![]() Castles are the places of dreams, of desires. Negotiating these mysterious corridors is to navigate one’s own psyche. Hidden passages hide spell-bound maidens. Does a princess languish or a prince plot revenge? Is there a dragon protecting a hoard of glittering treasure? Or does a sorcerer draw glowing sigils to summon spirits for arcane knowledge? It here in the heart of the castle our innermost selves can live out its imagination. Inside the high crenelated walls lay miniature towns with stores, gardens, chapels, chambers.Ĭhildren build sand castles and read stories of knights on noble quests. Venison and boar roast on spits over massive fires. Jongleurs toss balls in brightly colored orbits. ![]() In our collective imaginations we see the denizens of the castles feasting in drafty banquet halls draped in tapestries. Arthur built his Camelot over there? Or was it over there? Instead of symbols of real authority they became symbols of Authuriana. Often perched on inaccessible mountaintops, or too close to arable land, they were left to crumble or were dismantled stone by stone to build the factories of the Industrial Age. In each case the basic idea of a fortified home for a lord and his family and retinue is the same even if the forms of the castle are modified to meet the regional designs.īut Time was unkind to the castles themselves. Meiji Castle, JapanĬastles spread to the Middle East and developed independently in India and in Japan. These chateaux retain some of the original architectural embellishments of the original castles. Stately mansions, like those in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley began to morph away from strictly defensive structures into stately palaces. But their architectural forms continued to be used. Any lord in a castle was speaking in stone: I am impregnable here, don’t even try to challenge me!Īs mere homes, castles had proven themselves uncomfortable. But their sheer size, looming over the landscape, must have been an impressive site. Castles were often built in peaceful areas far from raiding vikings or saracens. We see that castles were not always built during times of war nor in zones of warfare. But besides being centers of military and civil authority, they also existed as symbols of power. Not until the High Renaissance and improved cannon fire did castles lose their military/strategic purpose. And the familiar outline of the classic castle begins to take shape: curtain walls, arrow slits, portcullises, ditches or moats, and towers.Įach new medieval technology to topple those towers was met with a new technology to make them taller and stronger. So the stonework we see today began to replace those early wood structures. But kitchen fires and the like were much more often. Here on the Bayeaux Tapestry we can see Norman soldiers attacking the Chateau de Dinan with torches. But they like the unfortified palaces of the Carolingian Kings were subject to a terror even more common than warfare. The first castles in Northern Europe were wooded structures. And administrative centers where entire towns grew nearby. Their military usefulness is written in its architecture. Castles provide great bases to stage raids on neighboring nobles. They could control towns, trade routes and resources. Lords, military orders, even some monasteries, got in on the castle building craze that last almost 900 years. You have territory to defend, vassals to take care of, and a family to house. The once strong centralized government of the Carolingian Empire has collapsed. ![]() So imagine you are a European lord in the late 9th century. Hi, I’m Raleigh and today we will be looking at the symbolism of Castles in the Tarot here on the Bear Oracle. And their history, myths and legends loomed large over the landscape of the early modern era. By the time the Rider Smith Waite Tarot deck was designed, most castles were ruins. But over the time many people referred to fortifications and ruins as “castles” and the name has stuck. To be specific a castle is technically the fortified residence of a lord and his family and his retinue. During the the 9th and 10th Centuries in Western Europe and spreading to the Middle East and India was a new craze in domicile construction. ![]()
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