[75] Ord. Vit., viii. 24. Cf. viii. 16, where Robert of Normandy, another great Crusader, besieging Courcy-sur-Dives in 1091, caused a great wooden tower or belfry (berfredum) to be built, which was burned by the defenders. Robert of Bellême was also present at this siege.
[77] Suger, Gesta Ludovici Grossi (ed. Molinier, pp. 63-66).
[78] Pent-houses were sometimes elaborately defended. Thus Joinville describes the large “cats” made by St Louis’ engineers to protect the soldiers who were making a causeway across an arm of the Nile near Mansurah (1249-50). These had towers at either end, with covered guard-houses behind the towers, and were called chats-châteaux.
[79] See the account of the sieges of Boves and Château-Gaillard by Guillaume le Breton, Philippis, books ii. and vii. At the siege of Zara in the fourth Crusade, after five days of fruitless stone-throwing, the Crusaders began to undermine a tower which led to the surrender of the city (Villehardouin).
[80] Abbo: see the account of the siege of [Paris] above.
[81] Ord. Vit., ix. 15: “Machinam, quam ligneum possumus vocitare castellum.” It was strictly a belfry (see [below]).
[82] Ibid.
[83] Cf. the account of the operations at the siege of Marseilles (Cæsar, De Bell. Civ., ii. 11): “Musculus ex turri latericia a nostris telis tormentisque defenditur.”
[84] The porte-coulis is literally a sliding door. Its outer bars fitted into grooves in the walls on either side. See pp. [227], [229].