A machicolation is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones, or other objects, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall. The design was developed in the Middle Ages when the Norman crusaders returned. A machicolated battlement projects outwards from the supporting wall in order to facilitate this. A hoarding is a similar structure made of wood, usually temporarily constructed in the event of a siege. Advantages of machicolations over wooden hoardings include the greater strength of stone battlements, as well as the fireproof properties.
The word derives from the Old French word *machecol, mentioned in Medieval Latin as machecollum and ultimately from Old French macher 'crush', 'wound' and col 'neck'. Machicolate is only recorded in the 18th c. in English, but a verb machicollāre is attested in Anglo-Latin.[1] The Spanish word denoting this structure, matacán, is similarly composed from "matar canes" meaning roughly "killing dogs", the latter being a reference to infidels.[2] A variant of a machicolation, set in the ceiling of a passage, was colloquially known as a murder-hole.
Machicolations were more common in French castles than their English contemporaries, and when used in English castles they were usually restricted to the gateway, as in the 13th-century Conwy Castle.[3]
Machicolation was later used for decorative effect with spaces between the corbels but without the openings, and subsequently became a characteristic of the many non-military buildings (for example, some Scottish and Gothic buildings) of the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the first examples of machicolation that still exists in France is Chateau de Farcheville built in 1291 outside of Paris.
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