posted 09-06-2001 02:42 PM            

One of the key purposes of putting water in a moat was to cause greater problems for sappers in undermining the castle walls (they'd risk drowning).

I afraid the idea of crocodiles or such like in moats is something of a myth, although it was not uncommon for sharpened sticks (bungy sticks) to be placed in the moat.

Some castles, such as Leven and Caerfilly were built on islands on the middle of lakes (sometimes artificial).

Not all moats have water in at all - dry moats were very effective as attackers needed to face downwards as they attacked the castle.

There are diagrams of moats on the castles of Wales website: http://www.castlewales.com/caerphil.html http://www.castlewales.com/beaumar.html

Also the Castles of Britain site is good: http://www.castles-of-britain.com/castleso.htm

I've got pictures of Caelaverock Castle on my site - you can just make out the double moat on some of the pictures: http://fp.kirkburn.f9.co.uk/castlelevan/nearby/castles/caelaverock/caelaverock.htm

Levan

posted 09-07-2001 08:58 AM            

2) I'm sure castles may have been attacked for their treasure, although I don't recall an example. I have seen examples of 'treasure' chests, bascially the medieval verion of a safe, which contained wealth accumulated from taxes, levies, tithes and so on. To call it treasure is taking too much from fiction, just as we today don't call the contents of personal safes, safety deposit boxes and bank vaults "TREASURE". I'm sure the liquid assets of a castle were kept in a safe place, such as the keep or the documents/records room, but I haven't heard of a castle with a special room for it's storage.
Sieges were conducted to take the castle for military purposes(gain new territory or strategic positions), could involve a great number of men assembled for the purposes of military campaign and could be quite expensive, so it's unlikely a castle would be sieged just for its wealth, although that was an added bonus.
There are accounts of small groups of men taking a castle through surprize, trickery or inside help.
The frequency of attack varied over time and could depend very much on the location and importance of a castle. Some castles were attacked many times while others never were. The fear felt by castle dwellers would follow reason. That is to say in times of peace they would likely not think about being attacked, whereas in times of great hostility they may indeed fear attack, particularly if the enemy is known or likely to rape, torture, pillage, murder and burn.
Just take today's victims of war as examples.

3) Apart from the moat and soldiers there were other very effective means of defence, not least of which was the wall! I guess you knew that one!
Read this previous thread about attacking castles; http://www.castlesontheweb.com/quest/Forum9/HTML/000280.html
Each attacking method had a defensive countermeasure, so methods of defence are numerous.
Steep hills, cliffs or water are pretty good defences also.

That's about it. I can't think of any link to a pic of what you're after.
Let us know if you get stuck on anything further.