Dungeon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is about European castles. For other uses see Dungeon (disambiguation)
The dungeon of Bothwell Castle seen from the Great Hall
The dungeon of Bothwell Castle seen from the Great Hall

A dungeon (derived from the Old French donjon, from the Latin dominus, "lord"), in its original medieval usage, was the keep, the main tower of a castle which formed the final defensive position the garrison could retreat to when outer fortifications were overcome. It was the strongest, or only, tower in the Castle. There were no windows in the lower part of the tower in order to strengthen the walls. The dungeon was a safe, if not comfortable, place to keep prisoners and was used mainly for this purpose, once more luxurious housing for the lord of the castle was constructed. An example is found at Bothwell Castle. Also see: Keep

Its meaning has evolved over time to also mean an underground prison or vault, typically built underneath a castle. Although many real-life dungeons are simply a single plain room with a heavy door or with access only from a hatchway or trapdoor in the floor of the room above, the use of dungeons for torture, along with their association to common human fears of being trapped underground, have made dungeons a powerful metaphor in a variety of contexts.

In 1613 Anton Praetorius described the terrible situation of the prisoners in the dungeons in his book Gründlicher Bericht über Zauberei und Zauberer (Thorough Report about Witchcraft and Witches). He was one of the first to protest against all means of torture.

 This article related to a type of room in a building is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../d/u/n/Dungeon.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.