Choices! What will it be? #17 - CASTLE

What do you imagine? A princess's castle or Dracula's castle?

The castle, as we imagine it, is a fascinating place, which forms in our mind as the sum of many castles in the world. Legends and history overlap, films, stories and novels distort their meaning to create a unique place each time.

The perception we have of castles is often fictional, probably very far from reality.

If we think of the Middle Ages, the castle reminds us of ancient deeds, battles and love stories, all mixed together.

In the Middle Ages the castle was a closed place where everything was concentrated, so it is like a world in itself with its beauties, its difficulties and its tragedies. Indeed, we can recognize in each castle a complete society.

^{Sforza Castle, exterior walls Source}

When we look at a castle, as we go from the bottom to the top and from the outside to the inside, we can see groups of people from different walks of life.

The castle starts from the foundations, where men and women, often slaves, worked to build it. From the walls, towers and moats, built, reinforced, modified over the centuries to make the castle more and more impenetrable.

In the darkest and most dank halls, there are prisons and torture chambers, where enemies or anyone who tried to overthrow the known power was punished and often left to die.

Then there are the kitchens, where cooks and servants work hard to provide food for all the inhabitants of the castle.

The stables and armories, where the attendants prepare, clean, rearrange animals and armor.

The soldiers train and work day and night to ensure that the castle remains safe, checking every gate, every tower, every drawbridge. They scan the horizon to spot those arriving in the distance, and maintain order inside by protecting the inhabitants.

Towards the inside, in the safest and prettiest rooms there are the ladies of the court, the knights, the musicians and the poets, the painters, the dancers, the swordsmen. All people not too poor, but not yet wealthy not to depend on the will of nobles and royalty. People well-liked at court for their talent, but who have to earn their place in the castle.

Finally, the nobles, the owners of the castle, may have inherited it, conquered it or taken it by trick. The castle is their home and their symbols are everywhere, from the coats of arms painted on the gates to those sewn into the flags. They decide who gets to live in the castle, who gets to leave and who gets to die.

^{Sforza Castle, a side entrance source}

But even the nobles are slaves of their castle, they are forced to marry men or women they don't love, to take care of business they don't want, and if they disobey their king they can be exiled and sent to the front, or locked up in the tallest tower.

They are obliged to have children in order to have descendants and to constantly ensure that no one steals their place in the castle.

Sometimes they wait for someone to come and rescue them, and you know, that only happens in fairy tales.