In medieval fortification, a bretèche or brattice is a small balcony with

machicolation A machicolation (french: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at ...

s, usually built over a gate and sometimes in the corners of the fortress' wall, with the purpose of enabling defenders to shoot or throw objects at the attackers huddled under the wall. Depending on whether they have a roof, bretèches are classified in two types: open and closed. The open ones were accessed from the

battlement A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interv ...

's wall walk, or from a crenel. Medieval latrines (called

garderobe Garderobe is a historic term for a room in a medieval castle. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives as its first meaning a store-room for valuables, but also acknowledges "by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy". The word der ...

s) were fairly similar in construction, but they were not placed over doors. In

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

(''lladronera'') and Portuguese (''ladroneira'') the word for ''bretèche'' was in fact derived from the Byzantine latreys (

latrine A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground ( pit latrine), or ...

), but this regionalism did not carry over to other languages. Because the places protected by bretèches were usually vital, they were usually manned by professional soldiers, often mercenaries in the Middle Ages. As a result of these circumstances, the word for latrine even denoted a mercenary in some regions. A bretèche is pictured in '' Bellifortis'', '' Livro das Fortalezas'', and in several other medieval military texts. Image:Fort de Beauregard (Besançon) - bretèche.JPG, An open bretèche at the Fort of Beauregard, Besançon Image:Archon église fortifiée (bretèche façade Sud) 1.jpg, A closed bretèche of the fortified church at

Archon, Aisne Archon () is a commune in the department of Aisne in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. Geography Archon is located some 60 km east by southeast of Saint-Quentin and 40 km west of Charleville-Mézières. It can be accessed ...

Image:Damaskus4.jpg, Inside view of the

Citadel of Damascus The Citadel of Damascus ( ar, قلعة دمشق, Qalʿat Dimašq) is a large medieval fortified palace and citadel in Damascus, Syria. It is part of the Ancient City of Damascus, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. The loc ...

; twin bretèches project from each tower overseeing a section of the curtain wall Image:Rudelle - Eglise -3.JPG, Bretèches protecting the door and windows of the fortified church at Rudelle, France Image:Krak des Chevaliers 04.jpg, Multiple open bretèches at Krak des Chevaliers

References

Castle architecture {{Fort-stub

See also

References