Category: Medieval France
By and large, ‘donjon’ signifies the most heavily fortified area or building within a medieval castle, usually a large tower, where the defenders could withdraw to if the other lines of defence had fallen during a siege.
It would usually contain a well, quarters, offices and service rooms while one front would command the bailey (grounds enclosed by the outer walls) and the other the field and approaches to the castle or fortified area.
The word is actually French (voiced as ‘/dɔ̃.ʒɔ̃/’), though it can be also found in Dutch (‘/dɔnˈʒɔn/’), and comes from the Old French donjon (‘/dunˈd͡ʒun/’) spelling ‘great/main tower’ or even ‘the lord’s tower’ since the lord of a castle or a fortified town usually lived there.
For that matter, the first component ‘don-‘ may come as a shortening out of Late Latin ‘domnus’ (master) and the rather Frankish/Franconian suffix ‘-jon,’ with a likely Latin origin, that carries the sense of ‘fortification.’
That said, I wouldn’t rule out an origin in Breton ‘don’ that means ‘deep’ so combined with Frankish/Franconian ‘-don’ could mean ‘deep defence/fortification’ instead.
The English word ‘dungeon’ originates from Old French ‘donjon,’ apparently arriving through the Normans, and initially held the same meaning but through time was eventually relegated as a term to denote the prison and torture chambers in the depths of a keep.
Picturesque Dinan (/dinɑ̃/ in French) is a walled medieval Breton town, doubling as a commune, in the department of Côtes-d’Armor in Brittany, northwest France.
On a hillside looking over the west bank of River Rance, the town is packed with half-timbered buildings that date from as early as the 13th and 14th century as well as lots of granite houses from the 18th century.
It is further streaked with charming cobbled streets and retains a good deal of its medieval walls, built in the 11th century, that stretch over roughly 2600m round the town, part of which is walkable.
The town’s old fortifications were helmed by the Château de Dinan (or Donjon de la Duchesse Anne), a sizeable keep with a moat and a drawbridge on the southwest corner.
An important figure that arose from Dinan was Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton knight, who distinguished himself during the Hundred Years War while the town themselves held off twice attacks by the Anglo-Normans in the 14th century.
Breaking through History 