Sideline gate
A sally or a failure gate is a small Nebentor in a fastening system that the crew of the installation at a siege a surprising failure or an undiscovered leaving the facility allows, partly in peacetime an abbreviation otherwise long paths through the weirs.
Naming
For the castle researcher Otto Piper , the "hâl türlîn" (little secret door), which is mentioned in Gottfried von Straßburg's verse novel Tristan , is a secondary gate; in French, the term should be equated with “ poterne, fausse poterne or fausse porte ”. But Piper does not clearly distinguish between the slip gate and the exit gate, as he doubts that a secret exit was often used for an exit because the castle crew was too few in number for a field battle. He does not consider a possible failure that is very limited in terms of space and time, for example to destroy a siege engine, for small secondary exits.
Construction
The gate is relatively small compared to the main entrance ( Peace Gate ) and is often designed as an entrance for pedestrians only. An exit gate "often hidden and not easily accessible from the outside" is usually designed as a simple door that opens inwards and can be barred from the inside in the event of a siege. Other exit ports were well secured (for example by a gate) so as not to become a weak point in the fortification. Behind the gate a passage leads through ramparts or walls. In some cases, exit gates have a second door on the inside of the attachment (similar to a safety gate). Behind it there are often rescue yards, where troops can be gathered before the sortie. There can be arterial roads on the outside of the attachment .
Examples
literature
- Sideline gate . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 2, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1905, p. 135 .
- Horst Wolfgang Böhme : exit gate. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme, Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner : Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , p. 70, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .
- Otto Piper : Castle studies. Reprint of the 3rd edition from 1912. Weltbild, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-554-7 , p. 523 ( digitized version ).
