How Everything in a Medieval Castle Worked, from Its Moats to Its Dungeons

Very few of us have ever set foot near a genuine medieval castle, especially if we don’t happen to live in Europe. Yet practically all of us still, here in the twenty-first century, refer with some frequency to their components in our everyday speech. When we invoke moats, drawbridges, dungeons, and even catapults, we almost always do so metaphorically — assuming we’re not active members of a historical re-creation society — yet we also have no problem seeing them before our mind’s eye with what feels like perfect clarity.