| Minas Tirith | |
|---|---|
| J. R. R. Tolkien'slegendarium location | |
 "Stanburg (Minas Tirith)" byJ.R.R. Tolkien. An early sketch and a re-rendering of a previous attempt he made at illustrating the city.[1] | |
| In-universe information | |
| Type | Fortifiedcity; capital ofGondor |
| Ruled by | Kings andStewards of Gondor |
| Locations | the Citadel, the Great Gate, Rath Dínen, the Tower of Ecthelion, the White Tree |
| Location | Gondor |
| Lifespan | BuiltS.A. 3320 |
| Founder | Anárion |
Minas Tirith is the capital ofGondor inJ. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novelThe Lord of the Rings. It is a seven-walled fortress city built on the spur of a mountain, rising some 700 feet to a high terrace, housing the Citadel, at the seventh level. Atop this is the 300-foot high Tower of Ecthelion, which contains thethrone room.
Scholars, following various leads in Tolkien's fantasy and letters, have attempted to identify Minas Tirith with several different historical or mythical cities, includingTroy,Rome,Ravenna, andConstantinople.
InPeter Jackson'sfilm adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings, Minas Tirith was given something of the look of a city of theByzantine Empire, while its seven-tiered shape was suggested by thetidal island andabbey ofMont Saint-Michel in France.Tolkien illustrators includingAlan Lee,John Howe,Jef Murray, andTed Nasmith have all produced realistic paintings of the city.
For partly in the primeval shaping of the hill, partly by the mighty craft and labour of old, there stood up from the rear of the wide court behind the Gate a towering bastion of stone, its edge sharp as a ship-keel facing east. Up it rose, even to the level of the topmost circle, and there was crowned by a battlement; so that those in the Citadel might look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below. The entrance to the Citadel also looked eastward, but was delved in the heart of the rock; thence a long lamp-lit slope ran up to the seventh gate. Thus men reached at last the High Court, and the Place of the Fountain before the feet of the White Tower: tall and shapely, fifty fathoms from its base to the pinnacle, where the banner of the Stewards floated a thousand feet above the plain.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| c.S.A. 3400 | Minas Tirith founded |
| T.A. 2050 | Eärnur, last King of Gondor, dies; Stewards rule in his stead |
| 2685–2698 | Ecthelion rebuilds the White Tower |
| 3018–19 | War of the Ring |
| 3019, 10 March | Mordor attacks Gondor |
| 3019, 15 March | Battle of the Pelennor Fields |
| 3019, 1 May | Aragorn crowned King of Arnor and Gondor |
Minas Tirith (Sindarin: "Tower of Guard"[2]) was the capital ofGondor at the end of theThird Age ofMiddle-earth. It lay at the eastern end of the White Mountains, built around a shoulder of Mount Mindolluin. The city is sometimes called "the White Tower", asynecdoche for the city's most prominent building in its Citadel, the seat of the city's administration. The head of government is the Lord of the City, a role fulfilled by the Stewards of Gondor. Other officials included the Warden of the Houses of Healing and the Warden of the Keys. The Warden of the Keys was in charge of the city's security, especially its gates, and the safe-keeping of its treasury, notably the Crown of Gondor; he had command of the city when it was besieged by the forces ofMordor.[T 2]
Minas Tirith had seven walls: each wall held a gate, and for strength of defence each gate faced a different direction from the next, facing alternately somewhat north or south. Each level was about 100 ft (30 m) above the one below it, and each surrounded by a high stone wall coloured white, with the exception of the wall of the First Circle (the lowest level), which was black, built of the same material used forOrthanc. This outer wall was also the tallest, longest and strongest of the city's seven walls; it was vulnerable only to earthquakes capable of rending the ground where it stood.[T 3] The Great Gate of Minas Tirith, constructed of iron and steel and guarded by stone towers and bastions, was the main gate in the first or outer wall of the city. In front of the Great Gate was a large paved area called the Gateway. The main roads to Minas Tirith met here: the North-way that became the Great West Road toRohan; the South Road to the southern provinces of Gondor; and the road to Osgiliath, which lay to the north-east of Minas Tirith. Except for the highsaddle of rock which joined the west of the hill to Mindolluin, the city was surrounded by the Pelennor, an area of farmlands.[T 4]
The city's main street zigzagged up the eastern hill-face and through each of the gates and the central spur of rock. It led to the Citadel through the Seventh Gate on its eastern part. The White Tower, at the city's highest level with a commanding view of the lower vales ofAnduin, stood in the Citadel, 700 feet above the surrounding plains, protected by the seventh and innermost wall atop the spur. Originally constructed by a king of yore, it is also known as the Tower of Ecthelion, the Steward of Gondor who had it rebuilt. The seat of the rulers of Gondor, the Kings and the Stewards, the tower stood 300 ft (91 m) tall, so that its pinnacle was some one thousand feet (300 m) above the plain. The main doors of the tower faced east, onto the Court of the Fountain. Inside was the Tower Hall, the greatthrone room where the Kings (or Stewards) held court. TheSeeing-stone of Minas Tirith, used by Denethor inThe Return of the King, rested in a secret chamber at the top of the Tower. There was abuttery of the Guards of the Citadel in the basement of the tower. Behind the tower, reached from the sixth level, was asaddle leading to the Hallows or necropolis of the Kings and Stewards, with its street of tombs, Rath Dínen.[T 4][3]
Tolkien wasinfluenced by many authors when constructing Middle-earth, includingseveral classical sources. Scholars, following various leads in Tolkien's fantasy and letters, have identified Minas Tirith with several different historical or mythical cities, including Troy, Rome, Ravenna, and Constantinople.[5][6][7]
In a letter, Tolkien stated that Minas Tirith, some "600 miles south [of the village ofHobbiton in the Shire], is at about the latitude ofFlorence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir [in the south of Gondor] are at about the latitude of ancientTroy."[T 5] Michael Livingston comments inMythlore that Minas Tirith resembled Troy in having "impregnable walls", and in being subjected to asiege that seemed to threaten civilisation.[5]
Further, in Livingston's opinion, the Steward Denethor's two sons,Boromir andFaramir, play the roles ofHector inHomer'sIliad, "the heroic example of martial, mortal man", and ofParis, the younger brother "little loved by [his father]", in "asterisk" form, as they might have been.[5] Livingston notes that Paris, like Faramir, is seriously wounded by a "deadly dart"; he is dragged back into Troy, just as Faramir is carried to Minas Tirith's Houses of Healing. Both men suffer burning fevers. Paris can't be saved; Faramir can. Paris's body is burned on a pyre; his abandoned wife Oenone burns herself to death with him. Denethor has himself burned alive on a pyre, and he tries to have Faramir burned with him, but is foiled in this.[5]
Tolkien's map-notes for the illustratorPauline Baynes indicate that Minas Tirith had thelatitude ofRavenna, an Italian city on theAdriatic Sea, though it lay "900 miles east of Hobbiton more nearBelgrade".[8][9]The Tolkien scholar Judy Ann Ford writes that there is an architectural connection with Ravenna inPippin's description of the great hall of Denethor, which in her view suggests a Germanic myth of a restored Roman Empire.[10]
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar states inThe J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that "the most striking similarities" are withancient Rome. She identifies several parallels:Aeneas, fromTroy, and Elendil, from Númenor, both survive the destruction of their home countries; the brothersRomulus and Remus found Rome, while the brothers Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "decadence and decline".[11]
Judy Ann Ford adds inTolkien Studies that Minas Tirith was entirely built of stone, and "the only culture within [the Anglo-Saxons'] historical memory that had made places like Minas Tirith was the Roman Empire."[4] Tolkien intended to createa mythology for England, so that while theThird Age is ostensibly many thousands of years ago, much of the setting ismedieval.[12] She comments that Tolkien's account echoes the decline andfall of Rome, but "with a happy ending", as it "somehow withstood the onslaught of armies from the east, and ... was restored to glory."[4] She finds multiple likenesses between Minas Tirith and Rome.[4]
| Story element | Ancient Rome | Gondor |
|---|---|---|
| Capital moved under threat | From Rome toRavenna in 402 AD | FromOsgiliath to Minas Tirith |
| Layout of the city | Walled city, built of stone | Seven walls of indomitable stone |
| Architecture | Ravenna's tallBasilica of San Vitale | The towering stone Hall of Ecthelion |
| Southern rivals who use war-elephants | Carthaginians | Haradrim |
| Devastating disease outbreak | Antonine Plague | Great Plague |
| Language becomes alingua franca | Latin | Westron |
In a 1951 letter, Tolkien wrote of "the Byzantine City of Minas Tirith", thus associating Gondor's capital withConstantinople, the capital of theByzantine Empire.[13] The classical scholar Miryam Librán-Moreno writes that Tolkien drew heavily on the history of the Byzantine Empire, and its struggle with theGoths andLangobards.[6] The Byzantine Empire and Gondor were both, in Librán-Moreno's view, only echoes of older states (theRoman Empire and the unified kingdom of Elendil), yet each proved to be stronger than their sister-kingdoms (theWestern Roman Empire and Arnor, respectively). Both realms were threatened by powerful eastern and southern enemies: the Byzantines by theSassanid Persians and the Muslim armies of the Arabs and the Turks, as well as the Langobards and Goths; Gondor by the Easterlings, the Haradrim, and the hordes of Sauron. Both realms, as commentators including Librán-Moreno and Jefferson P. Swycaffer have observed, were in decline at the time of a final, all-out siege from the East; however, Minas Tirith survived the siege whereasConstantinople did not.[6][7] Swycaffer adds that Constantinople was famed for the strength of its defences, with its concentric walls.[7]
| Situation | Byzantine Empire | Gondor |
|---|---|---|
| Older state echoed | Roman Empire | Elendil's unified kingdom of Gondor and Arnor |
| Weaker sister kingdom | Western Roman Empire | Arnor, the Northern kingdom |
| Powerful enemies to East and South | Persians, Arabs, Ottoman Turks | Easterlings, Haradrim, Mordor |
| Finalsiege from the East | Constantinople falls | Battle of the Pelennor Fields is won |
Tolkien stated that within the Court of the Fountain at the heart of Minas Tirith stood the White Tree, the symbol of Gondor. It was dry and dead throughout the centuries that Gondor was ruled by the Stewards; Aragorn brought a young living sapling of the White Tree into the city on his return as King, symbolising the rebirth of the monarchy.[16]
Tolkien's biographerJohn Garth writes that the White Tree has been likened to theDry Tree of the 14th centuryTravels of Sir John Mandeville.[14] The tale runs that the Dry Tree has been dry since thecrucifixion of Christ, but that it will flower afresh when "a prince of the west side of the world should sing a mass beneath it".[14][17][15]
Lisa Anne Mende, inMythlore, contrasts the happyeucatastrophes which rescue Minas Tirith inThe Lord of the Rings – the last-minute arrivals of the Riders of Rohan, and then of Aragorn in the enemy's ships – with the unmitigated disasters of theFall of Gondolin and the other Elvish cities ofBeleriand inThe Silmarillion. She notes Tolkien'sChristianity, which influenced Middle-earth, and describes the "first victory of Evil" inThe Silmarillion as "resolved into the harmony of the victory of Good" inThe Lord of the Rings. InThe Silmarillion, the Dark LordMelkor greatly influences the story, and the development of Middle-earth, whereas inThe Lord of the Rings, Melkor's acolyte, the Dark LordSauron is almost successful but fails in his plans.[18]
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InPeter Jackson'sfilm adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings, Minas Tirith was according to the concept designerAlan Lee given an ancient appearance reminiscent ofByzantium or ancient Rome.[20] However, the appearance and structure of the city was based upon the inhabitedtidal island andabbey ofMont Saint-Michel, France.[19] In the films, the towers of the city, designed by Lee, are equipped withtrebuchets.[21] The film criticRoger Ebert called the films' interpretation of Minas Tirith a "spectacular achievement", and compared it to theEmerald City fromThe Wizard of Oz. He praised the filmmakers' ability to blend digital and real sets.[22]
The setting of Minas Tirith has appeared in video game adaptations ofThe Lord of the Rings, such as the 2003 video gameThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King where it is directly modelled on Jackson's film adaptation.[23]
Christopher Tuthill, inA Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, evaluates the paintings of Minas Tirith made by the major Tolkien illustratorsAlan Lee,John Howe (both of whom worked as concept designers for Peter Jackson's film trilogy),Jef Murray, andTed Nasmith. Tuthill writes that it has become "hard to imagine" Middle-earth "without the many sub-creators who have worked within it", noting that the "dreaded effects" of what Tolkien called "silliness and morbidity" of much fantasy art in his time "are nowhere in evidence" in these artists' work.[24] In Tuthill's view, the most "fully rendered and realistic-looking" painting is Nasmith'sGandalf Rides to Minas Tirith, with a "wholly convincing city" in the background, majestic as the Wizard gallops towards it in the dawn light. He notes that Nasmith uses his architectural rendering skill to provide a detailed view of the whole city.[24] He quotes Nasmith as writing that he studied what Tolkien said, such as likening Gondor to the culture of ancient Egypt. Tuthill compares Howe's and Murray's versions of the same scene; Howe shows only a corner of the city, but vividly captures the movement of the horse and the rider's flying robes, with a strong interplay of light and dark, the white horse against the dusky rocks. Murray similarly uses strong contrast, with the white city against dark clouds overhead, but using "flat bold lines and a deep blue hue", while Howe's city more closely resembles a traditional castle offairytales with pennants on every pinnacle, inFauvist style. Lee chooses instead to look within Minas Tirith, showing "the same glimmering spires and white stone", a guard standing in the foreground in place of Gandalf and his horse; his painting gives a feeling of "how massive the city is", with close attention to the lateRomanesque or earlyGothic architectural detail andperspective.[24]
One of the most complex locations in The Return of the King is Minas Tirith, a seven-tiered city of kings where a huge portion of the film unfolds. "We were looking a little bit towards an equivalent for Ancient Rome or Ancient Byzantium," comments Alan Lee. "It would be an extraordinary structure."
