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Author
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Topic: which has more castles? Germany or Great Britain?
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cancer_man
Member
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posted 03-29-99 03:15 PM
  
I'm just wondering if anyone knows which country has more castles, Germany or Great Britian. I've got a great discussion going here, but can't seem to solve the answer to the question.
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J_A_C_O_B
Member
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posted 04-12-99 08:33 AM
great britain has 55 and germany has 91
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 04-12-99 02:15 PM
The number of castles in the british isles is unknown. This is for several reasons. Firstly the exact definition of castle is not clear so that some iron age hill forts are called castles (ie. Maidens Castle in Dorset), some natural features are called castles many later houses with no military use at all are called castles, some strictly military building with no residential use are called castles.
Secondly not all documented medieval castles have been located and their sites are lost.
Thirdly many mottes are know which have no documented history and, therefore, can not be certainly ascribed the title castle. Fourthly many smaller medieval residential houses were fortified against robber bands, particularly in Scotland and the Borders, these are described as castles by some and fortified houses by others.However with all these provisos it is probable that their are several hundred sites of medieval castles in England, with some existing remains (usually just earthworks). I personally have visited two hundred such sites. The likely total number of castles for the British Isles would be in the thousands. However without a strict definition of castle it is not possibly to say. I imagine the same considerations are true for Germany. (plus the additional difficult of defining which the extent of Germany considering the many changes to the country since it came into existence in 1870 and it's no existence before that time.) However if you define castles as those listed in some guide book or other then you can give a specific, if grossly inaccurate, response.
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Andrew Muller
Member
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posted 04-27-99 09:38 AM
I think Britain must win! I have been to over 1400 Castles just in ENGLAND, let alone adding Scotland and Wales!!Sure, some are just earthworks and follies, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth visiting - check out my photo of Dinton Castle (Buckinghamshire) in the E-Cards from this page!
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 05-05-99 07:34 AM
At 1400 castles England has a castle density of about one castle every 100 sq.km or about 10 km between castles. In 'The Medieval Castle - Life in a fortress in peace and war' Philip Warner writes "It was said, and probably rightly, there was a castle to every square mile in western Germany." or a density of castles over twenty five times greater. Given that Germany has a larger area than Britain and an apparently greater density of castles Germany must of had many more castles than Britain.It would also seem probably to me that more of Germanys medieval castles have been dystroyed in the warfare of the last few hundred years than in relatively peaceful Britain. Also more post medieval fortifications would have been built in Germany than in Britain. Without a strict definition of castle this question remains ultimately unanswerable. However, I can not concieve of any reasonable definition of castle which would not result in Germany having a greater amount then Britain.
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RoystonB
Member
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posted 05-13-99 11:02 AM
I have know idea how many Castles are in Germany. However I have Logged over 1500 in England, 2000 in Scotland and a couple of hundred in Ireland and Wales. Thats getting on for 4000. Most with Ordnance Survey References, and I'm still finding sites.
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 05-13-99 03:26 PM
I wonder how Andrew and Royston are defining castles. Is a temporary seige work, like the motte near Corfe Castle, a castle (I presume it would be recorded on the OS map as a motte)? Is Maiden Castle Dorset a castle? Is Burgh Castle in Norfolk? Is Fillingham Castle?
I have my own feeling about these but without giving some idea of what is meant by castle the mention of numbers is fairly meaningless. My own view is that it is likely the the privated fortified residences of Lords (including the monarch and ecclesiastics and also including individuals who's domains were small) built in England is between 1000 and 1500. I also feel that some remains exist of almost all of these castles.I think this is a interesting area of discussion so I'm also posting an extended version of this question as a new topic. ------------------
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 05-13-99 03:26 PM
Doh! submitted the same post twice.------------------
[This message has been edited by Philip Davis (edited 05-13-99).]
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Ane
Member
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posted 05-19-99 01:22 PM
I don't believe there is a proper definition for what makes a castle except for folklore. In most documentation, the classification of castles have ranged from majestic stone buildings that are still standing today to piles of rubble. The only thing that has deemed these dwellings castles is the ancient folklore that people relish. There will probably never be a specific "code" that would give a dwelling the title of castle.
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Ane
Member
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posted 05-19-99 01:23 PM
I don't believe there is a proper definition for what makes a castle except for folklore. In most documentation, the classification of castles have ranged from majestic stone buildings that are still standing today to piles of rubble. The only thing that has deemed these dwellings castles is the ancient folklore that people relish. There will probably never be a specific "code" that would give a dwelling the title of castle.
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 05-20-99 09:11 AM
It's clear that there is no straight forward definition of castle but it must be possible to define castle a little more tightly than 'folklore', after all folklore says "an englishmans home is his castle" which gives england not several hundred castles but several million! (in which case England clearly has more castles than Germany.)
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duncan
Senior Member
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posted 05-20-99 07:15 PM
Thanks Philip, that was very well put.
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 05-21-99 02:34 AM
Thanks Duncan.
To return to the original question, I was rereading M.W. Thompson excelent 'The Decline of the Castle' (Cambridge 1987 - ISBN 1 85422 608 8) and came across the following numbers and references.
"according to a recent list (D.J.King, Castellarium Anglicanum, New York 1983) there would have been about 1700 examples in England and Wales, excluding some 270 tower-houses in the Border areas. Some 14000 castles (5500 earthworks remains) have been listed for the German-speaking areas of Europe (C.Tillman, Lexikon der Deutschen Burgen und Schlösser, 4 vols., Stuttgart 1958), although no doubt an under estimate."
So even if you add the tower houses and treble this number for the British Isles (Both Scotland and Ireland have fewer motte castle than England but many more tower-houses) and you have the totals for german speaking areas to the german speaking areas of europe not in present day Germany Germany still has a 1000 more castles. My own guess, based on these numbers, would be that Germany has two to three times the number of castles of the British Isles.
As a definition to what a castle is Thompson gives the interesting answer that it is a residence surrounded by a wall thick enough for a man to stand upon (and thus defend the wall and the buildings inside from attackers). The wall needn't be of stone, a wood pallisade and earth bank would still be a wall in this definition.
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Valarie Grasley
Member
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posted 09-03-99 09:20 PM
I think the england has more castles but german castles are the best looking. They are in scenic locations and have almost fairy tale archetecture.
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