Outer bailey

The term bailey describes that part of a castle, in which buildings are to serve the management of the system or for the supply of the castle inhabitants are necessary. These include farm buildings next to workshops, stables and storage rooms such as barns and scales, but also servants' houses as accommodation for staff such as maids, servants and castle- or vassals. In many cases there are also a brewery, a bakery and a kitchen, if the kitchen is not close to the palace. Baileys are often called farmyard. For the economy buildings of castles the name bailey is also common, and these are often a depot or guest accommodations such as squire houses, thus buildings which were not common on medieval castles. Large plants often have more than one bailey, as for example in the castle Monschau and the Bürresheim Castle. For larger castles markets were also held (cf. within the bailey suburbium). Mostly pre-forts are part of its own ring wall and the permanent living area of the castle - called main castle - are separated by a moat, a wall and a gate. In lowland castles commonly, the outer bailey arranged around the main castle has the shape of a half moon. Topographic features of the terrain had to be considered in the case of hill forts, so that with such complexes the bailey is usually slightly lower than the main castle. The Rudelsburg in Saxony-Anhalt is one of the rare cases where core and outer bailey are at the same level. In many cases the main entrance to the living area leads through the outer bailey, which thus represents a kind of defense buffer and formerly commonly served as refuge for the people who lived outside the castle walls. That explains why the chapel of a castle is often found in the bailey: It was the parish church for the population.

Literature

• Horst Wolfgang Böhme , Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (ed.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses. Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1, page 255-256.
• Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles and tower houses of the German Middle Ages. Volume 1 Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7995-0104-5, page 53-55.
• Otto Piper : Burgenkunde . Reprint of the edition of 1912. Weltbild, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-554-7, pp. 10-11.