CASTLES - Past Glory

They float into our dreams; crop up in songs; loom large in fairy tales and legends.

Castles have a way about them. Frowning from hill tops, brooding by the sea , or or lording over an ancient town, their mighty walls and towers breathe an aura of eternity.

The basic concepts of all castles is yhe sane -- a walled enclosure wherein we may snuggle, safe and whence we may emerge to hurry foes . Castles have been built in many places and at many tomes, but in the Midddle Ages , mainly between 100 and 1400 , they reached their full glory. Thousands od medieval castles are scattered throughout Europe and middle East . In various states of picturesque decay , they play host to a ever-growing stream of tourists, including bands of school children, who happily explore the secret passages and terrifying dungeons .

The habitable stronghold we call "Castle" is closely linked with the Normans . This gifted Scandinavian warrior race fought its way to eminence about the year 1000, and settld in the fertail lands of northern France ,, where Normandy is named .

after them . To hold their possessions, they reared castles - earth mpounds crowned by wooden palisades or stone walls and surronded by a ditch .

The Duke of Normandy William the Conqueror -crossed the channel in 1066 to conquer England, and within 30 years almost a hundred Norman castles had risen to secure his conquest. Inside the walled enclosures, many of them contained a massive stone building, the "keep" . The strong portion of the castle, it possessed a Well and store-rooms, and its upper storeys were used for living quarters. For the next century, the Norman keep =either square=cut or round and reaching heights of more than 30 meters spoke the blunt language of power throughout England. The best-known keep , the White Tower at the Tower of London , with its grim memories of royal imprisonment and murder was a creation of the Conqueror himself.

Chieau Gailard was put as a stop sogn for French patriots bent on regaining Normany from Rihard the Lion Heart , ruler of England and Normandy, The castle's landward access is barred by a ditch 18 meters deep, 10 meters wide .cut into rock, a 36 meter thick wall , and inside that a series of three separate walled ditched courtyards. Finally, in 1204after a eight-month siege, a hardy French soldier crawled up through the drain cut into the rock and , once inside , pulled others up behind him from a small window . The defenders panicked . Gaillard fell and the French marched down the river soil.

Europe's well travelled mountain roads and river valleys between Koblenz and Bingen boasts 23 castles .

The local chief, or baron, protected the peasants , provided a court of justice, and, in case of alarm , gave refuge within the walls to their families and cattle.

When Christian Knights set out , in 1096 to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim rule , they found the enemy ensconced in castles far superior to anything then known in Europe. The ancient forts of imperial Rome , [lanted along the Empire's Asian borders , had been kept up or emulated first by rulers of Byzantium,then by the Muslims. Soon the Crusaders constructed castles that ot-shon the sophisticated and Byzantine strongholds . Their names resound like bugle calls : Anamur , Beaufort , Belvoir , Margat , Safita .