Castle building along the border of Brabant and Holland (c. 1290 - c. 1400) (2014) (original) (raw)
Château Gaillard 26. Château et frontière. Actes du colloque international d'Aabenraa 2012 (Caen 2014).
During the 14th century there were some disputes about the exact boundary between Holland and Brabant in the Low Countries. At one point, it was even stated the border ran right through the castle of Strijen at Oosterhout. Historical investigation clarifies the 'juridical perception' in this particular case. The wealthy Willem van Duvenvoorde, holding high offices on both sides of the border, succeeded in bringing the dispute to an end and, furthermore, he greatly modernised Strijen Castle c. 1325. A somewhat comparable situation occurred in the nearby lordship of Loon op Zand. Paulus van Haastrecht, also with high offices in Holland as well as in Brabant, built a strong tower house c. 1385 to strengthen his position to both sides. The last example dealt with in the paper is the strong tower house of Onsenoort at Nieuwkuijk, built after the destruction of its predecessor by Holland in 1370-72. The strong tower houses of Loon op Zand and Onsenoort reflect the turbulent times in this border region by the end of the 14th century. Therefore, they contradict the more general tendency to diminish the wall thickness of new built tower houses seen elsewhere in the Low Countries.
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Related papers
Tower Houses in the Netherlands
The common perception of the tower house in the Netherlands has until recently been associated with the reconstructed castle of Lunenburg, or with a drawing of five tower houses in the southeast of the province of Utrecht as they might have looked like in theMiddle Ages: a square tower of about 10 × 10 metres in plan with a height of about 12 metres. Lunenburg castle is one of that five. The drawing suggests that there are just five tower houses in that area and that they all look alike. First of all, there are more than 35 tower houses in that area and they do not all look alike. Furthermore, they are not representative of the tower house in The Netherlands more generally. This paper offers a report on the investigation of these – and other – tower houses in the past 10 years.
Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture, 2015
On the south side of the village of Walhain-Saint-Paul in Walloon Brabant a round donjon tower stands looking over the cultivated fields southwest toward Gembloux, once the site of a renowned Benedictine abbey that, according to a charter of 946, owned the land on which the tower would later be built (Figure 1). 2 Presumably its construction took place around 1200, the moment when the vogue for this circular form, called tour philippienne after the prototype that the French King Philip II had erected in Paris and elsewhere in his domains, was spreading. Perhaps it was Arnold II, Lord of Walhain, known for some time as an important vassal of the Dukes of Brabant, who commanded the work. His name appears in charters in the 1160s and in 1184 he is 1 The authors would like to thank the many students, Belgian and American, whose efforts have made excavation possible, and to acknowledge in particular the contributions of Ms. Inès Leroy (archival research), Dr. William I. Woods (soils and stratigraphy), Ms. Dana Best-Mitzak (ceramics), and Christine Merllié-Young (proofreading) to this article. 2 For the toponym Walhain and its variant spellings, M. Gysseling,
Plan or process? The medieval fortifications of Utrecht from the 12 th to 15 th century
In this paper data has been gathered from excavation of the last century dealing with the town defences of Utrecht. Using this data and other historical sources a reconstruction has been made of the medieval town defences of Utrecht. Central stands the question whether the construction of the town defences was a plan or process and how this enormous endeavour was realized. First the general history and background of Utrecht are discussed, followed by the reconstruction of the town defences. Then the town defences are divided into different phases. Finally a comparison between the town defences of Utrecht and different other towns in both the Netherlands and abroad will be made.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.