Chateau or Castle Chillon: Innards, Furnishings, Ladies in Armor?

 Castle Basics
Chillon

Join us going through rooms and ins and outs of the Castle at Chillon. The top "teeth" on the battlements are called crenellations: archers and other defenders behind getting some protection, ducking frpom cover to cover. It also is a common sense kind of minimal fencing. See ://architecture.about.com/od/buildingparts/g/battlement.htm

Security checkpoints, Castle Chillon, defenses.

Castle interior design did not include closets.  People used wardrobes - large and bulky; or these movable chests that could then be packed and sent on with the owner to the next castle stop.  To the equivalent of Miami for the Season, or perhaps to the next place where tolls were being collected and books had to be audited.
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Clothing chests, or other household goods, wooden-carved, Chillon Castle, Switzerland

Some chests are religious in theme, others secular. As today,  it all depends on your predilection. Here is Adam and Eve, the snake now morphed into a female representation, when the Bible says the Snake is a "he."  All to suit the increasing masculinization of the Church?  Start trashing the ladies?  Above is a contemporary merchant kind of dress on the people represented.

Religious theme: Adam and Eve and, oh, no, a female snake (the Bible says the snake was a "he"); all the better for dogma, my dear. Castle Chillon, Switzerland

This kind of wardrobe - armor - would not fit into the chests. Women in armor.  Look at the shape, second from the left.  Then fast forward to other collections of armor, say, at Thun, Switzerland.  Unh-hunh. Amazing how a cultural need to box in a group succeeds just by never mentioning. Let the evidence just slide by, so nobody's antennae are set in that direction. Is that so?

Women in War. Woman's armor? Chillon Castle collection, second from left, Switzerland

Firebacks are familiar but have a longer history than we may think.  A fireback is a cast iron backer that deflects and absorbs and radiates back into the room the heat, away from the rock stone fireplace, where such heat can lead to cracking over time.  Let the fireback crack first.  See ://www.fireback.com/ for American colonial firebacks.  Can't remember the theme of this one: should have made a note.

Fireback, Chillon Castle, Switzerland

How to keep warm.  Small fireplaces had iron firebacks to reflect heat back into the room.  Beds had constructions available for curtains, and little roofs to them of solid wood instead of just fabric canopies for additional warmth.  We were told that the mattress, just a few inches of something, sat directly on a wooden platform.

Bed, Chillon Castle, Switzerland; portable. Guide said Duke took furnishings with him castle to castle.

Roofs served many functions inside and out:  here, outside, the roof to the battlements were solid, for weather-proofing, as well as to withstand invaders' weapons and fire arrows. Hurling weapons at each other, including setting fire to them and then firing them off, has a long history among enemies, see History of Rocketry at ://www.spacearium.com/special/spaceline/spaceline.org/history/1.html

Roofed battlements structure, post and beam, Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

The roofing was not only protection for the fighters beneath, but also could deflect a fire weapon into the courtyard where somebody else could cope.

Medieval post and beam structure: here on battlements.
Large medieval fireplace with overhang, not heat-efficient, Chillon Castle, Switzerland

In fireplaces, even the huge ones, most heat went straight up.   It took the later wood-burning stove, or coal burning, with its ducts leading hot air to different floors and rooms, to make large places livable without an active fireplace in each room. See Europe Road Ways, Themes, Wood-Burning Stoves.

The Prisoner of Chillon (Castle), Switzerland. And Poem, Lord Byron 1788-1824

Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Here is the castle at Chillon, just northeast of little Villeneuve on the Swiss Riviera, on the road heading for more famous and pricey Montreux.

There is noise here now.  The autostrasse passes nearby, so people don't have to tarry with past things any more.Read the poem slowly, aloud, to sense the history. We start here with the dungeon, where the prisoner Bonivard was held all those years, at water level - not underground, but here just at water level, where he feared each storm would flood it all.   

With the old print of the google book, you may prefer an easier read, try ://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/lbyron/bl-lbyron-prisoner.htm.

The castle is modest in size. But it has been well maintained. There is the bridge, that may once have been a drawbridge.  Get there right at 9AM, before the buses.

 Drawbridge, now entry, Castle of Chillon, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Get right to it, and head down.

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 Stair to the dungeons, Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Part of the dungeon area was for storage, with the casks of supplies, including wind, and the narrow arrow slit for defense on the lake side.

 Supplies casks, dungeon area, Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Chillon is a small chateau, and tourists are free to wander anywhere with unlocked doors.  Tours stay together, which is far less fun.

Old log staircases, from rooms in dungeon, Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

It has been well-maintained.  An impressive feature is the rock bed, that forms the flooring at the lower level.  There is no under-water level that we could see.  Imagine the boats of provisions anchoring just outside; or invaders trying to slip by.

 Chamber after chamber, dungeons, Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Stake and chain, dungeons, Prisoner of Chillon, Chillon Castle, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Supplies would have been brought to this water level, and unloaded for the castle's needs, but that room and its gates to the water were out of reach for the prisoner. See his story below.

Waterlevel view, dungeon, Castle of Chillon, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

There is a noose hanging in one of the rooms, but hardly original  For more, see ://www.wisdomportal.com/Inspiration/CastleChillon.html/

A way out The prisoner is released. Castle of Chillon, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Now, read the short sonnet about Chillon, also by Byron, at ://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Byron/chillon.html/  See the alternative spelling, Francois de Bonnivard.  This site says that the narrative by Byron, supposedly the prisoner speaking, is fictitious.  See ://switzerland.isyours.com/E/guide/lake_geneva/chillon.history.html/  Probably.  How would anyone know?

 How to see the Castle of Chillon, on Lake Geneva, without first reading Lord Byron's poem about the prisoner.

Read first. Meet a monk-scholar from Geneva named Francois Bonivard, who was chained there from 1532 to 1536 or  1530-1536, depending on the records; and during the Catholic-Protestant Troubles there; and also at a time when he was accused of inciting the Genevese, along the lake, to rebel against the Duke of Savoy, only being released when the Bernese from the north pressed that far south with their newfangled contraption, mobile artillery.
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Bernese mobile artillery, Castle at Chillon, Lake Geneva; military advantage, freeing the Prisoner of Chillon?

Varying accounts, see ://switzerland.isyours.com/E/guide/lake_geneva/chillon.history.html/ for the   The poem is now a google book and free for the taking: go to The Prisoner of Chillon, Lord Byron.
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The Bonivard (sometimes spelled Bonnivard) family was persecuted during this era of Reformation-CounterReformation, and then the 30 years' war between Papists and Reformers who could not stand each other.  Of the three Bonnivard brothers sent to Chillon, with other family members already deceased, the prisoner here is the only survivor.

Alternate scenario: He was released when nobody cared anymore what anybody else believed, according to the religious accounts, not the social change accounts.  Good choice. Faith-based conflicts get nowhere, then or now. Just leave people be. In the end, I am the guns. I cover all?