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Machicolation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A machicolation is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones and lethally hot liquids could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall. The design was developed in the Middle Ages when the Norman crusaders returned (see Normans). A machicolated battlement projects outwards from the supporting wall in order to facilitate this. A hoarding is a similar structure made of wood, usually temporarily constructed in the event of a siege. One advantage of the machicolation over wooden hoarding is protection behind stone battlements, as well as being fire proof.
The word derives from the Old French word machicoller, derived from Old Provençal machacol, and ultimately from Latin macar (to crush) + collum (the neck). A variant of machicolations set in the ceiling of a passage was also colloquially known as murder-holes.
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Machicolation was later used for decorative effect with spaces between the corbels but without the openings, and subsequently became a characteristic of the many non-military buildings, for example, Scottish baronial style, and Gothic Revival architecture of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
- Mesqui, Jean (1997). Chateaux-forts et fortifications en France. Paris: Flammarion, 493 pp. ISBN 2080122711.
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