Bergfried
Bergfried is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and in countries under German influence. Stephen Friar in the Sutton Companion to Castles describes a bergfried as a "free-standing, fighting-tower". Its defensive function is to some extent similar to that of a keep in English or French castles. However, the characteristic difference between a bergfried and a keep is that a bergfried was typically not designed for permanent habitation.
Overview
The living quarters of a castle with a bergfried are separate, often in a lower tower or an adjacent building called a palas Consequently, a bergfried could be built as a tall slender tower with little internal room, few vaults and few if any windows. The bergfried served as a watchtower and as a refuge during sieges. The distinction between a bergfried and a keep is not always clear-cut, as there were thousands of such towers built with many variations. There are some French keeps with only austere living quarters, while some late bergfrieds in Germany were intended to be habitable.For maximum protection, the bergfried could be sited on its own in the centre of the castle's inner bailey and totally separate from the enceinte. Alternatively, it could be close to or up against the outer curtain wall on the most vulnerable side as an additional defence, or project from the wall. For instance, the Marksburg has its bergfried in the centre, and Katz Castle on the most likely direction of attack. Some, like Münzenberg and Plesse Castles, have two bergfrieds.
Outside Germany, the crusader castles of Montfort Castle and Khirbat Jiddin built by the Teutonic Order had prominent towers that some authors have compared to bergfrieds, arguing that these castles depended more on Rhineland than local crusader traditions of military architecture.
Eynsford Castle in Kent is a rare English example, where the bergfried is the central element of the design.
Etymology
The word '"bergfried", sometimes rendered perfrit, berchfrit or berfride and many similar variants in medieval documents, did not just refer to a castle tower, but was used to describe most other types of tower, such as siege towers, bell towers or storage buildings. The main tower of a castle was often simply referred to as a "tower" or "big tower". In late medieval Low German documents, however, the terms berchfrit, berchvrede and similar variants often appeared in connexion with smaller castles.German castle research during the 19th century introduced Bergfried or Berchfrit as the general term for a non-residential main tower, and these terms then became established in the literature.
The etymological origin of the word is unclear. There are theories about it being derived from Middle High German or Latin, or even from a Greek word brought back from the Crusades. A theory that is often stated in older texts, that the bergfried took its name from the phrase "weil er den Frieden berge", i.e. it guaranteed the security of the castle, cannot be confirmed.
Development and forms
The bergfried established itself as a new type of building during the 12th century and from about 1180 to the 14th century increasingly became a feature of the Central European castles. Numerous examples have survived from this period almost to their full height. However the origin of the design is not fully understood, since towers dating from before the 12th century have had to be almost entirely excavated archaeologically, and only the lowest sections remain. Individual examples may also be found dating to as early as the second half of the 11th century. The precursor of the bergfried is the fortified tower house, whose Western European expression is called a donjon or keep.Residential towers were common before the advent of the bergfried in German-speaking countries, too; a precursor is found, for example, in the wooden tower of the motte-and-bailey castle. Donjons combine the two contrasting functions of a stately, comfortable residence and a fortification. The bergfried, however, dispenses with the keep's residential function in favour of its defensive purposes. At the same time, new forms of unfortified residential building became popular, the palas, for example, was incorporated into castle construction. The emergence of the bergfried is thus clearly related to the differentiation of living and fortification within a castle. In Western Europe however, the donjon or keep, with their combination of domestic and defensive functions, continued to be predominant during the course of the Middle Ages.
Often the bergfried forms the main tower in the centre of the castle or is positioned as a wall tower on the main avenue of attack against the castle. It may be an isolated structure standing alone amongst the other buildings of the castle or be joined to them to form a combined building complex. However, typically, the bergfried is a self-contained element that is not internally connected to other buildings and has its own access. As a rule, this is a so-called elevated entrance, i.e. the entrance is located at the level of an upper floor of the tower and is accessed via its own bridge, staircase or ladder.
Bergfrieds very often have a square or round floor plan, but pentagonal towers are also frequently encountered; whilst octagonal towers are rather less common. There are even a few examples of bergfrieds with irregular polygonal floor plans. A rare form is the triangular bergfried of Grenzau Castle near Höhr-Grenzhausen or that of Rauheneck Castle near Baden bei Wien. Towers with triangular and pentagonal floor plans invariably had a corner facing the main line of attack on the castle.
Bergfrieds averaged 20 to 30 metres in height, although those at Forchtenstein Castle in Burgenland, Austria, and Freistadt Castle reach a height of 50 metres. Compared with the donjon, which occupies a relatively large ground area because of its elaborate interior layout with living rooms, a hall, kitchen, etc., the bergfried usually has a much smaller footprint, which, although of similar height to the donjon gives it the slimmer appearance of a tower. As a building, the bergfried has an even stronger vertical emphasis than the donjon.
Local rock was usually used for building material and was quarried in the immediate vicinity of the castle site. In areas where there was little usable rock, brick or fieldstone was used. The masonry work was often executed very carefully, edges being accentuated with rusticated ashlar. The bergfried could be plastered or the stonework could be left exposed. The latter was the case, for example, in the towers of the Hohenstaufen era which were entirely made of rusticated ashlar. The tower shaft usually had no or very few windows; where they exist, they are often just a few narrow vertical slits.
The enormous wall thickness at basement level in many bergfrieds usually decreases significantly on the inside of the tower at the level of the upper floors. On the resulting wall ledges, wooden ceilings were laid that served to partition the various floor levels. The lowest floor and the uppermost floor are often covered by a stone vault. Occasionally, narrow stairways were incorporated into the masonry to allow a single person to climb the tower. More often, however, the floors were connected by wooden stairs or ladders. Some bergfrieds had limited living space, and even small fireplaces may be found in the upper floors. These heated rooms were usually used by the watchmen.
On many bergfrieds the original design of the top of the tower cannot be precisely ascertained. On the one hand, this is because the tops of the walls have become ruined and the wooden elements have rotted away, and on the other because bergfrieds in castles that were still inhabited in modern times were often given a new top section. Furthermore, some towers that might look medieval at first glance are, in reality, 19th century Historicist creations and some are even romanticized notions of medieval castle architecture. Late medieval tower crowns have survived more often or can sometimes be reconstructed based on drawings.
The terrace or fighting platform of a bergfried was originally often surrounded by battlement. Occasionally these crenellations have survived in their original state, especially where they were protected by subsequent roof or other superstructures. The fighting platform could be either open or covered by a roof or spire. Depending on the floor plan of the tower, the latter would frequently either be a tented or a conical roof. The roof comprised a wooden truss covered with tiles or slates or, alternatively, was of solid stone. It often covered the entire fighting platform, so that the roof rested on the battlements. In other cases, it was set back, creating an open gangway between roof and battlements. In covered fighting platforms there were similarly located window openings in place of the merlons that gave a panoramic view of the surrounding area and enabled the use of long-distance weapons. Some surviving ledges or beam holes on bergfrieds indicate, in some cases, that wooden superstructures were used. In the late Middle Ages, the tower roofs were often embellished with bartizans and other similar structures.
Larger ballistic weapons or catapults were only rarely positioned on the fighting platforms.
Large castles and Ganerbenburgs sometimes had multiple bergfrieds for status or security reasons. Consisting of an inner bailey and two outer baileys, the very large castle of Neuenburg, the residence of the landgraves of Thuringia in Freyburg, Germany, used to have a bergfried in every part of the castle, i.e. a total of three bergfrieds. The unusually large royal imperial castle of Kyffhausen Castle in the Kyffhäuser consisted of an upper bailey, a middle bailey and a lower bailey. In the upper and middle baileys, the two known bergfrieds have survived at least in remnants. Smaller castles sometimes had two bergfrieds too: the Kohren Castle in Kohren-Sahlis or the well-known Saaleck Castle at Bad Kösen, for instance.