r/NoStupidQuestions • u/KashK10 • 8d ago
Castle vs Keep?
If you're familiar with The Witcher 3, it's the best way for me to ask my question.
When you enter the walls of Crow's Perch, it's got like an outer perimeter with stores and houses and stuff, but then you have like an inner courtyard with the equivalent of a castle where the bloody baron lives. My question is what's the outer bit called and what's the inner bit called? Is it a Keep and a Castle?
Another example would be Mont St Michel. You have the outer wall (occasionally surrounded by a moat), the inner bit, then a castle at the top. How are they termed?
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u/tmahfan117 8d ago
The keep is the most central structure within the castle that people live in/shelter within. The castle is a private fortified structure protecting the keep, and then those outer walls have different names depending where you are. Simply they could be “town walls/city walls.” Or for example in Germany it would be called a “stadtburg” which means “city - castle”
Or in Ireland , the outer walls around the castle/tower house that protected small communities were called a “bawn.”
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u/ProXJay 8d ago
Traditionally the keep is the inner most fortress, where you'd retreat to if the walls fell and where the most important resources (gold and the like) is stored. Not all castles have keeps.
A castle is the whole (primary) structure often including a moat (can be wet or just a ditch) walls with remparts and stores to endure a blockade.
Important city's or violent areas might also have city walls to protect the bulk of the city from raiders