page_title: Chlemoutsi
section_title: Outer ward
hierarchical_section_title: Chlemoutsi / Location and architecture / Outer ward
caption_attribution_description: English: == Summary == Description de:Chlemoutsi Date7.10.2005SourceOwn workAuthorRoman Klementschitz, Wien Licensing I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License. You may select the license of your choice. de:Chlemoutsi
context_page_description: Chlemoutsi is a medieval castle in the northwest of the Elis regional unit in the Peloponnese peninsula of southern Greece, in the Kastro-Kyllini municipality.
  It was built in the early 1220s by the Crusader rulers of the Principality of Achaea as their main stronghold, and is perhaps the finest fortification of the early period of Frankish rule in Greece preserved in the country today. The castle is located on a small plateau 226 metres above sea level, and comprises a central hexagonal keep, built around an inner courtyard and containing two-storeyed halls along its entire length, and complemented by an outer wall enclosing an outer yard on its western side. The castle is largely preserved in its original 13th-century state, with only minor later modifications for the installation of artillery.
  Located near the Principality's capital of Andravida and the chief port of Glarentza, Chlemoutsi played a central role in the Principality's history, but was never actually besieged. After coming under Byzantine rule in 1427, it was captured in 1460 by the Ottoman Empire, along with the rest of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea.
context_section_description: The outer gate of the fortress lies in the northwestern side of the outer ward, originally within a small recess in the outer curtain wall, protected by a portcullis. The recess was later filled by the Turks with a smaller set of walls, so as to preserve unbroken the outer wall's frontage. The Ottomans also added additional buttresses to the junctions of their wall with the original curtain wall, while the space between the original gate and the new, Ottoman entrance was left unroofed and open to the sky. From the gate, the outer wall continues east and then south, in three distinct stretches of walls, to the keep. The wall is built of limestone masonry, with little evidence of brick or tiles, topped by a small inner parapet and Ottoman-built crenellations, now largely ruined. From the beginning, buildings were built leaning on the outer wall, as evidenced by the remnant of their foundations, side walls joining the curtain wall's inner face, or the presence of fireplaces and lancet windows in the curtain wall. One of these buildings is largely preserved immediately next to the outer gate. Windows, fireplaces etc. display a uniformity of style that points to their construction at the same time as the fortress itself. At the point where the outer wall joins the keep, a small postern is located, as well as a stairway leading up to the outer wall's chemin de ronde.
  On the other side of the gate, the curtain wall continues in two stretches southwest and south, with a tower—probably an Ottoman addition—at their junction, before turning sharply to the east. A terrepleined bastion was built behind this southwestern corner by the Turks as an artillery platform. Along the western wall too there is evidence of buildings erected adjoining the curtain wall. The southern wall shows evidence of later, probably Turkish, repairs, with broken tiles alternating with stone courses. It is in this stretch that the cannons of Ibrahim Pasha effected the breach in the wall in 1825. Roughly halfway between the southwestern corner and the keep, the wall abruptly turns inwards for about 5 metres (16 ft) around an Ottoman-built tower, before continuing east and then northeast to join the keep. Another postern is located about 10 metres (33 ft) from the junction of the two walls.
caption: The keep seen from the southern outer ward
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