Enceinte
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Enceinte (from Latin incinctus: girdled, surrounded) is a French term denoting the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification".Template:Sfn For a castle this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the position. For a settlement it would be the main town wall with its associated gatehouses and towers and walls.
According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, the term was strictly applied to the continuous line of bastions and curtain walls forming "the body of the place", this last expression being often used as synonymous with enceinte. However, the outworks or defensive wall close to the enceinte were not considered as forming part of it. In early 20th-century fortification, the enceinte was usually simply the innermost continuous line of fortifications.