page_title: Austrian walled towns
section_title: Artillery and modification in the 14th and 15th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Austrian walled towns / Artillery and modification in the 14th and 15th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Horseshoe-shaped tower at the Petersberg in Friesach, Austria] Français&#160;: Tour à gorge ouverte, Petersberg à Friesach, Kärnten, Autriche Deutsch: Schalenturm am Petersberg in Friesach, Österreich
context_page_description: Walled towns in Austria started to appear in the 11th century. Their establishment was closely connected with the development of Austria as a march of the Holy Roman Empire and in particular by the Stauffenberg Emperors and their Marcher Lords, the Babenbergs. In present-day Austria, there are 106 towns or cities that were walled. The walls of Radstadt, Freiburg, Hainburg and Drosendorf survive almost intact, and Austria has some of the most impressive walled towns in Europe.
  Other cities or towns such as Vienna, Salzburg and St Pölten have had their defences almost completely obliterated. In Austria, the procedure for granting civic status or creating a Stadt was relatively simple. Initially, a local lord or official ministerialis could petition for market rights or Marktrect. At that point, the town would be laid out by a surveyor and it would have been surrounded by an earthen-banked enclosure surmounted with a vertical wooden palisade. Often a stone gatehouse or Tor would be built for the collection of custom dues from traders coming to the market.
context_section_description: In the 14th and 15th centuries, modification were made to the town walls of many towns with the introduction of gun ports and the addition of further wall with square towers or bastions on the outer side of the surrounding ditch. The siege of Krems in 1477 by Matthew Corvinus was one of the first times that cannon were effectively used to batter down a town wall.  This incident seems to have resulted in many of the Austria town walls being strengthened or re-designed. The siege of Kufstein by Emperor Maximilian in 1504, who floated his Artillery Train down the river Inn exposed the weakness of having fortified houses along a river bank as part of the wall.
   
  With the development of wall towers for mounting artillery, it was necessary to construct them with open backs or "Schalenturm", as the fumes from the gunpowder needed to be dispersed. One or more strengthened wooden floors would be inserted in the tower to take the often heavy guns. Many open back or 'towers with an open gorge'  have subsequently been walled, to make them into usable buildings, but the tower at Friesach is a good example of an open back tower. 
  Some gate-towers were also open-backed. A good example is the Böhmertor at Freistadt in Upper Austria. Here three levels of gun embrasures or openings can be seen, with those at the corner angled to cover the moat. The vertical slits for the drawbridge over the moat can also be seen.
caption: Open back tower at Friesach-Petersberg-Schalenturm
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