grande porte monumentale à avant-porte
English translation: the large doorway in the foregate
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| 13:47 Mar 15, 2007 |
| French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Architecture / Blandy-les-Tours castle | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Christopher Crockett Local time: 08:38 | ||||||
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| Summary of answers provided | ||||
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| 4 | in front of it...... |
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| 4 | the large main gate |
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| 3 | large fore-door entrance |
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| 3 | outer door |
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Answers
9 mins confidence: 
in front of it...... Explanation: Don't know the place but if you conjure up a picturte of what they say you get the following: La première entrée par la Tour carrée a été remplacée, au cours du XIVe siècle, par deux portes sur la nouvelle enceinte : la petite porte ou poterne, ouvrant sur la basse-cour, et la grande porte monumentale à avant-porte. Des ponts-levis devaient permettre le franchissement du fossé. The old door has been replaced by two doors. A small door, which opens on to the "basse-cour" (farmyard?) and a big door in front of it, so you have to go through it first before coming upon the other smaller door. I leave it to you to formulate this notion in line with your translation for the rest of the text. Keep cool - panicking when your working against the clock isn't going to help ! Take a few deep breaths and go for a 5-minute walkabout.... -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 21 mins (2007-03-15 14:08:41 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- you're working - what a howler - I wish I could stop making typos |
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1 hr confidence:
large fore-door entrance Explanation: I'd try something like this. avant-porte n.f. Lorsqu'une entrée de bâtiment comporte une double porte, l'avant-porte est la porte extérieure, ou porte hors-oeuvre, par opp. à la porte intérieure dans-oeuvre. GB : fore-door Dicobat 2006 |
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2 hrs confidence:
the large main gate Explanation: Sounds to me like you've got two "doorways" in the new wall. A small "postern door" (petite porte ou poterne), which opens onto the lower courtyard (?basse-cour) and a large main gate. "à avant-porte" is somewhat enigmatic (hard to believe that French would be enigmatic, but sometimes....). Since we have a "typical" moat around the _castrum_ with a drawbridge (ponts-levis devaient permettre le franchissement du fossé) leading to these doorways, we have to imagine some sort of large tower-like structure in which the main gate (and the postern) were set --even though the text tells us that the old, original tower was "remplacée, au cours du XIVe siècle"; I really can't picture a gate (or gates) in a fortification just being in a towerless wall (sur la nouvelle enceinte). In any case, "postern" or "postern doorway" (even though that is redundant) is what you want for the smaller door: POSTERN Etymology: Middle English posterne, from Anglo-French, alteration of Old French posterle, from Late Latin posterula, diminutive of postera back door, from Latin, feminine of posterus Date: 14th century 1 : a back door or gate 2 : a private or side entrance or way It is generally understood that a postern indicates a smaller (pedestrian) doorway in a fortification, rather than a larger gate which could accomodate horses and vehicles. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2007-03-15 16:14:56 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Looking on your castle's main site, it would seem that this is your postern, http://www.casteland.com/pfr/chateau/idf/seinemarne/blandy/b... seen from the exterior: 7th from the top in the right hand column and from the inside: 10th from the top (bottom right). I really don't see a shot of what might be your "grande porte", unless it is the bottom picture in the right column here: http://www.casteland.com/pfr/chateau/idf/seinemarne/blandy/b... Those curious walls on either side of it *might* be the remains of the original "Tour carrée". But that gate doesn't really look large enough to me to be the main entrance to the whole complex. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2007-03-15 16:29:51 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Ahhhh.... here might be your "avant-porte" http://welcome.to/blandy --the second bird's eye drawing on the page. the "avant-porte" is the fortification protecting the drawbridge on the other side of the moat from the castle itself. I'm not sure how to translate that --"foregate", perhaps. Your French text just isn't clear, to me, looking at this drawing. La première entrée par la Tour carrée a été remplacée, au cours du XIVe siècle, par deux portes sur la nouvelle enceinte : The original entrance (to the complex) in a square tower [I'm not sure why "Tour" is capitalized here] was replaced in the 14th c. by two gates in the new wall: la petite porte ou poterne, ouvrant sur la basse-cour, the small (postern) gate which opened onto the lower (or: *outer*) courtyard, et la grande porte monumentale à avant-porte. and the great monumental gate in a foregate structure built on the other side of the moat, Des ponts-levis devaient permettre le franchissement du fossé. a drawbridge allowing passage over the latter. This makes sense, both in English and from the drawing, although we can't see the postern in the drawing. But, if the postern gave onto the courtyard **within the walls**, then it could hardly be in foregate structure --it would have been in the tower on the castle side of the moat. I now think that "basse-cour" refers to the "outer" courtyard, just inside the first line of walls. There was a smaller, "inner" courtyard formed by the buildings within, which are built around it. In this interpretation, we are dealing with a "porte à avant-porte" --a gate in the foregate structure. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2007-03-15 16:32:52 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Re-reading Miranda's answer, I'm confirmed in my foregate idea --in her example we would have had a fore-door before a main door, both being within the same structure (usually a tower). But at Blandy we've got a whole seperate structure (the foregate) which formed the "porte à avant-porte". And, for these structure, "gate" is preferable to "door". -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2007-03-15 16:41:37 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- This aerial view http://www.linternaute.com/sortir/chateau-france/blandy-les-... makes it clear that the main gateway in the walls has lost the top of its tower, which is what gives it such a curious appearance. The foregate structure, which is gone as well, would have been just accross the moat from that main gate. In this view http://perso.orange.fr/fou.ailes/IMG_2626.jpg you can see that this foregate would have been right at the intersection of two roads which approached the village from that side. |
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8 hrs confidence:
outer door Explanation: I think you already have some fabulous and very well-researched answers. Just wanted to make you aware of this GDT definition : Avant-porte - Outer door Définition : Porte extérieure d'un ensemble à double porte Bon courage - these architectural ones can be very complicated....had one myself a few weeks back. Example sentence(s):
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