Meanwhile, examples built in the north at Helmsley and Richmond were vulnerable to Scottish incursions. The following century buildings constructed during the period of the Anarchy, including Newark, have anti-clockwise newels. In the eleventh century, two of William the Bastard’s conquest castles – Norwich and the Tower of London contain them. However, there are many examples of anti-clockwise staircases in castles that were built during periods of conquest and war in hotly disputed territories. Critics point out that anti-clockwise newels are far more prevalent in late mediaeval castles – a time when it is commonly (and wrongly) assumed that defence was less paramount. However, as scholars such as Neil Guy and Charles Ryder have demonstrated, there are a substantial minority of newels which turn anti-clockwise (approximately 30% of all surviving examples). If staircases were genuinely engineered for military purposes, then we should always find that they turn clockwise.This is not to say that castles could not be used in times of warfare – demonstrably they were – but such moments were vanishingly rare (Liddiard 2005, 6-11 Johnson 2002, xiii-xix Coulson 1979, 74). Secondly, they were lavish residences and only finally was there some consideration of fortification – which was often symbolic and rather ineffective. Going back as far as the 1970s, and gaining widespread recognition in the 1990s, castle specialists have proposed that these buildings were primarily structures intended to be impressive theatrical backdrops for complex ceremonies relating to status and prestige. The swordsman theory is predicated upon the belief that castles were intrinsically designed as military structures. However, before looking in detail at how this myth developed it might be worth making four broad points: That data will eventually appear in the content of a book that I am working on looking at mediaeval building myths. It is not the purpose of this blog post to outline all of the evidence against the swordsman theory. Whilst working at or visiting castles I inevitably hear a dad proudly imparting this knowledge to his little boy (and it usually is boys’ talk) and it may be that this familial link creates a strong bond between the myth and its proponents.Ĭastle Studies Group site visit to Newark Castle (Nottinghamshire), April 2019. One reason for this might be the frequency of its repetition by parents to children. Attempting to gently puncture the swordsman theory of spiral staircases gets a lot of pushback online. For some folk this can be quite a controversial opinion. Unlike many other mediaeval tales that I have researched there does not seem to be a shred of truth behind it. Of all the stories connected to mediaeval buildings this is perhaps the one that has been the most resilient. It is a particular favourite of tour guides, appears in castle guidebooks (Hodgson & Wise 2015, 46) and interpretation panels (for example at Arundel Castle, West Sussex), has been included in many popular texts (Mortimer 2009, 160), gets incorporated into television documentaries, is widely present in internet articles and is liberally recited by members of online discussion forums. The story goes that all castle staircases turn clockwise so that primarily right-handed defenders, fighting downwards, would have an advantage over attackers whose weapon would be impeded by the newel post.
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