| Palatine |
Palatinate. Independent rule of a count with royal authority in his territory |
| Palisade |
Early walls of timbers serving as outer defensive elements in motte and bailey castles and Roman forts and camps |
| Parados |
Low wall in inner side of main wall. |
| Parapet |
Low wall extending up at the external side of the wall-walk. Usually battlemented with crenellations. |
| Patrocinium |
Benefice, patronage. A form of protection by a patrone (land owner, church, powerful individual) in return for any variety of services from personal to agriculture to defensive/offensive involvement. |
| Pavice |
See Mantlets. Name may have developed from the assault on Pavia, Italy, the Lombard capitol, where the name pavice originated. |
| Pediment |
Low-pitched gable over porticos, doors, windows. Triangular section above entablature. |
| Peel |
The small yard of a small tower(called peel tower); typically, a fortified house on the border. The yard was for protecting livestock from roving bands |
| Pellet |
Circular boss. |
| Perpendicular |
English architectural style (1330-1540). |
| Petit appareil |
Small cubical stonework. |
| Petrariæ |
A catapult style weapon introduced about the fourth to third century B.C. |
| Pfalz |
palatinate |
| Phalanx |
Tactics. A dense battle formation of foot soldiers or warriors with shields forming a wall. Very effective in only open field battle. |
| Pier |
Support for arch, usually square. Distinct from column |
| Pilaster |
Shallow pier used to buttress a wall. Projecting slightly from wall face. Rectangular |
| Pillory |
A two-piece wood frame in which a hole for the neck and two for the wrists of the convict were formed as the upper half swung down in contact with the lower |
| Pinnacle |
Ornamental crowning accent on spire, tower, buttress, etc. |
| Piscina |
Hand basin with drain, usually set against or into a wall in chapel. |
| Pitch |
Roof slope. |
| Pitching |
Rough cobbling on floor, as in courtyards. |
| Plinth |
See also Batter. An additional sloping thickness of stone at the base of a wall for extra strength and support |
| Portcullis |
A gate-like grid framework of timber with sharp, iron covered tips protruding from the bottom: Used to drop from above in tracks to trap or block an enemy |
| Postern Gate |
Sally Port. A minor gate away from the portion of a castle most likely to be attacked to facilitate secret departure of reconnaissance or harrassing patrols. |
| Precarium |
Grant of lease of land for cultivation as a rental arrangement. May have been for either payment in funds, produce or both. |
| Prow |
sharp seam at the apex of two deeply angled surfaces |
| Putlog |
Beams placed in holes to support a hoarding or horizontal scaffold beams |
| Putlog Holes |
Holes built into castle walls to support scaffolding during construction, for maintenance, and at the top, to support machicolations during siege |
| Quadrangle |
Inner four cornered courtyard surround by a building or complex of buildings |
| Quarrel |
See Bolt. A heavier arrow designed for crossbow use |
| Quintain |
A central post with a revolving cross-pole that carries a jousting target at one end and a sand bag hung from the opposite end used for practice by mounted knights |
| Quoin |
Cornerstone at theangle of a building. Also applies to the angle itself. |
| Ram |
Battering ram based on large log with a metal point or tip, usually swung along its length from an inverted V-shaped support structure to batter gates |
| Rampart |
An elongated or encircling bank/mound of earth serving as an obstacle or earthen wall, sometimes aupported by revetments of stone |
| Rath |
Stone ringworks dating to early structures of Irish chieftains. Also a Hindu rock-cut temple, south India. |
| Ravelin |
Two faces of an outer wall meeting to form a bow-like angle |
| Redoubt |
Any stronghold. A breastwork fortification on the exterior of a castle or in front to defend approaches. |
| Re-enter postern |
In some castles a separate postern each for departure and return were provided. The return postern so designed that soldiers need not expose their unprotected right side while retreating. |
| Refectory |
Common dining area of a monastery. |
| Respond |
Half-pillar at the end of an archade |
| Revetment |
An arrangement of stone or other material to prevent erosion of an earthen bank. facing of stone to support an embankment. Retaining wall or a face of stone slabs on an incline. |
| Rib |
Ceiling or vault moulding or band usually as a support. |
| Ringwork |
Circular earthwork of bank and ditch. |
| Romanesque |
Architectural style that dominated 9th to 12th century Europe. Greatly increased use of concrete forms such as piers to accentuate form and divisions. |
| Roofridge |
The apex of a sloping roof. Ridge |
| Rubble |
Rocks, pebbles and mortar used to fill the space between the outer and inner faces of a stone wall as an economic means to build thickness in fortifications |
| Rustication |
Stonework with the outer edge left or made rough. Mostly in Renaissance building. |
| Salient |
A projection. That part of a battle line, defensive construction or fortification projecting furthest toward an enemy or expected incursion. |
| Sally-port |
See postern |
| Sapper |
Member of a team of men digging beneath a fortification wall to weaken it and cause its collapse. See miner |
| Scaffolding |
The temporary three-dimensional framework of wood poles used to support platforms and enable workers to access high sections in the construction and repair of walls. Supported on putlogs. |
| Scale |
An assembly of overlapping disks with a resulting fish scaling appearance. |
| Scaling |
Siege technique of climbing ladders to achieve access to the castle parapet. |
| Scarp |
Slope on inner side of ditch. |
| Segmental |
Segment of a circle. Anything reduced to segments, sections. |
| Seneschal |
See Steward |
| Serf |
Villein. Common unfree laborer usually living in servitude to a lord. Above a slave, but tied to his obligation and land in a hereditary contract that also bound his descendents. |
| Shell Keep |
A keep consisting mostly of only an outer shell or wall, topping a motte, without roof. Roofed living quarters have been built in the interior, backed against the shell. |
| Shield Wall |
(Schildmauer - Germany) An especially strong wall placed at the approach to the main castle or a vulnerable exposure to the castle. |
| Siege |
A major assault for the purpose of capture by a significant force on a castle either in the form of attack or forced isolation to deny resupply of food and water |
| Siege Engine |
See Ballistae, Catapult, Mangonel, Petrary, Siege Tower. A variety of wood-built machines for launching missiles at a castle |
| Siege Tower |
Beffrois, berfrei. Multiple-storied wheeled wood tower built on-site during a siege to the height of the castle wall to deliver attackers via drawbridge to the top of parapet. |
| Solar |
Private room of the lord, his family and guests, usually accessed by stairs from the great hall. |
| Spandrel |
Traingular area enclosed above the upper surface of an arch or between two arches. |
| Splay |
Surface created by a chamfer |
| Spring |
Point above the column where the springers (voussoirs) begin to curve. |
| Squint |
Observation hole in wall or room. |
| Squire |
See Page |
| Stepped Gable |
Castle gables resembling stair steps |
| Steward |
Seneschal. The man responsible for running the day-to-day domestic and financial affairs of the castle for the lord. Even military in France |
| Stockade |
Solid fence of heavy timbers. |
| Stringcourse |
Continuous horizontal moulding on wallface. |
| Throat Ditch |
A section of a rock or other finger of land upon which a castle has been built that has been cut away and replaced with a drawbridge |
| Tooth-in – |
Stones removed (or omitted) to allow another wall to be bonded into it. |
| Tournament |
Knight's competition and demonstration that often imitated real battles and usually including jousting and other demonstrations of warrior pursuits. |
| Tracery |
Ornamental pattern in stone in upper part of Gothic windows. Also refers to same type of ornamental work in wood. |
| Transom |
A horizontal bar dividing windows into sections. |
| Trebuchet |
Large sling-type siege engine using a counterpoise to launch boulders and other material at or into fortifications to cause destruction, panic and disease |
| Trefoil |
In tracery, a panel divided into three. |
| Troubadour |
Professional musician who usually traveled from town to town. |
| Truss |
A timber frame used to support the roof over the great hall. |
| Trustes |
fideles/antrustiones. Band of those warriors or close advisors sworn to a lord |
| Trutzburg |
castle constructed to lay siege on opponents castle or fortifications |
| Tufa |
Stone of a cellular or porous consistancy as in volcanic rock or limestone |
| Turnier |
tournament |
| Turning bridge |
A drawbridge that pivots in the middle. |
| Turret |
An enclosure, usually large enough for one man, as a mini tower, to facilitate sentry observations along wall and tower bases, higher than the edifice it is attached to. |
| Vassal |
The more subservient of two men in an aliegence often based on the granting of land in return for the service, usually military, of the vassal to the lord, baron or monarch. |
| Vault |
An arched covering in stone or brick over any building. |
| Villein |
Common unfree laborer usually living in servitude. See Serf. |
| Vögte |
constables |
| Volute |
Spiral scroll at angle of a capital atop a column. |
| Voussoir |
Wedge-shaped stones in arch. |
| Wall Walk |
A walkway along the tops of castle walls and behind battlements for observation and defense |
| Wappen |
coat of arms |
| Water-leaf |
Plain broad leaf moulding. |
| Wattle |
A combination of sticks, weeds and other natural material plastered with daub and used as fill between timber framing in half-timber structures |
| Weathering |
Sloping surface to throw off rainwater. |
| Wicket |
Person-sized door set into the main gate door. |
| Wing-wall |
Wall downslope of motte to protect stairway. |
| Yett |
Iron lattice gate. |
