New towns established by royal decree in the thirteenth century for
military purposes are called bastides. In France, bastides were laid out like
ancient Roman cities, with a rectangular plan and two principal streets
crossing at right angles, dividing the city into four sections with the market
square and the church at the center. Walls with towers and fortified
gates surrounded the bastide. As duke of Aquitaine, Edward I of England
established over fifty bastides as administrative headquarters and commercial
centers. These towns were fortified only lightly.
The city or bastide of Aigues Mortes was established on the Mediterranean
coast by Louis IX as the embarkation spot for his crusade (Figure
22). Rectangular in plan with streets parallel to the walls, and a central
open square, five gates on the sea side served the port. The walls were
about thirty-five feet high with both wall and corner towers. The Tour
de Constance, finished in 1248, a round, moated independent tower, over
100 feet tall with walls nearly 20 feet thick, provided extra security for
the governor. The tall turret rising above the wall-walk served as both a
watch tower and a lighthouse. Inside the walls, the streets ran straight
from gate to gate, crossing at right angles to form rectangular blocks of
buildings. A central town square and church served the community’s spiritual
and social-commercial needs. Building stopped around 1300. Today
the harbor is silted up, and Aigues-Mortes survives as a well-preserved
relic of the past.
World History
