Castle Moats: Holy for Some, Sewer for Others

[archaeo]

No mention of water as a leveling device, which I file under "possibly even 'cosmological' significance."

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/1 ... -moat.html

Aug. 12, 2009 -- Over 2,000 years ago, residents of at least one royal palace enjoyed convenient indoor toilets, with the contents regularly transported to the stately mansion's surrounding moat, according to a recent excavation. The dig also found that the inhabitants struggled, and likely failed, to keep the waste flowing away from the palace.

Yet another recent excavation at an estate in Scotland indicates moat water held spiritual and possibly even "cosmological" significance. ..........

[Minimalist]

"Even if a moat was advantageous, perhaps even necessary, in defense, people living in settlements or palaces encircled by a moat might have to endure, then, the several inherent problems, such as the spread of pathogens, bad smells, the proliferation of mosquitoes, and others," concluded Dong Hoon Shin and colleagues, who excavated the moat ruins at Weolseong Palace, Korea.

Two thoughts on this.

First, micro-organisms were unknown so the link to disease is dubious in the minds of the inhabitants, and

Second, as a defensive system, it would seem logical to make the moat as unattractive as possible to potential attackers.

Although, were I personally designing the fortifications, I might be inclined to push the moat out from the walls to at least medium-to-long archery range.

[dannan14]

Actually Min, that wouldn't necessarily be a good idea. A major purpose of a moat was to prevent sappers from digging under the walls. If the moat doesn't come up to the castle wall then sappers have a shot at doing their work.

[Minimalist]

True, although they'd have to start their work on the inside of the moat and thus under steady fire from archers (crossbow or other) and catapult/ballista weapons. Might not bother the men digging underground but it would sure cause the morale of the guys who had to extract the dirt to drop. Plus, the rest of the army would have to stand by in case of a sortie. Also, it would be pretty obvious to the defenders what was going on and counter-mines were used in such cases.

Still, I have this image of the Middle Ages smelling god-awful anyway....they threw the garbage in the middle of the streets...so would they really mind a sewer flowing around the walls? Hell. The sewer might have been cleaner than the streets!

[dannan14]

"Must be a King"

" 'ow do you know 'e's a King"

" 'e 'asn't got shit all over 'im"

[Minimalist]

Exactly.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Rest assured they found out very quickly that moats with stagnant water wasn't a good idea. If I were asked to guess when they found out I would say in Sumerian times or even before.

So castles and fortifications were preferably built were there was already a lot of, flowing, water. E.g. on promontories, peninsulas, were you needed to defend only one side, the 'landside', instead of four. Or at the juncture where a stream/river flowed into a lake, sea, or other stream/river, whence you needed to only dig two sides of a moat, instead of four. Flowing water, everytime. Neatly tripling functionality as a defense system, as the 'fresh' water supply system, and as the sewage system.