The Artifact: Boiling Tar and Murder Holes

In this episode of STBYM’s The Artifact, Robert discusses the meurtrière or “murder hole” found in the ceiling of a a fortress’s gateway or passageway -- and what you might push through it...

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
this is the Artifact. A short form series from Stuff
to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas,
and moments in time. There's nothing quite like a good
siege sequence in a fantasy or historic motion picture. As

(00:25):
those within a castle or walled city defend themselves against
incursion from the army encamped just beyond their fortifications, each
side employs various tactics, clever and cruel, to turn the
tide of battle. These include the use of fantastic siege
engines and siege towers on the part of the besiegers,

(00:45):
while the besieged have the benefit of their existing fortification.
One of the key advantages of the besieged is that
you wouldn't have to waste arrows on enemy soldiers trying
to batter down the door. You wouldn't even need to
mess with burning oil, as military historian Dr bred C.
Devereaux points out in his excellent blog A Collection of

(01:07):
Unmitigated Pedantry in a critique of the Siege of Gondor.
In two thousand threes, film adaptation of the Return of
the King. Burning oil was used historically, but boiled water
and sand were cheaper choices, and nothing lands quite as
well as a rock turned via gravity into a murderous weapon.
Fortresses were even designed with special apertures through which to

(01:29):
drop such objects on the enemy. The mertry air or
murder hole was found in the ceiling of a fortress's
gateway or passageway. He created a psychological threat to any
enemy that might pass underneath it, as well as a
very real means of dropping things on the enemy. Fortress
walls featured similar apertures. Maticulations looked roughly like stone cabinets

(01:53):
affixed to the outside of a fortress, and they gave
defenders a protected place from which to drop all manner
of terrifying and deadly things on the besiegers. For attackers,
these holes were quite difficult to fire arrows into, but
as renaer ats Back points out in the legend of
hot tar or pitch as a defensive weapon, the use
of both sorts of murder hole declined during the fifteenth

(02:15):
and sixteenth century parallel to the spread of hand firearms.
It simply became all too easy for the besiegers to
swiftly and more accurately fire back up. The whole Xbox
chiefly discusses the use of boiling tar, however, and concludes

(02:36):
the high temperature and the production of non porable pitch
in the heating process would have made its use quite difficult,
and they conclude that the rise of tar and feathering
as a means of public torture and punishment may have
fostered the legend of its use as a widespread defensive weapon.
Far better and simpler to simply drop rocks through your

(02:57):
murder hole. Again, gravity is generally on the side of
whoever holds the high ground in a siege, a situation
quite similar to the idea of orbital superiority in interplanetary war.
If one were to besiege an entire planet, the gravity
advantage would be reversed. An orbital attacker wouldn't have to
rain nuclear weapons down on the enemy planet. All they

(03:19):
need is mass telephone pole size tungsten rods, captured asteroids,
or even spare ship parts could be dropped in a
kinetic bombardment. Such tactics would create nuclear weapons style impacts.
Without nuclear weapons style fallout, high ground may be difficult
to overcome, but as Devereaux points out sieges were ultimately

(03:42):
a contest of collective will quote. Far more cities and
castles were taken by surrender or else by betrayal than
were ever taken by storm. Tune into additional editions of
the artifact each week. As always, you can email us

(04:03):
at contact it's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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listen to your favorite shows.