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The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site. In medieval designs of castle and town, the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult.
Clifford's Tower is often interpreted by modern visitors as a shell keep due to explosion damage, in 1684, which removed the roof and its central supporting masonry. True shell keeps were a stone wall around the upper perimeter of the motte with lean-to buildings against this outer wall and a small courtyard in the middle. See Restormel plan below.
[3] [page needed] In German-speaking countries, many castles had double curtain walls with a narrow enclosure outside the main walls, acting as a killing ground between them, referred to as a zwinger. The outermost wall was a Zwingermauer or type of low mantlet wall. These were often added at vulnerable points like the gate of a castle or town ...
The shield wall of Stahleck Castle. A shield wall, also shield-wall or Schildmauer, refers to the highest and strongest curtain wall, or tower of a castle that defends the only practicable line of approach to a castle built on a mountain, hill or headland.
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]
Monastic communities, such as Solovki Monastery, are often surrounded by a wall, and some churches, such as St. Arbogast in Muttenz, Switzerland, have an outer wall as well. Churches with additional external defences such as curtain walls and wall towers are often referred to more specifically as fortress churches or Kirchenburgen (literally ...
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The enceinte may be laid out as a freestanding structure or combined with buildings adjoining the outer walls. [4] The enceinte not only provided passive protection for the areas behind it, but was usually an important component of the defence with its wall walks (often surmounted by battlements), embrasures and covered firing positions.