[HN Gopher] The Spiral Staircase Myth (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
The Spiral Staircase Myth (2020)
Author : dgellow
Score : 195 points
Date : 2021-11-19 07:59 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com)
| jihadjihad wrote:
| We really need Bret Devereaux of ACOUP [0] fame to weigh in on
| this--I would trust his judgment and arguments much more than the
| ones put forth in the article.
|
| 0: https://acoup.blog/2021/10/29/collections-fortification-
| part...
| zzzeek wrote:
| OK, how about the theory that mens shirts have buttons on the
| right side so that the swordsman would unbutton his jacket with
| his left hand while drawing with his right?
| Biganon wrote:
| So basically, if the action is easier to do with the right
| hand, it's self-explanatory, and if it's easier to do with the
| left hand, it's because you used to do it while using a sword
| in your right hand. We can explain an infinite number of
| chiralities now!
| qw wrote:
| I have better dexterity in my right hand, so I find it easier
| when the button is on the right side. My left hand only needs
| to hold the hole steady, while the right hand need more
| flexibility
| wongarsu wrote:
| > Secondly, they were lavish residences and only finally was
| there some consideration of fortification
|
| I would have argued the contrary, the vast majority of European
| castles were uninhabited or manned by a skeleton crew the
| majority of the time, and only inhabited when threats demanded
| it.
|
| There certainly were castles that served as primary residences
| (like the mentioned Arundel Castle), but this mostly became the
| fashion after the medieval time, when the transition from the
| fortified castle to the beautiful and nice-to-live in chateaus
| happened, with fortification elements that were more symbolic
| than practical (English lacks a clear distinction in name here,
| but at least German and French draw a clear line here).
| fijiaarone wrote:
| Castles _were_ built with military defense primarily in mind.
| Just because they were not constantly involved in siege does not
| negate that -- take the aircraft carrier example. Because it is a
| strong military defense, it doesn 't often need to be used for
| that.
|
| You can see hundreds of architectural decisions that were made
| with military aims -- some of them didn't work, and some of them
| weren't used.
|
| But, whether staircases were made with the righthanded swordsman
| in mind is irrelevant. They _were_ created with right-handedness
| in mind. Because of the placement of railings.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| A modern occurrence of the spiral staircase defense came when a
| mentally unwell fan broke into the home of Richard Garriott (Lord
| British) and was held off by Garriott but using an Uzi instead of
| a sword. Apparently castles aren't build like they used to be as
| news articles mention that the Uzi "blew a hole through the
| house".
| nickkell wrote:
| Do you happen to know whether the staircase rotated clockwise
| or anti-clockwise? It could have been a deciding factor in how
| the events played out
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I would like to hear the opinion of an architect. If staircases
| being clockwise or anti-clockwise can have some advantages.
|
| From my POV since most people are right handed, an anti-clockwise
| staircase would feel more natural for going up, since you can
| make the first step with your right foot and use your dominant
| hand for the handrail. But for getting down a clockwise staircase
| would feel more natural.
| soco wrote:
| All the church tower climbs I can recall in this moment are on
| anti-clockwise stairs, so there may be a point here. The decent
| was never so exciting so I really can't remember if the other
| stair was twisting the other way around...
| jaclaz wrote:
| Not an architect, but having more than a little experience in
| house (and staircases) design.
|
| There are some geometrical limits that will make the stair
| start and land on the same or opposite side, both "top" vs.
| "bottom" and "left" vs. "right".
|
| Usually (but not always) you want the stair to start and land
| on the same (bottom vs. top) side and this - generally speaking
| - implies having a 180deg turning of the stair, which itself
| implies that if you start left, you land right or - viceversa -
| if you start right you land left.
|
| How much is the height you have to cover?
|
| How large is the staircase diameter?
|
| A typical height of around 3 meters will give you, with steps
| between 15 (very "plain") and 25 cm (rather steep) anything
| between 4 and 5 (max 6) steps per meter of height.
|
| If you have a 2 m diameter staircase and a central hub of - say
| - 40 cm diameter, each step will be 80 cm wide.
|
| On the outer side it will be anything between 25 and 35 cm.
|
| So, let's test what happens with 15 cm high steps and outer
| side 30 cm.
|
| The perimeter of the staircase is Pix2.00=6.28, with 30 cm on
| the outside it will give you around 6.28/0.30=~21 steps for a
| 360deg rotation, and 21x15=3.15 height, but you want actually
| 180deg or 540deg as you would want to have the stair land on
| the same side (top vs. bottom), for 180deg you have only 10/11
| steps, and you cannot make 27/30 cm high steps.
|
| So you either enlarge the staircase (to increment its
| perimeter) or reduce the max size of the step (but remember
| that when you decrease the size of the step on the outer size,
| the size near the hub will also become smaller).
|
| Let's try again with the same 2 m diameter staircase and 25 cm
| outer step, 180deg 3.14/0.25=12,56->13 steps 3.00/13=0.23 cm,
| steep but doable.
|
| In a "lower left corner" (what you can imagine as a letter "L")
| it makes sense (to minimize area needed) to have the first
| step, at the lower level, on the left (but you will land on the
| right).
|
| In practice you have to decide whether you want around 1 meter
| space between the outer (left) wall and the step on either the
| lower or the higher level, it depends, but you want the extra 1
| m space at the level where you can possibly put some piece of
| furniture (a closet, a library, whatever).
|
| There is no particular ergonomical reason (AFAIK) why one would
| prefere a clockwise or anticlockwise staircase, as you noted if
| one might feel more comfortable going up, it will feel less so
| going down or viceversa.
|
| Here is a simple guide on designing:
|
| https://www.granddesignstairs.com/spiral-staircases-design/
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| I never understood the argument that it's easier to swing a
| weapon with the arm on the wall-side. On the wall-side, there's
| wall everywhere, and closes in both behind you and in front of
| you. On the newel-post side, the space opens up both behind and
| in front, which seems like it would make it a lot easier to
| manoeuver a weapon.
| jamincan wrote:
| For the person facing up, their opponent is to their right,
| which is closed off. They would need to reach up and to the
| right, and that motion would be blocked by the newel post.
|
| For the person facing down, their opponent is to their left,
| which is open. They would need to reach down and across their
| body to the left, unobstructed.
| ginko wrote:
| This is the first time I've heard of this and I don't quite buy
| it either. Having your left side on the wall side also means
| that you can stabilize yourself against a handrail with your
| left hand.
| 4monthsaway wrote:
| "there are a substantial minority of newels which turn anti-
| clockwise (approximately 30% of all surviving examples)."
|
| I wonder how survivorship bias would affect this argument (pro or
| against). Neat article.
| mimon wrote:
| Survivorship in what sense? The castles that exist today have
| not survived because they were better at repelling swordsmen,
| they survive because someone in the nobility happened to like
| them and protected them from development and hundreds of years
| of disrepair.
| bluGill wrote:
| Nobles who died defending on a staircase that advantaged the
| attacker don't leave family behind to care for their castle.
|
| I don't know if it is true or not, but your explanation
| doesn't seem to hold up.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| In England, it's more the case that the castle survived
| because the occupier didn't do anything to annoy Cromwell.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Indeed, Cromwell tried very hard to destroy castles. The
| trouble was that they were very hard to destroy. Most of
| the ruined castles are not in that condition out of
| neglect; that was simply the "best" they were able to do at
| destroying them. Eventually, the cost of gunpowder was just
| too much to continue that campaign.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Yes. Like Corfe Castle in Dorset, which was taken by
| treachery, and was demolished some time later, when the
| fighting was done. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle#Post-
| medieval
| Maursault wrote:
| I had never heard the spiral staircase/right-handed swordsmen
| legend before today, though it sounds similar to the description
| of button location on men's shirt's. Both sound silly, the shirt
| button location because it doesn't explain button location on
| womens' clothes and the spiral staircase handedness because if
| they actually had any interest in defense they would have used a
| counterbalance staircase that could easily be lifted completely
| denying access to upper levels.
| plank wrote:
| Not saying that I know for certain that the button-one is not a
| urban legend, but the tale is usually that the button on
| womens' clothes is due to the fact that the lady of the house
| is dressed more often by the staff. Unlike the gents, which
| were only helped if they choose to wear armor. (Edit: the =>
| they)
| smitty1e wrote:
| > substantial minority of newels which turn anti-clockwise
|
| Missed an opportunity to use 'widdershins'.
| mcguire wrote:
| "The Spiral Stair or Vice: its origins, role and meaning in
| medieval stone castles: Thesis submitted in accordance with the
| requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of
| Doctor of Philosophy by Charles Ryder February 2011"
| (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9632028.pdf)
|
| I can't find anything specific about the theory, except quotes
| like "Simpson notes the presence of spiral stairs throughout this
| work, though sadly, when describing Colchester Castle, Essex, he
| falls into the old trap of claiming that the spiral clockwise
| spiral stair aids the defender" and a reference to a different
| 1854 source mentioning it.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The most likely source for the assumption:
|
| Straight staircases running against defensive castle walls have
| intentional design rule where those going up have right hand
| against the wall. Right handed defender can hack downward freely.
| They can also have intentionally uneven step length that makes
| running the stairs difficult.
|
| Similar rule is not as useful inside the castle or tower but, it
| might have been still used from time to time.
| EGreg wrote:
| I agree with the commenter who pronounced it "drivel" and whom
| the author referenced in his article.
| lucideer wrote:
| 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.
| bitwize wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| > 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.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| 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.
| jeltz wrote:
| 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.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| 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.
| qw wrote:
| I think one of the points in the article is that the walls and
| moat are the main lines of defence. The castle is protected by
| the walls.
|
| If they breach the walls and actually enter the interior of the
| castle, they have already lost and no staircase design can save
| them.
| rtkwe wrote:
| 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.
| timcederman wrote:
| 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.
| burnished wrote:
| 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.
| radford-neal wrote:
| 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.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| That's a miracle story, where Superman is arriving in the
| last second, but still - what it has to do with fights on
| stairs?
|
| If there were no help from outside, next would be keep
| wall, or most probably lack of food and water for
| defenders.
| chimprich wrote:
| > 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.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Hopefully the book they're working on makes more compelling
| arguments
|
| What are the arguments _for_ the theory?
| dragontamer wrote:
| > 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.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| > 2. "Some turn anti-clockwise"
|
| Surely the best rebuttal of this particular point is: Some
| people are left-handed.
| the_af wrote:
| 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"?
| Bobylonian wrote:
| 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...
| the_af wrote:
| I like how your comment ties in with "rebuttal".
|
| I think we can all agree -- without a trace of irony --
| that toilet technology is way more important and has a
| greater impact on society than warfare.
| simias wrote:
| 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.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| 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...
| dmurray wrote:
| 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.
| shatnersbassoon wrote:
| 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.
| cedilla wrote:
| 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.
| naasking wrote:
| > 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| simias wrote:
| 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?
| jameshart wrote:
| 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.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Or, I guess, upside down.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| 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"
| skwirl wrote:
| 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.
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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%.
| oaktrout wrote:
| "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.
|
| If you want to play around with the binomial
| distribution: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binom
| ial+distribution+...
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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.
| varjag wrote:
| Literacy (especially among noble and architects) was not at
| all uncommon before 1902. We're not talking exactly
| neolithic age.
| liamN wrote:
| 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.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| Oh come, this is truely gasping at straws.
|
| 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.
| dmurray wrote:
| I'm not sure, but no doubt this will be the subject of a
| 10,000 word post on acoup.blog before long.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> 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.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Aren't ~70% of humans right hand dominant? Maybe the
| local builder just built what the customer wanted.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| Right hand rule applied to spiral staircases.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "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.
| saghm wrote:
| > 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.
| kbenson wrote:
| 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).
| plank wrote:
| 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?
| q1w2 wrote:
| > ...we'd expect to have contemporary documentation of it.
|
| Are there many surviving documents outlining the _reasoning_
| surrounding each design choice?
| jameshart wrote:
| LOL
|
| 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.
| laserlight wrote:
| And especially the most obvious ones?
| sdwr wrote:
| 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.
| simias wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| (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.
| torstenvl wrote:
| > _there 's no inherent design reason_
|
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| What's the justification for those cars that fuel up
| behind the rear license plate? Probably aesthetics, like
| Jobs insisting the Apple have no vents
| ghaff wrote:
| As far as I know, those have always been pretty rare.
| Maybe more the style a few decades ago? I'd probably put
| my money on designers.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| Right--a very rare event but still.
|
| 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.
| wpietri wrote:
| 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.
| burnished wrote:
| 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.
| lucideer wrote:
| 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.
| naasking wrote:
| Sure the idea is plausible, but it's still true that
| there's no evidence for it, so it's widespread use is
| erroneous.
| MrLeap wrote:
| It'd be funny if it were an oral history that goes back
| to when the castles were built.
| [deleted]
| Finnucane wrote:
| So on the one hand we have folklore passed down from generation
| to generation, and on the other we have a finding of no
| documentary evidence for it. But no evidence for much of any
| other explanation either. Not much to go on either way.
|
| In medieval times, the thinking could well have been "we have to
| favor the right-handed because the left hand is the tool of the
| devil."
| Tiereven wrote:
| The photos of these staircases reminded me of the insides of the
| shells of some spiral-shelled animals. Interesting that as you
| look into the opening of most such shells, they turn to the left
| as well. I wonder if this observation was an influence on the
| early architects of these stair structures.
| rusk wrote:
| > It is not the purpose of this blog post to outline all of the
| evidence against the swordsman theory.
|
| Oh. Okay then ... that's a pity. Kind of pointless advancing a
| contrarian position unless you're going to back it up ...
|
| > That data will eventually appear in the content of a book that
| I am working on
|
| Ah.
|
| How mediaeval :-)
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > How mediaeval :-)
|
| Sir, this is HN. We are not amused.
| DemocracyFTW wrote:
| You folks would then surely take great comfort, or so I've
| heard, when I assure you, by Jove, that I did find ample
| evidence to support my position, yet it is too voluminous to
| be drawn out here at length within the narrow confines of
| this commentary box.
| tzs wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Even if the direction was chosen to give downward fighting
| defenders an advantage, I don't think that would be the specific
| advantage given.
|
| Consider a person standing on the staircase. Whichever direction
| they are facing, the wall side is more impeded as far as swinging
| a sword goes than the newel side. Proof: imagine you are standing
| on the center of your step facing forward, with identical swords
| in each hand, holding them in mirrored positions. As you move the
| swords around in mirrored motion any time the newel side sword
| hits the newel the wall side sword will be hitting the wall. But
| there will be many positions where the wall side sword hits the
| wall but the mirrored newel side sword does not.
|
| The advantage the newel post side has is that the person going up
| can can lean the top of their body a little ways over the edge,
| partly shielding behind the newel post from the point of view of
| someone going down.
|
| If the newel post is on the same side as their sword then when
| they take advantage of their shielding they make it harder to use
| their sword (unless they can lean far enough over to attack
| around the post). If their sword is on the wall side, then they
| get the newel post shielding for free.
|
| If you were worried about castle defense when designing your
| staircase, I'd guess that it is this shielding considering that
| would lead to clockwise.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| People clearly have not visited medieval castles and walked on
| those stairs. They are so STEEP, that your main worry about
| using those is not to slip on your way down and taking breath,
| when you are gone through them up to a place where you can
| rest.
|
| PS those staircases are ideal places to just barricade and set
| fire and let defenders to die from smoke. People in medieval
| times were not such morons to fight there...
| usrusr wrote:
| The "theatrical backdrops for complex ceremonies relating to
| status and prestige" made me wonder if that "myth" has maybe
| existed the entire time: not as a clear design rule that would
| make the opposite formally wrong (e.g. surely an appeal to
| symmetry would easily overrule it), but as a detail tweak an
| architect might occasionally bring up to appear clever, or a lord
| to appear diligent.
|
| The entire idea of "primarily for appearance of status and
| strength, actual military qualities not as important as one might
| think" is basically today's SUV vs actual off-road. And with that
| premise "staircase winding direction selected for defense" can
| very much be both true and a fantasy: it would have been mostly a
| fantasy already back at the time it was built, but not untrue
| either. Just like the zombie apocalypse qualities of SUVs that
| are never used for anything more adventurous than a grocery ruin.
| limbicsystem wrote:
| I think of the USS Nimitz. Everything on that ship is
| (presumably) there for an excellent military reason. Yet it has
| probably never been attacked directly and it clearly has an
| important role in maintaining status and prestige. The two
| things are correlated, not independent.
| gumby wrote:
| A nice inverse example is Versailles, which has quite limited
| protection and couldn't really be defended from military
| attack.
|
| Yet it was an effective military tool: visiting potentates
| would see an overwhelmingly expensive palace that sent the
| message "we are so rich and so powerful that we don't even
| need to defend our central palace, so don't even try to
| attack us"
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Starting from ~15th century, the mightiest castles in Europe
| were blown with kegs of powder. Most of those magnificent
| castles or forts are now as ruins in Europe because of those
| wars. The reason why UK have preserved those castles is that
| they had no such equally devastating wars and they were not
| used for real defence, but clearly their only role is left as
| prestige of something that was preserved from past.
|
| It all depends on context - medieval castles lost their
| meanings as defenses 500 years ago. In modern times they are
| useless as defences - sometimes not even against squatters...
| rjsw wrote:
| England blew up a fair number of castles during the English
| Civil War [1], the ones that are intact were in areas of the
| country that were not disputed like London.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
| berkes wrote:
| > grocery ruin
|
| A very on-topic typo. One that has me wondering what this would
| look like. A crumbling, mediaeval tower to store harvest,
| maybe?
| shiomiru wrote:
| Or one of those abandoned grocery stores in zombie apocalypse
| films. At least that's the first thing it made me think of.
| Infernal wrote:
| In which I suspect I'll be able to find a few full cans of
| grape soda (though dented of course) and inexplicably, an
| entirely unmolested first aid kit.
| codeflo wrote:
| The "theatrical backdrops for complex ceremonies relating to
| status and prestige" is a bit oversimplified I think, at least
| for continental Europe. In German, for example, we have two
| words that translate to "castle": "das Schloss" is a
| representational building, but "die Burg" describes a military
| fortress, which often were small, plain, very well fortified
| buildings with multiple clever layers of defense. There's no
| confusion between the two even though many Schlosser had Burg-
| like features for decoration. It's perhaps also not a surprise
| that the article's examples for representational castles are
| mostly from England, I think Britain's military history is a
| bit different from that of the rest of Europe.
| prox wrote:
| A castle was mostly for garrisoning and strongholding an
| area. If it came down to a fight in your castle, it was
| already precarious for the defender.
| Archelaos wrote:
| English has the same basic distinction: "Burg" = "castle",
| "Schloss" = "palace".
|
| But upon having a closer look, things become complicated
| quickely: "Schloss" ist typically used for unfortified
| residencies starting in Late Middle Ages/Renaissance. But
| there existed unfortified residencies since the Early Middle
| Ages inside towns. The term for the early imperial or royal
| palaces is "Pfalz", which has the same Latin root as
| "palace": "palatium". Sometimes the term was also used for
| the residency of a bishop.
|
| Then there are castles that were both, strong fortresses but
| very representative. Nuremberg castle, Trifels and the
| Wartburg are examples of these, or from a later period
| Heidelberg. Sometimes a castle was later converted into a
| sort of palace by tearing down walls.
|
| The terminology varies in such cases. The "Heidelberger
| Schloss" (a strong but also very representative fortress) is
| called "Heidelberg castle" in English, "Schloss Mespelbrunn"
| (a converted castle) is called "Mespelbrunn castle".
|
| There is also a rarely used standing expression "Veste"
| ("fortress") used as a title for some specific castles (for
| example "Veste Coburg").
|
| I agree with the parent that the "theatrical backdrops for
| complex ceremonies relating to status and prestige" is a bit
| oversimplified. But we need to keep in mind that the function
| of a castle is typically very complex. And the "theatrical
| backdrops" is an important one. That their defensive value
| was quite limited could be seen during the German/Austrian
| passant revolt in 1525 when thousands of castles had been
| destroyed in a couple of months, while the aristocrates
| nevertheless won the war in the field. Typically the castles
| had only a handful of defenders and quickely surrendered, or
| the aristocrates just fled and did not even try to defend
| their castles. Only some strong, well-manned fortifications
| hold out, often just barely like fortress Marienberg in
| Wurzburg.
| mrjangles wrote:
| Yeah so obviously spiral staircases turn clockwise on the way
| down to give defenders an advantage. This guy claims it isn't
| true, then offers no evidence, except that he can't find any
| evidence that it is true.
| jgilias wrote:
| Well, no, it's not obvious at all. It's a neat conjecture that
| may be true in some cases and false in others. I mean, for all
| we know there may be castles where staircases spiral a certain
| way because of some beliefs about the devil.
|
| It's fine to say that we don't have enough information to say
| anything definite about the subject.
| sivizius wrote:
| Do you like teapots? Fine, let us talk about the teapot
| currently orbiting the sun on the opposite side, so small, we
| cannot see it, but it is obviously there, ancient books and the
| elder says so. You do not believe me? Then where is your
| evidence for its not-existence? You cannot prove it? See: The
| teapot exist!
| cesaref wrote:
| I think the point is that this theory was first proposed in the
| 20th century, and given the structures were designed and built
| something like 1000 years earlier, it is at this point
| speculation, and there is no evidence to support the assertion.
|
| It's useful to dig into beliefs and try and find their basis,
| and it appears that in this case it's not forthcoming. Of
| course, this doesn't rule out that in the future some academic
| finds a 12th century french scroll on how to defend staircases
| that talks about this!
| toshk wrote:
| Your argument is the main point he makes in the intro and is
| the strongest argument against the theory. But the arguments
| the author lists himself are not very strong:
|
| 1. "The swordsman theory is predicated upon the belief that
| castles were intrinsically designed as military structures"
| => "just because most were; there are a lot of castle like
| fortress that were actively used as defense sitations.
|
| 2. If staircases were genuinely engineered for military
| purposes, then we should always find that they turn
| clockwise. => No, opposite, since not all were used military
| it might not have been a priority for all, and also not all
| builders might have been aware of this strategy.
|
| etc...
| mrjangles wrote:
| The hypothesis is just common sense. If an academic wants to
| claim that common sense is wrong then it is up to him to
| provide evidence.
|
| I look forward to his next article where he debunks the myth
| that doors are for keeping people out. After all, not all
| doors have locks, and if the author can't find any texts from
| the 15th century that discuss keeping people out with doors
| then surely his hypothesis is proven, right?
| jgilias wrote:
| The only common sense bit about stairs is that they were
| likely made to ascend to places and descend from them.
| Everything else is conjecture.
|
| It'd be the same if people were dead convinced that doors
| were made to open a certain way to keep the right hand free
| for attacking people behind the door. There may actually be
| some doors somewhere made that way for those reasons, but
| that would be a silly belief to hold for all doors,
| wouldn't it?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Yeah so obviously..._
|
| Why would you say that's obvious? You don't offer any evidence,
| either. I would say that if you're going to propose that
| something has been done for a particular reason, you should
| back that up. It seems like this is a just-so story: people say
| they're clockwise for defenders because people say they're
| clockwise for defenders. It's one of those cool "a-ha"-type
| ideas that sounds plausible, so people assume it's been studied
| and researched and then repeat it.
|
| They could be clockwise simply because right-handed people tend
| to think that clockwise is the "right" direction. It could be
| done for architectural reasons specific to the particular
| castle (e.g. the stairs wouldn't face or line up properly if it
| were anti-clockwise). There are many, simpler reasons why 70%
| of the castles we see today have clockwise staircases. And if
| the defender theory is true, why do the other 30% have anti-
| clockwise staircases?
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| The article explicitly states that it is not going to present
| the evidence against the myth; it isn't trying to demonstrate
| that the myth is false, it's leaving that for elsewhere.
| GoodbyeMrChips wrote:
| OP makes a valid point stating the article presents no
| evidence. Therefore, would those who down voted OP care to
| explain why they did so?
|
| EDIT: I'm being downvoted for asking a genuine question? Shame
| on you. This place is turning into another Redit.
| tempestn wrote:
| OP claims it's "obvious" that the staircases are designed for
| defense, contradicting the article while giving no evidence.
| This despite the fact that the whole point of the article was
| that there does not appear to be evidence to support this
| claim.
| teorema wrote:
| Yeah the author seems to be approaching their overall
| argument by first establishing that there's no primary
| source evidence from the time of castle building that the
| defense theory is true. He seems to be trying to establish
| that the argument for it is modern and therefore just as
| good or bad as any other.
|
| I wish he would delve into things more but it seems
| reasonable to me to first establish where the defense
| theory first came from.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| That theory doesn't have any ground, but I am more
| interested what makes people believe that there is such
| theory. Nobody today claims, that everything that is
| written in a Bible is true, why would there such belief
| without any doubt to something that someone claimed just
| 100 years ago?
| [deleted]
| watwut wrote:
| > castle specialists have proposed that these buildings were
| primarily structures intended to be impressive theatrical
| backdrops for complex ceremonies relating to status and prestige
|
| I have seen castles that had only military living in them. Like,
| they were military outposts build around the time of Turk
| attacks. They tend to be high on mountain, not comfortably next
| to city.
|
| > If staircases were genuinely engineered for military purposes,
| then we should always find that they turn clockwise.
|
| Should they? I don't want to question the history here, but the
| logic of this does not follow to me.
| Karellen wrote:
| The logic is based on the idea that right-handed combatants
| will find it hard to wield their weapon effectively fighting
| their way up a clockwise staircase as the central column will
| get in the way, whereas those fighting down the staircase will
| have plenty of room near the outer wall/bannister to wield
| theirs. Conversely, an anti-clockwise staircase will give an
| advantage to right-handed combatants fighting up, and an
| impediment to those fighting down.
|
| Therefore, given that the majority of people are right-handed
| (and lefties are often taught to fight right-handed anyway),
| and the idea that if an attacker manages to enter a castle they
| will then be fighting their way up the stairs against defenders
| above, clockwise staircases give an advantage to the people
| tasked with defending them.
| eesmith wrote:
| It's a definition thing. What you described is a fortress, not
| a castle.
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle :
|
| > A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the
| Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by
| military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle,
| but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence
| of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is
| not fortified; from a fortress, which was not always a
| residence for royalty or nobility;
| mellavora wrote:
| Etimology. Castle is Norman French for Chateau. A special
| kind of house, typically/historically for a nobleman, i.e. a
| landowner.
|
| Remember much of English is actually Norman French. After the
| conquest and all.
| mkl wrote:
| Okay, but etymology is not meaning. Meanings change quite a
| bit.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Castle is Norman French for Chateau
|
| According to my Oxford English Dictionary, both 'castle'
| and 'chateau' are modern variants of the older Latin
| 'castellum'.
| watwut wrote:
| They have those historical explanations next to them. They
| used the word "castle" systematically. "The castle was build"
| or "the castle was destroyed" or "the castle was rebuild" ...
| eesmith wrote:
| Could you give an example?
|
| The author of essay is in the UK, and the mentioned castles
| are all homes for royals, nobility, or bishops, or at least
| meant to be.
|
| Arundel Castle, West Sussex - that's where the Earl of
| Arundel has lived
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundel_Castle)
|
| Newark Castle (Nottinghamshire) - for the Bishop of Lincoln
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark_Castle%2C_Nottinghams
| hi...)
|
| Norwich - "Norwich Castle was designed to be a royal palace
| rather than a fortification. However, no Norman kings ever
| lived in it" (https://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/norwich-
| castle/whats-here...)
|
| Tower of London - I can't tell if William the Conqueror
| lived there, but the Wikipedia entry says that by 1135 "The
| castle, which had not been used as a royal residence for
| some time", implying it was a royal residence
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London)
|
| Caerphilly - given "the castle's luxurious accommodation",
| I assume Gilbert de Clare lived there.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerphilly_Castle
|
| Conwy - "best preserved suite of medieval private royal
| chambers in England and Wales"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conwy_Castle)
|
| This is too boring, so I'll let someone else look up
| Beaumaris, Caernarfon, and Colchester Castle.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| So do fortresses normally have clockwise staircases?
| twic wrote:
| I visited a castle with an Italian friend. She was quite
| excited about it. After we arrived and had our first look
| inside, she disappointedly exclaimed "this is not a castello,
| it is a fortezza!".
|
| I thought it was still a pretty cool castle.
| ptx wrote:
| > _3. If staircases were genuinely engineered for military
| purposes, then we should always find that they turn clockwise.
| However [...] there are a substantial minority of newels which
| turn anti-clockwise (approximately 30% of all surviving
| examples)._
|
| Couldn't this minority be explained by engineers either doing it
| wrong, being given bad requirements or being overruled by
| misguided management? I.e., the clockwise turn was indeed for
| military purposes and as much as 70% of projects were done
| correctly but in 30% of projects one or more project management
| issues led to the staircases being built wrong.
|
| > _4. The direction of a spiral staircase was an architectural
| decision, not a military one._
|
| Perhaps different stakeholders had different priorities and the
| military advantage was one of many considerations.
| bluGill wrote:
| I doubt all architects knew all the details. They would look
| into how to defend the attacks they expected, and the ones they
| had given to others.
|
| It is entirely possible that the trope is true, but only for a
| small minority of castles where they expected such fighting,
| and in the vast majority it is false because they didn't expect
| it.
|
| If it is true, you would expect other evidence that in the
| design that they expected the walls to be breached and thus
| have to fight in such a way, and also that it wasn't a hopeless
| idea to fight on. This does seem unlikely based on what I know
| of historical war, but I'll freely admit what I know is
| minimal. Any real historians care to comment?
| rtkwe wrote:
| Yeah 3 is pretty weak because it depends on knowledge flowing
| freely and quickly when you as a noble wouldn't want your
| fortress builder talking to potential or actual enemy fortress
| builders improving their defenses. It'd be a better example if
| they could show the same architect used both directions in
| different castles or the same castle.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Exactly. I found this article a poor rebuttal.
|
| As a lefty who is pretty clumsy on the right, there are many
| implicit design decisions that favor whatever right handed
| people do for the simple reason that most people are right
| handed.
|
| There was accommodations for lefty's in some ancient battle
| formations, so while it may be a myth, it may be one with a
| kernel of truth as conventions for things like castle
| construction are probably ancient and lost to modern people.
| jameshart wrote:
| Any programmer should be able to spot the syllogism here, yes.
|
| Just because something is a security best practice definitely
| does not guarantee that it will be followed universally by
| architects.
|
| Not all the castle builders were up to speed on CVE-1271-53
| "left-handed spiral staircases enable swordsman overflow
| attacks", and more importantly their clients didn't know how to
| evaluate a competent castle architect either. Maybe they should
| have had some sort of certification scheme. But even then, once
| a pen tester gets in and tells you your staircases were built
| backwards, what are you going to do? They're made of stone and
| built into structural walls in a tall building.
| jameshart wrote:
| In fact, one of the top rated questions on SiegeOverflow in
| the 1400s was
|
| Should spiral staircases always turn to the right? (1879
| points. Locked. Comments on this question have been disabled)
|
| I'm a journeyman castle engineer to a FAANG house, and my
| master stonemason insists that spiral staircases should
| always turn to the right. He says they're more secure. But
| our accessibility team say that a left turn is preferable for
| carrying heavy loads up the stairs. The designer wants the
| staircase to have open wooden treads every fifth step. Does
| that negate the security concerns? Who's right?
|
| Accepted answer (4471 votes)
|
| Why are you using a spiral staircase? A straight staircase is
| easier to maintain.
|
| (Closed by moderator. Not siege related.)
| JackFr wrote:
| I wish I could upvote this more
| leoc wrote:
| 'Siege overflow' is one of the standard attacks on the
| security of a fortification system. It often employs
| ladders while the related 'underflow' attacks use mines. In
| time, rapidly advancing technology made it feasible to
| simply overwhelm legacy systems with brute force attacks
| using gunpowder.
| rjsw wrote:
| I suspect that FAANG armies have higher numbers of left-
| handed people, at my PPOE it was around 50%, this could
| change the argument for spiral staircase direction.
| qw wrote:
| As a right-handed person, I find it is much easier to run down
| stairs if I can use the wall or railing for support. To me, it
| sounds as plausible as the sword fight theory.
| Jenk wrote:
| My history teacher brought this topic up in my class. He had a
| less violent theory about the reason for clockwise stairs, which
| is still related to the majority right-handed population.
|
| That people carrying things up these staircases would be using
| their right hand to carry the item(s), and so would use their
| left hand to steady themselves on the wall (or the rope/rail/etc
| affixed to the wall).
| Radim wrote:
| In my experience, going down is far tricker (and riskier) than
| climbing up. Especially when carrying things.
|
| So that theory doesn't sound right either.
| 101008 wrote:
| My experience is the same, from stairs to mountains,
| descending is much harder (maybe because we are tired of
| going up?). Anyway, I can see that intuitively, one can
| imagine that you need help to go up when you are carrying
| stuff.
| jamincan wrote:
| I think it is due to the fact that going down stairs
| requires eccentric muscle contraction which is harder on
| the joints and also harder to control.
| bipson wrote:
| Don't over-interpret:
|
| It is just way easier the way we are built, kids learn
| climbing stairs (and other things) _way_ before they can
| safely walk stairs downwards. The smarter ones go
| backwards.
|
| Standing on a step and stepping down is just ...
| _complicated_ ... and requires considerably more body
| control.
|
| The risk of toppling forwards and falling down the stairs
| (or the couch) is considerably higher than "stumbling the
| stairs upwards".
| bluGill wrote:
| Yeah, if you look at body mechanics it quickly becomes
| obvious that our body has a much less advantageous
| position for down.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I don't think it's because of being tired.
|
| A few hypotheses come to mind:
|
| 1. Walking on your toes vs. on your heels
|
| 2. What happens if you slip
|
| 3. Lean
|
| If you're facing into the stairs, your toes are gripping
| the next step. Maybe the extra degree of freedom from your
| ankle makes it easier to get a steady foothold. Whereas if
| you're facing away, on narrow steps, your toe may be off
| the step. If you try to balance on level ground on the
| balls of your feet vs. on your heels, you can tell heels
| are harder.
|
| If you're going up and you slip, your moving foot just
| slides onto the same step as your static foot. If you're
| going down and you slip, your feet are now separated by 2
| steps instead of just 1.
|
| All things that move across ground move best if they lean
| into the direction they're walking. If you're walking down
| stairs, leaning forward means leaning away from the stairs.
| Going up, you're just leaning into the stairs as if you're
| rock climbing. Also it's likely our bodies are just better
| at leaning forward safely than backwards.
|
| I heard a quote somewhere that "If you go down facing it,
| it's a ladder. If you go down facing away, it's stairs."
| Some narrow stairs might be better treated as just strange
| ladders. 2 of the possible causes would be mitigated.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| To add to the sibling comments, momentum is also a factor.
|
| When you are going up, if you slip, your momentum will
| carry you into the slope. If you are going down and slip,
| your momentum will carry you into space. Then gravity will
| take over.
| [deleted]
| Jenk wrote:
| He was specifically thinking of food/drink. Coming down would
| be empty, going up is full. He also said it'd be servants
| doing this, which is also why the stairs were always so
| small.
| lqet wrote:
| Slightly related, examples for exceptionally beautiful spiral
| staircases that turn _anti-clockwise_ are the original [0] and
| 1930s [1] Bramante staircases in the Vatican, which feature a
| double-helix design. The original could be used by carriages.
|
| [0]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Bramante...
|
| [1]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Vatican_...
| jimmytidey wrote:
| It's always struck me as obvious this is a 'factoid'. How much of
| a sword fight can you have on a spiral staircase?
|
| It's fun though? And a great learning opportunity - you can teach
| a kid the fun factoid, plus something about how hard it is to
| find out if a commonly-held belief is true.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This is what strikes me as well. You probably wouldn't be
| fighting with a sword, because at best those were side arms for
| knights in most circumstances in Europe. You'd likely defend a
| staircase from the top with a barricade, and/or by pushing
| something down it. Spears or other pole arms would be
| preferable for defending the space from the top. But as you
| mentioned, you might as well start a small fire at the bottom
| to smoke out defenders.
|
| Worst case scenario as an attacker, you could just wait out
| people on the upper levels, they have limited supplies and you
| presumably control the gates and ground level.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And as the article itself mentions, if it's down to that level
| of desperation you've already lost. I mean the attacker can
| start a fire to smoke anyone upstairs out, or continue the
| siege and just wait.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| True, but like all security measures the point is to make
| things harder for intruders.
|
| Security through obscurity is prudent in addition to other
| measures, so would this. (Regardless of wheather this
| actually was a thing or not).
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > the point is to make things harder for intruders
|
| If the intruders are at the bottom of your stairs, you've
| probably already lost, no?
| bluGill wrote:
| Depends. Most castles had defense in depth. You could
| lose a few wings and survive long enough for external
| defenders to come rescue you.
|
| I don't see why you would fight on the stairs though, as
| opposed to running to the top where you can close a door
| behind you, or fight from a flat floor.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| With that attitude one certainly has already lost :)
| zelos wrote:
| Would the defenders necessarily be the ones higher up the stairs
| anyway? If attackers scale the walls, they'd be fighting their
| way _down_ the stairs.
| watwut wrote:
| They probably wont scale all the way to tower. That would be
| excessive scalling, since walls are smaller by a lot.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| You scale the walls, then go _down_ in the actual castle. Why
| bother about the getting in the higher parts of the tower
| itself? People trapped inside a single tower won 't last
| long, as they probably don't have much supply stored there.
| watwut wrote:
| The tight spiral staircase thing is about towers. The road
| toward and from wall was large non-spiral staircase. There
| is entrance from tower too, but in castles I have seen it
| was not the only way to get there.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| If I were an attacker, with the defendants stuck in the tower,
| I'd probably just shut the door at the bottom and wait. Maybe
| start a small fire at the bottom and let the smoke do the rest.
|
| No need to get messy on the actual stairs.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > No need to get messy on the actual stairs.
|
| This would only be a problem if you didn't bring any lefties.
| bluGill wrote:
| Time is on the defenders side though. They can just wait you
| you in their well stocked castle, while you need to find food
| and worry about someone from outside coming to rescue the
| defenders.
| wisty wrote:
| So why were they clockwise?
|
| Here's my guess. Falling down a staircase is way worse than
| falling up it. If it's clockwise, then if you hug the outer wall
| (with the less steep steps) as you go down then your dominant
| hand can hold the wall (and any handrail).
| [deleted]
| hericium wrote:
| You can fall down positioned upwards or downwards.
| DarkWiiPlayer wrote:
| Unless walking backwards, it is normally more common to trip
| and fall over forwards; when walking upstairs, you could just
| fall on your hands, since there's stairs in front of you. It
| is very difficult to trip and fall over backwards, specially
| when walking upstairs.
| eCa wrote:
| Falling upwards generally comes with less potential for
| injury. Falling backwards when going up is probably about
| equally bad regardless of clockwiseness.
| midasuni wrote:
| One comment was
|
| "it was easier and more natural for a right-handed architect to
| draw plans for a staircase with a right-handed spiral"
|
| There's also the claim that 30% of staircases are anti-
| clockwise. That's a lot for any statement of always or mostly
| clockwise.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It might just be because architects / builders copied each
| other. There are loads of little infrastructure details that
| vary from country to country with very little reason for the
| difference other than "that's how they are here". For example
| the gaps in American toilet stalls, or even the shapes of the
| toilet bowls - way shallower in the US than the UK. Why? Just
| tradition I expect.
| porlune wrote:
| From my years playing Minecraft, it's probably got a lot more
| to do with the layout of the upper room. Like you don't want
| your spiral ending toward a wall, you want it ending toward the
| room itself.
| [deleted]
| samizdis wrote:
| I wonder whether clockwise was generally favoured over anti-
| clockwise (or widdershins [1]) for superstitious reasons.
| Clockwise is "right" vs anticlockwise as "left".
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins
| teorema wrote:
| I wonder if you just asked 1000 people to draw a spiral without
| any other context, would there be some handedness/chirality to
| the drawings? My guess is there would be.
|
| https://briankoberlein.com/blog/gripping-hand/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27852139/
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/658702.pdf
| null_object wrote:
| It's a mildly interesting topic, but the 'myth' (if it is one) is
| hardly killed by the accumulated trivia in the article (some of
| which seems to favor neither side), and the tone is somewhat off-
| putting - dragging-in sexism and personal quarrels totally
| unnecessarily:
|
| > 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.
|
| >[EDIT: Within a matter of hours of publishing this post one kind
| gent on a discussion forum had already publicly declared it as
| "drivel" - it's odd what folk will get wound up about on the
| internet.]
| vadfa wrote:
| This is not twitter.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| How is the article sexist? You have to stop thinking everything
| you read is related to politics.
| [deleted]
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| The article explicitly states that it is not going to present
| the evidence against the myth; it isn't trying to demonstrate
| that the myth is false, it's leaving that for elsewhere.
| omnicognate wrote:
| Which renders it not worth reading. It's just an ad for a
| book.
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| It discusses who first suggested the idea; why is that not
| worth reading? That's certainly not just an ad for a book.
| midasuni wrote:
| And then he complains that people dismiss his barely
| evidenced claims.
| tempestn wrote:
| The point is that he did research and didn't find any
| evidence to support the claim that the staircases were
| designed this way for defense. We can't know (without
| reading his book) whether this research was thorough, but
| the onus really is on the person making the initial claim -
| that the staircases were designed for defense - to support
| it. His claim is simply that there's no evidence to support
| that initial claim.
| mkl wrote:
| That's not really a point in the article's favour. Instead it
| makes it kind of frustrating and pointless. Anyone can write
| unsupported assertions about anything. Maybe they're right,
| maybe they're not.
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| It's not pointless, it's just on a different topic. It's
| about who first suggested the idea. It's only "frustrating
| and pointless" if you thought the article was about the the
| truth or falsity of the idea, rather than who first
| suggested it; and the opening makes it pretty clear which
| of the two it's about.
| shakow wrote:
| Ah yes, Fermat articles, I hate them.
| iso1210 wrote:
| Thus it's a completely pointless article
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| No, because it discusses who first suggested the idea. I'd
| say that's interesting whether the claim is true or false.
| It's not pointless just because it's not on the topic you
| thought it was on.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Take a sample of O(10) year olds, pick out the ones interested
| in knights killing each other in a castle, you will find the
| selection heavily biased towards boys. Probably similar with
| parents instead of kids.
|
| It's hardly sexism, it's a pervasive fact of societal interest
| distribution.
| watwut wrote:
| This sort of thing tend to be explained to much younger kids
| then 10. And I assure you, little girl visiting the castle
| will listen to exact same trivia with total interest too. I
| mean, common, castles feature both genders of kids, they all
| go through all rooms.
|
| > pick out the ones interested in knights killing each other
| in a castle, you will find the selection heavily biased
| towards boys
|
| Like really, kids of both genders when being in castle and
| looking at knight armor are going to listen to you talking
| about knights fighting. They will be way more biased when
| picking souvenir toys, there they will follow gender. But the
| whispered "this turns right because this or that" does not
| have that large bias of interest.
|
| --------------------
|
| If the author is wrong about this trivia being explained only
| to buys, then the author is making sexist assumption about
| dads. Which is possible actually.
| null_object wrote:
| > It's hardly sexism, it's a pervasive fact of societal
| interest distribution.
|
| I'm not denying the possible 'societal interest
| distribution', I simply felt it was an irrelevant strawman
| that's virtually impossible to argue against without
| instantly being called-out as a sexist "gent", and had no
| place in what purported to be a historical discussion about
| stairways.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Well, it's a personal blog about a subject. It is
| information, sources and prose, really anything the author
| finds interesting and persistent to the subject.
|
| If a particular myth has a particular following in any
| identifiable subset of the society, that's interesting to
| me. In particular, just before the passage you question,
| the author states
|
| > One reason for [resilience of this myth] might be the
| frequency of its repetition by parents to children.
|
| so a casual observation about it being more of a father-
| and-son thing is permissibly relevant in the context of a
| blog. And it sounds like this guy spends a fair amount of
| time around castles. You might disagree with it, you might
| argue it is due to biases involved in raising children, or
| other things too, but sexism it is most certainly not.
| watwut wrote:
| Imo, most likely it is sexist remark about dads. If it is
| not, it is observation that the people visiting castles
| act in sexist ways.
|
| > 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)
|
| Like common, the "proudly imparting" is there to achieve
| emotional response on the reader and make dad sounds like
| funny figure. If you want to keep it factual and
| objective, most parents (both dads and moms) don't
| disseminate this sort of trivia "proudly". There is whole
| range of emotions involved from bored to interested.
| Sometimes they use funny voice to get kid interested.
|
| And as someone who likes to visit castles, you don't
| actually overhear it so super often. Nor do you hear it
| targeted at children as much. Moreover, "little boys",
| even when interested in fight and swords, they don't
| really care about technical details of either. They
| certainly don't care about left turning vs right turning
| staircase. This is beyond what little kids care about.
| fanzhang wrote:
| It would be way more convincing if the Arthur used primary
| historical source documents to justify this as a myth. For
| example, if he could find an old architect who wrote that the
| spiral staircases were for aesthetic reasons or for making the
| climb up easier, that would be more convincing.
|
| Instead, the author argues from almost first principles and bulk
| observations, which seems to be unconvincing logic in
| establishing historical intent.
| [deleted]
| mig39 wrote:
| In the article he finds the first written mention of the
| "purpose" of the spiral going in one direction is in 1902. And
| explains that this 1902 author was obsessed with spirals and
| fencing.
|
| I think the fact that there are no primary historical source
| documents that say "hey, we're building this castle this way
| just in case it's breached and we have to have a sword fight on
| the stairs" is one of his main points.
|
| It would be easy to disprove the article author by finding such
| historical documents. Do they exist?
| 123pie123 wrote:
| there's another tale thats gets told a lot about castles or
| fotified homes and that's about the height of the steps in a
| staircase
|
| on the staircases most of the steps on the stairs are a
| constant(ish) height except one or two
|
| the story is if that someone is running fast up or down the
| stairs (presumingly they're chasing someone who lives/ works in
| the castle) and this odd step will trip the attackers up -
| assuming they're not familiar with the odd height of one of the
| steps
| pmdulaney wrote:
| I guess this is a reminder to all of us not to make confident
| assertions about things we don't really know. Calling BS is a
| service to those around you.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I wonder if it's like panic rooms etc. Perhaps the owner, putting
| the money into the castle and paranoid about their safety,
| specified a long list of requirements to the builders, who
| nodded, smiled and complied. So the direction wasn't really a
| large-scale defence consideration but rather a "and what if I'm
| walking down the stairs and an assassin attacks me with a
| dagger?".
|
| We know castles had secret passages and other means of evading
| assassination etc so that could make sense.
| gostsamo wrote:
| I think that the secret passages are more often a way for the
| servants to do daily maintenance without disturbing the owner
| and guests. In rare occasions they were used so that the
| lord/lady can visit a lover without bringing unnecessary
| attention.
| GoodbyeMrChips wrote:
| Anecdote: I was attending a drinks party at a friends house
| and nearly shit when a bit of wood panelling suddenly opened
| up next to me.... only for a young lady to appear with a tray
| of canapes.
|
| Here, quite a few large 18th & 19th century houses were built
| with separate, discrete, servants staircases and passageways.
| beardyw wrote:
| I once had an office (c 1740) with a secret passage. It would
| only open from inside, so not an access for staff. More like
| a quick getaway!
| gostsamo wrote:
| Where was your office? I can only speculate with so little
| information.
| beardyw wrote:
| A company we were consulting for bought a big old country
| house here in the UK. It was completely empty when my
| small team moved in. I took the massive library as my
| office.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Hah, sounds like a quick getaway unless the tunnel was
| leading to a private and usually unoccupied bedroom so
| that sir spending time in reading books did acquire a new
| meaning.
| beardyw wrote:
| It quickly led to the front door. Visitors would be
| forced to walk half way round house to get there, to
| impress them I guess.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Good story.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| This is the case for the castle in Versailles (obviously not
| medieval).
|
| There areplenty of doors (more or less visible) that are used
| to split the public and private activities (and a way for
| servants to better navigate the castle).
|
| The doors are not always hidden - they clearly separate these
| two worlds, and may also led to very nice places that are
| just not public.
| shatnersbassoon wrote:
| I think this is the case. A siege is just one scenario out of
| many where someone could be attacking you in a castle. I have
| also been in several castles in UK where the penultimate step
| before the roof is deliberately 1 inch higher than all the
| others. The story is that if you were being chased up the
| stairs your attacker would trip over onto the roof and you
| could easily dispatch him. Would this author also claim the
| rationale of this feature as a myth, and that they just made
| the same measurement mistake in multiple castles?
|
| Incidentally, if you're not aware of it, a 1 inch difference in
| stair height will almost certainly make you trip up. I did
| myself when I was climbing them at first.
|
| Also the notion that once attackers were in a castle it's all
| over is not true. Late medieval castles were designed to be
| modular, layered and flexibly defensible. The enemy might get
| into one part, but you could retreat to another part and defend
| that. Might give you enough time to be relieved by an external
| force. Have a look at Caerphilly castle as an example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerphilly_Castle
|
| Finally, it seems that no real explanation is given to the bias
| towards building clockwise staircases. Why would this be the
| case? Doesn't it just mean that wherever possible they would
| build the staircase clockwise because there was some inherent
| advantage?
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Well, if that was practice, then attackers would know about
| that. Also, there is possibility for someone who is running
| away to trip.
|
| However, there is a hole in logic - what roof has any
| strategical advantage? Perhaps, one person will trip - rest
| of 99 out of 100, that are chasing you would eventually go
| through. Were there any further routes from the roof? Death
| from falling is my guess...
|
| The reason why there would be higher step for roof, might
| have more something to do with dampness and to prevent
| wearing of that step, or to prevent leakage from the roof,
| that would stream down the stairs. SAeriously, who is making
| those stories, that makes no sense and who are so gullible to
| believe them? Are there any of those stairs seen on money?
| Drunks from my native town were telling stories about
| oak(which is recently planted - no more than 50 years), ythat
| they claimed were pictured on money... usually they wanted to
| claim that money after a story, if someone wanted to disprove
| it and brought their vallet out...
| flerovium wrote:
| HN needs more content like this.
|
| > Within a matter of hours of publishing this post one kind gent
| on a discussion forum had already publicly declared it as
| "drivel" - it's odd what folk will get wound up about on the
| internet.
| [deleted]
| Aeolun wrote:
| > It is not the purpose of this blog post to outline all of the
| evidence against the swordsman theory.
|
| Well then. Bye.
|
| Seriously, why even write a blog post like this if you're not
| going to put the necessary information in it to make your point.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _why even write a blog post like this_
|
| The very next sentence explains why. Did you really not read
| past the line you quoted?
|
| > _That data will eventually appear in the content of a book
| that I am working on_
|
| The blogpost is a teaser for an upcoming book: that's pretty
| common.
| e2021 wrote:
| As others have said, I don't find these arguments very convincing
| - if castles were mainly residences, then why have crenelations,
| or arrow slits or a moat, doesn't that argument apply equally to
| those? The argument that if such a defensive feature was needed,
| then its already too late, and so it was probably never used is
| also not a good one imo. Has the CWIS gun on aircraft carriers
| ever actually been used in combat? Am I to conclude that CWIS has
| no defensive use and is purely architectural ornamentation?
|
| The only good point is that it wasn't mentioned by contemporary
| sources, but I don't think this proves anything unless you can
| show that _other_ defensive features on castles _were_ mentioned.
| Otherwise maybe we just have bad sources about castle design. But
| if you can show me some documents about why eg. moats are
| designed they way they are, then I think you have a point.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, castles were also used as bases to dominate the country
| side. And to show of wealth. The dominating part was made
| easier by bwing easily defended, turning them into ideal bases
| of operations. How someone could argue castles weren't military
| buildings, I don't know.
| pwinnski wrote:
| It would be worth noting what percentage of castle from this
| same period feature a moat or crenelations or arrow slits,
| right?
|
| The book is about why it's actually a myth. This article is
| about how stories get started and passed down with no basis in
| fact, and is really promotional material for the book.
|
| And here we are in 2021, and people are defending a story
| invented in 1902 about design decisions made more than 500
| years prior, and it's unclear how many of them had even heard
| the original myth before reading this article!
|
| The gnosticism is very strong today.
| jeltz wrote:
| I don't think many people are defending the myth, most just
| seem to critisize bad arguments. Just because something is
| not supported by facts does not make all counter arguments
| automatically valid.
| jandrese wrote:
| It would make sense that military secrets like opting for
| right hand spirals would not appear in popular publications.
|
| Even the 70/30 split mentioned in the article is telling. If
| it truly did not matter then you would expect a 50/50 split,
| so there is a thumb on the scale somewhere. Maybe some early
| famous castles had them and the feature was replicated in
| newer castles? But what if the original castles had them for
| defensive purposes? The newer castles could have been built
| with defensive features they didn't fully understand.
| pwr-electronics wrote:
| I can't find it now, but I remember watching a YouTube video
| about how the military aspect of castles was more about
| projecting power over the local population to prevent and put
| down rebellion. This article talks about how it was also both a
| home security system and a status symbol. You technically had
| to be licensed to fortify your property.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_to_crenellate
| 7952 wrote:
| It just seems foolish to generalise about something that
| existed for a long time in different guises.
| paulmooreparks wrote:
| I'm no expert in medieval warfare, but it seems to me that if an
| army has breached the outer and inner castle defenses and is
| fighting its way up the tower stairs, bigger failures have
| occurred than which direction the stairs turn. As if the lord of
| the castle is rubbing his hands gleefully, saying, "No matter,
| wait until they see THE STAIRS!"
|
| Nah, I don't buy it. Random chance or individual preference seems
| a bit more likely.
| glxxyz wrote:
| Yes once the attackers had got inside the keep it would have
| been all over. If the builders had been serious about defending
| the spiral stairs, they'd have added something like a
| portcullis or replaced the stairs with a ladder.
|
| I've heard this myth a few times and even repeated it myself
| without question. It's an obviously fanciful idea now I think
| about it some more.
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