Medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage(fakehistoryhunter.net)
fakehistoryhunter.net
Medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage
https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2023/10/09/medieval-staircases-were-not-built-going-clockwise-for-the-defenders-advantage/
313 comments
This seems to discuss roads and cities… not stairs in a tower. If the direction of the stairs was so important, why isn’t that mentioned?
Either is was very obvious to the authors (so not included), or not thought to be an important factor.
Either is was very obvious to the authors (so not included), or not thought to be an important factor.
As someone who grew up around medival european castles, the reason is that righthanders with weapons going upstairs will have a harder time using their weapons than righthanders defending the stairs downstairs.
When you are inside such a narrow stairway this fact becomes very obvious.
When you are inside such a narrow stairway this fact becomes very obvious.
I understand that this is the prevailing wisdom (and it makes a ton of sense). But that’s exactly what the article is arguing against.
Yes, it seems more likely they would do something like roll down a large boulder rather than push the enemy down the stairs. Having been up a few of these staircases recently, the prospect of something heavy coming down from above sounds absolutely terrifying.
What are the optimal parameters for the size, mass, and velocity of the stone, and the material, height, and thickness of the walls, to meet the objectives without the stone damaging the walls? For more than one stone? How do you get them up?
I think a long, sturdy spear to penetrate and/or push down the enemy would be equally effective and reusable
Vegetius, pray tell what the scrying glass saith of yon fortification level?
Verily, coz, it saith the level be over four hundred and fifty score!
God's nails! Four hundred and fifty score?!
Still doesn't say anything about twisting direction of the staircase.
Maybe they're easier to build that way if you're right handed?
If you use a handweapon (sword, axe, knife, hammer, etc.) you need space to perfom a swing with any meaningful amount of energy.
Medival stairways were built this way because people going upstairs won't have the space to swing if they are righthanders. Meanwhile people going downstairs have a good amount of space to do precisely that.
The assumption of course is that you as the defender are the one fleeing upstairs, while the attacker is trying to get to you.
Source: grew up around medival european castles and have been on a few tours. When you are inside such a stairway this becomes very obvious.
Medival stairways were built this way because people going upstairs won't have the space to swing if they are righthanders. Meanwhile people going downstairs have a good amount of space to do precisely that.
The assumption of course is that you as the defender are the one fleeing upstairs, while the attacker is trying to get to you.
Source: grew up around medival european castles and have been on a few tours. When you are inside such a stairway this becomes very obvious.
This is all addressed in the linked article. Even the bit about the tours.
Agreed, there are a number of accounts that do describe this happening as well
There is a pretty significant flaw in this article in that it assumes castles mostly defended against war. When you read history books, and actually visit real castles, you learn the main threats were insurection, rebellion, and disease. Most royalty who were killed were killed by people within the castle walls, so the argument 'well you'd just give up' simply doesn't apply. You don't 'just give up' if your brother is trying to kill you or there is a peasant rebellian. Neither of those situations typically involve unbreakable seiges.... The idea that castles are not built for internal defence goes against a tremendous amount of archeological evidence. They are choke full of trap doors, weird side rooms, and hiding spots.
The relative scarcity of castle sieges doesn't mean they weren't a major concern. It's quite likely that castles served as an effective "siege deterrent". That is, sieges weren't common specifically because the likelihood of success was low.
My point was to criticise this paragraph: "
For attackers it’s also not a very tempting scenario.
If you’ve already breached all the outer walls and defeated all the soldiers there, who would want to risk their life crawling up some stairs where the defenders are waiting for you?
Sieges often didn’t involve much fighting at all, as simply waiting outside the castle till the people inside ran out of water and food was a much easier and less bloody way to win.
In many cases simply realising the enemy was going to sit outside and wait was enough to surrender."
The author seems to be claiming that beyond the outer walls castles don't have defensive elements as they are pointless once the walls have been breached. This claim is false.
The author seems to be claiming that beyond the outer walls castles don't have defensive elements as they are pointless once the walls have been breached. This claim is false.
The whole article is awful.
> Sieges often didn’t involve much fighting at all, as simply waiting outside the castle till the people inside ran out of water and food was a much easier and less bloody way to win. In many cases simply realising the enemy was going to sit outside and wait was enough to surrender.
This part for example is just straight up false. While many more sieges were won by surrender than successful assault, sieges were very violent and full of fighting. Sallies and even open field combat between groups of warriors wanting to make a name for themselves were a daily occurrence. The vast majority of cities and castles under siege had plentiful water supplies and could hold up to a years supply of food under rationing, especially if they had any time to prepare for the siege (which they almost always did because moving big armies is hard to do discretely). That preparation also stripped the surrounding area of forage for the armies, giving them hard time limits on how long they could siege before morale cratered. The attackers were just as likely to starve unless they had a constant supply line which the defenders constantly tried to disrupt.
In order to overcome that disadvantage the sieging army had to really do a lot of damage and scare the besieged into surrender. Constant volleys from siege equipment into and over the walls, attempted escalades, towers and projectiles, and soldiers with pickaxes batter the walls. At the siege of Lisbon in 1147, two shifts of 100 men each shot thousands of stones a day using two trebuchets.
Major assaults would even be planned out in the open to drive fear into the defenders and try to get them to surrender before a large wave of violence.
Source: see the Soldiers’ Lives Through History - The Middle Ages chapter 4: Sieges. Lots of primary sources like the St Omer Chronicle in the notes.
> Sieges often didn’t involve much fighting at all, as simply waiting outside the castle till the people inside ran out of water and food was a much easier and less bloody way to win. In many cases simply realising the enemy was going to sit outside and wait was enough to surrender.
This part for example is just straight up false. While many more sieges were won by surrender than successful assault, sieges were very violent and full of fighting. Sallies and even open field combat between groups of warriors wanting to make a name for themselves were a daily occurrence. The vast majority of cities and castles under siege had plentiful water supplies and could hold up to a years supply of food under rationing, especially if they had any time to prepare for the siege (which they almost always did because moving big armies is hard to do discretely). That preparation also stripped the surrounding area of forage for the armies, giving them hard time limits on how long they could siege before morale cratered. The attackers were just as likely to starve unless they had a constant supply line which the defenders constantly tried to disrupt.
In order to overcome that disadvantage the sieging army had to really do a lot of damage and scare the besieged into surrender. Constant volleys from siege equipment into and over the walls, attempted escalades, towers and projectiles, and soldiers with pickaxes batter the walls. At the siege of Lisbon in 1147, two shifts of 100 men each shot thousands of stones a day using two trebuchets.
Major assaults would even be planned out in the open to drive fear into the defenders and try to get them to surrender before a large wave of violence.
Source: see the Soldiers’ Lives Through History - The Middle Ages chapter 4: Sieges. Lots of primary sources like the St Omer Chronicle in the notes.
I’m not going to claim I’m a medieval military tactician, but if you have some amount of resources stockpiled and friendly armies in the field, why surrender immediately? Your forces or allied forces could pin the siege force against your walls possibly giving you an advantageous position. Perhaps stockpiling supplies that didn’t go bad was difficult back then or militaries didn’t consistent of more than one army so if there was a siege that meant your main force was already defeated?
I do remember that the first phase of the Punic Wars was basically Sparta chasing all the Athenians inside the city where they brought in supplies by boat and waited the Spartans out, rinse and repeat for a decade. Obviously that’s a different period and the Athenians suffered a horrible outbreak of some sort of plague possibly due to the overcrowding.
I do remember that the first phase of the Punic Wars was basically Sparta chasing all the Athenians inside the city where they brought in supplies by boat and waited the Spartans out, rinse and repeat for a decade. Obviously that’s a different period and the Athenians suffered a horrible outbreak of some sort of plague possibly due to the overcrowding.
> where they brought in supplies by boat and waited the Spartans out
That comes down to the location and type of castle, nothing to do with period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caernarfon_Castle
has town walls, water on three sides, multiple independant keeps separated by curtain walls, etc. Once attackers "gained entry" they were faced with being in an enclosed space, surrounded by high archers, and tasked with as much work again to advance further ... only to be faced with the same again.
It was damn near impossible to siege as restocking from the sea and|or river was almost always an option at the time.
It was also a castle with decades of resources and cash thrown its way, other castles of the same period didn't fare nearly as well.
A great many of the Irish castles of the Ulster plantation and onwards fell to undermining - Irish sappers dug tunnels and propped the undersides of the walls .. only to later burn out all the props and collapse the walls.
There were only so many castles that had water access, multiple layered defences and granite foundations all about that resisted tunnelling.
That comes down to the location and type of castle, nothing to do with period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caernarfon_Castle
has town walls, water on three sides, multiple independant keeps separated by curtain walls, etc. Once attackers "gained entry" they were faced with being in an enclosed space, surrounded by high archers, and tasked with as much work again to advance further ... only to be faced with the same again.
It was damn near impossible to siege as restocking from the sea and|or river was almost always an option at the time.
It was also a castle with decades of resources and cash thrown its way, other castles of the same period didn't fare nearly as well.
A great many of the Irish castles of the Ulster plantation and onwards fell to undermining - Irish sappers dug tunnels and propped the undersides of the walls .. only to later burn out all the props and collapse the walls.
There were only so many castles that had water access, multiple layered defences and granite foundations all about that resisted tunnelling.
Nice to see my home town - and its castle - on HN.
Fred Dibnah included it in his programme on castles and how they were built. He also goes over its defensive and offensive features in detail.
Here it is on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64tCM9zXTE4#t=345
Fred Dibnah included it in his programme on castles and how they were built. He also goes over its defensive and offensive features in detail.
Here it is on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64tCM9zXTE4#t=345
Athens-Sparta would be the Peloponnesian War, Punic wars were between Rome and Carthage. Sorry for the nitpick.
How wide are these stairs, typically? Because I've been in a staircase built by hand out of stone (and yes, I was given this exact explanation for why it was built clockwise, despite it being in Carmel, California, which is not exactly a hotspot for medieval sieges). And a lot of what people are talking about here is laughably irrelevant if the stairs were as steep and narrow as that one was.
It was tight. I didn't have much trouble climbing it, but I'm not sure I could have navigated it at all wearing armor. Falling down the stairs was not an issue because you'd just fall against the curved wall. Passing by other people? Hahaha. Maybe if you were trying to play Medieval Twister.
The defender advantage argument was viscerally satisfying, because you could so easily imagine how impossible it would be to do anything with the inward hand. Which is probably mostly evidence for why the myth persists, whether it is true or false. Though that itself could have applied to the builders or customers of times past. You can build them one way or the other, and here's a satisfying explanation for one even if it pertains to a situation that never happens, so... why not go with clockwise?
Then again, if I were to speculate, I would wonder why the fixation on sieges? If the defensibility argument were true, couldn't it apply to other situations like an attack by the populace or staff? The lord's personal guard might still appreciate the edge.
I can't help but think that carrying beer, torches, or chamber pots ought to be a bigger part of the justification, though.
It was tight. I didn't have much trouble climbing it, but I'm not sure I could have navigated it at all wearing armor. Falling down the stairs was not an issue because you'd just fall against the curved wall. Passing by other people? Hahaha. Maybe if you were trying to play Medieval Twister.
The defender advantage argument was viscerally satisfying, because you could so easily imagine how impossible it would be to do anything with the inward hand. Which is probably mostly evidence for why the myth persists, whether it is true or false. Though that itself could have applied to the builders or customers of times past. You can build them one way or the other, and here's a satisfying explanation for one even if it pertains to a situation that never happens, so... why not go with clockwise?
Then again, if I were to speculate, I would wonder why the fixation on sieges? If the defensibility argument were true, couldn't it apply to other situations like an attack by the populace or staff? The lord's personal guard might still appreciate the edge.
I can't help but think that carrying beer, torches, or chamber pots ought to be a bigger part of the justification, though.
> I'm not sure I could have navigated it at all wearing armor
That’s another myth. Wearing a reasonable form of plate mail is sort of heavy, but doesn’t really restrict your movement as much as people seem to think.
That’s another myth. Wearing a reasonable form of plate mail is sort of heavy, but doesn’t really restrict your movement as much as people seem to think.
I've worn really good armor in SCA heavy combat. I've also been up some impossibly narrow curved staircases where I am certain I could not have made it while wearing armor -- I could barely squeeze through without armor. The top flights of stairs at Köln Cathedral are pretty tight, and the whole 55 flights of stairs is nothing to laugh at.
Now, the difference is that I'm probably bigger than your average footman or knight who might have been trying to go up those stairs. But they definitely wouldn't be passing anyone on the stairs, and they definitely would have had trouble hacking on someone who was above them on the staircase.
The one key fact that puts the idea to rest is all the staircases I've seen that spiral clockwise in one part of the building, and counter-clockwise in the other. Everything else being equal, both sets of stairs could be used to go either up or down, and you could choose which set to use. At Köln Cathedral, they tell you which ones are for up and which ones are for down, but if you're an invading attacker, you don't pay attention to the rules of the house you're invading.
Now, the difference is that I'm probably bigger than your average footman or knight who might have been trying to go up those stairs. But they definitely wouldn't be passing anyone on the stairs, and they definitely would have had trouble hacking on someone who was above them on the staircase.
The one key fact that puts the idea to rest is all the staircases I've seen that spiral clockwise in one part of the building, and counter-clockwise in the other. Everything else being equal, both sets of stairs could be used to go either up or down, and you could choose which set to use. At Köln Cathedral, they tell you which ones are for up and which ones are for down, but if you're an invading attacker, you don't pay attention to the rules of the house you're invading.
> The one key fact that puts the idea to rest is all the staircases I've seen that spiral clockwise in one part of the building, and counter-clockwise in the other.
Smart! One staircase to defend from attackers coming up from the ground and another to defend from attackers coming from the roof.
Smart! One staircase to defend from attackers coming up from the ground and another to defend from attackers coming from the roof.
A cathedral is more likely to have architectural questions answered by aesthetic design than by defensive design. And if some decent percentage of the 30% of the "wrong way" staircases are paired like such, it would put even more evidence that there really was something about right-hand staircases.
> it would put even more evidence that there really was something about right-hand staircases.
Probably there was. It might have also had nothing to do with making it easier to defend the staircase during combat. Maybe they just found that carry stuff up if the stairs go clockwise is easier. Maybe counterclockwise works better for those climbing down. But in most places you don’t really have enough space for two staircases so you just chose which (up/down) is more important to you
Probably there was. It might have also had nothing to do with making it easier to defend the staircase during combat. Maybe they just found that carry stuff up if the stairs go clockwise is easier. Maybe counterclockwise works better for those climbing down. But in most places you don’t really have enough space for two staircases so you just chose which (up/down) is more important to you
Yeah, but I've seen the same thing in various castles I've been to in Europe. Köln Cathedral was just the one that leapt most readily to mind.
plate armor makes you wider. weight and movement don't matter if you are too wide to walk up the stairs. I too have been jn these stairs, and wearing a t-shirt as a 5'8" male, I have about 2 to 4 inches of clearance. I would imagine a fully armored person taking up that small amount of empty space easily.
I took as kind of implied that we weren’t talking about “doesn’t physically fit on the stairs” because that wouldn’t be a very interesting assertion to make.
I imagine 5-10cm is enough, at least to the point you can wrangle yourself up the stairs, but you wouldn’t be fighting there in the first place with that amount of space.
I imagine 5-10cm is enough, at least to the point you can wrangle yourself up the stairs, but you wouldn’t be fighting there in the first place with that amount of space.
You also have a range advantage coming up.
Your arm and the end of your sword can more easily reach the feet and lower legs of something above you.
Whereas coming down the stairs, you have a harder time getting your sword to reach someone coming up because your range is reduced due to the height of your body.
Your arm and the end of your sword can more easily reach the feet and lower legs of something above you.
Whereas coming down the stairs, you have a harder time getting your sword to reach someone coming up because your range is reduced due to the height of your body.
Medieval people, even soldiers, had generally smaller statures in medieval times.
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My own no-basis 30 second gun theory - what if they are all the same way because one guy who was really good at making them passed the knowledge down that way. Then everyone else followed from that one teaching and never bothered flipping it. It wasn’t better, it just won the coin flip
You can go a step further and (maybe, I acknowledge this is a stretch) apply some evolutionary pressure in that it gave defensive advantages they didn't think about and so the people whose castles this guy/his students built retained their wealth and built more castles from the same building style.
also, when the number of stairs built that way reaches critical mass, any stair built otherwise will feel awkward
I recall an interview with someone doing a late night talk show, that they tried putting the guest on the right side of the host but that didn't sit to well with audiences because they were used to seeing the guest on the left side. No reason for it other than that is what the first popular late show did, so everything else followed.
That's what I find most fascinating about the claimed 70/30 distribution, I'd either expect something very close to even or far more lopsided.
Perhaps a closer look at the numbers would show a very clear default direction plus a strong priority for symmetry where applicable?
Perhaps a closer look at the numbers would show a very clear default direction plus a strong priority for symmetry where applicable?
What if the 30 percent are more close in region or time?
I like this, and the comment you replied to. I think most of the things we have are the way they are because of reasons like these, not because someone rationally planned them.
I thought the current thinking was that no battle would ever come down to fighting on the stairway. If someone has already made it through all of your castle's defences to even be on the stairs, then the battle is over.
And if you were defining a stairway, a spear is much better than a sword. Stand at the top, poke down.
Wouldn't a spear be much better than a sword for any defensive position?
The problem with a phalanx is that it's hard to turn, not that attacking from short range is somehow better than attacking from long range.
The problem with a phalanx is that it's hard to turn, not that attacking from short range is somehow better than attacking from long range.
Who said anything about a phalanx? You can have a spear and a makeshift barricade at the top of the stairs.
> Who said anything about a phalanx?
I did. It's right there in my comment.
I'm supporting the idea that a spear is superior in any defensive position by pointing out that the problem with an offensive block of spears is the need to move, which doesn't apply to defense.
I did. It's right there in my comment.
I'm supporting the idea that a spear is superior in any defensive position by pointing out that the problem with an offensive block of spears is the need to move, which doesn't apply to defense.
it sort of does very much. defenders need to move a lot to compensate for their smaller numbers, no?
No, that's what fortifications are for.
And if you’re at the bottom you could just start a fire instead of risking your life by try to climb up
this comes off as video game logic. 'well I lost, may as well hit the reset button'.
Except when you are going to die, even if the extra odds seems pointless, you do it. much like WW2 tankers putting sand bags on their tank.
Except when you are going to die, even if the extra odds seems pointless, you do it. much like WW2 tankers putting sand bags on their tank.
> Except when you are going to die
That’s why you surrender after you realize the situation is hopeless (which is hopefully long before anyone starts climbing up the stairs).
Even if you’re willing to fight to the death/don’t have a choice which was pretty rare and are just stuck at the top what incentives do the attackers have to risk their lives by rushing up the stairs when they can just start a fire at the bottom and/or wait you out?
That’s why you surrender after you realize the situation is hopeless (which is hopefully long before anyone starts climbing up the stairs).
Even if you’re willing to fight to the death/don’t have a choice which was pretty rare and are just stuck at the top what incentives do the attackers have to risk their lives by rushing up the stairs when they can just start a fire at the bottom and/or wait you out?
people don't always make the most logical decision. that goes doubly so when they're in a stressful situation like a fight.
a hefty spherical boulder, works wonders for clearing a staircase.
> evolutionary pressure
Wouldn’t you need the relevant event to not be extremely rare for that to matter?
I mean a sieges were once in a several decades or even once in 100-200 years events on average. Actual direct assaults with combat occurring on the stairs were significantly less frequent than that. The defender being able to turn the tide at that point? Even less.
Wouldn’t you need the relevant event to not be extremely rare for that to matter?
I mean a sieges were once in a several decades or even once in 100-200 years events on average. Actual direct assaults with combat occurring on the stairs were significantly less frequent than that. The defender being able to turn the tide at that point? Even less.
> You can go a step further
I see what you did there.
I see what you did there.
Survivorship bias
My own guess - there’s already a bias towards right handedness. I assume that is related. I don’t know how these staircases were built but it may be that it’s slightly easier to build these staircases for right-handed people. And then maybe 30% of builders were left handed or some minority of the time the architect wanted to prioritize symmetry with another tower.
But they aren’t all the same, they are 1/3 : 2/3
Maybe that's the ratio of left and right handedness in medieval staircase builders. i joke.
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Fighting is fun to talk about but most of the time people didn't fight on the stairs, they, unsurprisingly, simply climbed up and down on them. So, maybe it's more comfortable to walk up the stairs that way? People are mostly right footed (60% as per [1]), so perhaps there is something about having the stronger right foot where the stairs are narrower when going up.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-asymmetric-brain...
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-asymmetric-brain...
Ah, but going down is more tricky than up, so you want the strong foot on the slim side rather in this case.
I have to admit I had that thought - if I needed to get down a narrow staircase in a hurry, I'd prefer if it were anti-clockwise.
But apparently another competing theory is that clockwise staircases allow people to put their right hand against the wall for balance/safety... implying if they had anything to carry (including a lamp!) they'd prefer to do so in their left hand, which isn't too convincing either. But in fact on further consideration, the fact that if you have something largish to carry, you'd probably want it on the wider side, and would be more likely you'd carry it in your right hand, might have something going for it...though I'm not sure why that would be obviously more so going down than going up (and logically I'd expect more things would be carried up from the ground floor than v/v, particularly shortly after building the castle. From the upper floor you can discard used/broken objects by tossing them over the side!).
I don't think going down was a priority. When you are under attack, you want your archers to rush up to the walls, with some extra fighters for good measure, and you don't want them to go down until the enemy has decided to leave. At that point, the speed of your archers going down doesn't matter much.
Hmm...most archers would be right handed and used to holding/carrying their bows in their left hand (during battle at least), which I assume would indeed be easier ascending a clockwise staircase...wonder how you'd test that theory!
I wonder what the etiquette for oncoming traffic was, those spiral staircases with a central spine aren't really walkable anywhere but at the outer wall.
Whoever has to step to the spine side would probably want a hand on the spine, palm making contact from the uphill side no matter wether facing up or down. So for someone uphill, the spine contact would be made with the outside hand (arm crossing in front), for someone downhill with the inside hand. On a clockwise staircase, this would leave the right hand comfortably idle for candle, tool or whatever the person deferring to (presumably higher ranking?) oncoming traffic on the wall side is carrying.
Whoever has to step to the spine side would probably want a hand on the spine, palm making contact from the uphill side no matter wether facing up or down. So for someone uphill, the spine contact would be made with the outside hand (arm crossing in front), for someone downhill with the inside hand. On a clockwise staircase, this would leave the right hand comfortably idle for candle, tool or whatever the person deferring to (presumably higher ranking?) oncoming traffic on the wall side is carrying.
Maybe the castle with both was doing an A/B test
> Sieges often didn’t involve much fighting at all, as simply waiting outside the castle till the people inside ran out of water and food was a much easier and less bloody way to win.
Currently reading Plutarch. Twice already he's mentioned sieges where the attackers waited for the besieged to run out of water. The grueling wait is compressed in history.
Currently reading Plutarch. Twice already he's mentioned sieges where the attackers waited for the besieged to run out of water. The grueling wait is compressed in history.
My favorite siege weirdness is circum- and contravallation. Caesar's seige of Alesia perhaps being one of the better examples. The man built a wall around the already walled fortification of Alesia... then built a wall behind him to keep the besieging army safe from Vercingetorix' allies.
That's a wall around a wall around a wall. Like a frickin' onion.
That's a wall around a wall around a wall. Like a frickin' onion.
My favorite siege story is Alexander being taunted by islanders who thought themselves immune to being under siege and attacked.
They slowly stopped laughing as they realized the Macedonians were filling in the shore front to make a kilometer long 200m wide causeway to march across.
It did not end well for the island City of Tyre and its inhabitants.
They slowly stopped laughing as they realized the Macedonians were filling in the shore front to make a kilometer long 200m wide causeway to march across.
It did not end well for the island City of Tyre and its inhabitants.
I jumped to read a bit about it, expecting from your comment a swift victory, but it's much more involved than that, the sequence of attack strategies and counterattacks are quite suspenseful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_(332_BC)#The_sie...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_(332_BC)#The_sie...
Like an ogre, one might say
My answer to the tiktok trend: "Roman Empire? Not much. Mostly I think about the late Republic."
> Twice already he's mentioned sieges where the attackers waited for the besieged to run out of water. The grueling wait is compressed in history.
That's happening now in Gaza. Israel has cut off water.
That's happening now in Gaza. Israel has cut off water.
this title/headline is ambiguous as to what it means.
claim: "Medieval staircases were built going clockwise for the defender's advantage"
counterclaim: "no they were not; medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage"... it was for a different reason, or even, they weren't even built that way.
clarifying original claim: "Medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage, they were built counterclockwise."
confused? me too. and the site is called "fakehistory..."?
The title should be, "Exploring whether medieval staircases were built with chirality to benefit right handed defenders."
claim: "Medieval staircases were built going clockwise for the defender's advantage"
counterclaim: "no they were not; medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage"... it was for a different reason, or even, they weren't even built that way.
clarifying original claim: "Medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage, they were built counterclockwise."
confused? me too. and the site is called "fakehistory..."?
The title should be, "Exploring whether medieval staircases were built with chirality to benefit right handed defenders."
What about evidence for a simpler theory, such as they were built in the direction that made most sense from where the doors would wind up?
Like if you go through the bottom/top door, it's more natural to walk straight forwards and then curve, rather than walk in, turn 90°, and then walk upwards.
Obviously this wouldn't matter if the door were located facing precisely the middle of the spiral, but it certainly does if it more naturally opens on one side of the spiral.
Like if you go through the bottom/top door, it's more natural to walk straight forwards and then curve, rather than walk in, turn 90°, and then walk upwards.
Obviously this wouldn't matter if the door were located facing precisely the middle of the spiral, but it certainly does if it more naturally opens on one side of the spiral.
Doors can be built to open in four ways: inwards or outwards, hinge on the left or right. (Sorry if the language is wrong, non-native speaker here.) Considering that I am not sure I can follow why the door would make one direction more natural than the other. Maybe because there were more right-handed people than left-handed which made one setup more natural than the other?
Sorry, I don't mean the direction of the door but the position of the door itself in the wall.
I can't draw anything here, but imagine the staircase is the width of two doors. So the door could be on either side (closer to either edge).
If the door is on the left, you want the staircase to curve upwards to the right. And vice-versa.
I can't draw anything here, but imagine the staircase is the width of two doors. So the door could be on either side (closer to either edge).
If the door is on the left, you want the staircase to curve upwards to the right. And vice-versa.
Often the room itself gives you reason to prefer one direction or another. If the door is in a corner you want the open door to be against the wall (unless you don't - I can't think of why, but...). If there are other doors on the same wall you need to consider them - sometimes hinges all the same for symmetry; sometimes opposite so the the doors don't bang into each other (when they are right next to each other.
> If the door is in a corner you want the open door to be against the wall (unless you don't - I can't think of why, but...).
There could be a window there but not in the alternative location.
There could be a window there but not in the alternative location.
> hinge on the left or right.
Not "left" or "right", which is different on roomside and stairside, but inside or outside of the spiral.
Not "left" or "right", which is different on roomside and stairside, but inside or outside of the spiral.
I think people found out that more falls happened while descending than while ascending, so it was more important to have right hand holding the rails at the outer wall when descending. Thus counter-clockwise direction while going down and clockwise when going up.
But did staircases going into basements go clockwise?
There we go; now something to falsify against. If the left or right is a defensive choice, we should see the reverse handedness defending attackers going down. Great point.
I've visited a castle in Germany once, where they had special short swords for defending the staircases. The staircases in that castle were too small to wield a regular sword.
That sounds eerily similar to the myth from the linked article. Although there is a chance that some enterprising blacksmith came up with a clever marketing scheme for those to convince the nobility that they really needed such a set of short swords.
'Just in case pillagers come up the stairs, and I'll throw in a Zweihänder for half the price too, in case your attacker steps out of reach of your regular sword!'.
'Just in case pillagers come up the stairs, and I'll throw in a Zweihänder for half the price too, in case your attacker steps out of reach of your regular sword!'.
I love this. Naive feudal lords as the historical equivalent to high net worth preppers.
What could be more prepping than building a whole stone castle? It’s the historical equivalent of a bunker for most part of modern (and ancient) history
Building castles to cover captured terrain was pretty common (unless of course there already was one around, in which case you besiege and take it, if you can). Of course, building a stone ond rakes time, so they'd build a temp one first, and then, ic theh manage to keep the territory, update it. So if it's prepping, it's a very common and prudenf version of it.
Zweihander means two handed swords quite literally, so in this case i guess it would be einhander haha
Ehm. The article does not actually give any evidence, so this argument is becoming rather absurd.
Was there period documentation? Or a just so story about short swords?
The source mentioned in TFA is much better, with more photos and original content: https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/12/18/no-medieval-sta...
Long article without even the tiniest hint of evidence to support the claim that the easier to defend theory wasn't the reason why apparently there is a considerable imbalance in staircase direction.
The reality is that most of the time most castles were not involved in violence at all (outside of rough methods of keeping order I guess). Even if staircase fighting never ever happened, the imagination of heroically fending off invaders who made it that far in person could have easily been a clever pose, a tool of the trade for architects to give the impression of really knowing all the tricks. Claiming better defensibility would have made an even bigger impression on the future inhabitant than on tourists hundreds of years later. Because, assuming that the article is not wrong in this, the customer has just as little experience fighting in a staircase as the tourist hordes.
Medieval snake-oil, claiming that it never happened should require better evidence than "you really would not want to ever let invaders get that far".
If it's a 30/70 distribution chances are that almost half of those 70 are just as random or motivated by more pressing concerns than the "wrong direction" 30, and of the remaining 40 that make up the imbalance, a certain amount will be habitual copies of conscious decisions for the snake-oil winding.
Yeah, whenever a tour guide brings up the defensive advantage story, chances are that this particular staircase wasn't really designed as defense-optimized but random/some other reason/habitual. But unless someone proposes a better explanation for the imbalance (I don't know, some pseudoreligious thing perhaps? Some echo from whatever way Romans preferred? Oncoming traffic etiquette, like climbing side steps toward the steep side, taking a break grabbing the stair's spine while the descending side slides past at the outer wall, and they'd both rather have their dominant hand wall-side?), it's a rather bold claim to call it a victorian era fabrication.
The reality is that most of the time most castles were not involved in violence at all (outside of rough methods of keeping order I guess). Even if staircase fighting never ever happened, the imagination of heroically fending off invaders who made it that far in person could have easily been a clever pose, a tool of the trade for architects to give the impression of really knowing all the tricks. Claiming better defensibility would have made an even bigger impression on the future inhabitant than on tourists hundreds of years later. Because, assuming that the article is not wrong in this, the customer has just as little experience fighting in a staircase as the tourist hordes.
Medieval snake-oil, claiming that it never happened should require better evidence than "you really would not want to ever let invaders get that far".
If it's a 30/70 distribution chances are that almost half of those 70 are just as random or motivated by more pressing concerns than the "wrong direction" 30, and of the remaining 40 that make up the imbalance, a certain amount will be habitual copies of conscious decisions for the snake-oil winding.
Yeah, whenever a tour guide brings up the defensive advantage story, chances are that this particular staircase wasn't really designed as defense-optimized but random/some other reason/habitual. But unless someone proposes a better explanation for the imbalance (I don't know, some pseudoreligious thing perhaps? Some echo from whatever way Romans preferred? Oncoming traffic etiquette, like climbing side steps toward the steep side, taking a break grabbing the stair's spine while the descending side slides past at the outer wall, and they'd both rather have their dominant hand wall-side?), it's a rather bold claim to call it a victorian era fabrication.
You have the burden of proof the wrong way around.
The earliest occurrence of this hypothesis was propounded by Theodore Andrea Cook in 1903. That was not the Victorian Era, but was later. Cook was not a historian, but a sports writer and art critic. The book was _Spirals in Nature and Art_. And this hypothesis is a half-paragraph aside, with words like "would" and "probable", given with zero supporting evidence, and clearly one (as xe wrote "I think") that Cook originated.
The burden of proof is to prove that that is true, not to blithely assume that it is true and demand that there be evidence to prove it false.
Especially since Theodore Andrea Cook held that "right-handed spirals are more common in staircases". By "right-handed spiral", Cook actually meant anti-clockwise staircases (as can be seen from figure 29 in the book). Not even Cook believed the premise that has given rise to this 120-year-old myth. Cook wrote that anti-clockwise staircases were "more common" despite the fact that clockwise ones would have been better for this reason, a reason that xe invented from whole cloth without any support from how helical staircases even featured in any siege of any castle in history.
120 years of uncritical out of context repetition and augmentation later, here we are; with people demanding that the burden of proof lies with those who challenge something that was never proven in the first place, not expertly held, and not even held true by its own originator.
The earliest occurrence of this hypothesis was propounded by Theodore Andrea Cook in 1903. That was not the Victorian Era, but was later. Cook was not a historian, but a sports writer and art critic. The book was _Spirals in Nature and Art_. And this hypothesis is a half-paragraph aside, with words like "would" and "probable", given with zero supporting evidence, and clearly one (as xe wrote "I think") that Cook originated.
The burden of proof is to prove that that is true, not to blithely assume that it is true and demand that there be evidence to prove it false.
Especially since Theodore Andrea Cook held that "right-handed spirals are more common in staircases". By "right-handed spiral", Cook actually meant anti-clockwise staircases (as can be seen from figure 29 in the book). Not even Cook believed the premise that has given rise to this 120-year-old myth. Cook wrote that anti-clockwise staircases were "more common" despite the fact that clockwise ones would have been better for this reason, a reason that xe invented from whole cloth without any support from how helical staircases even featured in any siege of any castle in history.
120 years of uncritical out of context repetition and augmentation later, here we are; with people demanding that the burden of proof lies with those who challenge something that was never proven in the first place, not expertly held, and not even held true by its own originator.
Is there some reason you're misgendering Theodore Andrea Cook? He's obviously masculine. Perhaps you're not aware that Andrea, like Shannon, Leslie, and many others, is also a masculine name?
I recommend Bret Devereaux's series on medieval fortifications, specifically the manpower problem [1]:
> While sapping (tunneling under and collapsing fortifications) remained in use, apart from filling in ditches, the mole-and-ramp style assaults of the ancient world are far less common, precisely because most armies (due to the aforementioned fragmentation combined with the increasing importance in warfare of a fairly small mounted elite) lacked both the organizational capacity and the raw numbers to do them.
Overall, medieval armies just didn't have the resources to siege for as long and as intensely as the Romans and other ancient armies did. Until the early modern period and gunpowder artillery, defenders in castles had a much bigger advantage over attackers so often attackers just didn't bother. They were more common than actual pitched battles though and most ended through surrender rather than successful assault.
The book Devereaux mentions Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Middle Ages is a great resource for further reading - there's a whole chapter on sieges. It starts out describing how much worse the life for siegers often was compared to the besieged.
[1] https://acoup.blog/2021/12/10/collections-fortification-part...
> While sapping (tunneling under and collapsing fortifications) remained in use, apart from filling in ditches, the mole-and-ramp style assaults of the ancient world are far less common, precisely because most armies (due to the aforementioned fragmentation combined with the increasing importance in warfare of a fairly small mounted elite) lacked both the organizational capacity and the raw numbers to do them.
Overall, medieval armies just didn't have the resources to siege for as long and as intensely as the Romans and other ancient armies did. Until the early modern period and gunpowder artillery, defenders in castles had a much bigger advantage over attackers so often attackers just didn't bother. They were more common than actual pitched battles though and most ended through surrender rather than successful assault.
The book Devereaux mentions Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Middle Ages is a great resource for further reading - there's a whole chapter on sieges. It starts out describing how much worse the life for siegers often was compared to the besieged.
[1] https://acoup.blog/2021/12/10/collections-fortification-part...
I hear about this imbalance for the first time, and reading about it for half an hour left an impression that no one tried hard to prove anything.
The very first thing that begs to be done is to plot this imbalance on a time axis to see was it kept constant over time, or maybe people made clockwise stairs at first and switched to counter-clockwise later.
But it is not the only possible correlation you can measure before assessing the hypothesis space. Does direction of a stair correlates with geography? With a number of times a castle changed his owner? With a size of a castle? ...
I'm pretty sure you can get some idea of it all by studying historical sources. But I see no evidence someone bothered to do it. All I see people speculate a lot.
In this situation, I believe the most reasonable will be to file the question as having no answer and to forget it as having no importance.
The very first thing that begs to be done is to plot this imbalance on a time axis to see was it kept constant over time, or maybe people made clockwise stairs at first and switched to counter-clockwise later.
But it is not the only possible correlation you can measure before assessing the hypothesis space. Does direction of a stair correlates with geography? With a number of times a castle changed his owner? With a size of a castle? ...
I'm pretty sure you can get some idea of it all by studying historical sources. But I see no evidence someone bothered to do it. All I see people speculate a lot.
In this situation, I believe the most reasonable will be to file the question as having no answer and to forget it as having no importance.
All those mythbuster sources seem to deliberately exaggerate a defensibility preference from a minor bias into a universal rule and then feel smug naming some counterexamples that would disprove a universal rule. But it was them who elevated a preference bias into a supposedly universal rule. Not even that supposedly first mention (beware! Universal claim, impossible to prove that it was never written before!) goes that far, at least not according to the retelling of the mythbusters.
the customer has just as little experience fighting in a staircase as the tourist hordes
You’re talking about a customer who most likely received a rigorous sword fight training, and probably participated in numerous knight tourneys. And spent his life living in castles, walking up and down those stairs. And who most likely knew someone who had personally engaged in castle offense or defense (the world was a lot smaller back then). Somehow I think this customer would know a thing or two about defending castles.
You could be right about the sales tactics, but comparing a medieval castle owner and a 21st century tourist is a bit much.
You’re talking about a customer who most likely received a rigorous sword fight training, and probably participated in numerous knight tourneys. And spent his life living in castles, walking up and down those stairs. And who most likely knew someone who had personally engaged in castle offense or defense (the world was a lot smaller back then). Somehow I think this customer would know a thing or two about defending castles.
You could be right about the sales tactics, but comparing a medieval castle owner and a 21st century tourist is a bit much.
That's the part where I was taking the claim of the article at face value, the claim that nobody would have ever considered the stairwell a possible site for violence to happen.
as I mentioned above, the idea that 'well if they got that far you already lost' comes off as video game logic. You don't have a reset button or save point to go back to, you die. So even if it gives you ridiculously thin odds, or even if those added odds are just perceived ... You do it. Much like the ww2 tankers who put sand bags on their tanks.
Do you see those tankers saying 'well, if we took a shell there, we already lost'
Do you see those tankers saying 'well, if we took a shell there, we already lost'
That's because the writer of the article at hand is poor. For a better exposition of the argument, have James Wright, archaeologist.
https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/mediaeval-my...
To paraphrase: We know how sieges ended and castles fell. We have written histories to consult. None of them ended with swordfights on staircases like Errol Flynn movies.
https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/mediaeval-my...
To paraphrase: We know how sieges ended and castles fell. We have written histories to consult. None of them ended with swordfights on staircases like Errol Flynn movies.
[deleted]
To be clear, this article does not attempt to explain why 70% of stairs were built clockwise, which seems salient. And the strongest arguments against the myth are that fighting on a staircase is bad no matter what (granted), and that certain, specific, famous staircases (like those in the Tower of London) were built counter-clockwise. To me, that's not a slam dunk case against the myth, it could be explained by there not being a centralized Castle Staircase Building Code across all Europe, over the course of 1000 years, which was not a misunderstanding I had anyway. I am unconvinced for now!
I think the slam dunk against the myth is simply that there's no evidence for it at all. If you have no primary sources or archaeological evidence, and the only "source" is tour guides, then there's no reason to believe it.
It might be true or it might not, but talking about it as if it's definitely true is simply wrong.
It might be true or it might not, but talking about it as if it's definitely true is simply wrong.
There's no evidence for an alternative either. We simply don't have surviving documents that talk about the logic of why staircases were built that way, which is hardly surprising given that even nowadays when books are dramatically cheaper to produce, architects don't tend to write down the logic they use when designing the details of functional structures.
The combat explanation fits the evidence as well as anything else. Perhaps it's not proven to be true, but it's certainly not proven to be false.
The combat explanation fits the evidence as well as anything else. Perhaps it's not proven to be true, but it's certainly not proven to be false.
I don't see anything in your comment that contradicts what I said:
> It might be true or it might not, but talking about it as if it's definitely true is simply wrong.
> It might be true or it might not, but talking about it as if it's definitely true is simply wrong.
I was contradicting your first sentence. Your second is a non-sequitur.
> I was contradicting your first sentence.
But you didn't.
> Your second is a non-sequitur.
How?
But you didn't.
> Your second is a non-sequitur.
How?
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The article is from the point of view of a responsible historian.
There is no evidence of the myth being true. There are no sources in history suggesting it.
It might be true. But there is no evidence that it is.
Proving it false is another matter.
There is no evidence of the myth being true. There are no sources in history suggesting it.
It might be true. But there is no evidence that it is.
Proving it false is another matter.
I don't know about that. They seemed to be definitively saying the staircases were not built to aid defenders, but didn't have strong evidence for that. If they'd said "there is no positive evidence that..." or "we have no reason to believe that..." then I'd agree with you, but what they wrote was:
> Medieval staircases were NOT built going clockwise for the defender’s advantage
and
> it’s not true.
Which seem like confident statements with no affirmative evidence to support them.
In fairness, their conclusion is more measured:
> So in conclusion: there’s no evidence for this claim and it also doesn’t make a lot of sense.
But that's not the headline they went with.
> Medieval staircases were NOT built going clockwise for the defender’s advantage
and
> it’s not true.
Which seem like confident statements with no affirmative evidence to support them.
In fairness, their conclusion is more measured:
> So in conclusion: there’s no evidence for this claim and it also doesn’t make a lot of sense.
But that's not the headline they went with.
by default, it is untrue until sufficient evidence arises that it is true
see also: Russell's teapot
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
see also: Russell's teapot
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
Okay, so let me them make the claim: "It is false that staircases were built clockwise to advantage the defender".
Then, since we agree that the claim has no evidence to support it, we assume it is false.
Therefore, we conclude, "it is true that staircases were built clockwise to advantage the defender".
I agree that the burden of proof lies upon the person that makes the claim. But that doesn't mean we assume the opposite of the claim must be true until they do. It means we assume ignorance.
So, a more correct statement would be: "In the absence of evidence of why the staircases were constructed, we do not know why they were constructed".
To say the absence of evidence proves the opposite of the claim is wrong.
Then, since we agree that the claim has no evidence to support it, we assume it is false.
Therefore, we conclude, "it is true that staircases were built clockwise to advantage the defender".
I agree that the burden of proof lies upon the person that makes the claim. But that doesn't mean we assume the opposite of the claim must be true until they do. It means we assume ignorance.
So, a more correct statement would be: "In the absence of evidence of why the staircases were constructed, we do not know why they were constructed".
To say the absence of evidence proves the opposite of the claim is wrong.
the actual (and also initial) claim here is that the myth is true, the author is simply pointing out that there is insufficient evidence to support the myth, and thus we fall back on the null hypothesis, aka the default: that there does not yet exist sufficient evidence to conclude the myth is anything other than false.
> But that doesn't mean we assume the opposite of the claim must be true until they do. It means we assume ignorance.
Regardless of the wording, the gist is the same: we /don't/ assume ignorance, we treat the claim, like Russell's teapot [0], or any other unsupported claim, as false until such evidence arises, since there are an infinite number of unfalsifiable premises, and we neither want to, nor do, in practice, treat them all as maybe true, maybe not, forever.
tl;dr: As Russell's teapot [0] demonstrates, yes, there is a default, and that is that a thing is false unless sufficient evidence exists to believe otherwise. No, we don't treat all unfalsified (and unfalsifiable) hypotheses as unknown and assume ignorance.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
> But that doesn't mean we assume the opposite of the claim must be true until they do. It means we assume ignorance.
Regardless of the wording, the gist is the same: we /don't/ assume ignorance, we treat the claim, like Russell's teapot [0], or any other unsupported claim, as false until such evidence arises, since there are an infinite number of unfalsifiable premises, and we neither want to, nor do, in practice, treat them all as maybe true, maybe not, forever.
tl;dr: As Russell's teapot [0] demonstrates, yes, there is a default, and that is that a thing is false unless sufficient evidence exists to believe otherwise. No, we don't treat all unfalsified (and unfalsifiable) hypotheses as unknown and assume ignorance.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
You have cited that Wikipedia page five times. But it doesn't say anything about there being such a default view.
It actually does, that's why I cited it so many times! :)
In 1958, Russell elaborated on the analogy:
> "...nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice..."[0]
Replace 'teapot revolving in orbit' with 'truth to the staircase fighting myth' – hopefully you now see why it's ridiculous to entertain all hypotheses as equally likely without evidence.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
In 1958, Russell elaborated on the analogy:
> "...nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice..."[0]
Replace 'teapot revolving in orbit' with 'truth to the staircase fighting myth' – hopefully you now see why it's ridiculous to entertain all hypotheses as equally likely without evidence.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
There's a difference between thinking something false and thinking the thing insufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice.
Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things.
Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things.
> There's a difference between thinking something false and thinking the thing insufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice.
That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false.
> Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things
The point of Russell's teapot, as Russell explained, and I quoted, is that even though the teapot (like this myth) is neither proven nor disproven, we should, and do, treat it as false, because that is the default state until sufficient evidence arises.
It's an argument against entertaining theories that have no evidence, against ignorant agnosticism towards any arbitrary theory.
Either way, I think the fighting staircase theory, like the teapot theory, is not falsifiable, but anyone is free to show it is, by falsifying it.
That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false.
> Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things
The point of Russell's teapot, as Russell explained, and I quoted, is that even though the teapot (like this myth) is neither proven nor disproven, we should, and do, treat it as false, because that is the default state until sufficient evidence arises.
It's an argument against entertaining theories that have no evidence, against ignorant agnosticism towards any arbitrary theory.
Either way, I think the fighting staircase theory, like the teapot theory, is not falsifiable, but anyone is free to show it is, by falsifying it.
> That's just it – there isn't.
Well, the next time I find myself in a melee battle within a castle and am deciding whether I should fight my way up the stairs, I'm going to draw a distinction between: "Is absolutely false", and "We don't know whether it was true or false", and I'm going to let someone else go up the stairs first...
Well, the next time I find myself in a melee battle within a castle and am deciding whether I should fight my way up the stairs, I'm going to draw a distinction between: "Is absolutely false", and "We don't know whether it was true or false", and I'm going to let someone else go up the stairs first...
> That's just it – there isn't.
This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article.
> we should, and do, treat it unproven
Do you mean disproved here, rather than unproven? I think that when we know something has been neither proved nor disproved we should treat it as unproven (because it is unproven), but that does not mean we should assume that it is false.
This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article.
> we should, and do, treat it unproven
Do you mean disproved here, rather than unproven? I think that when we know something has been neither proved nor disproved we should treat it as unproven (because it is unproven), but that does not mean we should assume that it is false.
> This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article.
It actually is, it's Russell's position! :) You claimed that before, and I corrected you then, so here, again for you, is the relevant part:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37831693
Also, you forgot the rest of that! It was probably an honest mistake on your part, so I'll include the full context here, including the parts you missed, and hopefully you can address the whole thing now:
> That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false.
It actually is, it's Russell's position! :) You claimed that before, and I corrected you then, so here, again for you, is the relevant part:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37831693
Also, you forgot the rest of that! It was probably an honest mistake on your part, so I'll include the full context here, including the parts you missed, and hopefully you can address the whole thing now:
> That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false.
If there's no evidence about a situation, there's no evidence for any theory about the situation. There's no evidence for the proposition A. There's no evidence for the proposition not A. By your reasoning we have to believe that both these propositions are untrue: A and not A. This seems totally insane.
As Russell's teapot [0] demonstrates, that is not the case. A thing, whether the existence of a teapot floating in space, or an old architecture myth, is by default untrue until sufficient evidence arises showing it is true. This article is simply pointing out that such evidence doesn't exist in the staircase attacker theory.
We do not believe that maybe it is true this teapot exists, maybe not, simply because the initial hypothesis (that it is true in the first place) hasn't yet been falsified. If that were the case, I could make up a thousand improbable myths, and say they're all maybe true, maybe not, and we would have to treat them all as equally plausible until someone wastes their time trying to disprove all thousand, and then I could make up a thousand more.
That is why the burden of proof of truth lies with the person asserting the truth of a teapot/staircase belief
To add to your A vs. not-A problem, you are close to identifying the resolution, too: For an analogue in statistics, A = "this staircase explanation has sufficient evidence to say it is true", not-A = "this staircase explanation does not have sufficient evidence to conclude it is true". Not-A here is example of what is called the null hypothesis in statistics. The null hypothesis is the default.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
We do not believe that maybe it is true this teapot exists, maybe not, simply because the initial hypothesis (that it is true in the first place) hasn't yet been falsified. If that were the case, I could make up a thousand improbable myths, and say they're all maybe true, maybe not, and we would have to treat them all as equally plausible until someone wastes their time trying to disprove all thousand, and then I could make up a thousand more.
That is why the burden of proof of truth lies with the person asserting the truth of a teapot/staircase belief
To add to your A vs. not-A problem, you are close to identifying the resolution, too: For an analogue in statistics, A = "this staircase explanation has sufficient evidence to say it is true", not-A = "this staircase explanation does not have sufficient evidence to conclude it is true". Not-A here is example of what is called the null hypothesis in statistics. The null hypothesis is the default.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
The point of Russell's argument is that we should not believe in the Christian god/the teapot. Not that we should believe that those things do not exist.
It's an argument against believing without evidence, not for believing without evidence.
It's an argument against believing without evidence, not for believing without evidence.
the point of Russell's teapot is that even though the teapot (like this myth) is neither proven nor disproven, we should, and do, treat it unproven, because that is the default state until sufficient evidence arises
It's an argument against entertaining theories that have no evidence, against ignorant agnosticism towards any arbitrary theory
It's an argument against entertaining theories that have no evidence, against ignorant agnosticism towards any arbitrary theory
My comment was that I was not convinced of the argument the article made, not that I was convinced the opposite was true.
The article doesn't make any arguments, it simply examines the arguments made by others, and points out that those arguments aren't convincing enough to conclude the myth is true (and thus we fall back to the default: that the myth is false)
Much of the article just describes that fighting in a stairwell would be dangerous and inconvenient (what fighting is not?), completely ignoring the question wether one winding might be more or less so.
Even if you can prove it true in some specific castle that doesn't not mean it is true for all. Maybe other castles just copied the one where it was - often type of thing is done in architecture without realizing why, and so one castle built for fighting on stairs was copied in others without the other features that make fighting on stairs possible. (Or maybe the first was built for fighting on stairs, but after it was built practice proved it was still a bad idea - lots of variations on this idea).
> To be clear, this article does not attempt to explain why 70% of stairs were built clockwise
I wonder if it's easier for right handed masons to build a staircase in a particular chirality. What percentage of modern staircases are built in a particular direction?
I wonder if it's easier for right handed masons to build a staircase in a particular chirality. What percentage of modern staircases are built in a particular direction?
I'd imagine they were built in a direction without a ton of thought, and it's not really surprising to me that if you basically flip a coin - 70% of them landed one way.
If the staircase happens to be on one side of the building, it would be better to orient it one way - based on how the windows would work - for example.
If the staircase is against another busy entryway - it might be better to have the stairs go one way or the other, etc
If the staircase happens to be on one side of the building, it would be better to orient it one way - based on how the windows would work - for example.
If the staircase is against another busy entryway - it might be better to have the stairs go one way or the other, etc
If there are several thousand such towers in Europe, then chance of 70% of them all being clockwise due to use of coin flips seems unimaginably small. More likely the first one happened to built that way and most others copied that until someone wondered if you couldn't go the other way instead. Or maybe it is connected to handedness in some other way (easier to draw the design? To lay the stone work? Traditions around who should pass who and how if somebody going up encounters somebody coming down? Who knows...)
I think it would be more likely that the staircase fit better going one direction than the other. Eg taking the most used path to the staircase and going straight onto the stairs vs having to do a 90 degree turn before you can step on the stairs.
It seems unlikely that random chance would lead to a 70/30 ratio for "best fit" either, so that just seems to be moving the phenomenon that needs explanation to layouts around stairwells, which certainly weren't standardised in the medieval era.
The ratio of staircases in Norman castles was more like 20:1 which is a ratio even more in need of a non-chance explanation; the greater numbers of anticlockwise staircases came later, when coincidentally or otherwise individual towers were less important to the overall defensive scheme
The ratio of staircases in Norman castles was more like 20:1 which is a ratio even more in need of a non-chance explanation; the greater numbers of anticlockwise staircases came later, when coincidentally or otherwise individual towers were less important to the overall defensive scheme
I am not a medieval stonemason but these were lifelong craftsmen and I doubt they did it without a lot of thought. They did it with one specific thought it their mind I suspect, it was the way that they were most familiar with doing it so it was the fastest / easier / cheapest way to do it! The same reason any modern craftsman does quite a lot of things.
I'd like to see that 70% distribution mapped out against corner adjacency. As in, if I have a square room [ ] and I put a stairway on the right wall in the bottom corner there, there is a good chance I'm going to go counter clockwise, but if I put it on the right top, I'll go clockwise. I feel like the general flow of a room needs to be mapped out on this as well to get the full context.
> these were lifelong craftsmen and I doubt they did it without a lot of thought
There are so many things that could bias this result. Maybe it's easier to craft in one direction. Perhaps, north of the equator, castles tended to be constructed in certain orientations, with the windowless stairwells tending towards one side versus another. Altogether, there is no reason to prefer the myth over any of those hypotheses--they each have no evidence.
There are so many things that could bias this result. Maybe it's easier to craft in one direction. Perhaps, north of the equator, castles tended to be constructed in certain orientations, with the windowless stairwells tending towards one side versus another. Altogether, there is no reason to prefer the myth over any of those hypotheses--they each have no evidence.
Flipping a coin 1000 times and getting >=700 heads has a ~1/10^24 probability.
There's got to be a reason, even if it was as simple as "it was arbitrarily chosen and then became standard practice."
There's got to be a reason, even if it was as simple as "it was arbitrarily chosen and then became standard practice."
But just that in some direction maters for some reason (layout of the castle forced a direction and thus this works out to random chance?), and the rest was just what the mason felt like building (default to right handed?). You can come up with your own story about why direction would matter, and why for the rest there would/would not be a bias in direction. Then play with how random each one is to get the 70/30 percentage split.
If it was up to a coin flip, it wouldn’t be 70 percent.
It's almost certainly because staircases were 1) hazardous as hell, 2) going down is way more dangerous than going up, 3) clockwise puts the dominant hand/foot on the side with the biggest width when descending.
There was an article here on HN a while ago talking about how the stupidly designed staircases were responsible for the Victorian trope of "falling down a staircase to your death."--the ones for servants were especially poorly designed.
There was an article here on HN a while ago talking about how the stupidly designed staircases were responsible for the Victorian trope of "falling down a staircase to your death."--the ones for servants were especially poorly designed.
I think all the article is arguing is not to just accept that explanation as fact. There is no conclusive evidence that this is the reason stairs were built this way.
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Usually if the siege got to the point where attackers were IN YOUR TOWERs, then the next logical step would have been to either surrender or collapse the tower on the attackers to win a tactical victory.
I am willing to bet $10000, that the number of sieges won or lost due to a staircase fight between knights is 0.
Also I wonder what led to this hypothesis being created in the first place? That's a much more interesting question to me. Was it some eccentric historian just inventing it?
I am willing to bet $10000, that the number of sieges won or lost due to a staircase fight between knights is 0.
Also I wonder what led to this hypothesis being created in the first place? That's a much more interesting question to me. Was it some eccentric historian just inventing it?
> Castle builders knew that it didn’t really make a huge difference which way the stairs go, they’re not suitable for fighting at all, neither party has a lot of space to wield those long, pointy, sharp weapons.
This is written by someone without experience in hand to hand combat as many weapons were blunt (like a mace or club) and a rondel dagger in an unarmored spot is far more difficult to parry than a sword. Speaking of which, a rondel dagger was specifically intended for grappling situations. Thrusting weapons were in many cases preferred for tight quarters combat although there are slashing weapons specifically designed for tight quarters combat as well. Sword variants like longer greatswords specifically designed vs. halbred or pike formations were not ideal for close quarters, but there were several short sword types
Even in more ancient times, weapons such as the Sica, from which we get the word sicario, were well known as a tool used in gladiatorial combat, and in the Judean wars. Additionally, the gladius wielded with the large shield, the scutum, was only an 18 inch short sword. Short because it was ideal for close quarters fighting via a thrust against other heavy infantry.
This is written by someone without experience in hand to hand combat as many weapons were blunt (like a mace or club) and a rondel dagger in an unarmored spot is far more difficult to parry than a sword. Speaking of which, a rondel dagger was specifically intended for grappling situations. Thrusting weapons were in many cases preferred for tight quarters combat although there are slashing weapons specifically designed for tight quarters combat as well. Sword variants like longer greatswords specifically designed vs. halbred or pike formations were not ideal for close quarters, but there were several short sword types
Even in more ancient times, weapons such as the Sica, from which we get the word sicario, were well known as a tool used in gladiatorial combat, and in the Judean wars. Additionally, the gladius wielded with the large shield, the scutum, was only an 18 inch short sword. Short because it was ideal for close quarters fighting via a thrust against other heavy infantry.
What if it was still about the weapons - but more about them being sheathed? A right hander will usually have a sword sheathed on their left hip sticking out and down. Maybe it was a safety measure to have the tip not hanging over the inner part of the stairwell as someone was going up where someone behind them could get poked versus more along the outer wall?
Saying it definitively didn't factor in is at least as stupid as saying it definitively did.
This article is not very good, notably, it is almost all guessing, no evidence.
An explanation that I would have found plausible: building stairs clockwise is cheaper somehow.
An explanation that I would have found plausible: building stairs clockwise is cheaper somehow.
The irony is that you would have found the original proposition of the hypothesis, by Theodore Andrea Cook in 1903, to be exactly the same thing. Cook presented zero evidence, clearly was originating the hypothesis, and made it up from whole cloth.
Xe was a sports writer and art critic, not a historian, moreover.
It's a half-paragraph aside in a book entitled _Spirals in Nature and Art_, using words like "would" and "probable". And after 120 years of uncritical repetition and amplification, here we are.
Xe was a sports writer and art critic, not a historian, moreover.
It's a half-paragraph aside in a book entitled _Spirals in Nature and Art_, using words like "would" and "probable". And after 120 years of uncritical repetition and amplification, here we are.
Going through the cited sources, I'm more convinced the defender's advantage theory is right than before I started.
First the claim that stairs would not be optimized for combat because fighting on stairs was undesirable holds no weight. Castles were designed with many layers of defense - it was entirely expected that large sections of a castle would be lost and the defenders would continue to hold out in other sections, bitterly holding chokepoints. From murder holes to machicolations, every inch of castles were optimized defense. Even if in practice defenders would prefer not to fight on a stairway, if all else were equal (and it's hard to think of something more arbitrary than which way the stones are flipped), why wouldn't they go with the option that potentially could be helpful instead of potentially aiding an attacker?
Next, the argument that "not all castles had clockwise staircases" seems to be an own-goal. During the time periods when having to defend a castle was likely, staircases were overwhelmingly clockwise. It is only in the late middle ages when defense became much less of a priority that anticlockwise stair cases start gaining popularity, and the later it gets the more common anticlockwise stairs become. If there were some non-military utilitarian reason for the choice, such as making it easier for someone to steady themselves or carry lanterns, presumably that need would remain. If the choice were non-utilitarian from the beginning, why the initial disparity? No doubt the designers of these buildings had multiple competing concerns, including aesthetics and convenience, but clearly the balance shifted. Examples of anticlockwise stairways were common in structures not intended for defense in earlier structures, which means the shift was not technological and further makes non-military utilitarian requirements unlikely.
Obviously it would be nice if we had more surviving sources from the time period, but it's hard to imagine any other theory fitting the data so well.
First the claim that stairs would not be optimized for combat because fighting on stairs was undesirable holds no weight. Castles were designed with many layers of defense - it was entirely expected that large sections of a castle would be lost and the defenders would continue to hold out in other sections, bitterly holding chokepoints. From murder holes to machicolations, every inch of castles were optimized defense. Even if in practice defenders would prefer not to fight on a stairway, if all else were equal (and it's hard to think of something more arbitrary than which way the stones are flipped), why wouldn't they go with the option that potentially could be helpful instead of potentially aiding an attacker?
Next, the argument that "not all castles had clockwise staircases" seems to be an own-goal. During the time periods when having to defend a castle was likely, staircases were overwhelmingly clockwise. It is only in the late middle ages when defense became much less of a priority that anticlockwise stair cases start gaining popularity, and the later it gets the more common anticlockwise stairs become. If there were some non-military utilitarian reason for the choice, such as making it easier for someone to steady themselves or carry lanterns, presumably that need would remain. If the choice were non-utilitarian from the beginning, why the initial disparity? No doubt the designers of these buildings had multiple competing concerns, including aesthetics and convenience, but clearly the balance shifted. Examples of anticlockwise stairways were common in structures not intended for defense in earlier structures, which means the shift was not technological and further makes non-military utilitarian requirements unlikely.
Obviously it would be nice if we had more surviving sources from the time period, but it's hard to imagine any other theory fitting the data so well.
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> If it had been common knowledge among castle builders, then why are there still quite a lot (about 30%) of castles with counter-clockwise staircases?
For the same reason why there are still a lot of tower blocks being built with combustible cladding or why we still find many houses not being built earth quake proof in prone countries: idiots and bunglers.
> The Tower of London, one of the most important castles in England, where royalty live(d) has counter-clockwise stairs!
That's a bad example. It was built in 1066 (the first part) by Norse people who occupied England and not the English. I wouldn't be surprised if the workmanship of building stone castles hugely differed between those two peoples at that time.
> If you’ve already breached all the outer walls and defeated all the soldiers there and have reached so far into the castle that you’re at the foot of stairs, you’re very close to victory and who would want to risk their life crawling up some stairs where the defenders are waiting for you?
That assumes that every castle was huge and wars were fought between hundreds of soldiers. Sure when you have 200 soldiers inside your castle having defeated everyone except a handful of people up the tower then this would be pointless, but that is not what happened in reality. It's a Hollywood imagination of the battles fought. Many castles were tiny and the army was in the dozens, not hundreds. Raiders and other small groups of enemies would come in a couple dozens and not in hundreds. All of a sudden those stairs make A LOT of sense.
For the same reason why there are still a lot of tower blocks being built with combustible cladding or why we still find many houses not being built earth quake proof in prone countries: idiots and bunglers.
> The Tower of London, one of the most important castles in England, where royalty live(d) has counter-clockwise stairs!
That's a bad example. It was built in 1066 (the first part) by Norse people who occupied England and not the English. I wouldn't be surprised if the workmanship of building stone castles hugely differed between those two peoples at that time.
> If you’ve already breached all the outer walls and defeated all the soldiers there and have reached so far into the castle that you’re at the foot of stairs, you’re very close to victory and who would want to risk their life crawling up some stairs where the defenders are waiting for you?
That assumes that every castle was huge and wars were fought between hundreds of soldiers. Sure when you have 200 soldiers inside your castle having defeated everyone except a handful of people up the tower then this would be pointless, but that is not what happened in reality. It's a Hollywood imagination of the battles fought. Many castles were tiny and the army was in the dozens, not hundreds. Raiders and other small groups of enemies would come in a couple dozens and not in hundreds. All of a sudden those stairs make A LOT of sense.
Technically Norman not Norse. Granted the distinction is pretty pedantic.
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I wonder if modern spiral staircases but also show the 70/30 R/L bias as well?
I'm not actually convinced, there's been a disconnect between the theory of war and the reality for as long as there's been war. Just because you'd never actually want to fight on a staircase doesn't mean that money and thought didn't go into defending a staircase from its middle. How many militaries today still issue bayonets to foot soldiers and handguns to rear line officers?
A modern bayonet is basically a combat knife, not a single-use item. Even though it has become rare, it is occasionally deployed.
Officers simply retain their handguns when they get promoted into rear line positions; no special accommodation is required.
Officers simply retain their handguns when they get promoted into rear line positions; no special accommodation is required.
And we've just seen examples on the news where rear officers might have been better equipped had they had their handguns on them.
It has no mention of the masons, who had strict codes and rules of thumb and where all the knowledge was passed down in oral form through apprenticeships and quite a lot of secrecy (hence the Freemasons). I'm not sure it proves or disproves the main point, but it's a glaring omission that if investigated could explain it
Clockwise upward staircases do actually have one advantage (in certain locales). Going upwards your forward travel distance is less than going downwards. This is assuming people generally walk on the right hand side. It just feels easier to traverse stairs as close to the inside as possible.
> It just feels easier to traverse stairs as close to the inside as possible.
I would expect that depends on the design of the spiral staircase.
In a spiral staircase, you want to go up about 3 meters in a 360° turn because you need a bit over 2m of headroom and some space for the stair itself.
That means that, 1m away from the center of the staircase, the slope will be about 50%. The ideal staircase has more or less “step width + twice the step height = 63cm” [1], so that would give a good step width of 31cm and a step height of 16cm.
However, 2m away from the center, that same stair would have a slope of about 25%, and the ideal step would be 41cm wide and 11cm high or thereabouts.
3m from the center you’d have a 16% slope, and the ideal step would be 45 cm wide, 8cm high, etc.
Now, in ‘standard’ designs [2], step height can’t change with distance to the center, so the designer has to pick one, and thus has control over the distance from the center where it’s easiest to step.
[1] https://www.practicalarchitecture.com/blog/the-geometry-of-a.... Of course, that’s a heuristic, and the ideal will be different for different persons, but what’s important is that simply scaling up a staircase in order to get wider steps is not a good idea.
[2] very wide stairs can and sometimes do have steps that are sloping upwards. I don’t think these are non-standard, but can’t think of a better word now.
I would expect that depends on the design of the spiral staircase.
In a spiral staircase, you want to go up about 3 meters in a 360° turn because you need a bit over 2m of headroom and some space for the stair itself.
That means that, 1m away from the center of the staircase, the slope will be about 50%. The ideal staircase has more or less “step width + twice the step height = 63cm” [1], so that would give a good step width of 31cm and a step height of 16cm.
However, 2m away from the center, that same stair would have a slope of about 25%, and the ideal step would be 41cm wide and 11cm high or thereabouts.
3m from the center you’d have a 16% slope, and the ideal step would be 45 cm wide, 8cm high, etc.
Now, in ‘standard’ designs [2], step height can’t change with distance to the center, so the designer has to pick one, and thus has control over the distance from the center where it’s easiest to step.
[1] https://www.practicalarchitecture.com/blog/the-geometry-of-a.... Of course, that’s a heuristic, and the ideal will be different for different persons, but what’s important is that simply scaling up a staircase in order to get wider steps is not a good idea.
[2] very wide stairs can and sometimes do have steps that are sloping upwards. I don’t think these are non-standard, but can’t think of a better word now.
I don't think spiral staircases generally get even 1m wide, it's not trivial for two people going in opposite directions to pass each other. You walk on the middle of the step as there isn't much room to the left or right to go to.
> I don't think spiral staircases generally get even 1m wide,
They can get wide. Try climbing the lower part of the dome of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, for example (https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-yo...)
Also, in the context of “it just feels easier to traverse stairs as close to the inside as possible”, I think spiral staircases that are less than a meter wide aren’t relevant. On them, the only option is to walk in the middle of the stairs.
They can get wide. Try climbing the lower part of the dome of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, for example (https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-yo...)
Also, in the context of “it just feels easier to traverse stairs as close to the inside as possible”, I think spiral staircases that are less than a meter wide aren’t relevant. On them, the only option is to walk in the middle of the stairs.
Actually more dangerous traveling downward on the inside, where a small misstep will have you miss 2-3 treads, as opposed to the outside where the same misstep won’t have you miss any.
I bet there is one way to climb that is easier than the other.
Being right-footed, I can do cross-over turns while ice-skating in one direction MUCH easier than the other.
However, not sure whether that translates to clockwise or counter-clockwise stairs being easier without trying it.
maybe it would be counter-clockwise? Right foot travels further?
Being right-footed, I can do cross-over turns while ice-skating in one direction MUCH easier than the other.
However, not sure whether that translates to clockwise or counter-clockwise stairs being easier without trying it.
maybe it would be counter-clockwise? Right foot travels further?
I like this theory. Since most people are right-handed, and the right leg does more work than the left when walking up a counter-clockwise spiral staircase, it makes sense that spiral staircases would be designed counter-clockwise.
I don't think there was so much traffic on these stairs that you ended up forced to one side the whole way.
The forward distance travelled is also trivial in terms of effort compared to the height displacement upward. Most people can walk for 10 minutes without breaking a sweat, but way fewer would feel fine walking up stairs for 10 minutes.
Not to mention, you can simply have a convention that the downward walker on a spiral staircase favour whichever side is best.
The forward distance travelled is also trivial in terms of effort compared to the height displacement upward. Most people can walk for 10 minutes without breaking a sweat, but way fewer would feel fine walking up stairs for 10 minutes.
Not to mention, you can simply have a convention that the downward walker on a spiral staircase favour whichever side is best.
> Of course the only way to win would be by pushing yfour enemy back down the stairs and then with whoever is left above you, retake the entire castle.
I see we're dealing with a castle siege expert over here. As I have visited many castles in Europe (I also live in bicycle driving distance of at least 5 medieval castles) and have heard this explanation many times, I was wondering about the authors counter arguments. Unfortunately there weren't any. I cannot tell for sure since part of the article is missing after "Of course if the enemy ". Now I will never now this another obvious fact.
Reminds me of moon landing denier arguments: "Of course we didn't land on the moon. Duh! It doesn't make any sense AT ALL. Pfff!"
I see we're dealing with a castle siege expert over here. As I have visited many castles in Europe (I also live in bicycle driving distance of at least 5 medieval castles) and have heard this explanation many times, I was wondering about the authors counter arguments. Unfortunately there weren't any. I cannot tell for sure since part of the article is missing after "Of course if the enemy ". Now I will never now this another obvious fact.
Reminds me of moon landing denier arguments: "Of course we didn't land on the moon. Duh! It doesn't make any sense AT ALL. Pfff!"
People are dominantly right handed, so right hand on the wall.
You need more space under your foot while descending, you only use the ball of your foot while going up.
The stairs are thicker on the outside, so if that is on the right as you descend, the staircase will be counter clockwise.
You need more space under your foot while descending, you only use the ball of your foot while going up.
The stairs are thicker on the outside, so if that is on the right as you descend, the staircase will be counter clockwise.
I'm gonna guess it correlates with the handedness of the builder.
As a right-handed person, when I've built spiral towers in games they have been clockwise because when building from the bottom up, clockwise just seems "right".
As a right-handed person, when I've built spiral towers in games they have been clockwise because when building from the bottom up, clockwise just seems "right".
Sounds like you'd have to be sinister to attack up a medieval staircase.
I got it from context, but this title took me a second to figure out.
Is it saying that the idea stairs are built clockwise for a defense advantage is a myth? eg: "Medieval staircases were not (built going clockwise for the defender's advantage)"
Or that stairs were were purposely built NOT clockwise (or rather anti/counter clockwise), so that defenders would have an advantage? eg: "Medieval staircases were (not built going clockwise) for the defender's advantage"
English is weird.
Is it saying that the idea stairs are built clockwise for a defense advantage is a myth? eg: "Medieval staircases were not (built going clockwise for the defender's advantage)"
Or that stairs were were purposely built NOT clockwise (or rather anti/counter clockwise), so that defenders would have an advantage? eg: "Medieval staircases were (not built going clockwise) for the defender's advantage"
English is weird.
This reminds me of the many articles stating that pirates didn't wear eye-patches to cover up an injury but that they used them for for their eyes to adjust to the dark when entering a ships hold. Even though there's more evidence that eye injuries were probably just common across pirates.
Applying Okkam's razor I'd conclude that most medieval staircases were probably build clockwise simply because most staircases were already built clockwise.
Applying Okkam's razor I'd conclude that most medieval staircases were probably build clockwise simply because most staircases were already built clockwise.
A lot of these historic stories are someone's fancy. In Turkey, they'll make up all these stories about wine flasks in Cappadocia that have this hole in the middle. Supposedly the sun must fall through the hole to bless it or something and I can't find any reference to that anywhere. But I wasn't able to find a historian of Turkey and that region to say it definitely was ahistorical.
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Such staircases are pretty scary to climb even without a knight attacking you because there is nothing to hold, the steps are not flat and it is easy to fall down.
Also, such straicases are used not only in medieval castles. A modern Russian 19th century cathedral also has a staircase of such type. Probably, because cathedrals must be built using traditional architecture?
Also, such straicases are used not only in medieval castles. A modern Russian 19th century cathedral also has a staircase of such type. Probably, because cathedrals must be built using traditional architecture?
That cathedral you are talking about, has two spiral staircases, one counter-clockwise and the other clockwise.
The more I read about medieval history the less I buy the narrative that it was a time of widespread ignorance and backwardness
I find myself very interested in trying to figure out the story of medieval progress. Because I learned it was all fallen and ruined as a kid, and now I don’t believe it. But, I don’t have a grasp of the timescales of progress involved.
My working theory is that progress was really slow until the written word, incremental improvements but still slow until the printing press, and pretty quick thereafter (until computers, and then the wheels came off). But…I would love to read a history from someone who actually studied it, and said “look at the pace of discovery from 1000BC-200AD, 200AD-1200AD, 1200-1600, etc.”
My working theory is that progress was really slow until the written word, incremental improvements but still slow until the printing press, and pretty quick thereafter (until computers, and then the wheels came off). But…I would love to read a history from someone who actually studied it, and said “look at the pace of discovery from 1000BC-200AD, 200AD-1200AD, 1200-1600, etc.”
Were staircases built around the same time but in non-strategic/non-fortified buildings (private manors etc.) notably different? Or were spiral staircases only built in circular towers that existed primarily for defence? Presumably the narrowness was largely due to the difficulty of being a strong enough tower with a wider radius.
The simplest explanation is probably that, it was just simply done that way. There's no documented explanation why 70% of the staircases are clockwise. There's a myriad of things that we do in this world that don't have a basis for explanation, other than "it's just simply done that way".
In the UK, it’s possible to rent small castles. I’ve never felt more secure in my life. The stairs on the staircase were huge and would have slowed down anyone, particularly people of the average height at the time. You really contemplated whether or not you needed that thing when you faced those stairs.
Something I would like to know: Do chirality statistics differ between castles and other buildings from the same era?
Even if defensibility was not the primary design concern, I am sure it factored in as an obvious consideration to accommodate when possible - eg if you could make it go any which way, you might as well make it go the way that gives you a better chance in the most likely scenario.
This explanation has always seemed a bit daft to me.
> If it had been common knowledge among castle builders, then why are there still quite a lot (about 30%) of castles with counter-clockwise staircases?
AKA it's almost surely just a builder's preference probably stemming from their handedness.
> If it had been common knowledge among castle builders, then why are there still quite a lot (about 30%) of castles with counter-clockwise staircases?
AKA it's almost surely just a builder's preference probably stemming from their handedness.
if i were to guess it probably has more to do with left hand side driving semantics which as i understand comes from a prevalence of right-handedness and a norm of posturing the right hand for weapon use.
so, maybe they just adopted the rules of the road, and the legends that come from it.
so, maybe they just adopted the rules of the road, and the legends that come from it.
Considering that the construction costs are identical, there needn't be a very strong reason to do it one way vs the other. Any reason would be enough, which might include some remote possibility of a battle advantage.
Could it be them optimising their floorplan? Direction of the spiral is based on e.g. the largest possible entry or smallest obstruction(in terms of construction and visually for the rest of the room/castle?
Inconclusive.
What if they built right-handed defenders AND left-handed defenders towers?
What if they built right-handed defenders AND left-handed defenders towers?
Oh, but what if the attackers divided themselves in left-handed and right-handed attack groups, and chose the stairs to attack accordingly?
This is getting silly :P
This is getting silly :P
I think these staircases evolved to make it impossible for rapey male ducks to impregnate the castles. Ancient sources agree with my theory, so it must be true.
In support of your theory: no medieval castle ever laid duck eggs that hatched.
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(An earlier version of my comment ended with "... ever laid duck eggs.", evidencing both my deep ignorance of medieval warfare and the biology of egg laying!)
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(An earlier version of my comment ended with "... ever laid duck eggs.", evidencing both my deep ignorance of medieval warfare and the biology of egg laying!)
You're right, but now I'm disappointed that this didn't make it into Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
The article states that they likely built neither because nobody wants to be fighting for their life 1:1 on a dank staircase with poor visibility. It's actually the much more logical option. Even if attackers are in the stairwell, why wouldn't you retreat to the top where you can accumulate real advantages?
Another anecdotal description of old staircases that I've heard of before is from Burgos castle in Spain, where (it's said) that the stairs to the bottom of the well change direction half way down to prevent you from getting too dizzy [1]
> Se accede al interior por unas escaleras de caracol. Para evitar el mareo, los 4 primeros tramos se hacen en el sentido de las agujas del reloj y los dos últimos tramos en sentido contrario.
[1] https://rutasparatodaslasedades.blogspot.com/2019/07/el-cast...
> Se accede al interior por unas escaleras de caracol. Para evitar el mareo, los 4 primeros tramos se hacen en el sentido de las agujas del reloj y los dos últimos tramos en sentido contrario.
[1] https://rutasparatodaslasedades.blogspot.com/2019/07/el-cast...
Similar article discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29274875
The victorians created a lot of persistent myths:
-vikings with horns on their helmets
-highlanders all wearing tartan
-knights in plate armour not being able to get up if they fell over?
-vikings with horns on their helmets
-highlanders all wearing tartan
-knights in plate armour not being able to get up if they fell over?
yes, Vikings with horns on their helmets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veks%C3%B8_Helmets (from scandinavia, but a couple thousand years before the Vikings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veks%C3%B8_Helmets (from scandinavia, but a couple thousand years before the Vikings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age )
Interesting. But not really the animal horn helmets beloved of the victorians and, as you say, not contemporary with the vikings.
This is what strikes me more than the topic:
> The person below you has the advantage of jabbing at your legs
Weren't virtually all fighters in those times men?
> The person below you has the advantage of jabbing at your legs
Weren't virtually all fighters in those times men?
From the captioned art in the article: "Siege, from the Peterborough Psalter, early 14th century, via the KBR Museum, Belgium.
Yes, those defenders are all women."
No.
oh really, how much evidence do you have about women storming the castles all the way through inside?
How much evidence do you have that "storming the castles" was how sieges ended at all? Errol Flynn movies are not reality.
To quote James Wright, who is an archaeologist:
> we know a fair bit about how sieges were ended, and it was never the desperate violent rout on the staircases that is so beloved of Hollywood films.
https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/mediaeval-my...
To quote James Wright, who is an archaeologist:
> we know a fair bit about how sieges were ended, and it was never the desperate violent rout on the staircases that is so beloved of Hollywood films.
https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/mediaeval-my...
Like, reading a book or 30 seconds of googling?
So what?
Can you expand on that?
why use (abuse) the word "person" then?
Because if you say the "man" it implies that women fighters would not have the same advantage, when clearly they would.
As since men are people, I'd argue it's not an abuse of language.
As since men are people, I'd argue it's not an abuse of language.
again — in those times women did not fight to get advantage in the first place
why not use this to be more precise in the language?
Majority, but not all were men?
But why care about that at all and consider it the most striking thing about the article? Even rethinking it 3 times I'm not sure what you find preciser in this, or how it is not completely irrelevant?
You sound pretty sure that women would never be among the attackers, but that seems like a risky bet to me. There are historical accounts of Viking attackers who were women, for example.
Really fun question! Let's investigate chirality in all its manifestations, natural and humanmade.
Theodore Andrea Cook did, writing _Spirals in Nature and Art_ in 1903 and _The Curves of Life_ in 1914. Unfortunately, we are here fighting the fallout 120 years later, as xe is the source of this very myth.
70/30 split sounds like there is a reason even if there isn’t primary evidence to backup the exact reason. Logically attack/defence sounds like it works and I was certainly able to imagine that on my first tour of a fort when I was young.
Or maybe medieval people thought that it's easier to climb/carry stuff up if the stairs go clockwise (or some other mundane reasons)? Maybe architects just designed it that way because that's just how everyone builds castle staircases? Seems much more plausible to me (or at least as plausible..)
> I was certainly able to imagine that on my first tour of a fort when I was young.
Most people visiting medieval castles probably significantly overestimate the frequency of hand to hand combat that might had taken place there (almost never as far as we know).
> I was certainly able to imagine that on my first tour of a fort when I was young.
Most people visiting medieval castles probably significantly overestimate the frequency of hand to hand combat that might had taken place there (almost never as far as we know).
The scholarly source he links to (which actually agrees with him) notes in passing that for Norman castles, the split wasn't 70/30, it was more like 95/5....
I wonder what the split is nowadays. For example I lived in an apartment that had a counter-clockwise stairway, I’m not sure what the landlord’s handed was was, but I don’t think he designed it around defending against left handed sword-armed attackers.
Fun Fact: the author cites their own book as their main source.
I'll do one better: they weren't built clockwise, as clocks were not available. They were built reverse-widdershins or sunwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins
I love the word sunwise. In Swedish it's "medsols" and "motsols", sunwise and counter-sunwise respectively.
And speaking of, let's start another myth. Swedes always dance around the christmas tree or maypole sunwise because it's an ancient dance to evoke the sun after months of darkness.
And speaking of, let's start another myth. Swedes always dance around the christmas tree or maypole sunwise because it's an ancient dance to evoke the sun after months of darkness.
I thought the pole and dance in Sweden was at midsummer. In England it's on Mayday.
I call it a maypole to relate to foreigners. What would you call the pole? It's actually called a midsommarstång, which means midsummerspole...
I see the point, it just clear to me that you were referring to midsummer. To me as an old Englishman a Maypole means the old celebration of spring on Mayday.
Deosil is the counterpart which means reverse-widdershins or sunwise, mentioned in your link.
Wow, so Widdershins is not just a made-up word from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series!
It seems it goes back a little further than that.
> probably from Middle Low German weddersinnes, literally "against the way"
https://www.etymonline.com/word/widdershins#etymonline_v_799...
Basically, this is NOT the way.
> probably from Middle Low German weddersinnes, literally "against the way"
https://www.etymonline.com/word/widdershins#etymonline_v_799...
Basically, this is NOT the way.
I'll admit that Discworld is the first place I heard it. It's a perfect example of the sort of idiom authors should think about though, rather than using overly modern terms.
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not "clockwise".
What's "clockwise"? It is nor hand, nor pen-
dulum, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a clock. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So "Widdershins" would, were it not "Widdershins" call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Widdershins, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all my turns.
Thou art thyself, though not "clockwise".
What's "clockwise"? It is nor hand, nor pen-
dulum, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a clock. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So "Widdershins" would, were it not "Widdershins" call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Widdershins, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all my turns.
And clock face mimics the sundial, therefore clockwise is sunwise
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It's amusing that the Hacker News reaction so far is to advance alternative hypotheses as to why helical staircases have a predominant chirality, without first establishing, as one should do if one were rigorous, that there is a need for an explanation in the first place, and that this is not, as is suggested in other articles (including one hyperlinked by the headlined one here), just a statistical fluke without significance that doesn't need explanation.
To put things in modern parlance: A meme, invented from whole cloth by Daily Telegraph writer Theodore Andrea Cook 120 years ago because he liked fencing, was still going strong on Twitter in 2022; and people are still falling prey to believing its assumptions.
One has to appreciate the additional irony of the Twitter account actually being named "history in memes".
To put things in modern parlance: A meme, invented from whole cloth by Daily Telegraph writer Theodore Andrea Cook 120 years ago because he liked fencing, was still going strong on Twitter in 2022; and people are still falling prey to believing its assumptions.
One has to appreciate the additional irony of the Twitter account actually being named "history in memes".
Agreed! I like that there has to be an explanation. "Just because" or "it's the same either way" aren't acceptable. I suppose the internet loves to solve a puzzle (a sentiment I understand and share!).
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I often notice comments made regarding ancient or historical locations and civilisations, when discussed by a historian in a documentary, often seem to be opinions based on pretty flimsy evidence. In some cases no evidence at all, just things could be likely maybe possibly. Relying on the fact that there's no written evidence for or against any claim.
Along these lines, a well established rule in Archaeology: "Was man nicht erklären kann, sieht man gleich als kultisch an" (what cannot be explained, is immediately perceived as religious)
"That is either an incense dispenser, or a ceremonial ... sarcophagus."
"My German is pre-industrial, and mostly religious."
"My German is pre-industrial, and mostly religious."
I love me some history information, documentaries, and etc. But yeah I get strongly allergic to stuff where suddenly I wonder "Wait did you just logic that out in your head? Like there's no basis for that other than you observing how the thing / situation is?"
I'm sure it has been an issue forever but online especially it seems painful how much of that information there is.
I'm sure it has been an issue forever but online especially it seems painful how much of that information there is.
My favorite version of the logic it out:
"People asked me if this tribe was originally from this area or if they migrated here.
I always say: clearly they were from here. The weather is so bad around these parts, who would choose to move here from somewhere else?"
- German historian
"People asked me if this tribe was originally from this area or if they migrated here.
I always say: clearly they were from here. The weather is so bad around these parts, who would choose to move here from somewhere else?"
- German historian
Even if there is written evidence, nearly all past written information is also difficult to verify, and writers in the past were not necessarily unbiased or above lying and distortion.
Yes, it would take not just a real historian, but someone who had done research, to answer this question. Having been up and down a few of those, it certainly seems more than just plausible to me, even taking into account the numerous recorded sieges. On the other hand it is also true that spears and shields play a much greater role than swords. Hard to imagine wielding a full-sized shield, let alone a spear, in one of those staircases, though!
I think the bigger point from the article is that by the time people are fighting hand-to-hand in the tower stairwells, the defenders have already well and truly lost: comeback from such a state was probably impossible (and if the walls were breached the defenders would almost certainly have surrendered rather than fought to the last man). So it wouldn't have really made sense to design things for this possibility.
That's not a good counter-explanation.
A castle staircase takes a lot of time and effort to build. Choosing to build the staircase in one direction or the other has negligible cost. If there is even a slight or possible advantage to one direction then it would make sense to build it that way.
Defense in depth.
A castle staircase takes a lot of time and effort to build. Choosing to build the staircase in one direction or the other has negligible cost. If there is even a slight or possible advantage to one direction then it would make sense to build it that way.
Defense in depth.
Any defenders defending a tower are obviously above the ground floor, which is where access to food and water is. So why bother fighting up the stairway, when you can just block all the downstairs exits? The castle's defenses are the walls; if attackers are in a position to go up the stairs then the castle's defenses have failed, and the only defense left is the manpower of the defenders. So instead of being "besieged" up their towers, the only realistic strategy the defenders have is to come down from the towers and join the melee. Or just surrender, because the attackers have an army and the castles only had dozens of defenders (if that). What tactical situation do you have in mind where the success of the attack depends on success in a staircase battle?
Defense in depth isn's about justifying in advance how every measure will win the battle; it's about giving yourself as many small, incremental advantages as possible so that the odds steadily tick up in your favor. Battles are famously difficult to predict so every advantage is sought, and even small advantages can have multiplier effects.
Every day the attackers besiege you is one they have to defend against potential counterattacks from your allies. And even if your castle falls you might buy your empire time to raise a bigger army and rally more allies in order to win the next bigger war. Delaying enemies could be an important function of castles.
It's a really good explanation. Castle sieges were big events, so historically we know the outcomes. Nearly 100% of the time, the garrison has already surrendered if it's this bad. Medieval sieges come in three major flavors: ones where you sneak in, ones where you bombard the fortification, and ones where you don't let anything in or out and you wait until they give up.
If you examine a military you will find volumes of plans for incredibly unlikely situations. Once you have addressed all the likely and significant threats, you don't just stop planning--at least not any good military.
Saying that castle sieges didn't tend to involve stairway fights doesn't imply that stairways wouldn't have had defensive measures built in. That is post-hoc rationalization.
Saying that castle sieges didn't tend to involve stairway fights doesn't imply that stairways wouldn't have had defensive measures built in. That is post-hoc rationalization.
> That is post-hoc rationalization.
You're asking to a disprove a purely(?) speculative claim, though.
You're asking to a disprove a purely(?) speculative claim, though.
> If there is even a slight or possible advantage to one direction then it would make sense to build it that way
If it's true that the battle at this point is lost for the defenders -- and known history indicates this is so -- then why would the builders choose directions based on this extremely unlikely scenario, instead of on just about any other consideration (aesthetic, practical, or even random)?
If it's true that the battle at this point is lost for the defenders -- and known history indicates this is so -- then why would the builders choose directions based on this extremely unlikely scenario, instead of on just about any other consideration (aesthetic, practical, or even random)?
Why does the USMC issue bayonets still?
Because it's a multi-purpose utility knife that can also optionally be mounted on a rifle?
Having a knife might be useful in various situations even outside combat as far as I know.
Having a knife might be useful in various situations even outside combat as far as I know.
I've honestly no idea.
I'll take a stab at guessing (mind you, this is blind guessing, happy to be corrected!): the USMC still issue bayonets because of both tradition, which is important to the military, and also because they are actually useful in close quarters battle, which still occurs on occasion, such as in urban warfare and house-to-house combat clearing, etc. The likelihood of having to use a bayonet/knife in modern CQB is probably significantly higher than the likelihood of medieval defenders recovering from an enemy army that has stormed their castle.
I'll take a stab at guessing (mind you, this is blind guessing, happy to be corrected!): the USMC still issue bayonets because of both tradition, which is important to the military, and also because they are actually useful in close quarters battle, which still occurs on occasion, such as in urban warfare and house-to-house combat clearing, etc. The likelihood of having to use a bayonet/knife in modern CQB is probably significantly higher than the likelihood of medieval defenders recovering from an enemy army that has stormed their castle.
Someone apparently disagreed with me but provided no additional explanation. Oh well, such is life... on HN!
An interstate takes a lot of time and effort to build. And yet which side you drive on doesn't matter; it simply needs to be consistent with all the other roads you're connected to. There are plenty of countries that, through historical happenstance, drive on the opposite side of the road, and it's fine.
So in other words, just because the staircases take a lot of time and effort to build, simply means that having the staircase itself is important, not necessarily that its chirality is important. It has to have a chirality but it may well not matter which one, just like roads.
So in other words, just because the staircases take a lot of time and effort to build, simply means that having the staircase itself is important, not necessarily that its chirality is important. It has to have a chirality but it may well not matter which one, just like roads.
Your example misses the point.
If there were evidence that driving on the right side or left side of the road slightly reduces car accidents and a country with previously no roads or cars began planning to automotize the country, then, all things considered, it would make sense to have people drive in the lane with a slightly reduced fatality rate.
If there are two choices where one presents a slight advantage but no additional cost then a rational actor will go with that choice.
If there were evidence that driving on the right side or left side of the road slightly reduces car accidents and a country with previously no roads or cars began planning to automotize the country, then, all things considered, it would make sense to have people drive in the lane with a slightly reduced fatality rate.
If there are two choices where one presents a slight advantage but no additional cost then a rational actor will go with that choice.
The event has to occur relatively frequently for that slight advantage to become statistically noticeable. Direct assaults on castles with hand-to-hand combat occurring in stairwells were extremely rare as far as we know.
Yeah.
For perspective, Norman keeps were often built with a large internal cross wall, so even if troops made it through the stair door and swarmed into the room they'd still have to fight their way into the other half of the floor. By the stage these expensive and space consuming walls were defensively relevant, defenders would have already lost outer walls, viable long-term food and water supplies and much of the garrison defending it... and any real chance of holding out. But an invading army would still lose more men storming it; so it functioned as a deterrent.
I've heard this "it's a myth" argument before, but 70% of staircases is quite a large proportion of staircases spiralling in a particular direction which would offer the defender a marginal advantage to be pure coincidence. Particularly when the ratio of clockwise to anticlockwise staircases in Norman castles was about 20:1; it was later generations of castle of builders who added many more anticlockwise stairwells, in an era when individual tower defence was less importance, and builders may have simply forgotten or come to doubt arguments about the defensive advantages of clockwise spirals (the blog's arguments for why spiral staircase defence is rubbish work here of course!). Contemporary cathedrals which were not at all defensible tended to build clockwise and anticlockwise spiral staircases as matching pairs, so it wasn't like there was some other sort of massive aversion to stairs in a particular direction.
For perspective, Norman keeps were often built with a large internal cross wall, so even if troops made it through the stair door and swarmed into the room they'd still have to fight their way into the other half of the floor. By the stage these expensive and space consuming walls were defensively relevant, defenders would have already lost outer walls, viable long-term food and water supplies and much of the garrison defending it... and any real chance of holding out. But an invading army would still lose more men storming it; so it functioned as a deterrent.
I've heard this "it's a myth" argument before, but 70% of staircases is quite a large proportion of staircases spiralling in a particular direction which would offer the defender a marginal advantage to be pure coincidence. Particularly when the ratio of clockwise to anticlockwise staircases in Norman castles was about 20:1; it was later generations of castle of builders who added many more anticlockwise stairwells, in an era when individual tower defence was less importance, and builders may have simply forgotten or come to doubt arguments about the defensive advantages of clockwise spirals (the blog's arguments for why spiral staircase defence is rubbish work here of course!). Contemporary cathedrals which were not at all defensible tended to build clockwise and anticlockwise spiral staircases as matching pairs, so it wasn't like there was some other sort of massive aversion to stairs in a particular direction.
Where's the contemporary research to determine which direction has advantage?
That's a bizarre line of thought to me. If you build an expensive structure for fortification, you don't usually get to the interior design and then go "Oh fuck it, this extra safety measure wouldn't cost anything, but if they've got this far we might as well surrender, so let's not bother."
Going by that logic, the president's bunker under the pentagon would've been built without a lock. After all, people don't usually have to physically drag a country's leader out of their locked bunker, right? By the time anyone's knocking on that door, usually the war is lost and the country has surrendered.
And yet, if you're designing for defense, why NOT take such a cheap and easy countermeasure as putting a lock on the door or choosing the more defensible way to spiral your staircase? You might want to buy a few more minutes to negotiate in a desperate situation; you might want at least the option of taking that futile last stand; you might be facing not an invading army but a single lunatic with a sword who snuck past the outer guards.
Going by that logic, the president's bunker under the pentagon would've been built without a lock. After all, people don't usually have to physically drag a country's leader out of their locked bunker, right? By the time anyone's knocking on that door, usually the war is lost and the country has surrendered.
And yet, if you're designing for defense, why NOT take such a cheap and easy countermeasure as putting a lock on the door or choosing the more defensible way to spiral your staircase? You might want to buy a few more minutes to negotiate in a desperate situation; you might want at least the option of taking that futile last stand; you might be facing not an invading army but a single lunatic with a sword who snuck past the outer guards.
I imagine that it would be more difficult to gain entry to an upper floor (at the top of a narrow staircase so single-file attackers) and a sturdy door with a couple of guards outside, than it would be to gain entry to rooms on the same level. Perhaps the women were tucked away on the upper floors, in relative safety.
This comment is a perfect example of GGP's problem with historical analysis.
As is the nearly-exactly comment in TFA:
> Frankly, if you find yourself in this position the castle is probably already lost.
It's conjecture all the way down.
As is the nearly-exactly comment in TFA:
> Frankly, if you find yourself in this position the castle is probably already lost.
It's conjecture all the way down.
> It's conjecture
Just like the entire staircase argument?
Except that we actually know that:
> Frankly, if you find yourself in this position the castle is probably already lost.
Was true in almost all cases.
Just like the entire staircase argument?
Except that we actually know that:
> Frankly, if you find yourself in this position the castle is probably already lost.
Was true in almost all cases.
Fighting on the stairs would be kinda silly. Better to wait outside the doorway so that after your attackers are done running up the stairs with armor and weapons, you and your pals are waiting there at the choke point to layeth the smacketh down. The only real benefit to fighting on the stairs is that you still effectively impede progress if you're dead.
Exactly, fighting on the stairs is pointless.
If you are the attacking army, just wait it out. You've won the siege, and any defenders up the stairs will have to either come down or starve to death. Why risk attacking up the stairs?
If you are the attacking army, just wait it out. You've won the siege, and any defenders up the stairs will have to either come down or starve to death. Why risk attacking up the stairs?
If you're at the bottom of the stairs, stuff the stairs full of firewood (tables, chairs, dressers, etc) and light it.
Yeah, just burn/smoke out the defenders. If you're already in the bottom of the building it's over, just a matter of time when. You can also take the castle apart and cause it to collapse.
what happens if you're running down the stairs and come upon the attackers on the way down?
Die? Surrender? If attackers have stormed the castle and are running up the stairs all is presumably lost anyway?
If Errol Flynn could do it, then surely, everyone can do it
It's safe to assume if Errol is on your side, you've won.
A lot like evolutionary psychology; it seems like a reasonable explanation or story and is supported by at least some circumstantial evidence, so it must have been the way things were
You expect pop documentaries to contain evidence? I do not mean it as snark, it is just that evidence is something popular entertainment ia not even supposed to have.
According to the OP, there is written evidence for it, from the Victorian era, which was 400 years after cannons made castles obsolete. It's hard to fault modern historians too much if they're simply trusting the old records to be accurate. Or as we say in computer science: garbage in, garbage out.
> It's hard to fault modern historians too much if they're simply trusting the old records to be accurate.
Basically the entire job of a historian is to determine the credibility of old sources, so they can interpret all the data and come to the most accurate conclusion about what happened.
Basically the entire job of a historian is to determine the credibility of old sources, so they can interpret all the data and come to the most accurate conclusion about what happened.
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> credibility of old sources
Unsubstantiated conjecture by Victorian historians shouldn't really be treated as a "source" in the first place by actual historians.
Unsubstantiated conjecture by Victorian historians shouldn't really be treated as a "source" in the first place by actual historians.
If you click through, you can see there's no 'evidence' there. He simply offhandedly, in a sentence or two, makes the same speculation about fighting, with no sources, and the whole discussion of staircases in general is based on only 2 named examples. Chesterton's fence is satisfied: he knew no more than we did.
A few points.
Theodore Andrea Cook wasn't a historian. Xe was a writer for the Daily Telegraph, amongst other things, who wrote about sports such as fencing and rowing; and who was also an art critic.
Theodore Andrea Cook wasn't writing in the Victorian Era. _Spirals in Nature and Art_ was a 20th century work, in the Edwardian Era. _The Curves of Life_ was from the subsequent Georgian Era.
Theodore Andrea Cook is the earliest person found espousing this hypothesis. This is, as far as anyone has determined, Theodore Andrea Cook's own original hypothesis, based upon zero evidence. That is certainly what the text of _Spirals_ implies.
Theodore Andrea Cook wasn't a historian. Xe was a writer for the Daily Telegraph, amongst other things, who wrote about sports such as fencing and rowing; and who was also an art critic.
Theodore Andrea Cook wasn't writing in the Victorian Era. _Spirals in Nature and Art_ was a 20th century work, in the Edwardian Era. _The Curves of Life_ was from the subsequent Georgian Era.
Theodore Andrea Cook is the earliest person found espousing this hypothesis. This is, as far as anyone has determined, Theodore Andrea Cook's own original hypothesis, based upon zero evidence. That is certainly what the text of _Spirals_ implies.
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I'm a little disappointed that the article's author didn't make a counter-claim, or at least speculate on what some other reasons may have been.
I'll throw my idea in: most spiral staircases turn counter-clockwise, because they were notoriously dark / badly lit, so one had to hold a torch or a lamp while traversing them. Since majority of people are right-handed, stands to reason a person would be holding the source of light in their right hand, and hold on to the hand-rail (or wall) with their left. You'd naturally want to lean on the outside wall of the staircase, as the stair treads there are wider than near the centre of the spiral.
QED!
(let me know if you spot the flaw in my logic)
I'll throw my idea in: most spiral staircases turn counter-clockwise, because they were notoriously dark / badly lit, so one had to hold a torch or a lamp while traversing them. Since majority of people are right-handed, stands to reason a person would be holding the source of light in their right hand, and hold on to the hand-rail (or wall) with their left. You'd naturally want to lean on the outside wall of the staircase, as the stair treads there are wider than near the centre of the spiral.
QED!
(let me know if you spot the flaw in my logic)
The flaw is whatever x-wise you pick, you have the torch in the "wrong" hand either going up or coming down. Also, hand rails weren't a thing in most medieval staircases; you were expected to just not fall, and when you did there was no one to sue.
If I visualize walking up a staircase, I'd much prefer them clockwise so that I can touch the center with my right hand when walking up, for some additional stability.
Also, much staircases I know are clockwise. Which is also my theory for this myth, most staircases were build clockwise simply because most were already build clockwise. It fits Okkam's razor.
Also, much staircases I know are clockwise. Which is also my theory for this myth, most staircases were build clockwise simply because most were already build clockwise. It fits Okkam's razor.
The stair is much thinner near the center though. If the center pillar was wide enough that would probably be fine but if the pillar isn't fairly large your foot may only get like an inch or two of tread near the center and be easier to fall down.
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It‘s an example of war-centric history writing. Often wondered why history focuses as much on war and other petty fights.
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> Yeah, that’s unlikely to work out.
> Frankly, if you find yourself in this position the castle is probably already lost.
This argument directly contradicts the instructions of Vegetius, whose De Re Militari was *the* definitive military manual of the Middle Ages. Specifically, in book 4, he writes,
> Innumerable instances are to be met with where the enemy were entirely cut in pieces, even after they had penetrated the body of the place: this certainly will happen, if the besieged continue in possession of the ramparts, towers, and highest parts of the city... The sole resource after a place is forced, either by day or night, is however to secure the ramparts, towers, and all the highest places, and to dispute every inch of ground with the enemy as they advance through the streets.
It's hard to overstate how important Vegetius was to Medieval strategists, who treated his work practically as gospel and would generally try to follow its recommendations to the letter. So I seriously doubt any medieval strategist would have viewed the only conduit to the critical and decisive high ground positions as tactically irrelevant.