Chemin_de_ronde

Chemin de ronde

Chemin de ronde

Raised protected walkway behind a castle battlement

A chemin de ronde (French, "round path"' or "patrol path"; French pronunciation: [ʃəmɛ̃ də ʁɔ̃d]), also called an allure, alure or, more prosaically, a wall-walk, is a raised protected walkway behind a castle battlement.[1][2]

Chemin de ronde on a curtain wall. Access is given to the battlements and shooting slots in the parapet as well as to a tower door.
The chemin de ronde of the Yedikule Fortress, Istanbul, Turkey.

In early fortifications, high castle walls were difficult to defend from the ground. The chemin de ronde was devised as a walkway allowing defenders to patrol the tops of ramparts, protected from the outside by the battlements or a parapet, placing them in an advantageous position for shooting or dropping.

References

  1. [1]
    Philippe Contamine (1986). War in the Middle Ages. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-631-14469-4.
  2. [2]
    J. E. Kaufmann; H. W. Kaufmann; Robert M. Jurga (2004). The medieval fortress: castles, forts and walled cities of the Middle Ages. Da Capo Press. p. 306. ISBN 978-0-306-81358-0.


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