What is a covered battlement?
A battlement is an extremely strong wall built to defend a city or castle from enemies while providing cover to defensive troops.
What was the purpose of the battlements?
The function of battlements in war is to protect the defenders by giving them something to hide behind, from which they can pop out to launch their own missiles.
What is a battlement in a castle?
Definition of battlement
: a parapet with open spaces that surmounts a wall and is used for defense or decoration.
What are battlements called?
A battlement is the upper walled part of a castle or fortress. It’s usually formed out of a low, narrow wall on top of the outermost protective wall of a fortress or castle. The word ”battlement” traces to an old French term that means tower or turret, and the original use of battlements was for protection.
What is the difference between a parapet and battlement?
The Battlement or Crenellation
Also called crenellation, a battlement is really a parapet with open spaces for the castle-protectors to shoot cannons or other weaponry. The raised portions of the battlement are called merlons.
What is the difference between battlements and crenellations?
Crenellation is a feature of defensive architecture, most typically found on the battlements of medieval castles. A battlement is a low, defensive parapet. The act of crenellation is the cutting of crenels into a previously solid and straight parapet wall.
What is a notched battlement?
Battlement definition
A notched parapet built on top of a wall, with alternating merlons and crenels for decoration or defense. noun. A parapet with open spaces for shooting, built on top of a castle wall, tower, or fort.
What is a Crenelle?
(ˈkrɛnəl ) or crenelle (krɪˈnɛl ) noun. 1. any of a set of openings formed in the top of a wall or parapet and having slanting sides, as in a battlement.
What are the holes in castle walls called?
An embrasure is the opening in a battlement between the two raised solid portions, referred to as crenel or crenelle in a space hollowed out throughout the thickness of a wall by the establishment of a bay. This term designates the internal part of this space, relative to the closing device, door or window.
What is a Crennel?
Crenels are rectangular gaps or indentations which occur at regular intervals along the parapet, usually measuring 2-3 ft wide. Merlons are the solid widths between the crenels, usually measuring 4-5 ft wide and 3-7 ft high.
What is the difference between Castellations and crenellations?
As far as I understand, crenellations refer specifically to fortifications featuring crenels (gaps in the parapet), whereas castellations refer to castle-like fortifications in general or the act of fortifying something like a castle. So a fortification can be castellated but not crenellated, if it lacks crenels.
What is a crenellated parapet?
(countable, uncountable) A pattern along the top of a parapet (fortified wall), most often in the form of multiple, regular, rectangular spaces in the top of the wall, through which arrows or other weaponry may be shot, especially as used in medieval European architecture.
Why do castle gates open inwards?
This type of opening was flared inward, that is the doorway was very narrow on the outside, but wide on the inside, so that the archers had free space of movement and aiming, and that the attackers have as much difficulty as possible to reach them. There are embrasures especially in fortified castles and bunkers.
What do you call windows in a castle?
Hi susanna – usually the outer walls of the castle or fortress don’t really have “windows” but small openings, usually for arrows or other weapons. These are called “arrowslits” or “embrasures.”
What is a Castelation?
Definition of castellation
1 : the act of castellating. 2 : a castellated structure. 3a : battlement. b : a groove or recess in a castellated structure (as a nut) a cotter pin passing through the castellation and the hole in the bolt.
What are the small windows in a castle called?
An arrowslit (often also referred to as an arrow loop, loophole or loop hole, and sometimes a balistraria) is a narrow vertical aperture in a fortification through which an archer can launch arrows or a crossbowman can launch bolts.
What is the small door in a castle gate called?
wicket gate
A wicket gate (sometimes referred to as a wicket door) is quite simply, a small door or gate within a larger door or gate that people are able to pass through.
What is a meeting room called in a castle?
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing.
What are the holes in a castle called?
An embrasure is the opening in a battlement between the two raised solid portions, referred to as crenel or crenelle in a space hollowed out throughout the thickness of a wall by the establishment of a bay.
What is the meaning of crenellations?
Definition of crenellation
1 : battlement. 2 : any of the embrasures alternating with merlons in a battlement — see battlement illustration.
What are the slits in castle walls called?
What is a Barbican in a castle?
A barbican (from Old French: barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes.
Why do castle doors shod iron?
They are the oldest castles doors in Europe and were covered in iron plates to make them impregnable to battering and fire.
How did toilets work in castles?
The toilets of a castle were usually built into the walls so that they projected out on corbels and any waste fell below and into the castle moat. Even better, waste went directly into a river as is the case of the latrines of one of the large stone halls at Chepstow Castle in Wales, built from the 11th century CE.
What was a bedroom called in medieval times?
Bed chambers are now known as bedrooms. Latrines have become lavatories and bathrooms. Halls have morphed into entrance halls and dining rooms have taken over one of their main functions. Solars, Cabinets and Boudoirs have become sitting rooms, libraries and dressing rooms.