What is the difference between Japan and Europe's medieval period.
This will show the difference and similarities between the Japanese medieval period and the European medieval period. It will show the difference between their castles and samurai/knights. It will also show what is similar between the same topics.
Japanese Medieval period:The Japanese medieval castle - Their castles had a basic design, made up of: gates, walls and towers. The gates consisted of a two story timber frame. The lower frame story formed with the entrance. The upper story formed with the connecting tower. The lowers story was usually left unplastered and the actual gate and surrounding timbers were occasionally covered in iron when they were about to go into battle for extra protection from arrows, swords and bullets hitting against it.The Japanese castle was all based on were it was placed. They almost always built it on a hill/small mountain so that they could have a view of everywhere around the castle in case anyone else came up to there castle.
When they first started having invasions in their country they built castles (yamijiro) in a line on mountains or cliffs so they had a good view of everywhere. As time went on they started building castles (hirayamijiro) on small mountains instead. Samurai - The samurai or bushi (meaning war-man) were very important to the Japanese back in the medieval period. They were very high up in the social class, and they fought for there country and never backed down. It took years of practice to become a samurai and it was a lot of hard work. Their armor was very well presented and they looked after everything like it was there children. They had a wide range of weapons, such as bows and arrows, spears and guns, but their main weapon was the sword. They even gave their swords names because they thought it contained their warrior spirit. They're armor was made out of plates of metal and iron, and was tied together with colorful cords. they wore a protective head piece. They had long hair and wore it tied up in a knot-like bun. The brow and crown at the top of their head was shaved off completely. |
European Medieval period:The European medieval castle - The European castles consisted of a moat, a drawbridge, a keep, barracks, a great hall, a chapel, and the gatehouse. A moat was built around many of the castles. This as a deep ditch surrounding the castle walls, filled with water. A bridge was built so that you could cross the moat but the bridge was raised during an attack. The moat was loaded with traps and sharp spikes in case someone tried to swim
across. The bridge was built across the moat, it could be lowered (or raised) for even more protection during a battle.The keep was one of the largest rooms in the castle, they stored food, wine and grains inside of it. The barracks was a smaller building next to the main castle and they were for the knights and their families to live in. The great hall was a large passageway that connected the lord's home to the keep. The chapel was sometimes built inside the lord's home or it was built next to it and they used it for religious services. The gatehouse was a building used by the gates guards to use. Knights - The knight of the European's were very well treated by their people. They were the ones that protected them, but everyone was scared of them because they knew that if they did something the knights didn't like, they would be punished. They had a lot of armor, they were shielded from head toe. At first the armor was made of small metal rings called chain mail, each suit could have nearly more than 200,000 rings. Chain mail was very heavy, difficult to move in, and uncomfortable. A suit of armor weighed between 18 and 30 kilograms. A knight wore a linen shirt and a pair of pants as well as heavy woolen pads underneath the metal-ringed tunic. Some knights even protected their horses with armor. They also had shield that they held in front of them during battle, they were made of either wood or metal and were decorated with their family emblem or a crest and the family motto. For their weapons, they had a sword (which was worn at the left side of him in a case) a knife (that was worn on the right side) and sometimes they had metal axes, battle hammers or maces. |
The difference between Japanese and European castles in Medieval times:
- They had large, tall walls to stop the opposing side from attacking and entering into there territory.
- They often had moats around the edge of the castle walls to stop people they didn't want to enter from digging tunnels.
- They had narrow and steep stairways in case the other team got in so they could only have limited people in the stairway at the same time, and they wouldn't be able to attack as fast.
- They had holes in the wall (portholes) to look out of to see if there was anyone coming in the distance and so that they could aim their guns and arrows better without the other team seeing them.
- They often had a main gate area that could be used to trap the other team if they came in, they shut the gate and had people ready to fire at the top of staircases.
- They usually always had layers of walls to give them more protection in case people climbed over the first wall they would have to climb over the other walls until they got to the middle.
- They built the castles on hills and small mountains so they had a view of everywhere around the castle to see if there was anyone was coming.