Editing Keep (section)

==Etymology and historiography==
[[File:Etampes Donjon - enhanced.png|thumb|upright=1.1|A 19th-century reconstruction drawing of the keep at [[Château d'Étampes]] in France]] Since the 16th century, the English word ''keep'' has commonly referred to large towers in castles.<ref name=DixonP9>Dixon, p.9.</ref> The word originates from around 1375 to 1376, coming from the Middle English term ''kype'', meaning basket or cask, and was a term applied to the [[shell keep]] at [[Guînes]], said to resemble a barrel.<ref>, Kenyon and Thompson, pp.175–6.</ref> The term came to be used for other shell keeps by the 15th century.<ref name=DixonP9/> By the 17th century, the word keep lost its original reference to baskets or casks and was popularly assumed to have come from the Middle English word ''keep'', meaning to hold or to protect.<ref name=DixonP9/>

Early on, the use of the word ''keep'' became associated with the idea of a tower in a castle that would serve both as a fortified, high-status private residence and a refuge of last resort.<ref>Dixon, pp.9–12; Gondolin, p.103-4.</ref> The issue was complicated by the building of fortified [[Renaissance]] towers in Italy called ''tenazza'' that were used as defences of last resort and were also named after the Italian for ''to hold'' or ''to keep''.<ref name=DixonP9/> By the 19th century, Victorian historians incorrectly concluded that the etymology of the words "keep" and ''tenazza'' were linked and that all keeps had fulfilled this military function.<ref name=DixonP9/>

As a result of this evolution in meaning, the use of the term ''keep'' in historical analysis today can be problematic.<ref name=KingPP190>King, pp.190–6.</ref> Contemporary medieval writers used various terms for the buildings we would today call keeps. In Latin, they are variously described as ''turris'', ''turris castri'' or ''magna turris'' – a ''tower'', a ''castle tower'', or a ''great tower''.<ref name=KingPP190/> The 12th-century French came to term them a '''[[dungeon#Etymology|donjon]]''', from the Latin ''dominarium''<!-- this should be Late Latin ''dominio'', accusative singular ''dominionem'', to be phonologically regular, see [[Dungeon#Etymology]] and [[wikt:dungeon]]; ''dominarium'' is not even attested anywhere, it's a Vulgar Latin reconstruction to explain Old French ''dongier'', whence Modern English ''danger'', not ''donjon''! See [[wikt:danger]]. Compare Online Etymology Dictionary. --> "lordship", linking the keep and feudal authority.<ref name="Liddiard2005P47" /> Similarly, medieval Spanish writers called the buildings ''[[:es:torre del homenaje|torre del homenaje]]'', or "tower of [[homage (feudal)|homage]]". In England, ''donjon'' turned into ''dungeon'', which initially referred to a keep, rather than to a place of imprisonment.<ref>King, p.190</ref>

While the term remains in common academic use, some academics prefer to use the term ''donjon'', and most modern historians warn against using the term "keep" simplistically.<ref name=KingDixonPP190/> The fortifications that we would today call keeps did not necessarily form part of a unified medieval style, nor were they all used in a similar fashion during the period.<ref name=KingDixonPP190>King, pp.190–6; Dixon, p.12.</ref>