Editing Gondor (section)

==== Capital, Minas Tirith ====

{{main|Minas Tirith}}

{{anchor|Dry Tree|White Tree}}

[[File:Trees of Sun and Moon and Dry Tree Rouen 1444.jpg|thumb|The lifeless White Tree of Gondor has been compared to the [[Dry Tree]] of medieval legend.<ref name="Garth 2020"/> Medieval manuscript illustration of the Dry Tree (centre) with the [[Phoenix (mythology)|Phoenix]], flanked by the [[Trees of Sun and Moon|Trees of the Sun and the Moon]]. Both the Dry Tree and the Phoenix are symbols of [[Resurrection of Jesus|resurrection]] and new life. [[Rouen]] 1444–1445<ref name="British Library 2020"/>]]

The capital of Gondor at the end of the Third Age, Minas Tirith (Sindarin: "Tower of Guard"<ref>{{cite book |last=Noel |first=Ruth S. |title=The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth |year=1974 |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|Houghton Mifflin]] |isbn=0-395-29129-1 |page=170}}</ref>), lay at the eastern end of the White Mountains, built around a shoulder of Mount Mindolluin.<ref name="Houses of Healing" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955}}, book 5 ch. 8 "The Houses of Healing"</ref> The city had seven walls: each held a gate, and each gate faced a different direction from the next.<ref name="Siege of Gondor" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955}}, book 5, ch. 4 "The Siege of Gondor"</ref> The city was surrounded by the [[#Pelennor Fields|Pelennor]], an area of farmlands ringed by a wall.<ref name="Minas Tirith" group=T/> Inside the seventh wall was the Citadel, topped by the White Tower. Behind the tower, reached from the sixth level, was a [[Mountain pass|saddle]] leading to the necropolis of the Kings and Stewards, with a street of tombs, Rath Dínen.{{efn|Map #40 in Barbara Strachey's ''[[Journeys of Frodo]]'' is a plan of Minas Tirith. {{harvnb|Fonstad|1991|pp=138–139}} shows a different plan of the city. The only maps by Tolkien are sketches.}}

Within the Court of the Fountain stood the White Tree, the symbol of Gondor. It was dry throughout the centuries that Gondor was ruled by the Stewards; Aragorn brought a sapling of the White Tree into the city on his return as King.<ref name="Vaccaro 2004">{{cite journal |last=Vaccaro |first=Christopher T. |title='And one white tree': the cosmological cross and the arbor vitae in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion" |journal=[[Mallorn (journal)|Mallorn]] |date=August 2004 |issue=42 |pages=23–28 |jstor=45320503}}</ref> [[John Garth (author)|John Garth]] writes that the White Tree has been likened to the [[Dry Tree]] of the 14th century ''[[Travels of Sir John Mandeville]]''.<ref name="Gusick2013">{{cite book |last=Gasse |first=Rosanne |chapter=The Dry Tree Legend in Medieval Literature |editor-last=Gusick |editor-first=Barbara I. |title=Fifteenth-Century Studies 38 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KNZGXEfXIOEC&pg=PA73 |year=2013 |publisher=[[Camden House Publishing|Camden House]] |isbn=978-1-57113-558-2 |pages=65–96 |quote=''Mandeville'' also includes a prophecy that when the Prince of the West conquers the Holy Land for Christianity, this tree will become green again, rather akin to the White Tree of Arnor [sic] in the Peter Jackson film version of ''The Lord of the Rings'', if not in Tolkien's original novel, which sprouts new green leaves when Aragorn first arrives in Gondor at [sic, i.e. after] the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.<!--q p.73-->}}</ref><ref name="Garth 2020"/> The tale runs that the Dry Tree had been dry since the [[crucifixion of Christ]], but that it would flower afresh when "a prince of the west side of the world should sing a mass beneath it".<ref name="Garth 2020">{{cite book |last=Garth |first=John |author-link=John Garth (author) |title=The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth |date=2020 |publisher=[[Frances Lincoln Publishers]] & [[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7112-4127-5 |page=41}}</ref><ref name="British Library 2020">{{cite web |last=Drieshen |first=Clark |title=The Trees of the Sun and the Moon |url=https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2020/01/the-trees-of-the-sun-and-the-moon.html |publisher=[[British Library]] |access-date=24 February 2021 |date=31 January 2020}}</ref>

Tolkien's map-notes for the illustrator [[Pauline Baynes]] indicate that the city had the [[latitude]] of [[Ravenna]], an [[Italy|Italian]] city on the [[Adriatic Sea]], though it lay "900 miles east of Hobbiton more near [[Belgrade]]".<ref>{{cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/23/jrr-tolkien-middle-earth-annotated-map-blackwells-lord-of-the-rings |title=Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered inside copy of Lord of the Rings |date=23 October 2015 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Tolkien annotated map of Middle-earth acquired by Bodleian library |url=https://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/tolkien-annotated-map-of-middle-earth-acquired-by-bodleian-library/ |publisher=[[Exeter College, Oxford]] |access-date=9 April 2020 |date=9 May 2016}}</ref>{{efn|The Tolkien scholar Judy Ann Ford writes that there is also an architectural connection with Ravenna in Pippin's description of the great hall of Denethor, which in her view suggests a Germanic myth of a restored Roman Empire.<ref name="Ford2005">{{cite journal |last=Ford |first=Judy Ann |title=The White City: The Lord of the Rings as an Early Medieval Myth of the Restoration of the Roman Empire |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=2 |issue=1 |year=2005 |pages=53–73 |issn=1547-3163 |doi=10.1353/tks.2005.0016|s2cid=170501240 }}</ref>}} The [[Warning beacons of Gondor]] were atop a line of foothills running back west from Minas Tirith towards Rohan.<ref name="Beacon-Hills" group=T>{{cite web |last1=Tolkien |first1=J. R. R. |last2=Hostetter |first2=Carl F. |author2-link=Carl F. Hostetter |last3=Tolkien |first3=Christopher |author3-link=Christopher Tolkien |title=The Rivers and Beacon - hills of Gondor |url=https://epdf.pub/the-rivers-and-beacon-hills-of-gondor105fd73767942352604c470bca4fe66679457.html |publisher=EPDF |date=2001}}<!--Part was published in ''[[Vinyar Tengwar]]'', No. 42, July 2001.--></ref>