70/30 split sounds like there is a reason even if there isn’t primary evidence to backup the exact reason. Logically attack/defence sounds like it works and I was certainly able to imagine that on my first tour of a fort when I was young.
Or maybe medieval people thought that it's easier to climb/carry stuff up if the stairs go clockwise (or some other mundane reasons)? Maybe architects just designed it that way because that's just how everyone builds castle staircases? Seems much more plausible to me (or at least as plausible..)
> I was certainly able to imagine that on my first tour of a fort when I was young.
Most people visiting medieval castles probably significantly overestimate the frequency of hand to hand combat that might had taken place there (almost never as far as we know).
The scholarly source he links to (which actually agrees with him) notes in passing that for Norman castles, the split wasn't 70/30, it was more like 95/5....
I wonder what the split is nowadays. For example I lived in an apartment that had a counter-clockwise stairway, I’m not sure what the landlord’s handed was was, but I don’t think he designed it around defending against left handed sword-armed attackers.
