sb. Obs. Forms: α. 5–7 (9) vawmure (6 vawmeure, vawmer), 6–7 vaumure. β. 6–7 vamure (6 vamer). γ. 6 vaimure. [Reduced form of AF. *vaunt-mur: see VAUNTMURE and AVANTMURE.] An advanced wall or earthwork thrown out in front of the main fortifications; the outer wall or series of walls of a fortification or fortress.
α. c. 1475. Contin. Brut., II. 577. The Flemmynges laid þeire gonnes to þe walles, & beete doun þe vawmures and þe walles.
1562. Phaër, Æneid, D d j. Afront the vaumures long … the legion wayting stood.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1427. Gods prouidence … ouerthrew a peece of the wall and vawmure of six and twentie poles.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., 179. The safe recourse they had to the wall and vaumure strengthened with turfe defended these wait-layers from all danger.
a. 1656. Ussher, Ann. (1658), 246. [He] took the vawmure, which was of no great strength. Ibid., 254. The Macedons therefore not having quite battered the inner wall, but onely undermined a vaumure made of brick.
[1843. Lytton, Last Bar., I. i. Next, the Palace, with its bulwark and vaumure.]
β. a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 133 b. On the Weste side was a greate rampire or banke, very stepe without and within, and like to a vamure of a fortresse, by the vamure the diches were .xxiiii. fote depe.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 50. Wherin the vamure must be so steep, that it may not easily be climed.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, XI. lxiv. A mount thereof to make, Or else some vamure fit to saue the towne.
1642. Prince Rupert’s Sp. to King, 4. Their graffes or ditches being dry and their vamures unpallisado’d.
γ. 1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. 124. To make up againe their vaimures, the which were throwen downe with the fury of the artillery. Ibid. He threw downe more then halfe thereof [a wall], breaking also one part of the vaimure.
Hence † Vaumure v. trans., to provide with a vaumure or advanced earthwork. † Vaumuring, the material forming a vaumure; vaumures collectively. Obs. rare.
1523. Surrey, in Morton, Mon. Ann. Teviotdale (1832), 27. The said fortres was vawmeured with erthe of the beste sorte…, and had a barbican.
c. 1600. Surv. Carlisle Castle, in Scott, Border Antiq. (1814), I. 35. The vawmering of Calder-tower is in decay.
