Medieval Siege Tactics
A castle was a well fortified building and when the gates were shut and the drawbridge was raised it was a very difficult
place for attackers to get into. Medieval soldiers employed many tactics in their attempts to breach a castle's defences.
The term siege is defined as the action employed by an army of surrounding a fortified location cutting its inhabitants
off from escape or resupply while being attacked.
The attackers, or besiegers, had several types of siege engines that they used in their attempts to break into a castle, but even
with the strongest engine a siege could last months. The attackers sometimes had to wait until the defenders in the castle
had run out of supplies and surrendered the castle.
Siege Preparations
The besieging army had to protect itself from attacks from the castle's inhabitants and possibly their supporters
outside the castle. It was common for the besiegers to construct two lines of defence around the
castle. The first line of defences was built between the besiegers and the castle and was known as the circumvallation.
The second line, known as the
contravallation, was built around the besiegers so that they were surrounded by defensive walls.
Both lines of defence consisted of earth banks and wooden palisades.
There was a danger that the besiegers themselves would be besieged within their fortifications.
Within these lines the besiegers set up their camps and built their siege engines.
Types of Siege Engine
The Trebuchet
This was the largest of all siege engines. It was designed to throw
large rocks and missiles at castle walls to destroy them.
Trebuchets came in many shapes and sizes, some having wheels so they could be moved
around the siege landscape. Trebuchets were built as kits that could be assembled and
disassembled and transported in sections to where they were needed. All the pieces slotted
together and were fixed with wooden or metal pegs.
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Siege Towers
The siege towers or belfry was designed to allow attackers to get up
over the top of castle walls.
The tower had wheels so that it could be pushed up to the castle walls
and a drawbridge at the top would be lowered when the tower was in place.
To protect the tower from fire it would have been covered with animal hides.
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The Cat
The cat or sow was a wooden shed mounted on wheels. It had a wooden roof angled so that
missiles would bounce off and was covered in animal hides to protect it from fire.
The cat would be moved up to the castle with men inside safe from attack from the
castles walls. This siege machine was used when a section of the moat needed filling
in so that a siege tower could be moved into position. It could also be moved right up
to the castle so that the men inside could hack away at the walls in an attempt to weaken
them.
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The Manogel
The mangonel was another siege engine that propelled boulders. It had a throwing arm
like the trebuchet but worked on a different principal. The arm was slotted through
rope so that when the arm was lowered the rope twisted and provided enough energy
to make the arm spring back when released.
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Undermining
It was possible to destroy castle walls from above the ground using trebuchets and mangonels but
it was also possible to bring castle walls crashing down from beneath the ground. The besiegers
employed skilled miners who could construct tunnels starting from their camps and ending
beneath the castle walls. Under a section of wall the miners would remove the foundation
stones replacing them with wooden props. Once enough of the wall had been removed a fire was
lit beneath the wooden props and the miners left the mine. When the props burnt through there
was nothing holding the castle wall up and it would collapse.
The castle's defenders used a tactic called countermining. This involved digging a tunnel
from within the castle to intercept the attackers mine and kill the enemy miners.
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