Moat

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Image:Baddesley.jpg Moats (also known as a Fosse) were deep and wide water-filled trenches, excavated to provide a barrier against attack upon castle ramparts or other fortifications. A moat made access to the walls difficult for siege weapons, such as a siege tower or battering ram, that needed to be brought up against a wall to be effective. A very important feature was that a water-filled moat made very difficult the practice of sapping or undermining, that is to say digging tunnels under the fortifications in order to effect a collapse of the defenses.

The word was adapted in Middle English from the French motte "mound, hillock" and was first applied to the central mound on which a fortification was erected (see Motte and bailey), and then came to be applied to the excavated ring, a "dry moat". The term moat is also applied to natural formations reminiscent of the artificial structure.

In the violent conditions of the 14th and 15th centuries in England, though defensive walling required a charter from the king, a moat round a manor house could deter all but the most determined intruders (illustration, right). See also Ightham Mote.

Often streams were diverted in the Middle Ages to fill the ditch. Moats required upkeep. They had to be dredged for debris which could potentially form a traversable bridge from one side to another.

Withdrawable bridges spanned moats in the Middle Ages. At first they were only simple wooden bridges that could easily be dismantled if an enemy was about to breach the fortifications. Later flying bridges and drawbridges were used for moat spans. Image:Bodiam Castle fromthe south.jpg Moats sometimes had long wooden spikes in them, to prevent enemies from swimming across.

While moats are commonly associated with European castles, they were also developed by North American Indians of the Mississippian culture as the outer defense of some fortified villages. The remains of a 16th-century moat are still visible at the Parkin Archeological State Park in eastern Arkansas.

Moats rather than fences separate animals from spectators in many modern zoo installations. The structure, with a vertical outer retaining wall rising directly from the moat, is an extended usage of the ha-ha of English landscape gardening.

In 2004 plans were suggested for a two-mile moat across the southern border of the Gaza Strip to prevent tunnelling from Egyptian territory to the border town of Rafah <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>.

References

<references />cs:Vodní příkop de:Burggraben es:Foso fr:Douve he:חפיר ja:堀 pl:Fosa fi:Vallihauta sr:Шанац sv:Vallgrav