Catalonia 159residences and the location of court life, of feudal and
manorial lords. All states from large regional powers,
such as the king of France, to small towns tried to con-
trol their building and built defensive structures to con-
trol territory or guard approaches to important centers.
Some were built to protect new settlements of peasants
sponsored by princes or towns. They ranged from essen-
tially stately but defensible homes to rugged, primitive,
but heavily fortified structures strategically located on
desolate but important hilltops. They were also linked
with the centralization of political and jurisdictional
power, or the lack of it. Their architecture depended on
the availability of stone or wood and the always chang-
ing technologies of building and needs and objectives of
warfare. The development of siege engines, military engi-
neering, and cannonry made them the far less secure
havens than they had been in the central Middle Ages.
By the end of the Middle Ages, they could be captured in
days rather than through long sieges that depended on
the ability to starve defenders into surrender. The fortifi-
cations around towns and cities were as vulnerable to
capture by the end of the Middle Ages as were smaller
and sometimes privately owned castles.
See alsoARMY AND MILITARY ORGANIZATION; FEUDAL-
ISM; FIREARMS; SOCIAL STATUS AND STRUCTURE; WEAPONS
AND WEAPONRY;WILLIAMI THECONQUEROR.
Further reading:Anne Curry and Michael Hughes,
eds., Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years’
Wa r (Woodbridge, England: The Boydell Press, 1994);
Jean-Denis Lepage, Castles and Fortified Cities of Medieval
Europe: An Illustrated History(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland
& Company, 2002); N. J. G. Pounds, The Medieval Castle
in England and Wales: A Social and Political History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); M. W.
Thompson, The Rise of the Castle(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991); M. W. Thompson, The Decline
of the Castle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987).catacombs They were the places used for subterranean
early Christian, pagan, and Jewish BURIAL. They were
located in many cities of the Roman Empire; the most
famous and largest were the 41 in ROME. Roman law con-
sidered burial places as inviolable, so Christians used the
catacombs for ritual purposes, especially in times of per-
secutions and were rarely disturbed. Also according to
Roman law, burial was prohibited within town walls so
catacombs were situated along the roads leading to and
from town. They were often decorated and did contain
complex chambers for groups of related people. They
consisted of labyrinths of galleries and rooms, generally
arranged on at least two to seven levels, and were linked
with the tombs of the martyrs. Families held commemo-
rative meals there. During the fifth century, the use of cat-
acombs withered away. Several tombs and their relics
were transferred to churches. The catacombs were not
used in the Middle Ages but they were sometimes
replaced by the medieval tradition of the CRYPTburial
under a church.
Further reading: Carole Cable, The Catacombs of
Rome: A Selective Bibliography (Monticello, Ill.: Vance
Bibliographies, 1988); Vincenzo Fiocchi Nicolai, Fabrizio
Bisconti, and Danilo Mazzoleni, The Christian Catacombs
of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions,trans. Cristina
Carlo Stella and Lori-Ann Touchette (Regensburg:
Schnell and Steiner, 1999); Adia Konikoff, Sarcophagi
from the Jewish Catacombs of Ancient Rome: A Catalogue
Raisonné(Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1990); James Stevenson,
The Catacombs: Rediscovered Monuments of Early Chris-
tianity(London: Thames and Hudson, 1978).Catalonia(Spanish March, Catalunya, Cataluña)
Medieval and the present Catalonia came into being in the
northeastern Iberian Peninsula after the Muslim conquests
of the eighth century. Expeditions by FRANKSproduced the
annexation to the Frankish or Charlemagne’s HOLYROMANThe castle of Buonconsiglio in Trent in the month of January,
including a snowball fight (15th century) (Scala / Art
Resource)