Franks 'n fortifications

We just returned from our Peloponnese trip, which turned out to be largely a "Castles of the Morea" trip. We ended up exploring four different castles from very different eras: the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, the Venetian/Ottoman fortifications on Palamidi overlooking Nafplio, Monemvasia, and Frankish/Byzantine Mistra. We also looked up at Acrocorinth but didn't have time for a visit (to be fair, we also looked up at Monemvasia, since the upper city was closed for renovations; but we did wander the lower town extensively, so had a good look at its walls). Also, our hotel in Nafplion turned out to be right on the side of the acropolis; we actually had to walk through a Venetian gateway, complete with a lion of St. Mark, to get to the hotel.

This way to the reception desk. I'm not kidding.

All of this castle-going led to some serious reflection on the nature of fortifications. The basic question we started with is "what function do these walls serve?" to which the immediate answer is, "to protect yourself, of course." But this answer becomes much more complex when you start thinking about the variables: who you are, who the enemy is, what exactly you are trying to protect, what weapons are available, and so on.

Take the Mycenaeans. The sheer scale of their stonework is staggering: "Cyclopean" indeed.

Note 7-year-old for scale. Admittedly, this is from the Treasury of Atreus, not the outer wall; but the scale is similar.

And of course there is the artistry involved, most spectacularly in the "Lion Gate":

But what is being protected? The walls encircle only the citadel; it is becoming increasingly clear that most of the community lived outside the walls. Were they allowed inside in times of trouble? Or were they the ones that the walls were protecting the king and his court from?

Sorry, you folks don't qualify for our full protection plan.

And of course those Achaeans were particularly worried about being trapped in a siege: so the multiple levels of defense, sally ports, and of course an internal access to a water supply.

Damn, did someone forget to pay the water bill this month?

You get a similar sense from the Frankish and Venetian fortifications: Palimidi, and the earliest ones on Monemvasia and Mistra. They weren't interested in protecting the surrounding area, so much as protecting themselves from the surrounding area, and anyone who might want to dislodge them. William de Villehardouin and his bunch of "warriors of God" (or "barbarians", as the Byzantines called them) were mainly concerned with creating safe places from which they could sally out on their horses to fight their enemies and extract "taxes" (i.e. plunder) from the local populace. Fun fact from the Blue Guide: William's forces took Monemvasia after a three-year siege in which nearly every rat and cat on the rock was consumed.

Monemvasia. One way on and off the rock. State of the art security system.

Sure, it's a bit of a fixer-upper. But once you're there, it's hard for the folks downstairs to get rid of you.

Mmmm, good eats. At this restaurant, I mean.

William's Kastro atop Mistra. Sparta is in the distance. From here William was lord of all he surveyed--at least until he was dislodged by Michael Palaiologos 10 years after he took it.

The same with the Venetian sites. They were looking for impregnability; but they were less interested in controlling the land. It was the sea they were concerned about. Making sure their trade routes remained secure, and exclusively theirs. It helped that by the time they came along, gunpowder had been perfected, and cannon were on the way to being a handy way of controlling the nearby seascape.

A watchtower on Palamidi. Keeping an eye out for Turkish corsairs.

 The Venetian works on Palamidi, Acrocorinth and Monemvasia ("La Serenissima" controlled the rock twice, for brief periods) are astoundingly extensive and strongly built. But they also make you wonder if they represent money well spent. Like the Mycenaean walls, they seem like they might have been for show; and I wonder if they did anything to boost the Venetians' trade advantage over the Ottomans. What matters in trade is whether you have goods to sell and can find the right markets; not whether you can blow your rivals' ships out of the water. Monemvasia seems like an especially pointless place for the Venetians to control. Although it is a very secure location, it has almost no access to the water. So Venetian ships rounding Cape Malea would have had to proceed up to Nafplion before they could stop for water and the delights of a friendly harbor.

Near the "Water gate" at Monemvasia. Good for disposing of bodies. Not so good for docking ships.

The Byzantines, on the other hand, seem to have had a different attitude towards fortification. The best example we saw was Mistra. There, below the Frankish castle, lay the Upper City and the Lower City. Each level had its own fortifications. Sure, the Despot's palace was in the upper city; but there were walls outside the lower city, which is where many of the churches, monasteries, and private houses were. There was also a "city outside the walls", but the signage at the site claims that the people who lived there would be allowed inside the walls of the lower city in times of threat.

Palace of the Despots. Could we change our title? We're really not that bad.

Outer gate to the Lower City. Please form an orderly line. We'll need to check your papers before you can come in.

Certainly, the way the signage present it, the Byzantine empire looked after the people; they were "one of us" in ways that the Franks and Venetians (never mind the Ottomans) were not. But is this just the modern Greek way of understanding their past? Did the people outside the walls of the lower city look up at the gates, walls, and Despot's palace, and say "boy, I'm glad they are up there protecting us"? Or, for the average Greek peasant tilling his fields in the Evrotas valley, did it not matter which lords were ruling in the manor and controlling the keep? Interesting side note: a sign at Mistra noted that during the Ottoman period, while the churches and monasteries continued to function, the area outside the walls filled up with, among others, Jews. I suspect that the Jews of the area may have felt more comfortable with Turks in the upper city than with Byzantine Orthodox Greeks. As I said, the situation is always more complex than you think at first.