No, Medieval Staircases Weren’t Designed to Give Right-Handed Defenders an Advantage

Chances are, if you have ever visited a medieval European castle or read about such castles online, you have probably heard that newel staircases in these castles were intentionally always designed in the form of a clockwise spiral to give the most space to the right-handed defenders at the top of the stairs to draw and swing their swords while simultaneously restricting the space available to the right-handed attackers attempting to ascend the staircase.

This is something that tour guides often tell people visiting castles. It is also one of those “fun facts” that are often repeated on the internet. Unfortunately, for reasons I am about to explain, it is also almost certainly wrong; there is no compelling evidence to suggest that medieval staircases were intentionally designed this way for this reason and there is a great deal of evidence to suggest the opposite. A far more parsimonious explanation is that the majority of staircases were designed clockwise simply so that a right-handed person could keep their right hand on the wall for balance while descending the staircase under everyday circumstances.

No documentation

The first problem with the claim that spiral staircases in medieval castles were deliberately designed to give right-handed defenders an advantage is that there are no extant medieval primary sources that expressly say this. The claim is based on nothing but modern speculation.

This lack of documentation is not, of course, especially surprising on its own, since there are very few surviving medieval primary sources that discuss castle design in any kind of detail, and, on its own, it certainly does not automatically prove that medieval staircases were not designed to spiral clockwise as a defense mechanism. Nonetheless, when a claim is based solely on speculation and significant counterevidence against it exists (and, in this case, I will argue that it does), it should generally be discarded.

They don’t always go clockwise…

The second major problem with this little factoid about medieval staircases is the fact that, contrary to what tour guides and factoid-sharers on the internet keep saying, medieval staircases don’t always go clockwise. In fact, here is a study published by the Castle Studies Group that found over eighty-five examples of counter-clockwise newel staircases from castles in England and Wales dating from the 1070s to the 1500s.

The study concludes that, while counter-clockwise newel staircases are indeed relatively rare in castles built in England and Wales during the Norman Period (lasted c. 1066 – c. 1204), they are far from unheard of. For instance, Norwich Castle, built by William the Conqueror shortly after the Norman conquest, and Newark Castle, built around sixty-four to seventy-four years after the conquest, both contain counter-clockwise newel staircases. Counter-clockwise staircases become significantly more common in Edwardian English and Welsh castles from around the 1240s or thereabouts onward and remain common throughout the later periods of medieval history.

In other words, newel staircases in medieval English and Welsh castles are far from consistently clockwise and, in fact, counter-clockwise staircases are actually fairly common.

ABOVE: Photograph of a counter-clockwise newel staircase in the northeast corner buttress of Norwich Castle, dating to shortly after the Norman conquest

ABOVE: Photograph of a counter-clockwise newel staircase from the gatehouse of Newark Castle, dating to between c. 1130 and c. 1140

ABOVE: Photograph of the counter-clockwise newel staircase from the wall-walk of Clifford’s Tower from York Castle, dating to between c. 1245 and c. 1262

ABOVE: Drawing from 1906 of a counter-clockwise newel staircase dating to the late fifteenth century from the Château Blois

Could someone even realistically fight in a medieval stairway anyway?

The third problem with this claim about medieval staircase design is that, quite frankly, it would have been extremely impractical for anyone—attacking or defending—to try to fight in most newel staircases of medieval castles. Most medieval stairways are extremely precipitous and confined. The steps are all extremely tiny with very little room for a person to stand and, in most cases, simply no room for a person to swing a weapon of any significant size in either direction. Many of these stairways originally had no hand railings of any kind either.

If someone tried to stage a fight in the newel staircase of a medieval castle, then, in all likelihood, everyone involved would be struggling the whole time not to fall to their deaths. The defenders would be especially at a disadvantage in this regard, because, if one of them were to slip or make a false step, then they would fall directly toward the attackers. The attackers would, of course, be at a disadvantage as well, but they at least wouldn’t have to worry about falling toward the people they were fighting.

In other words, medieval newel staircases were clearly not intentionally designed with fighting ease in mind.

ABOVE: Photograph of the extremely steep, narrow staircase of the northwest corner buttress of the Norman keep of Goodrich Castle, constructed between c. 1148 and c. 1152. This staircase does not look like it was designed to be fought in.

The slight problem of the defenders already being toast

The fourth and final problem with the whole factoid about castle stairs always spiraling clockwise for the sake of defense is that designing a newel staircase to give right-handed defenders a minor advantage would have been, quite frankly, pretty useless.

The primary objective of castle defense was to prevent attackers from entering the castle in the first place. In medieval castles, newel staircases mainly occur connecting important sections of the keep. If the attackers had already breached the defenses, were inside the keep, and were charging their way up the stairs with all their armor and weapons, that basically meant that the outcome of the battle was already decided; the attackers had won and the defenders had lost. The castle was already taken and the defenders would have no place left to flee.

At that point, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference whether the defenders happened to have a little bit more space to draw and swing with their right arms because they were toast anyway. The best option for the defenders at that point would be to surrender and hope that the attackers deal with them mercifully.

ABOVE: Illustration from a manuscript of Froissart’s Chronicles dating to around the year 1400 depicting an assault on a medieval castle. The goal of a castle was to keep attackers out. If the attackers were in the castle and coming up the stairs, it was too late for a defense.

Why clockwise?

At this point, readers may be wondering why the majority of medieval newel staircases are clockwise if it is not for defense. Unfortunately, the medieval primary sources don’t give any explicit explanation, so it is impossible to know the answer for certain. The hypothesis that I think is most probable, however, is that it most likely has to do with everyday safety and practicality.

As I mentioned earlier, most medieval staircases are very steep with narrow steps and no handrails. I think that the most likely reason why medieval staircases are usually clockwise is because this allows a right-handed person to keep their hand on the wall for balance while going down the staircase. This is not a hypothesis that I have personally come up with, but it is one I have read and that I happen to think is most probable. It certainly seems far more plausible than the explanation about people fighting on staircases.

Whatever the case may be, the claim about staircases being clockwise for defense purposes belongs in the same category as other architectural misconceptions, such as that one about vomitoria being places for vomiting.

ABOVE: Photograph of the primary vaulted clockwise newel staircase from the White Tower of the Tower of London