Elevated entrance

Lore & Background

The majority of elevated entrances were between five and ten metres above ground level and faced the courtyard side to protect them from shell fire. Some were located in unsuitable places, such as above the outside of a castle. Heights above 15 metres are rarely recorded. The entrance was usually accessible only from another building, and many today are only two to three metres above ground because original ground levels have been filled with building rubble.

Access was typically via a wooden or stone staircase or a footbridge. A steep stairway and narrow landing made it difficult for attackers to use battering rams. Corbels or putlog holes often survive below the entranceway. In the Late Middle Ages or Early Modern times, staircase towers with spiral staircases were used. Occasionally a small drawbridge guarded the entrance, and wooden stairways were sometimes protected by a porch.

The simplest access was a movable ladder that could be hauled up during attack, though this was hardly ever used in permanently occupied castles. Rope ladders were occasionally used. A miniature in the Codex Manesse shows a poet being hoisted in a basket to an elevated entrance, a motif linked to the Virgil Legends. Whether rope lifts were widely used is not clear; in more recent castle science literature they are rarely seen as a method of reaching an elevated entrance. Note that St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai had a main door in the fortress wall and a gate accessible via drawbridge or ladder, with the rope lift used for supplies and people in baskets, not as the sole entrance.

Reader's Guide

The elevated entrance was a key defensive feature in medieval castles, protecting occupants by denying easy ground-level access. It also allowed the castellan to control entry into the domestic area. The lower floor, often dimly lit, was used for storage. In bergfrieds and country churches, the elevated entrance offered protection against attackers, though the difficulty of access also hindered counter-offensives.

Debate exists among castle researchers about the use of rope lifts. August Essenwein saw them as common, while Otto Piper questioned their practicality in danger. Karl August von Cohausen suggested long wooden ladders were hauled up and fixed to the wall. Verifiable examples of lifting devices exist in Orthodox culture, such as at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai and monasteries on Mount Athos. The elevated entrance of Tirol Castle is unusually wide and high. The function of the external gateway on the 5th floor of the Maiden Tower in Baku remains a mystery.

Did You Know?

• Heights above 15 metres are only rarely recorded for elevated entrances.
• At St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, the rope lift was used for supplies and people in baskets, but the main entrance was a door in the fortress wall and a gate via drawbridge or ladder.