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The Early Effects of Gunpowder on Fortress Design: A Lasting Impact

Renaissance Fortress

The Early Effects of Gunpowder on Fortress Design: A Lasting Impact

By Matthew F. Bailey

Vexillum: The Undergraduate Journal of Classical and Medieval Studies, Issue 3 (2013)

Renaissance Fortress

Abstract: The introduction of gunpowder did not immediately transform the battlefields of Europe. Designers of fortifications only had to respond to the destructive threats of siege warfare, and witnessing the technical failures of early gunpowder weaponry would hardly have convinced a European magnate to bolster his defenses. This essay follows the advancement of gunpowder tactics in late medieval and early Renaissance Europe. In particular, it focuses on Edward III’s employment of primitive ordnance during the Hundred Years’ War, the role of artillery in the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, and the organizational challenges of effectively implementing gunpowder as late as the end of the fifteenth century. This essay also seeks to illustrate the nature of the development of fortification in response to the emerging threat of gunpowder siege weaponry, including the architectural theories of the early Renaissance Italians, Henry VIII’s English artillery forts of the mid-sixteenth century, and the evolution of the angle bastion. The article concludes with a short discussion of the longevity and lasting relevance of the fortification technologies developed during the late medieval and early Renaissance eras.

Introduction: The castle was an inseparable component of medieval warfare. Since Duke William of Normandy’s 1066 conquest of Anglo-Saxon England, the construction of castles had become the earmark of medieval territorial expansion. These fortifications were not simply stone squares with round towers adorning the corners. Edward I’s massive castle building program in Wales, for example, resulted in fortifications so visually disparate that one might assume they were from different time periods.1 Medieval engineers had built upon castle technology for centuries by 1500, and the introduction of gunpowder weaponry to the battlefields of Europe foreshadowed a revision of the basics of fortress design. However, the transformation from medieval castle to Renaissance fortress did not occur overnight. Witnessing the technical travesty of early gunpowder weaponry would hardly have convinced a European magnate to bolster his defenses. But castles could not resist the onslaught of artillery for long. Constantinople’s impenetrable double walls fell to Ottoman ordnance in 1453 and from that moment on traditional medieval European defenses became increasingly obsolete. For the latter half of the fifteenth-century engineers raced to develop the mightiest fortification style possible. Expansive defensive building programs such as Henry VIII’s fortification of England’s southern coast illustrate the slow, cautious process that characterized the development of early Renaissance fortification. By the time the ideal formula of walls and platforms was reached, the castle had been relegated to a vestige of the past.

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