| Duel |
A formal confrontation between two antagonists usually employing firearms |
| Dungeon |
The room for confining prisoners, usually found in one of the towers. |
| Embattled |
Battlemented; crenelated. |
| Embrasure |
See also Arrowloops. Gunloops. Opening in a defensive wall, usually splayed on the inside, for cannon or frame-mounted cross-bow. Open space in crenelated parapet. |
| Enceinte |
The fortified defensive perimeter of a castle or village |
| Escalade |
Scaling of castle walls using ladders. |
| Ewer(er) |
A pitcher for water (A staff worker with a royal or noble family responsible for providing water-usually carried in a Ewer) |
| Fascine |
Huge bundle of brushwood for revetting ramparts or filling in ditches. Used in sieges to cross ditches. |
| Fealty |
Fidelitas. An oath of fidelity sworn to lord. Of church origin and adopted by lay nobles |
| Fideles |
See Trustes |
| Fief |
Grant of land from a lord or royalty in return for military service. See also benefice and precarium |
| Fillet |
Narrow flat band between architectural mouldings. Upper member of cornice. |
| Finial |
An often decorative finishing piece topping off architectural elements such as the merlons in a battlement |
| Flanking |
Defensively: concentrating defenses to right and left, usually along the castle wall from bartizans and towers extending forward of wall face |
| Fluting |
Concave mouldings in parallel. |
| Foederati |
Federates. Germanic peoples engaged by the Romans to perform military service as a group or unit. Usually under command of their own leader who was made a Roman officer. |
| Foliated |
Carved with leaves. |
| Footings |
Bottom part of wall. |
| Forebuilding |
A smaller extension of the keep often containing defensive elements and the stairs-frequently open to protecting fire from the keep- to the main entrance |
| Fosse |
Ditch. |
| Francisca |
(Franciska) Battle axe of the Frankish tribes. Thought either to have lent its name to the tribe or the weapon acquired its name from the tribe. |
| Freestone |
High quality sand- or lime-stone. |
| Fresco |
Painting on wet plaster wall. |
| Gable |
traingular wall section framed by the sloping end of roof ridge. |
| Gallery |
Long passage or room. |
| Ganerbenburg |
A castle in Germany whose ownership and residency are shared by more than one of the extended family branches |
| Garderobe |
A latrine often projected from an exterior wall for discharged freefalling waste to the moat below. Interior garderobes utilized chutes within walls to reach a cesspit. |
| Gatehouse |
The primary defensive structure protecting the main entrance to the outer bailey and often serving as residence for the castellan |
| Glacis |
A bank sloping down from a castle which acts as a defence against invaders; broad, sloping naked rock or earth on which the attackers are completely exposed. (See Batter?) |
| Graf (en) |
count |
| Great chamber |
Lord's solar, or bed-sitting room. |
| Great Hall |
The room or building in which the lord and his family, in earlier centuries, resided and conducted business. Later its function was business and ceremony |
| Greek Fire |
A napalm type of mixture whose recipe has been lost to history |
| Groined |
Roof with sharp edges at intersection of cross-vaults, intersection of two barrel vaults. |
| Half-Timber |
A common European construction composed of heavy timber post-and-beam supports with the spaces between timbers filled with masonry or watt & daub. Face of beams left exposed. |
| Hall |
Principal room or building in complex. |
| Helm |
helmet |
| Herald |
An official at a joust announcing contestants and expert at heraldry |
| Heraldry |
The emblems and designs unique to each bearer or noble or royal family adorning flags, shields and armor, and above the entrance to the manor or castle |
| Herringbone |
Brick or stone laid in alternate diagonal courses. |
| Hill-fort |
Bronze or iron age earthwork defenses of concentric ditches and banks. |
| Hoarding |
Brattice. Wood balcony extended out from tops of walls and towers with openings in the floor enabling use of stones or hot liquids against enemy at base of wall |
| Hoarding Holes |
Holes in the castle walls to support the hoarding. |
| Hof / Höfe |
courtyard, bailey, ward, courts |
| Hornwork - |
Freestanding quadrilateral fortification in front of the main wall. |
| Impost |
Wall bracket to support arch. |
| Inner Curtain |
The high wall that surrounds the inner ward or the inner wall of a concentric plan |
| Inner Ward |
Inner Bailey. The open area in the center of a castle separated from the primary and outer wards by additional walls. |
| Jamb |
Side posts of arch, door, or window. |
| Joggled |
Keyed together by overlapping joints. |
| Joist |
Wall-to-wall timber beams to support floor boards. |
| Jousting |
Knight's war game played on horse¬back. Armored opponents charged at each other, each using his lance to knock the other from the saddle. |
| Keep |
Donjon. Fortified tower and last stand against enemy, containing noble's living quarters and the structure which all other defensive measures protected |
| Kern |
core |
| Keystone |
Central wedge in top of arch. |
| Komtur |
Commander of an Order |
| Lance |
Long pole with pointed metal tip used as a weapon in war and later to display the heraldry of its noble. |
| Lancet |
Long, narrow window with pointed head. |
| Landkomtur |
Regional Commander of the order |
| Lantern |
Small structure with open or windowed sides on top of a roof or dome to let light or air into the enclosed space below. |
| Lattice |
Laths or lines crossing to form a network. |
| Lias |
Greyish rock which splits easily into slabs. |
| Lights |
Glazing; component part of window, divided by mullions and transoms. |
| Lintel |
Horizontal stone or beam bridging an opening. |
| Lists |
Area for jousting, normally outside the castle walls or in space between concentric walls |
| Loopholes |
Arrowloops, Gunloops. Narrow slits in walls and towers from which arrows were launched at an enemy outside. Later modified to facilitate guns |
| Louvre |
Opening in roof (sometimes topped with lantern) to allow smoke to escape from central hearth. |
| Lozenge |
Diamond shape. |
| Machicolation |
Brattices. A masonry outward extention at the tops of castle walls and towers containing openings in the floors for dropping stones and hot liquids on attackers - improvement over wood hoardings |
| Mangonel |
Mangonneau, Catapult,Petrariæ, Siege engine using released tension of twisted horse or human hair to launch a variety of missiles and debris from a container (cup) |
| Mantlet |
Pavice. Installed in ground or carried protective cover/shield for men attempting to scale or breach castle wall. May have developed from assault on Pavia, Italy, where the name pavice originated. |
| Marchfield |
Frankish custom of gathering its armies in March for campaigns |
| Mark |
March. An outying expansion region either under development or serving as a buffer state. (border region) |
| Markgraf |
Margrave, Marquis. count or governor of a mark or march (border province) |
| Merchet |
A fine or penalty levied against a serf whose obligation to the lord was hereditary, but whose daughter sought permission to marry outside the bounds of the parent's obligation. |
| Merlon |
The solid segments of the serrated, notched top edge of a battlemented castle wall or tower. |
| Meutrieres |
French. An opening in the roof of a passage where soldiers could shoot into the room below. Also see "Murder Holes". |
| Miner |
Sapper. Member of a team of men digging beneath a fortification wall to weaken its walls and cause its collapse |
| Ministeriales |
Unfree administrators of the monarchy (at first, then of other nobles) whose status made them more reliable than self-serving nobles. They soon became warriors and nobles. |
| Moat |
Ditch. A defensive trench in front of and usually running the length of a fortification wall and often filled with water which is, when possible, diverted from a stream |
| Mortar |
A mixture of sand, water, and lime used to bind stones together; as opposed to drylaid masonry. |
| Motte |
A hill or hillock, natural or manmade to create a high point within a castle enclosure to provide for a central keep for observation and fall-back defense |
| Motte-&-bailey |
Earth mound with wood or stone keep, surrounded by ditched and palisaded enclosure (or courtyard). |
| Moulding |
Architectural decoration; dimensional accents and additions to break or soften joints where two flat surfaces come together as in right angles. |
| Mullion |
Vertical division of windows dividing them into smaller lights (panes). |
| Mural |
Having to do with, in, of on or for a wall. |
| Mural stair |
Staircase built into the thickness of a wall. |
| Murder Holes |
Meutrieres, see also Boss. Openings in the ceiling of a castle gate complex to enable pouring of hot fluids and dropping stones, or firing of weapons on an enemy that has breached the gate. |
| Nave |
Principal hall of a church, extending from the narthex to the chancel. |
| Newel |
Center post of spiral staircase. |
| O”lite |
Granular limestone. |
| Oilette |
A round opening in the lower portion of an arrow loop added in later centuries to facilitate maneuverability of bows and crossbows, and then guns |
| Open joint |
Wide space between faces of stones. |
| Oratory |
Private in-house chapel; small cell attached to a larger chapel. |
| Order |
The combination of elements making up a full column supporting an entablature: base, column, shaft and capital |
| Oriel |
Projecting window in wall; originally a form of porch, usually of wood; side-turret. Usually supported on corbels |
| Orillons |
Arrowhead bastions. |
| Oubliette |
An unlighted well-style basement ocassionally employed as a prison or dungeon orvbuilt into walls where captives disappeared - rare existance. |
| Outer Curtain |
Enciente. The outermost defensive wall of a fortification. |
| Outer Ward |
The bailey or courtyard enclosed by an outer curtain wall and an inner wall protecting other portions of the castle |
| Outwork |
Various defensive measures constructed outside of castle walls such as ditches and other obstructions |
| Page |
A young boy, after starting at about 6 or 7 years of age and usually of noble birth, completes early training at about 12 and advances to knight's assistant prior to knighthood |
