stay there, committing suicide. If in 1999 in the whole of California 24 people out of 160 thousand prisoners committed suicide, then there were 124 people in the French prison of suicides. For 7 years, Veronica Wasser told about the horrors of La Sante in her diaries, staying there as the chief physician. The cells in the prison are overcrowded, showers are allowed no more than twice a week, food is of poor quality ... All this gives rise to an invasion of lice and skin diseases. There are so many rats here that the prisoners are forced to hang their things from the ceiling. La Sante was opened in 1867, and among its famous prisoners were the poets Paul Verlaine and Guillaume Apollinaire. The prison has been and remains a place of violence, debauchery and atrocities. Weak prisoners turn into slaves here. And the guards do not stand on ceremony with the prisoners, using cruel means. Veronica Wasser described the case of one inmate who was thrown into a punishment cell for resisting guards. Two weeks later, he was admitted to the infirmary dehydrated - the guards closed his access to water.

Carandiru. Brazilian Carandiru is considered the most cruel in terms of stay in it. The prison is located near Sao Paulo. Everyone knows that Brazil has a high crime rate, and everything is overcrowded in places of deprivation of the free. Riots are brutally suppressed here, for example, during the uprising in 1992, 111 prisoners were killed. The prison has big problems with the provision of medical care; AIDS is widespread here. So, for every HIV-infected inhabitant there are only five healthy. Local prisoners are even sometimes denied the opportunity to use anesthesia for surgery. There are 7,500 prisoners here, and there are about 1,000 prison staff. They work here in four shifts. The cruel prison existed from 1920 to 2002, and in 2003 a film about the events in the dungeons was released, and the book "Karandiru Station" was also written earlier.

San Quentin. In the US state of California, there is the San Quentin prison, which contains death row prisoners. The complex is already 150 years old, it was opened in 1852. The prison itself was built by prisoners who lived on a special ship during the work. Until 1934, both men and women served time here. According to recent estimates, this is where the worst prison conditions in the United States are. The prison itself is overcrowded, there are not enough staff, just as there are not enough doctors, and the premises are rather dilapidated and dirty. In 2005, an audit showed that unqualified medical personnel work here, who work in unsanitary conditions and sin with incorrect diagnoses. The commission came to the conclusion that keeping the prisoners here is generally harmful to their health, and for the sick it is life-threatening. Also, the prison did not escape the problem of violence. Back in 1982, 22 prisoners and 4 guards were seriously injured during the riot. The uprising of 2006 has already resulted in the death of two and wounding 100 criminals. Death sentences are carried out in the prison, for this, until recently, a gas chamber was used, now it has been replaced by lethal injections.

La Sabaneta. The famous South American prison La Sabaneta is located in Venezuela. In this country, prisons are overcrowded, and since the standard of living here is quite low (about a third of all people live below the poverty line), the conditions in the prison are appalling. Some prisoners are even forced to sleep in hammocks stretched out in the corridors of the prison. There are 25 thousand people for 15 thousand planned places. However, a corrupt system allows wealthy prisoners to get the most comfortable places. In general, there are only 1 guard for 150 prisoners. Unsurprisingly, such harsh conditions lead to riots. The most famous of them happened in January 1994, when 108 people died. In 1995, 196 prisoners were killed and 624 were injured.

Diyarbakir prison. In the south-east of Turkey, in the town of Diyarbakir, the most famous Turkish prison is located. According to the laws of the country, even children can receive life sentences. Prisons are overcrowded in the country, and conditions do not meet any sanitary standards. All this leads to regular clashes between prisoners and guards. Prisoners' performances are punished in the most cruel way. In 1996, there was a clash in Diyarbakir prison, which was quickly called the "planned massacre". 10 people died here, and 23 were injured. This was the result of constant beatings of prisoners here, who, in fact, are deprived of any rights. In Diyarbakir, not only is there no normal medical service, there are also no rehabilitation programs for criminals.

The prison of the city of Mendoza. Deaths are frequent in the Argentinean correctional institution in Mendoza - from February 2004 to November 2005 there were 22 recorded. The overcrowded prison contains 1,600 prisoners, while the project was supposed to be only 600. It is common here to sleep on the floor. Observers note that conditions do not meet any standards. Journalists note that up to 5 prisoners sleep on the floor in 4 square meters of the cell. They are forced to defecate in bottles and plastic bags. In the corridors and chambers, garbage is practically not removed, and there is often flooding with sewage.

Prison in Nairobi, Kenya. This is one of the most crowded places of its kind in the country. Although the cells are designed for 800 people, there are 3800 prisoners here. In pre-trial detention cells, instead of 50 people, there are 5 times more. The inmates have a constant need for everything from sleeping mattresses to normal medical care. The high air humidity causes stuffiness in the cells, it is not surprising that due to inhuman conditions local prisoners often die or become seriously ill.

Federal prison ADX Florence in the US state of Colorado... There is a strict regime here - prisoners outside their cells spend only 9 hours a week. In stone dungeons, people are forced to sleep, eat and defecate. Sunlight enters the cells for only a couple of hours a day. A distinctive feature of the prison is the absolute isolation of prisoners from each other, this is done so that they cannot communicate with each other. The institution has the status of super safe, it is also called mountain Alcatraz. The prison was built in 1994 after it became clear that the existing institutions are not able to fully protect the jailers from prisoners. The construction of the complex cost $ 60 million. There are 490 seats, in each cell a table, chair and bunk are made of cast concrete.

Complementing the torment of torture were the prisons in which the victims of accusations of witchcraft were held during the trial and also after conviction until the execution of the sentence. In these prisons, they were expected if they courageously endured torture, new, no less terrible torments, which sometimes lasted for whole years and drove them to a state of complete despair, often to suicide.

At that time, the places of detention were generally disgusting smelly holes, where cold, dampness, darkness, dirt, hunger, infectious diseases and the complete absence of any kind of care for the prisoners in a short time turned the unfortunates who got there, crippled, into mental sick, into rotting corpses. But the prisons assigned to witches were even worse. Such prisons were built specifically for witches, with special devices designed to inflict the most cruel torture on the unfortunate. In many places in Germany, you can still find these prisons - Hexenttirme or Drudenhauser. The confinement in these prisons was enough to completely shock and torment the innocent woman who got there and make her confess to all kinds of crimes of which she was accused.

One of the contemporaries of that era describes the internal structure of these prisons as follows:

“Prisons are placed in thick, well-fortified towers or cellars. They contain several thick logs revolving about a vertical post or screw; holes have been made in these logs into which the hands and feet of the prisoners are inserted. For this, the logs are unscrewed or moved apart, hands are placed in the holes between the upper logs, the legs of prisoners are placed in the holes between the lower logs; after which the logs are screwed on, nailed with stakes, or locked up so tightly that the prisoners cannot move their arms or legs. In some prisons there are wooden or iron crosses, to the ends of which the heads, arms and legs of the prisoners are tightly tied, so that they must constantly either lie, or stand, or hang, depending on the position of the cross. Some prisons have thick iron bands with iron wrists at the ends, to which the prisoners' hands are attached. Since the middle of these strips is attached to the wall by a chain, the prisoners are always in the same position.

Sometimes still heavy pieces of iron are attached to the legs, so that the prisoners can neither stretch their legs, nor pull them to themselves. Sometimes the walls have recesses of such a size that it is difficult to sit, stand or lie in them; the prisoners there are locked with iron bolts so that they cannot move.

In some prisons there were deep pits lined with stone and opening upward with narrow openings and strong doors. In these pits, often 15, 20 and even 30 fathoms deep, the prisoners were lowered on ropes and pulled up in the same way.

In many places, prisoners suffer terribly from the cold and freeze their hands and feet, so that when released they remain crippled for life. Some are constantly in the dark, never see sunlight and do not distinguish between day and night. Not owning their members, they are in a constant daze; they lie in their own filth worse than any cattle, receive bad food, cannot sleep peacefully, tormented by worries, gloomy thoughts, evil dreams and all sorts of horrors. Since they cannot move an arm or a leg, they are terribly bitten and tormented by lice, mice, rats and all sorts of other animals. Added to this was the abuse, malicious jokes and threats that the prisoners heard daily from the jailers and executioners.

And since all this lasted not only months, but also whole years, people who entered prison vigorous, strong, patient and in full intelligence, in a very short time became weak, decrepit, crippled, faint-hearted, insane. "

In such prisons, which Malleus calls carceris squalores, witches sometimes languished for years before being interrogated and tortured. Frenzied, exhausted, with an imagination upset with despair and longing, in fear and confusion, they were brought to trial before the inquisitors and confirmed all the charges that were brought against them. If they persisted, they were again taken to prison and the severity of their detention was increased: they tied and shackled them, twisted their limbs so that they became numb, chained them to the wall, etc., and in this state they were kept until the torture resumed. The Bamberg inquisitors recommend “das gefaltet Stiiblein” (literally: a room in folds) as a good means for taming witches, which was specially arranged in the Bamberg prison for witches. It was a cell, the floor of which consisted of sharp poles with very narrow gaps between them. In the same Bamberg, one woman remained chained for three years. Malleus recommends, as a general rule, that the recalcitrant witches be imprisoned for a whole year before the torture begins again.

It is not surprising that while in prison, many women fell into a frenzy, delirium, and it seemed to them that the devil was visiting them in prison, talking to them, giving them advice, instructions, having sexual intercourse with them, etc. they later declared these visits during interrogations, and this served as new evidence of their guilt. Often the devil appeared in the person of the jailers, who committed brutal violence against young women prisoners. One 12-year-old girl was so violently abused that she was found half-dead. This was explained by a visit from the devil. Other women fell into a state of insensitivity, moral and physical apathy and met the torment of torture with amazing indifference, which the judges attributed to the participation of the devil, helping the witch to endure all suffering without pain.

The consequence of the process was punishment - punishment in any case, even if the torture trial did not lead the accused to a confession and there was no sufficient evidence to convict. "Malleus malificarum" does not admit acquittals at all and recommends keeping witches in jails and waiting for new indications of her guilt or transferring the case to another instance. But even if an acquittal followed and the defendant was released, her situation was so miserable that many preferred death and committed suicide. Crippled from torture, with broken limbs, with illnesses from a long stay in a stinking prison, exhausted and tormented by the entire procedure of the judicial investigation carried out by her, she was released as a suspect and could wait every minute for a new charge and arrest. Often they were forbidden to enter the church, and if allowed, then they were assigned a special place in the church, separated from others. Even in their own home among their family, they had to be isolated and live in a separate room. Often these unfortunates were repulsed by their own family, which was afraid to take them back to themselves - out of fear of incurring suspicion on themselves or because they were still considered in the power of the devil, although the court acquitted them. They were shunned from them, as from the plague, and they had to live in isolation, in solitude, poverty, going from place to place, begging for alms. For the most part, such a life brought them new suspicions of witchcraft, and they again ended up in prison and under torture, and this time they were no longer given their freedom.

But acquittals were very rare. Most of the torture ended in confession and the process was followed by execution. The convict was burned at the stake - alive or after being strangled or beheaded. The latter type of execution was considered a mitigation of punishment.

In practice, it was a rule that only those of the witches who persisted and did not show signs of repentance were burned alive; in relation to the repentant, mercy was shown, and they were burned after preliminary strangulation or beheading. In this regard, we find in the instructions of one court the following:

“In our time, although many witches, impudent and burdened with the weight of unbelief and in forgetting God and the salvation of their souls, must be burned alive, but almost all Christ-loving courts have adopted a merciful custom that those of the witchcraft who refuse to communicate with evil spirits and with a repentant heart, they again turn to God, should not be punished alive by means of a slow fire, but, according to the morals and customs of the area, they must first be strangled or deprived of their heads by means of a sword, and their dead bodies, for fear of everyone else and as a witness good and correct administration of justice, thrown into fire and reduced to ashes. "

The verdict of the court about the betrayal of the witch by burning at the stake was usually hung out on the town hall for general information, setting out the details of the revealed crime of the witch. Sometimes, due to special circumstances, the condemned witch found condescension, which, as indicated above, consisted in the fact that she was not burned alive, but preliminarily killed with a sword, and only her corpse was burned at the stake. Such a favor was also specially announced, for everyone's information, and this announcement was called Gnadenzettel. Here is the text of one such Gnaden-zettel:

“Although the accused who appeared before the court, according to the verdict, was sentenced for her grave crimes and sins to the transition from life to death (vom Leben zum Tode) by means of fire, but our highly esteemed and merciful Prince and Mr. great princely mercy, namely, that initially it was transferred from life to death by means of a sword, and only then turned by means of fire into ashes and dust, so that, however, the condemned for her numerous and grave crimes was first inflicted with cauterization by means of a red-hot iron, and then so that her right hand, with which she sinned terribly and unchristianly, was cut off and then also put to the burning along with the body. "

A woman condemned to be burned at the stake was dragged to the place of execution tied to a cart or to the tail of a horse, face down, along all the streets of the city. She was followed by armed militia and clergy, accompanied by a crowd of people. Before the execution, the verdict was read. In some cases, a small fire was lit with a small flame in order to intensify the agony of a slow death. Often, to intensify the execution, the convicts were cut off their hands before execution, or the executioner during the execution of the sentence tore pieces of meat from their bodies with hot tongs. The burning was more or less painful, depending on whether the wind drove the suffocating smoke tied to the pillar in the face or, on the contrary, drove this smoke away. In the latter case, the condemned was slowly burned, enduring terrible torment. Many had the moral strength to wait in silence for the last heartbeat, others filled the air with heartbreaking cries. To drown out the screams of the unfortunate, they tied their tongues and gagged. The surrounding crowd heard only the crackling of a burning fire and the monotonous singing of the church choir - while the body of the unfortunate woman turned to ash ...

You write about the baron in the castle - if only you can imagine how the castle was heated, how it was ventilated, how it was illuminated ...
From an interview with G.L. Oldie

At the word “castle”, the image of a majestic fortress appears in our imagination - the hallmark of the fantasy genre. There is hardly any other architectural structure that would attract so much attention from historians, military experts, tourists, writers and fans of “fairytale” fantasy.

We play computer games, board games and role-playing games, where we have to explore, build or capture impregnable castles. But do we know what these fortifications really are? What interesting stories are associated with them? What do the stone walls hide behind them - witnesses of whole eras, grandiose battles, knightly nobility and vile betrayal?

Surprisingly, the fact is that the fortified dwellings of feudal lords in different parts of the world (Japan, Asia, Europe) were built according to very similar principles and had many common design features. But this article will focus primarily on medieval European feudal fortresses, since they served as the basis for the creation of a mass artistic image of the “medieval castle” as a whole.

The birth of a fortress

The Middle Ages in Europe were a turbulent time. Feudal lords for any reason arranged small wars among themselves - or rather, not even wars, but, in modern language, armed "showdowns". If a neighbor had money, it had to be taken away. Lots of land and peasants? This is simply indecent, because God commanded to share. And if knightly honor is offended, then here it was simply impossible to do without a small victorious war.

Under such circumstances, the large aristocratic landowners had no choice but to strengthen their homes with the expectation that one fine day neighbors might come to visit them, whom they do not feed with bread - let someone kill them.

Initially, these fortifications were made of wood and did not in any way resemble the castles known to us - except that a moat was dug in front of the entrance and a wooden palisade was placed around the house.

The mansions of Hasterknaup and Elmendorv are the ancestors of castles.

However, progress did not stand still - with the development of military affairs, the feudal lords had to modernize their fortifications so that they could withstand a massive assault using stone cannonballs and rams.

The European castle has its roots in antiquity. The earliest structures of this kind were copied from Roman military camps (tents surrounded by a palisade). It is generally believed that the tradition of building gigantic (by the standards of that time) stone structures began with the Normans, and classical castles appeared in the 12th century.

The besieged castle of Mortan (withstood the siege for 6 months).

Very simple requirements were imposed on the castle - it must be inaccessible to the enemy, provide observation of the area (including the nearest villages belonging to the owner of the castle), have its own source of water (in case of a siege) and perform representative functions - that is, show the power, wealth of the feudal lord.

Beaumari Castle, owned by Edward I.

Welcome

We make our way to the castle, which stands on a ledge of a mountain slope, at the edge of a fertile valley. The road goes through a small settlement - one of those that usually grew up near the fortress wall. Simple people live here - mostly artisans, and warriors guarding the outer perimeter of protection (in particular, guarding our road). This is the so-called "castle people".

The scheme of castle structures. Note - two overhead towers, the largest one stands separately.

The road is laid in such a way that the aliens are always facing the castle with their right side, not covered by a shield. Directly in front of the fortress wall there is a bare plateau, which lies under a significant slope (the castle itself stands on an elevation - natural or mound). The vegetation is not high here so that there is no cover for the attackers.

The first obstacle is a deep ditch, and in front of it is a shaft of excavated earth. The moat can be transverse (separating the castle wall from the plateau), or crescent-shaped, curved forward. If the landscape permits, the moat surrounds the entire castle in a circle.

Sometimes ditches were dug inside the castle, making it difficult for the enemy to move around its territory.

The bottom near the ditches could be V-shaped or U-shaped (the latter is the most common). If the soil under the castle is rocky, then the ditches were either not made at all, or they were cut down to a shallow depth that only impedes the advance of the infantry (it is almost impossible to dig under the castle wall in the rock - therefore the depth of the ditch was not decisive).

The crest of an earthen rampart lying directly in front of the ditch (which makes it seem even deeper) often carried a palisade - a fence made of wooden stakes dug into the ground, pointed and tightly fitted to each other.

A bridge over the moat leads to the outer wall of the castle. Depending on the size of the moat and bridge, the latter supports one or more pillars (huge logs). The outer part of the bridge is fixed, but the last section of it (right next to the wall) is movable.

The scheme of the entrance to the castle: 2 - gallery on the wall, 3 - drawbridge, 4 - lattice.

Counterweights on the gate lift.

Castle gate.

This drawbridge is designed so that in an upright position it covers the gate. The bridge is set in motion by mechanisms hidden in the building above them. Ropes or chains run from the bridge to the hoisting machines through the wall holes. To facilitate the work of the people serving the bridge mechanism, the ropes were sometimes equipped with heavy counterweights that took some of the weight of this structure onto themselves.

Of particular interest is the bridge, which worked on the principle of a swing (it is called "overturning" or "swinging"). One half of it was inside - lying on the ground under the gate, and the other stretched across the moat. When the inner part rose, blocking the entrance to the castle, the outer one (which sometimes the attackers had already managed to run into) sank down into the moat, where the so-called "wolf's pit" (sharp stakes dug into the ground) was arranged, invisible from the side, while the bridge is down.

To enter the castle with the gates closed, there was a side gate next to them, to which a separate staircase was usually laid.

The gates are the most vulnerable part of the castle, usually they were not made directly in its wall, but were arranged in the so-called "gate towers". Most often, the gates were double-winged, and the gates were knocked together from two layers of boards. To protect them from arson from the outside, they were upholstered with iron. At the same time, in one of the doors there was a small narrow door through which one could only be bent over. In addition to locks and iron bolts, the gate was closed by a transverse beam lying in the wall channel and sliding into the opposite wall. The crossbeam could also fit into hook-like slots in the walls. Its main purpose was to protect the gate from being dropped by attackers.

There was usually a hanging grate behind the gate. Most often it was wooden, with the lower ends bound with iron. But there were also iron gratings made of steel tetrahedral rods. The lattice could descend from a gap in the arch of the portal of the gate, or be behind them (from the inside of the gate tower), dropping along the grooves in the walls.

The lattice hung on ropes or chains, which in case of danger could be chopped off so that it quickly fell down, blocking the path of the invaders.

Inside the gate tower there were rooms for the guards. They kept watch on the upper platform of the tower, asked the guests about the purpose of their visit, opened the gates, and, if necessary, could strike from a bow all those who passed under them. For this purpose, there were vertical loopholes in the arch of the gateway portal, as well as “resin noses” - holes for pouring hot tar onto the attackers.

Resin noses.

All on the wall!

The most important defensive element of the castle was the outer wall - high, thick, sometimes on an inclined plinth. Treated stones or bricks formed its outer surface. Inside, it consisted of rubble stone and slaked lime. The walls were placed on a deep foundation, under which it was very difficult to dig a tunnel.

Often, double walls were built in castles - a high outer and a small inner one. An empty space appeared between them, which received the German name "zwinger". The attackers, overcoming the outer wall, could not take with them additional assault devices (bulky ladders, poles and other things that could not be carried inside the fortress). Once in the zwinger in front of another wall, they became an easy target (for archers in the walls of the zwinger there were small loopholes).

Zwinger at Laneck Castle.

A gallery for defense soldiers ran along the top of the wall. From the outside of the castle, they were protected by a solid parapet half human height, on which stone battlements were regularly located. You could stand behind them at full height and, for example, load a crossbow. The shape of the teeth was extremely varied - rectangular, rounded, in the form of a swallow's tail, decoratively decorated. In some castles, the galleries were covered (wooden canopy) to protect the warriors from bad weather.

In addition to the battlements, behind which it was convenient to hide, the walls of the castle were equipped with loopholes. The attackers were fired through them. Due to the peculiarities of the use of throwing weapons (freedom of movement and a certain firing position), loopholes for archers were long and narrow, and for crossbowmen they were short, with expansion on the sides.

A special type of loophole is ball. It was a freely rotating wooden ball with a slot for shooting, fixed in the wall.

A pedestrian gallery on the wall.

Balconies (the so-called "mashikuli") were very rarely arranged in the walls - for example, in the case when the wall was too narrow for the free passage of several soldiers, and, as a rule, performed only decorative functions.

At the corners of the castle, small towers were erected on the walls, most often flanking (that is, protruding outward), which allowed the defenders to fire along the walls in two directions. In the late Middle Ages, they began to adapt to storage facilities. The inner sides of such towers (facing the castle courtyard) were usually left open so that the enemy who burst into the wall could not gain a foothold inside them.

Flanking corner tower.

Castle from the inside

The internal structure of the locks was diverse. In addition to the aforementioned zwingers, behind the main gate there could be a small rectangular courtyard with loopholes in the walls - a kind of "trap" for the attackers. Sometimes castles consisted of several “sections” separated by inner walls. But an indispensable attribute of the castle was a large courtyard (outbuildings, a well, premises for servants) and a central tower, also known as “donjon”.

Donjon at the Vincennes castle.

The life of all the inhabitants of the castle directly depended on the presence and location of the well. Problems often arose with him - after all, as already mentioned above, castles were built on elevations. The solid rocky ground also did not facilitate the task of supplying water to the fortress. There are known cases of laying castle wells to a depth of more than 100 meters (for example, the Kuffheuser castle in Thuringia or the Königstein fortress in Saxony had wells more than 140 meters deep). It took from one to five years to dig the well. In some cases, this consumed as much money as all the internal buildings of the castle were worth.

Due to the fact that water had to be difficult to get from deep wells, issues of personal hygiene and sanitation faded into the background. Instead of washing themselves, people preferred to take care of animals - first of all, expensive horses. It is not surprising that the townspeople and villagers wrinkled their noses in the presence of the inhabitants of the castles.

The location of the water source depended primarily on natural causes. But if there was a choice, the well was dug not on the square, but in a fortified room to provide it with water in case of shelter during a siege. If, due to the peculiarities of the occurrence of groundwater, a well was dug outside the castle wall, then a stone tower was erected above it (if possible, with wooden passages to the castle).

When there was no way to dig a well, a cistern was built in the castle, collecting rainwater from the roofs. Such water needed purification - it was filtered through gravel.

The military garrison of the castles in peacetime was minimal. So in 1425, two co-owners of the Reichelsberg castle in the Lower Franconian Auba concluded an agreement that each of them exhibits one armed servant, and two gatekeepers and two guards are paid together.

The castle also had a number of buildings that ensure the autonomous life of its inhabitants in conditions of complete isolation (blockade): a bakery, a steam bath, a kitchen, etc.

The kitchen at the Marksburg castle.

The tower was the tallest structure in the entire castle. She provided the opportunity to observe the surroundings and served as the last refuge. When the enemies broke through all the lines of defense, the population of the castle took refuge in the keep and withstood a long siege.

The exceptional thickness of the walls of this tower made its destruction almost impossible (in any case, it would take a huge amount of time). The entrance to the tower was very narrow. It was located in the courtyard at a considerable (6-12 meters) height. The wooden stairs leading to the inside could be easily destroyed and thus block the path of the attackers.

Entrance to the keep.

Inside the tower there was sometimes a very high shaft going from top to bottom. She served as either a prison or a warehouse. The entrance to it was possible only through a hole in the vault of the upper floor - “Angstloch” (German - frightening hole). Depending on the purpose of the mine, the winch lowered prisoners or provisions there.

If there were no prison rooms in the castle, then the prisoners were placed in large wooden boxes made of thick boards, too small to stand up to their full height. These boxes could be installed anywhere in the castle.

Of course, they were taken prisoner, first of all, to obtain a ransom or to use the prisoner in a political game. Therefore, VIPs were provided in the highest class - guarded chambers in the tower were allocated for their maintenance. This is exactly how Friedrich the Handsome "spent his term" at Trausnitz castle on Pfeimd and Richard the Lionheart in Trifels.

Chamber at Marksburg Castle.

The tower of the Abenberg castle (12th century) in section.

At the base of the tower there was a basement, which could also be used as a dungeon, and a kitchen with a pantry. The main hall (dining room, common room) occupied an entire floor and was heated by a huge fireplace (it spread heat only a few meters, so iron baskets with coals were placed further down the hall). Above were the chambers of the feudal lord's family, heated by small stoves.

At the very top of the tower there was an open (less often - covered, but if necessary, the roof could be thrown off) platform where a catapult or other throwing weapon could be installed to fire at the enemy. The standard (banner) of the owner of the castle was also hoisted there.

Sometimes the donjon did not serve as living quarters. It could well be used only for military-economic purposes (observation posts on the tower, dungeon, storage of provisions). In such cases, the family of the feudal lord lived in the "palace" - the living quarters of the castle, standing apart from the tower. The palaces were built of stone and had several floors in height.

It should be noted that the living conditions in the castles were far from the most pleasant. Only the largest carpets had a large knightly hall for celebrations. It was very cold in the donjons and rugs. The fireplace heating helped, but the walls were still covered with thick tapestries and carpets - not for decoration, but to keep warm.

The windows let in very little sunlight (the fortification nature of the castle architecture affected), not all of them were glazed. Toilets were arranged in the form of a bay window in the wall. They were unheated, so visiting the sanctuary in winter left people with a unique experience.

Castle toilet.

Concluding our “excursion” around the castle, one cannot fail to mention that there was necessarily a room for worship (temple, chapel) in it. Among the indispensable inhabitants of the castle was a chaplain or priest, who, in addition to his main duties, played the role of a clerk and teacher. In the most modest fortresses, the role of the temple was played by a wall niche, where there was a small altar.

Large temples had two floors. The commoners prayed below, while the gentlemen gathered in a warm (sometimes glazed) choir on the second tier. The decoration of such rooms was rather modest - an altar, benches and wall paintings. Sometimes the temple played the role of a tomb for the family living in the castle. Less commonly, it was used as a refuge (along with the keep).

Many stories are told about underground passages in castles. Of course, there were moves. But only a very few of them led somewhere from the castle to the neighboring forest and could be used as a route to escape. As a rule, there were no long moves at all. Most often, there were short tunnels between individual buildings, or from the keep to the complex of caves under the castle (additional shelter, warehouse or treasury).

War on land and underground

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the average size of a military garrison of an ordinary castle during active hostilities rarely exceeded 30 people. This was quite enough for defense, since the inhabitants of the fortress were relatively safe outside its walls and did not suffer such losses as the attackers.

To capture the castle, it was required to isolate it - that is, to block all routes for the supply of food. That is why the attacking armies were much larger than the defenders - about 150 people (this is true for the war of the middle feudal lords).

The food issue was the most painful. A person can live without water for several days, without food - for about a month (at the same time, one should take into account his low fighting capacity during a hunger strike). Therefore, the owners of the castle, preparing for a siege, often went to extreme measures - they drove out of its borders all the commoners who could not benefit the defense. As mentioned above, the garrison of the castles was small - it was impossible to feed an entire army in a siege.

The inhabitants of the castle rarely launched counterattacks. This simply did not make sense - there were fewer of them than the attackers, and outside the walls they felt much calmer. Food outings are a special case. The latter were carried out, as a rule, at night, in small groups that walked along poorly guarded paths to the nearest villages.

The attackers had no less problems. The siege of castles sometimes dragged on for years (for example, the German Turant defended from 1245 to 1248), so the question of the rear supply of an army of several hundred people arose especially acute.

In the case of the siege of Turanta, chroniclers claim that during all this time, the soldiers of the attacking army drank 300 fuders of wine (a fuder is a huge barrel). This amounts to about 2.8 million liters. Either the scribe made a mistake, or the constant number of besiegers was over 1,000.

For the capture of the castle by starvation, the most preferable season was summer - it rains less than in spring or autumn (in winter the inhabitants of the castle could get water by melting the snow), the harvest was not yet ripe, and the old stocks were already over.

The attackers tried to deprive the castle of a source of water (for example, they built dams on the river). In the most extreme cases, “biological weapons” were used - corpses were thrown into the water, which could provoke outbreaks of epidemics throughout the district. Those inhabitants of the castle who were captured were mutilated and released by the attackers. Those returned back, and became unwitting freeloaders. In the castle they might not have been accepted, but if they were the wives or children of the besieged, then the voice of the heart outweighed considerations of tactical expediency.

The inhabitants of the surrounding villages who tried to deliver supplies to the castle were treated no less cruelly. In 1161, during the siege of Milan, Friedrich Barbarossa ordered the hands of 25 citizens of Piacenza to be cut off, who were trying to supply the enemies with provisions.

The besiegers set up a permanent camp near the castle. It also had some of the simplest fortifications (palisades, earthen ramparts) in case of a sudden attack by the defenders of the fortress. For protracted sieges, a so-called "counter-castle" was erected near the castle. Usually it was located higher than the besieged, which made it possible to conduct effective observation of the besieged from its walls and, if the distance allowed, to fire at them from throwing guns.

View of the Eltz castle from the Trutz-Eltz counter-castle.

The war against castles had its own specifics. After all, any more or less high stone fortification was a serious obstacle for ordinary armies. Direct infantry attacks on the fortress could well have been crowned with success, which, however, came at the cost of great sacrifices.

That is why for the successful capture of the castle, a whole complex of military measures was needed (the siege and starvation was already mentioned above). Undermining was one of the most laborious, but at the same time extremely successful ways to overcome the castle's defenses.

The excavations were made for two purposes - to provide troops with direct access to the courtyard of the castle, or to destroy a section of its wall.

So, during the siege of Altwindstein castle in Northern Alsace in 1332, a brigade of 80 (!) Sappers took advantage of the diversionary maneuvers of their troops (periodic short attacks on the castle) and for 10 weeks made a long passage in solid rock to the southeastern part of the fortress ...

If the castle wall was not too large and had an unreliable foundation, then a tunnel broke through its base, the walls of which were reinforced with wooden struts. Further, the spacers were set on fire - just under the wall. The tunnel collapsed, the base of the foundation sagged, and the wall above this place fell apart.

Storming the castle (miniature of the 14th century).

Later, with the advent of gunpowder weapons, bombs were planted in the trenches under the castle walls. To neutralize the undermining, the besieged sometimes dug counter-tunnels. Enemy sappers were poured with boiling water, bees were launched into the tunnel, and feces were poured there (and in ancient times, the Carthaginians launched live crocodiles into Roman tunnels).

Curious devices were used to detect the undermines. For example, large copper bowls with balls inside were placed throughout the castle. If a ball in any bowl began to tremble, it was a sure sign that a tunnel was under way nearby.

But the main argument in the attack on the castle was siege machines - catapults and battering rams. The first ones differed little from those catapults that were used by the Romans. These attachments were equipped with a counterweight to give the throwing arm the greatest force. With the proper skill of the "gun crew", the catapults were quite accurate weapons. They threw large, smoothly hewn stones, and the combat range (on average - several hundred meters) was regulated by the weight of the shells.

A type of catapult is a trebuchet.

Sometimes barrels filled with combustible materials were loaded into the catapults. To deliver a couple of pleasant minutes to the defenders of the castle, catapults threw the severed heads of prisoners to them (especially powerful machines could throw even whole corpses over the wall).

Storming the castle with a mobile tower.

In addition to the usual ram, pendulum was also used. They were fixed on high mobile frames with a canopy and were a log suspended from a chain. The besiegers hid inside the tower and swung the chain, forcing the log to hit the wall.

In response, the besieged lowered a rope from the wall, at the end of which steel hooks were fixed. With this rope, they caught the ram and tried to lift it up, immobilizing it. Sometimes a gape soldier could get caught on such hooks.

After overcoming the rampart, breaking the palisades and filling the moat, the attackers either stormed the castle with the help of stairs, or used high wooden towers, the upper platform of which was on the same level with the wall (or even higher). These gigantic structures were doused with water to prevent arson by the defenders and rolled up to the castle along the plank flooring. A heavy platform was thrown onto the wall. The assault group climbed up the inner staircase, went out onto the platform and, with a fight, invaded the gallery of the fortress wall. This usually meant that in a couple of minutes the lock would be taken.

Silent glanders

Sapa (from French sape, literally - a hoe, saper - to dig under) - a method of fragments of a moat, trench or tunnel to approach its fortifications, used in the 16-19 centuries. Known flap (quiet, secretive) and flying glanders. The work was carried out with a flip-flop from the bottom of the initial ditch without the workers coming to the surface, and the volatile work was carried out from the surface of the earth under the cover of a previously prepared protective embankment made of barrels and sacks of earth. In the second half of the 17th century, engineers appeared in the armies of a number of countries to carry out such work.

The expression to act "quietly" means: sneak, walk slowly, unnoticed, penetrate somewhere.

Fights on the stairs of the castle

From one floor of the tower, one could get to another only by a narrow and steep spiral staircase. The ascent along it was carried out only one after another - it was so narrow. At the same time, the warrior who walked first could only rely on his own ability to fight, for the steepness of the turn of the loop was selected in such a way that it was impossible to act with a spear or long sword from behind the leader. Therefore, the battles on the stairs were reduced to a single combat between the defenders of the castle and one of the attackers. It was the defenders, because they could easily replace each other, since a special extended area was located behind them.

All locks have clockwise staircases. There is only one reverse-twist lock - the fortress of the Wallenstein Counts. Studying the history of this genus revealed that most of the men in it were left-handed. Thanks to this, historians realized that such a design of stairs greatly facilitates the work of defenders. The most powerful blow with the sword can be applied to the side of your left shoulder, and the shield in the left hand best covers the body from this direction. All these advantages are available only to the defender. The attacker can only strike to the right side, but his striking hand will be pressed against the wall. If he puts forward the shield, then he will almost lose the ability to use weapons.

Samurai castles

Himeji Castle.

The least we know about exotic castles - for example, Japanese.

Initially, samurai and their overlords lived in their estates, where, apart from the watchtower “yagura” and a small moat around the dwelling, there were no other defensive structures. In the event of a protracted war, fortifications were erected in hard-to-reach areas of the mountains, where it was possible to defend against superior enemy forces.

Stone castles began to be built at the end of the 16th century, taking into account European achievements in fortification. An indispensable feature of the Japanese castle is the wide and deep artificial ditches with steep slopes that surrounded it from all sides. Usually they were filled with water, but sometimes this function was performed by a natural water barrier - a river, lake, swamp.

Inside, the castle was a complex system of defensive structures, consisting of several rows of walls with courtyards and gates, underground corridors and labyrinths. All these structures were located around the central honmaru square, on which the feudal lord's palace and the high central tenshukaku tower were erected. The latter consisted of several rectangular tiers gradually decreasing upward with protruding tiled roofs and pediments.

Japanese castles, as a rule, were small - about 200 meters long and 500 meters wide. But among them there were also real giants. Thus, Odawara Castle occupied an area of \u200b\u200b170 hectares, and the total length of its walls reached 5 kilometers, which is twice the length of the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.

The charm of antiquity

Castles are still under construction. Those of them that were in state ownership are often returned to the descendants of ancient clans. Castles are a symbol of the influence of their owners. They are an example of an ideal compositional solution, which combines fusion (defense considerations did not allow the picturesque distribution of buildings across the territory), multilevel buildings (main and secondary) and the ultimate functionality of all components. Elements of the castle architecture have already become archetypes - for example, the castle tower with battlements: its image sits in the subconscious of any more or less educated person.

French castle Saumur (14th century miniature).

Finally, we love castles because they are simply romantic. Knightly tournaments, gala receptions, dastardly conspiracies, secret passages, ghosts, treasures - in relation to castles, all this ceases to be a legend and turns into history. The expression “walls remember” fits perfectly here: it seems that every stone of the castle breathes and hides a secret. I would like to believe that medieval castles will continue to preserve an aura of mystery - because without it they will sooner or later turn into an old heap of stones.

H. I. Naryshkina - associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Execution Law of the Vladimir Law Institute of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia,

phD in Law

In the Middle Ages, prisons in the city-states of Italy became commonplace. P. Spirenburg points out that in statutes 37 out of 81 Italian cities mentioned prisons (Italian carceri).

G. Geltner, a well-known researcher of the history of the formation and development of the institution of prisons and imprisonment of cities in medieval Italy, points out that, starting from the XII century, in Venice, which was, in fact, a city-state, a fairly developed system of prisons developed, including:

I. Government prisons (Italian casoni), located in each of the six districts (Italian sestieri) of the city. The word "casa" literally translates from Italian as "home". Accordingly, we can say that these were detention houses.

• 2. Debt prison, located next to the Rialto Bridge and intended to contain insolvent debtors. The Venice Statute of 1242 stipulated that debtors should initially, within 30 days, restrict freedom of movement to the central regions of Venice, they were forbidden to cross the bridges separating this area from other areas of the city. If within the specified time the debtors did not pay or violated the boundaries of their stay and travel routes, then they were imprisoned. This restriction of spatial freedom was a kind of "open prison" and was intended, on the one hand, to exclude the debtor's escape, on the other hand, to give him a chance to earn or find the money he needed, and on the third - a situation in which the debtor turned out to be, quickly became known to his neighbors, which could increase public pressure on him and force him to pay the debt, because the impossibility of paying off the debt was considered a shame in the eyes of public opinion. In Venice, unlike many other European states, private arrests of debtors were legalized, but there was no private conclusion. That is, the creditor could demand the arrest of the debtor or arrest him personally, but he could not keep him in custody, for example, in his own house.
• 3. Prison cells that functioned inside and around the Doge's Palace (Italian Palazzo Ducale), starting from 1173 During the XIII-XIV centuries. Additional work was carried out inside the palace, as a result of which the places of imprisonment occupied the entire first floor of the southern wing of the palace, and several cells were equipped under the roof of the eastern wing for the imprisonment of heretic women, who were previously held in nearby monasteries. The practice of confining women in the monastery was suspended in the 90s. XIII century. due to the fact that many of them were prostitutes and invited their clients to monasteries, which aroused the indignation of the nuns. A little later, the Venetian Council of Ten (Italian Consiglio dei Died), the governing body of the Venetian Republic, founded by a decree of the Grand Council in June 1310, decided to commission (or expand the existing ones) cells on the upper floor of the palace, which were used as places of detention under investigation.
• 4. Prison cells in monasteries. In general, imprisonment has been practiced in church court practice in relation to erring clergymen since the 4th century. Before the creation of secular prisons, this was common. Monastic imprisonment was also applied to the laity, especially this practice expanded, starting in the 13th century, thanks to the development of the papal inquisition, which often sentenced heretics to imprisonment. Pope Boniface VIII in 1298 formally introduced imprisonment into ecclesiastical law as an appropriate punishment.

That is, medieval Venetian prisons served as places of deprivation of liberty, preliminary detention, for both secular crimes and crimes against the church, and were also intended to contain insolvent debtors and political opponents.

As for the organization of the Venetian prisons, G. Geltner initially characterizes it as semi-improvised, in accordance with very limited legislation in this area, which, providing for the grounds for imprisonment, paid little attention to the issues of the functioning of prisons and the definition of specific terms of imprisonment (up to the beginning XIV century). Since most of the Venetian places of detention were located in the Doge's Palace, it was much easier to attract palace guards to guard the prisoners than to create independent structural units that ensured compliance with the requirements of the regime.

If the guards were specially appointed to supervise the behavior of the detained prisoner, then the latter had to pay them a salary himself, as was done in 1275, when a certain Simone Steno, as an oath-breaker, was sentenced to pay a fine of 300 lire during 15 days. The Grand Council (Italian Maggior Consiglio) - the governing body of the Venetian Republic, which existed since 1172, - decided that in case of failure to pay the fine properly and on time, the convict should be imprisoned in a large prison (Italian maior career) of the Doge's Palace in order to ensuring the payment of a debt by them with the imposition of the obligation to pay salaries to the guards assigned to him, which can be regarded as an aggravating element of the imprisonment of the insolvent debtor.

The Doge and the members of the Grand Council were required to inspect prisons on a weekly basis in order to ensure the judicial expediency of detention, rather than to monitor the conditions of detention and the behavior of the guards. Later, in connection with the consolidation in regulatory legal acts of certain terms of imprisonment, divided into urgent and life (eternal), the increase in the number of prison premises, the growing interest of judges in the conditions of detention of prisoners in prisons, the growth of their well-being, including through charity, the system of monitoring the functioning of prisons has changed, and the mechanism for recruiting prison staff has been transformed.

So, shortly before 1250, there appeared "lords of the night" ("lords of the night", "lords of the night") - nobles who were elected from each of the six districts of Venice and watched what was happening in the city at night. Since 1297, the "lords of the night" had to visit the prisoners on a weekly basis, which was previously the responsibility of the doge and members of the Grand Council, and in 1321 they were responsible for paying the salaries of the guards of the prisons, divided into upper and lower ones.

The statute of 1339 first mentions the position of the chief or capitano of the lower prisons, with which the guards were on duty. The staff of the prison staff consisted of 6-8 people, and the salary gradually increased from 4 to 5 lira per month. The office of a notary was introduced into the state of prisons only from 1343. In the upper prisons, mainly used by the Council of Ten to detain suspects and accused of crimes, the number of guards by 1398 was 6 people, one from each district a monthly salary of 13 liras.

The legal status of prisoners in medieval Venetian prisons was characterized by the following features:

• - the principle of the separation of prisoners was observed:
  • a) men and women. Women's prisons were built in Venice beginning in the 1360s;
  • b) sick (weak, insane) and healthy. In the 1320s. in Venice, the surgeon Ricobaldo treated prisoners free of charge, despite his poverty. In Venetian prisons by 1400, sick prisoners were usually accommodated in more comfortable cells, but were not released for health reasons;
  • c) convicted criminals, debtors and persons under investigation. They were supposed to be located on different floors of the Doge's Palace: the upper and lower prisons. But the separation was not always respected in practice, despite the efforts of the judges, who in 1309 demanded that criminals sentenced to imprisonment be held separately. Despite legislative efforts, power, wealth, the influence of relatives, and not the severity of the crime committed, influenced placement in prisons;
• - prisoners were exempted from paying dues and fees for entering, exiting and their detention in prisons, regardless of social status or grounds for detention;
• - prisoners were subjected to torture, which was actively practiced against them by the staff of Venetian prisons in the XIII-XIV centuries;
• - the authorities of Venice, starting from 1442 (following Padua, Vincenza, Verona, Ravenna), appointed prisoners a public defender, but in general legal assistance was available to prisoners throughout the end of the 13th-15th centuries;
• - the authorities of Venice rarely released prisoners on religious holidays, some prisoners could regain their freedom by posting bail and providing an obligation to appear in court. They could also be released from prison in order to combat the overlimit of the special contingent. For example, in order to free the overcrowded prisons of Venice in 1331, the Council of Ten ordered the release of all debtors who had been imprisoned for more than two years;
• - poor prisoners could receive food from the commune, begging or charity;
• - the recruitment of prisoners to work in medieval Venetian prisons was very limited