bretesche

Example Sentences

• "... still further west , upon which a bretesche would rest overhanging the entrance. The keep entrance was dealt with at the same time, the existing ribbed inner portion, replacing the Norman entrance which has entirely disappeared."
• "Some of the towers had attached to their walls — generally over the gateway — a bretesche, or penthouse , with loops and meurtrières. Clennell Tower, for instance, is described in 1541 as "newly reparelled and brattyshed.""
• "The gallery may have received protection by a bretesche or a machicolated battlement and may have been used for raising a drawbridge, if such existed in front of the entrance doorway; or the doorway may have contained a hoist ..."
• "In preparing the site for a bretesche, if the Normans found an earthen mound already existing, they naturally made use of it."
• "On the summit of the mound, known as a mote or motte, a bretesche or wooden archery tower was erected for the use of the knight and his officers, whilst at a lower level an enclosure, encircled by a palisade and known as a bailey ..."
• "Another chamber or building and a bretesche lay outside this gate . A cruck-built wooden grange and a byre lay in the lower courtyard of the castle (seemingly a reference to the bailey). A masonry-built hall was also standing ..."