Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

puerta en codo

English translation:

bent gateway / entrance

Added to glossary by Charles Davis
Mar 20, 2017 05:02
7 yrs ago
5 viewers *
Spanish term

puerta en codo

Spanish to English Tech/Engineering Architecture
"El acceso se realiza a través de unas escaleras y de una interesante puerta en codo, tallados a pico y cincel sobre la roca de base."

Appears to be a specific type of entryway in Spanish castles: http://www.glosarioarquitectonico.com/glossary/puerta-en-cod...

Is there an equivalent English term? "Elbow-shaped doorway", to be literal?

Thanks.
Change log

Mar 21, 2017 09:10: Charles Davis Created KOG entry

Proposed translations

+1
5 hrs
Selected

bent gateway / entrance

The term of art is "bent", strange though it may sound.

"Puerta en codo" means the same as "en recodo" or "en quiebro", which we've had before:
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/spanish_to_english/architecture/58...

They all mean an entrance or gateway that you had to approach from the side, making a 90º turn, so attackers couldn't use battering rams. It's a feature of Islamic castle-building adopted in the Christian West.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_entrance

Here are a couple more references from academic works on the subject to add to those I cited in my answer to the previous question:

"This system was replaced in the thirteenth century by a bent entrance, set in the north side of an elongated tower"
The Medieval City Under Siege, ed. Ivy A. Corfis & Michael Wolfe, 91
https://books.google.es/books?id=OJIFpd09vCgC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA...

"and further sophistication of the bent gateway"
Peter Fraser Purton, A History of the Early Medieval Siege, C. 450-1220, 245
https://books.google.es/books?id=_vSjtwGLBiAC&pg=PA245&lpg=P...

"The reason for concentricity was of course military, but it was also religious, because the inner court, entered through a bent gateway"
Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, C.1070-1309, 112
https://books.google.es/books?id=8wNY3gLWMqoC&pg=PA112&lpg=P...
Peer comment(s):

agree Robert Carter : That's a clever idea.
16 hrs
Very much so. Visiting castles is much more fun when they explain all these things to you. Thanks!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
+1
24 mins

dogleg entrance

.
Example sentence:

The entrance was via a dog-leg passage through a gate tower midway along the north wall.

Once through the entrance, any attacker would have had to negotiate a dog-leg passage

Peer comment(s):

agree neilmac : Was going to post L-shaped, not sure if it's the same thing...
3 hrs
Yes, that's another possibility. Thanks.
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