Childhood Questions Answered – Why Medieval Castle Staircases Were Made Clockwise

There are a lot of medieval castles out there, the majority of them are made from stone. Because the early castles  were  made from wood the construction was much weaker and nowadays they are pretty hard to find,  most of them aren’t found at all.Stones on the other hand are quite resistant and hard, that is probably one of the reasons why the beautiful medieval castles lasted long enough to be admired by the people of today.

While castles were mostly used for defense, it’s pretty interesting to say that even villages started developing fortifications and they even started looking like castes and smaller towns in the middle to late period, also monasteries were made in hard locations as well. There is a beautiful monastery in Greece called Meteora. Here is an image:

These fortifications were made for defense and security, because of the constant attacks and raidings.

But the majority of castles were made by the feudal lords for their own use on most occasions. There were a lot of tricks into building castles and skilled architects made them in order for the castle to withstand a huge amount of force.

But lately, as explorers were viewing the castles they noticed that each castle staircase was made clockwise. There is a pretty good reason for doing this and designing them clockwise improved their security and safety.

Because of the unusual design of the staircases, a right-handed attacker would have a much harder time do a full swing with his sword because the right side is blocked. If the sword is in the right hand and the staircases were made in reverse he would have much better fighting logistics.

The defender on the other hand, by being on the counter side gave him the potential to have a space for a powerful right-hand swing meaning he could hit the opponent from the right side with a full blow.

Because the majority is right handed this was a great trick to implement and was very thoughtful.