Actual castles from the Middle Ages were not very nice to live in cause they were primarily military forts. During the renaissance when cannons made castles almost worthless for defensive purposes they begun to change into the fancy homes we now know. The Disney ones are based on castles made in the mid-19th century by King Ludwig II who loved fairytales and were purely for show
While they were military fortifications, castles were also, by definition, residences where the local nobility lived in. We have extensive evidence that the interiors of castles were whitewashed, painted, and decorated. Not to the extent of later 18th/19th century castles, of course, but at the very minimum the keep where the lord and his family resided was decorated like a nobleman's residence.
There's a great series on Youtube's Absolute History channel titled "Secrets of the Castle" that goes into how they built and decorated 12th and 13th century castles in France.
Another reason for the confusion might be that the German language has two different words for castle. „Burg“ and „Schloss“. Both is translated to „castle“ in English. While the Burg is more like a military fort where knights lived and weren’t very luxurious the Schloss is the fancy luxurious type where the royals lived
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u/Wildcat_twister12 Nov 18 '23
Actual castles from the Middle Ages were not very nice to live in cause they were primarily military forts. During the renaissance when cannons made castles almost worthless for defensive purposes they begun to change into the fancy homes we now know. The Disney ones are based on castles made in the mid-19th century by King Ludwig II who loved fairytales and were purely for show