Editing Castle (section)

===Keep===
{{Main|Keep}}
[[File:Chateau-de-Vincennes-donjon.jpg|thumb|alt=A tall stone tower surrounded by a shorter square wall|The 14th-century keep of [[Château de Vincennes]] near Paris towers above the castle's curtain wall. The wall exhibits features common to castle architecture: a gatehouse, corner towers, and machicolations.]]
A keep was a great tower or other building that served as the main living quarters of the castle and usually the most strongly defended point of a castle before the introduction of [[#Innovation and scientific design (12th century)|concentric defence]]. "Keep" was not a term used in the medieval period&nbsp;– the term was applied from the 16th&nbsp;century onwards&nbsp;– instead "[[donjon]]" was used to refer to great towers,<ref>{{harvnb|Friar|2003|p=163}}</ref> or ''turris'' in Latin. In motte-and-bailey castles, the keep was on top of the motte.<ref name="Friar 214"/> "Dungeon" is a corrupted form of "donjon" and means a dark, unwelcoming prison.<ref>{{harvnb|Cathcart King|1988|p=188}}</ref> Although often the strongest part of a castle and a last place of refuge if the outer defences fell, the keep was not left empty in case of attack but was used as a residence by the lord who owned the castle, or his guests or representatives.<ref>{{harvnb|Cathcart King|1988|p=190}}</ref>

At first, this was usual only in England, when after the Norman Conquest of 1066 the "conquerors lived for a long time in a constant state of alert";<ref>{{harvnb|Barthélemy|1988|p=402}}</ref> elsewhere the lord's wife presided over a separate residence (''domus'', ''aula'' or ''mansio'' in Latin) close to the keep, and the donjon was a barracks and headquarters. Gradually, the two functions merged into the same building, and the highest residential storeys had large windows; as a result for many structures, it is difficult to find an appropriate term.<ref>{{harvnb|Barthélemy|1988|pp=402–406}}</ref> The massive internal spaces seen in many surviving donjons can be misleading; they would have been divided into several rooms by light partitions, as in a modern office building. Even in some large castles the great hall was separated only by a partition from the lord's chamber, his bedroom and to some extent his office.<ref>{{harvnb|Barthélemy|1988|pp=416–422}}</ref>