Decadence of wooden castles in Medieval Lithuania

ENAmong other European countries, Lithuania is distinguished for her late wooden castles, which can be found here up to the early 15th century. Their long survival can be explained by warfare with the Teutonic Order, which had intensified by the late 14th century, and probably, by low economical and technical capacity of the state, which made an obstacle for construction of brick castles. The letter have appeared in Lithuania since the 14th century, but nevertheless, the exact dates of their construction remain unknown. At the beginning of the 15th century, there were 11 brick castles in the ethnic Lithuania (Kaunas, Liškiava, Medininkai, Senieji Trakai, Trakai Peninsular castle, Trakai Island castle, Vilnius (all in Lithuania); Hrodna, Krėva, Lida, Navahradak (all now in Belarus), whereas only the written historic sources provide information on at least 64 wooden castles of Lithuania of the late 13th to 14th century. And there are at least twice that much of nameless hill-forts - former locations of wooden castles, which failed to be mentioned in the written sources. All this network of wooden castles has decayed by the end of the Middle Ages, without being replaced by modern brick castles. Moreover, the network not only failed to be replaced, but the entire system of settlements went through a substantial change: in most cases the locations of old wooden castles were deserted, whereas new settlements and towns emerged away from them. [p. 156].