Carcassonne Castle

Although Carcassonncarcassonne-1e is in the “Top Ten Castles” list, it is not, in fact, a castle, but a medieval fortress and walled city. Carcassonne is located in the Aude department in the region of Occitane, which is in southwest France. It is on a hilltop in the Aude plains. It is between the Atlantic and Mediterranean, which gave it a very important postion on the medieval trade route. Carcassonne, or “Cité de Carcassonne”, was a town surrounded by 2 outer walls: the lower and higher walls. The lower was for defense whereas the higher walls had many towers. Cité de Carcassonne had 1-mile long fortifications encircling the city, 53 towers, barbicans, a drawbridge, and a ditch leading to a central keep. The wall also had a section distinctively built by Romans; it was made of red bricks, was built in the 13th century, and was called the “Inquistion Tower”. Inside it’s walls, Carcassonne was a medieval town; it had cobbled streets, alley ways, stone walls, houses, archways, a cathedral, and a “chateau” (castle). Settlement in the region dated back to 3500 BC, and the fortress was occupied for over 5000 years. Romans first fortified the hilltop upon which Carcassonne stood in 100 BC, it was also an important trading place since the 6th century BC. However, as Carcassonne’s conditions were declining, it’s rebuildingcarcassonne-2 began in 1853 to restore it to what it once was. When the Romans lived in Carcassonne, they named it “Carcaso”. In 426, the Romans then started Septimania to Visigothic King Theodoric 2 who had reigned since 453. Saracens from Barcelona took over in 725, and after that, Napoleon. In a typical castle though, the more specific people groups were blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, candle makers, marshals, clerks, stewards, bailiffs, priests, pantlers, butlers, ewers, pages, grooms, farmers, soldiers, archers, a baron or lord, a lady, armorers, swordsmiths, arrow smiths, a jester, and reeves. Some things that some of these people groups did were that the marshal was in charge of the garrison and deciding who should have which rooms, clerks kept accounts, stewards were in charge of the household, bailiffs collected rent, reeves managed the lord’s farms, priests held services and were secretaries for the castle, pantlers bought food, butlers dispensed wine, and ewers did laundry and cleaned cloths for the table. Carcassonne was a grand medieval city, and now is a famous tourist attraction in France. This fortress truly deserves to be on the Top 10 Castles list.

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Knight or Samurai?

Between the knights and samurai, I think that the samurai were greater heroes. They had better, more comfortable armour, they had a code that they followed that was important to them, and they made great sacrifices to keep that code and their honour. The samurai’s armour was light and easy to move in. It was made of iron, lacquer, cloth, gold-covered bronze, and leather. This would have been better than the knight’s armour because their armour was very heavy and uncomfknight-armourortable since they were made of chain mail or plates of metal. Samurai also had 2 different swords: the katana (longer) and the wakizashi (ssamurai-1horter). Armed with these swords, samurai were ready to fight whenever they needed to. The samurai code called “Bushido” or ” Way of the Warrior” was very important to follow. This code required the samurai to give allegiance to his/her lord and fellow samurai. However, this code did not require that they protect the weak, whereas the knight’s code (the Chivalry) did. This may suggest that the samurai weren’t great heroes if they didn’t protect the weak, but even though the knight’s code required the weak to be protected, the knights samurai-2didn’t always necessarily follow that rule all the time, on the other hand, the samurai always obeyed the Code of Bushido. The samurai went to great lengths to keep  the rules of the Bushido and their honour. They would even make great sacrifices, including killing themselves, to keep these conventions. These are the reasons why I think the samurai are greater heroes than knights.