Languedoc   Introduction   Things to See   Things to Do   Holidays   Languedoc Life   Getting There   Property   History   Cathars   Geography   Weather   More Info 
Become lord of the Manor... Rent a Chateau in France!
 

Cathar Wars - Medieval Warfare - Towers, Keeps (Donjons) and Curtain Walls

 

Towers come in numerous varieties and serve several purposes. Here we will look at the following:

  • The Keep (Donjon)
  • Towers and Curtain walls
  • Battlements & Hourds
  • Eschauguettes

 

 
a classic Motte & Bailey - this one has a moat

 

The Keep or Donjon

The Keep (donjon) at Puivert

 

An old and simple system is the Motte and Bailey, familiar to many from school history lessons. A defensive tower built on top of a mound is surrounded by a fence and an outer ditch. The tower may be made of wood or stone and the mound may be natural or man-made. The motte is the mound, and the Bailey is the fence. A baileywick - "fenced-town" - was originally the area circumscribed by the bailey and controled by a Bailiff.

This Motte and Bailey model is recognisable at the forerunner of any catle or fortified town. The keep remains as a citadel and the baily becomes a surrounding wall or encient.

 

The Keep (donjon) at Pieusse- longing today like an elongated shed.

 

Cabaret (Lastours).
Incidentally, when castles fell out of use in Tudor times, they were often used as gaols (jails). The donjon in particular became associated with prisons, and the name became attached to places of imprisonment. This, combined with memories of seigneural and ecclesiastical torture chanbers, seems to be resonsible for the word donjon developing into the English word dungeon - no longer a tower, now a place of underground imprisonment.
The Keep (donjon) at Arques

 

Towers and Curtain Walls

Carcassonne - an external view of a tower

The Romans discovered that walled fortresses were more easily defended if towers were built into the defensive walls. These towers made it easy to give covering fire for the walls.

Although the upper parts are later, the the Roman pattern is preserved in the inner wall or enceint at Carcassonne.

Left - a drawing of how it would have looked in Medieval times

Right - as they look today

 

Carcassonne - a tower viewed from inside the encient

 

   

 

Battlements, Hourds & Chemins de Rond

 

Castle and City walls were often crenalated - giving defenders cover when not firing on the attackers. The purpose of a hoarding was to allow the defenders to improve their field of fire along the length of a wall and, most particularly, directly downwards to the wall base. They were wooden structures build on the top of walls. Like all defensive wooden structures they were covered in fresh animal skins to keep them fireproof.
In peacetime, hoardings could be stored as prefabricated elements. In some castles, construction of hoardings was facilitated by putlog holes that were left in the masonry of castle walls.

Some medieval hoardings have been reconstructed - including the Chateau Comptal at Carcassonne.

Hourds were later replaced machicolations, which were an improvement on hoardings, not least because masonry does not need to be fire-proofed. Machicolations are also permanent and siege-ready.

We have a faint reminder of hourds in our modern hourdings - now used for advertising.

 
Walls with hourdings


Tower Hourds at Toulouse
Hourds at Carcassonne
Chemin de Ronde

 

 

Echaugettes

Echaugette on a wall

Not all towers reach down to the ground. some are built into walls, emerging from the curtain wall or from a corner.

Here are a couple of examples.

Echaugette on the corner of a building

 

 

 

Back.  Back to: the Papal Inquisition  Up  a level to the main Cathars page
Languedoc Home      About midi-france.info      Site Map      Links      Contact Webmaster      Copyright and Legal      Search site for: 
The Languedoc: property,holidays,climate,naturist beaches,wildlife,wines,history,geography and Cathar castles: the Languedoc Home Page
 Level 1 -  Languedoc Home Page: Languedoc climate & weather, holidays & vacations, tourism & travel, naturism and naturist beaches,property & accomodation, Cathars & cathar castles, food & wine, history & geography, French sports & games, mountains & and lakes, and everyday life in the Languedoc-Roussillon in the South of France.
 Level 2 - Click here to go back to the main Cathars Page.
 Level 3 - Languedoc website. You are at level 3.
 Level 4 - Languedoc links not available from here.
 Level 5 - Languedoc links not available from here.

Carcassonne
   


Medieval warfare