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The human instinct to seek protection behind walls or trenches or on top of natural elevations goes back millennia.
人類在城墻、戰壕或自然高地上尋求保護的本能可以追溯到幾千年前。
But it was during the Middle Ages, and in response to the evolution of weaponry and warfare, that this drive led to the building of fortified castles.
但正是在中世紀，隨著武器和戰爭的發展，這種本能導致了防御性城堡的建造。
In this golden era of their construction, castles reached a degree of perfection and complexity unparalleled in history.
在這個建筑的黃金時代，城堡達到了歷史上無與倫比的完美和復雜程度。
The first medieval fortifications were very different from the imposing castles that appeared later.
最初的中世紀防御工事與后來出現的宏偉城堡大不相同。
In the ninth and 10th centuries, the castles being constructed across Christian Europe were generally wooden structures built on top of artificial mounds that, after the Norman conquest, were called mottes.
在9世紀和10世紀，基督教歐洲各地建造的城堡通常是建在人工土丘上的木結構建筑，在諾曼征服后，這些土丘被稱為“mottes”。
Typically, the motte would be surrounded by a defensive moat.
一般來說，這種土丘堡壘會被防御性的護城河包圍。
The earth excavated to form the moat was then used to create defensive embankments that were topped with a wooden palisade.
為了護城河所挖出的泥土，隨后被用來建造防御堤壩，頂部覆蓋著木柵欄。
A wooden drawbridge provided access across the moat.
一座木制吊橋是穿過護城河的通道。
By the 11th and 12th centuries, these mottes were proliferating across France and Anglo-Saxon and Norman England.
到了11世紀和12世紀，這些土丘堡壘在法國、盎格魯-撒克遜人以及諾曼人的英格蘭迅速蔓延。
As the Reconquista military campaign that European Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms (who had been occupying much of the Iberian Peninsula since the early eighth century) advanced, similar mottes were erected on the plains of Castile between the 10th and 11th centuries.
隨著歐洲基督教王國對穆斯林王國（自8世紀初以來占領了伊比利亞半島的大部分地區）發動的收復失地軍事運動的推進，類似的堡壘在10世紀至11世紀之間在卡斯蒂利亞平原上建立起來。
One was the Mota de Mun?o? in Burgos, Spain, which became the center of a busy community in the 10th and 11th centuries.
其中一個是西班牙布爾戈斯的Mota de Mu?ó，它在10世紀和11世紀成為了一個繁忙社區的中心。
It was common for towns to develop around these castles, as inhabitants benefited from the protection offered by the moats, raised earthworks, and wooden palisades.
城鎮在這些堡壘周圍發展是很常見的，因為居民受益于護城河、凸起的土方工程和木柵欄提供的保護。
The wooden forts that topped these mottes were soon replaced by large, usually square, stone towers.
這些小土丘上的木制堡壘很快就被巨大的、通常是方形的石塔所取代。
This central tower of a medieval castle was called a keep in English, a donjon in French, a bergfried in German, and a maschio in Italian.
這種中世紀堡壘的中央塔樓在英語中被稱為keep，在法語中被稱為donjon，在德語中被稱為bergfried，在意大利語中被稱為maschio。
But its Spanish name, torre del homenaje (tower of homage) speaks to one of its functions.
但它的西班牙名字torre del homenaje（致敬塔）說明了它的功能之一。
From the middle of the 10th century, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire, imperial power in western and central Europe was being replaced by a large number of feudal lords, who were practically sovereign in their territories.
從10世紀中葉開始，隨著加洛林王朝的滅亡，西歐和中歐的皇權被大量的封建領主所取代，這些領主實際上在他們的領土上擁有主權。
The towers of homage provided places where vassals could come to pay obeisance to their lords.
致敬塔為封臣們提供了一個向其領主表示效忠的場所。
The stone castles that we recognize today as emblematically medieval appeared from the 11th and 12th centuries onward, having developed out of the comparatively simple earlier fortifications.
我們今天能認出的中世紀標志性的石制城堡，出現于11世紀和12世紀之后，是在相對簡單的早期防御工事基礎上發展起來的。
The main impetus for this evolution from simple wooden keeps to formidable stone castles was the changing nature of warfare.
從簡單的木制堡壘到令人生畏的石頭城堡的演變主要是由于戰爭性質的變化。
Other than a few pitched battles, medieval warfare tended to focus most of its operations on the attempt to control the fortresses of a given territory.
除了少數幾場近距離激戰外，中世紀的戰爭往往將其大部分行動集中在試圖控制某一領土的堡壘上。
As the techniques and technology of those mounting sieges became more sophisticated, castle builders were driven to new heights of ingenuity.
隨著圍城的技術和工藝變得越來越復雜，堡壘的建造者們也被推向了新的創造力高度。
Castle design began to incorporate a series of concentric defensive walls.
堡壘的設計開始包含一系列同心防御墻。
At the center of these, the old keep would be enlarged to become a last defensive stronghold.
在這些防御墻的中心，舊的堡壘將被擴建，成為最后的防御據點。
These imposing-looking fortresses proved remarkably effective in resisting assaults and invasions.
事實證明，這些雄偉的堡壘在抵抗攻擊和入侵方面非常有效。
