Donjon Pons - From Below

Our last medieval blog post featured the magnificent donjon in Pons in the Charente-Maritime. We were able to show you the views from the very top of the donjon looking out for miles across the French countryside.

Today we are going back down to the bottom of the donjon and looking up. This video clip gives an idea of the size and scale of the tower. Imagine what it took to construct this back in medieval times - in 1187 in fact.

This particular donjon is now classed as one of France's historical monuments and is regarded as the best example of its type in SW France. The tower is 30m in height and its walls are between 2.5m and 4.4m thick.

Read about the magnificent donjon in Bazoges-en-Pareds.

Read more about medieval donjons.

Medieval Donjon - Rooftop View

Medieval castles had common architectural features and the donjon is perhaps one of the most notable. Introduced into Britain by the Normans, the donjon became known in England as the castle keep.

Medieval history enthusiasts today can enjoy visiting many castle keeps whch have been lovingly restored and preserved. Some are just a shell and a shadow of their former medieval glory but others still have their staircases and interior rooms and floors intact. This type of donjon is always well worth a visit.

Pons is a small medieval town in SW France. It's a place most people have never heard of and yet it has a fabulous, preserved medieval donjon. Here is a video clip of the views from the very top of the donjon, sufficient to make you realise the degree of advantage such a high building brought to the town's people back in medieval times.

Medieval Castle Videos

We now have our own medieval castle videos channel on YouTube.

In our last blog post we talked about the superb example of a donjon which we visited whilst on a trip to France. Well you can now view a short clip of its interior on our video channel - donjon video.

If you are a YouTube user and want to support our work in promoting medieval castles, please visit our video channel and feel free to subscribe and comment.

A Magnificient Medieval Donjon

The word 'donjon' is of course French and comes from the Norman French who built many of the world's greatest medieval castles. A donjon was a formidable piece of medieval architecture - a freestanding structure, rectangular in shape and most readily identifiable to what most people think of as a castle keep. 

Built for defence, a donjon had very thick walls and an internal spiral stone staircase connecting all floors (up to four storeys high). A donjon was usually constructed inside a castle's walls but was sometimes located within the curtain wall itself. I have seen many a castle keep in medieval castles over the years, particularly in Britain but I had never seen a definitive French donjon until recently when I visited Bazoges-en-Pareds. 

It was a magnificent sight, towering above the small town and dominating the skyline for miles around. Here is a video clip which I hope will convey some of that magic.

There was also a most beautiful, medieval garden located just in front of the donjon - but that's a story for another day! In the meantime, to whet your appetite, you can take a look at my medieval garden photos here in a gallery published with permission by medieval-recipes.com.

Medieval Well

Water has always been and always will be a precious commodity. It is for that reason that medieval castles were always built close to a good water supply. 

 As our medieval castle blog reported in a previous post, there are even medieval castles with their own little harbour such as Threave Castle in Scotland. 

Occasionally, when visiting a medieval castle you might be lucky enough to come across the remains of a medieval well. Here is one we found in the garden of a medieval abbey in France at Nieul-Sur-L'Autise. The medieval garden at Bazoges-en-Pareds also has a wonderful, stone-built well.

You can see it here in this video clip courtesy of medieval-recipes.com.

A Medieval Turn of Phrase - Medieval Glossary

Anyone interested in medieval history and medieval castles simply has to read Sir Walter Scott's 'Ivanhoe'. It is a magnificent piece of writing which brings to life all things medieval - eg. the quality of life enjoyed by a nobleman compared to that of a serf, the code of chivalry amongst knights, the prejudices of class and religion that existed, the role played by women in medieval times and what life in a medieval castle was like.

One of the most striking things about the book, however is the language used. Granted, Scott deliberately used a very 'flowery' language throughout his story, but he also made reference to many truly medieval terms and phrases, some of which we still use today and some that we don't.

For example ....

• words we still use today - gaiters (leggings), muscadine (sweet wine), bodkin (needle)
  
  
• words we no longer hear - capul (horse), fortalice (fortress), senechal (steward)
  

To read more of the kind of vocabulary popular in medieval England, visit our Medieval Glossary.

If you're interested to read more about Sir Walter Scott, there's lots of information in the Walter Scott Digital Archive.