Hopefully the book they're working on makes more compelling arguments, as the bullet points listed in this blogpost are pretty weak:
1. "Castles were built for prestige not fortification".
Regardless of actual use as fortification (frequency of battles), it's pretty self-evident that the intent of much of a castles design is fortification. Even if moats, arrow slits and parapets are just for show, they would still be to show off your defensive capabilities, in which case (at least apparent) defense would still be the primary concern of the architect.
2. "Some turn anti-clockwise"
Wherein the author assumes that all wisdom is automatically universally shared and all architects/planners/builders are universally competent. A fact as true today as it ever was.
3. is pretty much the same argument as (2) repeated.
4. An argument against how practical they would be in reality (already superceded by their first point that they were probably just for show).
There's very little of substance in this article. Hopefully the book does a better job.
The real argument the article makes is that no one seems to have proposed the theory until 1902. If it was generally a design consideration when the castles were built, we'd expect to have contemporary documentation of it.
Would we? I ask genuinely, not rhetorically. Literacy was a lot lower back then, and even what was written has often been lost in time.
I mean I can offer the same argument in reverse: if 70% of these staircases wound clockwise, they clearly favoured this orientation. How come we don't have contemporary documentation of the reason?
Presumably we also find masonry spiral stairs in contemporary churches, cathedrals, bell towers, monasteries, storage cellars, etc. - do these structures (which one assumes have very different threat models to a castle) exhibit similar bias?
Romans built spiral staircases as well - did they favor a particular direction? What about other cultures unrelated to European castle building traditions?
Honestly, though, if you’ve ever worked on a construction project you would know: even if you had a record of a papal decree mandating that all staircases must turn to the right, multiple books documenting how to build staircases with a right turn and warning against left-turning designs, and original castle drawings showing the architect marked explicitly that the staircase must turn right, it would not be surprising to find that 30% of staircases turn left just because the contractor installed it backwards.
Contractors might have their own individual preferences too.
"This is my contractor John Mason, who likes to build right handed stairs."
"And this is his son Mason Johnson, who hates his dad so he builds left handed stairs"
70% is an election landslide, but I'm not sure it tells you that one kind of staircase is preferred over another.
If the swordsman theory were correct, it ought to be higher. Either it is really important that you can defeat invaders on stairs, and handedness matters for this, or it's not that big a deal and we can let some other consideration decide, for instance the descending stairs hypothesis.
So if was a big deal you'd think everyone would insist on having the stairs the right way, nearly 100%. If not there might be another weaker reason that leads to 70%.
"70% is an election landslide, but I'm not sure it tells you that one kind of staircase is preferred over another."
I think 70% definitely tells you what kind of staircase was preferred assuming there are enough staircases (and assuming that that clockwise (CW) and counter-clockwise staircases had equal probability of surviving and being counted).
Assume there are 40 staircases, and that 70% (28) are CW. The binomial distribution tells us that the probability of there being more than 27 staircases that run CW is less than 0.83% if staircase direction is chosen at random.
Thus, the binomial distribution suggests that it is highly unlikely (<1%) that staircase direction was determined at random.
I actually thought about this exact thing before I wrote my comment. What you forget is this is an adversarial situation you're dealing with. If it really mattered, nobody would leave it to a coin toss as to which way the staircases have to be. Much like in sports, every little edge counts. Yeah, it isn't chance that 70% of them are CW, but it also doesn't make sense that it's only 70%.
The proper comparison is not a 50% cointoss, which is how you might think about some elections, it's a 100% world where every castle maker would tell their apprentices about this important CW swordfighting idea, and people who forget this are castigated for building an obvious weakness into their design.
The only reason it would be somewhat lopsided, but not decisively, is if there was some mild reason why people preferred one over the other, which is what your numbers actually suggest. Something like the "easier to walk down" hypothesis might make sense here, where for instance the CCW staircases are accounted for by aesthetic considerations like symmetry.
>> if 70% of these staircases wound clockwise, they clearly favoured this orientation.
If 70% of surviving staircases are clockwise and they were built in similar numbers then there is clearly an advantage to the clockwise orientation. If they were not built in similar numbers, then its on the author to find a specific reason rather than simply reject the conventional wisdom on the subject.
You don't disprove something like this by pointing to a lack of evidence. You do it by finding compelling evidence for an alternative.
"If 70% of surviving staircases are clockwise and they were built in similar numbers then there is clearly an advantage to the clockwise orientation."
Archeology of 21st century man definitely states that 70% of adults used to eat burgers, then there is clearly an advantage to putting a piece of meat between two slices of bread. The bread must br protecting meat from rain and wildlife. People who put meat on top of bread have clearly died out in the evolutionary game. Even the few surviving specimen of men that put meat on top of bread, always cover it with cheese to confuse predators.
I can attest to the bread working. In the late 20th century the extra grip and mobility the bread surrounding the meat (you could even say it 'sandwhiched' the meat) provided definitely helped me protect it from local wildlife (and by local wildlife I mean my siblings).
> Archeology of 21st century man definitely states that 70% of adults used to eat burgers, then there is clearly an advantage to putting a piece of meat between two slices of bread
I mean, there is! It's easier to eat while holding. Meat tends to be a little wet, but bread is dry, so by putting meat in bread, you don't need utensils.
Well, lets consider another reason. How about this one: walking down the staircase is more dangerous then up. When two British people meet, they tend to turn to the left. The one walking down now walks on the safer inside.
Very probably bullocks. But prove me wrong?
Fair, but there may have been security reasons for not recording something like this (if the swordsman theory is true), you wouldnt want enemy castles to be built as well, so you might not write down any defensive design strategies in an effort to horde your knowledge.
People were not stupid; if there was an actual technical benefit, it would have been known and shared, the same way that people knew and shared other castle construction techniques amongst craftsmen.
Tangibly, the absence of evidence for something can’t be magicked away by the “but what if they didn’t record it for a reason because it was a secret!?”.
If there’s no evidence, there’s no evidence. You can ponder all day, but it still boils down to, bluntly: there is no evidence that conjecture is correct.
But if there's no evidence of something, the best you can say is that you don't know. And it's possible that the dominant orientation is just an accident, in which case they wouldn't even have a "reason" to document.
I think the documentation for medieval military architecture choices is extremely sparse. Most of the writers were monks, they weren't so interested in military matters.
The author is making an "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" error.
In general, sources from the middle ages aren't as sparse as people like to think.
He isn't making that kind of error. The burden of proof is on the people making the claim. Otherwise any sort of weakly plausible reason for choosing the staircase direction would be true because there is "only" absence of evidence.
Absence of evidence here means that while you can't rule it out, you can't positively state it either.
-> Absence of evidence here means that while you can't rule it out, you can't positively state it either.
Right, so calling it a "myth", as in the headline, is incorrect. That would imply that you know it to be false. The author is taking the lack of evidence to mean that it can't be true.
And as for the burden of proof, as with any hypothesis, anyone is welcome to try to falsify it. I just don't believe that the evidence here has done that.
Military reasons the primary reason we study history. There is the hope that by studying the wars of the past you can learn something - a tactic, strategy, or something else that you can apply to a future battle and win. Some rich person might get interested in something else from time to time and fund the study of that, but nobles always funded military history because it was one of the few ways you could learn if something worked without doing it in a war yourself.
We think of monks as the only literate people in the past, but that was far from true. The common person might not have known how to read (I've seen good arguments they did a little, but I'm not qualified to evaluate them) but the rich did, and they hired scholars who could read to study things that were important to them. Any rich person who didn't have scholars studying military matters wouldn't last long in war as many seemingly obvious ideas don't work in real battles.
> The author is making an "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" error.
Quite the opposite, the theory he's questioning has no evidence, merely a good story justifying it. In the absence of actual evidence of the motives behind these designs, you should be agnostic, which is what the author is doing.
I don't think calling it a "myth" and "mythbusting" is agnostic. If the author was agnostic, they would call it a theory. The correct conclusion from the evidence is that we don't know. The incorrect conclusion is to say that it is a myth because there is no documentary evidence.
I mean, you're lucky when you go looking in version control on a software project from the last couple of years if the documentation surrounding a reason for a design choice is anything more than 'fixed bug'. Expecting more detailed change control documentation from mediaeval castlebuilders seems optimistic.
There were interior defenses though. In some of the more impressive castles there were concentric rings of walls so breeching on wouldn't surrender the whole castle. There were often also keeps. Even in early proto castles you had motte and bailey designs where the main walls defended the low ground (bailey) for an interior fort built on a hill or prominence (the motte).
Castles weren't single layer defenses that stopped at the walls, they were definitely designed to continue the fight and protect the nobles even if the enemy did get through the walls. Given that it's not so out of line to think the interior architecture might have been designed to increase defender's advantages.
Do you have any examples of when this actually happened (a fight "continued, to protect the nobles, once the enemy got through the walls")? What I find most interesting is applying Occam's razor, it's almost certainly not a defense mechanism, yet we have dozens of HN folks defending it, and I'm not sure why? If there was at least one documented account of where this was an effective defense, then maybe there's something there.
In 1201, Eleanor of Aquitaine survived in the keep of the castle Mirebeau after attackers were within the walls, until her son King John arrived and captured the attackers, rescuing her.
Because it is a truth most of us have accepted without question. Further, it is so agreeable to other facts. Left handed people are evil? But of course, they can attack up in castle staircases! Medeival life was one of constant sword-fighting and war time!
Also I'll admit the first couple arguments in TFA felt weak. I wouldn't be surprised if that colored peoples readings of the rest, or if they jumped to come comment before finishing the rest.
> If they breach the walls and actually enter the interior of the castle, they have already lost and no staircase design can save them.
That's assuming that the castle has fallen by assault. If the attacker was an assassin who had gained access to the castle through subterfuge or a disgruntled worker then interior defences may have conceivably been useful.
You didn't read far enough. The author opens with those weak, poorly supported points (I think they suggest that there will be a more spirited defense in an upcoming book). The tracing of the origin of the idea is a much more compelling argument.
If some one told you "oh yeah, this 20th century fencer who was obsessed with spirals said that the reason castles were built this way was obviously the sword fighting implications" you'd probably be less likely to believe it.
You're right but that's not really attacking the theory, rather the supposed proposer (ad hominem essentially, mild as it is). People do tend to be very swayed by appeals to "personal credibility" or lack thereof, but it's not substantively related to the plausibility of the idea itself.
It is attacking the theory, or at least pointing out that it isn't so much a theory as it is a musing. It seems to have as much credence as my own theory that it was to keep evil spirits out.
> castle specialists have proposed that these buildings were primarily structures intended to be impressive theatrical backdrops for complex ceremonies relating to status and prestige.
You know when the Marines do their rifle drill involving twirling and complex maneuvers with their rifles? That's a complex display of prestige too, but:
a) rifles aren't made for show (although the rifles the Marines use for drill have been permanently disabled)
b) the drill sends a very clear message: "our guys really know how to handle a rifle".
So even if a castle was primarily used for ceremony, it wasn't built as a merely ceremonial device. And the ceremony sends a message: our king is rich, and our defenses are pretty fucking strong. Think twice before laying siege to us.
> 1. "Castles were built for prestige not fortification".
Why not both? A US Supercarrier is both prestige and fortification.
Maginot line was also both: it was a great fortification + provided a prestige / morale factor to the troops. (No more dingy trenches! You'll have fresh water and a place to sleep).
Just because something is built as a fortification doesn't mean it won't be avoided (ex: Maginot line worked where it laid. But the Germans just ran around the line through Belgium). Similarly, just because a castle was built for fortification doesn't mean it was a _good_ fortification. There probably are lots of "bad" castles as well as "good" ones.
I agree, if 70% of straicases wind one way there's got to be a reason, it's unlikely to be random chance. If the author is not willing to explain why he thinks that it's a bad justification, and at the same time can't come up with a better explanation, what's the point?
The fact that fights rarely occurred in practice in these staircases is moot: if we assume that the choice of orientation is mostly arbitrary and clockwise stairs offer a theoretical advantage in an unlikely scenario, why not go for it? You don't lose anything by building it that way.
(Weak) convention? Most US cars have the gas cap on the left side but there's no inherent design reason even if some people have preferences and it's by no means universal.
The driver sits on the left in the U.S. And, lacking widespread public transit, most driving hours are commuting... alone.
Having the gas cap on the left both makes it easier to pull up to the fueling station without being too far or bumping into it, and - having done so - prevents the driver from having to walk around the vehicle.
That is one point of view. I've also read others who say that they prefer the right because it means that there isn't a gas pump right next to their car door--which means they have to carefully open their door so they don't ding it.
I probably prefer left but don't have a strong opinion.
And still another that says it should be on the right because if you run out of fuel you are away from other traffic while refueling.
In truth cars are designed for the entire world. Designers will switch the steering wheel side for the country, but they will avoid having to make changes to something far away there that doesn't need to change.
The bottom line is that there are weak preferences, weak arguments for right vs. left (or clockwise vs. counterclockwise), and generally weak design asymmetries/constraints for a given situation and you end up with a majority (but by no means universal) choice.
Not saying that's the case related to the OP, but it seems reasonable absent specific evidence to the contrary.
1. If we are nitpicking this article, then castle is not a fort - it is an office, that houses ruler and his court. Castle is a residence to accept high flow of people and not planned for sieges. Castle also would have enough of army to defend it(and siege is not a defence - it happens when there is a lack of it!) - it really is not something that was planned to be sieged, not to mention any fights indoors.
2. What author meant was that 30% of them who were anti-clockwise clearly does not mean that those other 70% were projected by people who thought of using stairs as battle scene.
3. I've mostly visited early medieval castles, that had anti-clockwise stairs, so meh... it looks like a cultural thing. I even doubt that these were used when carrying sword, because those had not much space to have it there, so it looked like something to be used for practical everyday usage - not battles.
4. If a person was wearing armor in medieval times, he was like a tank. If there was a discussion among nobles and one of them got pissed and decided to wear an armor and return to continue discussion... well, pretty much the discussion was over for rest of party, regardless of presence of swords. Though, despite the trope used in cinema, I can't imagine swordfighting in medieval setting between armored opponents on stairs. If the one on top of stairs slipped, the opponent below would be disabled from the weight of opponent above him. They would also not be able to step on those stairs... and if it all comes to that, swordfight is not requirement to rat out enemy - for that was used fire and smoke. Pretty much it is what author was mentioning - if there is a breach, it is game over for defenders and no real reason to continue defending anymore. The only thing they can try is fleeing.
Fighting, that involves swords and no armor is very late invention, where fortification defenses were useless and could be blown up by a powder and all the "strategical" stairs would be turned into a rubble.
There were definitely castles which were built to withstand sieges. Like Krak des Chevaliers and other crusader castles. Of course it was preferred if seiges could be avoided but I do not think your pedantry about fortress vs castle matters much since there were many types of both.
On the contrary, I am quite aware of those, but op is not. Krak des Chevaliers might not really fit the profile of castles in clasical meaning, but belong to a very specific niche of fortifications of military monastic orders in Middle East.
As for castles in UK - these aparently are representative castles and not really only fortifications. Even the smallests castles in UK were mainly used for something that was manor estate of a local royal family.
I found the idea fresh and very believable, even though the writing wasn't very crisp.
I don't know how to articulate it, but there's a lot to unpack there about symbolic force, ritual, and male expression.
Mcluhan, baudrillard, hegel, wittgenstein.
Building castles reminds me of building muscle in the gym. The underwriting philosophy is violent, but it requires uninterrupted peaceful effort. Built for an imagined "us vs them" conflict that, in reality, ends up as an "us vs us" status contest.
Yeah, I was ready to be convinced; I love punctured myths. But having built too many things based on executive fantasies, it seems all too plausible to me that whether or not the staircase direction made practical sense, various kings would love imagining themselves as heroic defenders on every square foot.
Like others, I think the fact that this myth appears to be novel and recent is a much better sign that we shouldn't take this very seriously. And I totally agree with his point about "frequency of its repetition by parents to children". There is so much "Pluto is so a planet" thinking in the world. It's really hard to critically examine beliefs we take on as children.
How is that a rebuttal? You plan your castle's military features (assuming you do plan them, which sort of begs the question) with the majority of attackers/defenders in mind.
Or do you mean "if the mason who planned the castle was left-handed, he would have built anti-clockwise stairs"?
Do not know about staircases, but the toilets on top of the walls is great way to use butts. The only issue is getting to toilet fast enough, but we can come up with theory that people in medival ages were quick runners to toilet...
I feel like right-handed people would prefer anti-clockwise stairs though, because if you're carrying something heavy it's usually harder to climb up than down, and in my experience is more comfortable to carry a bulky object on the outside of the spiral case than on the inside.
And as far as I know right-handed people have always been more common than lefties, so having more clockwise than anti-clockwise staircases is counterintuitive to me.
The best rebuttal would be if someone would actually just carry a sword(not to mention about getting in proper medieval outfit of a fighter) on those circular stairs and then when resting and catching breath thought about advantages of sword fights on STEEP staircases, regardless of their direction...
1. "Castles were built for prestige not fortification".
Regardless of actual use as fortification (frequency of battles), it's pretty self-evident that the intent of much of a castles design is fortification. Even if moats, arrow slits and parapets are just for show, they would still be to show off your defensive capabilities, in which case (at least apparent) defense would still be the primary concern of the architect.
2. "Some turn anti-clockwise"
Wherein the author assumes that all wisdom is automatically universally shared and all architects/planners/builders are universally competent. A fact as true today as it ever was.
3. is pretty much the same argument as (2) repeated.
4. An argument against how practical they would be in reality (already superceded by their first point that they were probably just for show).
There's very little of substance in this article. Hopefully the book does a better job.