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A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with defensive walls such as curtain walls. Castle towers can have a variety of different shapes and fulfil different functions.
Beaumaris Castle in Wales was built in the late 13th century and is an example of concentric castles which developed in the late medieval period. Badajoz Castle of Topoľčany in Slovakia Medieval fortification refers to medieval military methods that cover the development of fortification construction and use in Europe , roughly from the fall ...
A 19th-century reconstruction of the keep at Château d'Étampes. Since the 16th century, the English word keep has commonly referred to large towers in castles. [4] The word originates from around 1375 to 1376, coming from the Middle English term kype, meaning basket or cask, and was a term applied to the shell keep at Guînes, said to resemble a barrel. [5]
Furthermore, some towers that might look medieval at first glance are, in reality, 19th century Historicist creations (e.g. the Wartburg of the 1850s) and some are even romanticized notions of medieval castle architecture (Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg, 1909). Late medieval tower crowns (which themselves are often a remodelling of the original ...
In medieval castles, the chemise (French: "shirt") was typically a low wall encircling the keep, protecting the base of the tower. Alternative terms, more commonly used in English, are mantlet wall or apron wall. [1] In some cases, the keep could be entered only from the chemise (i.e. at the first floor level).
In the more recent castle science literature the rope lift is rarely seen as a method of reaching an elevated entrance. [3] In the 19th century, August Essenwein saw the rope lift as a common entry system. For example, in his numerous artist's impressions of medieval castles, people can often be seen being hauled up towers using a simple lift.
Paphos Castle is located at the western end of the city port. It was originally a Byzantine fortress built to protect the port. Today, the visitor can see the Western Frankish Tower with the Venetian additions as restored by the Ottomans in 1592, according to a relevant inscription above the entrance of the castle.
Tower houses are often called castles, and despite their characteristic compact footprint size, they are formidable habitations and there is no clear distinction between a castle and a tower house. In Scotland a classification system has been widely accepted based on ground plan, such as the L-plan castle style, one example being the original ...