The Fortification and the Moat

• The moat was deep and wide and always dry. At critical points within it elongated earthworks, thick and as high as the level of the battlements, had been raised. The moat was a death trap to the enemy, which was why the battle in the moat was always a particularly bloody one

Very few features of the fortification can be attributed to Byzantine or Eastern influences in general. Without doubt the main elements of the fortifications derive from those of Provence and Catalonia. Methods and styles transferred to Rhodes from another world, Western Europe, were modified and adapted to the available building material, skills and habits of local masons.

The Builders

During the first decades of Rhodes occupation by the Knights, the Grand Masters began repairing, reinforcing and extending the Byzantine fortification of the city.

The fortification work were planned and directed by specialist master mason, the muratores, some of whom are known to have been Greeks. Inscribed on a marble slab incorporated in the wall beside the inner door of the St. John or Koskinou Gate is the name of the master mason “of all the new walls”, Manolis Kountis.

The systematic use of gunpowder in warfare from the 15th century onwards (it had already been introduced in the 14th century) imposed fundamental changes in both weaponry and strategies of attack and defence.