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Machicolations (PSF)
A machicolation (french: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall. A smaller version found on smaller structures is called a box-machicolation. Terminology The structures are thought to have originated as Crusader imitations of mashrabiya. The word derives from the Old French word ''machecol'', mentioned in Medieval Latin as ''machecollum'', probably from Old French ''machier'' 'crush', 'wound' and ''col'' 'neck'. ''Machicolate'' is only recorded in the 18th century in English, but a verb ''machicollāre'' is attested in Anglo-Latin. Both the Spanish and Portuguese words denoting this structure (''matacán'' and ''mata-cães'', respectively), are similarly composed from "matar canes" meaning roughly "killing dogs", the latter word being a slur referring to infidels.Ville ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be Boundaries between the continents of Earth#Asia and Europe, separated from Asia by the drainage divide, watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural (river), Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machicolations (PSF)
A machicolation (french: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall. A smaller version found on smaller structures is called a box-machicolation. Terminology The structures are thought to have originated as Crusader imitations of mashrabiya. The word derives from the Old French word ''machecol'', mentioned in Medieval Latin as ''machecollum'', probably from Old French ''machier'' 'crush', 'wound' and ''col'' 'neck'. ''Machicolate'' is only recorded in the 18th century in English, but a verb ''machicollāre'' is attested in Anglo-Latin. Both the Spanish and Portuguese words denoting this structure (''matacán'' and ''mata-cães'', respectively), are similarly composed from "matar canes" meaning roughly "killing dogs", the latter word being a slur referring to infidels.Ville ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penrhyn Castle (7374208000)
Penrhyn Castle ( cy, Castell Penrhyn) is a country house in Llandygai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, constructed in the style of a Norman castle. The Penrhyn estate was founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In the 15th century his descendent Gwilym ap Griffith built a fortified manor house on the site. In the 18th century, the Penrhyn estate came into the possession of Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn, in part from his father, a Liverpool merchant, and in part from his wife, Ann Susannah Pennant née Warburton, the daughter of an army officer. Pennant derived great wealth from his ownership of slave plantations in the West Indies and was a strong opponent of attempts to abolish the slave trade. His wealth was used in part for the development of the slate mining industry on Pennant's Caernarfonshire estates, and also for development of Penrhyn Castle. In the 1780s Pennant commissioned Samuel Wyatt to undertake a reconstruction of the medieval house. On Pennant's death in 1808, the Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoarding (castles)
A hoard or hoarding was a temporary wooden shed-like construction on the exterior of a castle during a siege that enabled the defenders to improve their field of fire along the length of a wall and, most particularly, directly downwards towards the bottom of the wall.Hull, Lisa E (2006)''Britain's Medieval Castles'' Praeger Publishers, (p. 67) The latter function was the purpose of the invention of machicolations, which were an improvement on hoardings, not least because masonry is fire proof. Machicolations are also permanent and always ready for a siege. It is suspected that hoardings were stored as prefabricated elements in peacetime. Construction of hoardings was often facilitated by putlog holes, sockets that were left in the masonry of castle walls for wooden joists called "putlogs". However, some hoardings were supported on permanent stone corbels. Some medieval hoardings have survived, including examples on the north tower of Stokesay Castle, England, and the keep of L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birkirkara Tower
The Birkirkara Tower ( mt, Torri ta' Birkirkara), also known as Għar il-Ġobon Tower ( mt, Torri ta' Għar il-Ġobon), is a tower in Birkirkara, Malta. Its date of construction is not known, but it is believed to date back to around the mid or late 16th century. History The tower was built for defensive purposes in the inland areas of Malta in the early periods of the Order of St. John. In the 17th century the tower was aided with the building of another tower, the Tal-Wejter Tower, to better facilitate communication with Floriana. The tower was included on the Antiquities List of 1925. It is now scheduled as a Grade 1 national monument by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, and it is also listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. Architecture Birkirkara Tower has a square plan, and its roof is surrounded by a high parapet wall. The latter contains six box machicolations; [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain's Tower
Captain's Tower ( mt, Torri tal-Kaptan) is a tower in Naxxar, Malta. It was built sometime after 1548 by the Order of Saint John. Today, the tower is in good condition. History The Captain's Tower was built by the Order of Saint John to house the captain of the Naxxar militia. It was built during the tenure of Jean Parisot de Valette, after the Order of St. John unsuccessfully tried to requisition the nearby Gauci Tower in 1548. The Captain's Tower is one of the earliest Hospitaller fortifications in Malta. The tower's design is similar to the Gauci Tower as well as earlier Hospitaller towers in Rhodes. The tower consists of a square plan with three floors. It contains a number of box machicolations, and a ''columbaria'' which housed carrier pigeons to relay messages to Mdina or Valletta. The tower and the house built with it were used as a temporary hospital during the plague epidemic of 1675-6. The Captain's Tower lost most of its defensive value by the late 17th century, d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gauci Tower
Gauci Tower ( mt, Torri Gauci, it, Torre Gauci) is a tower in Naxxar, Malta. It was built before 1548 by the Gauci family. Today, the tower is in good condition. History Gauci Tower was built sometime before 1548 by Francesco Gauci to protect his family from corsair raids. Construction cost a total of 400 scudi. In 1548, it was requisitioned by the Order of Saint John, who ruled the Maltese Islands, to house the Captain of the Naxxar militia. Gauci petitioned against this move, and the tower was returned to him on 16 May 1548. Eventually, the Order built the nearby Captain's Tower to house the Captain of the militia. The tower is quite small, and it has a square plan, with its lower half being slightly more pronounced. A number of box machicolations are located at the crest of its high parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' ('' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cavalier Tower
Cavalier Tower ( mt, Torri tal-Kavalier), also known as Qrendi Tower ( mt, Torri tal-Qrendi) or Captain's Tower ( mt, Torri tal-Kaptan), and previously as Ellul Preziosi Tower ( mt, Torri Ellul Preziosi), is a tower in the town of Qrendi, Malta. It was built in the late medieval or early Hospitaller period, and it is one of the oldest surviving towers in Malta. History No records exist on the date of construction of Cavalier Tower. It was possibly built in the late medieval period, when Malta was still part of the Kingdom of Sicily. If this is correct, it would be the only surviving medieval tower in Malta, apart from the ruins of a circular tower in Xlendi. Other historians believe that the tower was built in the 16th or 17th century by the Order of Saint John. It is situated near a 16th-century property, built in 1585. In the 17th century, the tower and residence were modified, when the tower lost most of its defensive architecture. Cavalier Tower was named as such since it hou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies south of Sicily (Italy), east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The official languages are Maltese and English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language. Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others. With a population of about 516,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's tenth-smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knights Hospitallers
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1291, on the island of Rhodes from 1310 until 1522, in Malta from 1530 until 1798 and at Saint Petersburg from 1799 until 1801. Today several organizations continue the Hospitaller tradition, specifically the mutually recognized orders of St. John, which are the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John, the Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John, the Order of Saint John in the Netherlands, and the Order of Saint John in Sweden. The Hospitallers arose in the early 12th century, during the time of the Cluniac movement (a Benedictine Reform movement). Early in the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is a unitary republic that consists of 14 governorates (subdivisions), and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including the majority Syrian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Albanians, and Greeks. Religious groups include Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis. The capital and largest city of Syria is Damascus. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Château De Farcheville
The Château de Farcheville is a 14th-century castle in the '' commune'' of Bouville near Paris in the ''département'' of Essonne. The castle was built between 1290 and 1304, by Hughes II de Bouville and Hugues III, Lords of Farcheville and Bouville. The Château de Farcheville is a rare example of rural, open–filled castle of the medieval period. The great hall was built in 1291 and the castle chapel was consecrated in 1304. Both father and son were chamberlain to Philip IV of France. The structure possesses a rare northern French example of arched machicolations on buttresses, more characteristic of military architecture in the Languedoc. The castle passed to the family of Châtillon in the fifteenth century. In 1990 film producer Jean Chalopin, owner of the property from 1989 to 2006, began a project to restore the Château. The castle was once owned by Yellowstone Club founders Edra and Tim Blixseth. Following the Blixseth's 2009 divorce and bankruptcy, the castle was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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