Week 4: Acrocorinth (A Castle)

Monday 9/29
Start off class with video of ancient roman catapault re-engineered.

Reading for the week is Behind the Castle Gate a study of English castles from Late Medieval Period to the Renaissance.

Acrocorinth has been described as one of the strongest natural fortresses in Europe.

It is built on a natural rock formation that rises 185 feet above the surrounding countryside.

AC is situated at the narrow isthismus with important strategic position.

Architecture of Acrocorinth
Western approach has four walls.

Seems to be built from out of the landscape rather than constructing the landscape around it.

Cisterns: important to collect water and survive during siege.

Main approaches: from the west through the Byzantine "postern" gate

From west, over moats, through larger "main gates

Inside of the castle is over 60 acres, with two distinct summits (eastern and western).

Flanking walls control other approaches.

History
AC seems to be first fortified in 7th Century.

Changed hands many times has a 2700 year history


 * 1) 234 Aratos takes it with 400 men
 * 2) 224 Aratos returns fortress to Antigonos Donon
 * 3) 146 Mummius sacked Corinth, the most strongly defended city in Peleponneseus.
 * 4) After the sack, Corinth remains largely unoccupied
 * 5) 44 BCE Corinth reoccupied as Roman Colony
 * 6) 5th Century CE: Hexamilion -> Six Mile wall built by Theodossus II to protect the Peleponneseus believed that he also refortifies the castle
 * 7) 1147 Normans
 * 8) 1212 Geoffrey de Vallou
 * 9) 1687 The Venetians take it
 * 10) 1715 Ottoman Turks
 * 11) Greeks take it back in War of Independence

AC has a complex mythological history: Temple dedicated to Aphrodite (built 5th Century)

Springs behind the temple supposedly the place where Pegasus stops to drink and is captured.

"Aphrodesia" - festival to Aphrodite. Also believed that 1000 prostitues (dedicated to Aphrodite) may have been housed at Acrocorinth.

Tower Comparison
Three gates on Western approach, as well as moat.

Two styles of masonry in Ancient Greece:


 * Trapizoidal (rectangular rock)
 * Polygonal (misshappen rocks that fit together in dynamic stylings)

Different types of stone in Acrocorinth -> demonstrate places where the walls/towers were rebuilt.

Placement of the soft stones on the sides to the more hardened rigid stones on the facades are more effective for dealing with frontal impacts during sieges.

Siege Weaponry

 * Lithobollos (Roman stone throwere)
 * Arrow thrower(Also used by Romans)
 * Cannons (brought by the Venetians)

Wall as Archeological Record
In the northern wall, you can see 5 generations of the wall's construction.

Crenallations, added by the Ottomans, are for

Approach to Acrocorinth
3 gates -> each operates as a threshold

Social access: Greeks couldn't go past the 3rd gate during Ottoman rule.

Commandant lives in impressive Keep on the top of the Eastern summit, with a commanding view of the entire space.

Wednesday 10/1
Matthew Johnson ->

Cooling
Castle designed to bee "seen" rather than to operate as a impenetrable fortress

The Gate at cooling is built up only one side.

Gates used to be:


 * Symbolic entrances for visitors
 * First place of defense

Bodiam
Castle set in the lake

Watery landscapes

Lake/moat used as open sewer

Latrine located on the walls of the castles -> smear urine & fecses on the wall

Approaching the castle
You must take a roundabout approach

You must enter the castle on foot.

Octagon space before the castle set up to receive the visitor in front of the building (staging)

Surprising to find the castle down low in the valley rather than up on a hill

In fact, archeologists later find a banqueting hall up on a hill -> view of castle as a important stage setting

The approach was often circuitous to:


 * Stresses the enormity of the building
 * Provides ample time and angles to impress visitor
 * Also gives castle dwellers time to prepare

Johnson calls this a "regular" castle (because it is symmetrical)

The approach also forces turns at right angles to reflect design of castle

and foreground the towers in the center of your view.

Landscape of Bodiam
Moat not very well defended -> could be dug out and drained with minimal effort

Old Wardour
Reappropriated as a romantic ruin -> erasing/concealing former landscaping in artificial reassignment of the castle

Brougham
Irregular

Entry through the keep/hall

Built on Roman Fort ruin

Caister
Home of John Falstolf (i.e. Shakespeare's Falstaff)

Distinctly differently courts (inner vs. outer)

Tattershall
Cromwell, former treasurer

1444 -> friend dies, rival takes over nearby castle

Cromwell then raises a larger, grander castle (dominates the landscape and the other castle (overcomes his friend)

Access to castle is governed in a verical manner (so progression up = social ascendancy)

There were also different thresholds -> visitors made to wait in rooms without heat

They would cool down before seeing the lord (and experiencing his 'heat').

Cromwell also had multiple castles

Cultural Contexts
5-10 Million people in Medieval England

People who owned castles >750 people (and many had more than one castle)

Friday 10/3
Discussion Section

Starting with Castles again

Considers functionality but within the landscape

Issues of war, society, functionality, are embedded within the landscape of society

maps -> essentialism of abstraction

an individual must choose what to depict in making a map

maps/models don't show change over time

Think of buildings as processes

Accounts of Visitors vs. Residents
What accounts do we have -> travelers, visitors

Which of course construct a discourse of approaching the building, dealing with it as a destination, as a fortress to siege

We are missing the accounts of residence

Life in Acrocorinth
According to the accounts of the Ottoman Turk, city had a cosmopolitan quality

Greek section after the second gate

Turk section after third gate


 * So the castle is employed to section and divide cultures and societies.

Poststructuralism & Castles
Lots of people in the class critical of Johnson's poststructural approach to castles

How can you tear something down, and then reconstruct it, if you are against structuralism

The multiplicity of the castle -> in different situations the castle must be different things


 * Defensive when sieged
 * Symbol of power when hosting visitors (or not)
 * Sign of class when peasants excluded (or included)