Floor with a defensive staircase. The top of the house might include military elements such as a wall-walk with crenellation, a watch-tower, a brattice, or a turret in order to deter or repulse a rebellious, rioting mob. The richest and the highest placed in the hierarchy dwelled in luxurious residences, some of them so large and so magnificent that they could be called palaces, composed of several buildings, fitted with many facilities, opening up to a yard or a garden enclosed by walls.
Palaces, residences and stone houses were numerous in all European cities. A good preserved example of urban patrician strongholds is San Gimignano in Tuscany (Italy).
Urban private fortified houses were not the monopoly of the rich laic oligarchy. Bishops and archbishops dwelled in a tower, a residence or a palace generally built near the cathedral. Prelates’ houses were on the whole similar to those of the richest men in town; they were both prestige buildings and military strongholds protecting clergymen and their property. The monks of the neighborhood often had an urban establishment (called a refugium) which they occupied in troubled time. Rich abbots generally made use of an urban pied-a-terre, either living there permanently or occupying it only during their visits in town; an example was the Hotel de Cluny in Paris.
In the regions exposed to pirates and raiders, and in Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista against the Moors, cathedrals and churches were frequently fortified. The same was true for abbeys and convents. When Benedictine and Cistercian abbeys were isolated in the countryside, Dominican and Franciscan convents were established in towns or in the suburbs. Nevertheless urban convents and rural abbeys had many architectural similarities combining material and spiritual life. They included an abbatial church, chapels, cloisters, a chapter-hall, and various conventual buildings such as a scriptorium, a library, and sleeping and eating accommodations for the brothers; service facilities such as store-places, a kitchen, an infirmary, and washing facilities; a
Gatehouse in Nancy, Lorraine (France) 961
World History
