Fortifications of Fez
The Fortifications of Fez comprise a complex circuit of ramparts and gates surrounding Fes el-Bali and Fes el-Jdid, two urban agglomerations that compose the old "medina" of Fes, Morocco. They also include a number of kasbahs and forts which were built both to protect and to control the city. These fortifications have been built over many centuries and the extensive remnants today date from many different periods.
The city walls underwent a complex evolution over the centuries with multiple phases of expansion, destruction, and reconstruction affecting different parts of the city's outline. Likewise, the city gates vary greatly in design and date, ranging from heavily fortified defensive gates to simple openings in the walls today. The walls marked both the physical and symbolic limits of the city, as such the gates themselves could acquire added social or political significance. The city's major cemeteries are located just outside the main gates, in particular: Bab Ftouh, Bab Mahrouk, and Bab Guissa.
Role of the city walls
As with other pre-modern city walls, the ramparts of Fes served both a defensive and a controlling function. They protected the city from attack and kept out strangers. City gates were typically closed and locked at night; travelers would not generally have been able to enter the city at a late hour. The walls and gates also controlled the comings and goings of the city's own inhabitants, preventing anyone from leaving if the authorities desired. One of their most important functions in controlling access was to control the flow of goods and ensure they were properly taxed. This ensured the efficient collection of revenues on behalf of the authorities. Finally, a more subtle or symbolic function of the city walls was to formally define the borders of the urban space, within which certain rules, principles, or regulations might apply.With the advent of gunpowder, the medieval walls became partly redundant as military defenses against other armies; however they remained essentially unchanged in the following centuries and were not rebuilt or redesigned to protect against artillery. This is partly because Fes was a central inland city and rarely faced external threats from armies equipped with such weapons, unlike the Atlantic coastal cities of Morocco which were frequently threatened or occupied by Portuguese and Spanish forces. Only on one occasion was Fes taken by a foreign army: the Ottomans, with the help of a Wattasid dynasty survivor, occupied it in 1554 for less than a year before the Moroccan Saadis took it back. The Saadis later built the only fortresses in Fes designed to resist gunpowder technology, and even these seem to have been intended more to impose Saadi control on the often rebellious city. By contrast, local Bedouin or other potential raiders from the countryside were rarely equipped with artillery, so the existing walls were sufficient to defend against them.
The walls continued to play their more administrative functions. The city gates accordingly came to be seen as more formal and decorative in purpose, sometimes serving as monumental entries to the city; the 20th-century construction of the strictly ornamental gate of Bab Bou Jeloud by the French colonial administration can be seen as the logical outcome of this shift in purpose.
Constructions methods and maintenance
The walls of Fès, like those of Marrakesh and most historic cities in Morocco, were generally built from rammed earth, an ancient building technique found across the Near East, Africa, and beyond. Also known as "pisé" or "tabia". It generally made use of local materials and was widely used thanks to its low cost and relative efficiency. This material consisted of mud and soil of varying consistency usually mixed with other materials such as straw or lime to aid adhesion. The addition of lime also made the walls harder and more resistant overall, although this varied locally as some areas had soil which hardened well on its own while others did not. The technique is still in use today, though the composition and ratio of these materials has continued to change over time as some materials have become relatively more costly than others.File:Restored and unrestored wall of Fez.jpg|thumb|Restored versus unrestored section of pisé wall near Bab Guissa, in Fes el-BaliThe walls were built from bottom to top one level at a time. Workers pressed and packed in the materials into sections ranging from 50 and 70 cm in length that were each held together temporarily by wooden boards. Once the material was settled, the wooden restraints could be removed and the process was repeated on top of the previously completed level. This process of initial wooden scaffolding often leaves traces in the form of multiple rows of little holes visible across the face of the walls. In many cases walls were covered with a coating of lime, stucco, or other material to give them a smooth surface and to better protect the main structure.This type of construction required consistent maintenance and upkeep, as the materials are relatively permeable and are more easily eroded by rain over time; in parts of Morocco, kasbahs and other structures made with a less durable composition can begin to crumble apart in less than a couple of decades after they've been abandoned. As such, old structures of this type remain intact only insofar as they are continuously restored; some stretches of wall today appear brand new due to regular maintenance, while others are crumbling.
Historical evolution of the city walls
Early history of Fes: dual cities
The exact details of the foundation of Fes are debated by modern scholars, based on sometimes conflicting historical sources. Though the dates vary slightly, all accounts agree that Idris I founded the first urban settlement, Madinat Fas, on the eastern shore of the Oued Fes while his son Idris II founded a second settlement, al-'Aliya, on the western shore. Historical sources agree that these two early cities had their own walls, their own separate mosques and institutions, and were often rivals. This urban center nonetheless served as the Idrisid capital and remained one of the main cities of Morocco even after the decline of the Idrisids.Almoravid and Almohad era: the unification of the two cities
In 1069, the Almoravid emir Yusuf ibn Tashfin ordered the walls of the two cities to be demolished and for a new wall to be built around both cities, thus unifying them for the first time. Although the Almoravids made their capital at Marrakesh, Fes was one of their most important cities. They constructed a fortified kasbah in the eastern end of the city, likely on the same site as the later Kasbah Bou Jeloud.File:Bab mahrouk.jpg|thumb|Bab Mahrouk, the Almohad-era western gate of the cityIn 1145 the Almohad leader Abd al-Mu'min besieged and conquered the city during the Almohad overthrow of the Almoravids. Due to the ferocious resistance they encountered from the local population, the Almohads demolished the city's fortifications. However, due to Fes's continuing economic and military importance, the Almohad caliph Ya'qub al-Mansur ordered the reconstruction of the ramparts. The walls were completed by his successor Muhammad al-Nasir in 1204, giving them their definitive shape and establishing the perimeter of Fes el-Bali to this day. Many of the main gates of the city were built around this time. Since the city had grown in the meantime, the new Almohad perimeter walls was larger than the former Almoravid ramparts. Like other Moroccan ramparts, they were built of rammed earth with stone foundations, and were reinforced with rectangular towers. The Almohads also built the Kasbah Bou Jeloud on the site of the former Almoravid kasbah in the western end of the city, and also built the initial kasbah occupying the site of the current Kasbah an-Nouar. Not all the land within the city walls was densely inhabited; much of it was still relatively open and was occupied by crops and gardens used by the inhabitants.Today, the northern sections of Fes el-Bali's city walls are believed to be the oldest remaining parts of the walls of Fes and are thought to date all the way back to this Almohad period. The fortified city gates of Bab Mahrouk and Bab Guissa also retain their forms from the Almohad period.
File:Fes walls history 2 - early-mid 13th century.png|thumb|upright=2|The walls of Fes under the Almohads , after the unification of the two cities under the Almoravids. The Almoravids established a kasbah on the west side of the city. The Almohads rebuilt the walls at the start of the 13th century and added a second kasbah, the Kasbah An-Nouar in the west.|alt=|center
Marinid era: the creation of Fes el-Jdid
In 1248, Fes was in turn conquered by the Marinids under Abu Yahya, expelling the Almohads. In 1250, however, while the sultan was out on campaign, the inhabitants of Fes rebelled and the city had to be reconquered after a 9-month siege. Perhaps due to this recurring streak of rebellion and resistance, the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf Ya'qub decided, in 1276, to build an entirely new royal city to the west of the old city, on higher ground overlooking it. This became known as Fes el-Jdid, and included the royal palace of the sultans, the administrative quarters of the state, and the headquarters of the army.Fes el-Jdid had its own set of fortified walls and gates. Its northern entrance, at the beginning of the road to Meknes, consisted of a fortified bridge over the Oued Fes. This bridge was set between two gates: Bab es-Sebaa and Bab el-Qantara. The southern gate of the city, Bab 'Oyun Sanhaja, and the western gate, Bab Agdal, all shared a similar defensive layout with Bab es-Sebaa by having a bent entrance and flanking towers. Inside, the city was further subdivided into different districts, some of which, including the Dar al-Makhzen, had walls and gates separating them from the others. Another district, initially known as Hims and later converted into the Jewish Mellah, was also added to the south of Bab Semmarine, between the city's inner and outer walls on this side.
Most of Fes el-Jdid's outer perimeter was protected by a set of double walls; a tall inner wall with heavy square towers at regular intervals and a smaller outer wall with minor towers. Today, an original section of these walls has been well-preserved between the Lalla Mina and Agdal Gardens, inside the perimeter of the Dar al-Makhzen. On the city's north side, the smaller outer wall appears to have actually extended outwards from the city in order to enclose the vast Mosara Garden, a royal pleasure garden created by the Marinids in 1287, nearly as large as the city itself. The raised aqueduct which provided water to this garden ran between Bab Dekkakin and the gate of Bab Segma to the north, and was later incorporated into the much more recent walls of the New Mechouar.
The eastern perimeter of Fes el-Jdid, facing Fes el-Bali, was more heavily fortified: both the inner and outer walls were equally massive, and between them ran a long military corridor for troop movements. The extra fortification on this side has been interpreted has an indication that the royal city's defenses were as much about protecting the regime from the restive inhabitants of old Fes as they were aimed at warding off external invaders. Nonetheless, the Marinids did also restore and repair the walls of Fes el-Bali, in addition to devoting their attention to the construction of prestigious madrasas and other embellishments in the old city. The heyday of the Marinids thus translated also into a golden age for Fes as well.
Today, Fes el-Jdid's walls and gates still date to a large extent from the Marinid period, generally from Abu Yusuf Ya'qub's initial construction. However, some sections have been expanded over the years, with those of the Dar al-Makhzen, in particular, being extended multiple times to accommodate new gardens and extensions of the palace.
File:Fes walls history 3 - late 14th or 15th century.png|thumb|upright=2|The walls of Fes el-Bali and Fes el-Jdid during the Marinid era. Fes el-Jdid included Muslim neighbourhoods and eventually a Jewish neighbourhood, as well as the Marinid palaces. The original layout of these palaces is no longer known. To the north, the Marinids also created a vast garden known as al-Mosara, enclosed with its own walls.|alt=|center