A defensive device that forms the breastwork or the crown of breastwork of any of the defenses, and is a sequence of alternating crenels and merlons. The crenels makes a function of arrowlits, opened from the top, sometimes closed with movable curtains. The merlons in the battlement functions as a shield, sometimes equipped with arrowlits. There are two types of battlements: ghibellines battlement, that is, the type of crenellation, which spread in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially in Italy with the merlons of a “swallowtail” and the guelphs battlement with rectangular merlons. Battlement were used mostly in the Middle Ages. Later, in styles related to the Middle Ages, they became a decorative element.
