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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haltherrion" data-source="post: 5376334" data-attributes="member: 18253">Yes, I think by the time you start putting re-bar in the masonry, I wouldn't call it a castle. I doubt I'm all that unusual in this view. The problem here is a lack of jointly agreed definition. Your definition seems to tend toward what I would class a military fortification and, no, I do not claim military fortifications ceased to exist in the 1600s. As I already noted earlier in this thread, my definition tends to include a fortification used as a lordly residence, and yes, I am aware this is fuzzy. Royal castles like the Edwardian Welsh ones seem like castles to me but did not host a local lord in the classic medieval sense. Beyond that, it can be hard to define a castle which is why I started the more light-hearted poll, along the lines of, "I know a castle when I see it." Despite the imprecision of the word castle, most players I know would tend towards definitions I'm comfortable with. Maybe my players are all odd-balls thus I started another thread where folks can post what they think. But if asked to draw a picture of a castle, how many FRPG gamers are going to draw the Maginot fortifications or Verdun? Or even a 1500s star fort? If given a bunch of pictures of military forts over the ages, it is my suspicious (thus my poll) that people will tend to select stone, lordly castles of the European Middle Ages over forts of other ages. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to stick my neck out and let people vote/comment. Personally, once trace italienne forts started coming to the fore in the 1450s and on, I don't think of those military fortifications as castles. But I do tend to think of Deal Castle as a castle, albeit borderline and it was almost a hundred years later. I really don't think my views are too unusual. I can't think of a castle book I've read, casual history or more formal, that runs much past the 1400s. Most fortications (all?) after the 1500s are called forts not castles. There are some palaces called castles built later, but they don't make a pretense of being a military structure. From the wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle" target="_blank">article </a>on castle:"A castle (from <a href="http://www.enworld.org/wiki/Latin" target="_blank">Latin</a> castellum) is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/wiki/Middle_Ages" target="_blank">Middle Ages</a>. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/wiki/Fortification" target="_blank">fortress</a>, which was not a home, and from a fortified town, which was a public defence, though there are many similarities between these types of construction. The term has been popularly applied to structures as diverse as <a href="http://www.enworld.org/wiki/Hill_fort" target="_blank">hill forts</a> and country houses. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as <a href="http://www.enworld.org/wiki/Curtain_wall_(fortification)" target="_blank">curtain walls</a> and <a href="http://www.enworld.org/wiki/Arrowslit" target="_blank">arrowslits</a>, were commonplace." This is pretty well aligned with what I hopefully and trying to convey. It doesn't seem to leave room for Renaissance fortifications.</blockquote>

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