Online Encyclopedia
Make a correction
Your email address will not appear on the site. Note, comments may take some time to be approved.
Back to article:
OILLETS (from an O. Fr. diminutive of tail, eye, in Mod. Fr. millet; other English variants are oylets, eyelets, or eyelet-holes)
Your email:
Article name:
Article content:
OILLETS (from an O. Fr. diminutive of tail, eye, in Mod. Fr. millet; other English variants are oylets, eyelets, or eyelet-holes), the architectural term given to the arrow slits in the walls of medieval fortifications, but more strictly applied to the roundhole or circle with which the openings terminate. The same term is applied to the small circles inserted in the tracery-head of the windows of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods, sometimes varied with trefoils and quatrefoils.