Gondor

• 1. Introduction

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  Denethor, Ruling Steward of Gondor, was once asked by his son Boromir how long it might take a steward to become a king. His reply was: "Few years, maybe, in other places of less royalty. In Gondor ten thousand years would not suffice." That exchange opens a window into the kingdom's fierce pride in its own royal lineage. Tolkien called Gondor the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-earth at the close of the Third Age. Events at Gondor occupy much of The Return of the King, the third volume of The Lord of the Rings. By the time war reaches the kingdom's walls, it has spent centuries in slow decline. Scholars have traced Gondor's name, its landscape, and its gradual fall to the histories of several real-world empires. The final shape of Gondor's history and geography was worked out around 1970, in the last years of Tolkien's life.

• 2. The Language of Stone

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  Tolkien intended Gondor to be a Sindarin word meaning "Stone-land." The Rohirrim, Gondor's neighbours to the north, called the kingdom "Stoningland," the same meaning in their own tongue. Tolkien's early writings link this name to the Gondorians' skill as stonemasons, which clearly outstripped that of their more rustic neighbours. The Drúedain, one of the older peoples of the region, called Gondorians "Stonehouse-folk" and their capital "Stone-city," a testament to how the stonework defined this culture in the eyes of others.

  Tolkien denied that the name Gondor had been inspired by the ancient Ethiopian citadel of Gondar. Instead, he traced the root "ond" to a childhood account of one of only two known words from the pre-Celtic languages of Britain. Researchers Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull have proposed a Quenya equivalent for Gondor: Ondonórë. The orcs of Mordor had their own word for the Men of Gondor: "Tarks," derived from the Quenya term tarkil, meaning "High Man" or Númenórean.

  Gondor's territory stretched from the Bay of Belfalas in the south to the great river Anduin's entrance into the Emyn Muil in the north, a kingdom vast enough to earn many names from many peoples.

• 3. A Kingdom Mapped

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  Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor at the end of the Third Age, had seven walls, each gate facing a different direction from the one below it. Inside the seventh wall stood the Citadel, topped by the White Tower. Behind the tower, on a saddle reached from the sixth level, lay the royal necropolis on a street of tombs called Rath Dínen. Within the Court of the Fountain stood the White Tree, the symbol of Gondor, which remained dry throughout every century the Stewards held power.

  John Garth notes that the White Tree has been compared to the Dry Tree of the 14th-century Travels of Sir John Mandeville. In that medieval tale, the Dry Tree had been barren since the crucifixion of Christ. It would flower again only when a prince from the west sang mass beneath it. Tolkien's notes for the illustrator Pauline Baynes placed Minas Tirith at the latitude of Ravenna, the Italian city on the Adriatic Sea. He noted that it lay 900 miles east of Hobbiton, closer in position to Belgrade.

  Dol Amroth, Sindarin for "the Hill of Amroth," sat on a peninsula above the Bay of Belfalas and ranked among the five great cities of Gondor. It was founded as a principality by prince Galador. Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth during the War of the Ring, was the brother of Lady Finduilas, making him uncle to both Boromir and Faramir. He was also a kinsman of King Théoden of Rohan. His soldiers marched under a banner described as "silver upon blue," bearing "a white ship like a swan upon blue water." He led the largest contingent from the outlying regions to the defence of Minas Tirith. Local tradition at Dol Amroth claimed that the family's founding ancestor, Imrazôr the Númenórean, had married an Elf, though the line remained mortal.

  The Gates of Argonath, an enormous pair of kingly statues at Gondor's northern border, once warned trespassers that they had reached the limit of the realm.

• 4. Born from Catastrophe

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  The first people in the region of Gondor were the Drúedain, a hunter-gatherer group who arrived in the First Age. Later settlers pushed them to the margins. By the time of the main narrative, the Drúedain lived in the pine-woods of the Druadan Forest near the White Mountains. The Men of the Mountains came next, building a subterranean complex at Dunharrow, later known as the Paths of the Dead. Fragments of pre-Númenórean languages survive in place-names like Erech, Arnach, and Umbar.

  Númenórean settlers colonized Gondor's shorelands from the middle of the Second Age, drawn largely by loyalty to the Elf-friend Elendil. After Númenor was destroyed, Elendil's sons Isildur and Anárion arrived in Gondor and co-founded the kingdom. Isildur carried with him a seedling of Nimloth, the white tree of Númenor: nim for "white" and loth for "blossom" in Sindarin. That seedling became the ancestor of Gondor's royal symbol. Isildur built the city of Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, while Anárion built Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun.

  Sauron, who had survived Númenor's fall and returned to Mordor, launched a war against the new kingdoms. He captured Minas Ithil, but Isildur escaped north by sea while Anárion held Osgiliath. Elendil and the Elven-king Gil-galad then formed the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Together with Isildur and Anárion, they besieged and defeated Mordor. Sauron was overthrown, but Isildur took the One Ring from him rather than destroying it, which meant Sauron's existence was not truly ended.

  Both Elendil and Anárion were killed in the war. Isildur granted rule of Gondor to Anárion's son Meneldil, keeping his own claim as High King of the Dúnedain. Isildur was then ambushed and killed by Orcs in the Gladden Fields, along with three of his sons. His surviving son Valandil did not press a claim on Gondor's throne. Meneldil's line ruled the kingdom alone until that dynasty died out, ending the age of kings in Gondor.

• 5. The Long Unraveling

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  Gondor's early centuries of kingship were a time of wealth and military strength. The kingdom established a powerful navy and captured the southern port of Umbar from the Black Númenóreans, enriching its treasury. As generations passed, the watch on Mordor grew slack. A civil war gave Umbar the opportunity to declare independence, and the kings of Harad pressed harder on the southern border.

  A Great Plague then drove a steep decline in population. The capital was moved from Osgiliath to Minas Anor, which had been less severely affected. A war with the Wainriders, a confederation of Easterling tribes, ended the line of kings entirely. The Ringwraiths captured Minas Ithil, which was renamed Minas Morgul, meaning "the Tower of Black Sorcery." Minas Anor was then renamed Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, placed in constant watch of its defiled sister city.

  Without kings, Gondor was ruled by Stewards for many generations, father to son. Their badge of office was a white rod. Despite their hereditary power, they were never accepted as kings and never sat on the high throne. The critic Tom Shippey argues that Tolkien built a deliberate contrast between Gondor and its northern neighbour, Rohan. He describes Gondor as "a kind of Rome": over-subtle, selfish, calculating. Rohan, in contrast, resembles the Anglo-Saxon world Tolkien knew and loved. The Steward Denethor's great hall in Minas Tirith is large, solemn, and rendered in cold stone. The mead hall of Meduseld in Rohan is simple but vivid, brought alive by tapestries and a colourful stone floor.

  Jane Chance Nitzsche points out that the names Théoden and Denethor are nearly anagrams of each other. Both men receive the allegiance of a hobbit, but very differently. Denethor undervalues Pippin because of his small size and binds him with a formal oath. Théoden treats Merry with love, to which the hobbit responds in kind. Late in the Third Age, Aragorn travelled to Umbar under the alias Thorongil and attacked the Corsair fleet. That raid allowed Steward Ecthelion II to turn his full attention toward Mordor.

  The Steward Denethor sent his son Boromir north to seek counsel at Rivendell as war loomed.

• 6. Siege and Crown

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  At the Council of Elrond, Boromir proposed using the One Ring as a weapon to save Gondor. Elrond rebuked him and explained the danger. The ring was instead given to the hobbit Frodo as ring-bearer, and a Fellowship that included Boromir was sent to destroy it. Sauron's forces attacked Osgiliath and drove the defenders to destroy the last bridge across the Anduin behind them. During the siege, Frodo and Sam passed through Ithilien and were captured by Faramir. He held them at the hidden cave of Henneth Annûn, then helped them continue their quest.

  The Battle of the Pelennor Fields saw Minas Tirith face a combined assault. Sauron's forces attacked overland from Mordor while the Corsairs of Umbar pressed from the sea. The Witch-king of Angmar breached the Great Gate using a battering ram named Grond, speaking "words of power." The doors burst open as if struck by a "blasting spell," with a flash of "searing lightning." Aragorn summoned the Dead of Dunharrow to destroy the Corsair fleet, freeing the southern provinces to march to Minas Tirith's aid.

  Gondor, supported by the Rohirrim cavalry, repelled the invasion. After Denethor's death and Faramir's incapacity, Prince Imrahil became the effective lord of the city. When Imrahil declined to commit all of Gondor's forces against Mordor, Aragorn led a smaller army to the Black Gate. At the Battle of the Morannon, Sauron encircled that army, but the destruction of the Ring by Frodo ended the war and the Third Age. Gimli and Dwarves from the Lonely Mountain rebuilt the Great Gate in mithril and steel. Aragorn was then crowned King Elessar on the Gateway, proclaimed monarch of both Gondor and Arnor. He brought a sapling of the White Tree into Minas Tirith. It was the first time in centuries that the tree of the Court of the Fountain would grow again.

  Leslie A. Donovan notes that the Rohirrim could only have reached Minas Tirith through Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn's work with the oathbreakers from the Paths of the Dead.

• 7. Echoes of Empire

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  Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, a scholar of Germanic studies, identifies the "most striking similarities" between Gondor and ancient Rome. She draws three parallels. Aeneas survived the fall of Troy as Elendil survived the fall of Númenor. The brothers Romulus and Remus founded Rome as the brothers Isildur and Anárion founded the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth. Both Rome and Gondor endured long centuries of decadence and decline. Straubhaar also identifies a Norman parallel: the Númenóreans arrived "from across the sea," as the Normans did. Prince Imrahil's armour with a "burnished vambrace" recalls late-medieval plate armour of the Norman period.

  The classical scholar Miryam Librán-Moreno offers the most detailed Byzantine comparison. In her reading, Gondor stands in the same relationship to Elendil's unified kingdom that Byzantium stands to the Roman Empire. Arnor in the north corresponds to the weaker Western Roman Empire; both fell while their eastern counterpart endured. Gondor, like Byzantium, faced powerful enemies to the east and south. The Easterlings and Haradrim correspond to the Persians, Arabs, Turks, and Goths that pressed on Constantinople. Both realms faced a final all-out siege from the east; Minas Tirith survived while Constantinople did not. Librán-Moreno also notes that Gothic and Langobard names appear in Gondor's drafts. Vidumavi, wife of king Valacar, bears a Gothic name. In a 1951 letter, Tolkien himself described Minas Tirith as "the Byzantine City of Minas Tirith."

  Dimitra Fimi draws a parallel between the seafaring Númenóreans and the Vikings of the Norse world. In The Lost Road and Other Writings, Tolkien described Númenórean ship-burials that match those found in Beowulf and the Prose Edda. Boromir's boat-funeral in The Two Towers fits that same tradition. Fimi also compares the helmet and crown of Gondor to the romanticised headgear of the Valkyries. Tolkien denied any connection to Wagner's Ring cycle. Fimi notes the "likeness of the wings of a sea-bird" in Tolkien's own description of Aragorn's coronation crown.

  Tolkien visited the Malvern Hills with C. S. Lewis. In 1952, he recorded excerpts from his work at the home of George Sayer in Malvern. Sayer wrote that Tolkien walked the hills reliving the book, comparing the Malvern landscape directly to the White Mountains of Gondor.

• 8. Minas Tirith on Screen

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  Peter Jackson's production team modelled the appearance and structure of Minas Tirith on Mont Saint-Michel, the inhabited tidal island and abbey in France. The team acknowledged the Byzantine parallel in DVD commentary, incorporating Byzantine domes into the city's architecture and dressing civilians in Byzantine-styled clothing. The towers, designed by artist Alan Lee, are equipped with trebuchets. Film critic Roger Ebert called the films' version of Minas Tirith a "spectacular achievement." He compared it to the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz and praised the filmmakers' ability to blend digital and real sets.

  Minas Tirith has appeared in video games as well. The 2003 video game The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King modelled it directly on Jackson's film adaptation. Several locations across Gondor featured in the 1982 role-playing game Middle-earth Role Playing and its expansions.

  Tolkien continued to revise Gondor's deeper history into his final years. Unfinished Tales, published after his death, includes the full account of Adrahil of Dol Amroth fighting under King Ondoher against the Wainriders.