A hillside castle is a

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

built on the side of a hill above much of the surrounding terrain but below the summit itself. It is thus a type of

hill castle A hill castle or mountain castle is a castle built on a natural feature that stands above the surrounding terrain. It is a term derived from the German ''Höhenburg'' used in categorising castle sites by their topographical location. Hill castles a ...

and emerged in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

in the second half of the 11th century. As a result of the particular danger to the site from attacks on the castle from the rising ground above it, this weak point is usually strongly protected by a

shield wall A shield wall ( or in Old English, in Old Norse) is a military formation that was common in ancient and medieval warfare. There were many slight variations of this formation, but the common factor was soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder ...

or a ''

Bergfried ''Bergfried'' (plural: ''bergfriede''; English: ''belfry''; French: ''tour-beffroi''; Italian: ''torrione''; Castilian: ''torre del homenaje'') is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries an ...

''. Often a combination of these two passive defensive works were used. The advantage of a hillside castle was that its

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

was much less deep than that of a

hilltop castle A hilltop castle is a type of hill castle that was built on the summit of a hill or mountain. In the latter case it may be termed a mountaintop castle. The term is derived from the German, ''Gipfelburg'', which is one of a number of terms used ...

. The boring of the well was often the most expensive and time-consuming element in the overall construction of a castle. Often, however, its water supply was ensured with the additional help of donkeys as

pack animal A pack animal, also known as a sumpter animal or beast of burden, is a working animal used to transport goods or materials by carrying them, usually on its back. Domestic animals of many species are used in this way, among them alpacas, Bact ...

s, entailing the construction of special donkey tracks. There are numerous hillside castles in the German

Central Uplands The Central UplandsDickinson (1964), p.18 ff. (N.B. In German die ''Mittelgebirge'' (plural) refers to the Central Uplands; das ''Mittelgebirge'' refers to a low mountain range or upland region (''Mittel'' = "medium" and ''-gebirge'' = "range").) ...

, especially in stream and river valleys, for example on the

Middle Rhine Middle Rhine (, ; kilometres 529 to 660 of the Rhine) is the section of the Rhine between Bingen and Bonn in Germany. It flows through the Rhine Gorge (), a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift i ...

. They were often built as customs posts (''Zollburgen'') and lay close to trading routes. In all they make up less than 1% of all medieval castles as categorised by topographic location, because they had enormous strategic disadvantages as a result of being dominated by higher ground on the uphill side. Whereas hilltop castles tend to have good inter-visibility with other castle sites, the restricted view of hillside castles such as

Ewloe Castle Ewloe Castle () is a native Welsh castle built by the Kingdom of Gwynedd near the village of Ewloe in Flintshire, Wales. The castle, which was one of the last fortifications to be built by the native Prince of Wales, Princes of Wales, was aband ...

means they were used to monitor movement along particular transport routes. Examples of hillside castles include

Katz Castle Katz Castle () is a castle above the German town of Sankt Goarshausen in Rhineland-Palatinate. The castle stands on a ledge looking downstream from the riverside at Sankt Goar. It was first built around 1371 by Count William II of Katzenelnboge ...

Sankt Goarshausen Sankt Goarshausen (abbreviated St. Goarshausen) is a town located in the Rhein-Lahn-Kreis in Nassau on the eastern shore of the Rhine, in the section known as the Rhine Gorge, directly across the river from Sankt Goar, in the German state Rhi ...

, Ehrenfels Castle in Rüdesheim and the

Rietburg The Rietburg is a ruined hillside castle on the edge of the Palatinate Forest above the village of Rhodt in the county of Südliche Weinstrasse in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The remains of this castle are located on the side of ...

near Rhodt in the Palatinate.

References

Sources

* Horst Wolfgang Böhme, Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (ed.): ''Wörterbuch der Burgen, Schlösser und Festungen''. Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, , p. 149–150. * Michael Losse: ''Kleine Burgenkunde''. Regionalia, Euskirchen 2011, . {{Fortifications Castles by type

See also

References

Sources