Couldn’t an enemy army just march around the castle and take all of the unfortified farmland/resources? Also couldn’t a castle just be sieged out until the defenders starve?
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Medieval governments was basically colonization by mafia like biker (ok horse) gangs. A squad of thugs would trot over to the next town and fight the locals and take over, take food, crafts, women as taxes. The Duke, or ‘don’ would live lavishly while the people barely scraped by, or starved. Walls and such defenses were more to prevent this than to fend off major armies. Larger towns with big walls would build storage rooms and cisterns for food and water, if besieged they would gather nearby residents and burn the fields, so the attacking army would have to struggle to feed the troops. Napoleon attempt to take over Russia was thwarted not by direct confrontation but by scortched earth for miles around and then picking off the hunting parties.
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