>>64444334
Big castles were like Green Zones and FOBs. Little castles were like fire bases or OP/LPs.
A hardened manor would have been for a baronet and his squad of commoner knights to watch a border, important road, or productive farms/mills/whatever, and to store things taken in tax before sending it up the chain to a more important noble in a bigger castle. It would have protected them from being murdered in their sleep by thieves, angry peasants, enemy raiders, or that asshole over the hill in his own manor who keeps trying to rustle your cattle when he thinks nobody will notice.