The Alcazaba of Mérida is a ninth-century Muslim fortification in Mérida, Spain. Like other historical edifices in the city, it is part of the UNESCO Heritage List.
Located near the Roman bridge over the Guadiana river, the Puente Romano, it was built by emir Abd ar-Rahman II of Córdoba in 835 to command the city, which had rebelled in 805. It was the first Muslim alcazaba (a type of fortification in the Iberian peninsula), and includes a big squared line of walls, every side measuring 130 metres in length, 10 m of height and 2.7 m thickness, built re-using Roman walls and Roman-Visigothic edifices in granite. The walls include 25 towers with quadrangular base, which also served as counterforts. Inside is an aljibe, a rainwater tank including a cistern to collect and filter water from the river.
The Alcazaba is accessed from the Puente Romano through a small enclosure, traditionally known Alcarazejo. This was used to check the traffic of pedestrians and goods to the city. Annexed is the military area, whose gate is flanked by two towers; over the horseshoe-shaped arc is an inscription celebrating Abd ar-Rahman's patronage of the work.
The fortress has yielded other excavated areas containing remnants predating its construction. These include a well-preserved segment of a Roman road, which also extends to the MorerÃas Archaeological Area, and an urban Roman dwelling that has undergone multiple renovations and faces the same street. Additionally, a portion of the Roman wall is visible, adjacent to a powerful buttress constructed using recycled granite fragments. Similar to the MorerÃas Archaeological Area, this buttress is believed to date back to the fifth century AD.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).