BATTLEMENTS, indentations on the top of a wall, parapet, or other building. They were first used in ancient fortifications, and were afterwards applied to churches and other buildings, as mere ornaments. Their outline is generally a conjunction of straight lines at right angles to each other ; each indentation having two interior right angles, and each raised part two exterior right angles. Sometimes the hori zontal section of the rising part is a rectangle, while the bottom of the battlement., and top of the projecting part, slope downward, so as to form an obtuse angle with the face of the wall ; occasionally, however, the plans of the upright sides of the battlements form the same obtuse angle as the bot tom and top of the rising part. At other times both vertical and horizontal sections are right angles, ornamented equally all round with mouldings, or with a small square projecture: when the vertical sides of the embrasures are perpendicular to the face, the sloping cope generally terminates with a torus or large astragal. In process of time battlements were
not confined to crown the principal walls of the building; but were employed in the finish of subordinate parts : they are to be found in the decorations of the transoms of windows, as in those of King 'Henry the Seventh's chapel, at West minster. In this, and in every other case, they are propor tioned to the architecture they accompany. The battlements employed in the florid style, were perforated in a most beautiful manner, with openings variously formed in sym metrical figures: such are the latticed battlements, and those formed of polyfoils, &e. The battlements used in this style of building, have not always their parts at right angles to each other, but frequently the standing parts, or those which form the sides of the openings, are raised in the manner of a pediment.