The Lost Fort
My Travel and History Blog, Focussing mostly on Roman and Mediaeval Times
XXL Cauldrons, or How to Feed 600 People
Lady Despenser has some interesting posts about the offices in the king's household at the time of Edward II (here and here). A good number of those jobs were somehow involved with feeding the king and the royal household, and that reminded me I have some pics of what remains of the kitchens in Caernarfon Castle.
The kitchen was situated between King's Gate and Well Tower, using the curtain wall as outer wall, and opposite the never finished great hall. The way would have been short but with the Welsh rain (it was one of the two rainy afternoons during my stay) there would have been need of special umbrella bearers nevertheless.
Curtain wall with remains of the kitchens, and the Well Tower (left)The rather flimsy foundations of the courtyard site wall shows that the kitchen was intended as preliminary structure. At the time of Edward I, with construction work still going on in Caernarfon, there were about 600 people to feed every day, staff, servants (some 350 of those alone) garrison, and workers.
One of the features planned but never completed was a dock at the Well Tower that would have allowed to bring in waterborne supplies via the - then waterfilled - ditch. The entrance was to be defended by two sets of gates, portcullis and murder holes. Supplies were stored in the basement and the lower ward where the granaries and larders were located. The staircase was wide enough for two porters to pass side by side.
Settings for the cauldrons in the boiling roomAn important part of the diet was boiled meat. There was a separate boiling room for that purpose with settings for two XXL cauldrons atop a stone furnace. The boiling room - adjacent the Well Tower - was separated from the kitchen proper by a thick wall into which a hearth was built. The connection between boiling room and kitchen went through a passage in the curtain wall which also held the pipes for water supply from the Well Tower. The well was about 50 feet deep.
Not visible on the photo is the special storage space for herbs and spices in the wall of the Well Tower. Since some of the spices were very expensive, I can imagine that closet was securely locked.
View towards the boiling room from the accomodation roomToothings for the separating wall and foundation of the fireplace can be seen in the background, the passageway openings at the side. The water supply was gathered in a bassin (the smaller opening; it's very weathered today) and waste was disposed through the hole near the ground in the room in the foreground. The accomodation rooms took up two storeys; there's a staircase in the curtain wall.
The Cadw guide book doesn't specifiy who occupied the accomodation rooms, kitchen staff or guests. The advantage would have been that the rooms were warm with the fireplaces and the chimney the remains of which can be seen in the foreground of above picture, but being housed in the Eagle Tower surely held greater prestige. Maybe it was staff and poor guests like pilgrims.
The meals for the king were not prepared in the main kitchen but in a separate room in the Eagle Tower, near the king's appartment. This seems to have been a non-permanent arrangement as well. He also had his personal cooks - or should we call them chefs, lol?
View towards accomodation rooms from the kitchenThe ground floor of the Well Tower held the counting house, the central financial office of the royal household. Here the steward, the treasurer and the controller would meet every day, assisted by he cofferer who collected funds and provided money for purchases. Plus a bunch of clerks, of course. Money spent on fresh supplies, and things taken from the stoes were controlled as well as the number of meals given out, and every evening the accounts would be compared - without the use of Excel and other useful programs. If a cook could not explain any difference, he'd be fined heavily.
Now we only need
Elizabeth Chadwick to come up with a Mediaeval receipe to go with those posts. Preferably one that doesn't require an XXL cauldron.
Slings and Big Stones
There's a Trebuchet Club thread on the Nano forums, open for all writers who have a trebuchet in their novel, in whatever form. It reminded me that I have some pics of trebuchets I took at Caerphilly Castle.
Traction trebuchet in the foreground, a counterweight one in the back
They're replica, on display on the south dam platform, part of the outer ring of fortifications. The big brother of the Roman
ballista, trebuchets are basically giant slings that could cast rocks or later, iron balls, into the walls and roofs of a castle or town. Traction trebuchets work by human power, with several men pulling the casting bar down for one fellow to load the sling which was then released and would catapult the stone into a target - hopefully.
Traction trebuchet
A fine example for the traction trebuchet is this minuature from the Maciejowsky Bible (c.1240). I found the picture on
this site, but it's pretty well distributed on the net.
Counterweight trebuchets had a box or basket filled with sand or small stones to make the pulling down of the throwing bar easier. One or two men could work the ropes running over a cogwheel, where it needed half a dozen at least with the traction ones. Thus, counterweight trebuchets could come in even larger versions.
Example of a counterweight trebuchet
The picture is from the same trebuchet site linked above. Thanks to Alianore for hunting down info about that letter.
The above illustration is an example for a counterweight trebuchet, a drawing from an illuminated letter from Edward II's charter in Carlisle, describing an event from 1316 when the Scots under Bruce laid
siege to Carlisle which was defended by de Harclay. It shows a number of interesting details, like a dead archer on the ground, which proves that the siege engines were pretty close to the castle. Also, the rope holding the counterweight was obviously cut for release - look what the guy with the hammer is doing.
I'm not good at physics; I leave that to Constance, lol. But the trebuchets, with their casting bars that held the slings up in the air, in front of a castle, make for some fine pictures. The Caerphilly ones are sometimes fired by reenactment groups. My guide book has a photo of several guys hanging on the traction trebuchet to get it down for loading.
Another shot of the traction trebuchet
And yes, I'm probably going to have a trebuchet or two in
Kings and Rebels. Though I'll leave the details to siege engineers, and none of my characters happens to be one.
Don't Mess With Me, lol
These fun pictures were taken in the Late Mediaeval Museum in Goslar.
They had a number of replica and some originals from the later Middle Ages, plus some torture instruments and assorted other fun. The frame of what to display included not only crossbows and a ballista, but also muskets.
It's one of those small museums run by devoted fans and geeks, and reminded me a bit of the Richard III Museum in York. And like that one, it is housed in an old tower of the town fortifications (you can also hire a self catering appartment in the same tower). Those more or less private museums also have the advantage that the staff is usually less picky about people touching things. No wonder I had a field day.
And if you think the sword to the left is large, wait until you see its big brother.
To the right is said big brother; a sword too big to hold in proper defense stance long enough for an un-blurred photo. Zornhau or Bill should know what exactly that oversized knife is called; it's surely a bihander sword still in use during the Thirty Years War. Both sword and helmet are replica.
Edited to add: Zornhau says in the comments that it is more likely a ceremonial sword that would be carried in a procession, and not a real weapon. I don't envy the poor chap who got that job, lol.
Normanstein Castle
Another castle in former east Germany I had on my list. The name has nothing to do with the Normans, though, and it's not in the scale of your average Norman castle. But it's pretty, and because of more thorough restoration work in the 19th century, more of it has been preserved than with some other castle remains I've visited.
View to the Normanstein from TreffurtThe Romanesque castle, situated above the Werra river to protect the fords and town of Treffurt, dates back to the 11th century. The keep and the two defense towers stand close together in the inner yard; later an outer bailey was added, protected by a wall and trench system.
View from the former outer baileyThe Knights of Treffurt were vassals of the landgraves of Thuringia, but in the 14th century their power increased to a point where they were considered a danger by some counts and high ranking clerics. In 1336, the united hosts of Thuringia, Hessia and Mainz managed to finally defeat them. The castle was divided between the victors who governed the town of Treffurt from there.
Inner curtain wallsIn the 16th century, more modern seats were built for the magistrates, and the castle fell into decline except for round tower which was used as prison. But that way the castle was not altered into a fortress or Baroque palace like it happened with some other places (
Regenstein,
Adelebsen). In 1894 the castle was bought by Gustav Döring who restored the crumbling towers and established a restaurant in the former crypt.
View to the Werra vale from a window of the keepDuring the time of the German division the castle served as youth hostel. Since 1996 renovations were going on big style to preserve the ruins as well as the reconstructed parts. Those measures have been finished in September 2008, and so I got to visit a sparkly new castle, lol. There is a restaurant again today, not in the crypt but the former main house.