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A castle is defined as a building , or set of buildings, fortified for defence against an enemy. The term is most often applied to a small self-contained fortress, usually of the Middle Ages, though traditionally in Britain it has also referred to prehistoric earthworks. The term castle, however, can mean many things, in many places, at many times. "Castle" sometimes denotes citadels or small detached forts d'arrêt in modern times.

Castles were built not only as a defensive measure, and offensive weapon, but also as a home. Castles were made by their owners for specific purposes, or evolved into new purposes over time. First and foremost castles were places of protection from an invading enemy, a place of retreat. This can be seen by many of the typical features of European castles (portcullises, battlements, drawbridges, etc.). Secondly castles were offensive weapons, built in otherwise hostile territories from which to control surrounding lands. Lastly castles evolved into residences for the monarch or lord who built them. This can best be seen in castles such as Bodiam Castle in Kent, whose defensive look was probably built merely to impress; inside, the castle is geared towards family living.

The term "castle" can cover many things, but generally it is believed that a castle is a building which "looks like one". In the blanket definition of a castle as being either a home or a fortress, or indeed both, many buildings which are plainly castles are excluded.

During the Middle Ages, in particular the High Middle Ages, lords and kings often built castles for offensive reasons: territorial expansion and control of a region. A castle was a stronghold from which a lord or baron could control surrounding territory. The most common held image of a castle is generally that of the Medieval European castles. Under its twofold aspect of a fortress and a residence, the medieval castle is inseparably connected with the subjects of fortification and domestic architecture. As the size of local communities grew, it became necessary to provide both a larger and stronger fortification, which would provide for a very strong perimeter defense. Castle walls, together with lodgings suitable for a Lord, as well as lower grade housing within the walls to accommodate some of the key population of the local area, served this purpose.

Castles were also developed to defend key part of the countryside such as a mountain pass or river estuary, and often made use of the natural geography to support the defensive walls through exploitation of cliffs, rivers, hills, and the like. By their very nature they were very permanent structures and many survive through to the modern day; they are now mostly considered monuments. Some well known examples include: Edinburgh Castle, Prague Castle, the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, and Dover Castle.

In addition to the castle walls, other defensive features include towers at the angular direction changes of walls, moats, drawbridges, battlements, portcullises, and concentric walls.The traditional mechanism used to occupy a castle would normally be to lay siege whereby a surrounding army would camp out of range of attack and wait for the internees to run out of either food or water. Offensive techniques would include the use of catapults, siege engines, battering rams and later mortar and cannon.

The word "castle" comes from the Latin word castellum meaning "fortress". This is a diminutive of the word castrum, which means "fortified place". The word "castle" (castel) was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote this new type of fortress, then new to England, brought in by the Norman knights whom Edward the Confessor had sent for to defend Herefordshire against the inroads of the Welsh.

The earliest recorded "castles" were built of earth and wood in Northern France in probably the late tenth century or early eleventh; they were built by the Normans.

When William the Conqueror invaded and conquered England, he brought along the practice of building a castle to protect and hold the land -- a necessity in the hostile environment of the overthrown Saxons. These early castles were called "motte & bailey", as they consisted of an earthen mound or "motte", frequently topped with a wooden tower. An encircling protective wall (the bailey) afforded additional protection for the owner's animals, buildings and workers. The essential feature of this type of castle was a circular mound of earth surrounded by a dry ditch and flattened at the top. Around the crest of its summit was placed a timber palisade. This moated mound was styled in French motte", a word still common in French place-names. But in addition to the mound, the citadel of the fortress, there was usually appended to it a bailey or basecourt (and sometimes two) of semilunar or horseshoe shape, so that the mound stood on the line of the enceinte. The rapidity and ease with which it was possible to construct castles of this type made them characteristic of the Conquest period in England and of the Anglo-Norman settlements in Wales, Ireland and the Scottish lowlands. In later days a stone wall replaced the timber palisade and produced what is known as the shell-keep, the type met with in the extant castles of Berkeley, Alnwick and Windsor.

The Normans introduced two other types of castle, also. The one was adopted where they found a natural rock stronghold which only needed adaptation, as at Clifford, Ludlow, the Peak and Exeter, to produce a citadel; the other was a type wholly distinct, the high rectangular tower of masonry, of which the Tower of London is the best-known example, though that of Colchester was probably constructed in the 11th century also. The latter type belongs rather to the more settled conditions of the 12th century when haste was not a necessity, and in the first half of which the fine extant keeps of Hedingham and Rochester were erected. These towers were originally surrounded by palisades, usually on earthen ramparts, which were replaced later by stone walls. The whole fortress thus formed was styled a castle, but sometimes more precisely "tower and castle," the former being the citadel, and the latter the walled enclosure, which preserved more strictly the meaning of the Roman castellum. Reliance was placed by the engineers of that time simply and solely on the inherent strength of the structure, the walls of which defied the battering ram, and could only be undermined at the cost of much time and labour, while the narrow apertures were constructed to exclude arrows or flaming brands. At this stage the crusades, and the consequent opportunities afforded to western engineers of studying the solid fortresses of the Byzantine empire, revolutionized the art of castlebuilding, which henceforward follows recognized principles. Many castles were built in the Holy Land by the crusaders of the 12th century, and it has been shown that the designers realized, first, that a second line of defences should be built within the main enceinte, and a third line or keep inside the second line; and secondly, that a wall must be flanked by projecting towers. From the Byzantine engineers, through the crusaders, we derive, therefore, the cardinal principle of the mutual defence of all the parts of a fortress.

The keep of western Europe was regarded as the fortress, the outer walls as accessory defences; in the East each envelope was a fortress in itself, and the keep became merely the last refuge of the garrison, used only when all else had been captured. Indeed the keep, in several crusader castles, is no more than a tower, larger than the rest, built into the enceinte and serving with the rest for its flanking defence, while the fortress was made strongest on the most exposed front. The idea of the flanking towers soon penetrated to Europe, and Alnwick Castle shows the influence of the new system.

The next development was the extension of the principle of successive lines of defence to form what is called the "concentric" castle, in which each ward was placed wholly within another which enveloped it; places thus built on a flat site became for the first time more formidable than strongholds perched upon rocks and hills such as Château Gaillard, where the more exposed parts indeed possessed many successive lines of defence, but at other points, for want of room, it was impossible to build more than one or, at most, two walls. In these cases, the fall of the inner ward by surprise, escalade, vive force, or even by ordinary siege (as was sometimes feasible), entailed the fall of the whole castle. The adoption of the concentric system precluded any such mischance, and thus, even though siege engines improved during the 13th and 14th centuries, the defence, by the massive strength of the concentric castle in some cases, by natural inaccessibility of position in others, maintained itself superior to the attack during the latter middle ages. Its final fall was due to the introduction of gunpowder as a propellant. In the 14th century the change begins, in the 15th it is fully developed, in the 16th the feudal fastness has become an anachronism.

Castle building was a very common task as boundaries were pushed and territory conquered. The walls would most commonly go up first, so nothing could hurt the castle while it was being built. Then came the castle so the Town Lord could govern easily. Then a cathedral would be built. This would often be the longest job, due to the intricate artwork that went into it. Then the villagers would be left to build their houses and shops, often with a separate kitchen building. Fields would be built and crops harvested. Thus, a castle town is built.

Castles, on average, took 10-15 years to complete. Nevertheless, this varied greatly since a castle built on top of a hill would generally take much longer to build than a castle situated on an easy-to-access terrain. During the Middle Ages, a stronger need for security emerged; thus the building of concentric castles. Concentric castles took much longer to complete but they provided many lines of defense. Normally the outer wall would be finished first and then the rest; to protect the workers and the people already inhabitating the castle.

Also, you might want to check out Wikipedia's List of Castles.

All information gathered from Wikipedia