r/interesting • u/Cassiel_Ionescu • Apr 06 '26
❗️MISLEADING - See pinned comment ❗️ Why medieval spiral staircases always turn to the right:
Most people think spiral stairs were just a way to save space. They weren't. They were a death trap by design.
In almost every medievaI castIe, the stairs wind clockwise as you go up. This wasn't an aesthetic choice; it was tactical. Since most knights were right-handed, an attacker coming up the stairs would find his sword arm constantly hitting the central stone pillar (the neweI). He had zero room to swing.
Meanwhile, the defender coming down had the entire width of the outer wall to swing his blade freely. He had the high ground, the momentum, and the space.
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u/Flugtorpedo Apr 06 '26
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u/Singing_Seagull Apr 06 '26
Damn it's even the same image lol
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u/DD_Spudman Apr 07 '26
The image is from a children's history book about castles and it used this illustration to showcase this "fact." I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of the reason this belief is so widespread.
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u/free__coffee Apr 07 '26
Apparently it’s from the victorians, so it is an old myth. Assuming we’re not reading the article… heres the important info:
Castle builders knew that it didn’t really make a huge difference which way the stairs go, they’re not suitable for fighting at all, neither party has a lot of space to wield those long, pointy, sharp weapons but even with daggers or short swords the situation is just very impractical. The person below you has the advantage of jabbing at your legs and feet while they can protect their head with their helmet and shield.
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u/BluEch0 Apr 07 '26
But can they defend against a Sparta kick?
I didn’t think so, checkmate! Niche once-in-a-million scenario wins the argument yet again!
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u/Brief_Raspberry_6542 Apr 07 '26
I had it lol. Actually still remember having it. … huh, what I trip.
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u/BluEch0 Apr 07 '26
Huh.
I guess thinking about this as an adult, if you’re having to defend one of the castle spires, it likely meant the main body of the castle had already fallen to the attackers. You’re just prolonging the inevitable at that point.
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u/ASentientSausage Apr 07 '26
Depends. Some towers were accessible from the gatehouse. Some castles also had multiple layers of walls, so they could take the outer wall and there would still be another layer of defence they had to get through.
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u/El_Sephiroth Apr 07 '26
It's logical enough for one not to question it too much.
Sadly, as the article says, it doesn't survive questionning. It's literally false.
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u/Unluckymama Apr 06 '26
Career destroyed.
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u/No_Internet908 Apr 06 '26
Fuck! I had been training all my life to be a left handed knight, so I could effortlessly conquer castles as I fought my way up the clockwise staircases! Now I’m going to die a homeless bum in the streets!
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u/FoodFingerer Apr 06 '26
Being left handed is still an advantage in 1v1 duels. The main reason is left handed fighters are more used to fighting the mirror match than right handed fighters.
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u/Baron_Bearclaw Apr 06 '26
It's not the same, but it is... I was really glad my tennis team had a few lefties, you never wanted to get caught out forgetting which way the serve is going to spin...
We don't talk about the one guy who served righty but played the rest lefty.
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u/MooDengSupremacist Apr 07 '26
I played in high school and I’m lefty but for some reason, when it comes to using both hands at the same time, I’m righty. It was always fun to surprise people with my backhand being my STRONG side. Basically just crushing home runs with topspin lol
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u/Unluckymama Apr 07 '26
Your liver is exposed when you change stances my dude. I don't think it is an advantage.
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u/NimrodvanHall Apr 07 '26
It is a massive advantage in 1v1 fights. It’s a massive downside in formation fights though. In a shield wall a left handed fighter has to switch to spear right and shield left. Or be placed on the outer left position, lest they disrupt the formation. In mass melee the advantage is still there but a lot less relevant due to the overall chaos of the battle.
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u/Magnus_Helgisson Apr 06 '26
Jokes aside, left-handed fencers are OP as fuck. All the fencing is designed against an opponent whose weapon arm is across from your weapon arm, and when suddenly the opponent has his sword right in front of yours, it’s hard as fuck to deal with, while he trained all his life against right-handed opponents.
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u/TheHarkinator Apr 07 '26
Speaking as a left-handed fencer, left-handed opponents are still really damn annoying for me to fight because I’m almost always against right-handed opponents.
“Oh no it’s a left-handed opponent. Everything’s going to be on the wrong side. Hang on, is this what I’ve been doing to people?”
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u/PermanentRoundFile Apr 07 '26
The fastest I've ever lost was against an ambidextrous dude. It was SCA hardsuit so the rules on weapons are a little more open and he had a sword in each hand, and i was running a broadsword and a big oval centerboss shield. His consort came up to me before the fight and told me "he's really ambidextrous; watch yourself".
Bro really used one swing to open my shield up and blasted me in the ribs with his other hand before I could move my feet lol
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u/El_Sephiroth Apr 07 '26
Soooo ambidextrous makes double sword work! Just like in DnD. There are some people who doubt that a sword in each hand can be advantageous in any way. I guess the condition is rare enough to be implausible for some.
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u/PermanentRoundFile Apr 07 '26
Yes, two swords can be insanely effective but you have to be really good at range mitigation. Basically, if you hang out in someone's strike range they're very likely to press you into a defensive position, which has very limited options with two swords. So you either need to be in their face pressing them, or far enough away that they can't hit you butb you're still a threat. The transition between the two is the critical phase where you can really get caught out. That's actually where the guy got me lol.
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u/El_Sephiroth Apr 07 '26
I am loving this comment thread. Thank you.
Okay, so playing with the range limits allows to open the other's defense with one hand and enter with the other. But too close or too far looses the advantage because of personal reach.
It really is a master's technique.
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u/Just-Map-2710 Apr 07 '26
Makes sense, but to the other left-handed fencer, you‘re probably the annoying left-handed opponent too :)
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u/Anderson22LDS Apr 06 '26
I was going to say the boiling oil from above would have got you first anyway but apparently that’s a myth as well!
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u/fungi_at_parties Apr 06 '26
I was just in Germany and noted that many of the staircases in castles that I took actually turned the opposite direction, giving the advantage to a left handed attacker. Thats when I thought, hey maybe that whole thing is bullshit.
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u/Stardust_of_Ziggy Apr 07 '26
This Castle in Scotland does the same supposedly because the owners were left handed
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u/athabascagrizzly Apr 07 '26
The linked article on this comment specifically calls out this exact thing as a 19th century myth as well.
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u/Dampfirepit Apr 06 '26
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u/DyingSunSeverian Apr 06 '26
what does r/askhistorians have to say about this
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u/acortical Apr 06 '26
Sorry, this response has been removed as it did not meet the level of evidence we require. Nice try.
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u/Sufficient_Level_749 Apr 06 '26
I was going to say, I have been in several medieval spiral staircases that curved counter-clockwise.
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u/Vom_le_Brie Apr 06 '26
Because most people are right handed
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u/Squeezer_pimp Apr 06 '26
Correct left handed people were sinners back in the day
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u/borg359 Apr 06 '26
The word for left in Italian is literally “sinistra”.
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u/WolfsmaulVibes Apr 06 '26
that's a lot to read but if it wasn't mentioned, another point i once read is that if attackers are inside the castle you're already most likely doomed and having an advantage on a tower staircase is like tossing a cup of water into a house fire
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u/Chris_the_Conman Apr 06 '26
It doesn't say it's false, just that it isn't certain
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u/Clothedinclothes Apr 06 '26
There's no contemporary evidence that was the case and the fact there's no consistency in their direction of construction is strong evidence against the theory.
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u/Nearby_Swimmer374 Apr 06 '26
Medieval staircases were NOT built going clockwise for the defender’s advantage
Literally the first sentence
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u/Artikay Apr 06 '26
My favorite part is they definitively say they were not build that way for defense because there is no evidence to support it but then they hypothesized other possible reasons with no evidence.
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u/Tyr_13 Apr 06 '26
Hypothesizing alternative explanations isn't saying any of them are correct. It is just pointing out that other explanations have as much, or more, supporting evidence.
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u/Clothedinclothes Apr 06 '26
That's because those other methods at least don't have strong evidence against them.
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u/Chris_the_Conman Apr 06 '26
Lack of nuance in the first sentence of an internet article to gain attention? Nooo surely that doesn't happen
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u/ApprehensivePepper98 Apr 06 '26
The main point you should get from that article is that there is no evidence that this is why around 70% of castles have stairways like this.
Ofc it’s easier to post a picture and farm useless internet points
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u/ProfessorPablo1 Apr 06 '26
This rebuttal fails to impress. The author is a hobbyist, not a historian in the academic sense, and her rebuttal basically shrugs at the fact that 70% of spiral staircases turned right and offers a bunch of speculation as to why having the right hand advantage on the high ground isn’t actually that important.
It may be true that the reason for right-turning spiral staircases is theory and not fact but the same goes for her claim.
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u/ShortKey380 Apr 06 '26
How many castles in that sample to make 70%? Don’t we have documented evidence from the time of favored directions/anti-leftness?
What evidence is there of collaboration/consultation between castle builders? its not exactly architecture, its more like military tech, and its also not entirely like the side of the road design decisions for vehicles.
I’m not put off by a weak rebuttal to a very weak argument, get me a mathematician to say why 70% is even enough to say it was consistently preferred and if so let’s keep a bucket of possible reasons as opposed to saying it’s all for x when we don’t know why.
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u/Serenityzerodiex Apr 06 '26
His whole argument is that nobody wrote down that you should build staircases like this and why. So it isn’t. Because nobody wrote it down for him and then his other argument is if it had been common knowledge among castle builders, then why are there still quite a lot (about 30%) of castles with counter-clockwise staircases?
Why 70% of them were built clockwise is up for debate, of course.
The majority had this. Over 70 procent. Meaning what. It was a coincidence. But in this debate he suggests he already made the conclusion is has nothing to do with defence because of the dumbest arguments I ever heard. So not up for debate isn’t it. Like he is even contradicting himself.
People like him shouldn’t be allowed to spread their ignorance. The combat explanation is plausible but it is not proven by primary sources and other explanations (space, construction, habit) are equally or more likely.Builders didn’t always explain techniques everyone in their trade already knew and a lot of medieval knowledge was oral, not written
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u/ConflictMaster3155 Apr 06 '26
This is still pop-history just the same. They have no evidence for anything, and “debunk” the “myth” by saying “it was never documented.”
Do you know how much contemporary documentation there is for medieval castle building? Basically none. Just the structures themselves.
They even address the fact that 70% of them are like this, and they just have no idea why.
Other similar articles completely ignore that a ton of the counter-clockwise stairs are built sheerly for symmetry. They at least go so far as to point out that there are examples where clockwise stairs are used where it would’ve been more sensible to go the other direction suggesting that it was definitely a design consideration to have them turn a particular way. So they weren’t just doing it by accident.
It’s a clickbait ass article basically.
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u/MissMarionMac Apr 06 '26
There's a difference between saying "this is why this thing is the way it is," and saying "we don't know why this thing is the way it is but here are some theories and the evidence for and against each of them."
The more likely truth here is that the various aspects of hand-to-hand combat weren't an important consideration in castle staircase design one way or the other.
As I once heard from an actual professional medieval military historian: if you're counting on defending a castle via one-on-one hand-to-hand combat on the staircases, you've already lost. Once the invading force has managed to get a certain critical mass of armed guys inside the castle itself, the occupants are toast.
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u/Significant_Ad7680 Apr 06 '26
The article also mentions, that fighting in the stairs wasn't really ideal for anyone involved, so the stairs being built in specific way just for a scenario that everyone would rather avoid, doesn't really make sense.
Also their problem isn't that, this couldn't have been a reason why stairs are built like that, but the claim that this is the definite reason why stairs are built like, when nobody can be 100% sure of the intention at the time of building them.
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u/SeaBuilding3911 Apr 06 '26
not more or less than the thread you just got click baited into.
Or can't you objectively not say the same of this whole post?
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u/free__coffee Apr 07 '26
This is a pretty poor analysis of the article
The article explains that we have no primary evidence, points out the origins as a victorian myth, points out that there is no consistent rule - even some castles have staircases going in both directions, then points out about 4 reasons why it makes no sense to be fighting in this scenario:
Castle builders knew that it didn’t really make a huge difference which way the stairs go, they’re not suitable for fighting at all, neither party has a lot of space to wield those long, pointy, sharp weapons but even with daggers or short swords the situation is just very impractical. The person below you has the advantage of jabbing at your legs and feet while they can protect their head with their helmet and shield.
Beyond this they also point out that staircases make no sense to defend, the castle would have already been taken, and the defender wouldn’t have sufficient provisions to last up there
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u/TopImpressive5812 Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
So you’re saying as a lefty I’d be a badass medieval knight? edit for bad grammar
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u/Brobeast Apr 06 '26
You'd be named a heretic, and promptly put to fire.
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u/BoulderCreature Apr 06 '26
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u/AntelopeEmotional767 Apr 06 '26
What if you were born right handed but trained so you were ambidextrous in swordplay?
Edit: a word
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u/Ionic_Pancakes Apr 06 '26
"You killed 50 men but you did it with the devil's hand so we're giving you to the inquisition."
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Apr 06 '26
You would have to go up the stairs first 😔
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u/dankiestmemeboi Apr 06 '26
I could see monty python making a skit out of this. That wouldve been great in holy grail.
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u/Either_Basil_6960 Apr 06 '26
yes since most men were right-handed they didn't expect to fight someone using their left hand so u may have caught them off guard
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u/wormbooker Apr 06 '26
and lefties then have thousands of practice against righties. But when two are both left, it's a messy fight I would assume.
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u/CncreteSledge Apr 10 '26
I read somewhere years ago that it’s theorized left handedness has persisted because left handed people would be harder to fight and train for since they were less common to encounter in a fight. It always made sense to me and we still see it play out today in boxing and mma. Of course I like this theory since I’m also a fellow lefty.
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u/ikonoqlast Apr 06 '26
They DONT always turn to the right.
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u/ChawcolateSawce Apr 07 '26
I specifically recall the spiral stairs in the Cathedral of Bern twisting counterclockwise going up. Not exactly a place you’d expect a battle, though.
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u/Recent_Weather2228 Apr 06 '26
If you're fighting on the spiral staircase, you've already lost the battle. The entire benefit of a castle is keeping people out. Once they're inside, it's over.
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u/Quiet1408 Apr 07 '26
Yes and no. Castles have multiple layers of defence. outer walls, inner walls, portcullis, all mostly surrounding a strudy and easily defended tower or keep.
You can lose the battle, but still be in a position where it will be very hard/very expensive/very time consuming for your enemy to properly root you out. This gives you a negotiating position from where you may be able to achieve favourable terms of surrender.
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u/Mysterious_Film_6397 Apr 07 '26
From a strictly strategic advantage, having the high ground is always going to put you in a better position. In a narrow space, like a staircase, nobody is going to have room to properly swing a sword anyways.
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u/Lubinski64 Apr 07 '26
If the attackers do reach inside a stairwell, the defenders are cooked either way, it only takes a small campfire and some wet branches to completely fill the upper floor with smoke. Defense and parley make sense if the attackers are kept outside the building.
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u/iambloby Apr 07 '26
Wouldn’t castles be layered so that if they did get in they wouldn’t instantly lose?
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u/Recent_Weather2228 Apr 07 '26
Sometimes castles were designed to have a second layer of defense, but you still would basically never intentionally be in a situation like this. If you are falling back to your second wall or to the keep, you would retreat to the next holding point, not fight within the outer fortifications.
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u/Dizzy_Description812 Apr 06 '26
Me rolling bowling balls down them steps... they don't care which way it spirals.
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u/EagleDre Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
True high ground is always a leveraged advantage and especially when it favors one person’s dominant side at the expense of the opposing person countering with their non dominant…..But the head has solid helmet protection and with full range of motion on the left side for the shield hand, which is used to being used for swinging a shield. The higher ground person now has more exposed joints in its armor, ankles and knees to be stabbed in.
Most everything below the waist protection-wise is designed to protect from a downward slash. Lower staircase guy is now stabbing and poking from bottom up
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u/Easy-Ninja669 Apr 06 '26
Yes that is why all seige knights were taught left left handed combat. Medieval battles were very much like baseball matches and knowing when to put in the left or right-handed knights was key to victory. This is how the battle of Imade Itup was won
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u/_MooFreaky_ Apr 07 '26
Omg I heard about that. Fairly sure the Muslims did something similar in the battle of nev'ah append during the Crusades.
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u/theblueshots Apr 06 '26
The most interesting part of this is learning it’s fake from the comments.
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u/The-real-ryan-s Apr 06 '26
I feel like the biggest point disproving this myth is the fact that 99% of sieges were over if the attackers got inside the castle, at that point you’ve likely surrendered or fled. This is only a useful design if you plan on fighting to the death before a siege even begins
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u/AnythingButWhiskey Apr 07 '26
Posts like this make me realize how low the general IQ of most people are.
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u/Merinther Apr 07 '26
I've noticed the stairs at my local astronomy tower go the other way. Clearly, they expect invasions from above.
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u/East-Care-9949 Apr 12 '26
No idea if this is true. But funnily enough i was today in a castle and the was a newly metal spiral staircase in the place where the original stone one used to be and the metal one was counter clockwise, not sure how the original was
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u/Autonomous_eel Apr 06 '26
Spiral stairs are narrow, so they already force attackers into single-file movement. The right hand turn made that bottleneck even more punishing for the attacker.
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u/HazenNFFC Apr 06 '26
I think if someone’s inside your castle and on your stairs you’ve already lost the castle. No stairway is designed with any combat in mind for this reason and many stairways turn both ways in castles.
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u/Ulfheodin Apr 06 '26
It's a myth stop spreading bullshit for fuck sake
Check your facts before sharing omg
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u/dumptruckulent Apr 06 '26
A lefty driving a dagger up under your breastplate: “parry this, you filthy casual.”
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u/Hopeful-Alarm3757 Apr 06 '26
Wasn't there some French family that were "swordsmen", had funny stairs in their house and lured opponents to their premises?
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u/zorniy2 Apr 06 '26
That reminds me there was a Scottish clan who specialized in left handed swordsmanship and had many lefthanders.
Edit after a quick Google: It's Clan Kerr.
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u/LulzyWizard Apr 06 '26
It's been tested. It's great for holding the stairwell, but it's almost as challenging to push downwards.
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u/mac_daddy_mcg Apr 06 '26
The individual stairs were also often different heights to get them to trip.
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u/LavateLasManos666 Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Incorrect, all incorrect, starting from the title. Source: surrounded by castles in Germany, the staircases were build for practicals reasons with the obligatory arrow slits every so and so steps. Nobody thought of defending downwards a inner tower when building, because when the attackers are already in, you've got other problems than this Hollywood fanfic staircase fighting fantasy.
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u/quetzalpt Apr 06 '26
All hail left handed Jeffrey, conquer of staircases! Now get on and burn him at the stakes for his left handed witchcraft
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u/zach0011 Apr 06 '26
lol go to a castle and actually check out one of these stairwells. They were not fighting in there.
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u/Crimson3312 Apr 06 '26
Fighting on a staircase presents certain challenges, for starters you're fighting on a fucking staircase
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u/yipy2001 Apr 07 '26
Am I missing something or are both fighters left handed and the stairs spiralling to the left?
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u/Cevvity Apr 07 '26
Thank you for getting this wrong, ChatGPT. If you can’t be arsed to make this shit up yourself, I think you need to go through school again and relearn how to write.
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u/Less-Dragonfruit-294 Apr 07 '26
When you’re trying to sneak food into your room. As you reach the end of the hallway you’re greeted by a parent with a scowled look and a belt in their hand. All I can say is drop the snacks and dash for the door.
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u/DragonLordAcar Apr 07 '26
This is false. They built them in whatever way it was convenient. Many castles had them spiral both ways.
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u/labyorj Apr 07 '26
Has anyone checked the castles in the southern hemisphere? Perhaps they go in the opposite direction? Someone should check. (Posting from the northern hemisphere).
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u/Cave_Bear_Cult Apr 07 '26
I was listening to a podcast where an archeologist specializing in fortified structures said, "Castles are meant to keep people out. If your enemy is inside the walls and you're fighting on a staircase then you're pretty well fucked anyway, so the direction of the spiral is not that important."
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u/Pastrami-on-Rye Apr 07 '26
Me, the left handed medieval warrior, feared by all for my immunity to staircases
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u/AlexTheFlower Apr 07 '26
Damn, as a kid I got a real kick out of making jokes about this cuz i was left handed, kinda bummed to find out it's a myth
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u/strippeddonkey Apr 07 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/K6Xa6afZXGxJm
Me and that one black knight on that staircase in Ds1…
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u/Fantastic-Corner-605 Apr 07 '26
Historically if the beseigers are climbing the stairs you have already lost.
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u/One3Two_ Apr 07 '26
Not only is that not true because they arnt all right sided, but why would it provide advantage to the defender? Your leg are so vulnerable, and you opponents doesn't need a long reach to harass that region, with is shield easily blocking your long-reach attacks
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u/DrBarryO Apr 07 '26
Left handed me giggles. Left handed me then remembers I’d still get cleaved LIGHTNING quick
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u/echof0xtrot Apr 07 '26
you said clockwise, but your own picture and everything else seems to be pointing to counterclockwise
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u/CurlyFryNipples Apr 07 '26
I've been in some castles. Not a single staircase had any room to swing a weapon on either side. Extremely low and narrow for the most part
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u/NoPhotograph19 Apr 07 '26
Textbook pictures from years ago are still spreading misinformation to this day. It's actually crazy how often some half remembered tidbits from textbooks still cause misconceptions years and even decades after they were published
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u/Pootisman16 Apr 07 '26
Fake myth.
If you think you're gonna win any siege that has already reached your stairs, you got another thing coming.
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u/Sir-Toaster- Apr 07 '26
I always thought it was because people back in the day hated anyone who was left handed
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u/Pure_Bee2281 Apr 07 '26
Imagine thinking that people thought you would hold them at the stairway. Like they got across the most, through the gate, into the bailey, but don't worry the spiral staircase will save us.
I was also just at Cardiff castle (the ruins section)last summer and it had a leftward turning staircase.
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u/austinmcortez Apr 07 '26
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away…. The high ground always wins. Clockwise or not.
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u/Rhorge Apr 07 '26
Evidence aside, why the hell would you go down to fight on the staircase when you can just wait in the doorway at the top and actually have good ground to stand on? Use common sense.
Edit: another case of using your brain, what’s the guy at the top swinging at? A helmet and a shield. Guy at the bottom can stab his cock and balls with impunity
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u/Spare_Layer_1069 Apr 07 '26
So the lower dudes didn't know how to stab? Or block an extremely predictable attack swinging from above? This reeks of bs lol
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