#46619
11/03/2001 11:18 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46620
11/04/2001 1:28 AM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
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.
|
|
|
#46621
11/04/2001 1:32 AM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.htmlhttp://hexalon.com/hhr/construction.htm[/url
[url]www.oldcastleshop.com/glossary1.htm
|
|
|
#46622
11/04/2001 1:38 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
An allure is...?
A barbican is...?
A garderobe?
A sally-port?
(DeeDee, torchère is the word you're looking for.)
|
|
|
#46623
11/04/2001 1:49 AM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46624
11/04/2001 1:54 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46625
11/04/2001 9:18 AM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Actually, the term for the torch holders that I've always understood was used is "sconces". FWIW
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
#46626
11/04/2001 11:47 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46627
11/05/2001 2:36 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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
|
|
|
#46628
11/05/2001 2:47 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
|
|
|
#46629
11/05/2001 3:04 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46630
11/05/2001 3:20 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46631
11/05/2001 3:54 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
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
|
|
|
#46632
11/05/2001 5:50 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46633
11/05/2001 10:49 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46634
11/05/2001 11:31 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46635
11/06/2001 12:41 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46636
11/06/2001 12:50 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46637
11/06/2001 1:37 AM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
...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.)
|
|
|
#46638
11/06/2001 11:30 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46639
11/06/2001 11:42 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46640
11/06/2001 3:13 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
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!  
|
|
|
#46641
11/06/2001 6:43 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
not to mention the water closet
|
|
|
#46642
11/06/2001 7:13 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
And on the sidewalk it's "gardeloo!"
|
|
|
#46643
11/06/2001 9:17 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
[people who might be inclined to look up 'gardeloo' will have more luck with the normalized version 'gardyloo']
|
|
|
#46644
11/06/2001 10:33 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46645
11/07/2001 7:58 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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
|
|
|
#46646
11/07/2001 8:02 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
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.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
#46647
11/07/2001 8:12 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46648
11/07/2001 8:22 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
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)
|
|
|
#46649
11/07/2001 11:12 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear tsuwm: your interpretation makes sense.Now, how about the etymology of 'hoarding" in this connection?
|
|
|
#46650
11/07/2001 11:29 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
|
|
|
#46651
11/08/2001 2:56 AM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>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.
|
|
|
#46652
11/08/2001 11:12 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
(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. :-)
|
|
|
#46653
11/08/2001 12:37 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
And you're suggesting, Jackie, that Q & A doesn't go off topic? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! 
|
|
|
#46654
11/08/2001 2:11 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
#46655
11/10/2001 2:08 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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...
|
|
|
#46656
11/10/2001 4:40 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
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?
|
|
|
#46657
11/10/2001 4:41 PM
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
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
TEd
|
|
|
#46658
11/10/2001 5:00 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
hi teD! I was editing whilst you were... editing.
|
|
|
|
|
