Last week I mentioned in passing that “castle” in the stricter sense refers to a type of fortified residence: not necessarily a single-family dwelling, of course, but a place belonging to and possibly occupied by an important family, with all their associated guards, servants, hangers-on, and so forth. That’s the sense that will be at the forefront of this essay, because life in a fortified military camp, an isolated watchtower, or a walled village is going to be very different from life in that more narrowly defined castle.

Don’t leap to assuming, however, that all nobles lived in castles, all the time. For starters, some lords weren’t important enough to have control of anything that significant. But the occasional late confection like Neuschwanstein notwithstanding, a true fortified structure (as opposed to a palace decorated with the name of “castle”) is built for defense, with comfort coming an extremely distant second.

Mind you, “comfort” in the heyday of castle building was pegged at a pretty low level compared to what we enjoy in the twenty-first century. Even by those standards, though, a fortified structure is not ideal. Windows will be small, because they’re defensive liabilities. Rooms will be small, too, because the walls have to be thick (for reasons both martial and architectural). If the castle is built of stone — the standard image we have of them, but not true everywhere and all the time — then it’s going to be rather cold and dank compared to a wooden residence. And unless there’s a surrounding settlement, the amenities on offer will be few.

People will live in castles when one or both of the following are true: they’re required by duty to be there, or times are unsettled enough to make safety a high priority. If warfare is endemic, because you live near a contested border or civil strife is ripping your land apart, then you’ll put up with cramped rooms, perpetually cold hands, and little in the way of entertainment for the knowledge that your home cannot easily be burned down around your ears. These are the conditions under which you regularly find queens and noblewomen residing in castles, alongside their brothers or husbands or sons. In a protected heartland, though, or in times of peace, chances go up that women and children will live in more comfortable surroundings, like manors or palaces — perhaps nearby, but then again, perhaps not. Many a lady who’d given her lord an heir could go months or years without actually seeing him.

For men, the situation is often different. If a lord is given command of a castle, then . . . well, is he required to be there in person? Sometimes yes; sometimes no. It’s not uncommon for a higher-ranking lord to possess multiple castles, and obviously he can’t be in residence at all of them simultaneously. He might cycle through them, leaving someone else in command while he’s away — which in turn opens up the possibility that somebody else could have that job all the time, while he enjoys a more pleasant life somewhere else. As with his lady wife, how much he can stay away will depend on the ambient threat level, plus how strict his sovereign is about attending to one’s duties in person. For the sovereign himself, this transition away from castle life goes hand-in-hand with a shift in the basis of royal authority, as discussed in Year Three: when might makes right, the king probably has to enforce that with his own hand on a regular basis, but as other principles take hold, he becomes more free to wander off.

Of course, the people in charge aren’t the only ones living in castles. Who else is there?

Soldiers, obviously. How many and what they’re doing, however, will depend on the size of the castle, where it’s located, and what kind of military footing they’re on. A castle in the heartland of a country not currently at war still needs some guards, especially at key points like the gates — remember, per last week’s essay, that castles serve a number of non-wartime purposes — but the standing garrison may be small (as few as a dozen or two) and their duties light. That latter can be a problem, though, as bored soldiers are apt to cause trouble, if they’re not kept well in hand . . .

As conflict steps up, though, the picture changes. More soldiers might pile in, whether seasoned or professional troops sent from elsewhere, or local peasant levies called up for the purpose. The latter in particular may be put through practice drills (which is also one of the ways you can keep your standing garrison busy). They’ll be sent on patrols, or assigned maintenance and improvement tasks on the fortifications, like digging out a clogged moat or constructing wooden hoardings on the wall to improve their ability to repel attackers. If the commander anticipates a possible siege, they’ll be gathering in all the supplies they can from the surrounding countryside — and maybe also the people, though not necessarily. Protecting them is a nice idea, but should a siege indeed occur, the peasantry are more mouths to feed on limited rations.

That doesn’t mean there are no civilians present, though. Remember our discussion of camp followers earlier this year? Castle populations look much the same, albeit with the proportions shifted. Food and other supplies do have to be brought in, but you don’t need a regular staff of people in residence to drive the wagons and so forth, and permanent kitchens make it easier to handle cooking at scale. Castles also have some needs that armies on the march don’t, like masons and roofers to look after the physical fabric of the building. On the other hand, a lord is even more likely than a general in the field to have servants, priests, entertainers, and other personnel attending to his own comfort.

And that’s just within the place itself. As I mentioned before, castles often attract towns, as people cluster where the money and influence is. From a daily-life perspective, the presence of a bustling settlement just outside the walls greatly expands the pleasures offered by living in such a place. It’s even possible that some of the castle folk will actually live out in that town, in more comfortable houses, only retreating behind thick walls when danger threatens.

As with the design of the castle itself, the specifics of what it’s like to live there are going to vary widely depending on the rest of the worldbuilding. The above is, at best, a very broad overview. But it may serve to counteract the stereotypical image many laypeople have, where castles are assumed to be palatial and everybody lives in one if they can!