Palas

The great hall was used mainly in the summer, because it was difficult to heat, whilst in winter the cabinet (Kemenate) was the preferred living room.

Most castles had chapels, sometimes outside the walls, occasionally over a gateway..."[3] The palas first appeared as a type of building in imperial palaces or Pfalzen, where they could accommodate the king's hall or aula regia.

In this room public acts of state took place under the direction of the king, for example imperial court sessions, the administration of justice or the reception of secular and religious dignitaries.

From the second half of the 12th century in the Holy Roman Empire the Romanesque palas was also part of the architecture of a number of castles of the higher nobility.

Amongst the persistent legacies of "castle science" is the habit of applying the term palas not only to those Romanesque halls, whose earliest examples are to be found in the imperial palaces (Pfalzen), but to apply it to every habitable building within a castle, regardless of size, spatial subdivision, formal design or development time.