LEVELED READER • Q

Castles
A Reading A–Z Level Q Leveled Reader
Word Count: 1,515
Castles

Written and
Illustrated by
Paula Schricker

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 Photo Credits:

Castles
Back cover, pages 5, 17: file; pages 9, 10, 15, 23: Corbis; page
11: Ancient Art & Architecture, Ltd.; page 12: Jeffrey L. Thomas/
www.castlewales.com; pages 18, 20: Hulton Archive/Getty
Images; page 21: Copyright 2001 Lise Hull, Castles Unlimited;
page 22: Mansell/TimePix.

Castles
Level Q Leveled Reader
© 2002 Learning Page, Inc.
Written and Illustrated
by Paula Schricker

ReadingA–ZTM
Written and Illustrated © Learning Page, Inc.

by Paula Schricker All rights reserved. Correlation

LEVEL Q
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 Table of Contents

What Is a Castle? ...................................4

A typical castle

The First Castles.....................................6 What Is a Castle?

Outside the Castle..................................8 During the Middle Ages, many great castles
were built across Europe. The castles were
Inside the Castle ...................................11 made to protect people from their enemies.
They had thick, tall walls and watchtowers
Built for Defense ..................................13 where guards stood watch over the castle.

The people who lived in the castles were

People In and Around the Castle..........15
the nobility, or nobles. However, they were
not the only people living in the castles.
Castles and War ...................................18
The people who served and protected the
nobility also lived within the castle walls.
Glossary ...............................................24
The nobles not only owned and lived in the
castle, they also owned much of the land
stretching beyond the castle. They were loyal
to the king. Their loyalty helped the king
control even more land.

3 4
 Living outside the castle was another class
of people called commoners. They were the
craftsmen and farmers who lived in small
towns and villages and on farms not far from
the castle. The commoners were loyal to the
nobles. They paid taxes, which allowed the
nobles to live privileged lives.

A mott and bailey castle

The First Castles

The first type of castle was called a mott

and bailey. The mott was a high mound
of dirt with a wooden tower built upon it.
A wooden fence, called a palisade, was built
out from the mott. The palisade formed a wall
surrounding the bailey, or the yard that held
the kitchen, hall, stables, and other buildings
Peasants farm the land around the lord’s castle. belonging to the noble.

5 6
 Later, castles had stone motts or towers. Outside the Castle
Many of these castles also featured moats.
Newly built castles were painted with
Moats were ditches, often filled with water,
a mixture of lime and water. This mixture
that surrounded the castle. As time passed,
gave the castle walls a fresh, clean coat of
castles were built with bigger towers and
white. For this reason, the mixture was
walls. They became larger, with more rooms
called whitewash.
and passages. They came to look more and
more like the large castles we see today. Every castle’s design was different. Still,
These castles were well built and have they had many of the same features. Most
withstood the test of time. had towers or turrets, and many castles had
an inner and an outer wall. Many also had
a very strong building in the center of the
castle. This building was called a keep.

Castle showing moat and stone towers Bird’s eye diagram of typical castle

7 8
Curtain wall and turret of the outer bailey. The keep is also visible. Windows in a Spanish castle

Many castles were built in places that made Castles had many windows to let light in.
them easier to defend. Many were built This meant that fewer candles and torches
in the middle of lakes or on jagged hilltops would be needed to light the rooms and halls.
and cliffs. This made it hard for attackers Windows near the ground were extremely
to reach the castle. narrow so that attackers could not climb
through them. Since windows high above
The walls were often more than 3 meters
the ground were difficult to reach, they could
(10 ft.) thick. The walls were topped with
be bigger. Most of these larger windows had
crenelations, or notches, that gave them a
shutters to keep out bad weather and often
sawtooth look. This design protected archers
had bars to keep invaders out.
from enemy arrows. It also made it more
difficult to climb over the walls. The primary The roofs and floors were made of hard
entrance was through the main gate. But often wood. Many castles had cellars that were
there were smaller gates around the castle’s used to store food and wine. After the Middle
walls. These smaller gates were used for extra Ages, dungeons were built in castle cellars.
traffic or for deliveries to the kitchens. These dungeons were used to house prisoners.

9 10
 Inside the Castle A castle had enough rooms to house
the noble and his extended family. Visitors
Castles weren’t just designed to be
probably slept on straw mattresses in the
defended. They were also designed to make
Great Hall after the tables had been cleared
life comfortable for the nobles. One of the
away. Most castles had spiral staircases. They
most important places in a castle was the
wound upward in a clockwise direction. They
Great Hall. It was where meals, entertainment,
were built this way to slow down invaders
and feasts were held. It was also where
by making it difficult to fight in the stairwells.
everyone gathered to talk or hold meetings.

The kitchens were separated from the

Great Hall by long passageways. Some kitchens
were outside in another building to avoid the
risk of the castles’ wooden roofs catching fire.
This meant that food for medieval feasts would
arrive at the tables cold or wet with rain!

The Great Hall of a thirteenth century castle in Switzerland Spiral staircase in a castle

11 12
 Inner Ward

Keep

Archers could stand behind the crenelations for protection.

Built for Defense

Outer Ward
One of the most important things to
consider in castle design was defense. A castle Main
Gate
usually had two surrounding walls. The inner
wall was taller than the outer one. Archers
standing on the inner wall could fire their Between the castle walls were the outer
arrows over the defenders on the shorter wall. and inner wards. The outer ward was filled
It also made it easier for those on the taller with shops and houses. The inner ward was
wall to defend against attackers who had where the food and weapons were stored,
reached the lower outer wall. the knights stayed, and water wells were dug.

The two sets of gates on these walls often In the center of the castle was a separate
opened at opposite ends of the castle. This building called the keep. It was here that the
forced invaders to circle around the inside nobility lived. It was the safest part of the
of the outer wall to find the other gate. While castle and the hardest to enter. It was
looking for the second gate, invaders could designed so that if the rest of the castle were
be hit by the castle guards’ arrows. captured, the nobles could still be defended.

13 14
 People In and Around the Castle The king and church had great power.
They ruled everyone in the kingdom. Under
During the Middle Ages, life revolved
the king and queen were several other classes
around the church. People believed that
of people. The highest class was the nobles.
God gave the kings and nobles the power
They paid the king a tax for the privilege to
to rule. The church had at least as much
control land in his kingdom. The knights also
power as the king. It represented the
ranked high in the kingdom. Below the knights
authority that gave the king his right to rule.
were the merchants and artisans. And below
them were the more common people such
as blacksmiths and shoemakers. All of these
people paid taxes to the nobles. They were
allowed to hold land.

Interior of the Chapel of St. John

15 16
 This painting of a siege shows a catapult and
a trebuchet.

Castles and War

Castles were the targets of many long-

running wars. Sometimes, walls were built
Peasants used very simple tools for farming the land. around entire towns. The peasants would
defend this town wall for as long as they could.
The lowest class was the peasants. If the town wall were overrun, then knights
They had to remain on the land where would defend the outer wall of the castle. If
they were born. Peasants did not own land. that fell, then the inner wall was defended.
These farmers had to give much of what And lastly, the center building, or keep, that
they produced to the king and the landowner. housed the nobles was defended.

17 18
 Defending the castle was not easy. Many methods were used to keep
Enemies used many weapons to try to take attackers from entering a castle. Holes were
over a castle. They used large battering rams cut into the floors of arches above the castle
to hammer away at the castle’s walls and entrance. Defenders poured burning sand
gates. They used weapons called catapults or tar on anyone trying to batter down the
to hurl rocks, debris, and even dead animals gates. Newer castles replaced arrow slits with
or people over the walls. Giant slingshot-like keyhole-shaped windows where cannons
weapons called trebuchets were also used to could be placed.
hurl objects over the walls. And to discourage
the castle defenders from rushing out of the
castle to attack them, the attackers used giant
crossbows mounted on carts.

Defenders use a catapult to repel an army that is using a siege

tower. Meanwhile, soldiers tunnel underneath the moat and
break into the castle.

Art showing attack on castle

19 20
 A siege tower being used to attack a castle.

Moats made castles harder to attack.

Enemies also dug under castle walls
to make them collapse. Sometimes they
The moat, often filled with water, moved large wooden towers against a wall.
surrounded the castle. It was difficult to tunnel They then used the towers to climb onto and
under a moat, and attackers could not wade over the walls. Attackers were known to use
across the deep water. There is a myth that portable bridges, or barges, to cross the
crocodiles were placed in the moats. Some moat and attack a castle. But often it was
moats did have eels and other kinds of fish not possible to break into a well-built and
in them for food, but there were no crocodiles. well-defended castle. So the attackers would
simply wait for the castle’s residents to run
out of food or water.

21 22
 Glossary
battering ram a reinforced log with a metal head
used to break down a castle’s gates
(p. 19)
catapult a weapon used to hurl objects over
castle walls (p. 19)
commoner a person without noble rank (p. 5)
crenelations the squared-off “teeth” on the upper
portion of a medieval castle wall,
designed to protect the defenders
(p. 9)
keep the central tower or building
in a castle (p. 8)
moat a deep, wide ditch around a castle,
often filled with water (p. 7)
mott and bailey early castle made up of a large,
fenced-in area (bailey) surrounding
a tall hill (mott) that often had a tower
(p. 6)
Ruins of a castle in Scotland noble a person of the ruling class, below
the king (p. 4)
Around the 1600s, castles became less palisade a spiked wooden wall built around
the bailey of a castle (p. 6)
and less popular. They were no longer easy to
defend because of the use of heavy cannons peasants the lowest class of people
in a kingdom (p. 17)
in warfare. The nobles also wanted more
trebuchet a large slingshot-like weapon used
comfortable and open places to live. Still, to throw rocks or other objects
many castles stand today as a reminder during a siege (p. 19)
of an age gone by. turrets castle towers (p. 8)

23 24