A bridge castle (german: Brückenburg) is a type of castle that was built to provide military observation and security for a river crossing. In the narrower sense it refers to

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

s that are built directly on or next to a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

. Sometimes, however, castles close to a bridge are referred to as bridge castles. These fortifications were often designed as

toll castle Toll may refer to: Transportation * Toll (fee) a fee charged for the use of a road or waterway ** Road pricing, the modern practice of charging for road use ** Road toll (historic), the historic practice of charging for road use ** Shadow toll, ...

s that charged river tolls and were occupied only by a guard force. In Europe, several examples of bridge castles have survived, especially in the south and southeast of the continent. The bridge castle type—which is only rarely mentioned in detail in the specialist literature—is not always clearly distinguishable from the "fortified bridge". In medieval Europe, numerous river crossings were protected by tower structures and

outwork An outwork is a minor fortification built or established outside the principal fortification limits, detached or semidetached. Outworks such as ravelins, lunettes (demilunes), flèches and caponiers to shield bastions and fortification curtains ...

Examples

The largest preserved bridge castle is the rectangular edifice of

Valeggio sul Mincio Valeggio sul Mincio is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Verona in the Italian region Veneto, located about west of Venice and about southwest of Verona. It is crossed by the Mincio river. The economy is mostly based on agriculture ...

(

Province of Verona The Province of Verona ( it, Provincia di Verona) is a province in the Veneto administrative region of Italy. On its northwestern border, Lake GardaItaly's largestis divided between Verona and the provinces of Brescia (Lombardy region) and Trenti ...

, North Italy). In the

Late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the Periodization, period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Eur ...

Gian Galeazzo Visconti Gian Galeazzo Visconti (16 October 1351 – 3 September 1402), was the first duke of Milan (1395) and ruled the late-medieval city just before the dawn of the Renaissance. He also ruled Lombardy jointly with his uncle Bernabò. He was the foundi ...

ordered the construction of a mighty bridge fortress under the four-winged inner bailey of the local castle between

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

and

Lake Garda Lake Garda ( it, Lago di Garda or ; lmo, label=Eastern Lombard, Lach de Garda; vec, Ƚago de Garda; la, Benacus; grc, Βήνακος) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, about halfway between ...

. The bridge fort lies about in height below the

hill castle A hill castle or mountain castle is a castle built on a natural feature that stands above the surrounding terrain. It is a term derived from the German ''Höhenburg'' used in categorising castle sites by their topographical location. Hill castles ...

. Three gateways were linked by curtain walls to 14

demi-bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...

s. The

gate tower A gate tower (german: Torturm) is a tower built over or next to a major gateway. Usually it is part of a medieval fortification. This may be a town or city wall, fortress, castle or castle chapel. The gate tower may be built as a twin tower on ...

below the hill castle is of a strikingly weak design. The living rooms of the guards were in the central gateway. This gateway barred access to the crossing in a similar way to the rear gateway with a massive crossbeam. The

Germans' Gate The Germans' Gate (french: Porte des Allemands ) is a medieval bridge castle and city gate in Metz, France. It is "a relic of the medieval fortifications, with two 13th c. round towers and two gun bastions of the 15th c." It is a ''monument histori ...

across the Seille river in

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

is the last bridge castle found in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The bridge castle displays

fortified towers A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

battlement A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

s, and

machicolation 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 t ...

s. The German's Gate dating from the 13th century played a crucial defensive role during the Siege of Metz in 1552–1553 by Emperor

Charles V Charles V may refer to: * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise * Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) * Infan ...

. Bullet impacts coming from the

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...

s during the assaults still can be seen on the facade. The

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty ...

double tower gate on the Roman bridge across the

Volturno The Volturno (ancient Latin name Volturnus, from ''volvere'', to roll) is a river in south-central Italy. Geography It rises in the Abruzzese central Apennines of Samnium near Castel San Vincenzo (province of Isernia, Molise) and flows southeas ...

Capua Capua ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. History Ancient era The name of Capua comes from the Etrusc ...

, Italy, is classified as a bridge castle.

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen Frederick II (German: ''Friedrich''; Italian: ''Federico''; Latin: ''Federicus''; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerus ...

built here a representative "state building" as the gateway to the

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ( it, Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1860. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and a ...

, whose surviving ruins give little indication of its former importance. The famous bridge castle of

Stari Most Stari Most ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Stari most, Стари мост, Old Bridge), also known as Mostar Bridge, is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina that crosses the river Neretva and connects the two ...

Mostar Mostar (, ; sr-Cyrl, Мостар, ) is a city and the administrative center of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the historical capital of Herzegovina. Mostar is sit ...

(

Bosnia-Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...

) was partly destroyed in 1993 by Bosnian-Croatian troops, but later rebuilt. Originally, around 1450, two great

fortified tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with curtain walls. Castle towers can have a variety of different shapes and ful ...

s on both sides of the river guarded a suspension bridge, which was replaced in 1566 by a stone arch bridge.

Fortified bridges

A typical example of a fortified bridge is the

Pont Valentré The Pont Valentré () ( oc, Pont de Balandras; en, Valentré Bridge) is a 14th-century six-span fortified stone arch bridge crossing the river Lot to the west of Cahors, in France. It has become a symbol of the city. After the decision was made ...

near

Cahors Cahors (; oc, Caors ) is a commune in the western part of Southern France. It is the smallest prefecture among the 13 departments that constitute the Occitanie Region. The main city of the Lot department and the historical center of the Quer ...

(

Midi-Pyrénées Midi-Pyrénées (; oc, Miègjorn-Pirenèus or ; es, Mediodía-Pirineos) is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Occitania. It was the largest region of Metropolitan France by are ...

) in

Southern France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...

. The site is almost totally preserved apart from the eastern

barbican A barbican (from fro, barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer fortifications, defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe ...

( fortified gate) which was removed in the 19th century. In Germany and Central Europe only ruins of bridge fortifications have generally survived. Usually there are only the individual gate towers, for example as on the Stone Bridge in

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...

and the

Charles Bridge Charles Bridge ( cs, Karlův most ) is a medieval stone arch bridge that crosses the Vltava river in Prague, Czech Republic. Its construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the early 15th century.; The ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Sources

G. Ulrich Großmann Georg Ulrich Großmann (29 November 1953) is a German art historian. He was general director of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. Life Born in Marburg, Großmann studied art history, European ethnology and Christian archaeology at ...

: ''Burgen in Europa''. Regensburg, 2005, p. 220–223. {{Fortifications Castles by type Stone bridges