Later in the Middle Ages, important people wanted more privacy and larger homes. It was easier to build new homes instead of trying to make the castles bigger, so some people moved out of castles into new homes. The use of gunpowder weapons also changed warfare and made castles less effective. Guns were introduced in the 14th century, and by the 15th and 16th centuries they were powerful enough to break castle walls. New types of fortification were invested, with shorter thicker walls, and using earth to absorb hits from cannonballs.
Though cannons were powerful, castles were still used in war. In the 17th century, lots of castles were used in the English Civil War, though many of them had not been lived in for decades and needed repairs.
As castles were built hundreds of years ago, most of them are ruins. Some are still lived in by wealthy families, or are still used by governments or armies. Because of this they might have changed and look different to old castles which were abandoned. Many castles have been turned into museums so the public can visit and learn about the past. Some castles are owned by the state, and others are owned by private people. Castles are expensive to run, so many are falling down. Every so often lightning strikes, flooding, or earthquakes damage castles.
People have been interested in castle for centuries. Historians and archaeologists have searched old documents and dug into castles to find out more about them. Because of this, for some castles we know who owned them, when they were used, when bits were built, what people ate, and what kind of things happened at castles. But there are lots of places where we know very little, not even when they were built. This is because a lot of medieval documents do not survive.
Some castle ruins have been rebuilt to look like they did originally.
Some terms you might find people using when they talk about castles:
Books used
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a website owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, based on a wiki. Anybody can upload images, sounds, videos, and other multimedia files to the website. The files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons can be used by any other Wikimedia Foundation project, like Wikipedia or Wiktionary. For example, Wikipedia uses images on Wikimedia Commons to include pictures in their encyclopedia articles. The files can also be freely used by anyone else because they have free licenses.
Wikimedia Commons has categories, which are groups of files that have something in common or similar. For example, there is a category for pictures of cats. Wikimedia Commons is a multilingual website, meaning that it can be used in every language. However, some parts of Wikimedia Commons are only in English, like names of categories.
Wikimedia Commons also has sound files. Not all of these are music. For example, there are recordings that read words out loud. These files are used in Wiktionary, a free dictionary, to teach people how to say words.
For every file on Wikimedia Commons, the person who made it has to let everybody use it and change it as much as they want, including companies (see Creative Commons).
Wikimedia Commons reached 10 million files on April 15, 2011.
The Wikimedia Foundation was given money to make it easier for people to use their websites. They used some of this money to make the UploadWizard, a new system for uploading files on Wikimedia Commons. People started using the UploadWizard in December 2010.
The UploadWizard also teaches new uploaders about copyright law. It has a tutorial for users to read so that they can check if the file they are uploading is violating copyright. Most uploads are by the UploadWizard.
Before, Wikimedia Commons only let people upload one file at a time. The UploadWizard lets people upload multiple files at the same time and include all the required information about each one.
The logo of Wikimedia Commons has a red circle inside a blue circle. There are many small blue arrows pointing from the blue circle to the red circle in the middle, and one big blue arrow pointing upwards. The small blue arrows represent the different projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. The large arrow is to show that Wikimedia Commons is constantly improving.
This logo was chosen in a vote in 2004.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (officially called the Republic of Bulgaria) is a country in south-eastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bulgaria is the south of the River Danube and west of the Black Sea. To the south of Bulgaria is European Turkey, Greece, and North Macedonia. To the north of the Danube is Romania, while to the west of Bulgaria is Serbia.
The capital and the biggest city is Sofia. Their money is called the lev. The Bulgarian government is a member of the European Union and NATO. Rumen Radev became President in 2017. The population of Bulgaria is a little more than 7 million people.
Bulgaria has its own language, called Bulgarian. It is a type of Slavic language. It is related to languages like Serbian and Russian. Bulgaria borders Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, and the Black Sea. One of the national heroes of Bulgaria is Vasil Levski who led the fight for independence in the late 1800s.
In what is now Bulgaria, many different people and different cultures lived over time. This includes Neolithic, Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, eneolithic, Varna culture (5th millennium BC) and the Bronze Age Ezero culture.
The Thracians lived in the area of modern Bulgaria (in Thrace or ). King Tere united the people in Odrysian Kingdom around 500 BC.
Alexander the Great had influence over the people in the 4th century BC.
The last Hellenistic Thracian kingdom became part of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. The lands of Bulgaria were then part of the Roman Empire.
Eurasian Avars, South Slavs and Huns settled all over the territory of modern Bulgaria during the 6th century.
The Bulgars arrived in Thracia in the 7th century. The Bulgars established the First Bulgarian Empire in 681 AD, after a war with the Romans in which the Bulgarians had success. In 1018, the Romans overcame the Bulgarians in war, the Bulgarian state ended, and Bulgaria became part of the Roman Empire again.
The Second Bulgarian Empire started in a rebellion about 1185 AD. The state had Tarnovo as the capital.
The Ottoman Empire took over in 1396 and ruled Bulgaria for about 500 years. The Ottomans had very strict rules and the Bulgarians suffered. The Bulgarians rebelled several times against the Turkish rulers.
In 1876, there was the April Uprising, a Bulgarian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. In the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the Russian Empire overcame the Ottomans. In 1878, Bulgaria became, in part, independent, although the Ottomans controlled its foreign policy.
Bulgaria pulled away from Ottoman Empire's influence with the help of the Russian Empire who were already fighting the Ottomans. But it was not until 1908 that the whole country of Bulgaria was united as modern Bulgaria.
Bulgaria joined the side of Germany in World War I and lost. Bulgaria had hoped to get part of the lands Bulgaria lost in the Balkan Wars.
During the first year of World War II Bulgaria said it was neutral and refused to join sides with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Bulgaria's military and economy were had a close connection with Germany. Bulgaria's leaders signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany in March 1941. This let German forces go through Bulgaria to reach Greece.