. Architecture for general students. ents were everywhere vaulted, but earlier thanthat they were separated only by wooden windows were high and narrow that they mightbe out of the reach of the arrows, and there wasno attempt at ornament, except in the main portal,the staircase, and the chapel. In the earlier castlesthere were no interior stairways, and the upperstories were only reached by a stone staircase, sonarrow that only one could pass at once, and thenexposed to assault from the battlements above aswell as the walls below. This terminated at anarrow doorway in the third stor
. Architecture for general students. ents were everywhere vaulted, but earlier thanthat they were separated only by wooden windows were high and narrow that they mightbe out of the reach of the arrows, and there wasno attempt at ornament, except in the main portal,the staircase, and the chapel. In the earlier castlesthere were no interior stairways, and the upperstories were only reached by a stone staircase, sonarrow that only one could pass at once, and thenexposed to assault from the battlements above aswell as the walls below. This terminated at anarrow doorway in the third story, and formed theonly means of access to the rooms above, wheredwelt the women and children of the household,while the prisons and the treasure-rooms lay deepbeneath the foundation. The Castle of Loches, celebrated for the horrorsenacted within its walls in the reign of Louis XI.,is of this description. Its white donjon, rising tothe height of one hundred and twenty feet, is builtof strong masonry-work fifteen feet in thickness, and. Gotitic Architecture. 189 strengthened at the angles by circular staircase is without, but protected by a pro-jecting lower tower. Plessis les Tours, also usedas a state-prison under the same Louis, is of muchlater date. Instead of the imposing keep, we findonly a large mansion-like edifice of red brick withstone quoins. The mansion itself is mostly in ruins,but the fortifications remain, and these consisted ofthree walls, one within another, and each furnishedwith wet and dry ditches, machico-lated turrets, barbican, portcullis, andall the means of defense employed inthose times. England, Spain, theNetherlands, Italy, and the RhenishMachicointion. districts of Germany, all furnish ex-amples of the feudal strongholds of this period,for in no land was either the law or public opinionsufficient to protect against violence and force. Inthe thirteenth century, however, when the modernkingdoms of Europe had become more firmly estab-lished
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectarchitecture, bookyea
