As formas de expansão da casa-torre medieval

Abstract

The oldest known reference to a castle is that of a hill, in Villa Negrelus, Guimarães, in 870, which "does not just correspond to a relation of topographic dependence (which many times it does not even exist), but above all to a dependency of an administrative and military nature"94, dominating a settlement that spread through the agricultural valleys and, therefore, impossible to fortify.95 "It is This is how the castle appears: a structure erected on top of a hill, seeking to extract the maximum benefit from of the land's topography (f|11), whose space was delimited by a wall, in which a small military garrison and where the population could gather in case of threat"96 The term castle began to be used in the mid-10th century to designate military enclosures. more complex and more apt to defend. The description given to us by Mário Barroca about the remains of the old castle of the civitates of Anégia, indicates its reduced dimensions, about 24 by 30 meters, and its implantation, on a secondary spur to the main hill where once a castro.97 These structures would be, therefore, very simple, to which, belatedly, they could be one or more fences were added, most likely already battled and with battlements, or alterations were made a little more elaborate, transforming them into alcáçovas. The aforementioned author characterizes, in this way, these pre-Romanesque castle structures: "In most cases, the defensive works were brief, including the cutting of stone, the displacement of earth to create unevenness, and the construction of walls, for sometimes on a slope and only covered with stone on the outer face. In some rarer cases, the works also involved the creation of ditches. The building apparatus for these castles is incipient: they were built in dry stone (or mamposteria), with poorly prepared and large stones, without mortar use. These castles of refuge, erected between granite boulders, with architecture not elaborated, not knowing most of the solutions of medieval military architecture (...), gone multiplying steadily over the course of the century. X but, above all, throughout the Century. XI, when they reach exceed three hundred in all of Northwest Portugal."98. Simultaneously with the castles of the civitas and In addition to other rocky constructions, there are other fortified constructions of greater architectural value, built on the initiative of the Count, such as the aforementioned castle of Guimarães, built to defend the Monastery of Our Lady, between 950 and 957