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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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...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.)
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