battlement

9th cent. BC relief of an Assyrian attack on a walled town with battlements

Drawing of a tower battlements.

Cutaway diagram of a tower of Château de Pierrefonds showing its three levels of battlements.

The medieval Torre dei Guattari in Asti (northern Italy), showing Ghibelline crenellation.

A battlement (also called a crenellation) in defensive architecture such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e. a short wall), in which portions have been cut out at intervals to allow the discharge of arrows or other missiles. These cut-out portions form crenels (also known as carnels, embrasures, loops or wheelers). The solid widths between the crenels are called merlons (also cops or kneelers). Battlements often have openings between the supporting corbels, through which stones or burning objects could be dropped on attackers; these are known as machicolations. A wall with battlements is said to be crenellated or embattled. Battlements may have protected walkways (chemin de ronde) behind them.

The term originated around the 14th century from the Old French word batailler, "to fortify with batailles" (fixed or movable turrets of defence).

The Palais des papes in Avignon shows characteristic battlements.

Islamic style battlements in the Alcazaba of Almería.

Artists impression of the battlements at Buhen fortress in Egypt about 1800BC

History

Battlements have been used for thousands of years; the earliest known example is in the palace at Medinet-Abu at Thebes in Egypt, which allegedly derives from Syrian fortresses. Battlements were used in the walls surrounding Assyrian towns, as shown on bas reliefs from Nimrud and elsewhere. Traces of them remain at Mycenae in Greece, and some ancient Greek vases suggest the existence of battlement. Battlements are present in the Great Wall of China.

The Romans used low wooden pinnacles for their first aggeres (terreplains). In the battlements of Pompeii, additional protection derived from small internal buttresses or spur walls against which the defender might place himself so as to gain complete protection on one side. In the battlements of the Middle Ages the crenel comprised one-third of the width of the merlon: the latter, in addition, could be provided with arrow-loops of various shapes (from simply round to cruciform), depending from the weapon to fire. Late merlons permitted fire from the first firearms. From the 13th century the merlons, moreover, could be connected with wooden shutters that provided added protection when closed. The shutters were designed to be opened to allow fire backwards against the attackers, and closed during reloading.

Loop-holes were frequent in Italian battlements, where the merlon has much greater height and a distinctive cap. Italian military architects used the so-called Ghibelline or swallowtail battlement, with V-shaped notches in the tops of the merlon, giving a horn-like effect. The normal rectangular-shaped merlons were later nicknamed Guelph^{[citation needed]}. In Muslim and African fortifications the merlons often had a rounded shape.

The battlements of the Arabs had a more decorative and varied character, and continued from the 13th century onwards not so much for defensive purposes as for a crowning feature to their walls. They appear therefore in the same light as the cresting found in the Spanish renaissance. Similarly, European architects persistently used battlements as a purely decorative feature throughout the Decorated and Perpendicular periods. They not only occur on parapets but on the transoms of windows and on the tie-beams of roofs and on screens, and even on Tudor chimney-pots.

A further decorative treatment appears in the elaborate panelling of the merlons and that portion of the parapet walls rising above the cornice, by the introduction of quatrefoils and other conventional forms filled with foliage and shield.

See also

• merlon

Notes

References

• Balestracci, D. (1989). "I materiali da costruzione nel castello medievale". Archeologia Medievale (XVI): pp. 227-242. 
• "Hierarchism in Conventual Crenellation". Medieval Archaeology 26: pp. 69-100. 1982. 
• Luisi, R. (1996). Scudi di pietra, I castelli e l’arte della guerra tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Bari. 

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