Machicolation: History and Significance

Machicolation: History and Significance John Harris

Villa Cafaggiolo, San Piero a Sieve, Mugello, Tuscany, by Michelozzo for Cosimo de Medici, c. 1430- 40

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Machicolation: History and Signifi- over be added much later by an imagina- cance tive restorer such as Viollet le Duc. For these reasons, it is difficult to be sure of Machicolation survived from the mid- the date of any machicolation we find and twelfth century to the beginning of the equally difficult to be sure that none ever sixteenth, a period during which society existed. Even greater problems apply to and methods of waging warfare changed hourds: the timberwork will have van- out of all recognition. Machicolation ished, the top of the wall may be missing changed too and its appearance mirrored or rebuilt and putlog holes may have been that of architecture in general. Following filled. Sometimes it is possible to compare its history takes us into interesting ques- details of remaining work and draw tenta- tions about the diffusion of ideas, whether tive conclusions from similarity or differ- its use had non-military significance, the ences, but dating from style is dangerous. dual military/domestic role of and André Châtelain reminds us that we have the importance of fashion, conspicuous to beware of confusing latrines and machi- consumption, amongst other matters. colation – not an entirely frivolous re- There is much confusion in the mark, since the design of one must have terminology and contradiction in the use influenced the other and if you can build a of words by different writers, but let’s latrine on a wall, you can build box mach- confine that to an endnote1. Such confu- icolation. But as he says, latrines are hard- sion should be no surprise and I shall stick ly ever built above openings in walls! to “machicolation.” The word “machicola- There has always been a particu- tion” is said to derive from the two Latin lar interest in examples of machicolation words maccare and collum, through the found in the Holy Land because of its ap- Provençal machaol and the Old French parent dateability, its early date and the machicoller, and roughly means “neck- long standing assumption that machicola- breaker,” which certainly fits with the idea tion (and so much else in mediæval cul- of dropping something heavy on to an en- ture) originated in the east and was emy’s head, especially while he is bending “brought back to by the Crusad- over, working at the wall below you. ers”– the theory which holds that ideas are 2 Machicolation includes meutrières – conceived only once and spread outwards murder holes - in the ceilings of entrance from their origin. Its fellow theory holds passages (which are not much discussed that in the early middle ages, the south and here) as well as overhanging structures on east were sophisticated and the north and buttresses or brackets at the top of walls. west brutish ignorant and unimaginative. The equivalent but not identical device The south and east were of course heirs to built in timber is known as hourds. Rome and Byzantium, with all that that Machicolation was typically built implies in terms of a continuity of ideas. at or near the top of walls and towers and Lawrence was very interested in machico- it is precisely these areas of castles that lation (about the only thing I have in com- have suffered most damage, from decay mon with him!) and he discusses all the and from deliberate razing, not to mention examples he finds on his tour of Outremer from works over the years intended to in “Crusader Castles”. His conclusions make the wallwalk safe for residents and about date and influence do not always tourists. Machicolation was also a device square with today’s ideas, but his enthusi- that could be added to an existing struc- asm is wonderful, his listing and now cen- ture for one reason or another during the tury-old descriptions are useful and original life of a castle and could more- apparently he showed his photographs to

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Lawrence comments that the use of stone equivalents of hourds in the may be the result of a lack of timber to ex- periment with or to build them the way the Crusaders had known hourds in Europe, assuming they had already existed. Nor can we assess the idea that the whole idea of machicolation was invented in the Mid- dle East, built in stone from the first, and adopted in timber as hourds in a less-so- phisticated Europe where there was abun- dant timber. It was not just the lack of timber, though, that made stone machico- lation a good idea in the east; fire used as a weapon and the need to shelter from the sun’s heat both made it preferable to tim- ber. It seems that the earliest form of machicolation that has survived is slot machicolation, also known as machicoulis sur arc and buttress-machicoulis. Kennedy talks of “some kind of machicolation or hourding at Saône and Margat before the Fig 1. . The north-west tow- end of the twelfth century,” but cites no er of the inner . evidence. There is a range of three of these slot , at Krak des Cheva- W R Lethaby, whose own opinions are liers, dating from soon after 1170, on the interesting. Hugh Kennedy, the author of NW tower of the inner circuit of walls (fig. another book entitled “Crusader Castles” 1). This tower was clearly felt to be partic- also has a great deal to say on the subject, ularly vulnerable because it is a salient and based on sounder and more modern re- could not be flanked by fire from any other search. tower. Indeed another range of machicola- There seems to be no really early tion was added later, higher up, to cope illustration or mention of hourds in the with this. Stephen Spiteri, on the authority historical period, either in the east or in of K A C Cresswell,4 illustrates an exam- Europe. Sidney Toy believed that the Hit- ple of slot machicolation from Ukhaidir tites and Assyrians had used hourds, bas- (now in Iraq,) dating from the late eighth ing this opinion on drawings dating from century. In Moorish Spain, there are in- as long ago as 1280 BC.3 The Romans and stances of double gateways that consist of Byzantines do not seem to have used ei- two separated planes with at least the po- ther hourds or machicolation, as far as we tential for a machicolation slot between the can tell, although in about 390, Flavius two. (Gormaz mid-tenth century, Toledo, Vetegius advocated the use of something perhaps eleventh century.5) Substitute a similar to douse fires lit against gates. If wall for the second gate and we have slot we cannot date the introduction of hourds, machicolation. Was such a double gateway it is hard to know whether they were in somewhere in Iraq the ultimate source of use in Europe before the earliest stone slot machicolation? machicolation was in use in the east. T E

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By 1197, slot machicolation simi- A simple form of box machicola- lar to that at Krak had been incorporated tion was found in pre-Muslim Syrian into the design of the donjon of Château (Dar Qita, 551,) according to Gaillard in an imaginative manner and with Stephen Spiteri, again quoting Cresswell. even more exciting architectonic effect Lawrence claims that on a round tower at than we have at Krak. In fact, it might be Banias, a Christian tower in his view be- more accurate to say that the donjon was cause it is round, dating from about 1160, designed around the machicolation, it is so there are stone brackets for machicolation, important to its final form.6 The fact that which he says are “of a distinct Provençal Château Gaillard was built by Richard I on or North Italian feeling,” claiming Letha- his return from the Third Crusade fits in by’s authority for this. He appears to be with the idea that slot machicolation was suggesting the existence of box machicola- first used in the east. Richard or someone tion in southern Europe before about 1150, in his circle would have seen Krak and un- spreading from there to the Middle East, derstood it. Whoever designed Château but he is dating by style and the brackets Gaillard was a formidably talented archi- seem since to have disappeared. Sydney tect, even if the castle has its well-known Toy is certain that Château Gaillard has flaws. the first example of machicolation (of any kind, according to him) in western Europe, Slot machicolation differs so but other examples may of course have greatly from any variant of bracketed-out been altered out of recognition, although machicolation that any idea that one the arcading or buttressing of slot machi- evolved into the other seems difficult to colation would have left some trace in the sustain. Building a number of arches from lower part of a wall. It does seem though, the ground up, supporting a wall at high that slot machicolation and some form of level forward of the main plane of the wall box machicolation both have middle-east- and with a slot between the two wall planes ern origins and have parallel histories. and moreover sloping back the rear wall, is quite a different thing conceptually, surely, There was rebuilding at Krak in from cantilevering out timber beams or 1202 after an earthquake and this work stone brackets from a wall and building included the installation of a range of box platforms on them, or building out project- machicolations on a curtain wall, accessed ing boxes. In building terms, it seems more from a within the thick- complex than the later versions. Slot mach- ness of the wall, below the wallwalk (fig. icolation was essentially a dead end7 and 2). Some towers (it is difficult to know there are relatively few examples to be how many) were also equipped with box- found except where it was incorporated es. Kennedy comments on the restricted into twin-towered , arching from space in these and wonders how they could tower to tower instead of buttress to but- ever be used. They incorporate an arrow tress where it became a standard part of the slit, so increasing the potential for horizon- design - a good example is at Chepstow. tal outward fire. In fact, trebling it – there But at Farcheville (Essone,) there is an en- is a further row of arrow slits below the tire curtain wall formed of a range of machicolation and further ones in the machicoulis sur arcs, apparently built in chemin de ronde. The whole arrangement 1291 and there are other examples. Law- is a formidable piece of integrated military rence identifies one built as a later addition design. They are roofed in stone and are between two pre-existing mural towers at practically identical to those on the gate- Niort. It is however, dramatic and threaten- way of the at Aleppo and seem to ing and it looks invulnerable. be the work of the same craftsmen who

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would be strange if the Hospi- tallers had not installed some- thing like it themselves, having done so at Krak. The box machicolations at Krak are spaced apart by about twice their width but they must be intended to cover the whole of the base of the wall. Whether their discontinu- ity results from a fear of weak- ening the wall (there is other evidence that this was a con- cern) or from some other de- sign influence is unclear. Each box does of course resemble the isolated machicolation of- ten situated over a door, espe- cially a door from a wall walk into a mural tower, what is known as bretèche in French, and perhaps early pragmatic examples of this were the mod- el. It is when used in limited precise locations like this that box machicolation became common and best known. At Athlit (a Templar castle) in 1218, gates in the outer curtain Fig 2. Krak des Chevaliers, remains of box machicolation on were defended by very simple the west wall of the outer enceinte. box machicolations and possi- bly as early as 1190, the gate- were Frankish, according to Kennedy, way at Margat had similar provision. from the evidence of the masons’ marks. “Who influenced whom?” Kennedy asks. A form of continuous machicola- This is an interesting complication of the tion was added to certain towers at Krak assumption of spread from east to west. after the Saracens took the castle in 1271, Possibly an eastern idea, but put into prac- apparently to towers rebuilt after having tice by westerners, apparently so well that been brought down by engines. This their skills are in demand by the heirs of presumably replaced boxes machicolation the original inventors. There are similar and we are entitled to assume that the builders thought this new design an ad- box machicolations at Margat, wonderful- 8 ly striped black and white, not on the cur- vance or improvement on the old. Once tain walls, but covering blind spots at the again, it is the “hidden” areas at the foot of base of the Tour d’Eperon. These seem to a tower that were of concern, such con- date from after the Saracens captured the cern, apparently, that the gaps left by box castle in 1285, but surely they are a re- machicolation had to be filled. According building of what had been there before – it to the illustrations “as restored” by Rey and Sauvageot, who saw the castle already

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Fig 3. Krak des Chevaliers from the north-east as it was in the 12-13th centuries. From Guillaume Rey: Étude sur les monuments de l'architecture militaire des croisés en Syrie et dans l'île de Chypre (1871). much damaged but before the ruination of of boxes abutting each other as on the tow- the inter-war years, this work took the ers at Krak. It has more in common with form of a series of one large annular box hourds and one can more easily imagine a with a stone , running round the outer stone wall equipped with timber hourds face of the tower below the , which developing into the best-known, fully de- is on the same plane as the wall below veloped form of machicolation when re- (fig. 3). Once again, the machicolation not constructed in stone and when the parapet only provides an opportunity to attack on the main wall line is omitted.9 someone at the foot of the wall, but also The idea of machicolation – push- multiplies the number of fighting levels. ing out a platform to allow active defence This is not the form that machicolation of the bottom of the wall - does seem to was generally to take in the west. come from the Middle East and examples Tom McNeill makes the point of slot and box machicolation of a very that machicolation proper involves the early date can be found in the Muslim moving forward the , world. It is at least possible, though, that and all, from the wallface, allowing hori- the idea having been brought back to Eu- zontal and vertical defence at the same rope, available materials and techniques, time. There is a temptation to see continu- simpler and cheaper possibly, local de- ous machicolation as a natural develop- mands and social structures led to its re- ment of the box type, and indeed there is a invention, initially in timber and later in definite sequence in time, but continuous stone. The threat of attack in northern Eu- walltop machicolation is not just a number rope was perhaps less than in the east, the

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the gateway was the point of greatest risk and often was the element of the castle with the greatest symbolic significance. It was here that permanent stone machicola- tion was most used and it less often formed part of a multi-layered scheme such as that at Krak. For the rest of the castle, the policy at first was one of cutting holes in the parapet for the main members of hourds and when building new castles, including putlog holes, perhaps with load- distributing padstones incorporated. In illustrations of the destroyed donjon at Coucy le Château (c.1228) (fig. 4), we see an interesting construction: per- manent stone brackets obviously designed to carry timber hourds, which presumably would be erected in time of threat. The access from the parapet to the hourds was in the form of arched doorways with what might have been arrow slits between them. This is not a crenellated parapet to which hourds might be added: it needs the hourds for the overall design to be defensively complete, although, as illustrated without them, the tower still looks finished and some use could be made of the arrow slits. There was an elaborate decorated course at the very top of the tower and the whole thing is a showpiece even without them. We might think of this a transitional stage in the development of hourds into stone machicolation, but it was certainly not be- yond Enguerrand III de Coucy’s means or capabilities to have built stone machicola- tions had he wanted to.10 So why didn’t Fig 4. Coucy, north-west tower. Reconstruction he? One explanation for this arrangement from Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture might be that there was a wish not to have française du XIe au XIe siècle, Viollet le Duc, machicolation in place permanently, hence 1856. the completed appearance of the was used as a home and administra- when without hourds. This might be so tive centre as well as a fortress and there that the castle can be a dwelling first and a was plenty of wood to experiment with. fortress only when absolutely necessary; The opportunities to rebuild and upgrade so that the family should not feel they were fewer, if only because there were were living permanently in a state of war. fewer earthquakes. Few castle-builders, In the east, the castles were manned not by even kings, were as rich as the military families but by orders of warriors and we orders in the east. In the north and west might argue that the castle there was a

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Fig. 5. Caldicot Castle, Monmouthshire. Donjon , early-mid 13th century, from the south. rather different thing. There was no psy- it take to set up hourds on a castle, even chological need to adopt a peaceful image. assuming that they were prefabricated and Threat was constantly present and perma- in store? Certainly less time if stone brack- nent stone machicolations were appropri- ets were already there, but probably longer ate, quite apart from considerations of than was safe in some circumstances. timber supply. A similar arrangement is An alternative theory to the one found elsewhere including at Bonaguil, suggested above might be that timber built some 250 years later. There, as a hourds were what Enguerrand actually concession to the risk of gunfire, the wanted for some reason and that they were brackets are particularly solid, but the more or less permanently in place. A sim- hourds were still timber. At Caldicot in ple æsthetic effect of contrast perhaps, be- Monmouthshire (mid-thirteenth century,) tween stone and timber? Coucy is in the where the crenellation has been lost and north, where timber was a usual building there has been no restoration, there is an- material. Perhaps the timber could be and other form of permanent “first fix” for was highly decorated. The illustration for timber hourds: putlog holes in towers and April in the Très Riches Heures of the Duc curtain walls, with slightly projecting de Berry shows Dourdan in about 1410, stone padstones immediately below, in the with hourds on the donjon (and no hourds tower only (fig. 5). This implies a slightly or machicolation visible anywhere else) different design of hourds from that at (fig. 6). They are clearly shown as painted. Coucy, but it is the same idea. At Lucera March shows Lusignan castle with timber in Italy, there is a tower with Coucy-type hourds in place on walls and towers, in a stone brackets for hourds below a conven- context, as with all these illustrations, cel- tionally crenellated parapet. How long did

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Fig. 6, Above. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Dourdan, c.1410, April. Fig. 7, Below. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Lusignan, March.

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Fig 8. Hourd reconstructions - right - at by Viollet le Duc. ebrating peaceful rural activities (fig. 7). turally, if large horizontal members or a Obviously, by this time there was no prob- system of raking members resting on lem, if there ever was, with mounting built-in corbels are used. Where there was hourds in peacetime. Of course, the imag- timber available and little risk of fire, this ery may be saying that things are peaceful might contribute to the continuing popu- because we are prepared for war. Unfortu- larity of hourds, as the ease of erecting nately, the illustration is too small to tell roofs for protection against the sun and us much about the construction of hourds. rain might have done. We can infer that there was more Castles in England and Wales of than one design of hourds from the differ- the late thirteenth century, for instance ent relationships of putlog holes or brack- Edward’s castles in Wales, show little ets and merlons, where these exist. machicolation except as part of the de- Generally hourds are assumed to have fences of the entrance passages. Conwy, been erected outside crenellated . though (from 1283) has a run of fully de- This must have been an inconvenient ar- veloped continuous machicolation on rangement, involving climbing out brackets, apparently at the wall top, over through the crenels on to the floor of the the two entrance gates (fig. 9). It runs be- hourds. This inconvenience might well tween the two corner towers, which in this have fostered the development of stone case are more widely spaced than the twin machicolation. Imaginative reproductions towers of a typical gateway are. Although can be seen at Carcassonne and Castell fulfilling the role of box machicolation Coch, amongst other places (fig. 8). On the over a doorway, this is the fully developed other hand, all reconstructions of hourds form of walltop machicolation. There are seem to show a greater width of fighting putlog holes for hourds elsewhere on platform than is found in surviving machi- walls and towers. At Caernarfon, there is colation. This is certainly possible struc- no sign of external machicolation or of

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Fig. 9. . West . hourds, as if the carefully designed and that gloried in conspicuous consumption, politically significant towers were not to machicolation eventually developed into a be spoiled by such things. Edward’s cas- “must-have” status symbol, sweeping tles are useful in this argument because aside any advantages hourds may have had they have not been altered or upgraded and reaching its zenith, in the north at any and were essentially military. It is in front rate, more or less when its usefulness had of gateways as at Conwy that the useful- vanished. The use of timber may have ness of machicolation is most obvious: it seemed crude and vulgar in an increasing- is here that the most direct attack would ly sophisticated society, while stone mach- be made by the enemy and where vertical icolation could be better integrated into a defence was most urgently needed – the unified design. Over the same period, ar- gate was flammable and weaker than any mour developed from a combination of wall. The image of a gateway with two mail, helmet and surcoat to a full suit of round towers and bracketed machicola- plate armour. Continuous machicolation tion running between the towers is iconic along curtain walls is relatively rare, even of English castles: Carisbrooke for in- in the south of Europe where machicola- stance. In its town walls, Conwy has la- tion is more frequently found than in the trines looking at first sight for all the north. It can be seen at Bordeilles in the world like box machicolation. Dordogne (thirteenth or fourteenth centu- Perhaps in response to improved ry,) for instance, on a wall which cannot techniques of attack, certainly as part of a be flanked by towers, and it was presum- “keeping up with the Fitzwarrens” society ably added to the wall because of that (fig.

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Fig. 10. Bourdeilles, from the south. Continuous machicolation.

10). In general, walls were covered by A combination of machicolated flanking fire from towers placed at appro- towers and gatehouses, usually with un- priate intervals and, as long as the towers machicolated walls is the essential image were there or could be built, adding mach- of a late mediæval castle, and would ap- icolation would have represented an un- pear to have been so already by the four- necessary additional expense in Europe, teenth century. A flip through the Trés from a simply defensive point of view. Riches Heures shows how many of the Towers have machicolation to cover the castles idyllically illustrated there have blind spots at their bases. It seems to be a some such arrangement. July, for instance mistake to think that it was only in the shows the lost triangular Chateau de Clain Renaissance that the vulnerability of tow- near Poitiers with machicolated towers, ers because of these blind areas was rea- smaller diameter inner towers rising up lised. In fact of course, the adoption of higher than the parapets, finished off with round towers was partly because they re- conical roofs. The walls have a covered duce the blind areas - there were probably walkway at parapet level, without machi- other contributory reasons, but the placing colation or crenellation. The word “roman- of machicolation on towers strongly sug- tic” is anachronistic, but something like gests that the problem was well-under- that sensibility is part of the culture by the stood by the early thirteenth century. Is it early fifteenth century and machicolation, a coincidence that machicolation is so of- along with pinnacles, crenellation and ten found in Italy where the rectangular chimneys, seems to be involved, contribut- tower with its greater blind area continued ing lightness and delicacy to a military into the late fifteenth century? Or did building. machicolation allow the continued use of When Henry Yevele built Bodi- the favoured plan of tower? am as a combined fortified manor house and romantic folly for Edward Dalyngrig-

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Fig 11. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. September - Saumur. ge, in the 1380s, he omitted machicolation tionately large machicolation. The Heures from the towers, to suggest a past for the again: September shows the castle at Sau- castle but included it on the gatehouses to mur (fig. 11). There is a little hourding, suggest up-to-dateness, the combination over an outer gateway, but the rest of the emphasising the glamour and (fictitious) castle proper is machicolated, towers and longstanding legitimacy of Dalyngrigge’s walls. There are chimneys and pinnacles status, while at the same time aiming for a and decorative vertical elements on the picturesque effect that still works today. towers. There can be no doubt that an ef- Machicolation has already acquired a non- fect of lightness and overall patterning is functional, symbolic importance. This can being aimed for in the architecture of a go wrong: Cooling, built with similar ide- still-defensible building, not unlike the als, looks faintly silly with its dispropor- diapering of an illuminated document. The

The Castle Studies Group Journal No 23: 2009-10 203 Machicolation: History and Significance machicolation absolutely contributes to this effect and might just also contribute to the defensibility. Machicolation has acquired another non-functional importance – the æsthetic one of integrating decoration into the fabric of a building. Machicolation continues in use from the twelfth century into the early Re- naissance and it is worth spending a few moments thinking about how machicola- tion was used. The “neckbreaker” deriva- tion certainly confirms the traditional idea that rocks were dropped on to attackers’ heads. Water too, where a fire has been lit below, especially in front of gates. Perhaps also burning material to attack roofed bat- tering rams, but probably never boiling oil! Most accounts describe only the dropping of missiles, but it has always seemed to me that carrying a sufficient number of heavy rocks up on to the battlements was too Fig. 12. Bases of even battered towers and much trouble and too primitive an idea to walls could be covered by a bow shooting be the best way of using the potential of a through machicolation openings. hole covering the foot of the wall. More- over, from the first, the wall beneath the box machicolations at Krak and assuming opening was sometimes battered – only that a bowman could manœuvre himself slightly on the NW tower at Krak, but be- into position, surely he would have shot neath the box machicolation at Margat downwards given a suitable target? There there is a considerable batter. In any case, would have been a wider window than the machicolation continued in use while walls simply vertical, larger than seems to be and towers developed more and more bat- possible with the slot kind. Perhaps this is tered bases to protect them from cannon one reason for the change to boxes. Fully fire, so much so that anything dropped developed wall-top machicolation with an from above would fail to reach the ground. opening large enough to drop a worth- It might ricochet off the batter or talus, or while missile would have offered an ade- roll down it and do damage that way, but quate arc of downward and outward fire this is a really unscientific way of using for a crossbow. (fig. 12) Those later mach- machicolation11 and surely suggests that icolations that span from bracket to brack- bows of some kind and later, handguns et with small arches rather than lintels may were used. By about 1450, the vertical and well offer an even more generous aperture battered sections of the wall were separated for archery. It has to be admitted that by a cordon, which would have hindered crossbows are not well adapted to shooting the rolling of missiles down the batter. The downwards, but they can do and “ordinary spread of the use of machicolation roughly bows continued in use well into the fif- coincided with the rise of professional, teenth century. mercenary armies capable of more sophisti- cated tactics than the dropping of heavy Brunelleschi’s work at Malman- weights. There are arrow slits in the early tile (c. 1425)(Fig. 13) has openings only in

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Fig. 13. Malmantile, town wall c. 1425 by Brunelleschi. every other bay of the machicolation ar- cading and we can assume that there are or were other examples of this arrangement. A defence relying only on dropping mis- siles vertically from such a construction would have left unswept areas at the base of the wall, but a missile from a bow or crossbow (and later from a handgun) could be directed sideways and would be able to Fig. 14. del Brunelleschi, Vicopisano, cover the whole wall base, battered or not. c. 1435. Torre del mastio. (detail). More useable space would have been left between the openings at wallwalk level. against the curtains could be fenestrated on both sides and the form of the castle could Providing machicolation along have a plan like Bodiam – buildings the tops of the walls of newly designed around a courtyard. This confidence in buildings effectively made it possible to machicolation led to the rise of the tower- think about omitting flanking towers. house, not just in Scotland, where the term Adding it to earlier buildings improved is most appropriately used, but all over their defensibility without the need to add Europe, in effect a , but without the towers and it would seem that confidence need for strong perimeter walls, simply an in its effectiveness was such that the con- enclosure with a gateway, since the tower centric castle fell out of use. The castle at can be defended from above. Examples Chillon, for instance has a very irregular can be seen all over rural France –“nou- and unscientific plan but with all-round veaux donjons” Châtelain calls them. machicolation added, it is effectively de- Machicolation was one of the resources fended. Incidentally, there is an example available to early-Renaissance military of a slot machicolation here too, presum- engineers consciously attempting new so- ably much earlier than the wall machicola- lutions. Brunelleschi designed a system of tion, on a tower which could not be defence for the town of Vicopisani that flanked. We also see the introduction of included an outlying tower covering ap- windows larger than had been dared be- proaches to the town (Fig. 14). Such an fore beneath machicolation in towers and isolated element could only be properly walls. The desire for improved comfort defended with machicolation, and the would have driven this change anyway, wallwalk connecting the tower to the main but the idea of machicolation above the work, which is too long for effective cover windows gave the confidence that the from the tower at each end is also fully openings were not vulnerable to scaling machicolated. ladders nor the (presumed) timber shutters to attack by fire. Accommodation built

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Fig. 15. Ferrara, Castello Estense, c. 1385-90. Bartolino da Novara for Niccolò II d'Este.

A digression: there is a remark- Machicolation was more enthusi- able number of fortified churches in Eu- astically used in the south of Europe than rope and many if not most of these are in France north of the Loire or in England. defended with machicolation. It would Factional warfare in Italy in particular have been less expensive than building made for a late mediæval arms race that flanking towers, which would anyway encouraged defensive innovation. But have been difficult to integrate into the there must also have been a taste for the form of a church. But also, a church would effect that machicolation produced. The have had to defend itself using ordinary castle at Ferrara (c.1385) (Fig. 15) for in- townspeople, unskilled in warfare, and stance has square towers and no outer en- dropping missiles on to attackers from ceinte but a complete circuit of machicolation would suit such a way of machicolation that is clearly its most obvi- fighting. Les Saintes Maries in the Camar- ous and emphatic defence, apart from the gue has dramatic slot machicolation, lake it stands in, which could be drained. It Rudelle in the Lot has box, Vrboska in is also beautiful in a gritty sort of way. Croatia has a short run of stone machicola- One could say all these things about the tion and brackets for more. For similar castles at Verona, Mantua and many other reasons, presumably, large farmhouses in places in Italy. The machicolation is not France that are in no other way castles, are only effective in defence, it is effective sometimes defended in this way. swagger and it is fashionable. Despite the best efforts of Viollet le Duc in the nine-

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Fig. 16. Senigallia. Rocca Roveresca. Built in various phases during the 2nd half of the 15th century. teenth century, it is in Italy from the mid- especially when its use could be justified by fourteenth century onwards that machico- the continued need for defence. lation is seen at its most complete and so- In the late-fourteenth century, a phisticated. Outside Italy, we can find succession of popes, then resident in Avi- castles and forts, built at much the same gnon, rebuilt that town’s walls with machi- time, sometimes equipped for cannon, colated towers and walls machicolated for sometimes not, that are clearly using their full length. An immense outlay that on- machicolation for effect, intimidating and ly a pope could afford, but without doubt the in their way, beautiful. A good example is expenditure was intended to have a political the at Fort St. André at Ville- message of defiance to other claimants to the neuve lès Avignon, which looks as if it papacy and to the kings of France. The walls were the start of an unfinished rebuilding could quite effectively have been defended scheme and where there are latrines again, by archery from the towers, which are ap- which could no doubt be used in extremis propriately spaced for such defence, but to back up the proper machicolation. War- machicolation was a very eloquent way of wick and Raglan in the UK are similarly expressing defiance, power and a limitless expressive and showy, but the effect is budget. A kind of beauty with a degree of indisputably mediæval while in Italy and detail or patterning is also achieved, very the southernmost part of France, one can pleasing to modern sensibilities and who are somehow feel the Renaissance is just we to say it was not so in fourteenth century around the corner. We may well feel that eyes? It seems that the building of the mural the culture of the southern world, with the towers with open gores was an economy echoes of Classical civilisation every- measure to compensate for this conspicuous where, was predisposed towards devices display; not even the papal pockets were like machicolation that could form part of bottomless.12 A hundred years earlier, in the a formal, organised whole and saw it as an town walls at Aigues Mortes, the only use of architectural element with possibilities, machicolation is over the entrance gateways

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Fig. 17. Fortezza di Sarzana - Sarzanello. Francesco di Giovanni (Francione) and Luca da Caprina 1486 -1502. The (rivellino) from the south. and the gateways in the flanks of some of cally, it is at this period that machicolation the gate towers (the ones without twin achieved an integration into the structure towers) where the wallwalk passes that it had not had before. Ironically, be- through them, so that wall and towers cause in the view of Giuliano de Sangallo, could be isolated if necessary. On each they were particularly inappropriate in the side of these gates, there are yet more la- face of gunfire and were of little use when trines looking like box machicolations. walls and towers were so hugely battered It is clear that machicolation be- at the base to resist cannonfire. Nonethe- came an important part of the image of a less, a whole range of buildings of this pe- fortified building, not only as a romantic riod, including the rocca at Senigallia, expression but also as a show of both (fig.16) which is beautiful, and the citadel- practical and symbolic defiance and deter- la at Sarzana (almost the last of the line rence. By the 1460s, the shape of a for- and little dull to look at) have continuous tress, at any rate in Italy, had altered in ranges of machicolation which seem to be response to the threat of gunpowder artil- an integral element in a classically inspired 13 lery, lowering the towers and making elevational composition. At Senigallia, them round (which had been rare in Italy) we can see an organisation of the elevation to make them less vulnerable, but there is that is composed in horizontal bands: bat- a clear affinity between, say, the castle at tered wall, cordon, vertical wall, machico- Mantua and these “transitional” structures lation, parapet, so different from the in their use of machicolation running æsthetic aimed for at Saumur. Machicola- around the top of walls and towers. Ironi- tion is clearly vital in this composition. We know that, on Lorenzo the Magnificent’s

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machicolation, though now unusable, was kept beneath it.15 (fig.17) One of the more advanced theo- rists of this period, Francesco di Giorgio Martini designed the rocca at Mondavio in 1482 or so. This is referred to by J R Hale as “retardataire16,” with hardly a hint of the Renaissance, but it is a dramatic and exciting building. Possibly to lessen their vulnerability to cannonfire, but surely also for architectonic effect, Francesco makes the brackets of his machicolation very long, simple and solid (fig. 18). This is not really slot machicolation, but it in its effect it harks back to Château Gaillard, which Francesco could hardly have seen. All this late-flowering machicolation could, I am sure, have been used with crossbows and handguns. The fact that Raglan, which al- though bombarded by cannon in the seven- teenth century and later slighted, kept most of its machicolation intact, does rather Fig. 18. Rocca di Mondavio, Le Marche. De- challenge Sangallo’s assertion of its vul- signed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini and nerability to gunfire! He may well have built between 1482 and 1492. been using spurious arguments to bolster an idealistic faith in new ways of thinking. orders, Sarzana was designed to be built What made machicolation truly quickly and without ornamentation, but it redundant was the introduction of raking has full machicolation despite Sangallo’s fire along angle ’ faces from the reported suggestion that it be omitted.14 flanks of adjacent bastions in a wholly dif- We may infer that machicolation still had ferent system of . But it did not a purpose in 1486, when Sarzana was entirely die. Such a simple but effective started, despite its apparent redundancy device must always have found uses, but and the batter at the base of the walls that its day returned with the in make its use problematical. Some of its the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. purpose must have been the expression of One or more box machicolations over the power and the legitimacy of Medici rule, entrance door were a standard part of the which needed reinforcing in this town, the design of both Spanish and British models machicolation in this case, with its in the early eighteenth century. One of the mediæval associations, suggesting a long- towers built at Genoa in the 1820s seems standing authority. As late as 1502, the to be emulating Château Gaillard in its use so-called “ravelin” at Sarzanello (just up of something like slot machicolation17 and the hill from Sarzana,) which is just on the in Pembroke Bay, a true version of slot cusp of polygonal bastioned fortification, machicolation was re-invented in the was built with continuous machicolation 1850s. An even more spectacular revival and when, sometime before 1538, its para- of slot machicolation is in post-1871 Séré pets were altered to mount cannon, the de Rivières forts, at for instance, Toul. (fig. 19) They are also found at the Western

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Fig. 19. Séré de Rivières forts, post 1871, Toul.

Heights defences of Dover. These nine- had to add a projecting moulding to finish teenth century machicolations were intend- off the top of the walls. Completely non- ed for use by riflemen, firing downwards, functional decorative references to machi- and for the dropping of grenades. colation can be seen at the castello at Bari and the Castel Nuovo at Naples. There are There may be a continuing human examples, the Hunyadi castle in Romania æsthetic preference for the tops of towers for example, where entirely non-military to be finished off in some way and when it accommodation is cantilevered out on could be afforded, men may have chosen brackets identical to the contemporary to use machicolation in this spirit. Viollet machicolation brackets on adjacent towers. le Duc certainly felt that way. Neuschwan- stein and its twentieth century cousin the At this point, I have to acknowl- Disneyland castle,18 mix machicolated edge that looking up at the underside of towers with unmachicolated to achieve the what is apparently machicolation, we very epitome of the romantic castle. The image often do not see openings for neck-break- is foreshadowed by the illustrations in the ing missiles to be dropped through. We Trés Riches Heures. Even Beaumaris has a have seen that hoardings and machicola- corbelled-out course at the top of its walls tion acquired significance over and above and towers, without these being machico- their immediate usefulness in the Middle lation. Churches often have crenellation on Ages. To what extent might designers of towers and nave with no reference to de- the mid-fifteenth to early-sixteenth century fensibility but as a decorative finishing off. have continued to use machicolation but in Dentil courses, oversailing rafters and sim- dummy form to add historically- authenti- ilar details have always been part of an cated prestige to a building? Or indeed for architectural composition. Antonio de San- some other purpose? Hale implies that at gallo the Elder’s (1453–1534) rocca at Mondavio, Martini exaggerates the machi- Civita Castellana, built without machicola- colation for dramatic effect.19 At Bari, the tion because he thought it useless and vul- fully-developed angular trace cer- nerable, does look somehow unfinished tainly made any machicolation redundant and unsatisfactory. And even he felt he and the frieze cannot really be mistaken

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Fig. 19. Civita Castellana. The rocca or Forte Sangallo from the south. Antonio da Sangallo The El- der, c. 1503. Additions by Antonio Sangallo the Younger. for machicolation: a very small gesture is conventional bracketing that lingered on” all that was required to make the refer- at Sarzanello, but it is unclear how he ence. Many other examples of clearly in- could be sure, despite the novelty of the tentionally non-functional machicolation rivellino’s plan-form and its relationship to are similarly undersized. the older portion of the fort.)22 Other build- ings have been rebuilt and altered - the It had been understood for centu- parapets at Senigallia are clearly later than ries that with round towers there were the body of the work – and the same argu- dead areas uncovered by fire from adja- ment applies. Would a practical and expe- cent walls and towers, and this must surely rienced military designer ignore a have prompted designers to make their centuries-old method of protecting the foot machicolation useable, even if its incorpo- of a round tower by omitting the openings ration into the design resulted from con- in a machicolation-like overhanging struc- siderations other than defence. At Sarzana, ture? The batter at the base had added rein- Lorenzo de Medici’s insistence that there forcing thickness against rams and should be no decoration must argue that explosives, but why not ensure that the the machicolation was defensive.20 The machicolation was able to attack the at- Sangallos’ disapproval of the old-fash- tackers? (Although Antonio Sangallo did ioned nature of the building’s defensive leave towers vulnerable at Civita Castella- system also suggests that machicolation na, apparently sacrificing security to prin- was being relied on.21 The tops of the ciple) (Fig. 19). The batter would not walls there have been altered, we know, necessarily make this impossible. and the openings would have been filled in at this rebuilding. At Sarzanello, the Although undoubtedly there are machicolation, “real” or not was over- examples of dummy machicolation – many whelmed and its openings blocked by the functional architectural devices get used addition of ballistically-shaped parapets for simple dramatic effect - I suggest that, soon after completion. (Hale talks of “the in the absence of evidence to the contrary

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Fig. 20. Torre Velasca, Milan, 1954, by BPPR. (Gianluigi Banfi, Lodovico Belgiojoso, Enrico Peres- sutti, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers), from the roof of Milan Cathedral.

212 The Castle Studies Group Journal No 23: 2009-10 Machicolation: History and Significance the assumption should be made that any- Bibliography: thing that looks like machicolation on a Ÿ T E Lawrence: “Crusader Castles.” (His fortification built before the introduction BA thesis from 1910, privately published of the angled bastion and with dead later with his own perceptive marginal ground unswept by horizontal fire, was in notes and some earlier writings and letters fact originally machicolation that could about castles.) Republished 1986. be used. As time went on of course, a Ÿ wallwalk without openings was seen to Hugh Kennedy, Crusader Castles, be more convenient and the no-longer 1994. necessary openings were filled in. This Ÿ Tom McNeill: Castles. 1992. was especially so when old buildings be- Ÿ came things that tourists might want to Sidney Toy: A History of Fortification walk around! from 3000 BC to AD 1700, 1955 and 2005. Over the years, machicolation Ÿ seems to have appealed to designers for a Sidney Toy: Castles, Their Construc- number of reasons. Its defensive proper- tion and History, 1939 and 1985. ties were real enough for it to acquire Ÿ R Allen Brown and others: Castles, a connotations of power and invulnerabili- History and Guide, 1980. ty and were apparently adaptable enough, Ÿ up to a point, to accommodate changing Quentin Hughes: Military Architecture. weapons and ways of fighting. It ac- 1974 and 1991 quired status enough became a symbol of Ÿ Peter Harrison: Castles of God, 2004. historical legitimacy. Its physical attri- Ÿ W H Clements:Towers of Strength. butes seem to fit in with both a develop- 1999. ing Gothic sensibility of verticality and Ÿ lightness and an emerging one that we Stephen C. Spiteri: Fortresses of the call Renaissance, which valued order and Cross, 1994. logic. It flourished especially well in Ÿ Phillipe Truttmann: La Barrière de Fer those areas of Europe where the Renais- 2000 sance first took root. And we cannot ig- Ÿ nore the fact that its very costliness and André Châtelain: Châteaux Forts, 2003 the organisation required to acquire and Ÿ J E Kaufmann and H W Kaufmann: display it, appealed to the castle-building The Medieval Fortress, 2001 class. And websites and guides to various indi- One last observation: there are vidual buildings. late-twentieth century multi-storey hous- ing blocks outside Verona that get wider Notes: on raking beams some fifteen storeys up, 1.“Bretèche” is defined in Kaufmann and like the famous (or notorious) 1950s Kaufmann as a French term for a small drop Torre Velasca in Milan (fig. 20). They box machicolation over a door or window. are the tower of the town hall in Siena, Kennedy however defines the same word as for instance, writ large and repropor- the stone brackets on which either timber tioned, producing an effect that must hourds or stone machicolation can be built. hark back to a visual preference con- Bretesche is also the Scottish term for spe- scious or unconscious that also favoured cifically timber hourds. Kaufmann and machicolation. Kaufmann use “machicoulis” to mean con- tinuous machicolation along a wall and “machicolation” to mean only the aperture

The Castle Studies Group Journal No 23: 2009-10 213 Machicolation: History and Significance between brackets. Quentin Hughes uses the siles horizontally at the attackers. I find same definition. And so on: these are just this hard to credit. At Krak. Machicola- the words found in English texts. According tion and talus are quite separate. to Pevsner, there is a connection with the word “mash.” 12. Although it is possible to make a case for the practical advantages of open- 2.A French word, but the French use “as- gorged towers. sommoir” for this. 13. See other examples in J R Hale: ‘The 3.“A History of Fortification.” Early Development of the Bastion’ in 4.K A C Cresswell: “Early Muslim Archi- “Europe in the Late Middle Ages.” tecture.” 14.J R Hale: Renaissance Fortification: Art 5.Peter Burton: “Islamic Castles in Iberia” or Engineering. 1977 in The Castle Studies Group Journal No.22 15. I hope to cover similar aspects of this 6.Apropos of the article in CSG Journal 21 building in more detail in a future issue of “About Beaked Towers” by Ric Seabourne, Fort (the journal of the Fortress Study it couldn’t be, could it that Château Gaillard Group.) donjon is the shape it is not so as to point a 16. Renaissance Fortification: Art or Engi- beak in any particular direction but rather to neering. offer as long a fighting platform of crenella- tion (and slot machicolation) as possible 17 .There is quite an outbreak of revived towards a direction of threat? The inner machicolation of all sorts on the forts gateway in this case. And the circular por- around Genoa. tion is circular for all the reasons that other 18 .Does anyone else remember the Gibbs towers are circular. Just a thought, and it is Dentifrice Castle, the precursor of Dis- does not help us to understand other beaked neyland, better than I do? I seem to re- towers, but it might explain Issoudun and member it as another summing-up by La Roche Guyon, so far as crenellation is commercial artists of the popular idea of concerned. what a castle should be. 7.“…ce système ne fit guère école.” Châte- 19 J R Hale: ‘The Early Development of the lain. (A nice phrase.) Bastion’ in Europe in the Late Middle 8. But even so, they did not use this kind of Ages, 1965 continuous machicolation when rebuilding 20 J R Hale: “Renaissance Fortification, Art Margat, fifteen years later. or Engineering?” 1977. 9. Viollet le Duc had the idea that there had 21 “The Early Development…..” been something he called hourds en maçon- 22 “The Early Development….” The rivelli- nerie which involved an outer wall of stone no is later than the rest of the fort and its in front of another parapet on the general walls can be swept by gunports in the wall line, the whole thing roofed over, liter- towers of the older part. Machicolation at ally a stone version of hourds. Are there any walltop was unnecessary in the rivellino undisputable examples of this? and just might have been included to 10“Coucy was a bit of swank on Enguer- match the necessary machicolation in the rand’s part,” Lawrence adds as a marginal older part. note to his thesis. 11.Spiteri claims that the talus is actually designed so as to bounce dropped mis-

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