let's see, there's the bailey, the barbican, the barbizan, the bastille, the courtyard, the drawbridge, the dungeons, the gloriette, the oubliette, the tower, the water-gate....

...not to mention the crenelations on the battlements.

Dear WW: I hope these glossaries do not spoil your game. I could not think of more than a couple names. You might pick out some entries in thes glossaries to comment on.

What I typed into Yahoo! Search box: English castle structural terms
There is a considerable degree of duplication. One term I looked for and did not find is ?crenellation? the structures on the battlements that give archers protection while aiming arrows

http://www.castlesontheweb.com/glossary.html


http://hexalon.com/hhr/construction.htm[/url

[url]www.oldcastleshop.com/glossary1.htm

An allure is...?
A barbican is...?
A garderobe?
A sally-port?

(DeeDee, torchère is the word you're looking for.)

Speaking of torchère's, I bought a lovely standing lamp with a halogen quartz light that was called (what's is a name?) a torchiere. It blew up and set my kitchen on fire. If I hadn't been there, the house would have burned down.

Actually, the term for the torch holders that I've always understood was used is "sconces". FWIW

machicolation .

1 an opening in the floor of a projecting gallery or parapet, between the supports or corbels, or in the roof over an entrance, through which hot liquids, heavy stones, etc. could be dropped by the defenders of a fortress
2 a gallery, parapet, etc. with such openings

http://www.m-w.com/mw/art/battleme.htm

http://www.inlandregion.org/SCA/misc/castle-parts.html

Dear tsuwm: The illustration was very nice. But the machicolations pictured appear to differ from the dictionary definition of holes in a floor of overhanging projection. Actually the ones in the illustration look more useful.

I have not seen many pictures of castles with moats. I wonder how they kept the moat full, unless a nearby brook could be diverted. Castles were sometimes located on small islands to make them hard to attack. But more often they were on high places which are easiert to defend. Of course an abundant xource of stone was essential. And building them on a big rock meant they could not be undermined.But a well had to be available where enemy could not get control of it in a siege.

bill, the def. which goes with the illustration, from MW10, reads something like this:

an opening between the corbels of a projecting parapet or in the floor of a gallery or roof of a portal for discharging missiles upon assailants below -- see BATTLEMENT illustration

Dear tsuwm: Sorry I missed that bit of text. It does make a lot more sense than the dictionary definition I quoted. The openings shown would be much more useful.

http://www.finelot.com/pages.php3/114 Sorry it makes the screen go wide.

Dear WW: the above has a lot of pictures and text about English castles. As a small fee for providing it, please tell me what in hell a "gloriette" is. I saw the pictures, but could not tell what it was.

...and here's what the Professor (or was it the Madman) thought about gloriette: Hist. [a. F. gloriette. Cf. Sp. glorieta.] A highly decorated chamber in a castle or other building. Also attrib.

?a1500 Obituary in Willis Monastery Christ Ch. Canterb. (1869) 107 note, Edificavit turrim quandam, cameræ Prioris vocatæ La gloriet contiguam.] 1839 Longfellow Hyperion i. vi. (1865) 30 Rodolph's ancient castle, with its Gothic gloriette and fantastic gables. 1884 Athenæum 13 Sept. 330/3 Besides an Oriel or a ‘Gloriet’ Tower, a mediæval castle contained many a ‘cruel habitation’

I had pictured something like a crude palace inside the castle walls. have we mentioned the keep? (also known as the donjon, to distinguish it from the modern sense of dungeon.)

I wonder how the latrine definition in my post above this one came to mean wardrobe...???

This is mere speculation, of course, but it does seem from the latrine description to be somewhat like what we call a closet in North America. Which serves the same purpose a wardrobe does in Europe. Hmm, maybe when castles got modernized facilities all the ladies, princesses, etc., looked at the garderobes, thought if they got their servants to sterilize them they could have a few more inches of closet space!

not to mention the water closet

And on the sidewalk it's "gardeloo!"

[people who might be inclined to look up 'gardeloo' will have more luck with the normalized version 'gardyloo']

Dear tsuwm: take a look at the description of "machicolation" in paragraph below, and see if you think it could have referred to some kind of mortar cement.

In the 13th century, defense changed from passive to active with the additions of lofty towers,
crenellations, merlons, hoardings, alures, parapets, arrow slits, and machicolations. Hoardings, also
known as bretêches, were walkways projecting out from the edge of a tower or wall with holes or
doors in the floor in order to afford the defender the opportunity to drop offensive materials (missiles,
molten lead, pitch) onto the attackers below. Machicolations (from the French machi = melted matter
+ coulis = flowing) were stone equivalents to bretêches.

http://www.manitoulin-link.com/medieval/castles.html#construction

I think you've just got to put it all down to usage. Originally, most of the castles didn't have anything resembling toilets, but they did have storage cupboards built into the walls. There were latrines for most people, usually just longdrops within the bailey with a plank which fitted all comers. This was shifted as the holes, um, filled up. The fortunate occupants of the keep used buckets and the "lucky" servants got to carry them out and empty them into the latrine in the morning (for the lords and ladies). The men-at-arms and servants within the keep had to shift for themselves - perhaps the bucket brigade again.

Later on, castles were designed slightly differently so that the garderobes were extended out from the walls and became latrines. In fact, Edward I, from memory, specified that this should be so, and he was the champion castle-builder. Usually they were on the outside walls and in many castles the strategic vents were located directly over the moat. I don't know what happened where there was no moat, presumably it just hit the ground and ... er ... decomposed over time.

Some sieges were broken when dysentery and probably hepatitis broke out within the beseiged castle. It isn't difficult to speculate that the sanitary arrangements within the castle walls, primitive at the best of times, became overloaded and broke down completely during sieges.

So the alcoves kept their name - garderobe - while the usage changed or, at least, some garderobes may have retained their original function while others became privies. That's all there is to it, really.

When I see the word "Louvre" I think of the beautiful palace museum in which so many art treasures are displayed. I was surprised to find that a thousand years ago it referred to a hole in the roof of the castle through which smoke escaped, because chimneys had not been invented. Chaucer is quoted as saying that smoke in the house was one reason for men leaving home.
I wonder when the chimney was invented.

Hoardings, also known as bretêches, were walkways projecting out from the edge of a tower or wall with holes or doors in the floor in order to afford the defender the opportunity to drop offensive materials (missiles, molten lead, pitch) onto the attackers below. Machicolations (from the French machi = melted matter + coulis = flowing) were stone equivalents to bretêches...see if you think it could have referred to some kind of mortar cement.

bill, the way I read it, the 'flowing melted matter' refers to what was dropped as opposed to the makeup of the stucture. (if that's what you're asking)

Dear tsuwm: your interpretation makes sense.Now, how about the etymology of 'hoarding" in this connection?

>how about the etymology of 'hoarding" in this connection?

good question. it's a different word, from the noun hoard which, for lack of a better description, is something akin to scaffolding.

1875 Parker Gloss. Archit., Hourd, Hoard, Hoarding, boarding used for protection...A term in military architecture for the wooden gallery, protected by boarding in front, which was thrown out from the surface of the wall in time of war, to enable the defenders to protect the foot of the wall.

(I'm glad this is Miscellany and not Q & A, so I can go off-topic a bit.)
After some digging, Dr. Bill, I found out that I was right--the link you gave is indeed from Manitoulin Island, a lovely Canadian spot in Lake Huron. Thanks for reviving the memory of a great camping trip. :-)

And you're suggesting, Jackie, that Q & A doesn't go off topic? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

And I don't remember anything about that island. But if it made you happy, Jackie, I'm glad I did.
I checked, and it is the largest fresh water island in the world.

From Mrs. Byrne:

enceinte n. -- 1. pregnant. 2. the main enclosure of a fortress. 3. a fortified town.

...so, here's a chicken and egg situation. Did the adjective for pregnancy precede the fortification or vice versa?

Not that an enceinte is part of a castle, but close enough and not worth starting a thread over...

windup,

I haven't LIU for this case, but it should be mentioned that Josefa doesn't differentiate between homonyms but rather just lumps 'em all together under one headword.

edit - well, they do rate separate headwords, at least as noun and adjective, but it seems they also are cognates related to the 'gird' concept; one being 'to gird' and one being 'ungirt'. maybe...

enceinte - n. [Fr.; f. on late L. type *incincta, f. ppl. stem of incingere to gird, surround closely.]
An enclosure; chiefly in Fortification

enceinte - a. [Fr.; = Pr. encinta, Sp. (written as two words) en cinta, It. incinta: —late L. in-cincta, explained by Isidore (6th c.) as ‘ungirt’, f. in- negative prefix + cincta, pa. pple. of cingere to gird.
[Others explain the word as the pa. pple. of incingere to put a girdle on, gird (the It. and Pr. forms of this verb being used for ‘to render pregnant’), or as phrase (late L. *in cincta = in cinctu) in a girdle. See Diez and Scheler.]
Of women: Pregnant. †privement enseint (legal AF.)


so if you buy pregnant as being ungirt, this is kinda, sorta enantiodromic, no?

Enceinte for pregnancy comes from in-cincta, from in- prefix meaning not and cingere, to be bound. Referring, most likely to the wearing of loose clothes to either be comfortable or to veil the fact of the pregnancy.

enciente as a fortification means engirdled, from the verb incingere: to gird or surround closely.

Hree's one of those words that in effect has two opposing meanings.

Good catch, Dub-Dub

Ted the First

hi teD! I was editing whilst you were... editing.

On a Lady's Girdle "give me what this girdle bound, take all the rest the sun goes 'round"

PS. A slight misquote. See http://netpoets.com/classic/068003.htm

Allure - Walkway along the top of a wall.
It would be interesting to know how this word acquired its current meaning.

Bill:

interestingly, there is only a tenuous connection, if any at all, between the verb allure, meaning to entice, and the noun allure, meaning a place to walk. The latter is from an earlier word alure, an old French word for a gait or a way of walking. There's a connection to the word alley as well as to aisle.

the verb allure comes from the term lure, used in falconry, and when I saw that my mind immediately lept to alure as a high place on which to lure a falcon. Doesn't seem to be the case.

TTF

wwh: Jes' 'cuz I'm procratinating, here's a broad speculation with n'er a twit of truth in it...

To lure is to attrack and trap.

So, the allure was that walkway up high where some whistler would whistle a happy tune. The enemy would sneak up to take a shot at the decoy on the wall, and kaboom! Down would fall the machicolations and machinations and whatever those Machiavellian missiles and hot metals you and tsuwm were writing about.

Sometimes they'd even let a damsel strut on the allure with a cone on her head from which a wispy veil would wrestle seductively with the wind. The sneaky rascals, intoxicated with her seeming beauty, would creep up and kaboom!!! Down would fall again the molten metals and even some offal from the garderobe.

Over time, the defense-turned-offense purpose of the allure got all mixed up with that damsel, and the verb was born.

To allure became, not only to pull into machicolations, but also to pull on the heart strings.

All's fair in love and war, and sometimes the two become one.

WW

Hmmmmm, Ted, there would be some provocative gaits that would be alluring and luring up there on that allure, yes?

Alas, in those days they did not have primrose paths.

I used to think "down the garden path" meant preliminary to seduction. Interestingly, apparently this is not necessarily so; http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/3/messages/256.html

This reminds me of the occasion when Captain Uhuru was told to go straight to headquarters without stopping off for a scheduled R&R on the planet Allure, which was noted for the sexual favors regularly bestowed upon starship crews.

When the crew found out, they were ready to mutiny. Uhuru explained that he would have to put it into the log, at which the crew responded, "Tour Allure, Uhuru, tour Allure and lie."

Dear TEd: without spoiling your Irish lullaby, I remember Uhura, an Afro-American beauty, who had beaucoup allure. I watched only a few Star-Trek programs. When did the lady undergo gender change?
That alone would have been grounds for mutiny .

Bill:

As you can tell I am even less a trekkie than art thou.

TTF

Dud-dub tells us, "Sometimes they'd even let a damsel strut on the allure ... seductively." Is said damsel termed the "allurette", as in the old french song, "allurette, gentile alleurette"?

I remember Uhuru, an Afro-American beauty, who had beaucoup allure.
a few points:

1) As I recall, Lt. Uhuru was notable for having beaucoup allures.

2) Bill, granted that the Lt. was of the feminine ilk, but why would you consider that said fact renders inapt TEd's reference to her wishing a sojourn on the planet Allure?

3)I believe the name "Uhuru" was chosen as being the swahili word for something-or-other. Can anyone help?

Dear Keiva: In early Star-Trek episodes, there was feminine Uhura. You have changed spelling.
In some of the sites I found, there was Uhuru apparently male in later episodes. Maybe the lady got nice and went up on her price, and a bargain basement male got her job.

"Uhuru" is Swahili for "freedom".

Well, Keiva, I'll be an ayleurette if I can twirl fire, an obsession of mine from high school days...

Oh, that was majorette... Forget it.

Naughty Majoretta??

Wordwind: What about the portable towers that attackers moved into place against the castle walls to bridge the allure? They must have a name. Those towers turned the tables on the allure ... making them a whole lot less 'alluring', wouldn't you say?

>They must have a name.

were they called anything other than 'siege towers'?

I read somewhere that HumptyDumpty represented such a siege tower being overthrown by defenders.

I had it a bit garbled

t is believed that Humpty Dumpty was the name given to a narrow-barreled squat cannon mounted on top of
Saint Mary's Church, near the Balkerne Gate and Jumbo water tower, as part of the town's defences. Humpty
Dumpty received a direct hit by a cannon ball fired from Parliamentarian forces, lead by Sir Thomas Fairfax.
He was attempting to breach the town's defences in pursuit of its Royalist captors, lead by Sir Charles Lucas
and Sir George Lisle.

Falling to the ground, along with a large section of the church's tower, Humpty Dumpty lay in pieces

actually, my favorite room of a castle is the oubliette --sometimes i think every house should have one.. a little room for forgetting.. some excavation of 'castles' in england found evidence that one oubliette was in use right up to 1830! Now days they would be perfect for door to door vendors! too bad we can't confine telemarketers to them too!

With no sanitary facilities the oubliettes had to have an unforgettable aroma. And dear Helen, be sure you have the key. Indefinite droit du seigneur might become tiresome.

be sure i have the key? from what i know about oubliettes, they didn't need a key.

these little rooms of forgetting, of oblivon, were dudgeons of the worst kind. a small room, (usually in a remote part of the castle) entered, when someone stepped on a trap door, that let them fall, 8 to 20 feet into a small room. even if they didn't break legs or arms in the fall, there was no way out, no window, nothing.. (sometimes, to make them more effective, the floor was covered with metal spikes.. the trap door was sealed, the floor covered with carpet, and everyone just "forgot" . in one oubliette, among the many bones was found a coin dated 1830, and a man's gold watch. mind you, they could have just fallen in at some time, san the owner.. but any information about the room was forgotten..

an oubliette was not like the gardarobe! it was much worse!

What about the portable towers that attackers moved into place against the castle walls to bridge the allure? Plutarch

Now this description is food for thought about how and of what such devices were wrought...

Light materials? Pine? And how high? At least it sounds as though the movers would have had some protection if they moved from within...

Hope to read more about this. It makes me think of Macbeth and that movable woods...

wwh: Fascinating reading about Humpty Dumpty the Dumped Hump of a Cannon...

Best regards,
Wumpty

About attacking castles. I wonder if Shakespeare in MacBeth:"he will never be defeated until Great
Birnam wood shall come against him to High Dunsinane Hill" may not be first mention in literature of camouflage.

In reply to:

---

first mention in literature of camouflage

---

That honour surely goes to the contraption which put a stop to the little fracas our esteemed New Yorker was the cause of.

Bingley

Dear Bingley: you baffle me. Since Shakespeare antedated New York considerably, how could any New Yorker claim priority? And I can think of no New Yorker who could be a candidate.

wwh: Hint: ofTroy and Hint: Ancient Wooden Pantomime Horse containing an army of actors....

Dear WW: If you are suggesting the Trojan Horse was an example of camouflage, that seems to be stretching the term pretty far. Camel flagging may be older than Macbeth, but I don't remember mention of it. I'm not even sure why it was important for the numbers of besiegers to be concealed, except to be a hint the weird women had been deceitful.The options of the defenders were limited, they could not send for re-inforcements. The basic purpose of camouflage is to escape detection. but can be extended to deception. such as building phony targets for enemy airforce to bomb. The Trojan Horse has some similarity to that

>Indefinite droit du seigneur might become tiresome.

Once a king, always a king, but once a knight is enough.

And an egg a day is an oeuf.

It was the Trojan horse I was thinking of. But then after I posted I started having doubts about whether it was camouflage or just a deception and what the difference would be. And what is camel flagging?

Bingley

Dear Bingley: "Camel flag" was WWI American soldier attempt to read French camouflage. Hors d'oevres were horse doovers. They thought "elle est chérie" referred to an anatomical structure.
After thinking a while, it came to me that the Trojan Horse was a form of decoy, a deception to entice enemy into danger or make some other error. Israelis used unmanned planes as decoys to entice Syrian ground-to-air missile sites to fire, revealing their location to Israeli planes. The Soviets dropped toys for Afghan children to pick up, which then exploded. The word "decoy" has come a long way from Dutch word for trap for ducks.