[413] Page 1091.
[414] Albericus in Chron. MS. an. 1238, apud Adelung.
[415] Rolandini de factis in March. Tarvis., lib. viii. c. 13; Monachi Patavini Chron., p. 693.
[416] Compare Christine de Pisan, "Fais du roy Charles," chap. 36.
[417] 17 Sep. 1240.
[418] Balistarios.
[419] Petrariam turquesiam. Its particular character has not been ascertained. But it was a machine for throwing large stones with considerable force.
[420] This name was given to a wall fortified with battlements and machicoulis, the fashion having been originally introduced by the Saracens.
[421] A Bretèche was a covered passage constructed of wood on the top of a wall or of a tower, carried upon the series of corbels called machicoulis. It was usually removed in time of peace, being easily put up again in time of war: for this reason, examples are not often now to be found. There are probably none remaining in England, and they are rare in France, but occasionally occur in a dilapidated state, and the marks where they have been placed are to be seen on almost every old fortification. They formed a very important part of the defensive system in the middle ages. It was in these wooden galleries that the archers were chiefly placed, and from them stones were hurled on the heads of the assailants through the openings of the machicoulis, the men being entirely protected by the outer boarding and roof of the bretèche or gallery. (For many engravings of them, see Viollet-Le-Duc, Architecture Militaire du Moyen-Age, 8vo. Paris, 1854.) There were loopholes in the outer boarding; and in the wall behind openings for the supply of projectiles from the inner passage behind the parapet wall, in front of which the bretèches were built. These projectiles were conveyed to the top of the walls or towers by means of the sort of wells which we find in the thickness of the walls of old castles. The Bretèches were also called Hourds. They were sometimes erected on the top of wooden palisades only, as was the case in this instance.
[422] Wendover (in Paris, p. 270); Dunstab., p. 142; New Rymer, vol. i. p. 175. Annal. Wigorn., p. 486.