What is the trench that surrounds a castle?
What is the trench that surrounds a castle? Moat refers to a deep, wide trench surrounding a medieval castle, and maybe a city wall or other fortification, that is usually filled with water.
What do you call a tower or stronghold in a castle?
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 walkway on a castle wall called?
Article Talk. A chemin de ronde (French, round path' or patrol path; French pronunciation: [??m?~ d? ??~d]), also called an allure, alure or, more prosaically, a wall-walk, is a raised protected walkway behind a castle battlement.
What is a plinth on a castle?
Batter (Plinth) The angled lower part of a tower or wall. Missiles dropped from the top of the towers or wall onto the plinth cause them to richochet horizontally into the attackers doing more damage. Plinths also strengthened the bases of the towers or walls and also made it harder to undermine them.
What was the weakest point of a castle?
The entrance to the castle was always its weakest point. Drawbridges could be pulled up, preventing access across moats. Tall gate towers meant that defenders could shoot down in safety at attacks below. The main gate or door to the castle was usually a thick, iron-studded wooden door, that was hard to break through.
What is the area around a castle called?
In medieval castles, the area surrounded by a curtain wall, with or without towers, is known as the bailey. The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site.
What do castles have around them?
Outer Defenses The moat -- a large ditch or trench surrounding the outer castle wall -- was a castle's first line of defense. The moat could be filled with water or dry (a dry moat could have been lined with wooden spikes). It usually had a drawbridge across it that was drawn up when the castle was under attack.
Were moats filled with sewage?
It turns out that those fairy tales you read as a child all left out a very important truth: The moats that surrounded medieval castles weren't just useful defenses against attack; they were also open sewers into which the castles' primitive waste disposal systems flushed human excrement and other foul substances.
What is a castle balcony called?
In medieval fortification, a bretèche or brattice is a small balcony with machicolations, usually built over a gate and sometimes in the corners of the fortress' wall, with the purpose of enabling defenders to shoot or throw objects at the attackers huddled under the wall.
What are the ridges on a castle called?
Castle Battlements and Parapets The raised sections of the battlement were known as merlons and the lower parts were called crenels. Crenels, sometimes called embrasures, were regularly spaced gaps in the castle battlement. Castle defenders could take protection behind the merlons and fire arrows from the crenels.