Sieges and War
by Daniel C.
Knights went to war for a
lot of
reasons. Some of these reasons include owning more land or winning back
the land they lost. They would travel thousands of miles and
fight for their church. The knights fought their hardest wars close to
home. Sometimes they took over the castle. Once in England, one
castle was invaded because they were hiding in a wagon full of hay. The
most common way the soldiers attacked was using bows and arrows to
shoot at the soldiers at the top of the castle. .The castle was very
hard to get into. The largest siege engine is the seige tower or the
belfry. It looks like a rolling tower. Another seige weapon is a
battering-ram. You smash the castle gates or walls until it falls or
breaks. The final one is the catapults. They are giant
slingshots and fire huge boulders over the walls. If the enemy puts
ladders on the walls, the people on the walls would sometime pour
oil or boiling water over them, and most of the time, they would
throw rocks or logs. On the catapult, sometimes they fire dead
animals so that people can die from disease. The people on the
wall would shoot arrows. There were also secret windows, so that
they could drop boiled water or rocks on them if the enemy passed
by. The secret windows are called murder holes. Mostly, the
people in the castle would lose. The Lord's family would be held
for a ransom. Another reason the castle people would lose is because of
starvation. The food from the farmers would not be able to get to the
people in the castle. Disease and starvation would often
happen. Needless to say, fighting wars in castles was not a lot
of fun.
