Castle Quest - Reply to Topic

Forum:	Castles In General & Medieval History
Topic:	children in sieges

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T O P I C R E V I E W
Maria I remember seeing this on tv long time ago. It was about a castle (can't remember which)that had a tower with narrow doors, so that a child could pass and an adult couldn't. This was in the event of enemy getting inside. Does anyone know which castle it was? Also, this wasn't such an intelligent solution, was it? I mean, what could a child do, starve to death awaiting to be rescued?
Peter That seems a strange one Maria.
I mean you could always have a nasty dwarf in the opposing force. All kinds of characters used to follow armies. Besides many wifes, children, mistresses.
Peter
Maria Yes, I thought so at the moment. More like an architectural fancy, wasn't it? Something that sounded good in theory. I couldn't keep asking, how could you get your child out, if it wasn't a siege, just a case of naughtiness?
Steve-O-Gerst It's possible that the children were passing through to deliver goods, such as ammunition, food, etc. for the soldiers. There's been a long tradition of having little boys provide such items, and I believe squires started service at a fairly young age.
If the passage(s) led from the armormy to the battlements, they could have been fairly practical in this nature.
It would at least keep the bulk of the invading army from going straight to the weapons chamber, and a few armed guards inside could probably take care of the random vicious dwarf that liked to climb the battlements, and fight his way to the core of the castle.
Hmm, "The king has recently developed a corps of dwarf-warriors to invade a certain castle..." Sounds like a good start for a dungeons and dragons campaign, but in the real world, it sounds rather ludicrous.
Levan It's also worth remembering that nearly all people in previous eras were much smaller than they are nowadays.
The Vikings were described in chronicles as, "being like giants"; however, from archaeological evidence it seems that their average height was around 1.5 meters. It must be pointed out that the chronicles were written by the Mongols, one of few literate people at the time, who were even shorter in stature!

Merlin By the Mongols??? Are you sure about that one, Levan? I never heard from any mongol literature from the middle ages...
Or did you mean "monks"? This would make sense, as the first viking attacks were agains abbeys on the british isles like Lindisfarne.
SwordOfErin When they said 'a child could get through but an adult could not' they might have meant that figuratively, meaning the entrance was so narrow warriors effectively couldn't enter.