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CASTLES 


BRITISH  ISLES 


M  I  TAG  E 


u,  4-2*,  V7  ' ; 


./ 


THE    EARLY   NORMAN    CASTLES   OF 
THE    BRITISH    ISLES 


I. 


DOL. 


RENNES. 


DlNAN. 


BAVEUX. 


HASTINGS. 


MOTTE-CASTLES  FROM  THE  BAYEUX  TAPESTRY. 


[Frontispiece. 


THE  EARLY  NORMAN  CASTLES 
OF  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


BY  ELLA  S.   AEMITAGE 

HONORARY  FELLOW  OF  THK  SOCIETY  OF  ANTIQUARIES  OF  SCOTLAND 

AUTHOR  OF   "  THE   CHILDHOOD  OF  THK  ENGLISH  NATION  "  J   "  THE  CONNECTION 

OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND";   "AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  ENGLISH  ANTIQUITIES," 

ETC.,  ETC. 


WITH  PLANS  BY  D.  H.  MONTGOMERIE,  F.S.A. 


LONDON 
JOHN  MURRAY,  ALBEMARLE   STREET,  W. 

1912 


ERRATA 

Page  34,  note  I. — For  "  construerat "  read  "  construxerat." 

Page  40,  line  9. — For  "  there  was  only  one  motte,  the  site  of 
the  castle  of  the  Norman  Giflfards  is  now  almost  obliter- 
ated," read  "there  was  only  one  motte,  site  of  the  castle 
of  the  Norman  Giflfards,  now  almost  obliterated." 

Page  133,  line  i6.—For  "  1282  "  read  "1182." 

Page  145,  note  i. — For  "  Legercestria  ''  read  "  Legecestria." 

Page  147,  line  15. — Delete  comma  after  "  castle." 

Page  216,  note  2. — For  "  instalment "  read  "  statement." 

Page  304,  note  ^.—For  "Galloway,  Wigton,  Kirkcudbright, 
and  Dumfries,"  read  "  Galloway  (Wigton,  Kirkcudbright, 
and  Dumfries)." 


land  in  March  1900,  are  incorporated  in  various  parts  of 
the  book,  but  these  have  been  recast  in  the  fuller  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  which  is  aimed  at  here. 

The  rest  of  the  work  is  entirely  new.  No  serious 
attempt  had  been  made  to  ascertain  the  exact  nature 
of  Saxon  and  Danish  fortifications  by  a  comparison  of 
the  existing  remains  with  the  historical  records  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  until  the  publication  of  Mr 
Allcroft's  valuable  book  on  Earthwork  of  England. 


vii 


PREFACE 

/ 

SOME  portions  of  this  book  have  already  appeared  in 
print.  Of  these,  the  most  important  is  the  catalogue 
raisonnt  of  early  Norman  castles  in  England  which  will 
be  found  in  Chapter  VII.,  and  which  was  originally 
published  in  the  English  Historical  Review  (vol.  xix., 
1904).  It  has,  however,  been  enlarged  by  the  inclusion 
of  five  fresh  castles,  and  by  notes  upon  thirty-four  others, 
of  which  the  article  in  the  Review  gave  only  the  names  ; 
the  historical  notes  in  that  essay  being  confined  to  the 
castles  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book. 

The  chapter  on  Irish  mottes  appeared  in  the 
Antiquary  (vol.  xlii.,  1906),  but  it  has  been  revised, 
corrected,  and  added  to.  Portions  of  a  still  earlier 
paper,  read  before  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Scot- 
land in  March  1900,  are  incorporated  in  various  parts  of 
the  book,  but  these  have  been  recast  in  the  fuller  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  which  is  aimed  at  here. 

The  rest  of  the  work  is  entirely  new.  No  serious 
attempt  had  been  made  to  ascertain  the  exact  nature 
of  Saxon  and  Danish  fortifications  by  a  comparison  of 
the  existing  remains  with  the  historical  records  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  until  the  publication  of  Mr 
Allcroft's  valuable  book  on  Earthwork  of  England. 


vii 


viii  PREFACE 

The  chapters  on  Saxon  and  Danish  earthworks  in  the 
present  volume  were  written  before  the  appearance  of  his 
book,  though  the  results  arrived  at  are  only  slightly 
different. 

In  Chapter  V.  an  effort  is  made  to  trace  the  first 
appearance  of  the  private  castle  in  European  history. 
The  private  castle  is  an  institution  which  is  often  care- 
lessly supposed  to  have  existed  from  time  immemorial. 
The  writer  contends  that  it  only  appears  after  the 
establishment  of  the  feudal  system. 

The  favourable  reception  given  by  archaeologists  to 
the  paper  read  before  the  Scottish  Society  led  the  writer 
to  follow  up  this  interesting  subject,  and  to  make  a 
closer  study  of  the  motte-castles  of  Wales,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland.  The  book  now  offered  is  the  fruit  of  eleven 
years  of  further  research.  The  result  of  the  inquiry  is 
to  establish  the  theory  advanced  in  that  earlier  paper, 
that  these  castles,  in  the  British  Islands,  are  in  every 
case  of  Norman  origin. 

The  writer  does  not  claim  to  have  originated  this 
theory.  Dr  Round  was  the  first  to  attack  (in  the 
Quarterly  Review,  1894)  the  assertion  of  the  late  Mr 
G.  T.  Clark  that  the  moated  mound  was  a  Saxon  castle. 
Mr  George  Neilson  continued  the  same  line  of  argument 
in  his  illuminating  paper  on  "  The  Motes  in  Norman 
Scotland"  (Scottish  Review,  vol.  xxxii.,  iSgS).1  All  that 
the  writer  claims  is  to  have  carried  the  contention  a 
stage  further,  and  to  have  shown  that  the  private  castle 
did  not  exist  at  all  in  Britain  until  it  was  brought  here 
by  the  Normans. 

1  Mr  W.  H.  St  John  Hope  arrived  independently  at  similar  conclusions. 


PREFACE  ix 

The  author  feels  that  some  apology  is  necessary  for 
the  enormous  length  of  Chapter  VII.,  containing  the 
catalogue  of  Early  English  castles.  It  may  be  urged  in 
extenuation  that  much  of  the  information  it  contains  has 
never  before  appeared  in  print,  seeing  that  it  has  been 
taken  from  unpublished  portions  of  the  Pipe  Rolls ; 
further,  that  contemporary  authorities  have  in  all  cases 
been  used,  and  that  the  chapter  contains  a  mass  of 
material,  previously  scattered  and  almost  inaccessible, 
which  is  here  for  the  first  time  collated,  and  placed,  as 
the  author  thinks,  in  its  right  setting.  It  is  hoped  that 
the  chapter  will  prove  a  useful  storehouse  to  those  who 
are  working  at  the  history  of  any  particular  castle 
mentioned  in  the  list. 

To  many  it  may  seem  a  waste' of  labour  to  devote  a 
whole  book  to  the  establishment  of  a  proposition  which 
is  now  generally  adopted  by  the  best  English  archae- 
ologists ;  but  the  subject  is  an  important  one,  and  there 
is  no  book  which  deals  with  it  in  detail,  and  in  the  light 
of  the  evidence  which  has  recently  been  accumulated. 
The  writer  hopes  that  such  fuller  statement  of  the  case 
as  is  here  attempted  may  help  not  only  to  a  right  ascrip- 
tion of  British  castle-mounds,  and  of  the  stone  castles 
built  upon  many  of  them,  but  may  also  furnish  material 
to  the  historian  who  seeks  to  trace  the  progress  of  the 
Norman  occupation. 

Students  of  the  architecture  of  castles  are  aware  that 
this  subject  presents  much  more  difficult  questions  than 
does  the  architecture  of  churches.  Those  who  are 
seriously  working  on  castle  architecture  are  very  few  in 
number,  and  are  as  yet  little  known  to  the  world  at 


x  PREFACE 

large.  From  time  to  time,  books  on  castles  are  issued 
from  the  press,  which  show  that  the  writers  have  not 
even  an  idea  of  the  preliminary  studies  without  which 
their  work  has  no  value  at  all.  It  is  hoped  that  the 
sketch  of  castle  architecture  from  the  loth  century  to 
the  1 3th,  which  is  given  in  the  last  chapter,  may  prove  a 
useful  contribution  to  the  subject,  at  any  rate  in  its  lists 
of  dated  castles.  The  Pipe  Rolls  have  been  too  little 
used  hitherto  for  the  general  history  of  castle  architec- 
ture, and  no  list  has  ever  been  published  before  of  the 
keeps  built  by  Henry  II.  But  without  the  evidence  of 
the  Pipe  Rolls  we  are  in  the  land  of  guesswork,  unsup- 
ported, as  a  rule,  by  the  decorative  details  which  render 
it  easy  to  read  the  structural  history  of  most  churches. 

My  warmest  thanks  are  due  to  Mr  Duncan  H. 
Montgomerie,  F.S.A.,  for  his  generous  labour  on  the 
plans  and  illustrations  of  this  book,  and  for  effective 
assistance  in  the  course  of  the  work,  especially  in  many 
toilsome  pilgrimages  for  the  purpose  of  comparing  the 
Ordnance  Survey  with  the  actual  remains.  I  also  owe 
grateful  thanks  to  Mr  Goddard  H.  Orpen,  R.I. A.,  for 
most  kindly  revising  the  chapter  on  Irish  mottes ;  to 
Mr  W.  St  John  Hope  (late  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Society  of  Antiquaries),  for  information  on  many  difficult 
points  ;  to  Mr  Harold  Sands,  F.S.A.,  whose  readiness 
to  lay  his  great  stores  of  knowledge  at  my  disposal 
has  been  always  unfailing ;  to  Mr  George  Neilson, 
F.S.A.Scot.,  for  most  valuable  help  towards  my  chapter 
on  Scottish  mottes;  to  Mr  Charles  Dawson,  F.S.A., 
for  granting  the  use  of  his  admirable  photographs  from 
the  Bayeux  Tapestry ;  to  Mr  Cooper,  author  of  the 


PREFACE  xi 

History  of  York  Castle,  for  important  facts  and  docu- 
ments relating  to  his  subject  ;  to  the  Rev.  Herbert 
White,  M.A.,  and  to  Mr  Basil  Stallybrass,  for  reports 
of  visits  to  castles  ;  and  to  correspondents  too  numerous 
to  mention  who  have  kindly,  and  often  very  fully, 
answered  my  inquiries. 

ELLA   S.    ARMITAGE. 

WESTHOLM, 
RAWDON,  LEEDS. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFACE  .          .          .          •          .          ,          .          ,'        ;*      vii 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY    .          .          •  -       •          »        „*         «          •         I 

CHAPTER  II 

ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS          .          .          .   '    ","       .       u 

CHAPTER  III 
ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS— CONTINUED          .       ,,,,       Vf       31 

CHAPTER  IV 
DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS         .          .          .          .  *        .          .       48 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES    .          .          .          .       •  ;.  *      63 

CHAPTER  VI 
DISTRIBUTION  AND  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  MOTTE-CASTLES          -V      80 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND       .          .          .      ,94^ 

s 

CHAPTER  VIII 
MOTTE-OASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES      .  *  .  .  .251 

CHAPTER  IX 
MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES     ....  .273 

riii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  X 

PAGE 

MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND                  ...  .        302 

CHAPTER  XI 
MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND   ......      323 

CHAPTER  XII 

STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD    .          .  .  351 

APPENDICES 

A.  PRIMITIVE  FOLK-MOOTS     .          .   H       ,    ,      .  .  .381 

B.  WATLING  STREET  AND  THE  DANELAGH            .  .  .      382 

C.  THE  MILITARY  ORIGIN  OF  THE  BOROUGHS      •  .  .      382 

D.  THE  WORDS  "CASTRUM"  AND  "CASTELLUM"  .  .  .383 

E.  THE  BURGHAL  HIDAGE    .          ,:.    ,   .          .  .  .      385 

F.  THELWALL    ........      385 

G.  THE  WORD  "BRETASCHE"            .          '.          ;  •  ,386 
H.    THE  WORD  "HURDICIUM"        f.Jpl     •'  .         .'.  .  .      387 
I.     THE  WORD  "HERICIO"     ;'      **.       /Y"       .  .  .388 
K.    THE  CASTLE  OF  YALE    .  <%. .    ,  *,        .       '\  '  .  .      388 
L.    THE  CASTLE  OF  TULLOW  .          .          .  .  .      389 
M.    THE  CASTLE  OF  SLANE    .          ,          .          .  .  .390 
N.    THE  WORD  "  DONJON  "     .          ',  ;       .          .  .  .      390 
O.    THE  ARRANGEMENTS  IN  EARLY  KEEPS.          .  .  .391 
P.    KEEPS  AS  RESIDENCES      ;.       .  f,t,       •          •  •  •      392 
Q.    CASTLES  BUILT  BY  HENRY  I.                 .          .  .  .      392 
R.    THE  SO-CALLED  SHELL  KEEP      .          .          .  .  .      393 
S.    PROFESSOR  LLOYD'S  "HISTORY  OF  WALES"     .  .  .      393 

SCHEDULE  OF  ENGLISH  CASTLES  FROM  THE  ELEVENTH  CENTURY    396 

INDEX      .          .          .          .          .          .          .  .  .     401 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 
AND   PLANS 

FIG. 

Motte-Castles  from  the  Bayeux  Tapestry  :— Dol,  Rennes,  Dinan, 

Bayeux,  Hastings  ......    Frontispiece 

FACING    PAGE 

1.  Typical   Motte  -  Castles  :— Topcliffe,    Yorks  ;    Laughton  -  en  -  le- 

Morthen,   Yorks ;    Anstey,    Herts ;     Dingestow,   Monmouth ; 
Hedingham,  Essex  ......          4 

2.  Anglo-Saxon  MS.  of  Prudentius       .           .  .  .  19 

3.  Wallingford,  Berks ;  Wareham,  Dorset       .  .  .  .28 

4.  Eddisbury,  Cheshire  •  Witham,  Essex         .  .  .  .36 

5.  Plan  of  Towcester  about  1830           .           .  .  42 

6.  Shoebury,  Essex        .            .            .            .  .  .  52 

7.  Willington,  Beds        .......        59 

8.  Arundel,  Sussex  ;  Abergavenny,  Monmouth  .  .  .98 

9.  Barnstaple,  Devon ;  Berkhampstead,  Herts ;  Bishop's  Stortford, 

Herts          ........       102 

10.  Bourn,  Lines  ;  Bramber,  Sussex       .....       108 

11.  Caerleon,  Monmouth ;  Carisbrooke  .  .  .  .114 

12.  Carlisle ;  Castle  Acre,  Norfolk         .  .  .  .  .124 

13.  Clifford,  Hereford;  Clitheroe,  Lanes;  Corfe,  Dorset         .  .       128 

14.  Dover  (from  a  plan  in  the  British  Museum,  1756)  .  .  .       138 

15.  Dunster,  Somerset ;  Dudley,  Staffs  .  i  144 

16.  Durham          ........       146 

17.  Ely,  Cambs  ;  Ewias  Harold,  Hereford  ;  Eye,  Suffolk        .  .150 

18.  Hastings,  Sussex ;  Huntingdon        .....       158 

19.  Launceston,  Cornwall ;  Lewes,  Sussex        ....       164 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  PLANS 

FIO.  FACING  PAOB 

20.  Lincoln  .  .  .  .  >  .  .       166 

21.  Monmouth  ;  Montacute,  Somerset ;  Morpeth,  Northumberland   .       168 

22.  Norham ;  Nottingham          .  .  .  .  .  .172 

23.  Norwich   (from    Harrod's    Gleanings    among   the    Castles    and 

Convents  of  Norfolk^  p.  133)  .  .  .  .174 

24.  Okehampton,  Devon  ;  Penwortham,  Lanes  ;  Pevensey,  Sussex    .       178 

25.  Oxford  (from  Oxonia  Illustrata,  David  Loggan,  1675)       •  .180 

26.  Pontefract,  Yorks  ;  Preston  Capes,  Northants  ;  Quatford,  Salop.       188 

27.  Rayleigh,  Essex ;  Richard's  Castle,  Hereford         .  .  .192 

28.  Richmond,  Yorks ;  Rochester,  Kent  .  .  .  .194 

29.  Rockingham,  Northants      , ., ..=',        .....      202 

30.  Old  Sarum,  Wilts      ...  .  .  .  .204 

31.  Shrewsbury ;   Skipsea,  Yorks  .....      208 

32.  Stafford  ;  Tamworth,  Staffs ;  Stanton  Holgate,  Salop ;  Tickhill, 

Yorks          .  .  ...  .  .  .      212 

33.  Tonbridge,  Kent ;  Totnes,  Devon    .   ^        .  .  .  .      220 

34.  Trematon,  Cornwall ;  Tutbury,  Staffs          ....      226 

35.  Wallingford,  Berks    .  .  .  -          .  .  .  .  228 

36.  Warwick ;  Wigmore,  Hereford     .    .  .  .  .  .  232 

37.  Winchester  (from  a  plan  by  W.  Godson,  1750)        .  .  .  234 

38.  Windsor  Castle  (from  Ashmole's  Order  of  the  Garter}        .  .  236 

39.  York  Castle  and  Baile  Hill  (from  a  plan  by  P.  Chassereau,  1750)  244 

40.  Motte-Castles  of  North  Wales :— Mold,  Welshpool,   Wrexham, 

Mathraval      ........       260 

41.  Motte-Castles  of  South  Wales  :— Cilgerran,  Blaenporth,  Chastell 

Gwalter      ........      282 

42.  Motte-Castles  of  South  Wales  :— Builth,  Gemaron,  Payn's  Castle       290 

43.  Motte-Castles  of  South  Wales  : — Cardiff,  Loughor          '*        .;-..      294 

44.  Scottish  Motte-Castles  : — Annan,  Moffat,  Duffus,  Old  Hermitage        310 

45.  Irish  Motte-Castles  : — Ardmayle,  Downpatrick,  Drogheda,  Castle- 

knock          •  •  .  ,  .  336 


THE  EARLY  NORMAN  CASTLES  OF 
THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


CHAPTER    I 

INTRODUCTORY 

THE  study  of  earthworks  has  been  one  of  the  most 
neglected  subjects  in  English  archaeology  until  quite 
recent  years.  It  may  even  be  said  that  during  the  first 
half  of  the  iQth  century,  less  attention  was  paid  to 
earthworks  than  by  our  older  topographical  writers. 
Leland,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  never  failed  to 
notice  the  "  Dikes  and  Hilles,  which  were  Campes  of 
Men  of  Warre,"  nor  the  "  Hilles  of  Yerth  cast  up  like 
the  Dungeon  of  sum  olde  Castelle,"  which  he  saw  in 
his  pilgrimages  through  England.  And  many  of  our 
1 7th-  and  18th-century  topographers  have  left  us  invalu- 
able notices  of  earthworks  which  were  extant  in  their 
time.  But  if  we  turn  over  the  archaeological  journals 
of  some  fifty  years  ago,  we  shall  be  struck  by  the 
paucity  of  papers  on  earthworks,  and  especially  by  the 
complete  ignoring,  in  most  cases,  of  those  connected 
with  castles. 

The  misfortune  attending  this  neglect,  was  that  it 
left  the  ground  open  to  individual  fancy,  and  each 
observer  formed  his  own  theory  of  the  earthworks 
which  he  happened  to  have  seen,  and  as  often  as  not, 

A 


2  INTRODUCTORY 

stated  that  theory  as  a  fact.  We  need  not  be  surprised 
to  find  Camden  doing  this,  as  he  wrote  before  the  dawn 
of  scientific  observation  ;  but  that  such  methods  should 
have  been  carried  on  until  late  in  the  iQth  century  is 
little  ta  the  credit  of  English  archaeology.  Mr  Clark's 
work  on  Mediceval  Military  Architecture  (published  in 
1884),  which  has  the  merit  of  being  one  of  the  first  to 
pay  due  attention  to  castle  earthworks,  counterbalances 
that  merit  by  enunciating  as  a  fact  a  mere  guess  of  his 
own,  which,  as  we  shall  afterwards  show,  was  absolutely 
devoid  of  solid  foundation. 

The  scientific  study  of  English  earthworks  may  be 
said  to  have  been  begun  by  General  Pitt- Rivers  in  the 
last  quarter  of  the  iQth  century;  but  we  must  not 
forget  that  he  described  himself  as  a  pupil  of  Canon 
Greenwell,  whose  careful  investigations  of  British 
barrows  form  such  an  important  chapter  of  prehistoric 
archaeology.  General  Pitt- Rivers  applied  the  lessons 
he  had  thus  learned  to  the  excavation  of  camps  and 
dykes,  and  his  labours  opened  a  new  era  in  that  branch 
of  research.  By  accumulating  an  immense  body  of 
observations,  and  by  recording  those  observations  with 
a  minuteness  intended  to  forestall  future  questions,  he 
built  up  a  storehouse  of  facts  which  will  furnish 
materials  to  all  future  workers  in  prehistoric  antiquities. 
He  was  too  cautious  ever  to  dogmatise,  and  if  he 
arrived  at  conclusions,  he  was  careful  to  state  them 
merely  as  suggestions.  But  his  work  destroyed  many 
favourite  antiquarian  delusions,  even  some  which  had 
been  cherished  by  very  learned  writers,  such  as  Dr 
Guest's  theory  of  the  "  Belgic  ditches  "  of  Wiltshire. 

A  further  important  step  in  the  study  of  earthworks 
was  taken  by  the  late  Mr  I.  Chalkley  Gould,  when  he 
founded  the  Committee  for  Ancient  Earthworks,  and 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  EARTHWORKS  3 

drew  up  the  classification  of  earthworks  which  is  now 
being  generally  adopted  by  archaeological  writers.  This 
classification  may  be  abridged  into  (a)  promontory  or 
cliff  forts,  (b)  hill  forts,  (c)  rectangular  forts,  (d)  moated 
hillocks,  (e)  moated  hillocks  with  courts  attached,  (/) 
banks  and  ditches  surrounding  homesteads,  (g)  manorial 
works,  (ti)  fortified  villages. 

We  venture  to  think  that  still  further  divisions  are 
needed,  to  include  (i)  boundary  earthworks  ;  (2)  sepul- 
chral or  religious  circles  or  squares  ;  (3)  enclosures 
clearly  non-military,  intended  to  protect  sheep  and 
cattle  from  wolves,  or  to  aid  in  the  capture  of  wild 
animals.1 

This  classification,  it  will  be  observed,  makes  no 
attempt  to  decide  the  dates  of  the  different  types  of 
earthworks  enumerated.  But  a  great  step  forward  was 
taken  when  these  different  types  were  separated  from 
one  another.  There  had  been  no  greater  source  of 
confusion  in  the  writings  of  our  older  antiquaries,  than 
the  unscientific  idea  that  one  earthwork  was  as  good 
as  another ;  that  is  to  say,  that  one  type  of  earthwork 
would  do  as  well  as  another  for  any  date  or  any  circum- 
stances. When  it  is  recognised  that  large  classes  of 
earthworks  show  similar  features,  it  becomes  probable 
that  even  if  they  were  not  thrown  up  in  the  same 
historic  period,  they  were  at  any  rate  raised  to  meet 
similar  sets  of  circumstances.  We  may  be  quite  sure 
that  a  camp  which  contains  an  area  of  60  or  80  acres 
was  not  constructed  for  the  same  purpose  as  one  which 
only  contains  an  area  of  three. 

We    are    not    concerned    here,    however,   with    the 


1  In  the  paper  on  Earthworks  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Victoria 
County  History  of  Yorkshire^  this  subdivision  of  the  promiscuous  class  X., 
is  used. 


4  INTRODUCTORY 

attempt  to  disentangle  the  dates  of  the  various  classes 
of  prehistoric  earthworks.1  Such  generalisations  are 
for  the  most  part  premature  ;  and  although  some  advance 
is  being  made  in  this  direction,  it  is  still  impossible  to 
decide  without  excavation  whether  a  camp  of  class  (a) 
or  (b)  belongs  to  the  Stone  Age,  the  Bronze  Age,  or 
the  Iron  Age.  Our  business  is  with  classes  (d)  and  (e) 
of  Mr  Gould's  list,  that  is,  with  the  moated  hillocks. 
We  shall  only  treat  of  the  other  classes  to  the  extent 
which  is  necessary  to  bring  out  the  special  character  of 
classes  (d)  and  (e). 

Let  us  look  more  closely  into  these  earthworks  in 
their  perfect  form,  the  class  (e)  of  the  Earthwork 
Committee's  list.  They  consist,  when  fully  preserved, 
of  an  artificial  hillock,  20,  30,  40,  or  in  some  rare 
instances  100  feet  high.  The  hillock  carried  a  breast- 
work of  earth  round  the  top,  which  in  many  cases  is 
still  preserved  ;  this  breastwork  enclosed  a  small  court, 
sometimes  only  30  feet  in  diameter,  in  rare  cases  as  large 
as  half  an  acre ;  it  must  have  been  crowned  by  a 
stockade  of  timber,  and  the  representations  in  the 
Bayeux  Tapestry  would  lead  us  to  think  that  it  always 
enclosed  a  wooden  tower.2  As  a  rule  the  hillock  is 
round,  but  it  is  not  unfrequently  oval,  and  occasionally 
square.  The  base  of  the  hillock  is  surrounded  by  a 
ditch.  Below  the  hillock  is  a  court,  much  larger  than 
the  small  space  enclosed  on  the  top  of  the  mount.  It 
also  has  been  surrounded  by  a  ditch,  which  joins  the 
ditch  of  the  mount,  and  thus  encloses  the  whole  fortifica- 
tion. The  court  is  defended  by  earthen  banks,  both  on 
the  scarp  and  counterscarp  of  the  ditch,  and  these  banks 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  Mr  Hadrian  Allcroft's  work  on  Earth- 
work of  England 'has  furnished  an  admirable  text-book  of  this  subject. 

2  See  Frontispiece. 


N. 


o        100     200  FEET. 


zoo     300  FEET. 


.%trt»wi,,'/r/      Scale  for  Plan. 


w 


Scale  for  Sect  ton. 
TOPCLIFFE,   YORKS. 


2f 200  FEET. 

for  Sect  ion. 

LAUGHTON-EN-LE-MORTHEN,  YORKS. 


ANSTEY,  HERTS. 


? ipo         29°  FE  ET. 

Scale  for   Sections. 

DlXGESTOW,    MONMOUTH. 


200-, 


HEDINGHAM,  ESSEX. 


FIG.  i. — TYPICAL  MOTTE-CASTLES. 


[To  face  p.  4. 


MAIN  FEATURES  OF  CLASS  E  5 

of  course  had  also  their  timber  stockades,  the  remains  of 
which  have  sometimes  been  found  on  excavation.1 

These  are  the  main  features  of  the  earthworks  in 
question.  Some  variations  may  be  noticed.  The 
ditch  is  not  invariably  carried  all  round  the  hillock, 
occasionally  it  is  not  continued  between  the  hillock  and 
the  court.2  Sometimes  the  length  of  the  ditch  separat- 
ing the  hillock  from  the  court  is  at  a  higher  level  than 
the  main  ditch.8  Often  the  ditches  were  evidently  dry 
from  the  first,  but  not  infrequently  they  are  wet,  and 
sometimes  vestiges  of  the  arrangements  for  feeding 
them  are  still  apparent.  The  hillock  is  not  invariably 
artificial ;  often  it  is  a  natural  hill  scarped  into  a  conical 
shape  ;  sometimes  an  isolated  rock  is  made  use  of  to 
serve  as  a  citadel,  which  saved  much  spade-work.  The 
shape  of  the  court  is  very  variable :  it  may  be  square  or 
oblong,  with  greatly  rounded  corners,  or  it  may  be  oval, 
or  semilunar,  or  triangular  ;  a  very  common  form  is  the 
bean-shaped.  The  area  covered  by  these  fortifications 
is  much  more  uniform  ;  one  of  the  features  contrasting 
them  most  strongly  with  the  great  prehistoric  "camps  " 
of  southern  England  is  their  comparatively  small  size. 
We  know  of  only  one  (Skipsea)  in  which  the  bailey 
covers  as  much  as  eight  acres  ;  in  by  far  the  greater 
number  the  whole  area  included  in  the  hillock,  court, 
and  ditches  does  not  exceed  three  acres,  and  often  it  is 
not  more  than  one  and  a  half.4 

Now  this  type  of  fort  will  tell  us  a  good  deal  about 

1  See  Fig.  i. 

2  For  instance,  at    Berkeley,  Ewias    Harold,   Yelden,   and  Tomen  y 
Roddwy. 

3  As  at  Rayleigh  and  Downpatrick. 

4  In  some  of  these  castles  there  is  no  gap  in  the  bailey  banks  for  an 
entrance.     They  must  have  been  entered  by  a  movable  wooden  stair,  such 
as  horses  can  be  taught  to  climb.     See  the  plan  of  Topcliffe  Castle,  Yorks 
(Fig.  i). 


6  INTRODUCTORY 

itself  if  we  examine  it  carefully.  In  the  first  place, 
its  character  is  more  pronounced  than  that  of  any  other 
class  of  earthwork.  It  differs  entirely  from  the  great 
camps  which  belong  to  the  tribal  period.  It  was 
evidently  not  designed  to  accommodate  a  mass  of  people 
with  their  flocks  and  herds.  It  is  small  in  area,  and 
its  citadel,  as  a  rule,  is  very  small  indeed.  Dr  Sophus 
Mtiller,  the  eminent  Danish  archaeologist,  when  dealing 
with  the  specimens  of  this  class  of  fortification  which 
are  to  be  found  in  Denmark,  made  the  luminous  remark 
that  "  the  fortresses  of  prehistoric  times  are  the 
defences  of  the  community,  north  of  the  Alps  as  in  the 
old  classical  lands.  Small  castles  for  an  individual  and 
his  warrior-band  belong  to  the  Middle  Ages."1  These 
words  give  the  true  direction  to  which  we  must  turn  for 
the  interpretation  of  these  earthworks. 

In  the  second  place,  this  type  presents  a  peculiar 
development  of  plan,  such  as  we  do  not  expect  to  find 
in  the  earliest  times  in  these  islands.  It  has  a  citadel  of 
a  most  pronounced  type.  This  alone  differentiates  it 
from  the  prehistoric  or  Keltic  camps  which  are  so 
abundant  in  Great  Britain.  It  might  be  too  hasty  a 
generalisation  to  say  that  no  prehistoric  camps  have 
citadels,  but  as  a  rule  the  traverses  by  which  some  of 
these  camps  are  divided  appear  to  have  been  made  for 
the  purpose  of  separating  the  cattle  from  the  people, 
rather  than  as  ultimate  retreats  in  time  of  war.  The 
early  German  camps,  according  to  Kohler,  have  inner 
enclosures  which  he  thinks  were  intended  for  the 
residence  of  the  chief ;  but  he  calls  attention  to  the  great 
difference  between  these  camps  and  the  class  we  are  now 
considering,  in  that  the  inner  enclosure  is  of  much 
greater  size.2  It  would  appear  that  some  of  the  fortifica- 

1  Vor  Oldtid,  p.  629.  2  Entwickelung  des  Kriegswesens,  iii.,  379. 


WHAT  THESE  FEATURES  INDICATE  1 

tions  in  England  which  are  known  or  suspected  to  be 
Saxon  have  also  these  inner  enclosures  of  considerable 
size  (6  acres  in  the  case  of  Witham),  but  without  any 
vestige  of  the  hillock  which  is  the  principal  feature  of 
class  (e). 

It  is  clear,  in  the  third  place,  that  the  man  who 
threw  up  earthworks  of  this  latter  class  was  not  only 
suspicious  of  his  neighbours,  but  was  even  suspicious  of 
his  own  garrison.  For  the  hillock  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  is  so  constructed  as  to  be  capable  of  complete 
isolation,  and  capable  of  defending  itself,  if  necessary, 
against  its  own  court.  Thus  it  is  probable  that  the 
force  which  followed  this  chieftain  was  not  composed  of 
men  of  his  own  blood,  in  whom  he  could  repose  absolute 
trust ;  and  the  earthworks  themselves  suggest  that  they 
are  the  work  of  an  invader  who  came  to  settle  in  these 
islands,  who  employed  mercenaries  instead  of  tribesmen, 
and  who  had  to  maintain  his  settlement  by  force. 

When  on  further  inquiry  we  find  that  earthworks  of 
this  type  are  exceedingly  common  in  France,  and  are 
generally  found  in  connection  with  feudal  castles,1  and 
when  we  consider  the  area  of  their  distribution  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  see  that  they  are  to  be  found  in 
every  county  in  England,  as  well  as  in  Wales  and  in  the 
Normanised  parts  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  we  see  that 
the  Norman  invader  is  the  one  to  whom  they  seem  to 
point.  We  see  also  that  small  forts  of  this  kind,  easily 
and  cheaply  constructed,  and  defensible  by  a  small 
number  of  men,  exactly  correspond  to  the  needs  of  the 
Norman  invader,  both  during  the  period  of  the  Conquest 
and  for  a  long  time  after  his  first  settlement  here. 

But  it  will  at  once  occur  to  an  objector  that  there 
have  been  other  invaders  of  Britain  before  the  Normans, 

1  See  Chapter  VII. 


8  INTRODUCTORY 

and  it  may  be  asked  why  these  earthworks  were  not 
equally  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  Saxon  or  the  Danish 
conquerors,  and  why  they  may  not  with  equal  reason  be 
attributed  to  them.  To  answer  this  question  we  will  try 
to  discover  what  kind  of  fortifications  actually  were 
constructed  by  the  Saxons  and  Danes,  and  to  this 
inquiry  we  will  address  ourselves  in  the  succeeding 
chapters. 

It  will  clear  the  ground  greatly  if  it  is  recognised  at 
the  outset  that  these  earthworks  are  castles,  in  the 
usual  sense  of  the  word  ;  that  is,  the  private  fortified 
residences  of  great  landowners.  It  was  the  chief  merit 
of  Mr  G.  T.  Clark's  work  on  Medieval  Military 
Architecture,  that  he  showed  the  perfect  correspondence 
in  plan  of  these  earthen  and  timber  structures  with 
the  stone  castles  which  immediately  succeeded  them, 
so  that  it  was  only  necessary  to  add  a  stone  tower 
and  stone  walls  to  these  works  to  convert  them  into 
a  Norman  castle  of  the  popularly  accepted  type.  We 
regard  the  military  character  of  these  works  as  so 
fully  established  that  we  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to 
discuss  the  theory  that  they  were  temples,  which  was 
suggested  by  some  of  our  older  writers,  nor  even  the 
more  modern  idea  that  they  were  moot-hills,  which 
has  been  defended  with  considerable  learning  by  Mr 
G.  L.  Gomme.1  Dr  Christison  remarks  in  his  valuable 
work  on  Scottish  fortifications  that  an  overweening 
importance  has  been  attached  to  moot-hills,  without 
historical  evidence.2  And  Mr  George  Neilson,  in  his 
essay  on  "The  Motes  in  Norman  Scotland"8  (to  which 
we  shall  often  have  occasion  to  refer  hereafter),  shows  that 

1  Primitive  Folkmoots.     See  Appendix  A. 

2  Early  Fortifications  in  Scotland,  p.  13.     He  adds  an  instance  showing 
that  Moot  Hill  is  sometimes  a  mistake  for  Moot  Hall. 

3  Scottish  Review,  vol.  xxxii. 


SEPULCHRAL  HILLOCKS  9 

moot-hill  in  Scotland  means  nothing  but  mote-hill,  the 
hill  of  the  mote  or  motte  ;  but  that  moots  or  courts  were 
held  there,  just  because  it  had  formerly  been  the  site 
of  a  castle,  and  consequently  a  seat  of  jurisdiction.1 

That  some  of  these  hillocks  have  anciently  been 
sepulchral,  we  do  not  attempt  to  deny.  The  Norman 
seems  to  have  been  free  from  any  superstitious  fear 
which  might  have  hindered  him  from  utilising  the 
sepulchres  of  the  dead  for  his  personal  defence ;  or  else 
he  was  unaware  that  they  were  burial-places.  There 
are  some  very  few  recorded  instances  of  prehistoric 
burials  found  under  the  hillocks  of  castles ;  but  in 
ordinary  cases,  these  hillocks  would  not  be  large  enough 
for  the  mottes  of  castles.2  There  are,  however,  some 
sepulchral  barrows  of  such  great  size  that  it  is  difficult 
to  distinguish  them  from  mottes ;  the  absence  of  a 
court  attached  is  not  sufficient  evidence,  as  there  are 
some  mottes  which  stand  alone,  without  any  accompany- 
ing court.  Excavation  or  documentary  evidence  can 
alone  decide  in  these  cases,  though  the  presence  of 

1  Some  writers  give  the  name  of  moot-hill  to  places  in  Yorkshire  and 
elsewhere  where  the  older  ordnance  maps  give   moat-hill.     Moat  in  this 
connection  is  the  same  as  motte,  the  Scotch  and  Irish  mote,  i.e.,  the  hillock 
of  a  castle,  derived  from  the  Norman-French  word  motte.     As  this  word  is 
by  far  the  most  convenient  name  to  give  to  these  hillocks,  being  the  only 
specific  name  which  they  have  ever  had,  we  shall  henceforth  use  it  in  these 
pages.      We  prefer  it  to  mote,  which  is  the  Anglicised  form  of  the  word, 
because  of  its  confusion  with  moat,  a  ditch.     Some  writers  advocate  the 
word  mount,  but  this  appears  to  us  too  vague.     As  the  word  motte  is  French 
in   origin,  it  appropriately  describes  a  thing  which  was  very  un-English 
when  first  introduced  here. 

2  At  York,  a  prehistoric  crouching  skeleton  was  found  by  Messrs  Benson 
and  Platnauer  when  excavating  the  castle  hill  in  1903,  4  feet  6  inches  below 
the  level  of  the  ground.     The  motte  at  York  appears  to  have  been  raised 
after  the  destruction  of  the  first  castle,  but  whether  the  first  hillock  belonged 
to  the  ancient  burial  is  not  decided  by  the  account,  "  Notes  on  Clifford's 
Tower,"  by  the  above  authors.    Trans.  York.  Philosoph.  Soc.,  1902.     Another 
instance    is    recorded   in   the    Revue  Archaologique,   to  which   we  have 
unfortunately  lost  the  reference. 


10  INTRODUCTORY 

an  earthen  breastwork  on  top  of  the  mount  furnishes 
a  strong  presumption  of  a  military  origin.  But  the 
undoubtedly  sepulchral  barrows  of  New  Grange  and 
Dowth  in  Ireland  show  signs  of  having  been  utilised 
as  castles,  having  remains  of  breastworks  on  their 
summits.1 

1  From  the  report  of  a  competent  witness,  Mr  Basil  Stallybrass. 


CHAPTER    II 

ANGLO-SAXON    FORTIFICATIONS 

WE  have  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
when  it  is  asked  whether  the  earthworks  of  the  moated 
mound-and-court  type  were  the  work  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  the  question  resolves  itself  into  another,  namely, 
Did  the  Anglo-Saxons  build  castles? 

As  far  as  we  know,   they  did  not ;    and  although 
to  prove  a  negative  we  can  only  bring  negative  evidence, 
that  evidence  appears  to  us  to  be  very  conclusive.     But 
before  we  deal  with  it,  we  will  try  to  find  out  what  sort, 
of  fortifications  the  Anglo-Saxons  actually  did  construct. 

The  first  fortification  which  we  read  of  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  is  that  of  Bamborough,  in  Northumber- 
land. The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  tells  us  that  in 
547  Ida  began  to  reign  in  Northumberland,  and  adds 
that  he  built  "  Bebbanburh,"  which  was  first  enclosed 
with  a  hedge,  and  afterwards  with  a  wall.  Unfortun- 
ately this  celebrated  passage  is  merely  the  interpolation 
of  a  12th-century  scribe,  and  is  consequently  of  no 
authority  whatever,1  though  there  is  nothing  improbable 
in  the  statement,  and  it  is  supported  by  Nennius.2 

1  Earle,  Two  Saxon  Chronicles  Parallel,  Introd.,  xxiii. 

2  Nennius    says    that    Ida   "unxit   (read   cinxit)   Dynguayrdi   Guerth- 
Berneich  "  =  a  strength  or  fort  of  Bernicia.     Mon.  Hist.  Brit.,  75.     Elsewhere 
he  calls  Bamborough  Dinguo  Aroy.     It  is  quite  possible  that  there  might 
have  been  a  Keltic  din  in  a  place  so  well  fitted  for  one  as  Bamborough. 


12  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

Ida's  grandson  Ethelfrith  gave  this  fortress  to  his  wife 
Bebba,  from  whom  it  received  the  name  of  Bebbanburh, 
now  Bamborough.  It  was  built  without  doubt  on  the 
same  lofty  insulated  rock  where  the  castle  now  stands ; 
for  when  it  was  attacked  by  Penda  in  633,  he  found  the 
situation  so  strong  that  it  was  impossible  to  storm  it, 
and  it  was  only  by  heaping  up  wood  on  the  most 
accessible  side  that  he  was  able  to  set  fire  to  the  wooden 
stockade.1  Modern  historians  talk  of  this  fort  as  a 
castle,  but  all  the  older  authorities  call  it  a  town  ; 2  nor 
is  there  any  mention  of  a  castle  at  Bamborough  till  the 
reign  of  William  II.  The  area  of  the  basaltic  headland 
of  Bamborough  covers  4f  acres,  a  site  large  enough  for 
a  city  of  Ida's  day.  The  church  of  St  Peter  was  placed 
on  the  highest  point.  The  castle  which  was  built  there 
in  Norman  times  does  not  seem  to  have  occupied  at 
first  more  than  a  portion  of  this  site,3  though  it  is 
probable  that  eventually  the  townsmen  were  expelled 
from  the  rock,  and  tfiat  thus  the  modern  town  of 
Bamborough  arose  in  the  levels  below.  Although  4f 
acres  may  seem  a  small  size  for  an  urbs,  it  was  certainly 
regarded  as  such,  and  was  large  enough  to  protect  a 
considerable  body  of  invaders. 

Strange  to  say,  this  is  the  only  record  which  we 
have  of  any  fortress-building  by  the  invading  Saxons. 
Until  we  come  to  the  time  of  Alfred,  there  is  hardly  an 
allusion  to  any  fortification  in  use  in  Saxon  times.4  It 

1  Bede,  H.  E.,  iii.,  16. 

2  See  Bede,  as  above,  and  Symeon,  ii.,  45  (R.S.). 

3  We  infer  this  from  the  strong   defences  of  what  is  now  the  middle 
ward. 

4  The  fact,  however,  that  the  Trinoda  Necessitas,  the  duty  of  landholders 
to  contribute  to  the  repair  of  boroughs  and  bridges,  and  to  serve  in  the  fyrd, 
is  occasionally  mentioned  in  charters  earlier  than  the  Danish  wars,  shows 
that  there  were  town  walls  to  be  kept  up  even  at  that  date.     See  Baldwin 
Brown,  The  Arts  in  Early  Rngland,  i.,  82. 


SCANTINESS  OF  RECORDS  13 

is  mentioned  in  571  that  the  Saxons  took  four  towns 
(tunas)  of  the  Britons,  and  the  apparent  allusion  to 
sieges  seems  to  show  that  these  British  towns  had  some 
kind  of  fortification.  The  three  chesters,  which  were 
taken  by  the  Saxons  in  577,  Gloucester,  Cirencester, 
and  Bath,  prove  that  some  Roman  cities  still  kept  their 
defences.  In  755  the  slaughter  of  Cynewulf,  king  of 
the  West  Saxons,  by  the  etheling  Cyneard,  is  told  with 
unusual  detail  by  the  Chronicle.  The  king  was  slain 
in  a  bur  (bower,  or  isolated  women's  chamber *),  the  door 
of  which  he  attempted  to  defend  ;  but  this  bur  was  itself 
enclosed  in  a  burh,  the  gates  of  which  were  locked  by 
the  etheling  who  had  killed  the  king,  and  were  defended 
until  they  were  forced  by  the  king's  avengers.  Here  it 
seems  to  be  doubtful  whether  the  burh  was  a  town  or  a 
private  enclosure  resembling  a  stable-yard  of  modern 
times.  The  description  of  the  storming  of  York  by  the 
Danes  in  867  shows  that  the  Roman  walls  of  that  city 
were  still  preserved.  These  passages  are  the  solitary 
instances  of  fortifications  in  England  mentioned  by  the 
Chronicle  before  the  time  of  Alfred.2  The  invasions  of 
the  Danes  led  at  last  to  a  great  fortifying  epoch,  which 
preserved  our  country  from  being  totally  overwhelmed 
by  those  northern  immigrants. 

The  little  Saxon  kingdom  of  Wessex  was  the  germ 
of  the  British  Empire.  When  Alfred  came  to  the  throne 
it  had  already  absorbed  the  neighbouring  kingdoms  of 
Kent,  Sussex,  and  Surrey,  and  the  issue  hanging  in  the 
balance  was  whether  this  small  English  state  would 
survive  the  desolating  flood  of  pagan  barbarism  which 
had  already  overwhelmed  the  sister  kingdoms  of  the 

1  See  Wright,  History  of  Domestic  Manners^  p.  13. 

2  The  Danish  fortress  of  Nottingham  is  mentioned  by  the  Chronicle  in 
868,  but  we  are  speaking  now  of  purely  Anglo-Saxon  fortresses. 


14  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

Midlands  and  the  North.  It  was  given  to  Alfred  to 
raise  again  the  fallen  standard  of  Christendom  and 
civilisation,  and  to  establish  an  English  kingdom  on  so 
sound  a  basis  that  when,  in  later  centuries,  it  succes- 
sively became  the  prey  of  the  Dane  and  the  Norman, 
the  English  polity  survived  both  conquests.  The 
wisdom,  energy,  and  steadfastness  of  King  Alfred  and 
his  children  and  grandchildren  were  amongst  the  most 
important  of  the  many  factors  which  have  helped  to 
build  up  the  great  empire  of  Britain. 

We  are  concerned  here  with  only  one  of  the  measures 
by  which  Alfred  and  his  family  secured  the  triumph  of 
Wessex  in  her  mortal  struggle  with  the  Danes,  the 
fortifications  which  they  raised  for  the  protection  of 
their  subjects.  From  the  pages  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  we  might  be  led  to  think  that  Alfred's  son 
and  daughter,  Edward  and  Ethelfleda,  were  the  chief 
builders  of  fortifications.  But  there  is  ample  evidence 
that  they  only  carried  out  a  systematic  purpose  which 
had  been  initiated  by  Alfred.  We  know  that  Alfred 
was  a  great  builder.  "  What  shall  I  say,"  cries  Asser, 
"of  the  cities  and  towns  which  he  restored,  and  of 
others  which  he  built  which  had  never  existed  before ! 
Of  the  royal  halls  and  chambers,  wonderfully  built  of 
stone  and  wood  by  his  command  !  " *  The  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  notices  the  restoration  of  London  (886),2  about 
which  two  extant  charters  are  more  precise.3  It  also 
mentions  the  building  of  a  work  (geweorc)  at  Athelney, 

1  Asser,  ch.  91,  Stevenson's  edition. 

2  "  That  same  year  King  Alfred  repaired  London  ;  and  all  the  English 
submitted  to  him,  except  those  who  were  under  the  bondage  of  the  Danish 
men  ;  and  then  he  committed  the  city  (burh]  to  the  keeping  of  Ethelred  the 
ealdorman."    A.-S.  C.t  886.     The  word  used  for  London  is  Londonburh. 
Asser  says  :    "  Londoniam  civitatem  honorifice  restauravit  et  habitabilem 
fecit,"  p.  489. 

3  Birch's  Cartularitim^  ii.,  220,  221. 


FORTIFICATIONS  OF  ALFRED  15 

and  another  at  Limene-muthan  (doubtless  a  repair  of  the 
Roman  fort  at  Lympne),  and  two  works  built  by  Alfred 
on  the  banks  of  the  river  Lea.1  William  of  Malmesbury 
tells  us  that  in  his  boyhood  there  was  a  stone  in  the 
nunnery  of  Shaftesbury  which  had  been  taken  out  of 
the  walls  of  the  town,  which  bore  this  inscription : 
"  Anno  dominicae  incarnationis  Alfredus  rex  fecit  hanc 
urbem,  DCCCLXXX,  regni  sui  VIII."2  Ethelred, 
Alfred's  son-in-law,  built  the  burh  at  Worcester  in 
Alfred's  lifetime,  as  a  most  interesting  charter  tells  us.3 

It  may  be  safely  assumed,  then,  that  when  Edward 
came  to  the  throne  he  found  Wessex  well  provided  with 
defensive  places,  and  that  when  he  and  his  sister 
signalised  their  conquests  in  the  Midlands  by  building 
strongholds  at  every  fresh  step  of  their  advance,  they 
were  only  carrying  out  the  policy  of  their  father. 

At  the  time  of  Alfred's  death,  and  the  succession  of 
Edward  the  Elder  to  the  crown  (901),  Ethelfleda, 
daughter  of  Alfred,  was  the  wife  of  Ethelred,  ealdorman 
of  Mercia,  who  appears  to  have  been  a  sort  of  under- 
king  of  that  province.4  On  the  death  of  Ethelred  in 
9i2,5  Edward  took  possession  of  London  and  Oxford 
and  "  of  all  the  lands  which  owed  obedience  thereto" — 
in  other  words,  of  that  small  portion  of  Eastern  Mercia 
which  was  still  in  English  hands  ;  that  is,  not  only  the 
present  Oxfordshire  and  Middlesex,  but  part  of  Herts, 

1  Anglo-Saxon    Chronicle,    878,    893,    896.      According    to    Henry  of 
Huntingdon,  the  work  on  the  Lea  was  the  splitting  of  that  river  into  two 
channels  ;  but  I  am  informed  that  no  trace  of  such  a  division  remains. 

2  Gesta  Pontificum,  186.     See  Appendix  C. 

3  Birch's  Cartularium,  ii.,  222  ;  Kemble's  Codex  Diplomaticus,  v.,  142. 

4  He  signs  a  charter  in  889  as  "  subregulus  et  patricius  Merciorum," 
Kemble's  Codex  Diplomaticus.     See  Freeman,  N.  C.,  i.,  564  ;  and  Plummer, 
A.-S.  C.,  i.,  118. 

5  The  dates  in  this  chapter  are  taken  from  Florence  of  Worcester,  who 
is  generally  believed  to  have  used  a  more  correct  copy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  than  those  which  have  come  down  to  us. 


16  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

part  of  Bedfordshire,  all  Buckinghamshire,  and  the 
southern  part  of  Northants.  The  Watling  Street, 
which  runs  north-west  from  London  to  Shrewsbury,  and 
thence  north  to  Chester  and  Manchester,  formed  at  that 
time  the  dividing  line  between  the  English  and  Danish 
rule.1  It  would  seem  from  the  course  of  the  story  that 
after  Ethelred's  death  there  was  some  arrangement 
between  Ethelfleda  and  her  brother,  possibly  due  to  the 
surrender  of  the  territory  mentioned  above,  which 
enabled  her  to  rule  English  Mercia  in  greater  independ- 
ence than  her  husband  had  enjoyed.  Up  to  this  date 
we  find  Edward  disposing  of  the  fyrd  of  Mercia  ; 2  this 
is  not  mentioned  again  in  Ethelfleda's  lifetime.  Nothing 
is  clearer,  both  from  the  Chronicle  and  from  Florence, 
than  that  the  brother  and  sister  each  "  did  their  own," 
to  use  an  expressive  provincial  phrase.  v  Ethelfleda  goes 

^f  her  own  way,  subduing*  Western  Mercia,  while  "Ed ward 
pushes  up  through  Eastern  Mercia  and  Essex  to 

~&  complete  the  conquest  of  East  Anglia.  A  certain 
concert  may  be  observed  in  their  movements,  but  they 
did  not  work  in  company. 

The  work  of  fortification  begun  in  Alfred's  reign  had 
been  continued  by  the  restoration  of  the  Roman  walls  of 
Chester  in  908,  by  Ethelred  and  his  wife  ;  and  Ethelfleda 
herself  (possibly  during  the  lingering  illness  which  later 
chroniclers  give  to  her  husband)  had  built  a  burh  at 
Bremesbyrig.  During  the  twelve  years  which  elapsed 
between  Ethelred's  death  and  that  of  Edward  in  924,  the 
brother  and  sister  built  no  less  than  twenty-seven  burhs, 
giving  a  total  of  thirty,  if  we  add  Chester  and  Bremesbyrig, 
and  Worcester,  which  was  built  in  Alfred's  reign.  Now 
what  was  the  nature  of  these  fortifications,  which  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  uniformly  calls  burhs  ? 

1  See  Appendix  B.  2  A.-S.  C.,  910,  911. 


THE  WORD  BURH  OR  BOROUGH  17 

There  is  really  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  answering 
this  question.  The  word  is  with  us  still ;  it  is  our  word 
borough.  It  is  true  we  have  altered  the  meaning  some- 
what, because  a  borough  means  now  an  enfranchised 
town  ;  but  we  must  remember  that  it  got  that  meaning 
because  the  fortified  towns,  the  only  ones  which  were 
called  burhs  or  burgi,  were  the  first  to  be  enfranchised, 
and  while  the  fortifications  have  become  less  and  less 
important,  the  franchise  has  become  of  supreme 
importance. 

Bede,  in  the  earliest  times  of  our  history,  equated 
burh  with  urbs,  a  city  ;  Alfred  in  his  Orosius  translates 
civitas'by  burh  ;l  the  Anglo-Saxon  gospels  of  the  nth 
century  do  the  same ; l  and  the  confederacy  of  five 
Danish  towns  which  existed  in  Mercia  in  the  loth 
century  is  called  in  contemporary  records  fif  burga,  the 
five  boroughs.2 

Burh  is  a  noun  derived  from  the  word  beorgan,  to 
protect.  Undoubtedly  its  primitive  meaning  was  that 
of  a  protective  enclosure.  As  in  the  case  of  the  words 
tun,  yard,  or  garth,  and  worth  or  ward,  the  sense  of  the 
word  became  extended  from  the  protecting  bulwark  to 
the  place  protected.  In  this  sense  of  a  fortified 
enclosure,  the  word  was  naturally  applied  by  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  to  the  prehistoric  and  British  " camps"  which 
they  found  in  Britain,  such  as  Cissbury.  Moreover,  it  is 
clear  that  some  kind  of  enclosure  must  have  existed 
round  every  farmstead  in  Saxon  times,  if  only  as  a 
protection  against  wolves.  The  illustrated  Saxon  manu- 
scripts show  that  the  hall  in  which  the  thane  dwelt,  the 

1  New  English  Dictionary,  Borough. 

3  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  942.  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  has  three 
words  for  fortifications,  burh,  faesten,  and  geweorc.  Burh  is  always  used  for 
those  of  Edv/ard  and  Ethelfleda,  faesten  (fastness)  or  geweorc  (work)  for 
those  of  the  Danes. 

B 


18  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

ladies'  bower,  the  chapel  and  other  buildings  dependent 
on  the  hall,  were  enclosed  in  a  stockade,  and  had  gates 
which  without  doubt  were  closed  at  night.1  This 
enclosure  may  have  been  called  a  burh,  and  the  innumer- 
able place-names  in  England  ending  in  borough  or  bury* 
seem  to  suggest  that  the  burh  was  often  nothing  more 
than  a  stockade,  as  in  so  many  of  these  sites  not  a 
vestige  of  defensive  works  remains.3  We  may  concede 
that  the  original  meaning  of  an  enclosure  was  never 
entirely  lost,  and  that  it  appears  to  be  preserved  in  a  few 
passages  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  laws.  Thus  Edmund 
speaks  of  mine  burk  as  an  asylum,  the  violation  of  which 
brings  its  special  punishment  ;  and  Ethelred  II.  ordains 
that  every  compurgation  shall  take  place  in  thaes 
kyninges  by  rig ;  and  the  Rectitudines  Singularum 
Personum  tells  us  that  one  of  the  duties  of  the  geneat 
was  to  build  for  his  lord,  and  to  hedge  his  burh?  But 
it  is  absolutely  clear  that  even  in  these  cases  a  burh  was 
an  enclosure  and  not  a  tump ;  and  it  is  equally  clear 
from  the  general  use  of  the  word  that  its  main  meaning 
was  a  fortified  town.  Athelstan  ordains  that  there  shall 
be  a  mint  in  every  burh  ;  and  his  laws  show  that  already 
the  burh  has  its  gemot  or  meeting,  and  its  reeve  or 
mayor.5  He  ordains  that  all  burhs  are  to  be  repaired 

1  See  the  illustrations  in  Wright,  History  of  Domestic  Manners. 

2  Bury  is  formed  from  byrig^  the  dative  of  burh. 

3  Professor  Maitland  observed  :  "  To  say  nothing  of  hamlets,  we  have 
full  250  parishes  whose  names  end  in  burgh,  bury,  or  borough,  and  in  many 
cases  we  see  no  sign  in  them  of  an  ancient  camp  or  of  an  exceptionally 
dense  population."    Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  184. 

4  Schmid,    Gesetze    der   Angelsachsen,   pp.    176,    214,   372.     It    is  not 
absolutely  certain  that  the  burh  in  these  three  cases  does  not  mean  a  town. 

6  Schmid,  138.  Professor  Maitland  says  :  "  In  Athelstan's  day  it 
seems  to  be  supposed  by  the  legislator  that  a  moot  will  usually  be  held  in  a 
burh.  If  a  man  neglect  three  summonses  to  a  moot,  the  oldest  men  of  the 
burh  are  to  ride  to  his  place  and  seize  his  goods."  Domesday  Book  and 
Beyond,  185.  "All  my  reeves,"  are  mentioned  in  the  Preface  to  Athelstaris 
Laws,  Schmid,  126. 


[To  face  p.  19. 


BURH  AND  URBS  19 

fourteen  days  after  Rogations,  and  that  no  market  shall 
be  held  outside  the  town.1  In  the  laws  of  Edgar's  time 
not  only  the  borough-moot  and  the  borough-reeve  are 
spoken  of,  but  the  burh-waru  or  burgesses.2  Burh  is 
contrasted  with  wapentake  as  town  with  country.3 

If  we  wish  to  multiply  proofs  that  a  burh  was  the 
same  thing  as  a  borough,  we  can  turn  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  illustrated  manuscripts,  and  we  shall  find  that 
they  give  us  many  pictures  of  burhs,  and  that  in  all  cases 
they  are  fortified  towns.4  Finally,  Florence  of  Worcester, 
one  of  the  most  careful  of  our  early  chroniclers,  who 
lived  when  Anglo-Saxon  was  still  a  living  language,  and 
who  must  have  known  what  a  burk  meant,  translates  it 
by  urbs  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty-six.5  His  author- 
ity alone  is  sufficient  to  settle  this  question,  and  we  need 
no  longer  have  any  doubt  that  a  burh  was  the  same  thing 
which  in  mediaeval  Latin  is  called  a  burgus,  that  is  a 
fortified  town,  and  that  our  word  borough  is  lawfully 
descended  from  it. 

It  would  not  have  been  necessary  to  spend  so  much 
time  on  the  history  of  the  word  burh  if  this  unfortunate 
word  had  not  been  made  the  subject  of  one  of  the 
strangest  delusions  which  ever  was  imposed  on  the 
archaeological  world.  We  refer  of  course  to  the  theory 
of  the  late  Mr  G.  T.  Clark,  who  contended  in  his 

1  Schmid,  138.     "Butan  porte"  is  the   Saxon   expression,  port  being 
another  word  for  town  ;  see  Schmid,  643. 

2  Schmid,  Edgar  III.,  5  ;  Ethelred  II.,  6.  3  Edgar  IV.,  2. 

4  The  writer  was  first  led  to  doubt  the  correctness  of  the  late  Mr  G.  T. 
Clark's  theory  of  burhs  by  examining  the  A.-S.   illustrated  MSS.  in  the 
British  Museum.     On  p.  29  of  the  MS.  of  Prudentius  (Cleopatra,  c.  viii.), 
there  is  an  excellent  drawing  of  a  four-sided  enclosure,  with  towers  at  the 
angles,  and  battlemented  walls  of  masonry.    The  title  of  the  picture  is 
"  Virtutes  urbem  ingrediuntur,"  and  urbem  is  rendered  in  the  A.-S.  gloss  as 
burh.    See  Fig.  2. 

5  Florence  translates  burh  as  urbs  nineteen  times,  as  arx  four  times,  as 
murum  once,  as  munitio  once,  as  cimtas  once. 


20  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

Mediaeval  Military  Architecture^  that  the  moated  mound 
of  class  (e),  which  we  have  described  in  our  first  chapter, 
was  what  the  Anglo-Saxons  called  a  burh.  In  other 
words,  he  maintained  that  the  burhs  were  Saxon 
castles.  It  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  and  inex- 
plicable things  in  the  history  of  English  archaeology 
that  a  man  who  was  not  in  any  sense  an  Anglo-Saxon 
scholar  was  allowed  to  affix  an  entirely  new  meaning 
to  a  very  common  Anglo-Saxon  word,  and  that  this 
meaning  was  at  once  accepted  without  question  by 
historians  who  had  made  Anglo-Saxon  history  their 
special  study !  The  present  writer  makes  no  pretensions 
to  be  an  Anglo-Saxon  scholar,  but  it  is  easy  to  pick  out 
the  word  burh  in  the  Chronicle  and  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Laws,  and  to  find  out  how  the  word  is  translated  in  the 
Latin  chronicles  ;  and  this  little  exercise  is  sufficient  in 
itself  to  prove  the  futility  of  Mr  Clark's  contention. 

Sentiment  perhaps  had  something  to  do  with  Mr 
Clark's  remarkable  success.  There  is  an  almost  utter 
lack  of  tangible  monuments  of  our  national  heroes  ;  and 
therefore  people  who  justly  esteemed  the  labours  of 
Alfred  and  his  house  were  pleased  when  they  were  told 
that  the  mounds  at  Tamworth,  Warwick,  and  elsewhere 
were  the  work  of  Ethelfleda,  and  that  other  mounds 
were  the  work  of  Edward  the  Elder.  It  did  not  occur 
to  them  that  they  were  doing  a  great  wrong  to  the 
memory  of  the  children  of  Alfred  in  supposing  them 
capable  of  building  these  little  earthen  and  timber  castles 
for  their  personal  defence  and  that  of  their  nobles,  and 
leaving  the  mass  of  their  people  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Danes.  Far  other  was  the  thought  of  Ethelfleda,  when 

1  Published  in  1884,  but  comprising  a  number  of  papers  read  to  various 
archaeological  societies  through  many  previous  years,  during  which  Mr 
Clark's  reputation  as  an  archaeologist  appears  to  have  been  made. 


THE  PRIVATE  CASTLE  UNKNOWN  21 

she  and  her  husband  built  the  borough  of  Worcester. 
As  they  expressed  it  in  their  memorable  charter,  it  was 
not  only  for  the  defence  of  the  bishop  and  the  churches 
of  Worcester,  but  "  To  SHELTER  ALL  THE  FOLK."  l  And  '  •„ 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  same  idea  lay  at  the  founding  of 
all  the  boroughs  which  were  built  by  Alfred  and  by 
Edward  and  Ethelfleda.  They  were  to  be  places  where 
the  whole  countryside  could  take  refuge  during  a  Danish 
raid.  The  Chronicle  tells  us  in  894  how  Alfred  divided 
his  forces  into  three  parts,  the  duty  of  one  part  being 
to  defend  the  boroughs  ;  and  from  this  time  forth  we 
constantly  find  the  men  of  the  boroughs  doing  good 
service  against  the  Danes.2  It  was  by  defending  and 
thus  developing  the  boroughs  of  England  that  Alfred 
and  his  descendants  saved  England  from  the  Danes. 

Thus  far  we  have  seen  that  all  the  fortifications 
which  we  know  to  have  been  built  by  the  Anglo-Saxons 
were  the  fortifications  of  society  and  not  of  the  individual. 
We  have  heard  nothing  whatever  of  the  private  castle 
as  an  institution  in  Saxon  times ;  and  although  this 
evidence  is  only  negative,  it  appears  to  us  to  be  entitled 
to  much  more  weight  than  has  hitherto  been  given  to  it. 
Some  writers  seem  to  think  that  the  private  castle  was 
a  modest  little  thing  which  was  content  to  blush  unseen. 
This  is  wholly  to  mistake  the  position  of  the  private 
castle  in  history.  Such  a  castle  is  not  merely  a  social 
arrangement,  it  is  a  political  institution  of  the  highest 
importance.  Where  such  castles  exist,  we  are  certain  to 
hear  of  some  of  them,  sooner  or  later,  in  the  pages  of 
history. 

1  "  Eallum  thaem  folc  to  gebeorge."    Birch's  Cartularium^  ii.,  222. 

2  Professor  Maitland  has  claimed  that  the  origin  of  the  boroughs  was 
largely  military,  the  duty  of  maintaining  the  walls  of  the  county  borough 
being  incumbent  on  the  magnates  of  the  shire.    Domesday  Book  and  Beyond^ 
189.     See  Appendix  C. 


22  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

We  can  easily  test  this  by  comparing  Anglo-Saxon 
history  with  Norman  of  the  same  period,  after  castles 
had  arisen  in  Normandy.  Who  among  Saxon  nobles 
was  more  likely  to  possess  a  castle  than  the  powerful 
Earl  Godwin,  and  his  independent  sons  ?  Yet  when 
Godwin  left  the  court  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  because 
he  would  not  obey  the  king's  order  to  punish  the  men 
of  Dover  for  insulting  Count  Eustace  of  Boulogne,  we 
do  not  hear  that  he  retired  to  his  castle,  or  that  his 
sons  fortified  their  castles  against  the  king  ;  we  only 
hear  that  they  met  together  at  Beverstone  (a  place  where 
there  was  no  castle  before  the  i4th  century)1  and 
"arrayed  themselves  resolutely."2  Neither  do  we  hear 
of  any  castle  belonging  to  the  powerful  Earl  Siward  of 
Northumbria,  or  Leofric,  Earl  of  Mercia.  And  when 
Godwin  returned  triumphantly  to  England  in  1052  we 
do  not  hear  of  any  castles  being  restored  to  him. 

Now  let  us  contrast  this  piece  of  English  history,  as 
told  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  with  the  Norman 
history  of  about  the  same  period,  the  history  of  the 
rebellion  of  the  Norman  nobles  against  their  young 
duke,  William  the  Bastard.  The  first  thing  the  nobles 
do  is  to  put  their  castles  into  a  state  of  defence. 
William  has  to  take  refuge  in  the  castle  of  a  faithful 
vassal,  Hubert  of  Rye,  until  he  can  safely  reach  his  own 
castle  of  Falaise.  After  the  victory  of  Val-es-  Dunes, 
William  had  to  reduce  the  castles  which  still  held  out, 
and  then  to  order  the  destruction  of  all  the  castles  which 
had  been  erected  against  him.3 

Or  let  us  contrast  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  of 
1051  with  that  of  1088,  when  certain  Norman  barons 

1  Parker's  Domestic  Architecture  in  England  from  Richard  II.  to  Henry 

part  ii.,  256. 

2  A.-S.  C.t  1048.  3  William  of  Jumieges^  vii.-xvii. 


CONTRASTS  IN  HISTORY  23 

and  bishops  in  England  conspired  against  the  new  king, 
William  Rufus.  The  first  thing  told  us  is  that  each  of 
the  head  conspirators  "went  to  his  castle,  and  manned 
it  and  victualled  it."  Then  Bishop  Geoffrey  makes 
Bristol  Castle  the  base  of  a  series  of  plundering  raids. 
Bishop  Wulfstan,  on  the  other  hand,  aids  the  cause  of 
William  by  preventing  an  attempt  of  the  rebels  on  the 
castle  of  Worcester.  Roger  Bigod  throws  himself  into 
Norwich  Castle,  and  harries  the  shire ;  Bishop  Odo 
brings  the  plunder  of  Kent  into  his  castle  of  Rochester. 
Finally  the  king's  cause  wins  the  day  through  the  taking 
of  the  castles  of  Tonbridge,  Pevensey,  Rochester,  and 
Durham. 

If  we  reflect  on  the  contrast  which  these  narratives 
afford,  it  surely  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
if  the  chronicler  never  mentions  any  Saxon  castles  it  is 
because  there  were  no  Saxon  castles  to  mention.  Had 
Earl  Godwin  possessed  a  stronghold  in  which  he  could 
fortify  himself,  he  would  certainly  have  used  it  in  1051. 
And  as  the  Norman  favourites  of  Edward  the  Confessor 
had  already  begun  to  build  castles  in  England,  we  can 
imagine  no  reason  why  Godwin  did  not  do  the  same, 
except  that  such  a  step  was  impossible  to  a  man  who 
desired  popularity  amongst  his  countrymen.  The 
Welshmen,  we  are  told  (that  is  the  foreigners,  the 
Normans),  had  erected  a  castle  in  Herefordshire  among 
the  people  of  Earl  Sweyn,  and  had  wrought  all  possible 
harm  and  disgrace  to  the  king's  men  thereabout.1  The 
language  of  the  Chronicle  shows  the  unpopularity,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  of  this  castle-building ;  and  one  of 
the  conditions  which  Godwin,  when  posing  as  popular 
champion,  wished  to  exact  from  the  king,  was  that  the 
Frenchmen  who  were  in  the  castle  should  be  given  up  to 

1  A.-S.  C.  (Peterborough),  1048. 


24  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

him.1  When  Godwin  returned  from  his  exile,  and  the 
Normans  took  to  flight,  the  chronicler  tells  us  that 
some  fled  west  to  Pentecost's  castle,  some  north  to 
Robert's  castle.  Thus  we  learn  that  there  were  several 
castles  in  England  belonging  to  the  Norman  favourites. 

It  is  in  connection  with  these  Norman  favourites 
that  the  word  castel  appears  for  the  first  time  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle.  This  is  a  fact  of  considerable 
importance  in  itself;  and  when  we  weigh  it  in  con- 
nection with  the  expressions  of  dislike  recorded  above 
which  become  much  more  explicit  and  vehement  after 
the  Norman  Conquest,  we  cannot  but  feel  that  Mr 
Freeman's  conclusion,  that  the  thing  as  well  as  the  word 
was  new,  is  highly  probable.2  For  the  hall  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  ealdorman  or  thane,  even  when  enclosed  in  an 
earthwork  or  stockade,  was  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  castle  of  a  Norman  noble.  A  castle  is  built  by  a 
man  who  lives  among  enemies,  who  distrusts  his  nearest 
neighbours  as  much  as  any  foe  from  a  distance.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  noble  had  no  reason  to  distrust  his 
neighbours,  or  to  fortify  himself  against  them.  Later 

"*     '  ,  _.  ,  ""  — 

1  A.-S.  C.,  1052  (Worcester).  This  castle  is  generally  supposed  to  be 
Richard's  Castle,  Herefordshire,  built  by  Richard  Scrob  ;  but  I  see  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  be  Hereford,  as  the  Norman  Ralph,  King 
Edward's  nephew,  was  Earl  of  Hereford.  We  shall  return  to  these  castles 
later. 

'  Mr  Freeman  says :  "In  the  eleventh  century,  the  word  castel  was 
introduced  into  our  language  to  mark  something  which  was  evidently  quite 
distinct  from  the  familiar  burh  of  ancient  times.  .  .  .  Ordericus  speaks  of 
the  thing  and  its  name  as  something  distinctly  French:  "munitiones  quas 
Galli  castella  nuncupant."  The  castles  which  were  now  introduced  into 
England  seem  to  have  been  new  inventions  in  Normandy  itself.  William 
of  Jumieges  distinctly  makes  the  building  of  castles  to  have  been  one  of  the 
main  signs  and  causes  of  the  general  disorder  of  the  days  of  William's 
minority,  and  he  seems  to  speak  of  the  practice  as  something  new."  N.  C, 
ii.,  606.  It  is  surprising  that  after  so  clear  a  statement  as  this,  Mr  Freeman 
should  have  fallen  under  the  influence  of  Mr  Clark's  burh  theory,  and  should 
completely  have  confused  castles  and  boroughs. 


CASTELLUM  AND  BURGUS  25 

historians,  who  were  familiar  with  the  state  of  things  in 
Norman  times,  tell  us  frequently  of  castles  in  the  Saxon 
period  ;  but  it  can  generally  be  proved  that  they  mis- 
understood their  authorities.  The  genuine  contemporary 
chroniclers  of  Saxon  times  never  make  the  slightest 
allusion  to  a  Saxon  castle. 

The  word  castellum,  it  is  true,  appears  occasionally 
in  Anglo-Saxon  charters,  but  when  it  is  used  it  clearly 
means  a  town.  Thus  Egbert  of  Kent  says  in  765  : 
"Trado  terram  intra  castelli  mcenia  supranominati,  id 
est  Hrofescestri,  unum  viculum  cum  duobus  jugeribus, 
etc.,"  where  castellum  is  evidently  the  city  of  Rochester.1 
Offa  calls  Wermund  "  episcopus  castelli  quod  nomin- 
atur  Hroffeceastre."2  These  instances  can  easily  be 
multiplied.  Mr  W.  H.  Stevenson  remarks  that  "in 
Old- English  glosses,  from  the  8th  century  Corpus 
Glossary  downwards,  castellum  is  glossed  by  wic,  that 
is  town."3  In  this  sense  no  doubt  we  must  interpret 
Asser's  "  castellum  quod  dicitur  Werham."4  Henry  of 
Huntingdon  probably  meant  a  town  when  he  says  that 
Edward  the  Elder  built  at  Hertford  "castrum  non 
immensum  sed  pulcherrimum."  He  generally  translates 
the  burh  of  the  Chronicle  by  burgus,  and  he  shows 
that  he  had  a  correct  idea  of  Edward's  work  when  he 
says  that  at  Buckingham  Edward  "fecit  vallum 
ex  utraque  parte  aquae  " — where  vallum  is  a  translation 
of  burh.  The  difference  between  a  burh  and  a  castle 
is  very  clearly  expressed  by  the  Chronicle  in  1092,  when 
it  says  concerning  the  restoration  of  Carlisle  on  its 
conquest  by  William  Rufus,  "He  repaired  the  borough 
(burh)  and  ordered  the  castle  to  be  built." 

1  Codex  DiplomaticuS)  i.,  138.  2  History  of  Rochester^  1772,  p.  21. 

3  Stevenson's  edition  of  Asser,  331.     See  Appendix  D. 

4  Asser,  c.  xlix. 


26 


ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 


The  following  is  a  table  of  the  thirty  boroughs  built 
by  Ethelfleda  and  Edward,  arranged  chronologically, 
which  will  show  that  we  never  find  a  motte,  that  is  a 
moated  mound,  on  the  site  of  one  of  these  boroughs 
unless  a  Norman  castle-builder  has  been  at  work  there 
subsequently.  The  weak  point  in  Mr  Clark's  argument 
was  that  when  he  found  a  motte  on  a  site  which  had 
once  been  Saxon,  he  did  not  stop  to  inquire  what  any 
subsequent  builders  might  have  done  there,  but  at  once 
assumed  that  the  motte  was  Saxon.  Of  course,  if  we 
invariably  found  a  motte  at  every  place  where  Edward 
or  Ethelfleda  are  said  to  have  built  a  burh,  it  would 
raise  a  strong  presumption  that  mottes  and  burhs  were 
the  same  thing.  But  out  of  the  twenty-five  burhs  which 
can  be  identified,  in  only  ten  is  there  a  motte  on  the 
same  site ;  and  in  every  case  where  a  motte  is  found, 
except  at  Bakewell  and  Towcester,  there  is  recorded 
proof  of  the  existence  of  a  Norman  castle.  In  this  list, 
the  burhs  on  both  sides  of  the  river  at  Hertford, 
Buckingham,  and  Nottingham  are  counted  as  two, 
because  the  very  precise  indications  given  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  show  that  each  burh  was  a  separate 
construction. 

Burhs  of  Ethelfleda. 


Worcester  .  .  .  873-899 
Chester  ....  908 
Bremesburh  .  .  .911 
Scaergate  .  .  .  .913 
Bridgenorth  .  .  .913 
Tarn  worth  .  .  .  .914 
Stafford,  N.  of  Sowe  .  .  914 
Eddisbury  .  .  .  .915 
Warwick  .  .  .  .915 
Cyricbyrig  (Monk's  Kirby)  916 
Weardbyrig  .  .  .916 
Runcorn  ....  916 


A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

Unidentified. 

Unidentified. 

No  motte,  but  a  Norman  stone  keep. 

A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Unidentified. 

No  motte  ;  a  mediaeval  castle  (?). 


BURHS  OF  ETHELFLEDA  AND  EDWARD          27 

Burks  of  Edward  the  Elder. 

Hertford,  N.  of  Lea    .  .913  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Hertford,  S.  of  Lea     .  .913  A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

Witham      .        .        .  .914  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Buckingham,  S.  of  Ouse  .  915  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Buckingham,  N.  of  Ouse  .  915  A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

Bedford,  S.  of  Ouse    .  .916  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Maldon       .        .        .  .917  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Towcester  .        .        .  .  918  A  motte. 

Wigingamere     .        .  .918  Unidentified. 

Huntingdon        .        .  .  918  A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

Colchester  ....  918  No  motte  ;  an  early  Norman  keep. 

Cledemuthan      .        .  .918  Unidentified. 

Stamford,  S.  of  Welland  .  919  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Nottingham,  N.  of  Trent  .  919  A  motte  and  a  Norman  castle. 

Thelwall     ....  920  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Manchester         .        .  .  920  No  castle  on  the  ancient  site. 

Nottingham,  S.  of  Trent  .  921  No  motte  and  no  Norman  castle. 

Bakewell  (near  to)      .  .  921  A  motte  and  bailey. 

Out  of  this  list  of  the  burhs  of  Ethelfleda  and 
Edward,  thirteen  are  mentioned  as  boroughs  in 
Domesday  Book ; *  and  as  we  ought  to  subtract  five 
from  the  list  as  unidentified,  and  also  to  reckon  as  one 
the  boroughs  built  on  two  sides  of  the  river,  the  whole 
number  should  be  reduced  to  twenty-two.  So  that 
more  than  half  the  boroughs  built  by  the  children  of 
Alfred  continued  to  maintain  their  existence  during  the 
succeeding  centuries,  and  in  fact  until  the  present  day. 
But  the  others,  for  some  reason  or  other,  did  not  take 
root.  Professor  Maitland  remarked  that  many  of  the 
boroughs  of  Edward's  day  became  rotten  boroughs 
before  they  were  ripe  ; 2  and  it  is  a  proof  of  the  difficulty 
of  the  task  which  the  royal  brethren  undertook  that, 
with  the  exception  of  Chester,  none  of  the  boroughs 
which  they  built  in  the  north-western  districts  survived 

1  Worcester,      Chester,     Tamworth,     Stafford,     Warwick,     Hertford, 
Buckingham,   Bedford,   Maldon,   Huntingdon,   Colchester,  Stamford,  and 
Nottingham. 

2  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond^  216. 


28  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

till  Domesday.  In  all  their  boroughs,  except  Bakewell, 
the  purpose  of  defending  the  great  Roman  roads  and 
the  main  waterways  is  very  apparent. 

Our  list  is  very  far  from  being  a  complete  list  of  all 
the  Anglo-Saxon  boroughs  existing  in  Edward's  day. 
In  the  document  known  as  the  "  Burghal  Hidage"we 
have  another  quite  different  list  of  thirty-two  boroughs,1 
which,  according  to  Professor  Maitland,  "sets  forth 
certain  arrangements  made  early  in  the  loth  century  for 
the  defence  of  Wessex  against  the  Danish  inroads."2 
Five  at  least  on  the  list  are  Roman  chesters ;  twenty 
are  mentioned  as  boroughs  in  Domesday  Book.  There 
are  two  among  them  which  are  of  special  interest, 
because  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  earthen 
ramparts  which  still  surround  them  are  of  Saxon  origin  : 
Wallingford  and  Wareham.  Both  these  fortifications 
are  after  the  Roman  pattern,  the  earthen  banks  forming 
a  square  with  rounded  corners.3  See  Fig.  3. 

To  complete  our  knowledge  of  Anglo-Saxon  fortifi- 
cation, we  ought  to  examine  the  places  mentioned  in 
Anglo-Saxon  charters  as  royal  seats,  where  possibly 
defensive  works  of  some  kind  may  have  existed. 
Unfortunately  we  are  unable  to  learn  that  there  are 
any  such  works,  except  at  one  place,  Bensington  in 
Oxfordshire,  where  about  a  hundred  years  ago  "a  bank 
and  trench,  which  seem  to  have  been  of  a  square  form," 
were  to  be  seen.4 

In  the  following  chapter  we  shall  deal  in  detail  with 
such  archaeological  remains  as  still  exist  of  the  boroughs 

1  Buckingham  is  the  only  place  which  is  included  in  both  lists.     See 
Appendix  E. 

2  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  188.     See  Appendix  E.     Southwark,  one 
of  the  names,  which  is  not  called  a  borough  in  Domesday,  retains  its  name 
of  The  Borough  to  the  present  day. 

3  No  Roman  remains  have  been  found  in  either  place. 

4  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  Oxfordshire. 


WALLINGFORD,  BERKS. 


WAREHAM,  DORSET. 


FlG.   3. 


[To  face  p. 


SUMMARY  OF  RESULTS  29 

of  Edward  and  Ethelfleda,  but  here  we  will  briefly 
summarise  by  anticipation  the  results  to  which  that 
chapter  will  lead.  We  see  that  sites  defensible  by 
nature  were  often  seized  upon  for  fortification,  as  at 
Bamborough,  Bridgenorth,  and  Eddisbury  ;  but  that 
this  was  by  no  means  always  the  case,  as  a  weak  site, 
such  as  Witham,  for  example,  was  sometimes  rendered 
defensible  by  works  which  appear  to  have  fulfilled  their 
purpose.  In  only  one  case  (Witham)  do  we  find  an 
inner  enclosure ;  and  as  it  is  of  large  size  (9^  acres)  it 
is  more  probable  that  the  outer  enclosure  was  for  cattle, 
than  that  the  inner  one  was  designed  solely  for  the 
protection  of  the  king  and  his  court.  We  are  not  told 
of  stone  walls  more  than  once  (at  Towcester) ;  but  the 
use  of  the  word  timbrian,  which  does  not  exclusively 
mean  to  build  in  wood,1  does  not  preclude  walls  of 
stone  in  important  places.  In  the  square  or  oblong 
form,  with  rounded  corners,  we  see  the  influence  which 
Roman  models  exercised  on  eyes  which  still  beheld 
them  existing. 

We  see  that  the  main  idea  of  the  borough  was  the 
same  as  that  of  the  prehistoric  or  British  "camp  of 
refuge,"  in  that  it  was  intended  for  the  defence  of 
society  and  not  of  the  individual.  It  was  intended  to 
be  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  whole  countryside.  But  it 
was  also  something  much  more  than  this,  something 
which  belongs  to  a  much  more  advanced  state  of 
society  than  the  hill-fort.2  It  was  a  town,  a  place 

1  See  Skeat's  Dictionary,  "  Timber." 

2  Excavation  has  recently  shown  that  many  of  the  great  hill-forts  were 
permanently  inhabited,  and  it  is  now  considered  improbable  that  they  were 
originally  built  as  camps  of  refuge.     It  seems  more  likely  that  this  use,  of 
which  there  are  undoubted  instances  in  historic  times  (see  Caesar,  Bella 
Gallicot  vi.,  10,  and  v.,  21),  belonged  to  a  more  advanced  stage  of  develop- 
ment, when  population  had  moved  down  into  the  lower  and   cultivatable 
lands,  but  still  used  their  old  forts  in  cases  of  emergency. 


30  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

where  people  were  expected  to  live  permanently  and  do 
their  daily  work.  It  provided  a  fostering  seat  for  trade 
and  manufactures,  two  of  the  chief  factors  in  the  history 
of  civilisation.  The  men  who  kept  watch  and  ward  on 
the  ramparts,  or  who  sallied  forth  in  their  bands  to  fight 
the  Danes,  were  the  men  who  were  slowly  building  up 
the  prosperity  of  the  stricken  land  of  England.  By 
studding  the  great  highways  of  England  with  fortified 
towns,  Alfred  and  his  children  were  not  only  saving  the 
kernel  of  the  British  Empire,  they  were  laying  the  sure 
foundations  of  its  future  progress  in  the  arts  and  habits 
of  civilised  life. 


CHAPTER  III 

ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS — continued 

THE  bare  list  which  we  have  given  of  the  boroughs  of 
Edward  and  Ethelfleda  calls  for  some  explanatory 
remarks.  Let  us  take  first  the  boroughs  of  Ethelfleda. 

WORCESTER. — We  have  already  noticed  the  charter 
of  Ethelred  and  Ethelfleda  which  tells  of  the  building  of 
the  burh  at  Worcester.1  There  appears  to  have  been  a 
small  Roman  settlement  at  Worcester,  but  there  is  no 
evidence  that  it  was  a  fortified  place.2  This  case  lends 
some  support  to  the  conjecture  of  Dr  Christison,  that 
the  Saxons  gave  the  name  of  Chester  to  towns  which 
they  had  themselves  fortified.3  The  mediaeval  walls  of 
Worcester  were  probably  more  extensive  than  Ethel- 
fleda's  borough,  of  which  no  trace  remains. 

CHESTER  is  spoken  of  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 
in  894  as  "a  waste  Chester  in  Wirral."  It  had  un- 
doubtedly been  a  Roman  city,  and  therefore  the  work 
of  Ethelred  and  Ethelfleda  here  was  solely  one  of 
restoration.  Brompton,  who  wrote  at  the  close  of  the 
1 3th  century  "a  poor  compilation  of  little  authority,"4 
was  the  first  writer  to  state  that  the  walls  of 

1  Ante,  p.  21. 

2  Haverfield,  in  V.  C.  H.  Worcester,  Romano-British  Worcester,  i. 

3  Early  Fortifications  in  Scotland,  p.  105. 

4  Gairdner  and  Mullinger,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  English  History, 
268. 

81 


32  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

Chester  were  enlarged  by  Ethelfleda  so  as  to  take  in 
the  castle,  which  he  fancied  to  be  Roman  ;  *  and  this 
statement,  being  repeated  by  Leland,  has  acquired  con- 
siderable vogue.  It  is  very  unlikely  that  any  extension 
of  the  walls  was  made  by  the  Mercian  pair,  seeing  that 
the  city  was  deserted  at  the  time  when  it  was  occupied 
by  the  Danes,  only  fourteen  years  before.  But  it  is 
quite  certain  that  the  Norman  castle  of  Chester  lay 
outside  the  city  walls,  as  the  manor  of  Gloverstone,  which 
was  not  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city,  lay  between 
the  city  and  the  castle.2  A  charter  of  Henry  VII. 
shows  that  the  civic  boundary  did  not  extend  to  the 
present  south  wall  in  his  reign.  Ethelfleda's  borough 
probably  followed  the  lines  of  the  old  Roman  castrum. 

BREMESBYRIG.  —  This  place  has  not  yet  been  identi- 
fied. Bromborough  on  the  Mersey  has  been  suggested, 
and  is  not  impossible,  for  the  loss  of  the  s  sometimes 
occurs  in  place-names  ;  thus  Melbury,  in  Wilts,  was 
Melsburie  in  Domesday.  Bremesbyrig  was  the  first 
place  restored  after  Chester,  and  as  the  estuary  of  the 
Dee  had  been  secured  by  the  repair  of  Chester,  so  an 
advance  on  Bromborough  would  have  for  its  aim  to 
secure  the  estuary  of  the  Mersey.  It  was  outside  the 
Danish  frontier  of  Watling  Street,  and  could  thus  be 
fortified  without  breach  of  the  peace  in  911.  There  is 
a  large  moated  work  at  Bromborough,  enclosing  an  area 
of  10  acres,  in  the  midst  of  which  stands  the  courthouse 
of  the  manor  of  Bromborough.  But  this  manor  was 
given  by  the  Earl  of  Chester  to  the  monks  of  St 


1  The  tower  called  Caesar's  Tower  is  really  a  mural  tower  of  the 
century.     E.  W.  Cox,  "  Chester  Castle,"  in  Chester  Hist,  and  Archceol.  Soc., 
v.,  239. 

2  Cox,  as  above.     See  also  Shrubsole,  "  The  Age  of  the  City  Walls  of 
Chester,"  Arch.  Journ.,  xliv.,  1887.     The  present  wall,  which  includes  the 
castle,  is  an  extension  probably  not  earlier  than  James  l.'s  reign. 


BREMESBYRIG,  SCERGEAT,  BRIDGENORTH       33 

Werburgh  about  1152,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  monks 
fortified  it,  as  they  did  their  manor  of  Irby  in  Wirral, 
against  the  incursions  of  the  Welsh.  One  of  the 
conditions  of  the  Earl's  grant  was  that  the  manor  is 
to  be  maintained  in  a  state  of  security  and  convenience 
for  the  holding  of  the  courts  appertaining  to  Chester 
Abbey.1  Thus  the  fortification  appears  to  be  of 
manorial  use,  though  this  does  not  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  an  earlier  origin.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
Bromborough  is  the  same  as  Brunanburh,  where 
Athelstan's  great  battle  was  fought  (and  there  is  much 
in  favour  of  this),  it  cannot  possibly  have  been 
Bremesbyrig  in  the  days  of  Edward.  Another  site 
has  been  suggested  by  the  Rev.  C.  S.  Taylor,  in  a 
paper  on  The  Danes  in  Gloucestershire,  Bromsberrow  in 
S.  Gloucestershire,  one  of  the  last  spurs  of  the  Malvern 
Hills.  Here  the  top  of  a  small  hill  has  been  encircled 
with  a  ditch  ;  but  the  ditch  is  so  narrow  that  it  does  not 
suggest  a  defensive  work,  and  it  is  remote  from  any 
Roman  road  or  navigable  river. 

SCERGEAT  has  not  yet  been  identified.  Mr  Kerslake 
argued  with  some  probability  that  Shrewsbury  is  the 
place  ; 2  but  the  etymological  considerations  are  adverse, 
and  it  is  more  likely  that  such  an  important  place  as 
Shrewsbury  was  fortified  before  Edward's  time.  Leland 
calls  it  Scorgate,  and  says  it  is  "about  Severn  side."  § 
It  should  probably  be  sought  within  the  frontier  of 
Watling  Street,  which  Ethelfleda  does  not  appear  to 
have  yet  crossed  in  911. 

BRIDGENORTH  is  undoubtedly  the  Bricge  of  the 
Anglo  -  Saxon  Chronicle,  as  Florence  of  Worcester 
identifies  it  with  the  Bridgenorth  which  Robert  Belesme 

1  The  charter  is  given  in  Ormerod's  History  of  Cheshire,  \\.,  405. 

2  Journ.  of  Brit.  Arch.  Ass.,  1875,  P-  X53-  s  I*™-*  "-,  2. 

C 


34  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

fortified  against  Henry  I.  in  noi.1  Bridgenorth  is  on 
a  natural  fortification  of  steep  rock,  which  would  only 
require  a  stout  wall  to  make  it  secure  against  all  the 
military  resources  of  the  icth  century.  We  may  there- 
fore be  quite  certain  that  it  was  here  Ethelfleda  planted 
her  borough,  and  not  (as  Mr  Eyton  unfortunately 
conjectured)  on  the  mound  outside  the  city,  in  the 
parish  of  Oldbury.2  This  mound  was  far  more  prob- 
ably the  site  of  the  siege  castle  (no  doubt  of  wood) 
which  was  erected  by  Henry  I.  when  he  besieged  the 
city.3 

TAMWORTH  was  an  ancient  city  of  the  Mercian  kings, 
and  therefore  may  have  been  fortified  before  its  walls 
were  rebuilt  by  Ethelfleda.4  The  line  of  the  ancient 
town-wall  can  still  be  traced  in  parts,  though  it  is 
rapidly  disappearing.  Dugdale  says  the  town  ditch 
was  45  feet  broad.  Tamworth  was  a  borough  at  the 
time  of  Domesday. 

STAFFORD  has  a  motte  on  which  stood  a  Norman 
castle ;  but  this  is  not  mentioned  in  the  table,  because  it 
stands  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  town  on  the  southern 
side  of  the  river  Sowe,  while  we  are  expressly  told  by 
Florence  that  Ethelfleda's  borough  was  on  the  northern 
side,  as  the  town  is  now.  Stafford  was  a  Domesday 

1  "Arcem  quam  in   occidental!   Sabrinae  fluminis  plaga,  in   loco  qui 
Bricge  dicitur  lingua   Saxonica,  ^Egelfleda   Merciorum  domina  quondam 
construerat,  fratre    suo    Edwardo    seniore    regnante,    Comes     Rodbertus 
contra  regem  Henricum,  muro  lato  et  alto,  summoque  restaurare  coepit." 
noi. 

2  A  good  deal  has  been  made  of  the  name  Oldbury,  as  pointing  to  the 
oldburh;  but  Oldbury  is  the  name  of  the  manor,  not  of  the  hillock,  which 
bears   the  singular  name  of  Pampudding  Hill.     Tradition   says  that  the 
Parliamentary  forces  used  it  for  their  guns  in  1646.     Ey ton's  Shropshire,  i., 

132. 

3  "  Bricge  cum  exercitu  pene  totius  Angliae  obsedit,  machinas  quoque  ibi 
construere  et  castellum  firmare  praecepit."     Florence,  1 102. 

4  Florence  in  fact  says  urbem  restauravit. 


EDDISBURY  35 

borough  ;  some  parts  of  the  mediaeval  walls  still  remain. 
The  walls  are  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book.1 

EDDISBURY,  in  Cheshire  (Fig.  4),  is  the  only  case 
in  which  the  work  of  Ethelfleda  is  preserved  in  a 
practically  unaltered  form,  as  no  town  or  village  has  ever 
grown  out  of  it.  The  burh  stands  at  the  top  of  a  hill, 
commanding  the  junction  of  two  great  Roman  roads,  the 
Watling  Street  from  Chester  to  Manchester,  and  the 
branch  which  it  sends  forth  to  Kinderton  on  the  east. 
As  a  very  misleading  plan  of  this  work  has  been 
published  in  the  Journal  of  the  British  Archczological 
Association  for  1906,  the  burh  has  been  specially  sur- 
veyed for  this  book  by  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie,  who 
has  also  furnished  the  following  description  : — 

"  This  plan  is  approximately  oval,  and  is  governed  by 
the  shape  of  the  ground ;  the  work  lies  at  the  end  of  a 
spur,  running  S.E.  and  terminating  in  abrupt  slopes  to 
the  E.  and  S.  The  defences  on  the  N.  and  W.  consist 
of  a  ditch  and  a  high  outer  bank,  the  proportions  of 
these  varying  according  to  the  slope  of  the  hill.  There 
are  slight  remains  of  a  light  inner  rampart  along  the 
western  half  of  this  side.  The  remains  of  an  original 
entrance  (shown  in  Ormerod's  Cheshire)  are  visible  in 
the  middle  of  the  N.W.  side,  beyond  which  the  ditch 
and  outer  bank  have  been  partially  levelled  by  the 
encroachments  of  the  farm  buildings.  The  defences  of 
the  S.  side  seem  to  have  consisted  of  a  long  natural 
slope,  crowned  by  a  steeper  scarp,  cut  back  into  the 
rock,  and  having  traces  of  a  bank  along  its  crest.  The 
S.E.  end  of  the  spur  presents  several  interesting  details, 
for  it  has  been  occupied  in  mediaeval  times  by  a  small 
fortified  enclosure,  whose  defences  are  apt  to  be  confused 
with  those  of  the  older  Saxon  town.  The  rock  makes  a 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  246. 


36  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

triangular  projection  at  this  end,  containing  the  founda- 
tions of  mediaeval  buildings,1  and  strengthened  on  the 
N.E.  by  a  slight  ditch  some  7  to  10  feet  below  the  crest ; 
the  rock  on  the  inner  side  of  this  ditch  has  been  cut  back 
to  a  nearly  vertical  face,  while  on  the  outer  bank  are 
the  footings  of  a  masonry  wall  extending  almost  to  the 
point  of  the  spur.  There  are  traces  of  another  wall 
defending  the  crest  on  the  N.E.  and  S.  ;  but  the 
base  of  the  triangle,  facing  the  old  enclosure,  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  strengthened  by  a  cross  ditch  or 
bank. 

"  It  may  be  noted  that  this  enclosure  presents  not  the 
slightest  appearance  of  a  motte.  It  is  at  a  lower  level 
than  the  body  of  the  hill,  and  belongs  most  certainly  to 
the  Edwardian  period  of  the  masonry  buildings." 

WARWICK  Castle  has  a  motte  which  has  been 
confidently  attributed  to  Ethelfleda,  only  because 
Dugdale  copied  the  assertion  of  Thomas  Rous,  a  very 
imaginative  writer  of  the  I5th  century,  that  she  was  its 
builder.  The  borough  which  Ethelfleda  fortified  prob- 
ably occupied  a  smaller  area  than  the  mediaeval  walls 
built  in  Edward  I.'s  reign ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  did 
not  include  the  site  of  the  castle,  as  Domesday  states 
that  only  four  houses  were  destroyed  when  the  castle 
was  built.2  The  borough  was  doubtless  erected  to 
protect  the  Roman  road  from  Bath  to  Lincoln,  the  Foss 
Way,  which  passes  near  it.  Domesday  Book,  after 
mentioning  that  the  king's  barons  have  112  houses  in 
the  borough,  and  the  abbot  of  Coventry  36,  goes  on  to 
say  that  these  houses  belong  to  the  lands  which  the 

1  These  buildings  formed  part  of  a  hunting  lodge  built  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  III.,  called  The  Chamber  in  the  Forest.     See  Ormerod's  Cheshire^ 
ii.,    3.     When   visiting  Eddisbury  several  years   ago,  the   writer  noticed 
several  Perpendicular  buttresses  in  these  ruins. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  238a,  i. 


WlTHAM,    ESSEX. 


FIG.  4. 


[To  face  p.  36. 


CYRICBYRIG  AND  WEARDBYRIG  37 

barons  hold  outside  the  city,  and  are  rated  there.1  This 
is  one  of  the  passages  from  which  the  late  Professor 
Maitland  concluded  that  the  boroughs  planted  by 
Ethelfleda  and  Edward  were  organised  on  a  system  of 
military  defence,  whereby  the  magnates  in  the  country 
were  bound  to  keep  houses  in  the  towns.2 

CYRICBYRIG. — About  this  place  we  adopt  the  conjec- 
ture of  Dugdale,  who  identified  it  with  Monk's  Kirby  in 
Warwickshire,  not  far  from  the  borders  of  Leicester- 
shire, and  therefore  on  the  edge  of  Ethelfleda's  dominions. 
It  lies  close  to  the  Foss  Way,  and  about  three  miles  from 
Watling  Street ;  like  Eddisbury,  it  is  near  the  junction 
of  two  Roman  roads.  There  are  remains  of  banks  and 
ditches  below  the  church.  Dugdale  says  "  there  are 
certain  apparent  tokens  that  the  Romans  had  some 
station  here  ;  for  by  digging  the  ground  near  the  church, 
there  have  been  discovered  foundations  of  old  walls  and 
Roman  bricks."3  Possibly  Ethelfleda  restored  a  Roman 
castrum  here.  At  any  rate,  it  seems  a  much  more  likely 
site  than  Chirbury  in  Shropshire,  which  is  commonly 
proposed,  but  which  does  not  lie  on  any  Roman  road, 
and  is  not  on  Ethelfleda's  line  of  advance ;  nor  are  there 
any  earthworks  there. 

WEARDBYRIG  has  not  been  identified.  Wednesbury 
was  stated  by  Camden  to  be  the  place,4  and  but  for  the 

1  "  Abbas  de  Couentreu  habet  36  masuras,  et  4  sunt  wastae  propter  situm 
castelli.  .  .  .   Hae  masurae  pertinent  ad  terras  quas  ipsi  barones  tenent 
extra  burgum,  et  ibi  appreciatae  sunt."     D.  B.,  i.,  238. 

2  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  p.  189.     See  Appendix  D. 

3  Dugdale's  Warwickshire,  ist  edition,  pp.  50  and  75.    The  derivation 
of  Kirby  from  Cyricbyrig  is  not  according  to  etymological  rules,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  about  it  as  a  fact ;   for  in  Domesday  it  is  stated  that 
Chircheberie  was  held  by  Geoffrey  de  Wirche,  and  that  the  monks  of  St 
Nicholas  [at  Angers]  had  two  carucates  in  the  manor.     In  the  charter  in 
which  Geoffrey  de  Wirche  makes  this  gift  Chircheberie  is  called  Kirkeberia 
[M.  A.,  vi.,  996],  but  in  the  subsequent  charter  of  Roger  de  Mowbray,  confirm- 
ing the  gift,  it  is  called  Kirkeby.  *  Britannia,  ii.,  375. 


38  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

impossibility  of  the  etymology,  the  situation  would  suit 
well  enough.  Weardbyrig  must  have  been  an  important 
place,  for  it  had  a  mint.1  Warburton,  on  the  Mersey, 
has  been  gravely  suggested,  but  is  impossible,  as  it  takes 
its  name  from  St  Werburgh. 

RUNCORN  has  not  a  vestige  to  show  of  Ethelfleda's 
borough  ;  but  local  historians  have  preserved  some  rather 
vague  accounts  of  a  promontory  fort  which  once  existed 
at  the  point  where  the  London  and  North- Western 
Railway  bridge  enters  the  river.  A  rocky  headland 
formerly  projected  here  into  the  Mersey,  narrowing  its 
course  to  400  yards  at  high  water ;  a  ditch  with  a 
circular  curve  cut  off  this  headland  from  the  shore. 
This  ditch,  from  12  to  1 6  feet  wide,  with  an  inner  bank 
6  or  7  feet  high,  could  still  be  traced  in  the  early  part  of 
the  i Qth  century.  Eighteen  feet  of  the  headland  were 
cut  off  when  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater  made  his  canal  in 
1773,  and  the  ditch  was  obliterated  when  the  railway 
bridge  was  built.  From  the  measurements  which  have 
been  preserved,  the  area  of  this  fort  must  have  been  very 
small,  not  exceeding  3  acres  at  the  outside  ; 2  and  it  is 
unlikely  that  it  represented  Ethelfleda's  borough,  as  the 
church,  which  was  of  pre-Conquest  foundation,  stood 
outside  its  bounds,  and  we  should  certainly  have 
expected  to  find  it  within.  As  the  Norman  earls  of 
Chester  established  a  ferry  at  Runcorn  in  the  i2th 
century,  and  as  a  castle  at  Runcorn  is  spoken  of  in  a 
mediaeval  document,3  it  seems  not  impossible  that  there 
may  have  been  a  Norman  castle  on  this  site,  as  we 

1  Numismatic  Chronicle,  3rd  S.,  xiii.,  220. 

2  Fowler's  History  of  Runcorn  gives  a  plan  of  this  fort,  and  there  is 
another  in  Hanshall's  History  of  Cheshire,  p.  418(1817).     A  very  different 
one  is  given  in  Beaumont's  History  of  Halton. 

3  Beaumont's  Records  of  the  Honour  of  Halton.     In  1368,  John  Hank 
received  the  surrender  of  a  house  near  to  the  castle  in  Runcorn. 


HERTFORD  AND  WITHAM  39 

constantly  find  such  small  fortifications  placed  to  defend 
a  ferry  or  ford.  It  is  probable  that  Ethelfleda's  borough 
was  destroyed  at  an  early  period  by  the  Northmen,  for 
Runcorn  was  not  a  borough  at  Domesday,  but  was  then 
a  mere  dependency  of  the  Honour  of  Halton. 

The  Burks  of  Ed^vard  the  Elder. 

HERTFORD. — Two  burhs  were  built  by  Edward  at 
Hertford  in  913,  one  on  the  north  and  the  other  on  the 
south  side  of  the  river  Lea.  Therefore  if  a  burh  were 
the  same  thing  as  a  motte,  there  ought  to  be  two  mottes 
at  Hertford,  one  on  each  side  of  the  river  ;  whereas  there 
is  only  one,  and  that  forms  part  of  the  works  of  the 
Norman  castle.  Mr  Clark,  with  his  usual  confidence, 
says  that  the  northern  mound  has  "  long  been  laid 
low";1  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  proof  that  it  ever 
existed  except  in  his  imagination.  Hertford  was  a 
borough  at  the  time  of  Domesday.  No  earthworks 
remain. 

WITHAM  (Fig.  4). — There  are  some  remains  of  a 
burh  here  which  are  very  remarkable,  as  they  show  an 
inner  enclosure  within  the  outer  one.  They  have  been 
carefully  surveyed  by  Mr  F.  C.  J.  Spurrell,  who  has 
published  a  plan  of  them.2  Each  enclosure  formed 
roughly  a  square  with  much-rounded  corners.  The 
ditch  round  the  outer  work  was  30  feet  wide  ;  the  inner 
work  was  not  ditched.  The  area  enclosed  by  the  outer 
bank  was  26^  acres,  an  enclosure  much  too  large  for  a 
castle  ;  the  area  of  the  inner  enclosure  was  9^  acres. 
As  far  as  is  at  present  known,  Witham  is  the  only 
instance  we  have  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  earthwork  which 

1  Mediceval  Military  Architecture,  ii.,  120. 

2  Essex  Naturalist,  January  1887. 


40  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

has  a  double  enclosure.1  Witham  is  not  mentioned  as 
a  borough  in  Domesday  Book,  but  the  fact  that  it  had 
a  mint  in  the  days  of  Hardicanute  shows  that  it 
maintained  its  borough  rights  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years.  The  name  Chipping  Hill  points  to  a  market 
within  the  borough. 

BUCKINGHAM  is  another  case  where  a  burh  was  built 
on  both  sides  of  the  river,  and  as  at  Hertford,  there 
was  only  one  motte,  the  site  of  the  castle  of  the  Norman 
Giffards  is  now  almost  obliterated.  The  river  Ouse 
here  makes  a  long  narrow  loop  to  the  south-west, 
within  which  stands  the  town,  and,  without  doubt, 
this  would  be  the  site  of  Edward's  borough.  No  trace 
is  left  of  the  second  borough  on  the  other  side  of 
the  river.  Buckingham  is  one  of  the  boroughs  of 
Domesday. 

BEDFORD  has  had  a  motte  and  a  Norman  castle  on 
the  north  side  of  the  Ouse ;  but  this  was  not  the  site  of 
Edward's  borough,  which  the  Chronicle  tells  us  was  placed 
on  the  south  side  of  that  river.  On  the  south  side  an 
ancient  ditch,  10  or  12  feet  broad,  with  some  traces  of 
an  inner  rampart,  semicircular  in  plan,  but  with  a  square 
extension,  is  still  visible,  and  fills  with  water  at  flood 
times.2  This  is  very  likely  to  be  the  ditch  of  Edward's 
borough.  Both  at  Bedford  and  Buckingham  the 
Chronicle  states  that  Edward  spent  four  weeks  in  build- 
ing the  burh.  Mediaeval  numbers  must  never  be  taken 
as  precise ;  but  the  disproportion  between  four  weeks 
and  eight  days,  the  space  often  given  for  the  building 
of  an  early  Norman  castle,  corresponds  very  well  to  the 
difference  between  the  time  needed  to  throw  up  the  bank 

1  Danbury  Camp,  which  has  also  been  surveyed  by  Mr  Spurrell  (Essex 
Naturalist,  1890),  is  precisely  similar  in  plan  to  Witham,  but  nothing  is 
known  of  its  history. 

3  See  Victoria  History  of  Bedfordshire,  i.,  281. 


MALDON,  TOWCESTER,  WIGINGAMERE  41 

and  stockade  of  a  town,  and  that  needed  for  the  building 
of  an  earthen  and  wooden  castle. 

MALDON. — Only  one  angle  of  the  earthen  bank  of 
Edward's  borough  remains  now,  but  Gough  states 
that  it  was  an  oblong  camp  enclosing  about  22  acres.1 
It  had  rounded  corners  and  a  very  wide  ditch,  with  a 
bank  on  both  scarp  and  counterscarp.  Maldon  was  a 
borough  at  Domesday  ; 2  the  king  had  a  hall  there,  but 
there  was  never  any  castle,  nor  is  there  any  trace  of  a 
motte. 

TOWCESTER  (Fig.  5). — There  is  a  motte  at  Towcester, 
but  no  direct  evidence  has  yet  been  found  for  the 
existence  of  a  Norman  castle  there,  though  Leland  says 
that  he  was  told  of  "  certen  Ruines  or  Diches  of  a 
Castelle." 8  There  was  a  mill  and  an  oven  to  which 
the  citizens  owed  soke,4  and  the  value  of  the  manor, 
which  belonged  to  the  king,  had  risen  very  greatly  since 
the  Conquest ; 5  all  facts  which  render  the  existence  of  a 
Norman  castle  extremely  likely.  But  there  can  be  no 
question  as  to  the  nature  of  Edward's  work  at  Towcester, 
as  the  Chronicle  tells  us  expressly  that  "  he  wrought  the 
burgh  at  Towcester  with  a  stone  wall."6  Towcester  lies 
on  Watling  Street,  and  is  believed  to  have  been  the 
Roman  station  of  Lactodorum.  Baker  gives  a  plan  of 
the  remains  existing  in  his  time,  which  may  either  be 
those  of  the  Roman  castrum  or  of  Edward's  borough.7 
The  area  is  stated  to  be  about  35  acres. 

WIGINGAMERE. — This  place  is  not  yet  identified,  for 

1  Morant's  History  of  Essex,  i.     Three  sides  of  the  rampart  were  visible 
in  his  time. 

a  D.  B.,  ii.,  5.  3  Itin^  it>  I2t 

4  Baker's  History  of  Northampton,  ii.,  321.  5  D.  B.,  i.,  2igb. 

6  A.-S.  C,  921.     "Wrohte  tha  burg  set  Tofeceastre  mid  stan  wealle." 
Florence  says  918. 

7  Baker,  History  of  Northants,  ii.,  318.     See  also  Haverfield,  K  C.  ff., 
Northants,  i.,  184. 


42  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

the  identification  with  Wigmorein  Herefordshire,  though 
accepted  by  many  respectable  writers,  will  not  stand  a 
moment's  examination.  Wigmore  was  entirely  out  of 
Edward's  beat,  and  he  had  far  too  much  on  his  hands 
in  918  to  attempt  a  campaign  in  Herefordshire.  As 
Wigingamere  appears  to  have  specially  drawn  upon 
itself  the  wrath  of  East  Anglian  and  Essex  Danes,  it 
must  have  lain  somewhere  in  their  neighbourhood.  The 
mere  which  is  included  in  the  name  would  seem  to  point 
to  that  great  inland  water  which  anciently  stretched 
southwards  from  the  Wash  into  Cambridgeshire.  The 
only  approach  to  East  Anglia  from  the  south  lay  along 
a  strip  of  open  chalk  land  which  lay  between  the  great 
swamp  and  the  dense  forests  which  grew  east  of  it.1 
Here  ran  the  ancient  road  called  the  Icknield  way.  On 
a  peninsula  which  now  runs  out  into  the  great  fens  of 
the  Cam  and  the  Ouse  there  is  still  a  village  called 
Wicken,  6  miles  west  of  the  Roman  road  ;  and  possibly, 
when  the  land  surrounding  this  peninsula  was  under 
water,  this  bight  may  have  been  called  Wigingamere. 
This  suggestion  of  course  is  merely  tentative,  but  what 
gives  it  some  probability  is  that  the  Danish  army  which 
attacked  "  the  borough  at  Wigingamere "  came  from 
East  Anglia  as  well  as  Mercia.2 

HUNTINGDON. — The  borough  of  Huntingdon  was 
probably  first  built  by  the  Danes,  as  it  was  only 
repaired  by  Edward.  In  Leland's  time  there  were  still 
some  remains  of  the  walls  "in  places."  Huntingdon  is 
one  of  the  burgi  of  Domesday. 

COLCHESTER. — This  of  course  was  a  Roman  site,  and 
Edward  needed  only  to  restore  the  walls,  as  the 

1  Atkinson's  Cambridge  Described^  p.  I. 

2  There  is,  however,  this  difficulty,  that  Cambridge  was  still  occupied  by  a 
Danish  force  when  Wigingamere  was  built.     It  submitted  to  Edward  in  918. 


FIG.  5.— PLAN  OF  TOWCESTER  ABOUT  1830. 


[To  face  p.  42. 


COLCHESTER  AND  CLEDEMUTHAN  43 

Chronicle  indicates.  Colchester  was  placed  so  as  to 
defend  the  river  Colne,  just  as  Maldon  defended  the 
estuary  of  the  Blackwater.  As  the  repair  of  Colchester 
and  the  successful  defence  of  Wigingamere  were 
followed  the  same  year  by  the  submission  of  East 
Anglia,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  Edward's  various 
forces  may  have  made  a  simultaneous  advance,  along 
the  coast,  and  along  the  Roman  road  by  the  Fen 
country  ;  but  this  of  course  is  the  merest  conjecture,  as 
the  Chronicle  gives  us  no  details  of  this  very  important 
event. 

CLEDEMUTHAN. — This  place  is  only  mentioned  in  the 
Abingdon  MS.  of  the  Chronicle,  but  the  year  921  is  the 
date  given  for  its  building.  This  date  should  probably 
be  transposed  to  918,  the  year  in  which,  according  to 
Florence,  Edward  subjugated  East  Anglia.  It  is  well 
known  how  confused  the  chronology  of  the  various 
versions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  is  during  the 
reign  of  Edward  the  Elder.1  Cley,  in  Norfolk,  would 
be  etymologically  deducible  from  Clede  (the  d  being 
frequently  dropped,  especially  in  Scandinavian  districts), 
and  the  muthan  points  to  some  river  estuary.  Cley  is 
one  of  the  few  havens  on  the  north  coast  of  Norfolk, 
and  its  importance  in  former  times  was  much  greater 
than  now,  as  is  shown  not  only  by  the  spaciousness  of 
its  Early  English  church,  but  by  the  fact  that  the  port 
has  jurisdiction  for  30  miles  along  the  coast.2  It  would 
be  highly  probable  that  Edward  completed  the  subjuga- 
tion of  East  Anglia  by  planting  a  borough  at, some 
important  point.  But  as  the  real  date  of  the  fortifica- 

1  See  Mr  Plummer's  discussion  of  these  variations  in  his  edition  of  the 
Chronicle,  ii.,  116. 

2  Lewis,  Topographical  Dictionary  of  England.     Mr  Rye  remarks : — 
"  The  silting  up  of  the  harbour  has  ruined  a  port  which  once  promised  to  be 
of  as  great  importance  as  Norwich."     History  of  Norfolk,  p.  228. 


44  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

tion  of  Cledemuthan  is  uncertain,  we  must  be  content  to 
leave  this  matter  in  abeyance.1 

STAMFORD  is  another  case  where  the  borough  is 
clearly  said  to  have  been  on  the  side  which  is  opposite 
to  the  one  where  the  Norman  castle  stands.  Edward's 
borough  was  on  the  south  side,  the  motte  and  other 
remains  of  the  Norman  castle  are  on  the  north  of  the 
Welland.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  part  of  Stamford 
on  the  south  side  of  the  Welland  is  still  a  distinct 
liberty ;  it  is  mentioned  in  Domesday  as  the  sixth  ward 
of  the  borough.  The  line  of  the  earthworks  can  still  be 
traced  in  parts.  The  borough  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Welland  was  probably  first  walled  in  by  the  Danes,  as 
it  was  one  of  the  Five  Boroughs — Stamford,  Leicester, 
Lincoln,  Nottingham,  and  Derby — which  appear  to  have 
formed  an  independent  or  semi-independent  state  in 
middle  England.2  Stamford  is  a  borough  in  Domesday. 

NOTTINGHAM. — The  first  mention  of  a  fortress  in 
connection  with  Nottingham  seems  to  suggest  that  it 
owed  its  origin  to  the  Danes.  In  868  the  Danish  host 
which  had  taken  possession  of  York  in  the  previous 
year  "went  into  Mercia  to  Nottingham,  and  there  took 
up  their  winter  quarters.  And  Burgraed  king  of  Mercia 

1  It  is  really  wonderful  that  the  identification  of  Cledemuthan  with  the 
mouth  of  the  Cleddy  in  Pembrokeshire  could  ever  have  been  accepted  by 
any  sober  historian.     That  Edward,  whose  whole  time  was  fully  occupied 
with  his  conquests  from   the  Danish  settlers,  could  have  suddenly  trans- 
ported his  forces  into  one  of  the  remotest  corners  of  Wales,  would  have  been 
a  feat  worthy  of  the  coming  days  of  air-ships.     William  of  Worcester  has 
preserved  a   tradition  that  Edward  repaired  Burgh,  "quae  olim  Saxonice 
dicebatur  Burgh -Chester,"  but  he  confuses  it  with  Norwich.     Itinerarium, 
337.     Is  it  possible  that  we  ought  to  look  for  Cledemuthan  at  Burgh  Castle, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Waveney?     It   would  be   quite  in  accordance  with 
Edward's  actions  elsewhere  to  restore  an  old  Roman  castrum. 

2  Leland  says  :  "There  were  7  principall  Towers  or  Wards  in  the  waulles 
of  Staunford,  to  eche  of  which   were  certeyne  freeholders  in  the  Towne 
allottid  to  wache  and  ward  in  tyme  of  neadde."    Itinerarium,  vii.,  n. 


NOTTINGHAM  45 

and  his  Witan  begged  of  Ethelred,  king  of  the  West 
Saxons,  and  of  Alfred  his  brother,  that  they  would  help 
them,  that  they  might  fight  against  the  army.  And 
then  they  went  with  the  West  Saxon  force  into  Mercia 
as  far  as  Nottingham,  and  there  encountered  the  army 
which  was  in  the  fortress  (geweorc),  and  besieged  them 
there ;  but  there  was  no  great  battle  fought,  and  the 
Mercians  made  peace  with  the  army."1  Nottingham 
became  another  of  the  Danish  Five  Boroughs.  The 
Danish  host  on  this  occasion  came  from  York,  no  doubt 
in  ships  down  the  Ouse  and  up  the  Trent.  The  site 
would  exactly  suit  them,  as  it  occupied  a  very  strong 
position  on  St  Mary's  Hill,  a  height  equal  to  that  on 
which  the  castle  stands,  defended  on  the  south  front  by 
precipitous  cliffs,  below  which  ran  the  river  Leen,  and 
only  a  very  short  distance  from  the  junction  of  the  Leen 
with  the  Trent,  the  great  waterway  of  middle  England.2 
Portions  of  the  ancient  ditch  were  uncovered  in  1890,  and 
its  outline  appears  to  have  been  roughly  rectangular,  like 
the  Danish  camp  at  Shoebury.  The  ditch  was  about 
20  feet  wide.  The  area  enclosed  was  about  39  acres. 

This  borough  was  captured  by  Edward  the  Elder 
in  919,  when  after  the  death  of  his  sister  Ethelfleda  he 
advanced  into  Danish  Mercia,  taking  up  the  work 
which  she  had  left  unfinished.8  The  Chronicle  tells  us 
that  he  repaired  the  borough  (burh),  and  garrisoned  it 
with  both  English  and  Danes.  Two  years  later,  he 
evidently  felt  the  necessity  of  fortifying  the  Trent 
itself,  for  he  built  another  borough  on  the  south  side  of 

1  A.-S.  C.,  868. 

2  Shipman's  Old  Town  Wall  of  Nottingham,  pp.  73-75.     The  evidence 
for  a  Roman  origin  of  the  borough  is  altogether  too  slight,  as,  except  some 
doubtful  earthenware    bottles,  no   Roman    remains  have  been   found    at 
Nottingham. 

3  A.-S.  C,  921.     Florence  of  Worcester,  919. 


46  ANGLO-SAXON  FORTIFICATIONS 

the  river,  and  connected  the  two  boroughs  by  a  bridge, 
which  must  have  included  a  causeway  or  a  wooden 
stage  across  the  marshes  of  the  Leen.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  frequent  floods  of  the  Trent  have  carried 
away  all  trace  of  this  second  borough.1  The  important 
position  of  Nottingham  was  maintained  in  subsequent 
times,  and  it  was  still  a  borough  at  Domesday. 

THELWALL. — According  to  Camden,  Thelwall  ex- 
plains by  its  name  the  kind  of  work  which  was  set  up 
here,  a  wall  composed  of  the  trunks  of  trees.  This  was 
another  attempt  to  defend  the  course  of  the  Mersey, 
which  was  once  tidal  as  far  as  Thelwall.  No  remains 
of  any  fortifications  can  now  be  seen  at  Thelwall,  which 
was  not  one  of  the  boroughs  which  took  root.  But  the 
Mersey  has  changed  its  course  very  much  at  this  point, 
even  before  the  making  of  the  Ship  Canal  effected  a 
more  complete  alteration.2 

MANCHESTER. — The  burh  repaired  by  Edward  the 
Elder  was  no  doubt  the  Roman  castrum,  which  was 
built  on  the  triangle  of  land  between  the  Irwell  and  the 
Medlock.  Large  portions  of  the  walls  were  still 
remaining  in  Stukeley's  time,  about  1700,  and  some 
fragments  have  recently  been  unearthed  by  the 
Manchester  Classical  Association.  It  was  one  of  the 
smaller  kind  of  Roman  stations,  its  area  being  only 
5  acres.  Manchester  is  not  mentioned  as  a  borough 
in  Domesday,  but  the  old  Saxon  town  was  long  known 
as  Aldportton,  which  literally  means  "  the  town  of  the 

1  I  am  indebted  for  much  of  the  information  given   here  to  the  local 
antiquarian  knowledge  of  Mr  Harold  Sands,  F.S.A.     He  states  that  the  old 
borough  was  1400  yards  from  the  Trent  at  its  nearest  point,  and  that  the 
highest  ground  on  the  south  side  of  the  Trent  is  marked  by  the  Trent 
Bridge  cricket  ground,  the  last  spot  to  become  flooded.     Here,  therefore, 
was  the  probable  site  of  Edward's  second  borough. 

2  See  Appendix  F. 


MANCHESTER  AND  BAKEWELL  47 

old  city."  This  is  its  title  in  mediaeval  deeds,  and  it  is 
still  preserved  in  Alport  Street,  a  street  near  the 
remains  of  the  castrum}  The  later  borough  of 
Manchester,  which  existed  at  least  as  early  as  the 
1 3th  century,  appears  to  have  grown  up  round  the 
Norman  castle,  about  a  mile  from  the  Roman  castrum.2 
BAKEWELL. — The  vagueness  of  the  indication  in  the 
Chronicle,  "nigh  to  Bakewell,"  leaves  us  in  some  doubt 
where  we  are  to  look  for  this  burh,  which  Florence  calls 
an  urbs.  Just  outside  the  village  of  Bakewell  there  are 
the  remains  of  a  motte  and  bailey  castle  (a  small  motte 
and  bailey  of  2  acres),  which  are  always  assumed  to  be 
the  burh  of  Edward.  But  the  enclosure  is  far  too  small 
for  a  borough,  and  Edward's  burh  would  certainly  have 
enclosed  the  church ;  for  though  the  present  church 
contains  no  Saxon  architecture,  the  ancient  cross  in  the 
graveyard  shows  that  it  stands  on  a  Saxon  site.  It  is 
more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Edward's  borough,  if 
it  was  at  Bakewell,  has  disappeared  as  completely  as 
those  of  Runcorn,  Buckingham,  and  Thelwall,  and  that 
the  motte  and  bailey  belong  to  one  of  the  many 
Norman  castles  whose  names  never  appear  in  history. 
There  is  no  conclusive  evidence  for  the  existence  of  a 
Norman  castle  at  Bakewell,  but  the  names  Castle  Field, 
Warden  Field,  and  Court  Yard  are  at  least  suggestive.3 
Bakewellfwas  the  seat  of  jurisdiction  for  the  High  Peak 
Hundred  in  mediaeval  times.4 

1  Whitaker's  History  of  Manchester,  i.,  43. 

2  Trans,  of  Lane,  and  Chesh.  Hist,  and  Ant.  Soc.,  v.,  246. 

3  "  Castle  "  in  combination  with  some  other  word  is  often  given  to  works 
of  Roman  or  British  origin,  because  its  original  meaning  was  a  fortified 
enclosure  ;  but  the  name  Castle  Hill  is  extremely  common  formottes. 

4  We  may  remark  here  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  there  should  be  a 
number  of  motte  castles  which  are  never  mentioned  in  history,  especially  as  it 
is  certain  that  all  the  "  adulterine  "  castles,  which  were  raised  without  royal  per- 
mission in  the  rebellions  of  Stephen's  and  other  reigns,  were  very  short-lived. 


CHAPTER   IV 

DANISH    FORTIFICATIONS 

WE  must  now  inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  fortifications 
built  by  the  Danes  in  England,  which  are  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle.  It  has  often 
been  asserted,  and  with  great  confidence,  that  the 
Danes  were  the  authors  of  the  moated  mounds  of 
class  (e) ;  those  in  Ireland  are  invariably  spoken  of  by 
Lewis  in  his  Topographical  Dictionary  as  "  Danish 
Raths."  This  fancy  seems  to  have  gone  somewhat  out 
of  fashion  since  Mr  Clark's  burh  theory  occupied  the 
field,  though  Mr  Clark's  view  is  often  so  loosely 
expressed  as  to  lead  one  to  think  that  he  supposed  all 
the  Northern  nations  to  be  makers  of  mottes  ;  in  fact, 
he  frequently  includes  the  Anglo-Saxons  under  the 
general  title  of  "Northmen"!1  We  must  therefore 
endeavour  to  find  out  what  the  Danish  fortifications 
actually  were. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  mentions  twenty-four 
places  where  the  Danes  either  threw  up  fortifications 
(between  787  and  924)  or  took  up  quarters  either  for 
the  winter,  or  for  such  a  period  of  time  that  we  may 
infer  that  there  was  some  fortification  to  protect  them. 
The  word  used  for  the  fortification  is  generally  geweorc, 

1  Mediaval  Military  Architecture,  i.,  18.     See  Mr  Round's  remarks  on 
Mr  Clark's  vagueness  in  his  "Castles  of  the  Conquest,"  Archaologia,  1902. 

48 


NOTTINGHAM,  ROCHESTER,  MILTON  49 

a  work,  or  fasten  (in  two  places  only),  which  has  also 
the  general  vague  meaning  of  a  fastness.  There  are 
ten  places  where  these  works  or  fastnesses  are  mentioned 
in  the  Chronicle: — 

1.  NOTTINGHAM. — We   have   already  seen    that    the 
Danish  host  took  up  their  winter  quarters  here  in  868, 
and    that    there   is    the    highest    probability   that    the 
borough   which    Edward   the   Elder  restored   was  first 
built  by  them.     We  have  also  seen  that  it  was  a  camp 
of  roughly  rectangular  form,  and  enclosed  a  very  large 
area,  necessary  for  great  numbers.1 

2.  ROCHESTER. — This    city    was    besieged    by    the 
Danes  in  885,  and  they  fortified  a  camp  outside.     As 
the  artificial  mound  called  Boley  Hill  is  outside  the  city, 
most  topographers  have  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
this  was  the  Danish  camp.     But  the  character  of  the 
Danish  fortification  is  clearly  indicated  in  the  Chronicle : 
"  they  made  a  work  around  themselves,"  that  is,  it  was 
an    enclosure.2     They    could    hardly   have   escaped    by 
ship,   as   they  did,   if  their  camp  had  been  above  the 
bridge,  which  is  known  to  have  existed  in  Saxon  times. 
But  Boley  Hill  is  above  the  bridge. 

3.  MILTON,    in    Kent    (Middeltune). — Hsesten     the 
Dane  landed  at  the  mouth  of  the  Thames  with  80  ships, 
and  wrought  a  geweorc  here  in  893.     Two  places  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Milton  have  been  suggested  as  the 
site  of  it,  a  square  earthwork  at  Bayford  Court,  near 
Sittingbourne,  and  a  very  small  square  enclosure  called 
Castle  Rough.     Neither  of  these  are  large  enough  to 
have  been   of  any  use  to  a   force  which  came    in    80 

1  The  A. -S.  C.  speaks  of  this  Danish  host  as  "  a  great  heathen  army."    866. 

2  "Worhton   other    faesten   ymb  hie    selfe."    The    same    language    is 
frequently  used  in   the    continental    accounts   of   the   Danish  fortresses : 
"  Munientes  se  per  gyrum  avulsae  terras  aggere,"  Dudo,  155  (Duchesne) : 
"Se  ex  illis  (sepibus  et  parietibus)  circumdando  munierant."    //.,  p.  81. 

D 


50  DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS 

ships.1  Steenstrup  has  calculated  that  the  average 
number  of  men  in  a  Viking  ship  must  have  been  from 
40  to  50  ;  Haesten  therefore  must  have  had  at  least 
3200  men  with  him.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the 
camp  at  Milton  has  been  swept  away. 

4.  APPLEDORE. — A  still  larger  Danish   force,   which 
had  been  harrying   the  Carlovingian  empire,   came  in 
250  ships,  with  their  horses,   in  893,   and  towed  their 
ships    "up    the    river"    (which    is    now    extinct)    from 
Lymne    to    Appledore,    where    they   wrought   a   work. 
There   are  no  earthworks  at   Appledore   now,   but   at 
Kenardington,    2    miles    off,    there  are    remains   of  "a 
roughly  defined  rectangular  work,  situated  on  the  north 
and  east  of  the  church,  on  the  slope  of  the  hill  towards 
the   marsh,   a   very   likely  place    for   an    entrenchment 
thrown    up    to   defend   a   fleet    of    light-draught   ships 
hauled  up  on  the   beach."       The   enclosure  was  very 
large,  one  side  which  remains  being  600  feet  long.8 

5.  BENFLEET. — Here  Hsesten  wrought  a  work  in  894  ; 
here  he  was  defeated  by  Alfred's  forces,  and  some  of  his 
ships   burnt.     Mr  Spurrell   states    that    there   are   still 
some  irregular  elevations  by  the  stream  and  about  the 
church,  which  he  believes  to  be  remains  of  the  Danish 
camp.4     "  As  the  fleet  of  ships    lay   in    the    Beamfleet, 

1  The  earthworks  at  Bayford  Court  must  belong  to  the  mediaeval  castle 
which  existed  there.     See  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  Kent,  p.  698. 
Castle  Rough  is  less  than  an  acre  in  area. 

2  Mr  Harold  Sands,  Some  Kentish  Castles,  p.  10. 

3  See  the  plan  in  Victoria  History  of  Kent,  paper  on  Earthworks  by  the 
late  Mr  I.  C.  Gould.     Hasted  states  that  there  was  a  small  circular  mount 
there  as  well  as  an  embankment,  and  that  there  are  other  remains  in  the 
marsh  below,  which  seem  to  have  been  connected  with  the  former  by  a 
narrow  ridge  or  causeway,  Kent,  iii.,  117.     The  causeway  led  to  a  similar 
mount  in  the  marsh  below,  but  Mr  Gould  inclined  to  think  the  mounts  and 
causeway  later,   and   possibly  part  of  a   dam  for   "inning"   the    marsh. 
V.  C.  H.,  p.  397- 

4  "  Haesten's  Camps  at  Shoebury  and  Benfleet,"  Essex  Naturalist,  iv.,  153. 


BENFLEET,  SHOEBURY  51 

it  is  obvious  that  the  camp  must  have  partaken  of  the 
character  of  a  fortified  hit  he,  with  the  wall  landward  and 
the  shore  open  to  the  river  and  the  ships."  He  also 
learned  on  the  spot  that  when  the  railway  bridge  across 
the  Fleet  was  being  made,  the  remains  of  several  ancient 
ships,  charred  by  fire,  and  surrounded  by  numerous 
human  skeletons,  were  found  in  the  mud.1  Benfleet 
must  have  been  a  very  large  camp,  as  not  only  was  the 
joint  army  of  Danes  housed  in  it,  that  from  Milton  and 
that  from  Appledore,  but  they  had  with  them  their 
wives  and  children  and  cattle. 

6.  SHOEBURY  (Fig.  6). — After  the   storming  of  the 
camp  at  Benfleet  by  the  Saxon  forces,  the  joint  armies 
of  the    Danes    built   another  geweorc   at    Shoebury    in 
Essex.     We  should  therefore  expect  a  large  camp  here, 
and  Mr  Spurrell  has  shown  that  the  area  was  formerly 
about  a  third  of  a  square  mile.     About  half  the  camp 
had  been  washed  away  by  the  sea  when   Mr    Spurrell 
surveyed  it  in  1879,  but  enough  was  left  to  give  a  good 
idea  of  the  whole.      It  was  a  roughly  square  rampart, 
with  a  ditch  about  40  feet  wide,  the  ditch  having  a  kind 
of  berm  on  the  inner  side.     The  bank  also  had  a  slight 
platform  inside,  about   3    feet  above  the  general  level.2 
As  Haesten  had  lost  his  ships  at  Benfleet,  there  would 
be  no  fortified  hithe  connected  with  it,  and  if  there  had 
been,  the  sea  would  have  swept   it   away.     The  camp 
was  abandoned  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  made,  and  the 
Danish  army  started  on  that  remarkable  march  across 
England  which  the  Saxon  Chronicle  relates.     They  were 
overtaken  and  besieged  by  Alfred's  forces,  in  a  fastness  at 

7.  BUTTINGTON,    on  the  Severn. — It  has  sometimes 

1  The  Chronicle  says  that  the  ships  of  Haesten  were  either  broken  to 
pieces,  or  burnt,  or  taken  to  London  or  Rochester.     894. 

2  Essex  Naturalist,  as   above,  p.  151.     These  berms  certainly  suggest 
Roman  influence. 


52  DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS 

been  contended  that  this  was  the  Buttington  near 
Chepstow ;  but  as  the  line  of  march  of  the  army  was 
"  along  the  Thames  till  they  reached  the  Severn,  then 
up  along  the  Severn,"1  it  is  more  probable  that  it  was 
Buttington  in  Montgomery,  west  of  Shrewsbury.2 
Here  there  are  remains  of  a  strong  bank  with  a  broad 
deep  ditch,  which  was  evidently  part  of  a  rectangular 
earthwork,  as  it  runs  at  right  angles  to  Offa's  Dyke, 
which  forms  one  side  of  it.  It  now  encloses  both  the 
churchyard  and  vicarage.  Whether  the  Danes  con- 
structed this  earthwork,  or  found  it  there,  we  are  not 
told. 

8.  There  appear  to  be  no  remains  of  the  geweorc  on 
the    river  Lea,  20  miles   above  London,  made   by  the 
Danes    in    896.     But  20  miles  above   London,  on    the 
Lea,    would    land    us    at    Amwell,    near   Ware.       In 
Brayley's  Hertfordshire  it  is  stated  that  at  Amwell,  "on 
the  hill  above  the  church  are  traces  of  a  very  extensive 
fortification,  the  rampart  of  which  is  very  distinguishable 
on    the   side  overlooking    the   vale  through  which    the 
river  Lea  flows."  3 

9.  BRIDGENORTH,  or  Quatbridge. — The   Winchester 
MS.  of  the  Chronicle  says  the  Danes  wrought  a  geweorc 
at    Quatbridge,  in  896,  and   passed    the   winter  there. 
There    is    no    such    place    as    Quatbridge   now,    only 
Quatford  ;  and  seeing  there  were  so  few  bridges  in  those 
days,  we  are  disposed  to  accept  the  statement   of  the 
Worcester    MS.,    which     must    have    been    the    best 

1  A.-S.  C,  894. 

2  Montgomery  Collections,  xxxi.,  337  ;  Dymond,  On  the  Site  of  Buttington, 
See  also  Steenstrup,  Normannerne,  ii.,  80. 

3  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  vii.,  246.     There  is  nothing  left  either 
at  Great  or  Little  Amwell  now  but  fragments  of  what  are  supposed  to  be 
homestead  moats.     Royal  Commission  on  Historical  Monuments,  pp.  95, 
142,  Herts,  vol. 


N 


of  Earthwork. 

Spurre// .) 


0     10    20    30    40    50    FEET 

Scale  for  Section. 


q      ioo    zoo  300  40Q  500  6oo    FEET 
Scale     for    Plan. 

SHOEBUBY,  ESSEX. 


FIG.  6. 


[To  face  p.  52. 


BRIDGENORTH,  TEMPSFORD  53 

informed  about  events  in  the  west,  that  Bridgenorth 
was  the  site  of  their  work,  especially  as  the  high  rock 
at  Bridgenorth  offers  a  natural  fortification.  The  only 
circumstance  that  is  in  favour  of  Quatford  is  that  it  is 
mentioned  as  a  burgus  in  Domesday,  which  shows  that 
it  possessed  fortifications  of  the  civic  kind  ;  and  we  shall 
see  later  on,  that  such  fortifications  were  often  the  work 
of  the  Danes.  But  this  burgus  may  more  probably  have 
been  the  work  of  Roger  de  Montgomeri,  who  planted 
a  castle  there  in  the  nth  century. 

10.  TEMPSFORD. — Here  the  Danes  wrought  a  work 
in  9I8.1  There  is  a  small  oblong  enclosure  at 
Tempsford,  still  in  fair  preservation,  called  Gannock 
Castle,  which  is  generally  supposed  to  be  this  Danish 
work.  The  ramparts  are  about  1 1  or  12  feet  above  the 
bottom  of  the  moat,  which  is  about  20  feet  wide. 
There  is  a  small  circular  mound,  about  5  feet  high, 
on  top  of  the  rampart,  which  appears  to  be  so  placed 
as  to  defend  the  entrance.  This  mound  is  "  edged  all 
round  by  the  root  of  a  small  bank,  which  may  have  been 
the  base  of  a  stockaded  tower."2  This  curious  little 
enclosure  is  different  altogether  from  any  of  the  Danish 
works  just  enumerated,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  what 
purpose  it  could  have  served.  The  area  enclosed  is 
only  half  an  acre,  which  would  certainly  not  have 
accommodated  the  large  army  "from  Huntingdon  and 
from  the  East  Angles,"  which  built  the  advanced  post  at 
Tempsford  as  a  base  for  the  forcible  recovery  of  the 
districts  which  they  had  lost.8  Such  a  small  enclosure 
as  this  might  possibly  have  been  a  citadel,  but  our 

1  Florence's  date. 

2  Victoria  History  of  Bedfordshire^  i.,  282,  from  which  this  description 
is  taken. 

3  The  Chronicle  speaks  of  Tempsford  as  a  burh^  so  it  must  have  been  a 
large  enclosure. 


54  DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS 

knowledge  of  Danish  camps  does  not  tell  us  of  any  with 
citadels,  and  it  is  hardly  likely  that  the  democratic 
constitution  of  these  pirate  bands  would  have  allowed 
of  a  citadel  for  the  chief.  It  is  far  more  probable  that 
this  work  belongs  to  a  later  time,  and  that  the  Danish 
camp  has  been  swept  away  by  the  river.1 

ii.  READING. — There  is  no  "work"  mentioned  by 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  at  this  place,  which  the 
Danes  made  their  headquarters  in  871,  but  we  add  it 
to  the  list  because  Asser  not  only  mentions  it,  but 
describes  the  nature  of  the  fortification.  It  was  a  vallum 
drawn  between  the  rivers  Thames  and  Kennet,  so  as  to 
enclose  a  peninsula.2  It  had  several  entrances,  as  the 
Danes  "rushed  out  from  all  the  gates"  on  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  attack.  Such  a  fort  belongs  to  the  simplest  and 
easiest  kind  of  defence,  used  at  all  times  by  a  general 
who  is  in  a  hurry,  and  it  has  therefore  no  significance 
in  determining  the  general  type  of  Danish  works. 

Besides  these  eleven  places  where  works  are 
mentioned,  there  are  thirteen  places  where  the  Danes 
are  said  to  have  taken  up  their  winter  quarters,  and 
where  we  may  be  certain  that  they  were  protected  by 
some  kind  of  fortifications.  These  are  Thanet,  Sheppey, 
Thetford,  York,  London,  Torkesey,  Repton,  Cambridge, 
Exeter,  Chippenham,  Cirencester,  Fulham,  and  Mersey 
Island.  Four  places  out  of  this  list — York,  London, 
Exeter,  and  Cirencester — were  Roman  castra,  whose 
walls  were  still  available  for  defence.  Three — Thanet, 
Sheppey,  and  Mersey — were  islands,  and  thus  naturally 
defended,  being  much  more  insular  than  they  are 

1  Mr  Clark  actually  speaks  of  a  subsequent  Norman  castle  at  Tempsford 
(M.  M.  A.y  i.,  78),  but  we  have  been  unable  to  find  any  confirmation  of  this. 
Faint  traces  of  larger  works   in   the   fields  below  were  formerly  visible. 
V.  C.  H.  Bedfordshire. 

2  Stephenson's  Asser^  p.  27. 


DANISH  WINTER  QUARTERS  55 

now.1  Three — Thetford,  Torkesey,  and  Cambridge — 
appear  as  burgi  in  Domesday,  showing  that  they  were 
fortified  towns.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  Danes 
threw  up  the  first  fortifications  of  these  boroughs.  There 
are  no  remains  of  town  banks  at  Torkesey  ;  at  Cambridge 
the  outline  of  the  town  bank  can  be  traced  in  places  ; 2 
and  at  Thetford  there  was  formerly  an  earthwork  on  the 
Suffolk  side  of  the  river,  which  appears  to  have  formed 
three  sides  of  a  square,  abutting  on  the  river,  and 
enclosing  the  most  ancient  part  of  the  town.3  Chippen- 
ham  and  Repton  were  ancient  seats  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
kings,  and  may  have  had  fortifications,  but  nothing 
remains  now.  Chippenham  is  a  borough  by  prescrip- 
tion, therefore  of  ancient  date.  At  Fulham,  on  the 
Thames,  there  is  a  quadrangular  moat  and  bank  round 
the  Bishop  of  London's  palace,  which  is  sometimes 
supposed  to  be  the  camp  made  by  the  Danes  in  879  ; 
but  it  may  equally  well  be  mediaeval.  There  was 
formerly  a  harbour  at  Fulham.4 

It  must  be  confessed  that  this  list  of  Danish 
fortresses  furnishes  us  with  a  very  slender  basis  for 
generalisation  as  to  the  nature  of  Danish  fortifications, 
judging  from  the  actual  remains.  All  we  can  say  is  that 
in  six  cases  out  of  twenty-four  (not  including  Tempsford 
or  Fulham)  the  work  appears  to  have  been  rectangular. 
In  the  case  of  Shoebury,  about  which  we  have  the  best 

1  There  are  no  remains  of  earthworks  in  Thanet  or  Sheppey,  except  a 
place  called  Cheeseman's  Camp,  near  Minster  in  Thanet,  which  the  late  Mr 
Gould  regarded  as  of  the  "  homestead-moat  type."     V.  C.  H.  Kent,  i.,  433. 
Nor  are  there  any  earthworks  on  Mersey  Island  mentioned  by  Mr  Gould  in 
his  paper  on  Essex  earthworks  in  the  V.  C.  H. 

2  Stukeley,  who  saw  this  earthwork  when  it  was  in  a  much  more  perfect 
state,   says  that  it   contained  30  acres.      See   Mr  Hope's  paper  in  Camb. 
Antiq.  Soc.,  vol.  xi. 

3  Blomefield's  Norfolk,  ii.,  pp.  7,  8,  27.     His  description  is  very  confused. 

4  See  Erlingssen's  Ruins  of  the  Saga  Time,  Viking  Club,  p.  337. 


56  DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS 

evidence,  the  imitation  of  Roman  models  seems  to  be 
clear.  If  we  turn  from  remaining  facts  to  a  priori  likeli- 
hoods, we  call  to  mind  that  the  Danes  were  a  much- 
travelled  people,  had  been  in  Gaul  as  well  as  in  England, 
and  had  had  opportunities  of  observing  Roman  fortifica- 
tions, as  well  as  much  practice  both  in  the  assault  and 
defence  of  fortified  places.  It  may  not  be  without 
significance  that  it  is  not  until  after  the  return  of  "the 
army "  from  France  that  we  hear  of  their  building 
camps  at  all,  except  in  the  case  of  Reading. 

As  far  as  our  information  goes,  their  camps  were 
without  citadels.  What  evidence  we  have  from  the 
other  side  of  the  channel  supports  the  same  conclusion. 
Richer  gives  us  an  account  of  the  storming  of  a  fortress 
of  the  Northmen  at  Eu,  by  King  Raoul,  in  925,  from 
which  it  is  clear  that  as  soon  as  the  king's  soldiers  had 
got  over  the  vallum,  they  were  masters  of  the  place ; 
there  was  no  citadel  to  attack.1  Dudo  speaks  of  the 
Vikings  "  fortifying  themselves,  after  the  manner  of  a 
castrum,  by  heaped  up  earth-banks  drawn  round  them- 
selves," and  it  is  clear  from  the  rest  of  his  description 
that  the  camp  had  no  citadel.2 

In  no  case  do  we  find  anything  to  justify  the  theory 
that  mottes  were  an  accompaniment  of  Danish  camps. 
In  five  cases  out  of  the  twenty-four  there  are  or  were 
mottes  at  the  places  mentioned,  but  in  all  cases  they 
belonged  to  Norman  castles.  The  magnificent  motte 
called  the  Castle  Hill  at  Thetford  was  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river  to  the  borough,  which  we  have  seen 
reason  to  think  was  the  site  of  the  Danish  winter 
quarters.  Torkesey  in  Leland's  time  had  by  the  river 

1  Richerii,  Historiarum  Libri  Quatuor,  edition  Guadet,  p.  67. 

2  "  In  modo  castri,  munientes  se'per  girum  avulsae  terras  aggere."     Dudo> 
155  (edition  Duchesne). 


DANISH  FORTIFIED  HARBOURS  57 

side  "a  Hille  of  Yerth  cast  up,"  which  he  judged  to  be 
the  donjon  of  some  old  castle,  probably  rightly,  though 
we  have  been  unable  as  yet  to  find  any  mention  of  a 
Norman  castle  at  Torkesey ;  a  brick  castle  of  much 
more  recent  date  is  still  standing  near  the  river,  and 
probably  the  motte  to  which  Leland  alludes  was 
destroyed  when  this  was  built.  The  motte  at  Cam- 
bridge is  placed  inside  the  original  bounds  of  the 
borough,  and  was  part  of  the,  Norman  castle.1  We 
have  already  dealt  with  the  Boley  Hill  at  Rochester, 
and  shall  have  more  to  say  about  it  hereafter.  The 
rock  motte  at  Nottingham  was  probably  not  cut  off  by 
a  ditch  from  the  rest  of  the  headland  until  the  Norman 
castle  was  built. 

It  seems  highly  probable  that  besides  providing 
accommodation  in  their  camps  for  very  large  numbers 
of  people,  the  Danes  sometimes  fortified  the  hithes 
where  they  drew  up  their  ships  on  shore,  or  even  con- 
structed fortified  harbours.2  We  have  already  quoted 
Mr  Spurrell's  remark  on  the  hithe3  at  Benfleet  (p.  51), 
and  there  is  at  least  one  place  in  England  which  seems 
to  prove  the  existence  of  fortified  harbours.  This  is 
Willington,  on  the  river  Ouse,  in  Bedfordshire,  which 
has  been  carefully  described  by  Mr  A.  R.  Goddard.4 
This  "camp"  consists  of  two  wards,  and  a  wide  outer 
enclosure  (Fig.  7).  "  But  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing features  is  the  presence  of  two  harbours,  con- 
tained within  the  defences  and  communicating  with  the 

1  "The    castle  end  of  Cambridge  was   called  the  Borough  within  the 
memory  of  persons  now  living."    Atkinson's  Cambridge  Described  (1897),  p.  9. 

2  Steenstrup  says   that  the  Northmen  built  themselves  shipyards  all 
round   Europe,   especially  on   the   islands   where   they   had  their  winter 
settlements.    Normannerne,  i.,  354. 

3  A.-S.,  hyth,  a  shore,  a  landing-place. 

4  Victoria  County  History  of  Beds.,  i.,  282. 


FORTIFIED  TOWNS  59 

river."  Mr  Goddard  points  out  that  the  dimensions  of  the 
smaller  one  are  almost  the  same  as  those  of  the  "  nausts  " 
(ship-sheds  or  small  docks)  of  the  Vikings  in  Iceland. 
He  also  cites  from  \hejomsvikinga  Saga  the  description 
of  a  harbour  made  by  the  Viking  Palnatoki  at  Jomsborg. 
"  There  he  had  a  large  and  strong  sea  burg  made.  He 
also  had  a  harbour  made  within  the  burg  in  which 
300  long  ships  could  lie  at  the  same  time,  all  being 
locked  within  the  burg."  The  harbours  at  Willington 
are  large  enough  to  accommodate  between  twenty-five 
and  thirty-five  ships  of  the  Danish  type.  Unfortunately 
there  is  no  historical  proof  that  the  Willington  works 
were  Danish,  though  their  construction  makes  it  very 
likely.  Nor  have  any  works  of  a  similar  character 
been  as  yet  observed  in  England,  as  far  as  we  are 
aware. 

But  if  archaeology  and  topography  give  a  somewhat 
scanty  answer  to  our  question  about  the  nature  of 
Danish  fortifications,  there  are  other  fields  of  research, 
opened  up  of  late  years,  from  which  we  can  glean 
important  facts,  bearing  directly  on  the  subject  which 
we  are  treating.  Herr  Steenstrup's  exhaustive  inquiry 
into  the  Danish  settlement  in  England  has  shown  that 
the  way  in  which  the  Danes  maintained  their  hold  on 
the  northern  and  eastern  shires  was  by  planting  fortified 
towns  on  which  the  soldiers  and  peasants  dwelling 
around  were  dependent.1  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 
gives  us  a  glimpse  of  these  arrangements  when  it 
speaks  of  the  Danes  who  owed  obedience  to  Bedford, 
Derby,  Leicester,  Northampton,  and  Cambridge.2  It 
also  tells  us  of  the  Five  Boroughs,  which,  as  we 
have  already  said,  appear  to  have  been  a  confederation 

1  Steenstrup's  Normannerne,  vol.  iv. ;  Danelag^  p.  40. 

2  A.-S.  C.,  914-921. 


60  DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS 

of  boroughs  forming  an  independent  Danish  state 
between  the  Danish  kingdoms  of  East  Anglia  and 
Northumbria. 

The  same  system  was  followed  by  the  Danes  who 
colonised  Ireland.  "The  colony  had  a  centre  in  a 
fortified  town,  or  it  consisted  almost  exclusively  of 
dwellers  in  one.  But  round  this  town  was  a  district, 
in  which  the  Irish  inhabitants  had  to  pay  taxes  to  the 
lords  of  the  town."1  The  Irish  chronicle  called  The 
Wars  of  the  Gaedhil  and  the  Gaill  says,  further,  that 
Norse  soldiers  were  quartered  in  the  country  round 
these  towns  in  the  houses  of  the  native  Irish,  and  it 
even  says  that  there  was  hardly  a  house  without  a 
Norseman.2  Herr  Steenstrup  does  not  go  so  far  as 
to  assert  that  this  system  of  quartering  obtained  in 
England  also  ;  but  he  shows  that  it  is  probable,  and 
we  may  add  that  such  a  system  would  help  to  explain 
the  speedy  absorption  of  the  Danes  into  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  population,  which  took  place  in  the  Danelaw 
districts.8 

The  large  numbers  of  the  Danish  forces,  and  the 
fact  that  in  the  second  period  of  their  invasions  they 
brought  their  wives  and  children  with  them,  would 
render  camps  of  large  area  necessary.  These  numbers 
alone  make  it  ridiculous  to  attribute  to  the  Danes  the 
small  motte  castles  of  class  (e),  whose  average  area  is 
not  more  than  3  acres. 

Finally,  the  Danish  host  was  not  a  feudal  host. 
Steenstrup  asserts  that  the  principle  of  the  composition 
of  the  host  was  the  voluntary  association  of  equally 

1  Steenstrup,  Danelag,  p.  41.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  22,  23. 

3  Such  quartering  must  have  been  confined  to  the  unmarried  Danes,  but 
there  must  have  been  plenty  of  unmarried  men  in  the  piratical  host,  even 
at  the  period  when  it  became  customary  to  bring  wives  and  children  with 
the  army. 


SUMMARY  OF  RESULTS  61 

powerful  leaders,  of  whom  one  was  chosen  as  head,  and 
was  implicitedly  obeyed,  but  had  only  a  temporary 
authority.1  We  should  not,  therefore,  expect  to  find 
the  Danish  camps  provided  with  the  citadels  by  which 
the  feudal  baron  defended  his  personal  safety.  When 
Rollo  and  his  host  were  coming  up  the  Seine,  the 
Prankish  king  Raoul  sent  messengers  to  ask  them  who 
they  were,  and  what  was  the  name  of  their  chief. 
"  Danes,"  was  the  reply,  "and  we  have  no  chief,  for  we 
are  all  equal."2  That  such  an  answer  would  be  given 
by  men  who  were  following  a  leader  so  distinguished 
as  Rollo  shows  the  spirit  of  independence  which  per- 
vaded the  Danish  hosts,  and  how  little  a  separate  forti- 
fication for  the  chief  would  comport  with  their  methods 
of  warfare.3 

We  may  conclude,  then,  with  every  appearance  of 
certainty  that  the  Danish  camps  were  enclosures  of 
large  area  which  very  much  resembled  the  larger  Roman 
castra,  and  that,  like  these,  they  frequently  grew  into 
towns.  Placed  as  they  generally  were  on  good  havens, 
or  on  navigable  rivers,  they  were  most  suitable  places 
for  trade  ;  and  it  turned  out  that  the  Danes,  who  were 
a  people  of  great  natural  aptitudes,  had  a  special 
aptitude  for  commerce.4  Dr  Cunningham  remarks 
that  they  were  the  leading  merchants  of  the  country,  and 
he  attributes  to  them  a  large  share  in  the  development 
of  town  life  in  England.5  The  organisation  of  their 
armies  was  purely  military,  but  at  the  same  time 

1  Normannerne,  i.,  282.  2  Dudo,  76  (Duchesne). 

3  Herr  Steenstrup  shows  that  so  far  from  the  settlement  of  the  Danes  in 
Normandy  being  on  feudal  lines,  they  only  reluctantly  accepted  the  feudal 
yoke,  and  not  till  the  next  century.     Normannerne^  i.,  305,  310.     It  is  not  till 
the  nth  century  that  feudal  castles  become  general  in  Normandy. 

4  The  Danes  in  Normandy  soon  made  Rouen  a  great  centre  of  trade. 
Normannerne,  i.,  190. 

5  Cunningham's  Growth  of  English  Indtistry,  i.,  92. 


62  DANISH  FORTIFICATIONS 

democratic  ;  and  when  it  was  applied  to  a  settled  life  in 
the  new  country,  the  organisation  of  the  town  was  the 
form  which  it  took.  The  Lagmen  of  Lincoln,  Stamford, 
Cambridge,  Chester,  and  York  are  a  peculiarly  Scandi- 
navian institution,  which  we  find  still  existing  at  the 
time  of  the  Domesday  Survey.1 

Thus  we  see  that  the  fortifications  of  the  Danes, 
like  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  were  the  fortifications 
of  the  community.  And  we  shall  see  in  the  next 
chapter  that  this  was  the  general  type  of  the  fortifica- 
tions which  were  being  raised  in  Western  Europe  in 
the  Qth  century. 

1  See  Vinogradoff,  English  Society  in  the  \\th  Century,  pp.  5,  11,  478. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    ORIGIN    OF    PRIVATE    CASTLES 

WE  have  now  seen  that  history  furnishes  no  instance  of 
the  existence  of  private  castles  among  the  Anglo-Saxons 
or  the  Danes  (previous  to  the  arrival  of  Edward  the 
Confessor's  Norman  friends),  and  we  have  endeavoured 
to  show  that  this  negative  evidence  is  of  great  signifi- 
cance. If,  assuming  that  we  are  right  in  accepting  it 
as  conclusive,  we  ask  why  the  Anglo-Saxons  did  not 
build  private  castles,  the  answer  is  ready  to  hand  in  the 
researches  of  the  late  Dr  Stubbs,  the  late  Professor 
Maitland,  Dr  J.  H.  Round,  and  Professor  Vinogradoff, 
which  have  thrown  so  much  fresh  light  on  the  constitu- 
tional history  of  England.  These  writers  have  made 
it  clear  that  whatever  tendencies  towards  feudalism 
there  were  in  England  before  the  Conquest,  the  system  / 
of  military  tenure,  which  is  the  backbone  of  feudalism, 
was  introduced  into  England  by  William  the  Conqueror.1 
"  Feudalism,  in  both  tenure  and  government  was,  so  far 
as  it  existed  in  England,  brought  full-grown  from 
France,"  says  Dr  Stubbs ;  and  this  statement  is  not 
merely  supported,  but  strengthened,  by  the  work  of  the 

1  See  Stubbs,  Constitutional  History,  i.,  251  ;  Maitland's  Domesday  Book 
and  Beyond,  p.  157  ;  Round's  Feudal  England,  p.  261  ;  Vinogradoff  s  English 
Society  in  the  nth  Century,  p.  41. 

63 


64  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

uf  later  writers  named.1  The  institutions  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  when  they  settled  in  England,  were  tribal ;  and 
though  these  institutions  were  in  a  state  of  decay  in  the 
nth  century,  they  were  not  completely  superseded  by 
feudal  institutions  till  after  the  Norman  Conquest. 

We  should  naturally  expect,  then,  that  the  fortifica- 
tions erected  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  would  be  those 
adapted  to  their  originally  tribal  state,  that  is,  in 
the  words  which  we  have  so  often  used  already,  they 
would  be  those  of  the  community  and  not  of  the 
individual.  And  as  far  as  we  can  discover  the  character 
of  these  fortifications,  we  find  that  this  was  actually  the 
case.  As  we  have  seen,  we  find  one  of  the  earliest 
kings,  Ida,  building  for  the  defence  of  himself  and  his 
followers  what  Bede  calls  a  city  ;  and  we  find  Alfred  and 
his  children  also  building  and  repairing  cities,  at  the 
time  of  the  Danish  invasions. 

The  same  kind  of  thing  was  going  on  at  about  the 
same  time  in  Germany  and  in  France.  Henry  the 
Fowler  (919-936),  that  great  restorer  of  the  Austrasian 
kingdom,  planted  on  the  frontiers  which  were  exposed 
to  the  attacks  of  the  Danes  and  Huns  a  number  of 
walled  strongholds,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  resisting 
invasion,  but  to  afford  a  place  of  refuge  to  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  country.  He  ordained  that  every 
ninth  man  of  the  peasants  in  the  district  must  build 

1  Professor  Maitland  wrote :  "  The  definitely  feudal  idea  that  military 
service  is  the  tenant's  return  for  the  gift  of  land  did  not  exist  [before  the 
Norman  Conquest],  though  a  state  of  things  had  been  evolved  which  for 
many  practical  purposes  was  indistinguishable  from  the  system  of  knight's 
fees."  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  p.  157.  Dr  Round  holds  that  "the 
military  service  of  the  Anglo-Norman  tenant-in-chief  was  in  no  way  derived 
or  developed  from  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  but  was  arbitrarily  fixed  by  the 
king,  from  whom  he  received  his  fief."  Feudal  England,  p.  261.  Similarly, 
Professor  Vinogradoff  states  that  "  the  law  of  military  fees  is  in  substance 
French  law  brought  over  to  England  by  the  [Norman]  conquerors." 
English  Society  in  the  nth  Century ,  p.  41. 


FORTIFIED  WALLS  65 

for  himself  and  his  nine  companions  a  dwelling  in  the 
"  Burg,"  and  provide  barns  and  storehouses,  and  that  the 
third  part  of  all  crops  must  be  delivered  and  housed  in 
these  towns.1  In  this  way,  says  the  historian  Giesebrecht, 
he  sought  to  accustom  the  Saxons,  who  had  hitherto 
dwelt  in  isolated  farms,  or  open  villages,  to  life  in  towns. 
He  ordered  that  all  assemblies  of  the  people  should  be 
held  in  towns.  Giesebrecht  also  remarks  that  it  is  not 
improbable  that  Henry  the  Fowler  had  the  example  of 
Edward  the  Elder  of  England  before  his  eyes  when  he 
established  these  rows  of  frontier  towns.2 

The  same  causes  led,  on  Neustrian  soil,  to  the 
fortification  of  a  number  of  cities,  the  walls  of  which  had 
fallen  into  decay  during  the  period  of  peace  before  the 
invasions  of  the  Danes.  Thus  Charles  the  Bald  com- 
manded Le  Mans  and  Tours  to  be  fortified  "  as  a  defence 
for  the  people  against  the  Northmen."3  The  bishops 
were  particularly  active  in  thus  defending  the  people  of 
their  dioceses.  Archbishop  Fulk  rebuilt  the  walls  of 
Rheims,  between  884  and  900 ; 4  his  successor,  Hervey, 
fortified  the  town  of  Coucy 5  (about  900) ;  the  Bishop  of 

1  Giesebrecht,  Geschichte  der  Kaiserzeit,  i.,  224.     The  word  Burg,  which 
Giesebrecht  uses  for  these  strongholds,  means  a  castle  in  modern  German  ; 
but  its  ancient  meaning  was  a  town  (see  Hilprecht's  German  Dictionary], 
and  it  corresponded  exactly  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  burh.     It  was  used  in  this 
sense  at  least  as  late  as  the  end  of  the  I2th  century  ;  see,  e.g.,  Lamprecht's 
Alexanderlied,  passim.     It  is  clear  by  the  context  that  Giesebrecht  employs 
it  in  its  ancient  sense. 

2  Ibid.,  222.     Henry's  son  Otto  married  a  daughter  of  Edward  the  Elder. 
Henry  received  the  nickname  of  Townfounder  (Stadtegriinder), 

3  "  Carolus  civitates  Transsequanas  ab  incolis  firmari  rogavit,  Cinomannis 
scilicet  et  Turonis,  ut  praesidio  contra  Nortmannos  fiopulis  esse  possent." 
Annales  Bertinianorum,  Migne,  Pat.,  125,  53. 

4  Flodoard,  Hist.  Ecc.  Remensis,  iv.,  viii. 

5  Modern  historians  generally  say  that  he  built  the  castle  of  Coucy  ;  but 
from  Flodoard's  account  it  seems  very  doubtful  whether  anything  but  the 
town  is  meant.    Annales,  iv.,  xiii.    His  words  are  :  "  Munitionem  quoque  apud 
Codiciacum  tuto  loco  constituit  atque  firmavit."    Munitio  properly  means  a 
bulwark  or  wall. 


66  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

Cambray  built  new  walls  to  his  city  in  887-911  j1  and 
Bishop  Erluin  fortified  Peronne  in  1001,  "as  a  defence 
against  marauders,  and  a  refuge  for  the  husbandmen  of 
the  country."  2  But  permission  had  probably  to  be  asked 
in  all  these  cases,  as  it  certainly  had  in  the  last.  The 
Carlovingian  sovereigns  represented  a  well-ordered  state, 
modelled  on  the  pattern  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  they 
were  jealous  of  any  attempts  at  self-defence  which  did 
not  proceed  from  the  State,  and  thus  as  long  as  they  had 
the  power  they  strove  to  put  down  all  associations  or 
buildings  of  a  military  character  which  did  not  emanate 
from  their  imperial  authority. 

The  history  of  the  9th  and  loth  centuries  is  the 
history  of  the  gradual  break-up  of  the  Carlovingian 
Empire,  and  the  rise  of  feudalism  on  its  ruins.  In  877, 
the  year  of  his  death,  Charles  the  Bald  signed  a  decree 
making  the  counts  of  the  provinces,  who  until  then  had 
been  imperial  officers,  hereditary.  He  thus,  as  Sismondi 
says,  annihilated  the  remains  of  royal  authority  in  the 
provinces.3  The  removable  officers  now  became  local 
sovereigns.  Gradually,  as  the  Carlovingian  Empire  fell 
to  pieces,  the  artificial  organisation  of  the  feudal  system 
arose  to  take  its  place.  By  the  end  of  the  loth  century 
the  victory  of  feudalism  was  complete ;  and  the  victory 
of  feudalism  was  the  victory  of  the  private  castle. 

"  The  very  word  castle,"  says  Guizot,  "  brings  with 
it  the  idea  of  feudal  society ;  we  see  it  rising  before  us. 
It  was  feudalism  that  built  these  castles  which  once 
covered  our  soil,  and  whose  ruins  are  still  scattered  upon 
it.  They  were  the  declaration  of  its  triumph.  Nothing 
like  them  had  existed  on  Gallo- Roman  soil.  Before  the 

1  Gesta  Episcop.  Cameracensium^  Pertz,  vii.,  424. 

3  Chron.  Camarense  et  Atrebatorum,  Bouquet,  x.,  196. 

8  Sismondi,  Histoire  des  Franqais,  ii.,  172. 


EARLY  PALACES  67 

Germanic  invasion,  the  great  landed  proprietors  dwelt 
either  in  the  cities,  or  in  beautiful  houses  agreeably 
situated  near  the  cities." l  These  Gallo-Roman  villas  had 
no  fortifications  ; 2  nor  were  the  Roman  villas  in  England  . 
fortified.8  It  was  the  business  of  the  State  to  defend  the 
community ;  this  was  the  theory  so  long  sustained  by 
imperial  Rome,  and  which  broke  down  so  completely 
under  the  later  Carlovingians. 

In  the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  Louis  le  Debonnaire, 
even  the  royal  palaces  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
fortified.  They  were  always  spoken  of  as  palatia,  never 
as  castella.  The  Danes,  when  they  took  possession  of 
the  palace  of  Nimeguen  in  880,  fortified  it  with  ditches 
and  banks.4  Charles  the  Bald  appears  to  have  been  the 
first  to  fortify  the  palace  of  Compiegne.5 

Although  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  private  castles 
had  become  extremely  common  on  the  mainland  of 
Western  Europe  before  the  end  of  the  loth  century,  it  is 
more  difficult  than  is  generally  supposed  to  trace  their 
first  appearance.  Historians,  even  those  of  great  repute, 
have  been  somewhat  careless  in  translating  the  words 
castrum  or  castellum  as  castle  or  chateau,  and  taking 
them  in  the  sense  of  the  feudal  or  private  castle.6  We 

1  Guizot,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  en  France,  iii.,  311. 

2  Enlart,  Manuel  d?  Archaologie  Franqaise,  ii.,  494. 

3  See  Dr  Haverfield's  articles  in  the   Victoria  County  Histories,  passim. 
The  late  J.  H.  Burton  justly  wrote  :  "  We  have  nothing  from  the  Romans 
answering  to  the  feudal  stronghold  or  castle,  no  vestige  of  a  place  where  a 
great    man    lived    apart    with  his  family  and  his   servants,  ruling  over 
dependants  and  fortifying  himself  against  enemies."    History  of  Scotland, 

i-i  385- 

4  Annals  of  Fulda,  394,  Pertz,  i.  5  Cap.  Regum  Francor.,  ii.,  360. 

6  Thus  De  Caumont  unfortunately  spoke  of  the  fortress  built  by  Nicetus, 
Bishop  of  Treves,  in  the  6th  century,  as  a  chateau  (Abecedaire,  ii.,  382) ;  but 
Venantius  Fortunatus,  in  his  descriptive  poem,  tells  us  that  it  was  a  vast 
enclosure  with  no  less  than  thirty  towers,  built  by  the  good  pastor  for  the 
protection  of  his  flock.  It  even  contained  fields  and  vineyards,  and 
altogether  was  as  different  from  a  private  castle  as  anything  can  well  be. 


68  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

have  already  pointed  out  that  these  words  in  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  charters  mean  a  town  or  village.1  The  fact  is 
that  from  Roman  times  until  toward  the  end  of  the  Qth 
century  the  words  castrum  and  castellum  are  used  in- 
differently for  a  fortified  city  or  town,  or  a  temporary 
camp.  The  expression  civitates  et  castella  is  not 
uncommon,  and  might  lead  one  to  think  that  a  distinc- 
tion was  drawn  between  large  and  small  towns,  or  forts. 
But  it  is  far  more  likely  that  it  is  a  mere  pleonasm,  a 
bit  of  that  redundancy  which  was  always  dear  to  the 
mediaeval  scribe  who  was  trying  to  write  well.  For  as 
the  instances  cited  in  the  Appendix  will  prove,  we 
constantly  find  the  words  castrum  and  castellum  used  for 
the  same  town,  sometimes  even  in  the  same  paragraph. 
Later,  from  the  last  quarter  of  the  9th  century  to  the 
middle  of  the  i2th  century,  these  same  words  are  used 
indifferently  for  a  town  or  a  castle,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  tell,  except  by  the  context,  whether  a  town  or  a  castle 
is  meant ;  and  often  even  the  context  throws  no  light 
upon  it. 

This  makes  it  extremely  difficult  to  say  with  any 
exactness  when  the  private  castle  first  arose.  We  seem 
indeed  to  have  a  fixed  date  in  the  Capitulary  of  Pistes, 
issued  by  Charles  the  Bald  in  864,2  in  which  he 

Similarly  the  castrum  of  Merliac,  spoken  of  by  Enlart  {Architecture  Militaire^ 
p.  492)  as  a  "  veritable  chateau,"  is  described  as  containing  cultivated  lands  and 
sheets  of  water  !  (Cited  from  Gregory  of  Tours,  Hist.  Francorum,  liii.,  13.) 
De  Caumont  himself  says  :  "Les  grandes  exploitations  rurales  que  possedaient 
les  rois  de  France  et  les  principaux  du  royaume  du  V^me  au  Xieme  siecle 
ne  furent  pas  des  forteresses  et  ne  doivent  point  etre  confondues  avec  les 
chateaux."  Abecedaire^  ii.,  62. 

1  See  Appendix  D. 

-  "  Volumus  et  expresse  mandamus,  ut  quicunque  istis  temporibus  castella 
et  firmitates  et  haias  sine  nostro  verbo  fecerint,  Kalendis  Augusti  omnes 
tales  firmitates  disfactas  habeant  ;  quia  vicini  et  circummanentes  exinde 
multas  depredationes  et  impedimenta  sustinent."  Capitularia  Regum 
Francorum^  Boretius,  ii.,  328. 


IN  THE  TENTH  CENTURY  69 

straightly  ordered  that  all  who  had  made  castles,  forts, 
or  hedge-works  without  his  permission  should  forthwith 
be  compelled  to  destroy  them,  because  through  them  the 
whole  neighbourhood  suffered  depredation  and  annoy- 
ance. This  edict  shows,  we  might  argue,  that  private 
castles  were  sufficiently  numerous  by  the  year  864  to 
have  become  a  public  nuisance,  calling  for  special 
legislation.  But  the  chronicles  of  the  second  half  of  the 
9th  century  do  not  reveal  any  extensive  prevalence  of 
private  castles.  Indeed,  after  studying  all  the  most 
important  chronicles  of  Neustria  and  Austrasia  during 
this  period,  the  present  writer  has  only  been  able  to  find 
four  instances  of  fortifications  which  have  any  claim  at 
all  to  be  considered  private  castles  ;  and  even  this  claim 
is  doubtful.1 

When  we  come  to  the  chroniclers  of  the  middle  of 
the  zoth  century  we  find  a  marked  difference.  It  is  true 
that  the  words  castrum,  castelhim,  municipium,  oppi- 
dum,  munitio,  are  still  used  quite  indifferently  by 
Flodoard  and  other  writers  for  one  and  the  same  thing, 
and  that  in  a  great  many  cases  they  obviously  mean  a 
fortified  town.  But  there  are  other  cases  where  they 
evidently  mean  a  castle.  And  if  we  compare  these 
writers  with  the  earlier  ones  in  the  same  way  as  we  have 
already  compared  the  pre-Conquest  portion  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  with  the  chroniclers  of  the  nth  and 

1  These  instances  are  as  follows  : — 868,  A  certain  Acfrid  shut  himself  up 
in  a  casa  firmissima  in  the  •villa  of  Bellus  Pauliacus  on  the  Loire,  and  it  was 
burnt  over  his  head  (Annales  Bertinianorum^  pp.  Migne,  125,  1237) ;  878,  The 
sons  of  Goisfrid  attack  the  castellum  and  lands  of  the  son  of  Odo  (ibid.,  p. 
1286);  879,  Louis  the  Germanic  besieges  some  men  of  Hugh,  son  of  Lothaire, 
in  quodam  castello  juxta  Viridunum  :  he  takes  and  destroys  the  castellum 
(Annals  of  Fulda,  Pertz,  i.,  393);  906,  Gerard  and  Matfrid  fortify  themselves 
in  a  certain  castrum,'m  a  private  war  (Regino,  Pertz,  i.,  611).  Sismondi 
states  that  the  great  nobles  wrested  from  Louis-le-Begue  (877-879)  the  right 
of  building  private  castles.  So  far,  we  have  been  unable  to  find  any  original 
authority  for  this  statement. 


70  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

1 2th  centuries,  we  find  the  same  contrast  between  them. 
In  the  pages  of  Flodoard  or  Ademar  the  action 
constantly  turns  on  the  building,  besieging,  and  burning 
of  castles,  which  by  whatever  name  they  are  called,  have 
every  appearance  of  being  private  castles.  In  fact 
before  we  get  to  the  end  of  the  century,  the  private 
castle  is  as  much  the  leading  feature  of  the  drama  as  it 
is  in  the  nth  or  I2th  centuries. 

Why,  then,  had  the  chroniclers  no  fresh  word  for  a 
thing  which  was  in  its  essential  nature  so  novel  ?  The 
obvious  and  only  answer  is  that  the  private  castle  in  its 
earlier  stages  was  nothing  more  than  an  embankment 
with  a  wooden  stockade  thrown  round  some  villa  or 
farm  belonging  to  a  private  owner,  and  was  therefore 
indistinguishable  in  appearance,  though  radically  differ- 
ent in  idea,  from  the  fortifications  which  had  hitherto 
been  thrown  up  for  the  protection  of  the  community.1 
How  easily  we  may  be  mistaken  in  the  meaning  of  the 
word  castelluniy  if  we  interpret  it  according  to  modern 
ideas,  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  account  of  the 
bridge  built  by  Charlemagne  over  the  Elbe,  in  the 
Annales  Laiirissenses,  with  Eginhard's  narrative  of  the 
same  affair.  The  former  states  that  Charlemagne  built 
a  castellum  of  wood  and  earth  at  each  end  of  the  bridge, 
while  the  latter  tells  us  that  it  was  a  vallum  to  protect  a 
garrison  which  he  placed  there.  This,  however,  was  a 
work  of  public  utility,  and  not  a  private  castle.  But 
scanty  as  the  evidence  is,  it  all  leads  us  to  infer  that 
the  first  private  castles  were  fortifications  of  this  simple 
nature.2  Mazieres-on-the-Meuse,  which  was  besieged 

1  See  Guizot,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation,  iii.,  309.     "  On  voit  les  villa 
s'entourer  peu  a  peu  de  fosse's,  de  remparts  de  terre,  de  quelques  apparences 
de  fortifications." 

2  We  hear  of  monasteries  being  fortified  in  this  way  ;  in  869  Charles  the 
Bald  drew  a  bank  of  wood   and  stone  round  the  monastery  of  St  Denis  ; 


TOWERS  71 

for  four  weeks  by  Archbishop  Hervey,  took  its  name 
from  the  macerias  or  banks  which  Count  Erlebald  had 
constructed  around  it.  It  is  impossible  to  say  whether 
this  enclosure  should  be  called  a  castle  or  a  town,  but  in 
idea  it  was  certainly  a  castle,  since  it  was  an  enclosure 
formed  for  private,  not  for  public  interests. 

Whether  these  first  private  castles  were  provided 
with  towers  we  have  no  evidence  either  to  prove  or  to 
disprove.  No  instance  occurs  from  which  we  can 
conclude  that  they  possessed  any  kind  of  citadel,  before 
the  middle  of  the  loth  century.1  But  before  the  century 
is  far  advanced,  we  hear  of  towers  in  connection  with 
the  great  towns,  which,  whether  they  were  originally 
mural  towers  or  not,  are  evidently  private  strongholds, 
and  may  justly  be  called  keeps.  The  earliest  instance 
known  to  the  writer  is  in  924,  when  the  tower  of  the 
pres^d^^tm  where  Herbert  Count  of  Vermandois  had 
imprisoned  Charles  the  Simple  was  burnt  accidentally.2 
This  tower  must  have  been  restored,  as  nine  years  later 
it  withstood  a  six  weeks'  siege  from  King  Raoul.  A 
possibly  earlier  instance  is  that  of  Nantes,  where  Bishop 
Fulcher  had  made  a  castle  in  889  ;  for  when  this  castle 
was  restored  by  Count  Alan  Barbetorte  (937-943),  we  are 

"  castellum  in  gyro  ipsius  monasterii  ex  ligno  et  lapide  conficere  ccepit." 
Ann.  Bertinian^  Migne,  pp.  125,  1244.  In  889  the  Bishop  of  Nantes  made  a 
castrum  of  his  church  by  enclosing  it  with  a  wall,  and  this  wall  appears  to 
have  had  a  tower.  Chron.  Namnetense,  p.  45,  in  Lobineau's  Bretagne^  vol. 
ii.  In  924  Archbishop  Hervey  made  a  castellum  of  the  monastery  of  St 
Remi  by  enclosing  it  with  a  wall.  Flodoard,  p.  294  (Migne).  But  the  fortifica- 
tion of  monasteries  was  a  very  different  thing  from  the  fortification  of  private 
castles. 

1  In  951  Duke  Conrad,  being  angry  with  certain  men  of  Lorraine,  threw 
down  the  towers  of  some  of  them  ;  these  may  have  been  the  keeps  of  private 
castles.     Flodoard,  Annales,  p.  477. 

2  Presidium  is  one  of  those  vague  words  which  chroniclers  love  to  use  ; 
it  means  a  defence  of  any  kind,  and  may  be  a  town,  a  castle,  or  a  garrison. 
The  town  in  which  this  turris  stood  appears  by  the  context  to  have  been 
Chateau  Thierry.     Cf.  Flodoard,  Annales,  pp.  924,  with  933. 


72  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

told  that  he  restored  the  principal  tower  and  made  it 
into  his  own  house.1  Count  Herbert  built  a  keep  in 
Laon  before  931  ;  and  this  appears  to  have  been  a 
different  tower  to  the  one  attached  to  the  royal  house 
which  Louis  d'Outremer  had  built  at  the  gate  of  the 
city.2  We  hear  also  of  towers  at  Amiens  (950),  Coucy 
(958),  Chalons  (963),  and  Rheims  (988).  All  these 
towers,  it  will  be  observed,  are  connected  with  towns.3 
The  first  stone  keep  in  the  country  for  whose  date  we 
have  positive  evidence,  is  that  of  Langeais,  built  by  Fulk 
Nerra,  Count  of  Anjou,  about  the  year  994  ;  its  ruins  still 
exist. 

But  we  are  concerned  more  particularly  here  with  the 
origin  of  the  motte-and-bailey  castle.  The  exact  place 
or  time  of  its  first  appearance  is  still  a  matter  of 
conjecture.  Certainly  there  is  not  a  word  in  the 
chronicles  which  is  descriptive  of  this  kind  of  castle 
before  the  beginning  of  the  nth  century.4  The  first 
historical  mention  of  a  castle  which  is  clearly  of  the 
motte-and-bailey  kind  is  in  the  Chronicle  of  St  Florent 

1  "Castrum  muro  factum  circa  earn  [ecclesiam]."    Chron.  Namnetense, 
p.  45.    "  Precepit  [Alanus]  eis  terrarium  magnum  in  circuitu  Ecclesias  facere, 
sicut  munis  prioris  castri  steterat,  quo  facto  turrem  principalem  reficiens, 
in  ea  domum  suam  constitit."    Ibid. 

2  Flodoard,  Annales,  pp.  931  and  949.     This  tower  was  heightened  by 
Charles,  the  last  of  the  Carlovingians,  and  furnished  with  a  ditch  and  bank, 
in  988. 

3  It  is  often  supposed  that  these  towers  were  derived  from  the  Pretoria, 
or  general's  quarters  in  the  Roman  castra.    It  is  far  more  probable  that  they 
were  derived  from  mural  towers.    The  Pretorium  was  not  originally  fortified, 
and  it  was  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  Roman  camp.     But  one  great  object 
of  the  feudal  keep  was  to  have  communication  with  the  open  country.     The 
keep  of  Laon  was  certainly  on  the  line  of  the  walls,  as  Bishop  Ascelin 
escaped  from  it  down  a  rope  in  989,  and  got  away  on  a  horse  which  was 
waiting  for  him.    Palgrave,  England  and  Normandy,  ii.,  880. 

4  The   word  motte  or  mota    does    not    occur     in    any    contemporary 
chronicle,  as  far  as  is  known  to  the  writer,  before  the  I2th  century  ;  nor  is 
the  word  dangio  to  be  found  in  any  writer  earlier  than  Ordericus.     But  the 
thing  certainly  existed  earlier. 


FULK  NERRA  73 

le  Vieil,  where,  at  a  date  which  the  modern  biographer  of 
Fulk  Nerra  fixes  at  1010,  we  learn  that  this  same  Count 
of  Anjou  built  a  castle  on  the  western  side  of  the  hill 
Mont-Glonne,  at  St  Florent  le  Vieil,  on  the  Loire,  and 
threw  up  an  agger  on  which  he  built  a  wooden  tower.1 
In  this  case  the  word  agger  evidently  means  a  motte. 
But  Fulk  began  to  reign  in  987  ;  he  was  a  great  builder 
of  castles,  and  was  famed  for  his  skill  in  military  affairs.2 
One  of  his  first  castles,  built  between  991  and  994,  was 
at  Montbazon,  not  far  from  Tours.  About  500 
metres  from  the  later  castle  of  Montbazon  is  a  motte 
and  outworks,  which  De  Salies  not  unreasonably 
supposes  to  be  the  original  castle  of  Fulk.8  Mont- 
richard,  Chateaufort,  Cherament,  Montboyau,  and 
Bauge  are  all  castles  built  by  Fulk,  and  all  have  or  had 
mottes,  Montboyau  is  the  clearest  case  of  all,  as  it  was 
demolished  by  Fulk  a  few  years  after  he  built  it,  and  has 
never  been  restored,  so  that  the  immense  motte  and  out- 
works which  are  still  to  be  seen  remain  very  much  in 
their  original  state,  except  that  a  modern  tower  has  been 
placed  on  the  motte,  which  is  now  called  Bellevue.4 

1  [Fulk  and  his  son  Geoffrey]  in  occidentali    parte  mentis    castellum 
determinaverunt.  .  .  .  Aggerem  quoque  in  prospectu  monasterii  cum  turre 
lignea  erexerunt."    Chron.  St  Florentii,  in  Lobineau's  Bretagne,  ii.,  87.    Some 
remains  of  this  motte  are  still  visible.     De  Salies,  Foulques  Nerra,  p.  263. 

2  "  Elegantissimus   in    rebus  bellicis "    is  the    quaint    language   of  the 
Angevin  chronicler,  176. 

3  See  De  Salies,  Histoire  de  Foulques  Nerra,  which  indirectly  throws 
considerable  light  on  the  archaeological  question. 

4  Salies,  Histoire  de  Foulques  Nerra,  p.  170.     M.  Enlart,  in  his  Manuel 
d?  Archceologie  Fran^aise,  ii.,  495,  has  been  misled  about  this  castle  by  the 
Chronicon    Andegavense,  which    says:    "Odo.  .  .    .  Fulconem    expugnare 
speravit,  et  totis  nisibus  adorsus  est.    Annoque  present!  (1025)  Montis  Budelli 
castellum,  quod  circiter  annos  decem  retro  abhinc  contra  civitatem  Turoni- 
cam  firmaverat  Fulco,  obsedit,  et  turrim  ligneam  mirse  altitudinis  super 
domgionem  ipsius  castri  erexit."     Bouquet,  x.,  176.     M.  Enlart  takes  this  to 
be  the  first  recorded  instance  of  a  motte.     But  the  passage  is  evidently 
corrupt,  as  the  other  accounts  of  this  affair  show  that  Count  Odo's  wooden 


74  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

It  was  a  tempting  theory  at  one  time  to  the  writer 
to  see  in  Fulk  Nerra  the  inventor  of  the  motte  type  of 
castle,  for  independently  of  his  fame  in  military  archi- 
tecture, he  is  the  first  mediaeval  chieftain  who  is  known 
to  have  employed  mercenary  troops.1  Now  as  we  have 
already  suggested  in  Chapter  L,  the  plan  of  the  motte- 
and-bailey  castle  strongly  suggests  that  there  may  be 
a  connection  between  its  adoption  and  the  use  of 
mercenaries.  For  the  plan  of  this  kind  of  castle  seems 
to  hint  that  the  owner  does  not  only  mistrust  his 
enemies,  he  also  does  not  completely  trust  his  garrison. 
The  keep  in  which  he  and  his  family  live  is  placed  on 
the  top  of  the  motte,  which  is  ditched  round  so  as  to 
separate  it  from  the  bailey  ;  the  provisions  on  which  all 
are  dependent  are  stored  in  the  cellar  of  the  keep,  so 
that  they  are  under  his  own  hand ;  and  the  keys  of  the 
outer  ward  are  brought  to  him  every  night,  and  placed 
under  his  pillow.2 

But  unfortunately  for  this  theory,  there  is  some 
evidence  of  the  raising  of  mottes  at  an  earlier  period  in 
the  loth  century  than  the  accession  of  Fulk  Nerra. 
Thibault-le-Tricheur,  who  was  Count  of  Blois  and 
Chartres  from  932  to  962,  was  also  a  great  builder,  and 
it  is  recorded  of  him  that  he  built  the  keeps  of  Chartres, 

tower  was  a  siege  engine,  employed  to  attack  Fulk's  castle,  and  afterwards 
burnt  by  the  besieged.  See  the  Gesta  Ambasiens.  Dom.,  ibid.)  p.  257,  and 
the  Chron.  St  Florentii.  Probably  we  should  read  contra  domgionem 
instead  of  super.  The  Chronicon  Andegavense  was  written  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  1 1. 

1  When  Fulk  invaded  Bretagne  in  or  about  992,  he  collected  an  army 
"  tarn  de  suis  quam  conductitiis."  Richerius^  edition  Guadet.  The  editor 
remarks  that  this  is  perhaps  the  first  example  of  the  use  of  mercenaries 
since  the  time  of  the  Romans  (ii.,  266).  Spannagel,  citing  Peter  Damian, 
says  that  mercenaries  were  already  common  at  the  end  of  the  loth  century. 
Zur  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Heerwesens,  pp.  72,  73. 

a  This  was  always  the  custom  in  mediaeval  castles.  See  Cohausen, 
Befcstigungen  der  Vorzeit^  p.  282. 


USE  OF  THE  MOTTE  75 

Chateaudun,1  Blois,  and  Chinon,2  and  the  castle  of 
Saumur ;  these  must  have  been  finished  before  962. 
Now  there  was  anciently  a  motte  at  Blois,  for  in  the 
1 2th  century,  Fulk  V.  of  Anjou  burnt  the  whole  fortress, 
"except  the  house  on  the  motte"*  There  was  also  a 
motte  at  Saumur  ; 4  and  the  plan  of  the  castle  of  Chinon 
is  not  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  a  former  motte.5 
These  instances  seem  to  put  back  the  existence  of  the 
motte  castle  to  the  middle  of  the  loth  century. 

We  know  of  no  earlier  claim  than  this,  unless  we 
were  to  accept  the  statement  of  Lambert  of  Ardres  that 
Sigfrid  the  Dane,  who  occupied  the  county  of  Guisnes 
about  the  year  928,  fortified  the  town,  and  enclosed  his 
own  dunio  with  a  double  ditch.6  If  this  were  true,  we 
have  a  clear  instance  of  a  motte  built  in  the  first  half  of 
the  loth  century.  But  Lambert's  work  was  written  at 
the  end  of  the  1 2th  century,  with  the  object  of  glorifying 

1  "  Qui  vivens  turres  altas  construxit  et  cedes,  Unam  Carnotum,  sed  apud 
Dunense  reatum."     Chron.  St  Florentii. 

2  Chron.  Namnetense,  Lobineau,  ii.,  47. 

3  Gesta  Ambasiensium  Dominorum,  in  Sfiicilegium,  p.  273. 

4  Guide  Joanne,  p.  234. 

5  The  furthest  point  of  the  headland  on  which  the  castle  is  placed  is  a 
small   circular  court,  with  a  fosse   on  all  sides  but  the  precipices.     From 
personal  visitation. 

6  Dunio  is  subsequently  explained  by  Lambert  as  motte :  "  Motam  altis- 
simam  sive  dunionem  eminentem  in  munitionis  signum  firmavit."    Lamberti 
Ardensis,  p.  613.     It  is  the  same  word  as  the  Saxon  dun,  a  hill  (preserved 
in  our  South  Downs),  and  has  no  connection  with  the  Irish  and  Gaelic  dun, 
which  is  cognate  with  the  German  zaun,  a  hedge,  A.-S.  tun,  and  means  a 
hedged  or  fortified  place.     The  form  dange  appears  in  Northern  France, 
and  this  seems  to  be  the  origin  of  the  word  domgio  or  dangio  which  we  find 
in  the  chroniclers,  the  modern  form  of  which  is  donjon.     If  we  accept  this 
etymology,  we  must  believe  that  the  word  dunio  or  domgio  was  originally 
applied  to  the  hill,  and  not  to  the  tower  on  the  hill,  to  which  it  was  after- 
wards transferred.     It  is  against  this  view  that  Ordericus,  writing  some  fifty 
years  before  Lambert,  uses  the  form  dangio  in  the  sense  of  a  tower.     Pro- 
fessor Skeat  and  the  New  English  Dictionary  derive  the  word  donjon  or 
dungeon  from   Low   Lat.  domnionem,   ace.  of  domnio,  thus   connecting  it 
with  dominus,  as  the  seignorial  residence. 


76  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

the  counts  of  Guisnes,  and  its  editor  regards  the  early 
part  of  it  as  fabulous.  That  Sigfrid  fortified  the  town 
of  Guisnes  we  can  easily  believe,  as  we  know  the  Danes 
commonly  did  the  like  (see  Chapter  IV.) ;  but  that  he 
built  himself  a  personal  castle  is  unlikely.1 

It  is  the  more  unlikely,  because  the  Danes  in 
Normandy  do  not  appear  to  have  built  personal  castles 
until  the  feudal  system  was  introduced  there  by  Richard 
Sans  Peur.  The  settlement  in  Normandy  was  not  on 
feudal  lines.  "  Rollo  divided  out  the  lands  among  his 
powerful  comrades,  and  there  is  scarcely  any  doubt  that 
they  received  these  lands  as  inheritable  property,  without 
any  other  pledge  than  to  help  Rollo  in  the  defence  of 
the  country." 2  "  The  Norman  constitution  at  Rollo's 
death  can  be  described  thus,  that  the  duke  ruled  the 
country  as  an  independent  prince  in  relation  to  the 
Franks  ;  but  for  its  internal  government  he  had  a  council 
at  his  side,  whose  individual  members  felt  themselves 
almost  as  powerful  as  the  duke  himself."8  Sir  Francis 
Palgrave  asserts  that  feudalism  was  introduced  into 
Normandy  by  the  Duke  Richard  Sans  Peur,  the 
grandson  of  Rollo,  towards  the  middle  of  the  loth 
century.  He  "  enforced  a  most  extensive  conversion 
of  allodial  lands  into  feudal  tenure,"  and  exacted  from 
his  baronage  the  same  feudal  submission  which  he 
himself  had  rendered  to  Hugh  Capet.4 

It  is  quite  in  accordance  with  this  that  in  the 
narrative  of  Dudo,  who  is  our  only  authority  for  the 
history  of  Normandy  in  the  xoth  century,  there  is  no 
mention  of  a  private  castle  anywhere.  We  are  told 

1  Ducange  conjectured  that  the  motte-castle  took  its  origin  in  Flanders, 
but  it  was  probably  the  passage  cited  above  from  Lambert  which  led  him  to 
this  conclusion.     See  art.  "  Mota"  in  Ducange's  Glossarium. 

2  Steenstrup,  Normannerne,  i.,  297.  3  Ibid.,  i.,  301. 
4  England  and  Normandy,  ii.,  535. 


THE  INVENTION  OF  MOTTES  77 

that  Rollo  restored  the  walls  and  towers  of  the  cities  of 
Normandy,1  and  it  is  clear  from  the  context  that  the 
castra  of  Rouen,  Fecamp,  and  Evreux,  which  are  men- 
tioned, are  fortified  cities,  not  castles.  Even  the  ducal 
residence  at  Rouen  is  spoken  of  as  a  palatium  or  an 
aula,  not  as  a  castle  ;  and  it  does  not  appear  to  have 
possessed  a  keep  until  (as  we  are  told  by  a  later  writer) 
the  same  Duke  Richard  who  introduced  the  feudal 
system  into  Normandy  built  one  for  his  own  residence.2 
It  is  possible  that  when  the  feudal  oath  was  exacted 
from  the  more  important  barons,  permission  was  given 
to  them  to  build  castles  for  themselves  ;  thus  we  hear 
from  Ordericus  of  the  ^castle  of  Aquila,  built  in  the  days 
of  Duke  Richard  ;  the  castle  of  the  lords  of  Grantmesnil  U^ 
at  Norrei ;  the  castle  of  Belesme ;  all  of  which  appear  ^YK 
to  have  been  private  castles.3  But  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  general  building  of  castles  until  the  time  of 
William  the  Conqueror's  minority,  when  his  rebellious 
subjects  raised  castles  against  him  on  all  sides.  "  Plura 
per  loca  aggeres  erexerunt,  et  tutissimas  sibi  munitiones 
construxerunt."4  It  is  generally,  and  doubtless  cor- 
rectly, supposed  that  aggeres  in  this  passage  means 
mottes,  and  taking  this  statement  along  with  the  great 
number  of  mottes  which  are  still  to  be  found  in 
Normandy,  it  has  been  further  assumed  (and  the  present 
writer  was  disposed  to  share  the  idea)  that  this  was  the 
time  of  the  first  invention  of  mottes.  But  the  facts 

"  Muros  et  propugnacula  civitatum  refecit  et  augmentavit."    Dudo,  p. 
85  (Duchesne's  edition). 

2  Henricus    rex    circa     turrem     Rothomagi,    quant    cedificavit  primus 
Richardus  dux  Normannorum  in  palatium  sibi,  murum  altum  et  latum  cum 
propugnaculis  asdificat."    Robert  of  Toringy,  R.S.,  p.  106. 

3  Ordericus,  ii.,  15,  17,  46  (edition  Prevost). 

4  William  of  Jumieges,   anno  1035.     Mr   Freeman    remarks   that   the 
language  of  William  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  the  practice  of  castle- 
building  was  new. 


78  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIVATE  CASTLES 

which  have  been  now  adduced,  tracing  back  the  first 
known  mottes  to  the  time  of  Thibault-le-Tricheur,  and 
the  county  of  Blois,  show  that  the  Norman  claim  to  the 
invention  of  this  mode  of  fortification  must  be  given  up. 
If  the  Normans  were  late  in  adopting  feudalism,  they 
were  probably  equally  late  in  adopting  private  castles, 
and  the  fortifications  of  William  I.'s  time  were  most  -rO 
likely  copied  from  castles  outside  the  Norman  frontier.1  x  ' 

It  might  be  thought  that  the  general  expectation  of 
the  end  of  the  world  in  the  year  1000,  which  prevailed 
towards  the  end  of  the  loth  century,  had  something  to 
do  with  the  spread  of  these  wooden  castles,  as  it  might 
have  seemed  scarcely  worth  while  to  build  costly 
structures  of  stone.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  resort 
to  this  hypothesis,  because  there  is  quite  sufficient 
evidence  to  show  that  long  before  this  forecast  of  doom 
was  accepted,  wood  was  a  very  common,  if  not  the 
commonest,  material  used  in  fortification.  The  reader 
has  only  to  open  his  Caesar  to  see  how  familiar  wooden 
towers  and  wooden  palisades  were  to  the  Romans  ;  and 
he  has  only  to  study  carefully  the  chronicles  of  the 
9th,  loth,  nth,  and  I2th  centuries  to  see  how  all- 
prevalent  this  mode  of  fortification  continued  to  be. 
The  general  adoption  of  the  feudal  system  must  have 
brought  about  a  demand  for  cheap  castles,  which  was 
excellently  met  by  the  motte  with  its  wooden  keep  and 
its  stockaded  bailey.  M.  Enlart  has  pointed  out  that 

1  There  are  some  facts  which  render  it  probable  that  the  earliest  castles 
built  in  Normandy  were  without  mottes,  and  were  simple  enclosures  like 
those  we  have  described  already.  Thus  the  castle  of  the  great  family  of 
Montgomeri  is  an  enclosure  of  this  simple  kind.  Domfront,  built  by 
William  Talvas  in  Duke  Robert's  time,  has  no  motte.  On  the  other  hand, 
Ivry,  built  by  the  Countess  Albereda  in  Duke  Richard  I.'s  days,  "on  the 
top  of  a  hill  overlooking  the  town "  (William  of  Jumieges),  may  possibly 
have  been  a  motte  ;  and  there  is  a  motte  at  Norrei,  which  we  have  just 
mentioned  as  an  early  Norman  castle. 


J 


SUM  OF  THE  EVIDENCE 


79 


wooden  defences  have  one  important  advantage  over 
stone  ones,  their  greater  cohesion,  which  enabled  them 
to  resist  the  blows  of  the  battering-ram  better  than 
rubble  masonry.1  Their  great  disadvantage  was  their 
liability  to  fire ;  but  this  was  obviated,  as  in  the  time  of 
the  Romans,  by  spreading  wet  hides  over  the  outsides. 
Stone  castles  were  still  built,  where  money  and  means 
were  available,  as  we  see  from  Fulk  Nerra's  keep  at 
Langeais ;  but  the  devastations  of  the  Northmen  had 
decimated  the  population  of  Gaul ;  labour  must  have 
been  dear,  and  skilled  masons  hard  to  find.  In  these 
social  and  economic  reasons  we  have  sufficient  cause  for 
the  rapid  spread  of  wooden  castles  in  France. 

The  sum  of  the  evidence  which  we  have  been 
reviewing  is  this  :  the  earliest  mottes  which  we  know  of 
were  probably  built  byA  Thibault-le-Tricheur  about  the 
middle  of  the  loth  century.  But  in  the  present  state  of 
our  knowledge  we  must  leave  the  question  of  the  time 
and  place  of  their  first  origin  open.  The  only  thing 
about  which  we  can  be  certain  is  that  they  were  the 
product  of  feudalism,  and  cannot  have  arisen  till  it  had 
taken  root ;  that  is  to  say,  not  earlier  than  the  loth 
century. 

1  Manuel  d?  Archaologie  Fran$aise,  p.  457. 


, 


? 


<*** 


-f 


CHAPTER   VI 

DISTRIBUTION    AND    CHARACTERISTICS    OF    MOTTE-CASTLES 

THE  motte-and-bailey  type  of  castle  is  to  be  found 
throughout  feudal  Europe,  but  is  probably  more 
prevalent  in  France  and  the  British  Isles  than  any- 
where else.  We  s-&y  probably,  because  there  are  as  yet 
no  statistics  prepared  on  which  to  base  a  comparison.1 
How  recent  the  inquiry  into  this  subject  is  may  be 
learned  from  the  fact  that  Krieg  von  Hochfelden, 
writing  in  1859,  denied  the  existence  of  mottes  in 
Germany;2  and  even  Cohausen  in  1898  threw  doubt 

1  This  want  will  be  supplied,  as  regards  England,  by  the  completion  of 
the    Victoria   County  Histories,   and    as    regards   France,   by  the   Societe 
Prehistorique,  which  is  now  undertaking  a  catalogue  of  all  the  earthworks 
of  France.     The  late  M.  Mortillet,  in  an  article  in  the  Revue  Mensuelle  de 
PEcole  dAnthropologie,  viii.,  1895,  published  two  lists,  one  of  actual  mottes 
in  France,  the  other  of  place-names  in  which  the  word  motte  is  incorporated. 
Unfortunately  the  first  list  is  extremely  defective,  and  the  second,  as  it  only 
relates  to  the  name,  is  not  a  safe  guide  to  the  proportional  numbers  of  the 
thing.     All  that  the  lists  prove  is  that  mottes  are  to  be  found  in  all  parts  of 
France,  and  that  place-names  into  which  the  word  motte  enters  seem  to  be 
more  abundant  in  Central  France  than  anywhere  else.     It  is  possible  that  a 
careful  examination  of  local  chroniclers  may  lead  to  the  discovery  of  some 
earlier  motte-builder  than  Thibault-le-Tricheur.     We  should  probably  know 
more   about   Thibault's   castles    were   it  not  that  the  Pays  Chartrain,  as 
Palgrave  says,  is  almost  destitute  of  chroniclers. 

2  Cited  at  length  by  De  Caumont,  Bulletin  Monumental,  ix.,  246.     Von 
Hochfelden  considered  that  the  origin  of  .feudal  fortresses   in   Germany 
hardly  goes  back  to  the  loth  century  ;  only  great  dukes  and  counts  then 
thought  of  fortifying  their  manors  ;  those  of  the   small   nobility  date  at 
earliest  from  the  end  of  the  I2th  century. 

80 


MOTTE-CASTLES  81 

upon  them,1  although  General  Kohler  in  1887  had 
already  declared  that  "  the  researches  of  recent  years 
have  shown  that  the  motte  was  spread  over  the  whole 
of  Germany,  and  was  in  use  even  in  the  I3th  and  I4th 
centuries."2  The  greater  number  of  the  castles 
described  by  Piper  in  his  work  on  Austrian  castles  are 
on  the  motte-and-bailey  plan,  though  the  motte  in 
those  mountainous  provinces  is  generally  of  natural 
rock,  isolated  either  by  nature  or  art.  Mottes  were  not 
uncommon  in  Italy,  according  to  Muratori,8  and  are 
especially  frequent  in  Calabria,  where  we  may  strongly 
suspect  that  they  were  introduced  by  the  Norman 
conqueror,  Robert  Guiscard.4  It  is  not  improbable  that 
the  Franks  of  the  first  crusade  planted  in  Palestine  the 
type  of  castle  to  which  they  were  accustomed  at  home, 
for  several  of  the  excellent  plans  in  Key's  Architecture 
des  Croise's  show  clearly  enough  the  motte-and-bailey 
plan.5  In  most  of  these  cases  the  motte  was  a  natural 
rock. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  are  told  by  Kohler  that 
motte-castles  are  not  found  among  the  Slavonic  nations, 
because  they  never  adopted  the  feudal  system.'  Nor 
are  there  any  in  Norway  or  Sweden.7  Denmark  has 

1  Die  Befcstigungen  der  Vorzeit,  p.  28. 

2  Entwickelung  des  Kriegswesens,  Hi.,  370. 

3  Antiquitates  Italica,  ii.,  504.     He  says  they  are  many  times  mentioned 
both  in  charters  and  chronicles  in  Italy. 

4  We  hear  of  Robert  Guiscard  building  a  wooden  castle  on  a  hill  at 
Rocca  di  St  Martino  in   1047.     Amari,  Storia  del  Musulmani  di  Sicilia, 
i.,  43.     Several  place-names  in  Italy  and  Sicily  are  compounded  with  motta, 
as  the  Motta  Sant'  Anastasia  in  Sicily.     See  Amari,  ibid.)  p.  220. 

6  Especially  Montfort  and  Blanchegarde.     But  there  is  a  wide  field  for 
further  research  both  in  Palestine  and  Sicily. 

8  "Bei    den    Sclaven    haben    die    Chateaux-a-motte    keinen  Eingang 
gefunden,  weil  ihnen  das  Lehnswesen  fremd  geblieben  ist."     iii.,  338. 

7  Professor  Montelius  informed  the  writer  that  they  are  quite  unknown 
in  Norway  or  Sweden  ;  and  Dr  Christison  obtained  an  assurance  to  tke 
same  effect  from  Herr  Hildebrand. 

r 


82  MOTTE-CASTLES 

some,  which  are  attributed  by  Dr  Sophus  Muller  to  the 
mediaeval  period.1 

Of  course  whenever  a  motte  was  thrown  up,  the  first 
castle  upon  it  must  have  been  a  wooden  one.  A  stone 
keep  could  not  be  placed  on  loose  soil.2  The  motte, 
therefore,  must  always  represent  the  oldest  castle.  But 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  motte  and  its 
wooden  keep  were  merely  temporary  expedients,  intended 
always  to  be  replaced  as  soon  as  possible  by  stone 
buildings.  .Even  after  stone  castles  had  been  fully 
developed,  wood  continued  to  hold  its  ground  as  a  solid 
building  material  until  a  very  late  period.3  And  mottes 
were  used  not  only  throughout  the  nth  and  i2th 
centuries,  but  even  as  late  as  the  I3th.  King  John 
built  many  castles  of  this  type  in  Ireland  ;  and  as  late 
as  1242  Henry  III.  ordered  a  motte  and  wooden  castle 
to  be  built  in  the  island  of  Rhe.4  Muratori  gives  a 
much  later  instance:  in  1320  Can  Grande  caused  a 
great  motte  to  be  built  near  Pavia,  and  surrounded  with 
a  ditch  and  hedge,  in  order  to  build  a  castle  on  it.5 

1  "These  are  small  well-defended  places,  the  stronghold  of  the  individual, 
built  for  a  great  man   and  his  followers,   and    answering  to    mediaeval 
conditions,  to  a  more  or  less  developed  feudal  system."     Vor  Oldtid,  p.  642. 

2  I  am  informed  by  a  skilled  engineer  that  even  in  the  wet  climate  of 
England  it  would  take  about  ten  years  for  the  soil  to  settle  sufficiently  to 
bear  a  stone  building. 

3  Kohler  says  :  "  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  castles  of  the  Teutonic 
knights  in  Prussia,  until  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  were  of  wood 
and  earth."    Die  Entwickelung  des  Kriegswesen,  iii.,  376. 

4  Cal.  of  Patent  Rolls,  1232-1247,  p.  340.     Mandate  to  provost  of  Oleron  to 
let  Frank  De  Brene  have  tools  to  make  a  new  motte  in  the  isle  of  Rhe. 
Later  the  masters  and  crews  of  the  king's  galleys  are  ordered  to  help  in 
building  the  motte  and  the  wooden  castle.     P.  343. 

5  Antiquitates  Italics,  ii.,  504.     Can  Grande's  motte  at  Padua.     Anno 
1320.    "  Dominus  Alternerius  [podesta  of  Padua]  .  .  .  cum  maxima  quantitate 
peditum  et  balistariorum  Civitatis  Paduae,  iverunt  die  predicto  summo  mane 
per  viam  Pontis  Corvi  versus  quamdam  motam  magnam,  quam  faciebat 
facere    Dominus    Canis,    cum    multis    fossis    et    tajatis    ad    claudendum 
Paduanos,   ne  exirent  per  illam  partem,  et  volendo  ibidem  super  illam 


THEIR  DISTRIBUTION  83 

And  as  will  be  seen  in  the  next  chapter,  there  is 
considerable  evidence  that  many  mottes  in  England 
which  were  set  up  in  the  reign  of  William  I.,  retained 
their  wooden  towers  or  stockades  even  till  as  late  as  the 
reign  of  Edward  I.  The  motte  at  Drogheda  held  out 
some  time  against  Cromwell,  and  is  spoken  of  by  him 
as  a  very  strong  place,  having  a  good  graft  (ditch)  and 
strongly  palisaded.1  Tickhill  Castle  in  Yorkshire  had  a 
palisade  on  the  counterscarp  of  the  ditch  when  it  was 
taken  by  Cromwell.2 

The  position  of  these  motte-castles  is  wholly 
different  from  that  of  prehistoric  fortresses.  They  are 
almost  invariably  placed  in  the  arable  country,  and  as 
a  rule  not  in  isolated  situations,  but  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  towns  or  villages.  It  is  rare  indeed 
to  find  a  motte-castle  in  a  wild,  mountainous  situation 
in  England.  The  only  instance  which  occurs  to  the 
writer  is  that  of  the  motte  on  the  top  of  the  Hereford 
Beacon ;  but  there  is  great  probability  that  this  was  a 
post  fortified  by  the  Bishop  of  Hereford  in  the  I3th 
century  to  protect  his  game  from  the  Earl  of  Gloucester. 
Nothing  pointing  to  a  prehistoric  origin  was  found  in 
this  motte  when  it  was  excavated  by  Mr  Hilton  Price,8 
though  the  camp  in  which  it  is  placed  is  supposed  to 
be  prehistoric. 

The  great  majority  of  mottes  in  England  are  planted 

motam  aedificare  castrum.  Tune  praedictus  Potestas  cum  aliis  nominatis 
splanare  incceperunt,  et  difecerunt  dictam  motam  cum  tajatis  et  fossa 
magna." 

We  may  remark  here  that  as  early  as  the  i;th  century  the  learned 
Muratori  protested  against  the  equation  of  mota  and/ossatum,  and  laughed 
at  Spelman  for  making  this  translation  of  mota  in  his  Glossary.  Antiqui- 
tates  ItaliccE^  ii.,  504. 

1  Cited  by  Westropp,  Journal  of  R.S.A.,  Ireland,  1904. 

2  Vicars'   Parliamentary   Chronicle,   cited    by    Hunter,    South     Yorks, 
ii.,  235.          3  "Camps  on  the  Malvern  Hills,"  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.,  x.,  319. 


84  MOTTE-CASTLES 

either  on  or  near  Roman  or  other  ancient  roads,  or  on 
navigable  rivers.1  It  was  essential  to  the  Norman 
settlers  that  they  should  be  near  some  road  which  would 
help  them  to  visit  their  other  estates,  which  William  had 
been  so  careful  to  scatter,  and  would  also  enable  them  to 
revisit  from  time  to  time  their  estates  in  Normandy.2 
The  rivers  of  England  were  much  fuller  of  water  in 
mediaeval  times  than  they  are  now,  and  were  much  more 
extensively  used  for  traffic ;  they  were  real  waterways. 
When  we  find  a  motte  perched  on  a  river  which  is  not 
navigable,  the  purpose  probably  was  to  defend  some 
ford,  or  to  exact  tolls  from  passengers.  Thus  the  Ferry 
Hill  (corrupted  into  Fairy  Hill)  at  Whitwood  stands  at 
the  spot  where  the  direct  road  from  Pontefract  to  Leeds 
would  cross  the  Calder.  It  was  probably  not  usual  for 
the  motte  to  be  dependent  on  a  stream  or  a  spring  for 
its  supply  of  water,  and  this  is  another  point  in  which 
the  mediaeval  castle  differs  markedly  from  the  prehistoric 
camp ;  wells  have  been  found  in  a  number  of  mottes 
which  have  been  excavated,  and  it  is  probable  that  this 
was  the  general  plan,  though  we  have  not  sufficient 
statistics  on  this  subject  as  yet.3 

Occasionally,  but  very  rarely,  we  find  two  mottes  in 
the  same  castle.  The  only  instances  in  England  known 
to  the  writer  are  at  Lewes  and  Lincoln.4  It  is  not 

1  M.  de  Salies  has  traced  in  detail  the  connection  between  Fulk  Nerra's 
castles  and  the  Roman  roads  of  Anjou  and  Touraine. 

2  See  some  excellent  remarks  on  this  subject  in  Mr  W.  St  John  Hope's 
paper  on  "  English  Fortresses  "  in  Arch.  Journ.^  lx.,  72-90. 

3  Only  a  very  small  number  of  mottes  have   as  yet  been  excavated. 
Wells   were  found  at  Almondbury,  Berkeley,  Berkhampstead,  Carisbrook, 
Conisborough,  Kenilworth,  Northallerton,  Norwich,  Pontefract,  Oxford,  Tun- 
bridge,  Worcester,  and  York.     At  Caus,  there  is  a  well  in  the  ditch  between 
the  motte  and  the  bailey.     Frequently  there  is  a  second  well  in  the  bailey. 

4  The  writer  at  one  time  thought  that  the  ruins  at  the  east  end  of  the 
castle  of  Pontefract  concealed  a  second  motte,  but  wishes  now  to  recant 
this  opinion.     Eng.  Hist.  Review^  xix.,  419. 


SIEGE  CASTLES  85 

unfrequent  to  find  a  motte  very  near  a  stone  castle.  In 
this  case  it  is  either  the  abandoned  site  of  the  original 
wooden  castle,  or  it  is  a  siege  castle  raised  to  blockade 
the  other  one.  We  constantly  hear  of  these  siege 
castles  being  built  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  their  purpose 
was  not  for  actual  attack,  but  to  watch  the  besieged  fort 
and  prevent  supplies  from  being  carried  in.1  Hillocks 
were  also  thrown  up  for  the  purpose  of  placing  balistce 
and  other  siege  engines  upon  them ;  but  these  would  be 
much  smaller  than  mottes,  and  would  be  placed  much 
nearer  the  walls  than  blockade  castles. 

The  mottes  of  France  are  in  all  probability  much 
more  decidedly  military  than  those  of  England. 
France  was  a  land  of  private  war,  after  the  dissolution 
of  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  ;  and  no  doubt  one  of  the 
reasons  for  the  rapid  spread  of  the  motte-castle,  after  its 
invention,  was  due  to  the  facilities  which  it  offered  for 
this  terrible  game.  In  England  the  reasons  for  the 
erection  of  mottes  seem  to  have  been  manorial  rather 
than  military  ;  that  is,  the  Norman  landholder  desired  a 
safe  residence  for  himself  amidst  a  hostile  peasantry, 
rather  than  a  strong  military  position  which  could  hold 
out  against  skilful  and  well-armed  foes. 

Attached  to  the  castle,  both  in  England  and  abroad, 
we  frequently  find  an  additional  enclosure,  much  larger 
than  the  comparatively  small  area  of  the  bailey  proper. 
This  was  the  burgiis  or  borough,  which  inevitably 
sprang  up  round  every  castle  which  had  a  lengthened 
existence.  Our  older  antiquaries,  finding  that  the  word 
burgenses  was  commonly  used  in  Domesday  in  connection 

1  Thus  Henry  I.  erected  a  siege  castle  to  watch  Bridgenorth  (probably 
Pampudding  Hill),  and  then  went  off  to  besiege  another  castle.  Mr  Orpen 
kindly  informs  me  that  the  camp  from  which  Philip  Augustus  besieged 
Chateau  Gaillard  contains  a  motte.  Outside  Pickering,  Corfe,  and  Exeter 
there  are  earthworks  which  have  probably  been  siege  castles. 


86  MOTTE-CASTLES 

with  a  site  where  a  castle  existed,  formed  the  mistaken 
idea  that  a  burgus  necessarily  implied  a  castle.  But  a 
burgus  was  the  same  thing  as  a  burh,  that  is,  a  borough 
or  fortified  town.  It  may  have  existed  long  before  the 
castle,  or  it  may  have  been  created  after  the  castle  was 
built.  The  latter  case  was  very  common,  for  the  noble 
who  built  a  castle  would  find  it  to  his  advantage  to 
build  a  burgus  near  it.1  In  exchange  for  the  protection 
offered  by  the  borough  wall  or  bank,  he  could  demand 
gablum  or  rent  from  the  burghers ;  he  could  compel 
them  to  grind  their  corn  at  his  mill,  and  bake  their 
bread  at  his  oven ;  he  could  exact  tolls  on  all  com- 
modities entering  the  borough ;  and  if  there  was  a 
market  he  would  receive  a  certain  percentage  on  all 
sales.  The  borough  was  therefore  an  important  source 
of  revenue  to  the  baron.  Domesday  Book  mentions  the 
new  borough  at  Rhuddlan,  evidently  built  as  soon  as  the 
castle  had  been  planted  on  the  deserted  banks  of  the 
Clwydd.  In  some  cases  a  "  new  borough"  is  clearly  a 
new  suburb,  doubtless  having  its  own  fortifications, 
built  specially  for  the  protection  of  the  Norman  settlers 
in  England,  as  at  Norwich  and  Nottingham.2 

That  even  in  the  I2th  century  a  motte  was  considered 
an  essential  feature  of  a  castle  is  shown  by  Neckham's 
treatise  "  De  Utensilibus,"  where  he  gives  directions  as  to 
how  a  castle  should  be  built ;  the  motte  should  be 
placed  on  a  site  well  defended  by  nature ;  it  should  have 
a  stockade  of  squared  logs  round  the  top ;  the  keep 
on  the  motte  should  be  furnished  with  turrets  and 
battlements,  and  crates  of  stones  for  missiles  should  be 

1  Henry  II.  built  a  castle  and  very  fine  borough  (burgum  pergrande)  at 
Beauvoir  in  Maine.    Robert  of  Torigny^  R.S.,  p.  243.     Minute  regulations 
concerning  the  founding  of  the  borough  of  Overton  are  given  in  Close  Rolls, 
Edward  I.  (1288-1296),  p.  285. 

2  See  Round,  Studies  in  Domesday r,  pp.  125,  126. 


THE  EVIDENCE  OF  TAPESTRY  87 

always  provided,  as  well  as  a  perpetual  spring  of  water, 
and  secret  passages  and  posterns,  by  which  help  might 
reach  the  besieged.1 

What  the  outward  appearance  of  these  motte-castles 
was  we  learn  from  the  Bayeux  Tapestry,  which  gives  us 
several  instructive  pictures  of  motte-castles  existing  in 
the  nth  century  at  Dol,  Rennes,  Dinan,  and  Bayeux.2 
There  is  considerable  variety  in  these  pictures,  and 
something  no  doubt  must  be  ascribed  to  fancy  ;  but  all 
show  the  main  features  of  a  stockade  round  the  top  of 
the  motte,  enclosing  a  wooden  tower,  a  ditch  round  the 
foot  of  the  motte,  with  a  bank  on  the  counterscarp, 
and  a  stepped  wooden  bridge,  up  which  horses  were 
evidently  trained  to  climb,  leading  across  the  moat  to 
the  stockade  of  the  motte.  In  no  case  is  the  bailey 
distinctly  depicted,  but  we  may  assume  that  it  has  been 
already  taken,  and  that  the  horsemen  are  riding  over  it 
to  the  gate-house  which  (in  the  picture  of  Dinan)  stands 
at  the  foot  of  the  bridge.  The  towers  appear  to  be 
square,  but  in  the  case  of  Rennes  and  Bayeux,  are 
surmounted  by  a  cupola  roof.  Decoration  does  not 
appear  to  be  have  been  neglected,  and  the  general 
appearance  of  the  buildings,  far  from  being  of  a  make- 
shift  character,  must  have  been  very  picturesque. 

The  picture  of  the  building  of  the  motte  at  Hastings 
shows  only  a  stockade  on  top  of  the  motte  ;  this  may  be 
because  the  artist  intended  to  represent  the  work  as 
incomplete.  What  is  remarkable  about  this  picture  is 
that  the  motte  appears  to  be  formed  in  layers  of 
different  materials.  We  might  ascribe  this  to  the  fancy 

1  Neckham,  "  De  Utensilibus,"  in  Wright's   Volume  of  Vocabularies,  pp. 
103,    104.     Unfortunately    this    work   of    Neckham's   was   not  written   to 
explain  the  construction  of  motte  castles,  but  to  furnish  his  pupils  with  the 
Latin  names  of  familiar  things  ;  a  good  deal  of  it  is  very  obscure  now. 

2  See  frontispiece. 


88  MOTTE-CASTLES 

of  the  embroiderer,  were  it  not  that  layers  of  this  kind 
have  occasionally  been  found  in  mottes  which  have  been 
excavated  or  destroyed.  Thus  the  motte  at  Carisbrook, 
which  was  opened  in  1903,  was  found  to  be  composed  of 
alternate  layers  of  large  and  small  chalk  rubble.  In 
some  cases,  layers  of  stones  have  been  found  ;  in  others 
(as  at  York  and  Burton)  a  motte  formed  of  loose 
material  has  been  cased  in  a  sort  of  pie-crust  of  heavy 
clay.  In  the  Castle  Hill  at  Hallaton  in  Leicestershire 
layers  of  peat  and  hazel  branches,  as  well  as  of  clay 
and  stone  boulders,  were  found.  But  our  information  on 
this  subject  is  too  scanty  to  justify  any  generalisations 
as  to  the  general  construction  of  mottes. 

The  pictures  shown  in  the  Bayeux  Tapestry  agree 
very  well  with  the  description  given  by  a  12th-century 
writer  of  the  castle  of  Merchem,  near  Dixmude,  in  the 
life  of  John,  Bishop  of  Terouenne,  who  died  in  1130. 
"  Bishop  John  used  to  stay  frequently  at  Merchem  when 
he  was  going  round  his  diocese.  Near  the  churchyard 
was  an  exceedingly  high  fortification,  which  might  be 
called  a  castle  or  municipium,  built  according  to  the 
fashion  of  that  country  by  the  lord  of  the  manor  many 
years  before.  For  it  is  the  custom  of  the  nobles  of  that 
region,  who  spend  their  time  for  the  most  part  in  private 
war,  in  order  to  defend  themselves  from  their  enemies 
to  make  a  hill  of  earth,  as  high  as  they  can,  and  encircle 
it  with  a  ditch  as  broad  and  deep  as  possible.  They 
surround  the  upper  edge  of  this  hill  with  a  very  strong 
wall  of  hewn  logs,  placing  towers  on  the  circuit,  accord- 
ing to  their  means.  Inside  this  wall  they  plant  their 
house,  or  keep  (arcem),  which  overlooks  the  whole  thing. 
The  entrance  to  this  fortress  is  only  by  a  bridge,  which 
rises  from  the  counterscarp  of  the  ditch,  supported  on 
double  or  even  triple  columns,  till  it  reaches  the  upper 


THE  WOODEN  CASTLE  OF  ARDRES  89 

edge  of  the  motte  (agger)."  1  The  chronicler  goes  on  to 
relate  how  this  wooden  bridge  broke  down  under  the 
crowd  of  people  who  were  following  the  bishop,  and  all 
fell  35  feet  into  the  ditch,  where  the  water  was  up  to 
their  knees.  There  is  no  mention  of  a  bailey  in  this 
account,  but  a  bailey  was  so  absolutely  necessary  to 
a  residential  castle,  in  order  to  find  room  for  the 
stables,  lodgings,  barns,  smithies  and  other  work- 
shops, which  were  necessary  dependencies  of  a  feudal 
household,  that  it  can  seldom  have  been  omitted, 
and  the  comparatively  rare  instances  which  we  find 
of  mottes  which  appear  never  to  have  had  baileys 
were  probably  outposts  dependent  on  some  more  im- 
portant castle. 

Lambert  of  Ardres,  the  panegyrist  of  the  counts  of 
Guisnes,2  writing  about  1194,  gives  us  a  minute  and 
most  interesting  description  of  the  wooden  castle  of 
Ardres,  built  about  the  year  1117.  "Arnold,  lord  of 
Ardres,  built  on  the  motte  of  Ardres  a  wooden  house, 
excelling  all  the  houses  of  Flanders  of  that  period  both 
in  material  and  in  carpenter's  work.  The  first  storey 
was  on  the  surface  of  the  ground,  where  were  cellars 
and  granaries,  and  great  boxes,  tuns,  casks,  and  other 
domestic  utensils.  In  the  storey  above  were  the  dwelling 
and  common  living  rooms  of  the  residents,  in  which  were 
the  larders,  the  rooms  of  the  bakers  and  butlers,  and  the 
great  chamber  in  which  the  lord  and  his  wife  slept. 
Adjoining  this  was  a  private  room,  the  dormitory  of  the 
waiting  maids  and  children.  In  the  inner  part  of  the 
great  chamber  was  a  certain  private  room,  where  at 

1  Ac  fa  Sanctorum,  27th  January,  Bolland,   iii.,   414.      This   biography 
was  written  only  nine  months  after  Bishop  John's  death,  by  an  intimate 
friend,  John  de  Collemedio. 

2  Guisnes  is  now  in  Picardy,  but  in  the  I2th  century  it  was  in  Flanders, 
which  was  a  fief  of  the  Empire. 


90  MOTTE-CASTLES 

early  dawn  or  in  the  evening  or  during  sickness  or  at 
time  of  blood-letting,  or  for  warming  the  maids  and 
weaned  children,  they  used  to  have  a  fire.  ...  In  the 
upper  storey  of  the  house  were  garret  rooms,  in  which 
on  the  one  side  the  sons  (when  they  wished  it)  on  the 
other  side  the  daughters  (because  they  were  obliged)  of 
the  lord  of  the  house  used  to  sleep.  In  this  storey  also 
the  watchmen  and  the  servants  appointed  to  keep  the 
house  took  their  sleep  at  some  time  or  other.  High  up 
on  the  east  side  of  the  house,  in  a  convenient  place,  was 
the  chapel,  which  was  made  like  unto  the  tabernacle  of 
Solomon  in  its  ceiling  and  painting.  There  were  stairs 
and  passages  from  storey  to  storey,  from  the  house  into 
the  kitchen,  from  room  to  room,  and  again  from  the 
house  into  the  loggia  (logium),  where  they  used  to  sit  in 
conversation  for  recreation,  and  again  from  the  loggia 
into  the  oratory."  x 

This  description  proves  that  these  wooden  castles 
were  no  mere  rude  sheds  for  temporary  occupation,  but 
that  they  were  carefully  built  dwellings  designed  for 
permanent  residence.  The  description  is  useful  for  the 
light  it  throws  on  the  stone  keeps  whose  ruins  remain  to 
us.  They  probably  had  very  similar  arrangements,  and 
though  only  their  outside  walls  are  now  existing,  they 
must  have  been  divided  into  different  rooms  by  wooden 
partitions  which  have  now  perished.2 

In  this  account  of  Lambert's  it  is  further  mentioned 
that  the  kitchen  was  joined  to  the  house  or  keep,  and 
was  a  building  of  two  floors,  the  lower  one  being 
occupied  by  live  stock,  while  the  upper  one  was  the 
actual  kitchen.  We  must  remember  that  this  account 

1  This  description  is  from  the  Historia  Ardensium  of  Walter  de  Clusa, 
which  is  interpolated  in  the  work  of  Lambert,  Bouquet,  pp.  13,  624. 

2  Yet  in  some  of  the  later  keeps,  such  as  Conisburgh,  where  we  find  only 
one  window  to  a  storey,  the  room  must  have  been  undivided. 


TERMS  AND  DETAILS  91 

was  written  at  the  end  of  the  I2th  century.  In  the 
earlier  and  simpler  manners  of  the  nth  century  it  is 
probable  that  the  cooking  was  more  generally  carried  on 
in  the  open  air,  as  it  was  among  the  Anglo-Saxons.1 
The  danger  of  fire  would  prevent  the  development  of 
chimneys  in  wooden  castles  ;  we  have  seen  that  there 
was  only  one  in  this  wonderful  castle  of  Ardres.  But 
even  after  stone  castles  became  common,  we  have  evidence 
that  the  kitchen  was  often  an  isolated  building  in  the 
courtyard.  One  such  kitchen  still  exists  in  the  monastic 
ruins  of  Glastonbury. 

The  word  mota,  which  was  used  in  the  I2th  century 
for  the  artificial  hills  on  which  the  wooden  keeps  of  these 
castles  were  placed,  comes  from  an  old  French  word 
motte,  meaning  a  clod  of  earth,  which  is  still  used  in 
France  for  a  small  earthen  hillock.2  The  keep  itself 
appears  to  have  been  called  a  bretasche,  though  this  word 
seems  to  have  meant  a  wooden  tower  of  any  kind,  and 
was  used  both  for  mural  towers  and  for  the  movable 
wooden  towers  employed  for  sieges.8  At  a  much  later 
period  it  was  given  to  the  wooden  balconies  by  which 
walls  were  defended,  but  the  writer  has  found  no  instance 
of  this  use  of  the  word  before  the  I4th  century.  On  the 
contrary,  these  wooden  galleries  for  the  purpose  of 
defending  the  foot  of  the  walls  by  throwing  missiles 
down  are  called  hiirdicia  or  hourdes  in  the  documents,  a 

1  See  Wright,  History  of  Domestic  Manners^  p.  26. 

2  According  to    Littre,   the   original   derivation   of  the   word  motte  is 
unknown.     I  have  not  found  any  instance  of  the  word  mota  in  chronicles 
earlier  than  the  I2th  century,  but  the  reason  appears  to  be  that  mota  or 
motte  was  a  folk's  word,  and  appeared  undignified  to  an  ambitious  writer. 
Thus  the  author  of  the  Gesta  Consulum  Andegavensium  says  that  Geoffrey 
Martel,   Count  of  Anjou,  gave  to   a  certain  Fulcoius  the  fortified  house 
which  is  still  called  by  the  vulgar  Mota  Fulcoii.     D'Achery,  Spicilegium^ 
p.  257. 

3  See  Appendix  G. 


92  MOTTE-CASTLES 

word  of  cognate  origin  to  our  word  hoarding?  The 
word  bretasche  is  also  of  Teutonic  origin,  akin  to  the 
German  brett,  a  board. 

The  court  at  the  base  of  the  hillock  is  always  called 
the  ballium,  bayle,  or  bailey,  a  word  for  which  Skeat 
suggests  the  Latin  baculus,  a  stick,  as  a  possible  though 
very  doubtful  ancestor.  The  wooden  wall  which  sur- 
rounded this  court  was  the  palum,  pelum,  or  palitium  of 
the  documents,  a  word  which  Mr  Neilson  has  proved  to 
be  the  origin  of  the  peels  so  common  in  Lowland  Scotland, 
though  it  has  been  mistakenly  applied  to  the  towers 
enclosed  by  these  peels.2  The  palitium  was  the  stock- 
ade on  the  inner  bank  of  the  ditch  which  enclosed  the 
bailey ;  but  the  outer  or  counterscarp  bank  had  also  its 
special  defence,  called  the  hericio,  from  its  bristling  nature 
(French  he'risson,  a  hedgehog).  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  was  sometimes  an  actual  hedge  of  brambles, 
at  other  times  of  stakes  intertwined  with  osiers  or 
thorns.8 

Thus  the  words  most  commonly  used  in  connection 
with  these  wooden  castles  are  chiefly  French  in  form, 
but  a  French  that  is  tinctured  with  Teutonic  blood. 
This  is  just  what  we  might  expect,  since  the  first  castles 
of  feudalism  arose  on  Gallic  soil  (France  or  Flanders), 
but  on  soil  which  was  ruled  by  men  of  Teutonic  descent. 
We  may  regard  it  as  fairly  certain  that  it  was  in  the 
region  anciently  known  as  Neustria  that  the  motte-castle 
first  appeared  ;  and  as  we  have  previously  shown,  there 
is  some  reason  to  think  that  the  centre  of  that  region 

1  See  Appendix  H. 

2  Peel,  its  Meaning  and  Derivation,  by  George  Neilson. 

3  See  Appendix  I.     Cohausen  has  some  useful  remarks  on  the  use  of 
hedges  in  fortification.     Befestigungen  der   Vorzeit,  pp.  8-13.    A  quickset 
hedge  had  the  advantage  of  resisting  fire.     The  word  sepes,  which  properly 
means  a  hedge,  is  often  applied  to  the  palitium. 


ORIGIN  IN  FRANCE  93 

was  the  place  where  it  originated.  But  this  must  for 
the  present  remain  doubtful.  What  we  regard  as  certain 
is  that  it  was  from  France,  and  from  Normandy  in 
particular,  that  it  was  introduced  into  the  British  Isles  ; 
and  to  those  islands  we  must  now  turn. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   CASTLES    OF   THE    NORMANS    IN    ENGLAND 

IN  this  chapter  we  propose  to  give  a  list,  in  alphabetical 
order  for  convenience  of  reference,  of  the  castles  which 
are  known  to  have  existed  in  England  in  the  nth  century, 
because  they  are  mentioned  either  in  Domesday  Book, 
or  in  charters  of  the  period,  or  in  some  contemporary 
chronicle.1  We  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  this 
catalogue  of  eighty-four  castles  is  a  complete  list  of  those 
which  were  built  in  England  in  the  reigns  of  William  I.  and 
William  II.  We  have  little  doubt  that  all  the  castles  in 
the  county  towns,  such  as  Leicester,  Northampton,  and 
Guildford,  and  those  which  we  hear  of  first  as  the  seats 
of  important  nobles  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  such  as 
Marlborough,  Groby,  Bungay,  Ongar,  were  castles  built 
shortly  after  the  Conquest,  nearly  all  of  them  being 
places  which  have  (or  had)  mottes.  Domesday  Book 
only  mentions  fifty  castles  in  England  and  Wales,2  but 

1  This  list  or  catalogue  raisonnt  was  originally  published  in  the  English 
Historical  Review  for  1904  (vol.  xix.).      It  is  now  reproduced  with  such 
corrections  as  were  necessary,  and  with  the  addition  of  five  more  castles,  as 
well  as  of  details  about  thirty-four  castles  for  which  there  was  not  space  in 
the  Review.    The  Welsh  castles  are  omitted  from  this  list,  as  they  will  be 
given  in  a  separate  chapter. 

2  The  list  is  brought  up  to  fifty  by  interpreting  the  regis  domus  of 
Winchester  to  be  Winchester  castle  ;  the  reasons  for  this  will  be  given  later. 
The  number  would  be  increased  to  fifty-two  if  we  counted  Ferle  and  Bourne 
in  Sussex  as  castles,  as  Mr  Freeman  does  in  his  Norman  Conquest^  v.,  808. 

94 


NORMAN  CASTLES  IN  ENGLAND  95 

it  is  well  known  that  the  Survey  is  as  capricious  in  its 
mention  of  castles  as  in  its  mention  of  churches.  It  is 
possible  that  further  research  in  charters  which  the 
writer  has  been  unable  to  examine  may  furnish  additional 
castles,  but  the  list  now  given  may  be  regarded  as 
complete  as  far  as  materials  generally  accessible  will 
allow.1  One  of  the  castles  mentioned  (Richard's  Castle) 
and  probably  two  others  (Hereford  and  Ewias)  existed 
before  the  Conquest ;  they  were  the  work  of  those 
Norman  friends  of  Edward  the  Confessor  whom  he 
endowed  with  lands  in  England. 

Out  of  this  list  of  eighty-four  castles  we  shall  find 
that  no  less  than  seventy-one  have  or  had  mottes.  The 
exceptions  are  the  Tower  of  London,  Colchester, 
Pevensey,  and  Chepstow,  where  a  stone  keep  was  part 
of  the  original  design,  and  a  motte  was  therefore 
unnecessary  :  Bamborough,  Peak,  and  Tynemouth, 
where  the  site  was  sufficiently  defended  by  precipices  : 
Carlisle  and  Richmond,  whose  original  design  is  un- 
known to  us  :  Belvoir,  Dover,  Exeter,  and  Monmouth, 
which  might  on  many  grounds  be  counted  as  motte- 
castles,  but  as  the  evidence  is  not  conclusive,  we  do 
not  mark  them  as  such  ;  but  even  if  we  leave  them  out, 
with  the  other  exceptions,  we  shall  find  that  nearly  86 
per  cent,  of  our  list  of  castles  of  the  nth  century  are  of 
the  motte-and-bailey  type. 

About  forty-three  of  these  castles  are  attached  to 

But  the  language  of  Domesday  seems  only  to  mean  that  the  lands  of  these 
manors  were  held  of  Hastings  castle  by  the  service  of  castle-guard.  See 
D.  B.,  i.,  pp.  21  and  206. 

1  The  total  number  would  be  eighty-six  if  Burton  and  Aldreth  were 
included.  Burton  castle  is  mentioned  in  Domesday,  but  there  is  no  further 
trace  of  its  existence.  The  castle  of  Alrehede  or  Aldreth  in  the  island  of 
Ely  is  stated  by  the  Liber  Eliensis  to  have  been  built  by  the  Conqueror,  but 
no  remains  of  any  kind  appear  to  exist  now.  Both  these  castles  are  there- 
fore omitted  from  the  list. 


96       CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

towns.  Of  these,  less  than  a  third  are  placed  inside 
the  Roman  walls  or  the  Saxon  or  Danish  earthworks 
of  the  towns,  while  at  least  two-thirds  are  wholly  or 
partly  outside  these  enclosures.1  This  circumstance  is 
important,  because  the  position  outside  the  town  indicates 
the  mistrust  of  an  invader,  not  the  confidence  of  a 
native  prince.  In  the  only  two  cases  where  we  know 
anything  of  the  position  of  the  residence  of  the  Saxon 
kings  we  find  it  in  the  middle  of  the  city.2  Even  when 
the  castle  is  inside  the  town  walls  it  is  almost  invariably 
close  to  the  walls,  so  that  an  escape  into  the  country 
might  always  be  possible.8 

Of  the  towns  or  manors  in  which  these  castles  were 
situated,  Domesday  Book  gives  us  the  value  in  King 
Edward's  and  King  William's  time  in  sixty-two  instances. 
In  forty-five  cases  the  value  has  risen  ;  in  twelve  it  has 
fallen  ;  in  five  it  is  stationary.  Evidently  something  has 
caused  a  great  increase  of  prosperity  in  these  cases,  and 
it  can  hardly  be  anything  else  than  the  impetus  given  to 
trade  through  the  security  afforded  by  a  Norman  castle. 

Our  list  shows  that  Mr  Clark's  confident  statement, 
that  the  moated  mounds  were  the  centres  of  large  and 
important  estates  in  Saxon  times,  was  a  dream.  Out 
of  forty-one  mottes  in  country  districts,  thirty-six  are 
found  in  places  which  were  quite  insignificant  in  King 
Edward's  day,  and  only  five  can  be  said  to  occupy  the 
centres  of  important  Saxon  manors.4 

1  Exact  numbers  cannot  be  given,  because  in  some  cases  the  bounds  of 
the  ancient  borough  are  doubtful,  as  at  Quatford. 

2  At  Winchester  and  Exeter.     For  Winchester,  see  Milner,  History  of 
Winchester,  ii.,  194  ;  for  Exeter,  Shorrt's  Sylva  Antigua  Iscana,  p.  7. 

3  Colchester  is  the  only  exception  to  this  rule,  as  the  castle  there  is  in  the 
middle  of  the  town ;  but  even  this  is  only  an  apparent  exception,  as  the 
second  bailey  extended  to  the  town  wall  on  the  north,  and  had  been  royal 
demesne  land  even  before  the  Conquest.  See  Round's  Colchester  Castle,  ch.  vii. 

4  These  five  are  Berkeley,  Berkhampstead,  Bourn,  Pontefract,  Rayleigh. 


ABERGAVENNY  97 

In  the  table  in  the  Appendix,  the  area  occupied  by 
the  original  baileys  of  the  castles  in  this  list  has 
been  measured  accurately  by  a  planimeter,  from  the 
25-in.  Ordnance  maps,  in  all  cases  in  which  that  was 
possible.1  This  table  proves  that  the  early  Norman 
castles  were  very  small  in  area,  suitable  only  for  the 
personal  defence  of  a  chieftain  who  had  only  a  small 
force  at  his  disposal,  and  absolutely  unsuited  for  a 
people  in  the  tribal  state  of  development,  like  the 
ancient  Britons,  or  for  the  scheme  of  national  defence 
inaugurated  by  Alfred  and  Edward.  We  may  remark 
here  that  in  not  a  single  case  is  any  masonry  which 
is  certainly  early  Norman  to  be  found  on  one  of  these 
mottes ;  where  the  date  can  be  ascertained,  the  stone- 
work is  invariably  later  than  the  nth  century. 

ABERGAVENNY  (Fig.  8).  —  This  castle,  being  in 
Monmouthshire,  must  be  included  in  our  list.  The 
earliest  notice  of  it  is  a  document  stating  that  Hamelin 
de  Ballon  gave  the  church  and  chapel  of  the  castle  of 
Abergavenny,  and  the  land  for  making  a  bourg,  and  an 
oven  of  their  own,  to  the  Abbey  of  St  Vincent  at 
Le  Mans.2 

The  castle  occupies  a  pointed  spur  at  the  S.  end 
of  the  town,  whose  walls  converge  so  as  to  include  the 
castle  as  part  of  the  defence.  The  motte  has  been 
much  altered  during  recent  years,  and  is  crowned  by 
a  modern  building ;  but  a  plan  in  Coxes  Tour  in 
Monmouthshire,  1800,  shows  it  in  its  original  round 
form.  The  bailey  is  roughly  of  a  pentagonal  shape, 
covering  i  acre,  and  is  defended  by  a  curtain  wall  with 
mural  towers  and  a  gatehouse.  The  ditch  on  the  W. 

1  I  am  indebted  for  these  measurements  to  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie. 

2  Notification  in  Round's  Calendar  of  Documents  preserved  in  France ', 
p.  367.     Mr  Round  dates  the  Notification  1087-1100. 

G 


98        CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

and  N.  is  much  filled  in  and  obscured  by  the 
encroachment  of  the  town.  On  the  E.  the  ground 
descends  in  a  steep  scarp,  which  merges  into  those  of 
the  headland  on  which  the  motte  is  placed.1 

ARUNDEL  (Fig.  8). — "  The  castrum  of  Arundel," 
says  Domesday  Book,  "paid  40^.  in  King  Edward's 
time  from  a  certain  mill,  and  2os.  from  three  boardlands 
(or  feorm-lands),  and  2s.  from  one  pasture.  Now, 
between  the  town  feorm  and  the  water-gate  and  the 
ships'  dues,  it  pays  I2/."  z  Castrum  in  Domesday  nearly 
always  means  a  castle  ;  yet  the  description  here  given 
is  certainly  that  of  a  town  and  not  of  a  castle. 
We  must  therefore  regard  it  as  an  instance  of  the 
fluctuating  meaning  which  both  castrum  and  castellum 
had  in  the  nth  century.3  Arundel  is  one  of  the  towns 
mentioned  in  the  "  Burghal  Hidage." 4  But  even  accept- 
ing that  the  description  in  Domesday  refers  to  the  town, 
we  can  have  very  little  doubt  that  the  original  earthen 
castle  was  reared  by  Roger  de  Montgomeri,  to  whom 
William  I.  gave  the  Rapes  of  Arundel  and  Chichester, 
and  whom  he  afterwards  made  Earl  of  Shrewsbury.5 

1  Description  furnished  by  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie,  F.S.A. 

2  "  Castrum  Harundel  T.  R.  E.  reddebat  de  quodam  molino  40  solidos, 
et  de  3  conviviis  20  solidos,  et  de  uno  pasticio  20  solidos.     Modo  inter 
burgum  et  portum  aquae  et  consuetudinem  navium  reddit  12  libras,  et  tamen 
valet  13.     De  his  habet  S.  Nicolaus  24  solidos.     Ibi.unapiscaria  de  5  solidos 
et  unum  molinum  reddens  10  modia  frumenti,  et  10  modia  grossse  annonas. 
Insuper  4  modia.     Hoc  appreciatum  est  12  libras.     Robertus  films  Tetbaldi 
habet    2   hagas    de    2    solidis,   et    de  hominibus    extraniis     habet    suum 
theloneum."      Several    other  haga  and  burgenses  are    then  enumerated. 
(D.  B.,  i.,  23a,  i.) 

3  See  Mr  Round's  remarks  on  the  words  in  his  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville, 
Appendix  O.     The  above  was  written  before  the  appearance  of  Mr  Round's 
paper  on  "  The  Castles  of  the  Conquest "  (Archczologia,  Iviii.),  in  which  he 
rejects  the  idea  that  castrum  Harundel  means  the  castle. 

4  See  ante,  p.  28. 

6  Florence  of  Worcester  mentions  the  castle  of  Arundel  as  belonging  to 
Roger  de  Montgomeri  in  1088. 


[To  face  p.  98. 


ARUNDEL  99 

Roger  had  contributed  sixty  ships   to   William's  fleet, 
and  both  he  and    his  sons  were    highly  favoured  and 
trusted    by    William,    until     the    sons    forfeited     that 
confidence.     We  shall  see  afterwards  that  their  names 
are   connected   with    several    important    castles    of   the 
early  Norman  settlement.     We  shall  see  also  that  the 
Rapes    into    which    Sussex   was    divided — Chichester, 
Arundel,    Bramber,   Lewes,   Pevensey,  and   Hastings — 
were  all  furnished  with  Norman  castles,  each  with  the  j 
characteristic    motte,    except    Pevensey,    which    had   a   ! 
stone  keep.     Each  of  these  castles,  at  the  time  of  the 
Survey,  defended  a  port  by  which  direct  access  could 
be    had    to    Normandy.     It    was    to   protect    his    base 
that    William    fortified    these   important   estuaries,    and 
committed  them  to    the  keeping  of  some  of  the  most 
prominent  of  the  Norman  leaders. 

The  castle  stands  on  the  end  of  a  high  and  narrow 
ridge  of  the  South  Downs,  above  the  town  of  Arundel. 
It  consists  of  an  oblong  ward,  covering  4^  acres,  in  the 
middle  of  which,  but  on  the  line  of  the  west  wall,  is  a 
large  motte,  about  70  feet  high,  surrounded  by  its  own 
ditch.  The  lower  and  perhaps  original  bailey  is  only 
2  acres  in  extent.  Round  the  top  of  the  motte  is  a 
slightly  oval  wall,  of  the  kind  called  by  Mr  Clark  a 
shell  keep.  We  have  elsewhere  expressed  our  doubts  of 
the  correctness  of  this  term.1  In  all  the  more  important 
castles  we  find  that  the  keep  on  top  of  the  motte  has  a 
small  ward  attached  to  it,  and  Arundel  is  no  exception 
to  this  rule ;  it  has  the  remains  of  a  tower,  as  well  as 
the  wall  round  the  motte.  The  tower  is  a  small  one, 
but  it  is  large  enough  for  the  king's  chamber  in  times 
which  were  not  extravagant  in  domestic  architecture. 
It  is  probable  that  this  tower,  and  the  stone  wall  round 
1  See  Appendix  R. 


100     CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  motte  are  the  work  of  Henry  II.,  as  he  spent  nearly 
34O/.  on  this  castle  between  the  years  1170  and  1187. 
His  work  consisted  chiefly  of  a  wall,  a  king's  chamber, 
a  chapel,  and  a  tower.1  The  wall  of  the  motte  cor- 
responds in  style  to  the  work  of  the  middle  of  his  reign  ; 
it  is  built  of  flints,  but  cased  with  Caen  stone  brought 
from  Normandy,  and  has  Norman  buttresses.  The 
original  Norman  doorway  on  the  south  side  (now  walled 
up)  has  the  chevron  moulding,  which  shows  that  it  is 
not  earlier  than  the  I2th  century.  The  tower,  which  we 
may  assume  to  be  the  tower  of  Henry  II.'s  records,  has 
a  round  arched  entrance,  and  contains  a  chapel  and  a 
chamber  (now  ruined)  besides  a  well  chamber. 

There  is  earlier  Norman  work  still  remaining  in  the 
bailey,  namely,  the  fine  gateway,  which  though  of  plain 
and  severe  Norman,  is  larger  and  loftier  than  the  early 
work  of  that  style,  and  of  superior  masonry.2  The  one 
Pipe  Roll  of  Henry  I.  which  we  possess  shows  that  he 
spent  78/.  6^.  2d.  on  the  castle  in  1130,  and  possibly 
this  refers  to  this  gatehouse.3  We  know  that  Henry 
was  a  great  builder,  but  so  was  the  former  owner  of  this 
castle,  Robert  Belesme,  son  of  Roger  de  Montgomeri. 

The  value  of  the  town  of  Arundel  had  greatly 
increased  since  the  Conquest,  at  the  time  of  the 
Domesday  Survey.4 

BAMBOROUGH,    Northumberland. — We   first    hear   of 

1  The  expenses  entered  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  (1170-1187)  are  for  the  works 
of  the  castle,  the  chamber  and  wall  of  the  castle,  the  houses  of  the  castle  (an 
expression  which  generally  refers  to  the  keep),  and  for  flooring  the  tower 
(turns)  and  making  a  garden.     Turris  is  the  usual  word  for  a  keep,  and  is 
never  applied  to  a  mere  mural  tower. 

2  This  gateway  is  masked  by  a  work  of  the  I3th  century,  which  serves  as 
a  sort  of  barbican. 

3  In  operibus  castelli  de  Arundel  22/.  7*-  8^.     Et  debet  55/.   i8.r.   6d. 
Pipe  Roll,  31,  Henry  I.,  p.  42. 

*  D.  B.,  i.,  23a,  i. 


BAMBOROUGH  101 

this  castle  in  the  reign  of  Rufus,  when  it  was  defended 
against  the  king  by  Robert  Mowbray,  the  rebel  Earl  of 
Northumberland  ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
earliest  castle  on  this  natural  bastion  was  built  in  the 
Conqueror's  reign.  In  the  i3th  century  certain  lands 
were  held  by  the  tenure  of  supplying  wood  to  the  castle 
of  Bamborough,  and  it  was  declared  that  this  obligation 
had  existed  ever  since  the  time  of  William  I.1  William 
certainly  found  no  castle  there,  for  Bamborough  had 
fallen  into  utter  ruin  and  desolation  by  the  middle  of 
the  nth  century.2  William's  hold  on  Northumberland 
was  too  precarious  to  give  opportunity  for  so  long  and 
costly  a  work  as  the  building  of  a  stone  keep.  It  is 
more  probable  that  a  strong  wooden  castle  was  the 
fortress  of  the  governors  of  Northumberland  under  the 
first  Norman  kings,  and  that  the  present  stone  keep  was 
built  in  Henry  II.'s  reign.3  There  is  no  motte  at 
Bamborough,  nor  was  one  needed  on  a  site  which  is 
itself  a  natural  motte,  more  precipitous  and  defensible 
than  any  artificial  hill.4  As  the  Domesday  Survey  does 
not  extend  to  Northumberland,  we  have  no  statement 
of  the  value  of  Bamborough.  The  area  of  the  castle  is 
4f  acres. 

1  Testa  de  Nevill,  i.,  iii.,   236,  cited  by  C.  Bates,  in  a  very  valuable 
paper  on  Bamborough  Castle,  in  Archatologia  /Eliana,  vol.  xiv.,  "Border 
Holds."    Mr  Bates  gives  other  evidence  to   the   same  effect.    The  early 
existence  of  the  castle  is  also   proved  by  the  fact  that  Gospatric,  whom 
William  had  made  Earl  of  Northumberland,  after  his  raid  on  Cumberland 
in  1070,  brought  his  booty  to  the  firmissimam  munitionem  of  Bamborough. 
Symeon  of  Durham,  1070. 

2  Vita  S.  Osivaldi,  ch.  xlviii.,  in  Rolls  edition  of  Symeon. 

3  This  was  the  opinion  of  the  late  Mr  Cadwalader  Bates,  who  thought 
that  the  smallness  of  the  sums  entered  for  Bamborough  in  Henry  II.'s 
reign   might  be  accounted  for  by  the  labour  and  materials  having  been 
furnished  by  the  crown  tenants.     Border  Strongholds,  p.  236. 

4  Bamborough  rock  has  every  appearance  of  having  been  once  an  island. 
As  late  as  1547  the  tide  came  right  up  to  the  rock  on  the  east  side  ;  the  sea 
is  now  separated  from  the  castle  by  extensive  sandhills. 


102      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

BARNSTAPLE,  Devon  (Fig.  9). — This  castle  is  not 
mentioned  in  Domesday,  but  the  town  belonged  to 
Judhael,  one  of  the  followers  of  the  Conqueror,  whose 
name  suggests  a  Breton  origin.  William  gave  him 
large  estates  in  Devon  and  Cornwall.  A  charter  of 
Judhael's  to  the  priory  which  he  founded  at  Barnstaple 
makes  mention  of  the  castle.1  Barnstaple,  at  the  head 
of  the  estuary  of  the  Taw,  was  a  borough  at  Domesday, 
and  the  castle  was  placed  inside  the  town  walls.2  The 
motte  remains  in  good  condition  ;  the  winding  walks 
which  now  lead  to  the  top  are  certainly  no  part  of  the 
original  plan,  but  are  generally  found  in  cases  where  the 
motte  has  been  incorporated  in  a  garden.  There  was 
formerly  a  stone  keep,  of  which  no  vestige  remains.8 
The  castle  seems  to  have  formed  the  apex  of  a  town 
of  roughly  triangular  shape.  The  bailey  can  just  be 
traced,  and  must  have  covered  i^  acres. 

The  former  value  of  Barnstaple  is  not  given  in  the 
Survey,  so  we  cannot  tell  whether  it  had  risen  or  not. 

BELVOIR,  Leicester. — This  castle  was  founded  by 
the  Norman  Robert  de  Todeni,  who  died  in  io88.4  It 
stands  on  a  natural  hill,  so  steep  and  isolated  that  it 
might  be  called  a  natural  motte.  The  first  castle  was 
destroyed  by  King  John,  and  the  modernising  of  the 
site  has  entirely  destroyed  any  earthworks  which 
may  have  existed  on  the  hill.  There  appears  to  have 

1  M.  A.,  v.,  197. 

2  Domesday  mentions  the  destruction  of  twenty-three  houses  at  Barn- 
staple,  which  may  have  been  due  partly  or  wholly  to  the  building  of  the 
castle.    I.,  100. 

3  From  a  lecture  by  Mr  J.  R.  Chanter. 

4  The  Fundatio  of  Belvoir  priory  says  that  Robert  founded  the  church  of 
St  Mary,  juxta  castellum  suum,  M.  A.,  iii.,  288.     As  Robert's  coffin  was 
actually  found  in  the  Priory  in  1726,  with  an  inscription  calling  him  Robert 
de  Todnei-  le  Fundeur,  the  statement  is  probably  more  trustworthy  than 
documents  of  this  class  generally  are. 


BARNSTAPLE,  DEVON. 


BISHOP'S  STORTFORD,  HERTS. 


BERKHAMPSTEAD,  HERTS. 


FIG.  9. 


[To  face  p.  102. 


BERKELEY  103 

been  a  shell  wall,  from  the  descriptions  given  by 
Nicholls  and  Leland.1  It  was  situated  in  the  manor  of 
Bottesdene,  a  manor  of  no  great  importance,  but  which 
had  risen  in  value  at  the  date  of  the  Survey.2 

BERKELEY,  or  NESS. — The  identity  of  Berkeley  Castle 
with  the  Ness  castle  of  Domesday  may  be  regarded  as 
certain.  All  that  the  Survey  says  about  it  is  :  "In 
Ness  there  are  five  hides  belonging  to  Berkeley,  which 
Earl  William  put  out  to  make  a  little  castle."3  Earl 
William  is  William  FitzOsbern,  the  trusty  friend  and 
counsellor  of  the  Conqueror,  who  had  made  him  Earl 
of  Herefordshire.  He  had  also  authority  over  the  north 
and  west  of  England  during  William's  first  absence  in 
Normandy,  and  part  of  the  commission  he  received  from 
William  was  to  build  castles  where  they  were  needed.4 
Berkeley  was  a  royal  manor  with  a  large  number  of 
berewicks,  and  the  probable  meaning  of  the  passage  in 
Domesday  is  that  Earl  William  removed  the  geldability 
of  the  five  hides  occupying  the  peninsula  or  ness  which 
stretches  from  Berkeley  to  the  Severn,  bounded  on  the 
south  by  the  Little  Avon,  and  appropriated  these  lands 
to  the  upkeep  of  a  small  castle.  This  castle  can  hardly 
have  been  placed  anywhere  but  at  Berkeley,  for  there  is 
no  trace  of  any  other  castle  in  the  district.5  Earl 
Godwin  had  sometimes  resided  at  Berkeley,  but  prob- 
ably his  residence  there  was  the  monastery  which  by 

1  Nicholls,  History  of  Leicester^  i.,  no. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  233b. 

J  "  In  Ness  sunt  5  hidae  pertinentes  ad  Berchelai,  quas  comes  Willielmus 
misit  extra  ad  faciendum  unum  castellulum."     D.  B.,  i.,  i63a,  2. 

4  "  Castella  per  loca  firmari  prascepit."    Flor.  Wig.)  1067.     See  Freeman, 
N.  C,   iv.,   72.     Domesday  tells  us  that   FitzOsbern  built  Ness,  Clifford, 
Chepstow,  and  Wigmore,  and  rebuilt  Ewias. 

5  Robert  Fitzhardinge,  in  his  charter  to  St  Austin's  Abbey  at  Bristol, 
says    that   King   Henry  [II.]  gave  him  the  manor  of  Berchall,  and  all 
Bercheleiernesse.     Mon.  Ang.^  vi.,  365. 


104      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

evil  means  had  come  into  his  hands  ; l  for  we  never  hear 
of  any  castle  in  connection  with  Godwin.  But  a 
Norman  motte  exists  at  Berkeley,  though  buried  in  the 
stone  shell  built  by  Henry  II.  Mr  Clark  remarks  :  "  If 
the  masonry  of  Berkeley  Castle  were  removed,  its 
remains  would  show  a  mound  of  earth,  and  attached  to 
three  sides  of  it  a  platform,  the  whole  encircled  with  a 
ditch  or  scarp."  The  motte  raised  by  Earl  William 
has,  in  fact,  been  revetted  with  a  stone  shell  of  the  i2th 
century,  whose  bold  chevron  ornament  over  the  entrance 
gives  evidence  of  its  epoch.  What  is  still  more  remark- 
able is  that  documentary  evidence  exists  to  fix  the  date 
of  this  transformation.  A  charter  of  Henry  II.  is 
preserved  at  Berkeley  Castle,  in  which  he  grants  the 
manor  to  Robert  Fitzhardinge,  pledging  himself  at  the 
same  time  to  fortify  a  castle  there,  according  to  Robert's 
wish.8  Robert's  wish  probably  was  to  possess  a  stone 
keep,  like  those  which  had  been  rising  in  so  many 
places  during  the  I2th  century.  But  there  had  been  a 
Norman  lord  at  Berkeley  before  Fitzhardinge,  Roger 
de  Berkeley,  whose  representatives  only  lost  the  manor 
through  having  taken  sides  with  Stephen  in  the  civil 
war.4  This  Roger  no  doubt  occupied  the  wooden  castle 
on  the  motte  built  by  William  FitzOsbern.  Henry  II.'s 
shell  was  probably  the  first  masonry  connected  with 

1  It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  the  authenticity  of  the  story  preserved  by 
Walter  Map ;  it  is  enough  that  Gytha,  the  wife  of  Godwin,  held  in  horror 
the  means  by  which  her  husband  got  possession  of  Berkeley  Nunnery. 
D.  B.,  i.,  164. 

*  Medieval  Military  Architecture^  i.,  236. 

3  The  gift  of  the  manor  was  made  before  Henry  became  king,  and  was 
confirmed  by  charter  on   the   death  of  Stephen   in    1154.     Fitzhardinge 
was   an   Englishman,    son  of  an  alderman   of  Bristol,  who   had   greatly 
helped  Henry  in  his  wars  against  Stephen.     See  Fosbroke's  History  of 
Gloucester. 

4  He  held    Berkeley    under  the    crown  at  the  time    of  the    Survey. 
D.  B.,  i.,  i63a. 


BERKELEY  105 

the  castle.  This  remarkable  keep  is  nearly  circular, 
and  has  three  round  turrets  and  one  oblong.  As  the 
latter,  Thorpe's  Tower,  was  rebuilt  in  Edward  III.'s 
reign,  it  probably  took  the  place  of  a  round  tower.  The 
keep  is  built  of  rubble,  and  its  Norman  buttresses  (it 
has  several  later  ones)  project  about  a  foot.  The  cross 
loopholes  in  the  walls  are  undoubtedly  insertions  of  the 
time  of  Edward  III.  The  buildings  in  the  bailey  are 
chiefly  of  the  time  of  Edward  III.,  but  the  bailey  walls 
have  some  Norman  buttresses,  and  are  probably  of  the 
same  date  as  the  keep.1  This  bailey  is  nearly  square, 
and  the  motte,  which  is  in  one  corner,  encroaches  upon 
about  a  quarter  of  it.  The  small  size  of  the  area 
which  it  encloses,  not  much  more  than  half  an 
acre,  corresponds  to  the  statement  of  Domesday 
Book  that  it  was  "a  little  castle."  There  is  no  trace 
of  the  usual  ditch  surrounding  the  motte,  and  the 
smallness  of  the  bailey  makes  it  unlikely  that  there 
ever  was  one.  A  second  bailey  has  been  added 
to  the  first,2  and  the  whole  is  surrounded  on  three 
sides  by  a  moat,  the  fourth  side  having  formerly  had 
a  steep  descent  into  swamps,  which  formed  sufficient 
protection.8 

There  is  no  statement  in  the  Survey  of  the  value  of 
Ness,  but  the  whole  manor  of  Berkeley  had  risen  since 
the  Conquest.4 

BERKHAMPSTEAD,  Herts  (Fig.  9).  —  Mr  D.  H. 
Montgomerie  rightly  calls  this  a  magnificent  example  of 

1  From  information  received  from  Mr  Duncan  Montgomerie. 

2  Fosbroke's  History  of  Gloucester  attributes  this  bailey  to  Maurice,  son 
of    Robert   Fitzhardinge.     One   of   the   most   interesting  features   in   this 
highly  interesting  castle  is  the  wooden  pentice  leading  from  the  main  stair- 
way of  the  keep  to  the  chamber  called  Edward  II.'s.     Though  a  late 
addition,  it  is  a  good  instance  of  the  way  in  which  masonry  was  eked  out  by 
timber  in  mediaeval  times. 

3  Clark,  M.  M.  A.,  i.,  229.  *  D.  B.,  i.,  163. 


106      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

an  earthwork  fortress.1  It  is  first  mentioned  in  a 
charter  of  Richard  I.,  which  recapitulates  the  original 
charter  of  William,  son  of  Robert,  Count  of  Mortain,  in 
which  he  gives  the  chapel  of  this  castle  to  the  Abbey  of 
Grestein  in  Normandy.2  We  may,  therefore,  with  all 
probability  look  upon  this  as  one  of  the  castles  built  by 
the  Conqueror's  half-brother.  And  this  will  account  for 
the  exceptional  strength  of  the  work,  which  comprises  a 
motte  40  feet  high,  ditched  round  (formerly),  and  a 
bailey  of  2§  acres,  surrounded  not  only  with  the  usual 
ditch  and  banks,  but  with  a  second  ditch  outside  the 
counterscarp  bank,  which  encircles  both  motte  and 
bailey.  At  two  important  points  in  its  line,  this  counter- 
scarp bank  is  enlarged  into  mounds  which  have  evidently 
once  carried  wooden  towers ; 3  if  this  arrangement 
belonged  to  the  original  plan,  as  it  most  probably  did, 
it  confirms  a  remark  which  we  have  made  elsewhere 
as  to  the  early  use  of  wooden  mural  towers.  Works 
in  masonry  were  added  to  the  motte  and  the  bailey 
banks  in  the  I2th,  I3th,  and  i4th  centuries.  There 
are  traces  of  a  semicircular  earthwork  outside  the 
second  ditch  on  the  west,  which  appears  to  have 
formed  a  barbican.  But  the  most  exceptional  thing 
about  this  castle  is  the  series  of  earthen  platforms 
on  the  north  and  east,  connected  by  a  bank,  and 
closely  investing  the  external  ditch,  which  were  for- 
merly supposed  to  form  part  of  the  castle  works.  Mr 
W.  St  John  Hope  has  suggested  the  far  more  plausible 
theory  that  they  were  the  siege  platforms  erected 
by  Louis,  the  Dauphin  of  France,  in  1216.  We  are 

1  Victoria  County  History  of  Herts •,  from  which  the  description  of  these 
earthworks  is  entirely  taken. 

2  Mon.  Ang.,  vii.,  1090. 

3  They  were  excavated  by  Mr  Montgomerie  in  1905,  and  no  trace  of 
masonry  was  found. 


BISHOPS  STORTFORD  107 

told  that  his  engines  kept  up  a  most  destructive  fire 
of  stones.1 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Berkhampstead  had  con- 
siderably decreased,  even  since  the  Count  of  Mortain 
received  it.2 

BISHOP'S  STORTFORD,  Herts  (Fig.  9). — Waytemore 
Castle  is  the  name  given  to  the  large  oval  motte  at  this 
place,  which  is  evidently  the  site  of  the  castle  of 
"  Estorteford,"  given  by  William  the  Conqueror  to 
Maurice,  Bishop  of  London.8  The  manor  of  Stortford 
had  been  bought  from  King  William  by  Maurice's 
predecessor,  William,  who  had  been  one  of  the  Norman 
favourites  of  Edward  the  Confessor.4  He  may  have 
built  this  castle,  but  he  cannot  have  built  it  till  after  the 
Conquest,  as  the  land  did  not  belong  to  his  see  till  then. 

"  The  castle  consists  of  a  large  oval  motte,  250  x  200 
feet  at  its  base,  rising  40  feet  above  the  marshes  of  the 
river  Stort,  and  crowned  by  a  keep  with  walls  of  flint 
rubble,  12  feet  thick.  On  the  S.  of  the  motte  there 
are  traces  of  a  pentagonal  bailey,  covering  i\  acres.  It 
is  enclosed  on  four  sides  by  the  narrow  streams  which 
intersect  the  marshes.  The  dry  ditch  on  the  fifth  side, 
facing  the  motte,  is  discernible.  The  castle  abuts  on 
the  road  called  The  Causeway,  which  crosses  the  valley ; 
it  is  in  a  good  position  to  command  both  road  and 
river."5  The  value  of  the  manor  had  gone  down  at 
Domesday.6 

BOURN,  Lincolnshire  (Fig.  10). — The  manor  of  Bourn 


1  Roger  of  Wendover,  1216.  '2  D.  B.,  i.,  163. 

3  The  charter,  which  is  in  both  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin,  is  given   in 
Dugdale's  History  of  St  Paul's,  304. 

4  See  Freeman,  ii.,  356  ;  and  D.  B.,  i.,  I34a. 

5  From  report  by  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie. 

6  Waytemore  has  sometimes  been  identified  with  the  puzzling  Wigginga- 
mere,  but  in  defiance  of  phonology. 


108      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

or  Brune  appears  to  have  been  much  split  up  amongst 
various  owners  at  the  time  of  Domesday.  A  Breton 
named  Oger  held  the  demesne.1  A  charter  of  Picot, 
the  Sheriff  of  Cambridgeshire,  a  person  often  mentioned 
in  Domesday  Book,  gives  the  church  of  Brune  and  the 
chapel  of  the  castle  to  the  priory  which  he  had  founded 
near  the  castle  of  Cambridge — afterwards  removed  to 
Barnwell.2  Bourn  was  the  centre  of  a  large  soke  in 
Anglo-Saxon  times.  Leland  mentions  the  "  Crete 
Diches,  and  the  Dungeon  Hill  of  the  ancient  Castel,"3 
but  very  little  of  the  remains  is  now  visible,  and  the 
motte  has  been  almost  removed. 

"The  castle  lies  in  flat  ground,  well  watered  by 
springs  and  streams.  The  motte  was  placed  at  the 
southern  apex  of  a  roughly  oval  bailey,  from  which  it 
was  separated  by  its  own  wet  ditch,  access  being 
obtained  through  a  gatehouse  which  stood  on  the  narrow 
neck  by  which  this  innermost  enclosure,  at  its  N.W. 
end,  joined  the  principal  bailey,  which,  in  its  turn, 
was  embraced  on  all  sides  but  the  S.  by  a  second 
and  concentric  bailey,  also  defended  by  a  wet  ditch, 
which  broadens  out  at  the  S.W.  corner  into  St 
Peter's  Pool.  There  is  another  enclosure  beyond  this 
which  may  be  of  later  date.  The  inner  bailey  covers 
3  acres.  Very  little  is  now  left  of  the  motte,  but  a  plan 
made  in  1861  showed  it  to  be  fairly  perfect,4  and  some 
slight  remains  of  the  gatehouse  were  excavated  in  that 
year.  The  castle  is  on  the  line  of  the  Roman  road  from 
Peterborough  to  Sleaford,  and  close  to  the  Roman  Car- 
Dyke."5 

The  value  of  Bourn  had  risen  at  Domesday. 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  35 ib.  2  M.  A.,  vi.,  86.  3  ///«.,  i.,  27. 

4  Associated  Archaological  Societies,  VI.,  ix. 
6  Report  by  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie. 


a.  Remains  of/  Motte. 

BOURN,  LINCS. 


50 


BRAMBER,  SUSSEX. 


FIG.  10. 


[To  face  p.  108. 


BRAMBER  109 

BRAMBER,  Sussex  (Fig.  10).  —  Of  the  manor  of 
Washington,  in  which  Bramber  is  situated,  the 
Survey  says  that  it  formerly  paid  geld  for  fifty-nine 
hides ;  and  in  one  of  these  hides  sits  the  castle  of 
Bramber.1  It  must  not  be  imagined  that  the  castle 
occupied  a  whole  hide,  which  according  to  the  latest 
computations  would  average  about  120  acres.  It  is 
evident  that  there  had  been  some  special  arrangement 
between  the  King  and  William  de  Braose,  the  Norman 
tenant-in-chief,  by  which  the  whole  geld  of  the  manor 
had  been  remitted.  The  Domesday  scribe  waxes  almost 
pathetic  over  the  loss  to  the  fisc  of  this  valuable  prey. 
"It  used  to  be  ad  firmam  for  ioo/,"  he  says.  The 
manor  of  Washington  belonged  to  Gurth,  the  brother  of 
Harold,  before  the  Conquest,  but  it  is  clear  that 
Bramber  was  not  the  caput  of  the  manor  in  Saxon  times  ; 
nor  was  Washington  the  centre  of  a  large  soke. 
Bramber  Castle  was  constructed  to  defend  the  estuary 
of  the  river,  now  known  as  the  Adur,  one  of  the  water- 
ways to  Normandy  already  alluded  to. 

The  castle  occupies  a  natural  hill  which  forms  on  the 
top  a  pear-shaped  area  of  3  acres.  Towards  the  middle 
rises  an  artificial  motte  about  30  feet  high  ;  there  is  no 
sign  of  a  special  ditch  around  it,  except  that  the  ground 
sinks  slightly  at  its  base.  The  bailey  is  surrounded  by 
a  very  neatly  built  wall  of  pebbles  and  flints,  laid 
herring-bone-wise  in  places,  which  does  not  stand  on 
an  earthen  bank.  The  absence  of  this  bank  makes  it 
likely,  though  of  course  not  certain,  that  this  wall  was 
the  original  work  of  De  Braose ;  the  stones  of  which  it 
is  composed  would  be  almost  as  easily  obtained  as  the 

1  Ipse  Willielmus  tenet  Wasingetune.  Guerd  Comes  tenuit  T.  R.  E. 
Tune  se  defendebat  pro  59  hidis.  Modo  non  dat  geldum.  In  una  ex  his 
hidis  sedet  castellum  Brembre.  D.  B.,  i.,  28a,  i. 


110      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

earth  for  a  bank.  On  the  line  of  the  wall,  just  east  of 
the  entrance,  stands  a  tall  fragment  of  an  early  Norman 
tower.  The  workmanship  of  this  tower,  which  is  also  of 
flints  laid  herring-bone-wise,  with  quoins  of  ashlar,  so 
strongly  resembles  that  of  the  neighbouring  church  that 
it  seems  obvious  that  both  were  built  at  about  the  same 
time.1  The  church  is  dedicated  to  St  Nicholas,  who  was 
worshipped  in  Normandy  as  early  as  io67;2  it  was 
probably  the  Normans  who  introduced  his  worship  into 
England.  Both  church  and  tower  are  undoubtedly  early 
Norman.  The  motte  shows  no  sign  of  masonry. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Washington  had  slightly 
risen  since  the  Conquest. 

BRISTOL. — Robert,  Earl  of  Gloucester,  the  Empress 
Matilda's  half-brother  and  great  champion,  is  always 
credited  with  the  building  of  Bristol  Castle ;  but  this  is 
one  of  the  many  instances  in  which  the  man  who  first 
rebuilds  a  castle  in  stone  receives  the  credit  of  being  the 
original  founder.3  For  it  is  certain  that  there  was  a 
castle  at  Bristol  long  before  the  days  of  Earl  Robert,  as 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  mentions  it  in  1088,  when  it 
was  held  by  Geoffrey,  Bishop  of  Coutances,  and  Robert 
Curthose  against  William  II.  ;  and  Symeon  of  Durham, 
in  the  same  year,  speaks  of  it  as  a  "castrum  fortis- 
simum."  Bishop  Geoffrey  held  Bristol  at  the  date  of 


1  We  often  find  that  the  architecture  of  the  nearest  church  throws  light 
on  the  date  of  the  castle.     A  Norman  seldom  built  or  restored  his  castle 
without  doing  something  for  the  church  at  the  same  time. 

2  See  Ordericus,  ii.,  178. 

3  The  Chronica  de  Fundatoribus  of  Tewkesbury  Abbey  seems  to  be  the 
origin  of  the  tradition  that  Earl  Robert  was  the  builder  of  Bristol  Castle. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  work  was  in  stone,  as  the  same  authority 
states  that  he  gave  every  tenth  stone  to  the  Chapel  of  Our  Lady  in  St  James' 
Priory.    M.  A.,  ii.,  120.    According  to  Leland,  the  keep  was  built  of  Caen 
stone.     /#«.,  vii.,  90.     Robert  of  Gloucester  calls  it  the  flower  of  all  the 
towers  in  England. 


BRISTOL  111 

the  Domesday  Survey,  and  he  probably  built  the  castle 
by  William's  orders.1  It  was  completely  destroyed  in 
1655  (only  a  few  I3th  century  arches  in  a  private 
house  now  remain),  and  no  trustworthy  plan  has  been 
preserved,  but  there  is  clear  evidence  that  it  was  a 
motte-and-bailey  castle  of  the  usual  Norman  type.2  In 
Stephen's  reign  it  was  described  as  standing  on  a  very 
great  agger?  An  agger  does  not  necessarily  mean  a 
motte,  but  it  is  often  used  for  one,  and  there  is  other 
evidence  which  shows  that  this  is  its  meaning  here.  A 
Perambulation  of  the  bounds  of  Bristol  in  1373  shows 
that  the  south-western  part  of  the  castle  ditch,  which 
enclosed  the  site  of  the  keep,  was  called  le  Mot-dich ; 
which  should  certainly  be  translated  the  ditch  of  the 
motte,  and  not,  as  Seyer  translates  it,  the  moat  ditch.4 
Finally,  the  description  of  the  castle  in  1642  by  Major 
Wood,  says  :  "  The  castle  stood  upon  a  lofty  steep  mount, 
that  was  not  minable,  as  Lieutenant  Clifton  informed 
me,  for  he  said  the  mount  whereon  the  castle  stood  was 
of  an  earthy  substance  for  a  certain  depth,  but  below 
that  a  firm  strong  rock,  and  that  he  had  searched 
purposely  with  an  auger  and  found  it  so  in  all  parts." 5 
He  goes  on  to  describe  the  wall  of  the  bailey  as  resting 
on  an  earthen  rampart,  testifying  to  the  wooden 
stockade  of  the  first  castle.  The  great  tower  of  Earl 
Robert  appears  to  have  been  placed  on  the  motte,  which 
must  have  been  of  considerable  size,  as  it  held  not  only 


1  We  have  no  historical  account  of  the  Norman  conquest  of  Bristol,  and 
the  city  is  only  mentioned  in  the  most  cursory  manner  in  D.  B. 

-  Seyer  (Memoirs  of  Bristol,  i.)  was  convinced  that  the  plan  published 
by  Barrett,  and  attributed  to  the  monk  Rowlie,  was  a  forgery  ;  his  own 
plan,  as  he  candidly  admits,  was  largely  drawn  from  imagination. 

3  Castellum  plurimo  aggere  exaltatum.     Gesta  Stephani,  37. 

4  Seyer,  i.,  391,  and  ii.,  82. 

6  Quoted  by  Seyer,  ii.,  301,  from  Prynne's  CataL,  p.  u. 


112      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  keep,  but  a  courtyard,  a  chapel,  and  the  constable's 
house,  besides  several  towers  on  its  walls.  The  whole 
area  of  the  castle  was  very  nearly  4  acres.1 

Bristol  Castle  was  no  doubt  originally  a  royal  castle, 
though  Earl  Robert  of  Gloucester  held  it  in  right  of  his 
wife,  who  had  inherited  it  from  her  father,  Robert  Fitz 
Hamon  ;  but  the  crown  did  not  abdicate  its  claim  upon 
it,  and  after  the  troubles  of  1174,  Henry  II.  caused  the 
son  of  Earl  Robert  to  surrender  the  keep  into  his 
hands.2 

Seyer  very  pertinently  remarks  that  Bristol  Castle 
"  was  erected  with  a  design  hostile  to  the  town  ;  for  it 
occupies  the  peninsula  between  two  rivers,  along  which 
was  the  direct  and  original  communication  between  the 
town  and  the  main  part  of  Gloucestershire."  3  It  was 
outside  the  city,  and  was  not  under  its  jurisdiction  till 
James  I.  granted  this  authority  by  charter.4  The  value 
T.  R.  E.  is  not  given  in  Domesday  Book. 

BUCKINGHAM. — The  only  mention  of  this  castle  as 
existing  in  the  nth  century  is  in  the  Gesta  Herewardi? 
an  undated  work  which  is  certainly  in  great  part  a 
romance,  but  as  it  is  written  by  some  one  who  evidently 
had  local  knowledge,  we  may  probably  trust  him  for  the 
existence  of  Buckingham  Castle  at  that  date  ;  especially 
as  Buckingham  was  a  county  town,  and  one  of  the 
boroughs  of  the  Burghal  Hidage,  the  very  place  which 
we  should  expect  to  find  occupied  by  a  Norman  castle. 
This  writer  speaks  of  the  castle  as  belonging  to  Ivo  de 


1  Calculated  from  the  measurements   given  by  William  of  Worcester. 
I  tin.,   p.   260.     William  probably  alludes  to  the  motte  when  he   speaks 
of  the  "  mayng  round  "  of  the  castle. 

2  Benedict  of  Peterborough^  i.,  92. 

3  Hist,  of  Bristol,  i.,  373.  4  Ibid.,  vol.  ii. 

5  De  Gestis  Herevuardi  Saxonis^  Wright's  edition.     See  Freeman,  N.  C., 
iv.,  804. 


BUCKINGHAM— CAERLEON  113 

Taillebois  ;  this  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  fact  shown 
by  Domesday  Book,  that  the  borough  belonged  to  the 
king.  That  it  was  a  motte-and-bailey  castle  is  indicated 
by  Speed's  map  of  Buckingham  in  1611  ;  he  speaks  of 
the  "high  hill,"  though  he  only  indicates  it  slightly  in 
his  plan,  with  a  shield-shaped  bailey.  Brayley  states 
that  the  present  church  is  "  proudly  exalted  on  the 
summit  of  an  artificial  mount,  anciently  occupied  by  a 
castle."1 

The  castle  hill  occupies  a  strong  position  on  the 
neck  of  land  made  by  a  bend  of  the  river ;  it  extends 
nearly  half-way  across  it,  and  commands  both  town  and 
river.  The  original  earthworks  of  the  castle  were 
destroyed  and  levelled  for  the  erection  of  a  church  in 
1777,  but  the  large  oval  hill  remains,  having  a  flat 
summit  about  2  acres  in  extent,  and  about  30  feet  above 
the  town  below.  Its  sides  descend  in  steep  scarps 
behind  the  houses  on  all  sides  but  the  north  -  east. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  motte  has  been 
lowered,  and  thus  enlarged,  in  order  to  build  the  church. 
The  foundations  of  a  stone  castle  were  found  in  digging 
a  cellar  on  the  slope  of  the  motte.2 

The  value  of  Buckingham  had  considerably  risen  at 
the  date  of  Domesday.8 

CAERLEON,  Monmouthshire  (Fig.  n).  —  Domesday 
Book  speaks  of  the  castellaria  of  Caerleon.4  A  castel- 
laria  appears  to  have  meant  a  district  in  which  the  land 


1  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales^  Buckingham,  p.  282. 

2  Camden's  Britannia^  i.,  315.  3  D.  B.,  i.,  143. 

4  "Willielmus  de  Scohies  tenet  8  carucatas  terras  in  castellaria  de 
Carliun,  et  Turstinus  tenet  de  eo.  Ibi  habet  in  dominio  unam  carucam, 
et  tres  Walenses  lege  Walensi  viventes,  cum  3  carucis,  et  2  bordarios  cum 
dimidio  carucae,  et  reddunt  4  sextares  mellis.  Ibi  2  servi  et  una  ancilla. 
Haec  terra  wasta  erat  T.  R.  E.,  et  quando  Willelmus  recepit.  Modo  valet 
40  solidos."  D.  B.,  i ,  iSsb,  i. 

H 


114      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

was  held  by  the  service  of  castle-guard  in  a  neigh- 
bouring castle.  The  Survey  goes  on  to  say  that  this 
land  was  waste  in  the  time  of  King  Edward,  and  when 
William  de  Scohies,  the  Domesday  tenant,  received  it ; 
now  it  is  worth  405.  Wasta,  Mr  Round  has  remarked, 
is  one  of  the  pitfalls  of  the  Survey.  Perhaps  we  shall 
not  be  far  wrong  if  we  say  that  in  a  general  way  it 
means  that  there  was  nobody  there  to  pay  geld.  When 
this  occurs  in  a  town  it  may  point  to  the  devastations 
committed  at  the  Conquest ;  but  when  it  occurs  in  the 
country,  and  when  it  is  accompanied  by  so  clear  a  state- 
ment that  the  land  which  was  wasta  in  King  Edward's 
time  and  at  the  Conquest  is  now  producing  revenue,  the 
inference  would  seem  to  be  clear  that  the  castle  of 
Caerleon  was  built  on  uninhabited  land.  Caerleon,  how- 
ever, had  been  a  great  city  in  Roman  times,  and  had 
kept  up  its  importance  at  least  till  the  days  of  Edgar, 
when  it  is  twice  mentioned  in  Welsh  history.1  It  must 
therefore  have  gone  downhill  very  rapidly.  Giraldus 
mentions  among  the  ruins  of  Roman  greatness  which 
were  to  be  seen  in  his  day,  a  gigantic  tower,  and  this  is 
commonly  supposed  to  have  belonged  to  the  castle.2  It 
certainly  did  not,  for  Giraldus  is  clearly  speaking  of  a 
Roman  tower,  and  the  motte  of  the  Norman  castle  not 
only  has  no  signs  of  masonry,  but  has  been  thrown  up 
over  the  ruins  of  a  Roman  villa  which  had  been  burnt.8 
The  motte  and  other  remains  of  the  .castle  are  outside 
the  Roman  castrum,  between  it  and  the  river.  The 


1  The   Giventian  Chronicle,  Cambrian  Archaeological  Association,  A.D. 
962,   967.     It  is  not  absolutely  impossible  that  these  passages  refer    to 
Chester.     Caerleon  appears  to  have  been  seized  by  the  Welsh  very  soon 
after  the  death  of  William  I. 

2  I  tin.  Camb.,  p.  55. 

3  Loftus  Brock,   in  Journ,  Brit,  Arch.  Ass.,  xlix.     J.  E.  Lee,  in  Arch, 
Camb.,  iv.,  73. 


N. 


CAERLEON,  MONMOUTH. 


CARISBBOOKE. 


FIG.  ii. 


[Tofacep.  114. 


CAMBRIDGE  115 

bailey  is  roughly  pentagonal,  and  covers  4f  acres. 
The  manor  of  Caerleon  was  waste  T.  R.  E.  and  had 
risen  to  405.  T.  R.  W.1 

CAMBRIDGE. — Ordericus  tells  us  that  William  built 
this  castle  on  his  return  from  his  first  visit  to  Yorkshire 
in  1068, 2  and  Domesday  Book  states  that  twenty-seven 
houses  were  destroyed  to  make  room  for  the  castle.3 
There  can  hardly  be  a  clearer  statement  that  the  castle 
was  entirely  new.  We  have  already  seen  that  there  is 
some  probability  that  Cambridge  was  first  fortified  by 
the  Danes  ;  for  though  it  has  been  assumed  to  be  a 
Roman  castrum,  no  Roman  remains  have  ever  been 
found  there,  and  the  names  which  suggest  Roman 
occupation,  Chesterton  and  Grantchester,  are  at  some 
distance  from  Cambridge.  The  castle,  according  to  Mr 
St  John  Hope's  plan,4  was  placed  inside  this  enclosure, 
and  the  destruction  of  the  houses  to  make  room  for  it  is 
thus  explained.  The  motte  and  a  portion  of  the  bank  of 
the  bailey  are  all  that  now  remain  of  the  castle,  but  the 
valuable  ancient  maps  republished  by  Mr  Hope  show 
that  the  motte  had  its  own  ditch,  and  that  the  bailey  was- 
rectangular.  There  was  formerly  a  round  tower  on  the 
motte,  which,  if  it  had  the  cross-loop-holes  and  machi- 
colations represented  in  the  print  published  in  1575,  was 
certainly  not  of  Norman  date.  The  area  of  the  bailey 
was  4|-  acres.5  The  castle  was  a  royal  one,  and  like 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  i8sb. 

2  [Rex]  "in    reversione  sua   Lincolniae,  Huntendonae  et   Grontebrugae 
castra  locavit."     Ord.  Vit.,  p.  189. 

3  D.  B.,  i.,  189. 

4  A  similar  plan  was  made  independently  by  the  late  Professor  Babington. 
Some  traces  of  the  original  earthwork  of  the  city  are  still  to  be  seen.     See 
Mr  Hope's  paper  on  The  Norman  Origin  of  Cambridge  Castle,  Cambridge 
Antiquarian  Soc.,  vol.  xi. ;  and  Babington's  Ancient  Cambridgeshire,  in  the 
same  society's  Octavo  Publications,  No.  Hi.,  1853. 

5  W.  H.  St  John  Hope,  as  above,  p.  342. 


116      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

many  royal  castles,  went  early  to  ruin.  Henry  IV.  gave 
the  materials  of  the  hall  to  the  master  and  wardens  of 
King's  Hall  for  building  their  chapel. 

The  value  of  Cambridge  T.  R.  W.  is  not  given  in 
Domesday  Book. 

CANTERBURY. — Domesday  Book  only  mentions  this 
castle  incidentally  in  connection  with  an  exchange  of 
land :  "  The  archbishop  has  seven  houses  and  the 
abbot  of  St  Augustine  fourteen  for  the  exchange  of 
the  castle."1  It  has  been  too  hastily  assumed 
that  it  was  a  pre-Conquest  castle  which  was  thus 
exchanged  for  twenty  -  one  houses  ;  but  anyone  who 
knows  the  kind  of  relations  which  existed  chronically 
between  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  abbot 
of  St  Augustine's  will  perceive  that  it  was  an  im- 
possibility that  these  two  potentates  should  have  held 
a  castle  in  common.  It  was  the  land  for  the  castle, 
not  the  castle  itself,  which  the  king  got  from  these 
ecclesiastics.  This  is  rendered  clear  by  a  passage  in 
the  Chartulary  of  St  Augustine's,  which  tells  us  that 
the  king,  who  was  mesne  lord  of  the  city  of  Canter- 
bury, had  lost  the  rent  of  thirty-two  houses  through 
the  exchange  of  the  castle  :  seven  having  gone  to  the 
archbishop,  fourteen  to  the  abbot,  and  eleven  having 
been  destroyed  in  making  the  ditch  of  the  castle.2 
There  can  scarcely  be  any  doubt  that  the  hillock  now 
known  by  the  ridiculous  name  of  Dane  John  is  the  motte 
of  this  original  castle  of  the  Conqueror.  Its  proper 
name,  the  Dungeon  Hill,  which  it  bore  till  the  i6th  and 

1  "Archiepiscopus  habet  ex  eis  [burgensibus]  7  et  abbas  S.  Augustini  14 
pro  excambio  castelli."    D.  B.,  i.  a,  2. 

2  "  Et  undecim  sunt  perditi  infra  fossatum  castelli "  ;  cited  by  Larking, 
Domesday  of  Kent,  App.  xxiv.     Domesday  says,  "  sunt  vastatae  xi.  in  fossa 
cimtatis."    There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Chartulary  gives  the  correct 
account. 


CANTERBURY  117 

even  the  i8th  century,1  shows  what  its  origin  was  ;  it  was 
the  hill  on  which  stood  the  dungeon  or  donjon  of  a 
Norman  castle.2  The  name  Dane  John  is  not  so  much  a 
corruption  as  a  deliberate  perversion  introduced  by  the 
antiquary  Somner  about  1640,  under  the  idea  that  the 
Danes  threw  up  the  hill—  an  idea  for  which  there  is  not 
the  slightest  historical  evidence.3  We  have  seen  that 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  Danes  ever 
constructed  fortifications  of  this  kind,  and  their  connec- 
tion with  this  earthwork  is  due  to  one  of  those  guesses, 
too  common  in  English  archaeology,  which  have  no 
scientific  basis  whatever. 

Somner  makes  the  important  statement  that  this 
earthwork  was  originally  outside  the  city  walls.  His 
words  are  : — 

"  I  am  persuaded  (and  so  may  easily,  I  think,  anyone  be  that  well 
observes  the  place)  that  the  works  both  within  and  without  the  present  wall 
of  the  city  were  not  counterworks  one  against  the  other,  as  the  vulgar 
opinion  goes,  but  were  sometimes  all  one  entire  plot  containing  about  3 
acres  of  ground,  of  a  triangular  form  (the  outwork)  with  a  mount  or  hill 
entrenched  round  within  it ;  and  that  when  first  made  or  cast  up  it  lay 
wholly  without  the  city  wall ;  and  hath  been  (the  hill  or  mount,  and  most 
part  also  of  the  outwork),  for  the  city's  more  security,  taken  in  and  walled 
since  ;  that  side  of  the  trench  encompassing  the  mound  now  lying  without 
and  under  the  wall  fitly  meeting  with  the  rest  of  the  city  ditch,  after  either 
side  of  the  earthwork  was  cut  through  to  make  way  for  it,  at  the  time  of  the 
city's  inditching."4 

It  is  not  often  we  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  so  clear 
a  description  of  an  earthwork  which  has  almost  entirely 
disappeared  ;  but  the  description  is  confirmed  by 
Stukeley  and  Hasted,  and  down  to  the  making  of  the 
Chatham  and  Dover  railway  in  1860  the  earthworks  of 

1  The  hill  is  called  the  Dungan,  Dangon,  or  Dungeon  Hill  in  many  old 
local    deeds.      See   "Canterbury   in   Olden    Times,"  Arch.  Journ.,    1856. 
Stukeley  and  Grose  both  call  it  the  Dungeon  Hill. 

2  See  Appendix  N. 

3  Somner's  Antiquities  of  Canterbury,  p.  144.     Published  in  1640. 

4  Antiquities  of  Canterbury,  p.  75. 


118      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  part  of  the  bailey  which  was  left  outside  the  city  wall 
were  still  to  be  seen,  and  were  noticed  by  Mr  G.  T. 
Clark.1  It  is  clear  that  Somner's  description  corresponds 
exactly,  even  in  the  detail  of  size,  to  the  type  of  a  motte- 
and-bailey  castle. 

There  are  certain  facts,  which  have  not  been  put 
together  before,  which  enable  us  to  make  a  very  probable 
guess  as  to  the  date  at  which  this  ancient  castle  was  cut 
through  by  the  newer  city  bank.  The  walls  of  Canter- 
bury have  never  yet  received  so  careful  an  examination 
as  those  of  Rochester  have  had  from  the  Rev.  Greville 
Livett ; 2  but  the  researches  of  Mr  Pilbrow  about  thirty 
years  ago  showed  that  the  original  Roman  walls  included 
a  very  small  area,  which  would  leave  both  the  motte  and 
the  Plantagenet  castle  outside.8  Certain  entries  in  the 
Close  Rolls  show  that  the  fortification  of  the  town  of 

1  Mr  Clark  thought  there  was  another  motte  in  the  earthworks  outside 
the  walls,  though  he  expresses  himself  doubtfully  :  "  I  rather  think  they  [the 
mounds  outside  the  city  ditch]  or  one  of  them,  looked  rather  like  a  moated 
mound,  but  I  could  not  feel  sure  of  it.     Arch.  Cantiana^  xv.,  344.     Gostling 
(A    Walk  about  Canterbury^  1825)  says  there  were  two^  which  is  perhaps 
explained  by  a  passage  in  Brayley's  Kent  (1808),  in  which  he  describes  the 
external  fortification  as  "  a  lesser  mount,  now  divided  into  two  parts,  with  a 
ditch  and  embankment."    P.  893.     Stukeley's  description  (circa  1700)  is  as 
follows  :  "  Within  the  walls  is  a  very  high  mount,  called  Dungeon  Hill ;  a 
ditch  and  high  bank  enclose  the  area  before  it ;  it  seems  to  have  been  part 
of  the  old  castle.     Opposite  to  it  without  the  walls  is  a  hill,  seeming  to  have 
been  raised  by  the  Danes  when  they  besieged  the  city.     The  top  of  the 
Dungeon  Hill  is  equal  to  the  top  of  the  castle."    Itin.  Curiosum,  i.,  122.     It 
is  of  course  not  impossible  that  there  may  have  been  two  mottes  to  this 
castle,  as  at  Lewes  and  Lincoln,  but  such  instances  are  rare,  and  it  seems 
more  likely  that  a  portion  of  the  bailey  bank  which  happened  to  be  in  better 
preservation  and  consequently  higher  was  mistaken  for  another  mount.     Mr 
Clark  committed  this  very  error  at  Tadcaster,  and  the  other  writers  we  have 
quoted  were  quite  untrained  as  observers  of  earthen  castles.     At  any  rate 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Dane  John  is  the  original  chief  citadel  of  this 
castle,  as  the  statements  of  Somner,  Stukeley,  and  we  may  add,  Leland,  are 
explicit.    The  most  ancient  maps  of  Canterbury,  Hoefnagel's  (1570),  Smith's 
(Description  of  England^  1588),  and  Grose's  (1785),  all  show  the  Dungeon 
Hill  within  the  walls,  but  take  no  notice  of  the  outwork  outside. 

2  Archaologia  Cantiana^  xxxiii.,  152.  3  Ibid.,  xxi. 


CANTERBURY  119 

Canterbury  was  going  on  in  the  years  1215- 12 2 5. l  But 
it  is  too  often  forgotten  that  where  a  wall  stands  on  an 
earthen  bank  it  is  a  clear  proof  that  before  the  wall  was 
built  there  was  a  wooden  stockade  in  its  place.  Now 
the  portion  of  the  city  wall  which  encloses  the  Dane  John 
stands  on  an  earthen  bank ;  so,  indeed,  does  the  whole 
wall  from  the  Northgate  to  the  castle.  It  is  clear  that 
this  piece  of  bank  cannot  have  been  made  till  the  first 
Norman  castle,  represented  by  the  earthwork,  was 
abandoned ;  and  fortunately  we  have  some  evidence 
which  suggests  a  date  for  the  change.  In  the  Pipe  Rolls 
of  Henry  II.'s  reign  there  are  yearly  entries,  beginning 
in  1 1 68,  of  53.  paid  to  Adeliza  Fitzsimon  "  for 
the  exchange  of  her  land  which  is  in  the  castle  of 
Canterbury."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  land 
was  purchased  to  build  the  great  Plantagenet  castle 
whose  splendid  keep  was  once  one  of  the  finest  in 
England.2  The  portion  of  the  castle  wall  which  can 
still  be  seen  does  not  stand  on  an  earthen  bank,  an 
indication  (though  not  a  proof)  that  the  castle  was  on  a 
new  site.  Henry  II.  was  a  great  builder  of  stone  keeps, 
but  he  seldom  placed  them  on  artificial  mottes.  It  is  no 
uncommon  thing  to  find  an  old  motte-and-bailey  castle 
abandoned  for  a  better  or  larger  site  close  at  hand.8 

The  bailey  of  the  second  castle,  according  to 
Hasted,  extended  almost  to  the  Dane  John,  which  is 
about  800  feet  from  the  present  keep.  The  part  of  the 
older  castle  which  lay  outside  the  new  city  bank  was 
possessed  by  a  family  of  the  name  of  Chiche  from  the 
time  of  Henry  II.  to  that  of  Edward  IV.,  while  the 


1  Close  Rolls,  i.,  23413,  ii.,  7b,  89. 

2  Now,  to  the  disgrace  of  the  city  of  Canterbury,  converted  into  gas- 
works. 

3  For  instance,  at  Middleham,  Rochester,  Rhuddlan,  and  Morpeth. 


120      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Dungeon  Hill  itself  remained  royal  property.1  That 
the  new  bank  was  Henry  II.'s  work  we  may  conjecture 
from  the  passages  in  the  Pipe  Rolls,  which  show  that 
between  the  years  n66and  1173  he  spent  about  ^30 
in  enclosing  the  city  of  Canterbury  and  making  a  gate. 
We  are  therefore  not  without  grounds  for  concluding 
that  Henry  II.  was  the  first  to  enlarge  the  city  by 
taking  in  the  Dane  John,  cutting  through  the  ancient 
bailey,  and  at  the  same  time  enclosing  a  piece  of  land 
for  a  new  stone  castle.2  The  very  small  sum  paid  for  the 
city  gate  (us.,  equal  to  about  ^n  of  our  money) 
suggests  that  the  gate  put  up  by  Henry  II.  was  a 
wooden  gateway  in  the  new  stockaded  bank.  The 
stone  walls  and  towers  which  were  afterwards  placed 
on  the  bank  are  of  much  later  date  than  his  reign.3 

1  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  Kent,  p.  893. 

2  The  passages  from  the  Pipe  Roll  bearing  on  this  subject  (which  have 
not  been  noticed  by  any  previous  historian  of  Canterbury)  are  as  follows  : — 

1166-7.  In  operatione  civitatis  Cantuar.  claudendae          .            .  ^5  19    6 

„        Ad  claudendam  civitatem  Cantuar.          .            .            .  .         20    o    o 

1167-8.  Pro  claudenda  civitate  Cantuar.   .             .             .             .  .511 

1168-9.  In  terris  datis  Adelizae  filie  Simonis  15  solidos  de  tribus  annis 

pro  escambio  terrae  suae  quae  est  in  Castello  de  Cantuar.  .           0150 

1172-3.  In  operatione  turris  ejusdem  civitatis       .            .            .  .1000 

„        In  operatione  predicte  turris         .            .            .            .  53     6     8 

„       Summa  denariorum  quos  vicecomes  misit  in  operatione  turris  .         7314 

1173-4.  In  operatione  turris  et  Castelli  Chant.      .            .            .  24    6    o 

„       In  operatione  turris  Cantuar.        .            .            .            .  .           5  n     7 

1174-5.  Et  in  warnisione  ejusdem  turris    •            •             •            •  .580 

The  latter  extract,  which  refers  to  the  provisioning  of  the  keep,  seems  to 
show  that  it  was  then  finished.  The  sums  put  down  to  the  castle,  amounting 
to  about  ^4000  of  our  money,  are  not  sufficient  to  defray  the  cost  of  so  fine 
a  keep.  But  the  entries  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  relate  only  to  the  Sheriffs 
accounts,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  cost  of  the  keep  was  largely  paid  out 
of  the  revenues  of  the  archbishopric,  which  Henry  seized  into  his  own  hands 
during  the  Becket  quarrel. 

3  The  portion  of  the  wall  of  Canterbury,  which  rests  on  an  earthen  bank, 
extends  from  Northgate  to  the  Castle,  and  is  roughly  semicircular  in  plan. 
In   the  middle  of  it  was   St   George's  Gate,  which  was  anciently  called 
Newingate  (Gostling,  p.  53)  and  may  possibly  have  been  Henry  II.'s  new 


CARISBROOKE  121 

The  Dungeon  Hill  appears  to  have  been  used  for 
the  last  time  as  a  fortification  in  1643,  when  ordnance 
was  placed  upon  it,  and  it  was  ordered  to  be  guarded 
by  the  householders.1  In  1790  it  was  converted  into 
a  pleasure-ground  for  the  city ;  the  wide  and  deep 
ditch  which  had  surrounded  it  was  filled  up,  and 
serpentine  walks  cut  to  lead  up  to  the  summit. 
Brayley  says  that  "the  ancient  and  venerable  character 
of  this  eminence  was  wholly  destroyed  by  incongruous 
additions."  Still,  enough  remains  to  show  that  it  was 
once  a  very  fine  motte,  such  as  we  might  expect  the 
Conqueror  to  raise  to  hold  in  check  one  of  the  most 
important  cities  of  his  new  realm. 

The  value  of  Canterbury  had  increased  from  5i/.  to 
54/.  since  the  days  of  King  Edward.2 

CARISBROOKE,  Isle  of  Wight  (Fig.  n). — There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  castle  spoken  of  in  Domesday 
Book  under  the  manor  of  Alwinestone.  Carisbrooke 
is  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Alvington.  The 
language  in  which  the  Survey  speaks  of  this  manor  is 
worthy  of  note.  "  The  king  holds  Alwinestone  :  Donnus 
held  it,  It  then  paid  geld  as  two  and  a  half  hides  :  now 
as  two  hides,  because  the  castle  sits  in  one  virgate."3 
Certain  entries  similar  to  this  in  other  places  seem  to 
indicate  that  there  was  some  remission  of  geld  granted 
on  the  building  of  a  castle ; 4  but  as  here  the  king  was 
himself  the  owner,  the  remission  must  have  been 
granted  to  his  tenants. 

gate.  The  part  enclosing  the  Dungeon  Hill  is  angular,  and  appeared  to 
Mr  Clark,  as  well  as  to  Somner  and  Hasted,  to  have  been  brought  out  at 
this  angle  in  order  to  enclose  the  hill. 

1  Arch.  Journ.,  1856.  2  D.  B.,  i.,  2a,  I. 

3  "Isdem  rex  tenet  Alwinestone.  Donnus  tenuit.  Tune  pro  duabus 
hidis  et  dimidia.  Modo  pro  duabus  hidis,  quia  castellum  sedet  in  una 
virgata."  D.  B.,  i.,  2a,  I.  4  See  below,  under  Windsor. 


122      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

The  original  castle  of  Carisbrooke  consists  of  a  high 
motte,  ditched  round,  placed  at  the  corner  of  a  parallelo- 
gram with  rounded  corners.  This  bailey,  covering  2f 
acres,  is  surrounded  by  high  banks,  which  testify  to  the 
former  presence  of  a  wooden  stockade.  There  is 
another  bailey  on  the  eastern  side,  called  the  Tilt-yard. 
The  excellent  little  local  guide-book  compiled  by 
Mr  Stone  calls  this  a  British  camp,  but  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  it  was  anything  else  than  what 
it  appears  to  be  —  a  second  bailey  added  as  the  castle 
grew  in  importance.  On  the  motte  is  a  shell  of 
polygonal  form,  of  rubble  masonry,  but  having  quoins 
of  well-dressed  ashlar.  It  is  believed  to  be  of  the  time 
of  Henry  I.,  since  the  author  of  the  Gesta  Stephani 
states  that  Baldwin  de  Redvers,  son  of  Richard  de 
Redvers,  to  whom  Henry  granted  the  lordship  of  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  had  a  castle  there  splendidly  built  of 
stone,  defended  by  a  strong  fortification.1  This  would 
indicate  that,  besides  the  stone  keep,  stone  walls  were 
added  to  the  earthworks  of  the  Domesday  castle.  The 
keep  is  of  peculiar  interest,  as  it  still  retains  the  remains 
of  the  old  arrangements  in  keeps  of  this  style,  though 
of  much  later  date.  The  motte  was  opened  in  1893, 
and  was  found  to  be  composed  of  alternate  layers  of 
large  and  small  chalk  rubble.2  Little  attention  has 
hitherto  been  paid  to  the  construction  of  these  Norman 
mottes,  but  other  instances  have  been  noted  which  show 
that  they  were  often  built  with  great  care.  The  whole 
castle,  including  the  Tilt-yard,  was  surrounded  with  an 
elaborate  polygonal  fortification  in  Elizabeth's  reign, 
when  the  Spanish  invasion  was  expected. 


1  "In  hac  [insula]  castellum  habebat   ornatissimum  lapidum  sedificio 
constructum,  validissimo  munimine  firmatum."     Gesta  Stephani^  R.  S.,  p.  28. 

2  Stone's  Official  Guide  to  the  Castle  of  Carisbrooke,  p.  39. 


CARLISLE  123 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Alvington  had  increased 
at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  though  the  number  of  ploughs 
employed  had  actually  decreased.  This  increase  must 
have  been  owing  to  the  erection  of  the  castle,  which 
provided  security  for  trade  and  agriculture.  Alvington 
was  not  the  centre  of  a  large  soke  in  the  Confessor's 
time,  so  it  is  unlikely  that  there  was  any  fortification 
there  in  Saxon  days.1 

CARLISLE,  Cumberland  (Fig.  1 2). — This  castle  was  built 
by  William  Rufus  in  1092,  when  for  the  first  time  Cumber- 
land was  brought  under  Norman  sway.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  says,  "he  repaired  the  burh,  and  reared 
the  castle,"  a  passage  which  is  sufficient  of  itself  to  show 
that  burh  and  castle  were  two  quite  different  things. 
Carlisle  of  course  was  a  Roman  fortress,  and  needed  only 
the  repairing  of  its  walls.  The  castle  was  a  new  thing, 
and  was  placed  outside  the  city.  Its  plan,  which  is 
roughly  a  triangle,  with  the  apex  formed  into  a  small 
court  by  a  ditch  which  (formerly)  separated  it  from  the 
bailey,  looks  very  suggestive  of  a  previous  motte  and 
bailey,  such  as  we  might  expect  the  Norman  king  to 
have  thrown  up.  The  keep  is  known  to  have  been  built 
by  David,  king  of  Scotland,  in  Stephen's  reign,2  and 
it  is  possible  that  he  may  have  removed  the  motte.  The 
castle  appears  to  have  had  a  wooden  pehim  or  palicium 
on  its  outer  banks  as  late  as  I3I9.8  The  whole  area 
covers  4  acres. 

1  Mr  W.  H.  Stevenson,  in  his  edition  of  Asser,  pp.  173,  174,  shows  that 
the  name  Carisbrooke  cannot  possibly  be  derived  from  Wihtgares-burh,  as 
has  been  sometimes  supposed,  as  the  older  forms  prove  it  to  have  come 
from  brook,  not  burh.     The  lines  of  the  present  castle  banks,  if  produced, 
would  not  correspond  with  those  of  the  Tilt-yard,  which  is  proof  that  the 
Norman  castle  was  not  formed  by  cutting  an  older  fortification  in  two. 

2  Bower's  Scotochronicon,   v.,  xlii.     Cited  by   Mr   Neilson,  Notes  and 
Queries,  viii.,  321.     See  also  Palgrave,  Documents  and  Records,  i.,  103. 

3  Cat.  of  Close  Rolls,  Edward  II.,  iii.,  161. 


124      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

CASTLE  ACRE,  Norfolk  (Fig.  12).— There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  castle  existed  in  the  nth  century,  as 
William  de  Warenne  mentions  it  in  the  charter  of 
foundation  of  Lewes  Priory,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  human  of  monastic  charters.1  The  earthworks  still 
remaining  of  this  castle  are  perhaps  the  finest  castle 
earthworks  in  England  ;  the  banks  enclosing  the  bailey 
are  vast.  The  large  and  high  motte  carries  a  wall 
of  flint  rubble,  built  outside  and  thus  revetting  the  earthen 
bank  which  formed  its  first  defence.  In  the  small  court 
thus  enclosed  (about  loofeet  in  diameter)  the  foundations 
of  an  oblong  keep  can  be  discerned.  A  very  wide  ditch 
surrounds  the  motte,  and  below  it  is  a  horse-shoe  bailey, 
about  2  acres  in  extent,  stretching  down  to  the  former 
swamps  of  the  river  Nar.  On  the  east  side  of  the  motte 
is  a  small  half-moon  annexe,  with  its  own  ditch  ;  this 
curious  addition  is  to  be  found  in  several  other  motte 
castles,2  and  is  believed  to  have  been  a  work  intended 
to  defend  the  approach,  of  the  nature  of  a  barbican.  On 
the  west  side  of  the  motte  is  the  village  of  Castle  Acre, 
enclosed  in  an  oblong  earthwork  with  an  area  of  10 
acres.  This  work  now  goes  by  the  name  of  the 
Barbican,  but  probably  this  name  has  been  extended 
to  it  from  a  barbican  covering  the  castle  entrance  (of 
which  entrance  the  ruins  still  remain).  It  is  most  likely 
that  this  enclosure  was  a  burgus  attached  to  the  castle. 
Mr  Harrod,  who  excavated  the  banks,  found  quantities 
of  Roman  pottery,  which  led  him  to  think  that  the  work 
was  Roman  ;  but  as  the  pottery  was  all  broken,  it  is 
more  likely  that  the  banks  were  thrown  up  on  the  site 
of  some  Roman  villa.3  This  earthwork  has  a  northern 

1  Mon.  Ang.,  v.,  12.     "Castelli  nostri  de  Acra." 

2  As  at  Burton,  Mexborough,  Lilbourne,  and  Castle  Colwyn. 

3  Harrodjs  Gleanings  among  the  Castles  and  Convents  of  Norfolk.     See 
also  Arch.  Journ.)  xlvi.,  441. 


CARLISLE. 


CASTLE  ACRE,  NORFOLK. 


FIG.  12. 


[To  face  p.  124. 


CHEPSTOW  125 

entrance  in  masonry,  evidently  of  i3th  century  date; 
and  as  the  scanty  masonry  remaining  of  the  castle  is 
similar  in  character,  it  is  probably  all  of  the  same  date. 
The  area  covered  by  the  motte  and  the  two  original 
baileys  is  3^  acres  ;  that  of  the  whole  series  of  earth- 
works, 15  acres. 

Acre  was  only  a  small  manor  in  Saxon  times  ;  its 
value  at  the  time  of  the  Survey  had  risen  from  5/.  to  gl.1 

CHEPSTOW  (Estrighoel  or  Strigul),  Monmouthshire. — 
Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  there  is  another  castle  of 
the  name  of  Strigul  about  9  miles  from  Chepstow  (known 
also  as  Troggy  Castle),  it  is  clear  that  Chepstow  is  the 
castle  meant  by  Domesday,  as  the  entry  speaks  of  ships 
going  up  the  river,  a  thing  impossible  at  Strigul.2  The 
castle  occupies  a  narrow  ridge,  well  defended  by  the 
river  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  by  a  valley  which 
separates  it  from  the  town.  There  are  four  wards,  and 
the  last  and  smallest  of  all  seemed  to  the  writer,  when 
visiting  the  castle,  to  mark  the  site  of  a  lowered  motte. 
This  opinion,  however,  is  not  shared  by  two  competent 
observers,  Mr  Harold  Sands  and  Mr  Duncan  Mont- 
gomerie,  who  had  much  ampler  opportunities  for 
studying  the  remains.  This  ward  is  now  a  barbican, 
and  the  masonry  upon  it  belongs  clearly  to  the  I3th 
century;  it  occupies  the  highest  ground  in  the  castle, 
and  is  separated  from  the  other  wards,  and  from  the 
ridge  beyond  it,  by  two  ditches  cut  across  the  headland. 
The  adjoining  court  must  have  belonged  to  the  earliest 


1  D.  B.,  ii.,  i6ob. 

2  "Castellum  de  Estrighoiel  fecit  Willelmus  comes,   et  ejus  tempore 
reddebat  40  solidos,  tantum  de  navibus  in  silvam  euntibus."     D.  B.,  i.,  162. 
Tanner  has  shown  that  while  Chepstow  was  an  alien  priory  of  Cormeille,  in 
Normandy,  it  is  never  spoken  of  by  that  name  in  the  charters  of  Cormeille, 
but  is  always   called  Strigulia.     Notitia  Monastica,    Monmouthshire.     See 
also  Marsh's  Annals  of  Chepstow  Castle. 


126      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

part  of  the  castle,  as  it  contains  a  very  remarkable  early 
Norman  building  (splendidly  restored  in  the  I3th  century) 
which  is  regarded  by  most  authorities  as  the  original 
hall  of  William  FitzOsbern.  It  must,  however,  have 
combined  both  hall  and  keep,  otherwise  the  castle  was 
not  provided  with  any  citadel,  if  there  was  no  motte.1 
What  is  now  the  second  ward  has  a  Norman  postern  in 
the  south  wall,  and  may  have  been  the  bailey  to  the  keep. 
All  the  other  masonry  is  of  the  late  Early  English  or 
the  Perpendicular  period,  and  the  entrance  ward  is 
probably  an  addition  of  the  i3th  century.  The  shape 
of  all  the  baileys  is  roughly  quadrangular,  except  that 
of  the  fourth,  which  would  be  semicircular  but  for  the 
towers  which  make  corners  to  it.  The  whole  area  of 
the  castle  is  if  acres. 

We  are  not  told  what  the  value  of  the  manor  was 
before  William  FitzOsbern  built  his  castle  there,  but 
from  the  absence  of  this  mention  we  may  infer  that  the 
site  was  waste.  It  paid  40^.  in  his  time  from  ships' 
dues,  i6/.  in  his  son  Earl  Roger's  time,  and  at  the  date 
of  the  Survey  it  paid  the  king  i2/.2  Chepstow  was  not 
the  centre  of  a  large  soke,  and  it  appears  to  have  owed 
all  its  importance  to  the  creation  of  William  Fitz- 
Osbern's  castle. 

CHESTER.  —  The  statement  of  Ordericus,  that 
William  I.  founded  this  castle  on  his  return  from 
his  third  visit  to  York,  is  sufficiently  clear.8  The  very 
valuable  paper  of  Mr  E.  W.  Cox  on  Chester  Castle4 

1  I  must  confess  that  in  spite  of  very  strong  opposing  opinions,  I  see 
no  reason   why  this  building  should  not  be   classed  as  a  keep.     It  is  of 
course  a  gross  error  to  call  Martin's  Tower  the  keep  ;  it  is  only  a  mural 
tower. 

2  D.  B.,  162,  la. 

3  "  Cestriae  munitionem  condidit."     P.  199  (Pre" vest's  edition). 

4  Chester  Historical  and  Arc hao  logical  Society,  v.,  239. 


CHESTER  127 

answers  most  of  the  questions  which  pertain  to  our 
present  inquiry.  The  original  castle  of  Chester  con- 
sisted of  the  motte,  which  still  remains,  though  much 
built  over,  and  the  small  ward  on  the  edge  of  which 
it  stands,  a  polygonal  enclosure  scarcely  an  acre  in 
extent.  On  the  motte  the  vaulted  basement  of  a  tower 
still  remains,  but  the  style  is  so  obscured  by  whitewash 
and  modern  accretions  that  it  is  impossible  to  say 
whether  the  vaulting  is  not  modern.  The  first  buildings 
were  certainly  of  wood,  but  Mr  Cox  regarded  some  of 
the  existing  masonry  on  the  motte  as  belonging  to  the 
1 2th  century  ;  and  this  would  correspond  with  the  entry 
in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  IO2/.  75.  od.  spent  on  the  castle  by 
Henry  II.  in  H59-1  The  tower,  nicknamed  Caesar's 
Tower,  and  frequently  mistaken  for  the  keep,  is  shown  in 
Mr  Cox's  paper  to  be  only  a  mural  tower  of  the  i3th 
century,  probably  built  when  the  first  ward  was 
surrounded  with  walls  and  towers  in  masonry.2  The 
large  outer  bailey  was  first  added  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
III.3  It  is  further  proved  by  Mr  Cox  that  Chester 
Castle  stood  outside  the  walls  of  the  Roman  city.  The 
manor  of  Gloverstone  lay  between  it  and  the  city,  and 
was  not  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city  until  quite 
recent  times.4  This  disposes  of  the  ball  set  rolling  by 
Brompton  at  the  end  of  the  I3th  century,  and  sent  on 
by  most  Chester  topographers  ever  since,  that  Ethel- 
fleda,  when  she  restored  the  Roman  walls  of  Chester, 

1  Pipe  Rolls,   ii.,   7.     Ranulph,   Earl   of  Chester,   died    in    1153,    and 
the  castle  would  then  escheat  into  the  king's  hands. 

2  This  work  seems  to  have  been  completed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  II., 
who  spent  .£253  on  the  houses,  towers,  walls,  and  gates.     Cal.  of  Close  Rolls, 
Edward  II.,  ii.,  294. 

3  Close  Rolls,  35,  Henry  III.,  cited  by  Ormerod,  History  of  Cheshire, 
i.,  358. 

4  See  Mr  Cox's  paper,  as  above,  and  Shrubsole,  Chester  Hist,  and  Arch. 
Soc.,  v.,  175,  and  iii.,  New  Series,  p.  71. 


128      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

enlarged  their  circuit  so  as  to  take  in  the  castle.     We 
have  already  referred  to  this  in  Chapter  III. 

Chester,  as  we  have  seen,  was  originally  a  royal 
castle.  And  though  it  was  naturally  committed  to  the 
keeping  of  the  Norman  earls  of  Chester,  and  under  weak 
kings  may  have  been  regarded  by  the  earls  as  their  own 
property,  no  such  claim  was  allowed  under  a  strong 
ruler.  After  the  insurrection  of  the  younger  Henry, 
Hugh,  Earl  of  Chester,  forfeited  his  lands;  Henry  II. 
restored  them  to  him  in  1177,  but  was  careful  to  keep 
the  castle  in  his  own  hands.1 

The  city  of  Chester,  Domesday  Book  tells  us,  had 
greatly  gone  down  in  value  when  the  earl  received  it, 
probably  in  1070  ;  twenty-five  houses  had  been  destroyed. 
But  it  had  already  recovered  its  prosperity  at  the  date 
of  the  Survey  ;  there  were  as  many  houses  as  before,  and 
the  ferm  of  the  city  was  now  let  by  the  earl  at  a  sum 
greatly  exceeding  the  ferm  paid  in  King  Edward's  time.2 
This  prosperity  must  have  been  due  to  the  security 
provided  for  the  trade  of  Chester  by  the  Norman  castle 
and  Norman  rule. 

CLIFFORD,  Herefordshire  (Fig.  13).  —  It  is  clearly 
stated  by  Domesday  Book  that  William  FitzOsbern 
built  this  castle  on  waste  land.3  At  the  date  of  the 
Survey  it  was  held  by  Ralph  de  Todeni,  who  had  sub- 
let it  to  the  sheriff.  In  the  many  castles  attributed  to 
William  FitzOsbern,  who  built  them  as  the  king's 
vicegerent,  we  may  see  an  indication  that  the  building 
of  castles,  even  on  the  marches  of  Wales,  was  not 
undertaken  without  royal  license.  In  the  reign  of 
Henry  I.  Clifford  Castle  had  already  passed  into  the 

1  Benedict  of  Peterborough,  i.,  135,  R.  S.  2  D.  B.,  i.,  262^. 

3  "Willelmus  comes  fecit  illud  [castellum]  in  wasta  terra  quam  tenebat 
Bruning  T.  R.  E."     D.  B.,  i.,  i83a,  2. 


O          190      200    300 

^eet. 

CLIFFORD.  HEREFORD. 


CORFE,  DORSET. 


FIG.  13. 


[To  face  p.  I2S. 


CLIFFORD— CLITHEROE  129 

hands  of  Richard  Fitz  Pons,  the  ancestor  of  the 
celebrated  house  of  Clifford,  and  one  of  the  barons  of 
Bernard  de  Neufmarche,  the  Norman  conqueror  of 
Brecon.1 

The  castle  has  a  large  motte,  roughly  square  in 
shape,  which  must  be  in  part  artificial.2  Attached  to  it 
on  the  south-west  is  a  curious  triangular  ward,  included 
in  the  ditch  which  surrounds  the  motte.  The  masonry 
on  the  motte  is  entirely  of  the  "  Edwardian  "  style,  when 
keepless  castles  were  built ;  it  consists  of  the  remains  of 
a  hall,  and  a  mural  tower  which  is  too  small  to  be  called 
a  keep.  There  is  also  a  small  court,  with  a  wall  which 
stands  on  a  low  bank.  Below  the  motte  is  an  irregular 
bailey  of  about  2\  acres,  with  earthen  banks  which  do 
not  appear  to  have  ever  carried  any  masonry,  though  in 
the  middle  of  the  court  there  is  a  small  mound  which 
evidently  covers  the  remains  of  buildings.  The  whole 
area  of  the  castle,  including  the  motte  and  the  two 
baileys,  is  about  3|-  acres. 

The  value  of  the  manor  had  apparently  risen  from 
nothing  to  8/.  55.  Clifford  was  not  the  centre  of  a 
large  soke. 

CLITHEROE,  Lancashire  (Fig.  13).  —  There  is  no 
express  mention  of  this  castle  in  Domesday  Book,  but 
of  two  places  in  Yorkshire,  Barnoldswick  and  Calton,  it 
is  said  that  they  are  in  the  castellate  of  Roger  the 
Poitevin.8  A  castellate  implies  a  castle,  and  as  there  is 

1  "Ancient  Charters,"  Pipe  Roll  Society ',  vol.  x.,  charter  xiii.,  and  Mr 
Round's  note,  p.  25. 

2  It  is  extraordinary  that  Mr  Clark,  in  his  description  of  this  castle,  does 
not  mention  the  motte,  except  by  saying  that  the  outer  ward  is  60  or  70  feet 
lower  than  the  inner.     M.  M.  A.,  i.,  395. 

3  This  passage  occurs  in  a  sort  of  appendix  to  Domesday  Book,  which 
is  said  to  be  in  a  later  hand,  of  the  I2th  century.     (Skaife,  Yorks.  Arch. 
Journ.)  Part  lv.,  p.  299.)      It  cannot,  however,  be  very  late  in  the  I2th 
century,  as  it  speaks  of  Roger's  holdings  in  Craven  in  the  present  tense. 

I 


130      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

no  other  castle  in  the  Craven  district  (to  which  the 
words  of  the  Survey  relate)  except  Skipton,  which  did 
not  form  part  of  Roger's  property,  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  this  castle  was  Clitheroe,  which  for  centuries 
was  the  centre  of  the  Honour  of  that  name.  The  whole 
land  between  the  Ribble  and  the  Mersey  had  been  given 
by  William  I.  to  this  Roger,  the  third  son  of  his  trusted 
supporter,  Earl  Roger  of  Shrewsbury.  One  can  under- 
stand why  William  gave  important  frontier  posts  to  the 
energetic  and  unscrupulous  young  men  of  the  house  of 
Montgomeri,  one  of  whom  was  the  adviser  and  archi- 
tect of  William  Rufus,  another  a  notable  warrior  in 
North  Wales,  another  the  conqueror  of  Pembrokeshire. 
As  it  appears  from  the  Survey  that  Roger's  possessions 
stretched  far  beyond  the  Ribble  into  Yorkshire  and 
Cumberland,  it  seems  quite  possible — though  here  we 
are  in  the  region  of  conjecture — that  just  as  his  father 
and  brothers  had  a  free  hand-  to  conquer  as  they  listed 
from  the  North  and  South  Welsh,  so  Roger  had  a 
similar  commission  for  the  hilly  districts  still  uncon- 
quered  in  the  north-west  of  England.  But  fortune  did 
not  favour  the  Montgomeri  family  for  long.  They  were 
exiled  from  England  in  1102  for  siding  with  Robert 
Curthose,  and  in  the  same  year  we  find  the  castle  of 
Clitheroe  in  the  hands  of  Robert  de  Lacy,  lord  of  the 
great  Yorkshire  fief  of  Pontefract.1 

The  castle  of  Clitheroe  stands  on  a  lofty  motte  of 
natural  rock.2     There  are  no  earthworks  on  the  summit, 

1  See  Farcer's  Lancashire  Pipe  Rolls,  p.  385.     The  castle  is  not  actually 
mentioned,  but  "  le  Bailie  "  (the  bailey)  is  spoken  of.     Mr  Farrer  also  prints 
an  abstract  of  a  charter  of  Henry  I.  (1102) :  "per  quam  concessit  eidem 
Roberto  [de  Laci]  Boelandam  [Bowland]  quam  tenuit  de  Rogero  Comite 
Pictavensi,  ut  extunc  earn  de  eodem  rege  teneat."     P.  382. 

2  In  an  inquisition  of  Henry  de  Laci  (+1311)  it  is  said  that  "castelli 
mote  et  fossae  valent  nihil."     (Whitaker's  History  of  Whalley,  p.  280.)    This 
is  probably  an  instance  of  the  word  motte  being  applied  to  a  natural  rock 


CL1THEROE  131 

but  a  stout  wall  of  limestone  rubble  without  buttresses 
encloses  a  small  court,  on  whose  south-west  side  stands 
the  keep.  It  is  just  possible  that  the  outer  wall  may  be 
the  original  work  of  Roger,  as  limestone  rubble  would  be 
easier  to  get  than  earth  on  this  rocky  hill.  The  keep  is 
small,  rudely  built  of  rubble,  and  has  neither  fireplace 
nor  garde-robe,  nor  the  slightest  ornamental  detail — not 
even  a  string  course.  But  in  spite  of  the  entire  absence 
of  ornament,  a  decorative  effect  has  been  sought  and 
obtained  by  making  the  quoins,  voussoirs,  and  lintels  of 
a  dressed  yellow  sandstone.  The  care  with  which  this 
has  been  done  is  inconsistent  with  the  haste  with  which 
Roger  must  inevitably  have  constructed  his  first  fortifica- 
tion, if  we  suppose,  as  is  probable,  that  he  received  the 
first  grant  of  his  northern  lands  on  William's  return 
in  1070  from  his  third  visit  to  the  north,  when  he  made 
that  remarkable  march  through  Lancashire  to  Chester 
which  is  described  by  Ordericus.  It  seems  more  likely 
that  even  if  the  outer  wall  or  shell  were  the  work  of 
Roger,  he  had  only  wooden  buildings  inside  its  circuit. 
Dugdale  attributes  the  building  of  the  keep  to  the 
second  Robert  de  Lacy,  between  1187  and  1194,  an<3  it 
is  probable  that  this  date  is  correct.1  The  bailey  of 
Clitheroe  lay  considerably  below  the  keep,  and  is  now 
overbuilt  with  a  modern  house,  offices,  and  garden.  It 
covers  one  acre.  A  Roman  road  up  the  valley  of  the 
Ribble  passes  near  the  foot  of  the  rock.2 

which  served  that  purpose.  See  another  instance  under  Nottingham, 
post,  p.  176. 

1  Dugdale's  Baronage,  i.,  p.  99.  Dugdale's  authority  appears  to  have 
been  the  "Historia  Laceiorum,"  a  very  untrustworthy  document,  but  which 
may  have  preserved  a  genuine  tradition  in  this  instance.  The  loopholes  in 
the  basement  of  the  keep,  with  the  large  recesses,  appear  to  have  been 
intended  for  crossbows,  and  the  crossbow  was  not  reintroduced  into 
England  till  the  reign  of  Richard  I. 

a   Victoria  History  of  Lancashire,  ii.,  523. 


132      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

As  the  very  name  of  Clitheroe  is  not  mentioned  in 
Domesday  Book,  it  clearly  was  not  an  important  centre 
in  Saxon  times.  The  value  of  Blackburn  Hundred,  in 
which  Clitheroe  is  situated,  had  fallen  between  the 
Confessor's  time  and  the  time  when  Roger  received  it. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  he  never  lived  at  Clitheroe,  as 
he  sub-infeoffed  the  manor  and  Hundred  of  Blackburn 
to  Roger  de  Busli  and  Albert  Greslet  before  IO86.1 

COLCHESTER,  Essex. — The  remarkable  keep  of  this 
castle  has  been  the  subject  of  antiquarian  legend  for 
many  centuries,  and  Mr  Clark  has  the  merit  of  having 
proved  its  early  Norman  origin,  by  its  plan  and  archi- 
tecture. A  charter  of  Henry  I.  is  preserved  in  the 
cartulary  of  St  John's  Abbey  at  Colchester,  which 
grants  to  Eudes  the  Dapifer  "  the  city  of  Colchester, 
and  the  tower  and  the  castle,  and  all  the  fortifications  of 
the  castle,  just  as  my  father  had  them  and  my  brother 
and  myself."2  This  proves  that  the  keep  and  castle 
were  in  existence  in  the  Conqueror's  time ;  the  Norman 
character  of  the  architecture  proves  that  the  keep  was 
not  in  existence  earlier.  We  see,  then,  that  the  reason 
there  is  no  motte  at  Colchester  is  that  there  was  a  stone 
keep  built  when  first  the  castle  was  founded.  As  far  as 
we  are  aware,  Colchester,  the  Tower  of  London,  and  the 
recently  discovered  keep  of  Pevensey  are  the  only  certain 
instances  of  stone  keeps  of  the  nth  century  in  England. 

That  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  Conqueror's 
castles,  second  only  to  the  Tower  of  London,  and 
actually  exceeding  it  in  the  area  it  covers,  should  be 
found  in  Colchester,  is  not  surprising,  because  the 
Eastern  counties  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest  were  not 

1  See  Farrer,  Lancashire  Pipe  Rolls,  i.,  260. 

2  Printed  by  Mr   Round  in   Essex  Arch.   Societfs   Transactions,   vii., 
Part  ii.     The  charter  is  dated  1101. 


COLCHESTER  133 

only  the  wealthiest  part  of  the  kingdom  (as  Domesday 
Book  clearly  shows1),  but  they  also  needed  special 
protection  from  the  attacks  of  Scandinavian  enemies. 
Mr  Round  has  conjectured  that  the  castle  was  built  at 
the  time  of  the  invasion  of  St  Cnut,  between  1080  and 
io85.2 

The  castle  is  built  of  Roman  stones  used  over  again, 
with  rows  of  tiles  introduced  between  the  courses  with 
much  decorative  effect.3  The  original  doorway  was  on 
the  first  floor,  as  in  most  Norman  keeps  ;  but  at  some 
after  time,  probably  in  the  reign  of  Henry  I.,4  the  present 
doorway  was  inserted  ;  and  most  likely  the  handsome 
stairway  which  now  leads  up  from  this  basement 
entrance  was  added,  as  it  shows  clear  marks  of  insertion. 
Henry  II.  was  working  on  the  walls  of  the  castle  in 
^i-S^-and  it  may  be  strongly  suspected  that  the  repairs 
in  ashlar,  and  the  casing  of  the  buttresses  with  ashlar, 
were  his  work.5  One  item  in  the  accounts  of  Henry  II. 
is  £$o  "  for  making  the  bailey  round  the  castle." ' 
There  were  two  baileys  to  the  castle  of  Colchester — the 
inner  one,  which  scarcely  covered  2  acres,  and  the  outer 
one,  which  contained  about  n.  The  inner  bailey  was 
enclosed  at  first  with  an  earthwork  and  stockade,  the 
earthwork  being  thrown  up  over  the  remains  of  some 

1  See  Maitland,  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  p.  22. 

2  History  of  Colchester  Castle,  p.  141. 

3  It  has  been  much  debated  whether  these  tiles  are  Roman  or  Norman  ; 
the  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  they  are  mixed.     See  Round's  History  of 
Colchester,  p.  78. 

4  The  single  Pipe  Roll  of  Henry  I.  shows  that  he  spent  ,£33,  155.  on 
repairs  of  the  castle  and  borough  in  1130. 

5  In   operatione   unius    Rogi   (a  kiln),    ^13,  i8s.     In  reparatione  muri 
castelli,  ^16,  35.  2d.     The  projection  of  the  buttresses  (averaging  i  ft.  3  ins.) 
is  about  the  same  as  that  found  in  castles  of  Henry  I.  or  Henry  Il.'s  time. 

6  Ad  faciendum   Ballium    circa   castellum,   ,£50.     Pipe  Rolls,  xix.,  13. 
This  is  followed  by  another  entry  of  ,£18,  135.  7d.  "in  operatione  castelli," 
which  may  refer  to  the  same  work. 


134      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Roman  walls,  whose  line  it  does  not  follow.  Afterwards 
a  stone  wall  was  built  on  the  earthwork,  the  foundations 
of  which  can  still  be  traced  in  the  west  rampart.1  The 
outer  bailey,  which  lay  to  the  north,  extended  on  two 
sides  to  the  Roman  walls  of  the  town  ;  on  the  west  side 
it  had  a  rampart  and  stockade.  If  the  ,£50  spent  by 
Henry  II.  represents  the  cost  of  a  stone  wall  round  the 
inner  bailey,  then  the  palicium  blown  down  by  the  wind 
in  1219  must  have  been  the  wooden  stockade  on  the 
west  side  of  the  outer  bailey.2  The  question  is  difficult 
to  decide,  but  at  any  rate  the  entry  proves  that  as  late 
as  Henry  III.'s  reign,  some  part  of  the  outer  defences 
of  Colchester  Castle  was  still  of  timber. 

The  position  of  Colchester  Castle  is  exceptional  in 
one  respect,  that  the  castle  is  almost  in  the  middle  of 
the  town.  But  this  very  unusual  position  is  explained 
by  Mr  Round's  statement  that  the  land  forming  the 
castle  baileys,  as  well  as  that  afterwards  given  to  the 
Grey  Friars  on  the  east,  was  crown  demesne  before  the 
Conquest,  and  consequently  had  been  cultivated  land,  so 
that  we  do  not  hear  of  any  houses  in  Colchester  being 
destroyed  for  the  site  of  the  castle.3  But  by  keeping 
this  land  as  the  inalienable  appendage  of  the  royal  castle 
William  secured  that  communication  between  the  castle 
and  the  outside  country  which  was  so  essential  to  the 
invaders. 

The  value  of  the  city  of  Colchester  had  risen  enor- 
mously at  the  date  of  the  Survey.4 

1  Round's  History  of  Colchester. 

2  Close  Rolls )  i.,  389.     Mandamus  to  the  bishop  of  London  to  choose 
two  lawful  and  discreet  men  of  Colchester,  "et  per  visum  eorum  erigi 
faceatis  palicium  castri  nostri  Colecestrie,  quod  nuper  prostratum  fuit  per 
tempestatem." 

3  Round's  History  of  Colchester,  pp.  135,  136. 

4  Tota  civitas  ex  omnibus  debitis  reddebat  T.  R.  E.,  ^15,  53.  4d.,  in 
unoquoque  anno.     Modo  reddit  ;£i6o.     D.  B.,  ii.,  107. 


CORFE  135 

CORFE,  Dorset  (Fig.  13). — Mr  Eyton  has  shown  that 
for  the  castellum  Warham  of  Domesday  Book  we  ought 
to  read  Corfe,  because  the  castle  was  built  in  the  manor 
of  Kingston,  four  miles  from  Wareham.1  And  this  is 
made  clear  by  the  Testa  de  Nevill,  which  says  that  the 
church  of  Gillingham  was  given  to  the  nunnery  of 
Shaftesbury  in  exchange  for  the  land  on  which  the 
castle  of  Corfe  is  placed.2  Because  King  Edward  the 
Martyr  was  murdered  at  Corfe,  at  some  place  where  his 
stepmother  Elfrida  was  residing,  it  has  been  inferred 
that  there  was  a  Saxon  castle  at  Corfe ;  and  because 
there  is  a  building  with  some  herring-bone  work  among 
the  present  ruins,  it  has  been  assumed  that  this  building 
is  the  remains  of  that  castle  or  palace.  But  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle,  the  only  contemporary  authority  for 
the  event,  says  nothing  of  any  castle  at  Corfe,  but  simply 
tells  us  that  Edward  was  slain  at  Corfe  Geat,  a  name 
which  evidently  alludes  to  a  gap  or  passage  through  the 
chalk  hills,  such  as  there  is  at  Corfe.3  Nor  is  there  any 
mention  of  Corfe  as  a  fortress  in  Anglo-Saxon  times  ; 
it  is  not  named  in  the  Burghal  Hidage,  and  we  do  not 
hear  of  any  sieges  of  it  by  the  Danes.  Nor  is  it  likely 
that  the  Saxons  would  have  had  a  fortress  at  Corfe, 
when  they  had  a  fortified  town  so  near  as  Wareham.4 

1  Eyton,  Key  to  Domesday,  p.  43.     This  passage  was  kindly  pointed  out 
to  me  by  Dr  Round.     The  castle  is  not  mentioned  in  Domesday  under 
Wareham,  but  under  Kingston.     "  De  manerio  Chingestone  habet  rex  unam 
hidam,  in  qua  fecit  castellum  Warham,  et  pro  ea  dedit  S.  Marias  [of  Shaftes- 
bury] ecclesiam  de  Gelingeham  cum  appendiciis  suis."     D.  B.,  i.,  78b,  2. 

2  "Advocatio  ecclesie    de   Gillingeham   data  fuit  abbati    [sic]    de    S. 
Edwardo  in  escambium  pro  terra  ubi  castellum  de  Corf  positum  est."     Testa 
de  Nevill,  i64b. 

3  It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  Corfe  was  the  scene  of  Edward's  murder, 
as  we  learn  from  a  charter  of  Cnut  (Mon.  Ang.,  iii.,  55)  that  there  was  a 
Corfe  Geat  not  far  from  Portisham,  probably  the  place  now  called  Coryates. 

4  Called  by  Asser  a  castellum;  but  it  has  already  been  pointed  out  that 
castellum  in  early  writers  means  a  walled  town  and  not  a  castle.    (See  p.  25.) 


136      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Kingston,  the  manor  in  which  Corfe  is  situated,  was  not 
an  important  place,  as  it  had  no  dependent  soke.  The 
language  of  Domesday  absolutely  upsets  the  idea  of  any 
Saxon  castle  or  palace  at  Corfe,  as  it  tells  us  that 
William  obtained  the  land  for  his  castle  from  the  nuns 
of  Shaftesbury,  and  we  may  be  quite  sure  they  had  no 
castle  there.1 

Corfe  Castle  stands  on  a  natural  hill,  which  has  been 
so  scarped  artificially  that  the  highest  part  now  forms  a 
large  motte.  Three  wards  exist — the  eastern  or  motte 
ward,  the  western,  and  the  southern.  The  two  former 
probably  formed  the  original  castle.  On  the  motte 
(which  possibly  is  not  artificial,  but  formed  by  scarping) 
stands  the  lofty  keep,  of  splendid  workmanship, 
probably  of  the  time  of  Henry  I.  In  the  ward 
pertaining  to  it  are  buildings  of  the  time  of  John  and 
Henry  III.2  The  western  ward  has  towers  of  the  I3th 
century,  but  it  also  contains  the  interesting  remains  of 
an  early  Norman  building,  probably  a  hall  or  chapel, 
built  largely  of  herring-bone  work  ;  this  is  the  building 
which  has  been  so  positively  asserted  to  be  a  Saxon 
palace.  But  herring-bone  masonry,  which  used  to  be 
thought  an  infallible  sign  of  Saxon  work,  is  now  found 
to  be  more  often  Norman.8  The  building  is  certainly 

Wareham  is  a  town  fortified  by  an  earthen  vallum  and  ditch,  and  is  one  of 
the  boroughs  of  the  Burghal  Hidage.  (See  Ch.  II.,  p.  28.)  A  Norman  castle 
was  built  there  after  the  Conquest,  and  its  motte  still  remains,  D.  B.  says 
seventy-three  houses  were  utterly  destroyed  from  the  time  of  Hugh  the 
Sheriff.  I.,  75. 

1  Edred  granted  "  to  the  religious  woman,  Elfthryth,"  supposed  to  be 
the  Abbess  of  Shaftesbury,  "  pars  telluris  Purbeckinga,"  which  would  include 
Corfe.    Mon.  Ang.,  ii.,  478. 

2  Both  these  kings  spent  large  sums  on  Corfe  Castle.     See  the  citations 
from  the  Pipe  Rolls  in  Hutchins5  Dorset,  vol.  i.,  and  in  Mr  Bond's  History 
of  Corfe  Castle. 

3  See  Professor  Baldwin  Brown's  paper  in  the  Journal  of  the  Institute  of 
British  Architects^  Third  Series,  ii.,  488,  and  Mr  Micklethwaite's  in  Arch. 


CORFE 

an  ancient  one,  and  may  possibly  have  been  contem- 
porary with  the  first  Norman  castle ;  its  details  are 
unmistakably  Norman.  But  very  likely  it  was  the  only 
Norman  masonry  of  the  nth  century  at  Corfe  Castle.1 
It  is  clear  that  the  stone  wall  which  at  present  surrounds 
the  western  bailey  did  not  exist  when  the  hall  (or 
chapel)  was  built,  as  it  blocks  up  its  southern  windows. 
Probably  there  was  a  palisade  at  first  on  the  edge  of 
the  scarp.  Palisades  still  formed  part  of  the  defences  of 
the  castle  in  the  time  of  Henry  III.,  when  62/.  was 
paid  "for  making  two  good  walls  in  place  of  the 
palisades  at  Corfe  between  the  old  bailey  of  the  said 
castle  and  the  middle  bailey  towards  the  west,  and 
between  the  keep  of  the  said  castle  and  the  outer  bailey 
towards  the  south." :  This  shows  that  the  present 
wing-walls  down  from  the  motte  were  previously  repre- 
sented by  stockades.  The  ditch  between  the  keep  and 
the  southern  bailey  has  been  attributed  to  King  John, 
on  the  strength  of  an  entry  in  the  Close  Rolls  which 
orders  fifteen  miners  and  stone-masons  to  work  on  the 
banks  of  the  ditch  in  I2I4.8  But  we  may  be  quite 
certain  that  this  ditch  below  the  motte  belonged  to  the 
original  plan  of  the  castle  ;  John's  work  would  be  either 
to  line  it  with  masonry,  or  to  enlarge  it.  It  is  not 
without  significance  for  the  early  history  of  the  castle 
that  Durandus  the  carpenter  held  the  manor  of 
Mouldham  near  Corfe,  by  the  service  of  finding  a 
carpenter  to  work  at  the  keep  whenever  required.4 
The  area  of  Corfe  Castle,  if  we  include  the  large 

Journ.,  liii.,  338  ;  also  Professor  Baldwin  Brown's  remarks  on  Corfe  Castle 
in  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  ii.}  71. 

1  There  are  other  instances  in  which  the  chapel  is  the  oldest  piece  of 
mason-work  about  the  castle,  as,  for  example,  at  Pontefract. 

2  Cited  in  Hutchins'  Dorset,  i.,  488,  from  the  Close  Rolls. 

3  Close  Rolls,  i.,  i;8b.  4  Hutchins'  Dorset,  i.,  488. 


138      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

southern  bailey,  is  3f  acres  ;  without  it,  ij  acres.  This 
bailey  was  certainly  in  existence  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
III.  (as  the  extract  from  the  Close  Rolls  proves)  before 
the  towers  of  superb  masonry  were  added  to  it  by 
Edward  I. 

The  value  of  Kingston  Manor  had  considerably 
increased  at  the  date  of  the  Survey.  After  the  Count 
of  Mortain  forfeited  his  lands  (in  1 105),  the  castle  of 
Corfe  was  kept  in  the  hands  of  the  crown,  and  this 
increases  the  probability  that  the  keep  was  built  by 
Henry  I. 

About  400  yards  S.W.  of  Corfe  Castle  is  an 
earthwork  which  might  be  called  a  "  Ring  and  Bailey." 
Instead  of  the  usual  motte  there  is  a  circular  enclosure, 
defended  by  a  bank  and  ditch  of  about  the  same  height 
as  those  of  its  bailey,  but  having  in  addition  an  interior 
platform  or  berm.  This  work  is  probably  the  remains 
of  a  camp  thrown  up  by  Stephen  during  his  unsuc- 
cessful siege  of  Corfe  Castle  in  1 139. 

DOVER,  Kent  (Fig.  14). — The  Norman  historian, 
William  of  Poitiers,  tells  us  that  the  castrum  of  Dover 
was  built  by  Harold  at  his  own  expense.1  This  comes 
from  the  celebrated  story  of  the  oath  of  Harold  to 
William,  a  story  of  which  Mr  Freeman  says  that  there 
is  no  portion  of  our  history  more  entangled  in  the  mazes 
of  contradictory  and  often  impossible  statements.2  But 
let  us  assume  the  statement  about  the  castrum  to  be 
true ;  the  question  then  to  be  answered  is  this  :  of  what 
nature  was  that  castrum  ?  We  never  are  told  by 
English  chroniclers  that  Harold  built  any  castles, 
though  we  do  hear  of  his  fortifying  towns.  The  present 

1  Castrum  Doveram,  studio  atque  sumptu  suo  communitum.  P.  108. 
Eadmer  makes  Harold  promise  to  William  "  Castellum  Dofris  cum  puteo 
aquae  ad  opus  meum  te  facturum."  Hist.  Novorum^  i.,  d.  The  castle  is 
not  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book.  2  Norman  Conquest,  iii.,  217. 


SCALE  OF  FEET. 

20Q  3OO  4OO  30V   6OO 


DOVER. 
(From  a  plan  in  the  British  Museum,  1756.) 


FIG.  14. 


[To  face  p.  138. 


DOVER  139 

writer  would  answer  this  question,  tentatively  indeed, 
and  under  correction,  by  the  theory  that  the  castrum 
constructed  or  repaired  by  Harold  was  the  present  outer 
rampart  of  Dover  Castle,  which  encloses  an  area  of 
about  34  acres,  and  may  have  enclosed  more,  if  it  was 
formerly  complete  on  the  side  towards  the  sea.1  The 
evidence  in  support  of  this  theory  is  as  follows  : — 

1.  There  certainly  was  a  burh  on  the  top  of  the  cliff 
at  Dover  in  Saxon  times,  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 
tells  us. that  in  1048  Eustace  of  Boulogne,  after  coming 
to  Dover,  and  slaying  householders  there,  went  up  to 
the  burh,  and  slew  people  both  within  and  without,  but 
was    repulsed    by    the   burh-men.2     There   was   then  a 
burh,   and   valiant  burh-men  on   the  cliff  at   Dover  in 
Edward  the  Confessor's  reign.     But  the  whole  analogy 
of  the  word  burh  makes  it  certain  that  by  the  time  of 
Edward  it  meant  a  fortified  town.3 

2.  That  the  burh  at  Dover  was  of  the  nature  of  a 
town,  with  houses  in  it,  is  confirmed  by  the  poem  of  Guy 
of  Amiens,  who  says  that  when  King  William  entered 
the  castrum,  he  ordered  the  English  to  evacuate  their 
houses.4    William  of  Poitiers  also  states  that  there  was  an 

1  In  1580  an  earthquake  threw  down  a  portion  of  the  cliff  on  which  the 
castle  stands,  and  part  of  the  walls.     Statham's  History  of  Dover,  p.  287. 

2  "  Wendon  him  tha  up  to  thaere  burge-weard,  and  ofslogen  aegther  ge 
withinnan  ge  withutan,  ma  thanne  20  manna."    Another  MS.  adds  "tha 
burh-menn  ofslogen    19  men   on  othre  healfe,  and  ma  gewundode,  and 
Eustatius  atbasrst  mid  feawum  mannum."  3  See  ante,  pp.  17-19. 

4  His  description  is  worth  quoting  : 

Est  ibi  mons  altus,  strictum  mare,  litus  opacum, 
Hinc  hostes  citius  Anglica  regna  petunt ; 
Sed  castrum  Doverae,  pendens  a  vertice  mentis, 
Hostes  rejiciens,  littora  tuta  facit. 
Clavibus  acceptis,  rex  intrans  moenia  castri 
Praecepit  Angligenis  evacuare  domos  ; 
Hos  introduxit  per  quos  sibi  regna  subegit, 
Unumquemque  suum  misit  ad  hospitium. 

"  Carmen  de  Bello  Hastingensi,';  in  Monumenta  Britannica,  p.  603. 


140      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

innumerable  multitude  of  people  in  the  castle,1  though 
he  may  refer  to  a  multitude  gathered  there  for  safety. 

3.  Though  the  whole  of  the  outer  enceinte  is 
generally  credited  to  Hubert  de  Burgh  in  Henry  III.'s 
reign,  the  truth  probably  is  that  he  built  the  first  stone 
walls  and  towers  on  the  outer  rampart ;  but  the  existence 
of  this  earthen  rampart  shows  that  there  was  a  wooden 
wall  upon  it  previously.  It  is  not  improbable  that  it 
was  for  the  repair  of  this  wooden  wall  that  so  much 
timber  was  sent  to  Dover  in  the  reigns  of  Richard  I. 
and  John.2  Bering,  who  was  lieutenant  of  the  castle  in 
1629,  records  the  tradition  that  the  tower  in  the  outer 
enceinte,  called  Canons'  Gate,  dates  from  Saxon  times 
(of  course  this  could  only  be  true  of  a  wooden  prede- 
cessor of  the  stone  tower),  and  that  Godwin's  Tower,  on 

1  William's  description  is  also  of  great  interest :  "  Deinde  dux  contendit 
Doueram,  ubi  multus  populus  congregatus  erat,  pro  inexpugnabile,  ut  sibi 
videtur,  munitione  ;  quia  id  castellum  situm  est  in  rupe  mari  contigua,  quae 
naturaliter  acuta  undique  ad  hoc  ferramentis  elaborate  incisa,  in  speciem 
muri    directissima  altitudine,   quantum    sagittae   jactus    permetiri    potest, 
consurgit,  quo  in  latere  unda  marina  alluitur."     P.  140. 

2  The  following  entries  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  refer  to  this  : — 

1194-5.     Three  hundred  planks  of  oak  for  the  works  of  the  castle        .  £2    o  o 

1196-7.     Repair  of  the  wall  of  the  castle            .            .          ",            .  76     3  o 
1208-9.     Timber  for  walling  the  castles  of  Dover  and  Rochester,  also 

rods  and  [wooden]  hurdles  and  other  needful  things         V"  76  13  4 

I2IO-II.     Payment  for  the  carpenters  working  the  timber      "••  ?i;'-'"        •.  24     9  5 

1212-13.     For  the  carriage  of  timber  and  other  things    .            .        '•    *  48  16  7 

1214-15.  For  the  carriage  of  timber  for  the  castle  works  «  ,  . . -•.  2  o  o 
1214-15.  For  timber  and  brushwood  for  the  works,  and  for  cutting 

down  wood  to  make  hurdles,  and  sending  them     ,..  sum  not  given, 

but  ;£ioo  entered  same  year  for  the  works  of  the  castle.  There  is  no 
mention  of  stone  for  the  castle  during  these  two  reigns,  but  after  the  death 
of  John  we  find  that  works  are  going  on  at  Dover  for  which  kilns  are 
required.  (Close  Rolls,  i.,  352,  1218.)  This  entry  is  followed  by  a  very 
large  expenditure  on  Dover  Castle  (amounting  to  at  least  ^6000),  sufficient 
to  cover  the  cost  of  a  stone  wall  and  towers  round  the  outer  circuit.  The 
orders  of  planks  for  joists  must  be  for  the  towers,  and  the  large  quantities  of 
lead,  for  roofing  them.  The  order  for  timber  "  ad  palum  et  alia  facienda  " 
in  1225  may  refer  to  a  stockade  on  the  advanced  work  called  the  Spur, 
which  is  said  to  be  Hubert's  work.  (Close  Rolls,  ii.,  14.) 


DOVER  141 

the  east  side  of  the  outer  vallum,  existed  as  a  postern 
before  the  Conquest.1  Nearly  all  the  towers  on  this 
wall  were  supported  by  certain  manors  held  on  the 
tenure  of  castle-guard,  and  eight  of  them  still  retain  the 
names  of  eight  knights  to  whom  William  is  said  to  have 
given  lands  on  this  tenure.  Mr  Round  has  shown  that 
the  War  da  Constabularii  of  Dover  Castle  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  Conquest,  and  that  it  is  a  mere  legend  that 
it  was  given  as  a  fief  to  a  Fienes.  He  remarks  that  the 
nine  wards  of  the  castle  named  in  the  Red  Book  of  the 
Exchequer  are  all  reproduced  in  the  names  still  attached 
to  the  towers.  "  This  coincidence  of  testimony  leads  us 
to  believe  that  the  names  must  have  been  attached  at  a 
very  early  period  ;  and  looking  at  the  history  of  the 
families  named,  it  cannot  have  been  later  than  that  of 
Henry  II."2  May  it  not  have  been  even  earlier? 
Eight  of  these  names  are  attached  to  towers  on  the 
outer  circuit,3  and  five  of  them  are  found  as  landholders 
in  Kent  in  Domesday  Book. 

4.  William  of  Poitiers  further  tells  us  that  when  the 
duke  had  taken  the  castle,  he  remained  there  eight  days, 
to  add  the  fortifications  which  were  wanting?  What 
was  wanting  to  a  Norman  eye  in  Anglo-Saxon  fortifica- 
tions, as  far  as  we  know  them,  was  a  citadel ;  and 
without  laying  too  much  stress  on  the  chronicler's  eight 
days,  we  may  assume  that  the  short  time  spent  by 
William  at  Dover  was  just  enough  for  the  construction 
of  a  motte  and  bailey,  inside  the  castrum  of  Harold,  but 
crowned  by  wooden  buildings  only. 

1  Cited  by  Statham,  History  of 'Dover •,  pp.  265,  313. 

2  Commune  of  London,  pp.  278-81. 

3  The  ninth  name,  Maminot,  is  attached  to  three  towers  on  the  curtain 
of  the  keep  ward. 

"  Recepto  castro,  quee  minus  erant  per  dies  octo  addidit  firmamenta." 
P.  140. 


142      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Taking  these  things  together,  we  venture  to  assume 
that  the  inner  court  in  which  the  keep  of  Dover  stands, 
represents  an  original  motte,  or  at  any  rate  an  original 
citadel,  added  to  the  castle  by  William  I.  Whether 
what  now  remains  of  this  motte  is  in  part  artificial,  we 
do  not  pretend  to  say  ;  it  may  be  that  it  was  formed 
simply  by  digging  a  deep  ditch  round  the  highest  knoll 
of  ground  within  the  ancient  ramparts.1  Anyhow,  it 
is  still  in  effect  a  motte,  and  a  large  one,  containing  not 
only  the  magnificent  keep,  but  a  small  ward  as  well. 
That  this  keep  was  the  work  of  Henry  II.  there  can 
be  no  manner  of  doubt ;  the  Pipe  Rolls  show  that  he 
spent  more  than  ^2000  on  the  turris  or  keep  of  Dover 
Castle  between  the  years  1181  and  1187,  and  Benedict 
of  Peterborough  mentions  the  building  of  the  keep  at 
this  date.2  The  curtain  around  the  motte  may  also  be 
reckoned  to  be  his  work  originally,  as  the  cingulum  is 
spoken  of  along  with  the  turris  in  the  accounts. 
Modern  alterations  have  left  little  of  Norman  character 
in  this  curtain  which  shows  at  a  glance,  and  the  gate- 
ways (one  of  which  remains)  belong  to  a  later  period. 

Attached  to  this  keep  ward  is  another  ward,  whose 
rampart  is  generally  attributed  to  Saxon  times.  We 
are  not  in  a  position  positively  to  deny  that  the  Saxons 
had  an  inner  earthwork  on  the  highest  part  of  the 
ground  within  their  burh.  But  considering  that  small 
citadels  are  unusual  in  Saxon  earthworks  :  considering 
also  that  this  bailey  is  attached  to  the  motte  in  the 

1  Lyon  says  :  "  The  keep  [hill]  was  formed  of  chalk  dug  out  of  the  interior 
hill.     Cited  by  Statham,  p.  245. 

2  "Per  praeceptum  regis  facta  est  apud  Doveram  turris  fortissima."     II. 
8,  R.  S.,  anno  1187.     The  Historia  Fundationis  of  St  Martin's  Abbey  says 
that  Henry  II.  built  the  high  tower  in  the  castle,  and  enclosed  the  donjon 
with  new  walls  :  "  fit  le  haut  tour  en  le  chastel,  et  enclost  le  dongon  de 
nouelx  murs."    M.  A.y  iv.,  533. 


DOVER  143 

usual  manner  of  a  Norman  bailey,  and  that  its  size 
corresponds  to  the  usual  size  of  an  original  Norman 
bailey  in  an  important  place,  it  does  not  seem  unreason- 
able to  suppose  that  this  was  the  original  bailey  attached 
to  the  Conqueror's  motte.  Its  shape  is  singular,  part 
of  it  being  nearly  square,  while  at  the  S.E.  corner  a 
large  oval  loop  is  thrown  out,  so  as  to  enclose  the 
Roman  Pharos  and  the  Saxon  church.  The  outline  of 
the  bailey  certainly  suggests  that  it  was  built  after  the 
Pharos  and  the  church,  and  was  built  with  reference 
primarily  to  the  keep  or  motte  ward.  The  nature  of 
the  ground,  and  the  necessity  of  enclosing  the  church 
and  the  Roman  tower  within  the  immediate  bailey  of 
the  castle,  which  would  otherwise  have  been  commanded 
by  them,  were  the  other  factors  which  decided  the 
unusual  shape  of  the  bailey. 

On  this  earthwork  the  foundations  of  a  rubble  wall 
were  formerly  to  be  traced,1  probably  built  by  Henry 
II.,  as  considerable  sums  for  "the  wall  of  the  castle" 
are  mentioned  in  his  accounts.2  Whether  there  are  still 
any  remains  of  this  curtain  we  are  unable  to  say,  but  so 
many  of  the  features  of  the  middle  ward  have  been 
swept  away  by  modern  alterations,  and  the  difficulty  of 
examining  what  remains,  owing  to  military  restrictions, 
is  so  great,  that  little  can  be  said  about  it,  and  we  find 
that  most  authorities  observe  a  judicious  silence  on  the 
subject.  But  as  the  carriage  of  stone  is  expressly 
mentioned  in  Henry  II.'s  accounts,  we  may  with  great 
probability  assign  to  him  the  transformation  of  the 
original  wooden  castle  of  William  into  a  castle  of  stone  ; 
while  the  transformation  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  borough 

1  Puckle's  Church  and  Fortress  of  Dover  Castle,  p.  57. 

2  Pipe  Rolls,  1178-80.     "In  operatione  muri  circa  castellum  de  Doura, 
,  135.  4d.     The  same,  ^94,  75.  id." 


144      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

into   a   stone   enceinte  was    the  work  of   Henry    III.'s 
reign. 

We  think  the  evidence  suggests  that  this  burh  or 
outer  rampart  was  in  existence  when  the  Conqueror 
came  to  Dover,  crowned  in  all  probability  with  a 
stockade  and  towers  of  wood.  It  may  possibly  have 
been  a  British  or  even  a  Roman  earthwork  originally 
(though  its  outline  does  not  suggest  Roman  work) ;  or 
it  may  have  been  built  by  Harold  as  a  city  of  refuge 
for  the  inhabitants  of  the  port.1  The  Saxon  church 
which  it  encloses,  and  which  has  long  been  attributed 
to  the  earliest  days  of  Saxon  Christianity,  is  now 
pronounced  by  the  best  authorities  to  be  comparatively 
late  in  the  style.2 

The  size  of  the  inner  castle  of  Dover  appears  to  be 
about  6  acres,  reckoning  the  keep  ward  at  2,  and 
the  bailey  at  about  4. 

The  value  of  the  town  of  Dover  had  trebled  at  the 
time  of  the  Survey,  in  spite  of  the  burning  of  the  town 
at  William's  first  advent.3 

DUDLEY,  Staffordshire  (Fig.  15).  —  William  Fitz 
Ansculf  held  Dudley  at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  "  and 
there  is  his  castle."4  Mr  Clark  appears  to  accept  the 
dubious  tradition  of  a  Saxon  Dodda,  who  first  built  this 
castle  in  the  8th  century,  since  he  speaks  of  Dudley  as 
"a  great  English  residence."5  This  tradition,  however, 
is  not  supported  by  Domesday  Book,  which  shows 

1  Mr  Statham  thinks  the  port  of  Dover,  though  a  Roman  station,  was 
un walled  till  the   I3th   century,  and  gives   evidence.     History  of  Dover, 
p.  56. 

2  See  Professor  Baldwin  Brown,  "  Statistics  of  Saxon  Churches  "  in  the 
Builder^  2Oth  October  1900 ;  and  in  The  Arts  in  Early  England^  ii,,  338. 

'  D.  B,  i,  i. 

4  Istedem  Willelmus  tenet  Dudelei,  et  ibi  est  castellum  ejus.     T.  R.  E. 
valebat  4  libras,  modo  3  libras."     D.  B.,  i.,  177. 

5  M.  M.  A.,  i.,  24. 


• . 


[To /ace  p.  144. 


DUDLEY— DUNSTER  145 

Dudley  to  have  been  only  a  small  and  unimportant 
manor  before  the  Conquest.  The  strong  position  of  the 
hill  was  no  doubt  the  reason  why  the  Norman  placed 
his  castle  there.  There  is  no  Norman  masonry  in  the 
present  ruins.  The  earliest  work  is  that  of  the  keep 
on  the  motte,  a  rectangular  tower  with  round  corner 
turrets,  attributed  by  Mr  W.  St  John  Hope  to  about 
1320.  The  first  castle  was  demolished  by  Henry  II.  in 
1 1 75, 1  and  an  attempt  to  restore  it  in  1218  was  strin- 
gently countermanded.2  The  case  of  Dudley  is  one  of 
those  which  proves  that  Henry  II.  destroyed  some 
lawful  castles  in  1175  as  well  as  the  unlawful  ones.  In 
1264  a  license  to  restore  it  was  granted  to  Roger  de 
Somery,  in  consideration  of  his  devotion  to  the  king's 
cause  in  the  Barons'  War.8  The  whole  area  of  the 
castle,  including  the  motte,  but  not  including  the  works 
at  the  base  of  the  hill  on  which  it  stands,  is  if  acres. 
The  bailey  is  an  irregular  oval,  following  the  hill  top. 
Dudley  is  an  instance  in  which  the  value  of  the  manor 
has  gone  down  instead  of  up  since  the  erection  of  the 
castle ;  this  may  perhaps  be  laid  to  the  account  of  the 
devastation  caused  through  the  Staffordshire  insurrec- 
tion of  1069. 

DUNSTER,  Somerset  (Fig.  15).  —  Called  Torre  in 
Domesday  Book.  "  There  William  de  Moion  has  his 
castle."  *  The  motte  here  appears  to  be  a  natural  rock 
or  tor,  whose  summit  has  been  levelled  and  its  sides 

1  "  Circa  dies  istos  castellum  de  Huntinduna,  de  Waletuna,  de  Leger- 
cestria,  et  Grobi,  de  Stutesbers  [Tutbury],  de  Dudeleia,  de  Tresc,  et  alia 
plura  pariter  corruerunt,  in  ultionem  injuriarum  quas  domini  castellorum 
regi  patri  frequenter  intulerunt."    Diceto,  i.,  404,  R.  S. 

2  Close  Rolls,  i.,  380. 

8  Parker's  History  of  Domestic  Architecture,  Licenses  to  Crenellate,  I3th 
century,  Part  ii.,  p.  402.  Godwin,  "  Notice  of  the  Castle  at  Dudley,"  Arch. 
Journ.,  xv.,  47. 

«  D.  B.,  i,  95b. 

K 


146      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

scarped  by  art.  About  80  feet  below  the  top  is  a 
(roughly)  half-moon  bailey,  itself  a  shelf  on  the  side 
of  the  hill ;  there  is  another  and  much  smaller  shelf 
at  the  opposite  end.1  Some  foundations  found  in  the 
S.W.  corner  of  the  upper  ward  appear  to  indicate  a 
former  stone  keep.2  Dunster  was  only  a  small  manor  of 
half  a  hide  before  the  Conquest,  but  afterwards  its  value 
tripled.  There  was  a  borough  as  well  as  a  castle.3 
The  castle  became  the  caput  baronies  of  the  De  Moions, 
to  whom  the  Conqueror  gave  fifty-six  manors  in 
different  parts  of  the  county.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  site  was  fortified  before  the 
Conquest.  Mr  Clark  remarks  that  "  it  is  remarkable 
that  no  mouldings  or  fragments  of  Norman  ornament 
have  been  dug  up  in  or  about  the  site,  although  there  is 
original  Norman  work  in  the  parish  church."  The 
simple  explanation,  probably,  is  that  the  first  castle  of 
De  Moion  was  of  wood,  although  on  a  site  where  it 
would  have  been  possible  to  build  in  stone  from  the 
first,  as  it  does  not  appear  that  any  part  of  the  motte  is 
artificial.  The  area  of  the  bailey  is  if  acres.  The 
value  of  Dunster  had  risen  at  the  date  of  Domesday.4 

DURHAM  (Fig.  16).  —  The  castle  here  was  first 
built  by  the  Conqueror,  on  his  return  from  his  expedi- 
tion against  Scotland  in  1072. 5  It  was  intended  as  a 
strong  residence  for  the  bishop,  through  whom  William 

1  Narrow  terraces  of  this  kind  are  found  in  several  mottes,  such  as  Mere, 
in  Wilts.     They  are  probably  natural,  and  may  have  been  utilised  as  part  of 
the  plan.    The  more  regular  terraces  winding  round  the  motte  are  generally 
found  where  the  motte  has  become  part  of  a  pleasure-ground  in  later  times. 

2  This  is  the  only  case  in  which  I  have  had  to  trust  to  Mr  Clark  for  the 
description  of  a  castle.    M.  M.  A.,  ii.,  24. 

3  Mentioned  in  Close  Rolls,  i.,  5i8a.  4  D.  B.,  i.}  95b. 

5  Symeon  of  Durham,  1072.  "Eodem  tempore,  scilicet  quo  rexreversus 
de  Scotia  fuerat,  in  Dunelmo  castellum  condidit,  ubi  se  cum  suis  episcopus 
tute  ab  incursantibus  habere  potuisset." 


DURHAM. 


FlG.    16. 


[To  face  p.  146. 


DURHAM  147 

hoped  to  govern  this  turbulent  part  of  the  country. 
He  placed  it  on  the  neck  of  the  lofty  peninsula  on  which 
the  cathedral  stands.  The  motte  of  the  Conqueror  still 
remains,  and  so  does  the  chapel l  which  he  built  in  the 
bailey ;  probably  the  present  court  of  the  castle,  though 
crowded  now  with  buildings,  represents  the  outline  of 
the  original  bailey.2  The  present  shell  keep  on  the 
motte  was  built  by  Bishop  Hatfield  in  Edward  III.'s 
reign,3  but  has  been  extensively  modernised.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  up  to  1345  there  were  only 
wooden  buildings  on  the  motte,  as  the  writer  was 
informed  by  Canon  Greenwell  that  no  remains  of  older 
stone-work  than  the  i4th  century  had  been  found  there. 
It  is  so  seldom  that  we  get  any  contemporary  descrip- 
tion of  a  castle,  of  this  kind,  that  it  seems  worth  while 
to  translate  the  bombastic  verse  in  which  Laurence, 
Prior  of  Durham,  described  that  of  Durham  in 
Stephen's  reign  : 4 

"Not  far  hence  [from  the  north  road  into  the  city] 
a  tumulus  of  rising  earth  explains  the  flatness  of  the 
excavated  summit,  explains  the  narrow  field  on  the 
flattened  vertex,  which  the  apex  of  the  castle  occupies 
with  very  pleasing  art.  On  this  open  space  the  castle 
is  seated  like  a  queen  ;  from  its  threatening  height,  it 
holds  all  that  it  sees  as  its  own.  From  its  gate,  the 
stubborn  wall  rises  with  the  rising  mound,5  and  rising 
still  further,  makes  towards  the  comfort  (amsena)  of  the 
keep.  But  the  keep,  compacted  together,  rises  again 

1  This  chapel  is  an  instance  of  the  honour  so  frequently  done  to  the 
chapel,  which  was  in  many  cases  built  of  stone  when  the  rest  of  the  castle 
was  only  of  timber,  and  was  always  the  part  most  lavishly  decorated. 

2  The  bailey  was  twice  enlarged  by  Bishops  Flambard  and  Pudsey. 

3  Surtees,  Durham,  iv.,  33.  4  Surtees  Society,  xx.,  11-13. 

6  Evidently  the  southern  wing  wall  up  the  motte  ;  but  we  need  not  suppose 
murus  to  mean  a  stone  wall. 


148      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

into  thin  air,  strong  within  and  without,  well  fitted  for 
its  work,  for  within  the  ground  rises  higher  by  three 
cubits  than  without — ground  made  sound  by  solid  earth. 
Above  this,  a  stalwart  house1  springs  yet  higher  than 
the  [shell]  keep,  glittering  with  splendid  beauty  in 
every  part ;  four  posts  are  plain,  on  which  it  rests,  one 
post  at  each  strong  corner?  Each  face  is  girded  by  a 
beautiful  gallery,  which  is  fixed  into  the  warlike  wall.3 
A  bridge,  rising  from  the  chapel  [in  the  bailey]  gives 
a  ready  ascent  to  the  ramparts,  easy  to  climb ;  starting 
from  them,  a  broad  way  makes  the  round  of  the  top  of 
the  wall,  and  this  is  the  usual  way  to  the  top  of  the 
citadel.  .  .  .  The  bridge  is  divided  into  easy  steps,  no 
headlong  drop,  but  an  easy  slope  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom.  Near  the  [head  of  the]  bridge,  a  wall  descends 
from  the  citadel,  turning  its  face  westward  towards  the 
river.4  From  the  river's  lofty  bank  it  turns  away  in  a 
broad  curve  to  meet  the  field  [i.e.,  Palace  Green].  It 
is  no  bare  plot  empty  of  buildings  that  this  high  wall 
surrounds  with  its  sweep,  but  one  containing  goodly 
habitations.6  There  you  will  find  two  vast  palaces  built 
with  porches,  the  skill  of  whose  builders  the  building 

1  Domus,  a  word  always  used  for  a  habitation  in  mediaeval  documents, 
and  often  applied  to  a  tower,  which  it  evidently  means  here. 

2  This  is  the  only  indication  which  Lawrence  gives  that  the  keep  was  of 
wood. 

3  "  Cingitur  et  pulchra  paries  sibi  quilibet  ala, 
Omnis  et  in  muro  desinit  ala  fero." 

The  translation  is  conjectural,  \>\&  gallery  seems  to  make  the  best  sense, 
and  the  allusion  probably  is  to  the  wooden  galleries,  or  hourdes,  which 
defended  the  walls. 

4  Evidently  the  northern  wing  wall. 

6  This  is  the  bailey  ;  the  two  vast  palaces  must  mean  the  hall  and  the 
lodgings  of  the  men-at-arms,  who  did  not  share  the  bishop's  dwelling  in  the 
keep.  These  were  probably  all  of  wood,  as  the  buildings  of  Durham  Castle 
were  burnt  at  the  beginning  of  Pudsey's  episcopate  (1153)  and  restored  by 
him.  Surtees  Society,  ix.,  12. 


DURHAM— ELY  149 

well  reveals.  There,  too,  the  chapel  stands  out  beauti- 
fully raised  on  six  pillars,  not  over  vast,  but  fair  enough 
to  view.  Here  chambers  are  joined  to  chambers,  house 
to  house,  each  suited  to  the  purpose  that  it  serves.  .  .  . 
There  is  a  building  in  the  middle  of  the  castle  which 
has  a  deep  well  of  abundant  water.  .  .  .  The  frowning 
gate  faces  the  rainy  south,  a  gate  that  is  strong,  high- 
reaching,  easily  held  by  the  hand  of  a  weakling  or  a 
woman.  The  bridge  is  let  down  for  egress,1  and  thus 
the  way  goes  across  the  broad  moat.  It  goes  to  the 
plain  which  is  protected  on  all  sides  by  a  wall,  where  the 
youth  often  held  their  joyous  games.  Thus  the 
castellan,  and  the  castle  artfully  placed  on  the  high 
ridge,  defend  the  northern  side  of  the  cathedral.  And 
from  this  castle  a  strong  wall  goes  down  southwards, 
continued  to  the  end  of  the  church." 2 

The  original  bailey  of  this  castle  covers  i  acre. 

ELY,  Cambridgeshire  (Fig.  17). — This  castle  was 
built  by  William  I.  in  1070,  when  he  was  repressing  the 
last  struggle  of  the  English  under  the  heroic  Hereward. 
The  monks  of  Ely  felt  it  a  sore  grievance  that  he  placed 
the  castle  within  their  own  bounds.8  Both  this  castle 
and  the  one  built  by  William  at  Aldreth,  to  defend  the 
passage  into  the  Isle  of  Ely,  had  a  continuous  existence, 
as  they  were  both  refortified  by  Nigel,  Bishop  of  Ely  in  • 
Stephen's  reign,  and  Ely  Castle  was  besieged  and  taken 
by  Stephen.4  The  earthworks  of  this  castle  still  exist, 
to  the  south  of  the  Minster.  There  is  a  fine  motte  with 

1  "  Hujus  in  egressu  pons  sternitur."    This  seems  a  probable  allusion  to 
a  drawbridge,  but  if  so,  it  is  an  early  one. 

2  This  describes  the  addition  to  the  bailey  made  by  Flambard.     The 
part  of  the  peninsula  to  the  S.  of  the  church  was  afterwards  walled  in 
by  Pudsey,  and  called  the  South  Bailey. 

3  Liber  Eliensis,  ii.,  245  (Anglia  Christiana).     The  part  cited  was  written 
early  in  the  I2th  century  :  see  Preface. 

4  Stowe's  Annals,  145,  i. 


150      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

an  oval  bailey,  of  which  the  banks  and  ditches  are 
traceable  in  parts.  The  area  of  the  bailey  is  2^-  acres. 
Of  Aldreth  or  Aldrey  there  appear  to  be  no  remains. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Ely  was  ^33  in  the 
Confessor's  reign  ;  it  fell  to  £20  after  the  devastations 
of  the  Conquest,  but  had  risen  again  to  ,£30  at  the  time 
of  the  Survey.1 

EWIAS,  Herefordshire  (Fig.  17). — The  brief  notice  of 
this  castle  in  Domesday  Book  throws  some  light  on  the 
general  theory  of  castle-building  in  England.2  William 
FitzOsbern,  as  the  king's  vicegerent,  rebuilt  this  march 
castle,  and  committed  it  to  the  keeping  of  another 
Norman  noble,  and  the  king  confirmed  the  arrangement. 
But  in  theory  the  castle  would  always  be  the  king's. 
This  is  the  only  case  in  the  Survey  where  we  hear  of  a 
castle  being  rebuilt  by  the  Normans.  We  naturally  look 
to  one  of  King  Edward's  Norman  favourites  as  the  first 
founder,  for  they  alone  are  said  by  history  to  have  built 
castles  on  the  Welsh  marches  before  the  Conquest. 
Dr  Round  conjectures  that  Ewias  was  the  "  Pentecost's 
castle"  spoken  of  in  the  (Peterborough)  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  in  1052. 3  No  masonry  is  now  to  be  seen 
on  the  motte  at  Ewias,  but  Mr  Clark  states  that  the 
outline  of  a  circular  or  polygonal  shell  keep  is  shown  by 

1  D.  B.,  ii.,  192. 

2  "Alured  de  Merleberge  tenet  castellum  de  Ewias  de  Willelmo  rege. 
Ipse  rex  enim  concessit  ei  terras  quas  Willelmus  comes  ei  dederat,  qui  hoc 
castellum  refirmaverat,  hoc  est,  5  carucatas  terras  ibidem.  .  .  .  Hoc  castellum 
valet  io/."     D.  B.,  i.,  i86a.     As  there  is  no  statement  of  the  value  in  King- 
Edward's  day,  we  cannot  tell  whether  it  had  risen  or  fallen. 

3  Feudal  England,  p.  324.     The  present  writer  was  led  independently  to 
the  same  conclusion.      Pentecost  was  the  nickname  of  Osbern,   son   of 
Richard  Scrob,  one  of  Edward's  Norman  favourites,  to  whom  he  had  given 
estates  in  Herefordshire.     Osbern  fled  to  Scotland  in  1052,  but  he  seems  to 
have  returned,  and  was  still  holding  lands  in  "  the  castelry  of  Ewias  "  at  the 
time  of  the  Survey,  though  his  nephew  Alured  held  the  castle.     See  Freeman, 
N.  C,  ii.,  345,  and  Florence  of  Worcester^  1052. 


O        100     200    300 


ELY,  GAMES. 


EWIAS  HAROLD,  HEREFORD. 


go     zoo    300 


EYE,  SUFFOLK. 


FIG.  17. 


[To  face  p.  150. 


EXETER  151 

a  trench  out  of  which  the  foundations  have  been  removed. 
The  bailey  is  roughly  of  half-moon  shape  and  the  mound 
oval.  The  whole  area  of  the  castle,  including  the  motte 
and  banks,  is  2^  acres. 

EXETER. — This  castle  is  not  mentioned  in  Domesday 
Book,  but  Ordericus  tells  us  that  William  chose  a 
site  for  the  castle  within  the  walls,  and  left  Baldwin 
de  Molis,  son  of  Count  Gilbert,  and  other  distin- 
guished knights,  to  finish  the  work,  and  remain  as 
a  garrison.1  In  spite  of  this  clear  indication  that  the 
castle  was  a  new  thing,  it  has  been  obstinately  held  that 
it  only  occupied  the  site  of  some  former  castle,  Roman 
or  Saxon.2  Exeter,  of  course,  was  a  Roman  castrum, 
and  its  walls  had  been  restored  by  Athelstan.  In  this 
case  William  placed  his  castle  inside  instead  of  outside 
the  city  walls,  because,  owing  to  the  natural  situation  of 
Exeter,  he  found  in  the  north-west  corner  a  site  which 
commanded  the  whole  city.  Although  Domesday  Book 
is  silent  about  the  castle,  it  tells  us  that  forty-eight 
houses  in  Exeter  had  been  destroyed  since  William 
came  to  England,8  and  Freeman  remarks  that  "  we  may 
assume  that  these  houses  were  destroyed  to  make  room 
for  the  castle,  though  it  is  not  expressly  said  that  they 
were." 4 

Exeter  Castle  stands  on  a  natural  knoll,  occupying 
the    north-west    corner   of  the    city,    which   has    been 

1  Locum  vero   intra  mcenia  ad  extruendum   castellum  delegit,   ibique 
Baldwinum  de  Molis,  filium  Gisleberti  comitis,  aliosque  milites  prsecipuos 
reliquit,  qui  necessarium  opus  conficerent,  praesidioque  manerunt."  Ordericus, 
ii.,  181. 

2  Exeter  is  one  of  the  few  cities  where  a  tradition  has  been  preserved  of 
the  site  of  the  Saxon  royal  residence,  which  places  it  in  what  is  now  Paul 
Street,  far  away  from  the  present  castle.     Shorrt's  Sylva  Antigua  Iscana, 
p.  7- 

3  "  In  hac  civitate  vastatse  sunt  48  domi  postquam  rex  venit  in  Angliam." 
D.  B.,  i.,  100.  4  Norman  Conquest^  iv.,  162. 


152      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

converted  into  a  sort  of  square  motte  by  digging  a  great 
ditch  round  the  two  sides  of  its  base  towards  the  town.1 
That  this  ditch  is  no  pre-  Roman  work  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  it  stops  short  at  the  Roman  wall,  and  begins 
again  on  the  outside  of  it,  where,  however,  the  greater 
part  has  been  levelled  to  form  the  promenade  of  the 
Northernhay  or  north  rampart  of  the  city.  On  top  of 
this  hill,  banks  30  feet  high  were  thrown  up,  which  still 
remain,  and  give  to  the  courtyard  which  they  enclose 
the  appearance  of  a  pit.2  On  top  of  these  banks  there 
are  now  stone  walls  ;  but  these  were  certainly  no  part 
of  the  work  of  Baldwin  de  Molis,  who  must  have  placed 
a  wooden  stockade  on  the  banks  which  he  constructed. 
One  piece  of  stonework  he  probably  did  set  up,  the 
gatehouse,  which  by  its  triangle-headed  windows  and 
its  long-and-short  work  is  almost  certainly  of  the  nth 
century.  It  has  frequently  been  called  Saxon,  but 
more  careful  critics  now  regard  it  as  "work  that  must 
have  been  done,  if  not  by  Norman  hands,  at  Norman 
bidding  and  on  Norman  design." 8  It  was  no  uncommon 
thing  at  this  early  period  to  have  gatehouses  of  stone 
to  walls  of  earth  and  wood.  Of  these  gatehouses 
Exeter  is  the  most  perfect  and  the  most  clearly  stamped 
with  antiquity. 

1  The  outer  ditch  may  have  been  of  Roman  origin,  but  in  that  case  it 
must  have  been  carried  all  round  the  city,  and  we  are  unable  to  find  whether 
this  was  the  case  or  not.  The  banks  on  the  north  and  east  sides  must  also 
have  been  of  Roman  origin,  and  if  we  rightly  understand  the  statements  of 
local  antiquaries,  the  Roman  city  wall  stood  upon  them,  and  has  actually 
been  found  in  situ,  cased  with  mediaeval  rubble.  Report  of  Devon 
Association,  1895. 

a  This  resemblance  to  a  pit  may  be  seen  in  every  motte  which  still  retains 
its  ancient  earthen  breast-work,  as  at  Castle  Levington,  Burton  in  Lonsdale, 
and  Castlehaugh,  Gisburne.  Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  that  we  so  frequently 
read  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  "  the  houses  in  the  motte  "  (domos  in  Mota)  instead 
of  on  the  motte.  Devizes  Castle  is  another  and  still  more  striking  instance. 

8  Professor  Baldwin  Brown,  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  ii.,  82. 


EXETER  153 

One  thing  we  look  for  in  vain  at  Exeter,  and  that  is 
a  citadel.  There  is  no  keep,  and  there  is  no  record  that 
there  ever  was  one,  though  a  chapel,  hall,  and  other 
houses  are  mentioned  in  ancient  accounts.  Mr  Clark 
says  that  probably  the  Normans  regarded  the  whole 
court  as  a  shell  keep.  It  certainly  was,  in  effect,  a 
motte  ;  but  it  was  altogether  exceptional  among  Norman 
castles  of  importance  if  it  had  no  bailey.  And  in  fact  a 
bailey  is  mentioned  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  i  Richard  I., 
where  there  is  an  entry  for  the  cost  of  making  a  gaol  in 
the  bailey  of  the  castle.1  Now  Norden,  who  published 
a  plan  of  Exeter  in  1619,  says  that  the  prison  which 
formerly  existed  at  the  bottom  of  Castle  Lane  (on  the 
south  or  city  front  of  the  present  castle )  was  "  built  upon 
Castle  grounde,"  and  he  states  that  the  buildings  and 
gardens  which  have  been  made  on  this  ground  are 
intrusions  on  the  king's  rights.2  The  remarkably  full 
account  of  the  siege  of  Exeter  in  the  Gesta  Stephani 
speaks  of  an  outer  promurale  which  was  taken  by 
Stephen,  as  well  as  the  inner  bridge  leading  from  the 
town  to  the  castle,  before  the  attack  on  the  castle  itself. 
Unfortunately  the  word  promurale  has  the  same  un- 
certainty about  it  that  attaches  to  so  many  mediaeval 
terms,  and  the  description  given  of  it  would  apply 
either  to  the  banks  of  a  bailey,  or  to  the  herifon 
on  the  counterscarp  of  the  ditch  of  the  motte.  We 
must,  therefore,  leave  it  to  the  reader's  judgment 
whether  the  evidence  given  above  is  sufficient  to 
establish  the  former  existence  of  a  bailey  at  Exeter, 
and  to  place  Exeter  among  the  castles  of  the  motte- 
and-bailey  type. 

The  description  of  the  castle  given  by  the  writer  of 

1  "  In  custamento  gaiole  in  ballia  castelli,  ^16,  155.  8d." 

8  Cited  by  Dr  Oliver,  "The  Castle  of  Exeter,"  in  Arch.  Journ.,  vii.,  128. 


154      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  Gesta  has  many  points  of  interest.1  He  describes 
the  castle  as  standing  on  a  very  high  mound  (editissimo 
aggere)  hedged  in  by  an  insurmountable  wall,  which 
was  defended  by  "  Caesarian"  towers  built  with  the  very 
hardest  mortar.  This  must  refer  to  Roman  towers 
which  may  have  existed  on  the  Roman  part  of  the  wall. 
Whether  there  was  a  stone  wall  on  the  other  two  sides, 
facing  the  city,  may  be  doubted,  as  the  expenditure 
entered  to  Henry  II.  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  suggests  that  he 
was  the  first  to  put  stone  walls  on  the  banks,  and  the 
two  ancient  towers  which  still  exist  appear  to  be  of  his 
time.2  The  chronicler  goes  on  to  say  that  after  Stephen 
had  taken  the  promurale  and  broken  down  the  bridge, 
there  were  several  days  and  nights  of  fighting  before  he 
could  win  the  castle,  which  was  eventually  forced  to 
surrender  by  the  drying-up  of  the  wells.  The  mining 
operations  which  he  describes  were  no  doubt  undertaken 
with  the  view  of  shaking  down  the  Roman  wall  at  the 
angle  where  it  joins  the  artificial  bank  of  Baldwin  de 
Molis.  Possibly  the  chamber  in  the  rock  with  the 
mysterious  passages  leading  from  it,  which  is  still  to  be 

1  The  whole  of  this  passage  is  worth  quoting :  "  Castellum  in  ea  situm, 
editissimo    aggere     sublatum,     muro     inexpugnabile    obseptum,    turribus 
Caesarianis  inseissili  calce  confectis  firmatum.     Agmine  peditum  instructis- 
sime   armato  exterius  promurale,   quod  ad  castellum  muniendum  aggere 
cumulatissimo  in  altum  sustollebatur,  expulsis  constanter  hostibus  suscepit, 
pontemque   interiorem,  quo  ad  urbem  de  castello  incessus  protendebatur, 
viriliter  infregit,   lignorumque   ingentia  artificia,  quibus  de   muro  pugnare 
intentibus  resisteretur,   mire  et  artificiose  exaltavit.     Die  etiam  et  noctu 
graviter  et  intente  obsidionem  clausis  inferre  ;  nunc  cum  armatis  aggerem 
incessu  quadrupede  conscendentibus  rixam  pugnacem  secum  committere  ; 
nunc  cum  innumeris  fundatoribus,  qui  e  diverse  conduct!  fuerunt,  intolerable 
eos   lapidum  grandine  infestare  ;   aliquando  autem   ascitis   eis,  qui  massae 
subterranae  cautius  norunt  venus  incidere,   ad   murum  diruendum  viscera 
terras  scutari  praecipere  :  nonnunquam  etiam  machinas  diversi  generis,  alias 
in  altum  sublatis,  alias  humo  tenus  depressas,  istas  ad  inspiciendam  quidnam 
rerum   in   castello  gereretur,  illas  ad  murum  quassandum  vel  obruendum 
aptare."     Gesta  Stephani,  R.  S.,  23. 

2  Pipe  Rolls,  1169-1186. 


EXETER— EYE  155 

seen  in  the  garden  of  Miss  Owthwaite,  at  the  point 
where  the  ditch  ends,  is  the  work  of  Stephen's  miners.1 
The  description  of  his  soldiers  scrambling  up  the  agger 
on  their  hands  and  knees  (quadrupede  incessu)  will  be 
well  understood  by  those  who  have  seen  the  castle  bank 
as  it  still  rises  from  that  ditch. 

The  present  ward  of  Exeter  Castle,  which  is  rudely 
square  in  plan,  covers  an  area  of  2  acres,  which  is  as 
large  as  the  whole  area  of  many  of  the  smaller  Norman 
castles.  The  castle  was  allowed  to  fall  into  decay  as 
early  as  I549,2  and  since  then  it  has  been  devastated  by 
the  building  of  a  Sessions  House  and  a  gaol.  No  plan 
has  been  preserved  of  the  former  buildings  in  this  court, 
though  the  site  of  the  chapel  is  known. 

There  is  no  statement  in  Domesday  Book  as  to  the 
value  of  Exeter. 

EYE,  Suffolk  (Fig.  17). — This  castle  was  built  by 
William  Malet,  one  of  the  companions  of  the  Conqueror, 
who  is  described  as  having  been  half  Norman  and  half 
English.3  Eye,  as  its  name  implies,  seems  to  have 
been  an  island  in  a  marsh  in  Norman  times,  and  there- 
fore a  naturally  defensible  situation.  The  references  in 
the  Pibe  Rolls  to  \hepalicium  and  the  bretasches  of  Eye 
Castle  show  that  the  outer  defences  of  the  castle  at  any 
rate  were  of  wood  in  the  days  of  Henry  II.4  That 

1  The  difficulty  about  this,  however,  is  that  passages  branch  off  from  the 
central  cave  in  every  direction. 

2  Oliver's  History  of  Exeter^  p.  186. 

3  [Willelmus  Malet]  fecit  suum  castellum  ad  Eiam.     D.  B.,  ii.,  379.     For 
Malet,  see  Freeman,  N.  C,  466,  note  4. 

4  "  In  operatione  castelli  de  Eya  et  reparatione  veterarum  bretascharum 
et  2  novarum  bretascharum  et  fossatorum  et  pro  carriagio  et  petra  et  aliis 
minutis  operationibus  2O/.  i8j.  ^d.      Pipe  Rolls,  xix.,  19  Henry   II.      The 
small  quantity   of  stone  referred  to  here  can  only  be   for  some  auxiliary 
work.     The  bretasches  in   this   case  will  be  mural  towers  of  wood.    "In 
emendatione  palicii  et   I   exclusse  vivarii  et  domorum  castelli   2os."    28 
Henry  II. 


156      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

there  were  works  in  masonry  at  some  subsequent  period 
is  shown  by  a  solitary  vestige  of  a  wing  wall  of  flints 
which  runs  up  the  motte.  A  modern  tower  now 
occupies  the  summit.  The  bailey  of  the  castle,  the 
outline  of  which  can  still  be  traced,  though  the  area  is 
covered  with  buildings  and  gardens,  was  oval  in  shape, 
and  covered  2  acres. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Eye  had  gone  up  since  the 
Conquest  from  £i  5  to  £21.  This  must  have  been  due  to 
the  castle  and  to  the  market  which  Robert  Malet  or  his 
son  William  established  close  to  the  castle  ;  for  the  stock 
on  the  manor  and  the  number  of  ploughs  had  actually 
decreased.1  A  proof  that  there  is  no  deliberate  register 
of  castles  in  Domesday  Book  is  furnished  by  the  very 
careful  inventory  of  the  manor  of  Eye,  where  there  is  no 
mention  of  a  castle,  though  it  is  noticed  that  there  are 
now  a  park  and  a  market ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  account 
of  the  lands  of  the  bishop  of  Thetford,  in  mentioning 
the  injury  which  William  Malet's  market  at  Eye  had 
done  to  the  bishop's  market  at  Hoxne,  that  the  castle  of 
Eye  is  named. 

GLOUCESTER. — "There  were  sixteen  houses  where 
the  castle  sits,  but  now  they  are  gone,  and  fourteen  have 
been  destroyed  in  the  burgws  of  the  city,"  says  Domes- 
day Book.2  Gloucester  was  undoubtedly  a  Roman 
Chester,  and  Roman  pavements  have  been  found  there.8 
The  description  in  the  Survey  would  lead  us  to  think 
that  the  castle  was  outside  the  ancient  walls,4  though 

1  D.  B.,  ii.,  319,  320. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  162.     "Sedecim  domus  erant  ubi  sedet  castellum,  quse  modo 
desunt,  et  in  burgo  civitatis  sunt  wastatas  14  domus." 

3  Rudge,   History    of   Gloucester,   p.    7.     Haverfield,  Romanisation  of 
Britain,  p.  204. 

4  It  is,  however,  possible  that  by  the   burgus  may  be  meant  a   later 
quarter  which  had  been  added  to  the  city. 


GLOUCESTER  157 

Speed's  map  places  it  on  the  line  of  the  wall  of  his  time, 
which  may  have  been  a  mediaeval  extension.  The  castle 
of  Gloucester  is  now  entirely  destroyed,  but  there  is 
sufficient  evidence  to  show  that  it  was  of  the  usual 
Norman  type.  There  was  a  motte,  which  was  standing 
in  1819,  and  which  was  then  called  the  Barbican  Hill ; 1 
it  appears  to  have  been  utilised  as  part  of  the  works  of 
the  barbican.  This  motte  must  originally  have 
supported  a  wooden  keep,  and  Henry  I.  must  have  been 
the  builder  of  the  stone  keep  which  Leland  saw  "  in  the 
middle  of  the  area;"2  for  in  noo  Henry  gave  lands  to 
Gloucester  Abbey  "  in  exchange  for  the  site  where  now 
the  keep  of  Gloucester  stands/'3  The  bailey  had 
previously  been  enlarged  by  William  Rufus.4  Possibly 
the  framea  turris  or  framework  tower  spoken  of  in 
Henry  II.'s  reign  may  refer  to  the  wooden  keep  which 
had  been  left  standing  on  the  motte.5  The  walls  of 
Gloucester  Castle  were  frequently  repaired  by  Henry  II.,6 
but  the  word  murus  by  no  means  implies  always  a  stone 
wall,  and  it  is  certain  that  the  castle  was  at  that  time 
surrounded  by  a  wooden  stockade,  as  a  writ  of  a  much 
later  period  (1225)  says  that  the  stockade  which  is 
around  our  castle  of  Gloucester  has  been  blown  down 


1  Fosbroke's  History  of  Gloucester,  pp.  125,  126.     Stukeley,  writing  in 
1721,  says  :  "There  is  a  large  old  gatehouse  standing,  and  near  it  the  castle, 
with  a  very  high  artificial  mount  or  keep  nigh  the  river."    Itin.  Cur.,  i.,  69. 

2  "  Of  al  partes  of  yt  the  hy  tower  in  media  area  is  most  strongest  and 
auncient."     Leland,  Itin.,  iii.,  64. 

3  In   excambium  pro    placea    ubi    nunc    turris    stat    Gloucestriae,  ubi 
quondam  fuit  ortus  monachorum."    Mon.  Ang.,  i.,  544.     The  document  is 
not  earlier  than  Henry  II.'s  reign. 

4  Round,  Studies  in  Domesday,  p.  123. 

5  "  In  operatione  frame  turris  de  Glouec,  2O/.     Pipe  Rolls,  i.,  27.     In  the 
single  Pipe  Roll  of  Henry  I.  there  is  an  entry  "  In  operationibus  turris  de 
Glouec,"  7/.  6s.  2.d.,  which  may  be  one  of  a  series  of  sums  spent  on  the  new 
stone  keep. 

6  Pipe  Rolls,  1177,  1180,  1181,  1184. 


158      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

and  broken  by  the  wind,  and  must  be  repaired.1 
Wooden  bretasches  on  the  walls  are  spoken  of  in  the 
Pipe  Rolls  of  1 193,  and  even  as  late  as  I222.2 

The  value  of  the  city  of  Gloucester  had  apparently 
risen  at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  though  the  entry  being 
largely  in  kind,  T.  R.  E.,  it  is  not  easy  to  calculate. 

HASTINGS,  Sussex  (Fig.  18). — In  this  case  we  have 
positive  contemporary  evidence  that  the  earthen  mound 
of  the  castle  was  thrown  up  by  the  Normans  at  the  time 
of  the  Conquest,  for  there  is  a  picture  in  the  Bayeux 
Tapestry  which  shows  them  doing  it.  A  number  of 
f  men  with  spades  are  at  work  raising  a  circular  mound, 
I  on  the  top  of  which,  with  the  usual  all-inclusiveness  of 
mediaeval  picturing,  a  stockade  is  already  erected.  A 
man  with  a  pick  seems  to  be  working  at  the  ditch.  The 
inscription  attached  is :  "  He  commands  that  a  castle 
be  dug  at  Hestengaceastra!"3  There  is  no  need  to 
comment  on  the  significance  of  this  drawing  and  its 
inscription  for  the  history  of  early  Norman  castles  ; 
what  is  extraordinary  is  that  it  should  have  been  entirely 
overlooked  for  so  long.  In  no  case  is  our  information 
more  complete  than  about  Hastings.  Not  only  does 
Domesday  Book  mention  the  caste llaria  of  Hastings,4 
but  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  also  tells  us  that 
William  built  a  castle  there,  while  the  chronicle  of  Battle 
Abbey  makes  the  evidence  complete  by  telling  us  that 
"  having  taken  possession  of  a  suitable  site,  he  built 
a  wooden  castle  there."5  This  of  course  means  the 

1  Close  Rolls,  ii.,  88b. 

2  "  In  reparatione  murorum  et  bretaschiarum,"  2o/.  js.  lid.     Pipe  Rolls, 
1193.  3  "Jussit  ut  foderetur  castellum  ad  Hestengaceastra." 

4  D.  B.,  i.,  i8a,  2.    "Rex  Willelmus  dedit  comiti  [of  Eu]  castellariamde 
Hastinges." 

5  "  Dux  ibidem  [at  Pevensey]  non  diu  moratus,  haud  longe  situm,  qui 
Hastinges  vocatur,  cum  suis  adiit  portum,  ibique  opportunum  n  actus  locum, 
ligneum  agiliter  castellum  statuens,  provide  munivit."     Chron.  Monast.  de 


.i^.-U^V 

^  <T;  i»/ 


u/. 


N 


-7Z^k~  of  -  Ordinary 
Morf^ — w  ^___ 


HASTINGS,  SUSSEX. 


HUNTINGDON. 


FIG.   18. 


[To  face  p.  158. 


HASTINGS  159 

stockade  on  top  of  the  motte,  with  the  wooden  tower  or 
towers  which  would  certainly  be  added  to  it.  Wace 
states  that  this  wooden  castle  was  brought  over  in 
pieces  in  the  ships  of  the  Count  of  Eu.1 

The  masonry  now  existing  at  the  castle  is  probably 
none  of  it  older  than  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  at  the 
earliest,  and  most  of  it  is  certainly  much  later.2  The 
Pipe  Rolls  show  that  Henry  II.  spent  ,£235  on  the 
castle  of  Hastings  between  the  years  1160  and  1181,  and 
it  is  indicated  that  some  of  this  money  was  for  stone, 
and  some  was  for  a  keep  (turrim)?  There  is  no  tower 
large  enough  for  a  keep  at  Hastings  now,  nor  have  any 
stone  foundations  been  found  on  the  motte,  and  Mr 
Harold  Sands,  who  has  paid  particular  attention  to  this 
castle,  concludes  that  Henry  II.'s  keep  has  been  carried 
away  by  the  sea,  which  has  probably  torn  away  at  least 
2  acres  from  the  area  of  the  castle.4  The  beautiful 


Bello,  p.  3,  ed.  1846.  There  is  also  the  evidence  of  Ordericus,  who  says  that 
Humphrey  de  Tilleul  received  the  custody  of  Hastings  Castle  "from  the  first 
day  it  was  built."  iv.,  4. 

1  Par  conseil  firent  esgarder 

Boen  lieu  a  fort  chastel  farmer. 

Done  ont  des  nes  mairrien  iete, 

A  la  terre  1'ont  traine, 

Que  le  quens  d'Ou  i  out  porte 

Trestot  percie  e  tot  dole. 

Les  cheuilles  totes  dolees 

Orent  en  granz  bariz  portees. 

Ainz  que  il  fust  avespre 

En  ont  un  chastelet  ferme  ; 

Environ  firent  une  fosse, 

Si  i  ont  fait  grant  fermete. — Andresen's  edition,  p.  289. 

2  The  north  curtain  is  of  ruder  work  than  the  other  masonry. 

3  In  attractu  petre  et  calcis  ad  faciendam  turrim  de  Hasting  6/.     Idem 
I3/.  I2j.     Vol.  xviii.,  p.  130.     The  work  must  have  been  extensive,  as  it  is 
spoken  of  as  "  operatic  castelli  no  vi  Hasting."     1181-1182.     Though  the  sum 
given  is  not  sufficient  for  a  great  stone  keep,  it  may  have  been  supplemented 
from  other  sources. 

4  See  Mr  Sands'  paper  on  Hasting's  Castle,  in   Trans,  of  the  South- 
Eastern  Union  of  Scientific  Societies  >  1908. 


160      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

fragment  of  the  Chapel  of  St  Mary  is  probably  of 
Henry  II.'s  reign;  the  walls  and  towers  on  the 
east  side  of  the  castle  appear  to  be  of  the  i3th  century. 
The  ditch  does  not  run  round  the  motte,  but  is 
cut  through  the  peninsular  rock  on  which  the  castle 
stands,  the  motte  and  its  ward  being  thus  isolated. 
The  form  of  this  bailey  is  now  triangular,  but  it 
may  have  been  square  originally.  Beyond  the  ditch 
is  another  bailey,  defended  by  earthen  banks  and  by 
a  second  ditch  cut  through  the  peninsula.1  No  exact 
estimate  can  be  given  of  the  original  area  of  the 
castle,  as  so  much  of  the  cliff  has  been  carried  away 
by  the  sea. 

Hastings  itself  had  been  a  fortified  town  before  the 
Norman  Conquest,  and  is  one  of  those  mentioned  in  the 
Burghal  Hidage.  The  name  Haestingaceaster,  given  to 
it  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  (1050),  is  a  proof  that 
the  Saxons  used  the  name  Chester  for  constructions  of 
their  own,  as  no  Roman  remains  have  been  found  at 
Hastings.  But  the  Norman  castle  is  outside  the  town, 
on  a  cliff  which  overlooks  it.  As  in  the  case  of  the  other 
ports  of  Sussex,  the  castle  was  committed  to  an 
important  noble,  in  this  case  the  Count  of  Eu. 

The  manor  of  Bexley,  in  which  Hastings  Castle 
stood,  had  been  laid  waste  at  the  Conquest ;  at  the  date 
of  the  Survey  it  was  again  rising  in  value,  though  it  had 
not  reached  the  figure  of  King  Edward's  days.2 

1  This  bailey  has  been  supposed  to  be  a  British  or  Roman  earthwork, 
but  no  evidence  has  been  brought  forward  to  prove  it,  except  the  fact  that 
discoveries  made  in  one  of  the  banks  point  to  a  flint  workshop  on  the  site 

2  Totum  manerium  valebat  T.  R.  E.  20  libras,  et  postea  wastum  fuit. 
Modo  18  libras  10  solidos.     D.  B.,  i.,  i8a,  2. 

Since  the  above  was  written,  Mr  Chas.  Dawson's  large  and  important 
work  on  Hastings  Castle  has  appeared,  and  to  this  the  reader  is  referred  for 
many  important  particulars,  especially  the  passages  from  the  Pipe  Rolls,  i., 
56,  and  the  repeated  destructions  by  the  sea,  ii.,  498-9.  The  reproduction  of 


HEREFORD  161 

HEREFORD. — There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  castle 
of  Hereford  was  built  by  the  Norman  Ralph,  Earl  of 
Hereford,  Edward  the  Confessor's  nephew,  about  the 
year  IO48.1  It  was  burnt  by  the  Welsh  in  1055,  after 
which  Harold  fortified  the  town  with  a  dyke  and  ditch  ; 
but  as  Mr  Freeman  remarks,  it  is  not  said  that  he 
restored  the  castle.2  The  motte  of  Earl  Ralph  is  now 
completely  levelled,  but  it  is  mentioned  several  times  in 
documents  of  the  i2th  century,8  and  is  described  in  a 
survey  of  1652,  from  which  it  appears  that  it  had  a  stone 
keep  tower,  as  well  as  a  stone  breastwork  enclosing  a 
small  ward.4  It  stood  outside  the  N.W.  corner  of 
the  bailey,  surrounded  by  its  own  ditch  ;  the  site  is  still 
called  Castle  Hill.  If  the  castle  was  not  restored  before 
the  Norman  Conquest  it  was  certainly  restored  after- 
wards, as  in  1067  we  find  the  "men  of  the  castle" 
fighting  with  Edric  Child  and  the  Welsh.  The  castle 
appears  to  have  had  stone  walls  by  the  time  of  Henry  II., 
as  the  mention  of  a  kiln  for  their  repair  proves.6  But 
these  walls  had  wooden  towers.6  The  timber  ordered  in 
1213  "ad  hordiandum  castellum  nostrum de  Hereford"7 

Herbert's  plan  of  1824  (ii.,  512)  seems  to  show  more  than  one  bailey  outside 
the  inner  ward.  The  evidence  for  a  great  outer  ditch,  enclosing  all  these 
works,  and  supposed  to  be  prehistoric,  is  given  on  p.  515,  vol.  ii. 

1  See  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  1048  (Peterborough)  and  1052  (Worcester), 
and  compare  with  Florence  of  Worcester. 

*  N.  C.,  ii.,  394- 

3  Pipe  Rolls,  ii  Henry  II.,  p.  100,  and  15  Henry  II.,  p.  140.    Stephen 
granted  to  Miles  of  Gloucester  "  motam  Hereford  cum  toto  castello."  Charter 
cited  by  Mr  Round,  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  Appendix  O,  p.  329. 

4  Cited    by   Grose,  Antiquities,  ii.,  18.     Stukeley  saw  the  motte,  and 
mentions  the  well  in  it  lined  with  stone.     I  tin.  Curiosum,  i.,  71.     See  also 
Buncombe's  History  of  Hereford,  i.,  229. 

6  In  custamento  prosternandi  partem  muri  castri  nostri  de  Hereford,  et 
preparatione  rogi  ad  reficiendum  predictum  murum,  265.  6d.    Pipe  Rolls, 
1181-1182. 

8  In  operatione  5  bretaschiarum  in  castro  de  Hereford,  ^15,  35.  gd.  Pipe 
Rolls,  1173-1174. 

7  Close  Rolls,  i.,  I34a. 

L 


162      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

refers  to  the  wooden  alures  or  machicolations  which 
were  placed  on  the  tops  of  walls  for  the  purpose  of 
defending  the  bases. 

Though  Hereford  was  a  private  castle  in  the 
Confessor's  reign,  it  was  claimed  for  the  crown  by 
Archbishop  Hubert,  the  Justiciary,  in  1197,  and 
continued  to  be  a  royal  castle  throughout  the  i3th 
century.1 

The  bailey  of  Hereford  Castle  still  exists,  with  its  fine 
banks ;  it  is  kite-shaped  and  encloses  5^-  acres.  The 
castle  stood  within  the  city  walls,  in  the  south-east 
angle. 

The  value  of  Hereford  appears  to  have  greatly 
increased  at  the  date  of  the  Survey.2 

HUNTINGDON  (Fig.  18). — "  There  were  twenty  houses 
on  the  site  of  the  castle,  which  are  now  gone."8 
Ordericus  tells  us  that  the  castle  of  Huntingdon  was 
built  by  William  on  his  return  from  his  second  visit  to 
York  in  io68.4  Huntingdon  had  been  a  walled  town  in 
Anglo-Saxon  times,  and  was  very  likely  first  fortified  by 
the  Danes,  but  was  repaired  by  Edward  the  Elder.  As 
in  the  case  of  so  many  other  towns,  the  houses  outside 
the  walls  had  to  pay  geld  along  with  those  of  the  city, 
and  it  was  some  of  the  former  which  were  displaced  by 
the  new  Norman  castle.  Huntingdon  was  part  of  the 
patrimony  of  Earl  Waltheof,  and  came  to  the  Norman, 
Simon  de  Senlis,  through  his  marriage  with  Waltheof  s 
daughter  and  heiress.  The  line  of  Senlis  ended  in 

1  Hubertus    Cantuariensis    Archiepiscopus    et    totius    Anglise  summus 
Justiciarius,  fuit  in  Gwalia  apud  Hereford,  et  recepit  in  manu  sua  castellum 
de  Hereford,  et  castellum  de  Briges,  et  castellum  de  Ludelaue,  expulsis  inde 
custodibus  qui  ea  diu  custodierant,  et  tradidit  ea  aliis  custodibus,  custodienda 
ad  opus  regis.     Roger  of  How  den,  iv.,  35,  R.  S. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  179- 

3  "  In  loco  castri  fuerunt  20  mansiones,  quae  modo  absunt."     D.  B.,  i.,  203. 
*  Ortfericus,  ii.,  185, 


HUNTINGDON  163 

another  heiress,  who  married  David,  afterwards  the 
famous  king  of  Scotland  ;  David  thus  became  Earl  of 
Huntingdon.  In  the  insurrection  of  the  younger  Henry 
in  1174,  William  the  Lion,  grandson  of  David,  took 
sides  with  the  young  king,  and  consequently  his  castle 
was  besieged  and  taken  by  the  forces  of  Henry  II.,1  and 
the  king  ordered  it  to  be  destroyed.  The  Pipe  Rolls 
show  that  this  order  was  carried  out,  as  they  contain  a 
bill  for  "  hooks  for  pulling  down  the  stockade  of 
Huntingdon  Castle,"  and  "for  the  work  of  the  new 
castle  at  Huntingdon,  and  for  hiring  carpenters,  and 
crooks,  and  axes."!  We  learn  from  these  entries  that 
the  original  castle  of  the  Conquest  had  just  been  replaced 
by  a  new  one,  very  likely  a  new  fortification  of  the  old 
mounds  by  William,  in  anticipation  of  the  insurrection. 
We  also  learn  that  the  new  castle  was  a  wooden  one ; 
for  a  castle  which  has  to  be  pulled  down  by  carpenters 
with  hooks  and  axes  is  certainly  not  of  stone.  It  does 
not  appear  that  the  castle  was  ever  restored,  though 
"  the  chapel  of  the  castle  "  is  spoken  of  as  late  as  the 
reign  of  Henry  III.8 

The  motte  of  Huntingdon  still  exists,  and  has  not 
the  slightest  sign  of  masonry.  The  bailey  is  roughly 
square,  with  the  usual  rounded  corners  ;  the  motte  was 
inside  this  enclosure,  but  had  its  own  ditch.  The  whole 
area  was  2^  acres,  but  another  bailey  was  subsequently 
added. 

1  Benedict  of  Peterborough,   i.,   70.     The  Justiciar,  Richard  de   Lucy, 
threw  up  a  siege  castle  against  it. 

2  "Pro  uncis  ad   prosternandum    palicium    de   Hunted,   7s.    %d.      In 
operatione  novi  castelli  de   Hunted,   et  pro  locandis  carpentariis  et  pro 
croccis  et  securibus  et  aliis  minutis  rebus,  2i/."    Pipe  Rolls,  20  Henry  II., 
pp.  50,  63.     It  is  clear  that  the  operatic  was  in  this  case  one  of  pulling  down. 
Giraldus  ( Vita  Galfredi,  iv.,  368,  R.  S.)  and  Diceto  (i.,  404,  R.  S.),  both  say 
the  castle  was  destroyed. 

3  Mon.  Ang.,  vi.,  80. 


164      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

The  value  of  Huntingdon  appears  to  have  been 
stationary  at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  the  loss  of  the 
twenty  houses  causing  a  diminution  of  revenue  which 
must  have  been  made  up  from  the  new  feudal  dues  of 
the  castle. 

LAUNCESTON,  or  Dunheved,1  Cornwall  (Fig.  19).  — 
There,  says  Domesday  Book,  is  the  castle  of  the  Earl 
of  Mortain.2  In  another  place  it  tells  us  that  the  earl 
gave  two  manors  to  the  bishop  of  Exeter  "for  the 
exchange  of  the  castle  of  Cornwall,"  another  name  for 
Dunheved  Castle.  We  have  already  had  occasion  to 
note  that  the  "exchange  of  the  castle,"  in  Domesday 
language,  is  an  abbreviation  for  the  exchange  of  the  site 
of  the  castle.  The  fact  that  the  land  was  obtained  from 
the  church  is  a  proof  that  the  castle  was  new,  for  it  was 
not  the  custom  of  Saxon  prelates  thus  to  fortify  them- 
selves. The  motte  of  Launceston  is  a  knoll  of  natural 
rock,  which  has  been  scarped  and  heightened  by  art. 
This  motte  now  carries  a  circular  keep,  which  cannot  be 
earlier  than  the  I3th  century.3  There  is  no  early 
Norman  work  whatever  about  the  masonry  of  the  castle, 
and  the  remarkably  elaborate  fortifications  on  the  motte 
belong  to  a  much  later  period.4  The  motte  rises  in  one 
corner  of  a  roughly  rectangular  bailey,  which  covers 
3  acres.  It  stands  outside  the  town  walls,  which  still 
exist,  and  join  those  of  the  castle,  as  at  Totnes. 
Launceston  was  only  a  small  manor  of  ten  ploughs  in 
the  time  of  the  Confessor.  In  spite  of  the  building  of 


1  Leland  tells  us  that  Launceston  was  anciently  called  Dunheved. 
vii.,  122. 

2  "  Ibi  est  castrum  comitis."    D.  B.,  i.,  i2ib.    "Haec  duo  maneria  [Haw- 
stone  et  Botintone]  dedit  episcopo  comes  Moriton  pro  excambio  castelli  de 
Cornualia."     D.  B.,  i.,  loib,  2. 

3  There  are  no  entries  for  Launceston  except  repairs  in  the  reigns  of 
Henry  II.  and  his  sons. 

4  Murray's  Guide  to  Cornwall^  p.  203. 


LAUNCESTON,  CORNWALL. 


LEWES,  SUSSEX. 


FIG.  19. 


[To  face  p.  164. 


LEWES  165 

the  castle,  the  value  of  the  manor  had  greatly  gone  down 
in  William's  time.1  The  ten  ploughs  had  been  reduced 
to  five. 

LEWES,  Sussex  (Fig.  19). — The  castle  of  Lewes  is 
not  mentioned  in  its  proper  place  in  Sussex  by 
Domesday  Book,  and  this  is  another  proof  that  the 
Survey  contains  no  inventory  of  castles ;  for  that  the 
castle  was  existing  at  that  date  is  rendered  certain  by 
the  numerous  allusions  in  the  Norfolk  portion  to  "  the 
exchange  of  the  castle  of  Lewes."2  It  is  clear  that  at 
some  period,  possibly  during  the  revolt  of  Robert 
Curthose  in  1079,  William  I.  gave  large  estates  in 
Norfolk  to  his  trusty  servant,  William  de  Warenne,  in 
exchange  for  the  important  castle  of  Lewes,  which  he 
may  have  preferred  to  keep  in  his  own  hands  at  that 
critical  period.  This  bargain  cannot  have  held  long,  at 
least  as  regards  the  castle,  which  continued  to  belong  to 
the  Warenne  family  for  many  generations.  We  cannot 
even  guess  now  how  the  matter  was  settled,  but  the 
lands  in  Norfolk  certainly  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Warennes. 

Lewes  is  one  of  the  very  few  castles  in  England 
which  have  two  mottes.8  They  were  placed  at  each  end 
of  an  oval  bailey,  each  surrounded  by  its  own  'ditch,  and 
each  projecting  about  three-fourths  beyond  the  line  of 
the  bailey.  On  the  northern  motte  only  the  foundations 

"Olim  2o/.  ;  modo  valet  4/."     D.  B.,  i.,  I2ib. 

2  D.  B.,  ii.,  157,  163,  172.  The  first  entry  relating  to  this  transaction 
says  :  "  Hoc  totum  est  pro  escangio  de  2  maneriis  Delaquis."  The  second 
says  :  "  Pertinent  ad  castellum  Delaquis."  It  is  clear  that  Lewes  is  meant, 
as  one  paragraph  is  headed  "  De  escangio  Lewes."  I  have  been  unable  to 
find  any  explanation  of  this  exchange  in  any  of  the  Norfolk  topographers, 
or  in  any  of  the  writers  on  Domesday  Book. 

3  Lincoln  is  the  only  other  instance  known  to  the  writer.  Deganwy  has 
two  natural  mottes.  It  is  possible  that  two  mottes  indicate  a  double  owner- 
ship of  a  castle,  a  thing  of  which  there  are  instances,  as  at  Rhuddlan. 


166      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

of  a  wall  round  the  top  remain;  on  the  other,  part  of 
the  wall  which  enclosed  a  small  ward,  and  two  mural 
towers.  These  towers  have  signs  of  the  early  Perpendi- 
cular period,  and  are  very  likely  of  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.,  when  the  castle  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Fitz 
Alans.  The  bailey,  which  enclosed  an  area  of  about 
3  acres,  is  now  covered  with  houses  and  gardens, 
but  parts  of  the  curtain  wall  on  the  S.E.  and  E.  stand 
on  banks,  bearing  witness  to  the  original  wooden  fortifi- 
cations. The  great  interest  of  this  bailey  is  its  ancient 
Norman  gateway.  The  entrance  was  regarded  by 
mediaeval  architects  as  the  weakest  part  of  the  fortress, 
and  we  frequently  find  that  it  was  the  first  part  to 
receive  stone  defences.1  It  is  not  surprising  that  at 
such  an  important  place  as  Lewes,  which  was  then  a 
port  leading  to  Normandy,  and  at  the  castle  of  so 
powerful  a  noble,  we  should  find  an  early  case  of  stone 
architecture  supplementing  the  wooden  defences.  But 
the  two  artificial  mottes  have  no  masonry  that  can  be 
called  early  Norman. 

Lewes  is  one  of  the  boroughs  mentioned  in  the 
Burghal  Hidage,  and  was  a  burgus  at  the  time  of  the 
Survey.2  The  value  of  the  town  had  increased  by 
j£i,  1 8s.  from  what  it  had  been  in  King  Edward's 
time. 

LINCOLN  (Fig.  20). — Domesday  Book  tells  us  that 
1 66  houses  were  destroyed  to  furnish  the  site  of  the 
castle.3  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  says  that  William 
built  a  castle  here  on  his  return  from  his  first  visit  to 

1  Exeter  and  Tickhill  are  instances  of  early  Norman  gateways,  and  at 
Ongar  and  Fleshy  there  are  fragments  of  early  gateways,  though  there  are 
no  walls  on  the  banks.  We  have  already  seen  that  Arundel  had  a  gateway 
which  cannot  be  later  than  Henry  I.'s  time.  2  D.  B.,  i.,  26a,  i. 

3  "  De  predictis  wastis  mansionibus  propter  castellum  destructi  fuerunt 
166."  D.  B.,  i.,  336b,  2. 


^ 


LINCOLN. 


FIG.  20. 


[To  face  p.  166. 


LINCOLN 

York  in  1068,  and  Ordericus  makes  the  same  statement.1 
Lincoln,  like  Exeter,  was  a  Roman  castrum,  and  the 
Norman  castle  in  both  cases  was  placed  in  one  corner 
of  the  castrum  ;  but  the  old  Roman  wall  of  Lincoln, 
which  stands  on  the  natural  ground,  was  not  considered 
to  be  a  sufficient  defence  on  the  two  exterior  sides, 
probably  on  account  of  its  ruinous  condition.  It  was 
therefore  buried  in  a  very  high  and  steep  bank,  which 
was  carried  all  round  the  new  castle.2  This  circumstance 
seems  to  point  to  the  haste  with  which  the  castle  was 
built,  Lincoln  being  then  for  the  first  time  subdued.  The 
fact  that  it  was  inside  the  probably  closely  packed  Roman 
walls  explains  why  so  many  houses  were  destroyed  for 
the  castle.3  Lincoln,  like  Lewes,  has  two  mottes : 
both  are  of  about  the  same  height,  but  the  one  in  the 
middle  of  the  southern  line  of  defence  is  the  larger  and 
more  important ;  it  was  originally  surrounded  with  its 
own  ditch.  It  is  now  crowned  with  a  polygonal  shell 
wall,  which  may  have  been  built  by  the  mother  of 
Ralph  Gernon,  Earl  of  Chester,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  I.4 
The  tower  on  the  other  motte,  at  the  south-east  corner, 

1  "  In  reversione  sua   Lincoliae,  Huntendonas,  et   Grontebrugse  castra 
locavit."     Ordericus,  185  (Prevost). 

2  At  present  the  bank  is  wanting  on  a  portion  of  the  south  side,  between 
the  two  mottes. 

3  Mr  Clark  gravely  argues  that  the  houses  were  inside  what  he  believes 
to  have  been  the  Saxon  castle.     There  is  not  a  vestige  of  historical  evidence 
for  the  existence  of  any  castle  in  Lincoln  in  the  Saxon  period. 

4  Stephen  gave  Ralph  the  castle  and  city  of  Lincoln,  and  gave  him  leave 
to  fortify  one  of  the  towers  in  Lincoln  Castle,  and  have  command  of  it  until 
the  king  should  deliver  to  him  the  castle  of  Tickhill ;  then  the  king  was  to 
have  the  city  and  castle  of  Lincoln  again,  excepting  the  earl's  own  tower, 
which   his  mother  had  fortified.     His  mother  was  Lucy,  daughter  of  Ivo 
Taillebois  ;  a^d  as  the  principal  tower  was  known   as   the   Luce  Tower, 
the  masonry  may  have  been  her  work.     In  that  case  the  Norman  work 
on  the  smaller  motte  may  be  due  to  Ralph  Gernon,  and  may  possibly  be 
the  nova  turris  which  was  repaired  in  John's  reign.     Pipe  Roll,  2  John. 
Stephen's  charter  is  in  Farrer's  Lancashire  Pipe  Rolls. 


168      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

has  been  largely  rebuilt  in  the  i4th  century  and  added 
to  in  modern  times,  but  its  lower  storey  still  retains  work 
of  Norman  character.  There  is  good  reason  to  suppose 
that  this  bailey  was  first  walled  with  stone  in  Richard 
I.'s  reign,  as  there  is  an  entry  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  1193- 
1 194  "  for  the  cost  of  fortifying  the  bailey,  ^82,  i6s.  4d." 1 
The  present  wall  contains  a  good  deal  of  herring-bone 
work,  and  this  circumstance  led  Mr  Clark,  who  was 
looking  for  something  which  he  could  put  down  to 
William  I.'s  time,  to  believe  that  the  walls  were  of  that 
date.  But  the  herring-bone  work  is  all  in  patches,  as 
though  for  repairs,  and  herring-bone  work  was  used 
for  repairs  at  all  epochs  of  mediaeval  building.  The 
two  gateways  (that  is  the  Norman  portions  of  them)  are 
probably  of  about  the  same  date  as  the  castle  wall.  The 
whole  area  is  5f  acres. 

The  total  revenue  which  the  city  of  Lincoln  paid 
to  the  king  and  the  earl  had  gone  up  from  3o/.  T.  R.  E. 
to  ioo/.  T.  R.  W.  For  the  sake  of  those  who  imagine 
that  Saxon  halls  had  anything  to  do  with  mottes,  it  is 
worth  noting  that  the  hall  which  was  the  residence  of 
the  chief  landholder  in  Lincoln  before  the  Conquest  was 
still  in  existence  after  the  building  of  the  castle,  but 
evidently  had  no  connection  with  it.2 

MONMOUTH  (Fig.  21). — Domesday  Book  says  that 
the  king  has  four  ploughs  in  demesne  in  the  castle  of 

1  "In   custamento  firmandi   ballium    castelli   Lincoll."      Pipe  Roll,   5 
Richard  I.     In  an  excavation  made  for  repairs  in  modern  times  it  was  found 
that  this  wall  rested  on  a  timber  frame-work,  a  device  to  avoid  settling,  the 
wall  being  of 'great  height  and  thickness.     Wilson,  Lincoln  Castle,  Proc. 
Arch.  Inst.,  1848. 

2  D.  B.,  i.  336b,  2:  "Tochi  films  Outi  habuit  in  civitate  30  mansiones 
praeter  suam  hallam,  et  duas  ecclesias  et  dimidiam,  et  suam  hallam  habuit 
quietam  ab  omni  consuetudine.  .  .  .  Hanc  aulam  tenuit  Goisfredus  Alselin 
et  suus  nepos  Radulfus.     Remigius  episcopus  tenet  supradictas  30  mansiones 
ita  quod  Goisfredus  nihil  inde  habet" 


»  \imff  **s 

s/^%''1  l>v- .  §r 


MONMOUTH. 


MONTACUTE,  SOMERSET. 


ui4U»ai»uau»»»»«.»v«YU\\\\v\«>i*»\\\^.\v 


MORPETH,  NORTHUMBERLAND. 


FIG.   21. 


[To  face  p.  168. 


MONMOUTH— MONTACUTE  169 

Monmouth.1  Dr  Round  regards  this  as  one  of  the 
cases  where  castellum  is  to  be  interpreted  as  a  town  and 
not  as  a  castle.  However  this  may  be,  the  existence 
of  a  Norman  castle  at  Monmouth  is  rendered  certain 
by  a  passage  in  the  Book  of  Llandaff,  in  which  it  is 
said  that  this  castle  was  built  by  William  FitzOsbern, 
and  a  short  history  of  it  is  given,  which  brings  it  up  to 
the  days  of  William  Fitz  Baderun.2  Speed  speaks  of 
this  castle  as  "  standing  mounted  round  in  compasse, 
and  within  her  walls  another  mount,  whereon  a  Towre 
of  great  height  and  strength  is  built."3  This  sounds 
like  the  description  of  a  motte  and  bailey  ;  but  the  motte 
cannot  be  traced  now.  It  is  possible  that  it  may  have  been 
swept  away  to  build  the  present  barracks  ;  the  whole 
castle  is  now  on  a  flat-topped  hill.  The  area  is  if  acres.4 

The  value  of  the  manor  before  the  Conquest  is 
not  given. 

MONTACUTE,  Somerset  (Fig.  21). — This  is  another 
instance  of  a  site  for  a  castle  obtained  by  exchange 
from  the  church.  Count  Robert  of  Mortain  gave  the 
manor  of  Candel  to  the  priory  of  Athelney  in  exchange 
for  the  manor  of  Bishopstowe,  "and  there  is  his  castle, 
which  is  called  Montagud."5  The  English  name  for 

1  "  In  castello  Monemouth  habet  Rex  in  dominio  4  carucas.     Willelmus 
filius  Baderon  custodit  eas.     Quod  rex  habet  in  hoc  castello  valet  c  solidos." 
D.  B.,  i  Sob. 

2  Liber  Landavensis,  Evans'  edition,  pp.   277-278.     See  also  Round's 
Calendar  of  Documents  Preserved  in  France,  p.  406. 

3  Theatre  of  Britain,  p.  107. 

4  Speed's  map  shows  the  curtain  wall  surrounding  the  top  of  the  hill 
and  also  a  large  round  tower  towards  the  N.E.  part,  but  not  standing  on 
any  "other  mount."     The  square  keep  is  not  indicated  separately.     It  must 
be  remembered  that  Speed's  details  are  not  always  accurate  or  complete. 

5  "  Ipse  comes  tenet  in  dominio  Bishopstowe,  et  ibi  est  castellum  ejus 
quod  vocatur  Montagud.     Hoc  manerium  geldabat  T.  R.  E.  pro  9  hidas,  et 
erat    de    abbatia    de  Adelingi,  et    pro    eo   dedit  comes  eidem  ecclesiae 
manerium  quod  Candel  vocatur."     D.  B.,  i.,  93a,  I. 


170      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  village  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  was  Ludgarsburh, 
which  does  not  point  to  any  fortification  on  the  hill 
itself,  the  spot  where  the  wonder-working  crucifix  of 
Waltham  was  found  in  Saxon  times.  Robert  of 
Mortain's  son  William  gave  the  castle  of  Montacute, 
with  its  chapel,  orchard,  and  other  appurtenances,  to  a 
priory  of  Cluniac  monks  which  he  founded  close  to  it. 
The  gift  may  have  had  something  compulsory  in  it,  for 
William  of  Mortain  was  banished  by  Henry  I.  in  1104 
as  a  partisan  of  Robert  Curthose.  Thus,  as  Leland 
says,  "  the  notable  castle  partly  fell  to  ruin,  and  partly  was 
taken  down  to  make  the  priory,  so  that  many  years 
since  no  building  of  it  remained  ;  only  a  chapel  was  set 
upon  the  very  top  of  the  dungeon,  and  that  yet  standeth 
there."1  There  is  still  a  high  oval  motte,  having  a 
ditch  between  its  base  and  the  bailey ;  the  latter  is 
semilunar  in  shape.  The  hill  has  been  much  terraced 
on  the  eastern  side,  but  this  may  have  been  the  work 
of  the  monks,  for  purposes  of  cultivation.2  There  is  no 
masonry  except  a  quite  modern  tower.  According  to 
Mr  Clark,  the  motte  is  of  natural  rock.  The  French 
name  of  the  castle  was  of  course  imported  from 
Normandy,  and  we  generally  find  that  an  English 
castle  with  a  Norman-French  name  of  this  kind  has  a 
motte.3 

Bishopstowe,  in  which  the  castle  was  placed,  was 
not  a  large  manor  in  Saxon  times.  Its  value  T.  R.  E. 
is  not  given  in  the  Survey,  but  we  are  told  that  it  is 

1  /&».,  ii.,  92. 

2  From   a  description   communicated  by   Mr   Basil   Stallybrass.     The 
motte  is   shown  in  a  drawing  in  Stukeley's   Itinerarium  Curiosum.     The 
" immense  Romano-British  camp"  of  which  Mr  Clark  speaks  (M.  M.  A.,  i., 
73)  is  nearly  a  mile  west. 

3  Mountjoy,  Monthalt  (Mold),  Beaumont,   Beaudesert,  Egremont,  are 
instances  in  point. 


MORPETH— NEWCASTLE  171 

worth  61.  to  the  earl,  and  3/.  3^.  to  the  knights  who 
hold  under  him. 

MORPETH,  Northumberland  (Fig.  21). — There  is 
only  one  mention  known  to  us  of  Morpeth  Castle  in  the 
nth  century,  and  that  is  in  the  poem  of  Geoffrey  Gaimar.1 
He  says  that  William  Rufus,  when  marching  to 
Bamborough,  to  repress  the  rebellion  of  Mowbray,  Earl 
of  Northumberland,  "took  the  strong  castle  of  Morpeth, 
which  was  seated  on  a  little  mount,"  and  belonged  to 
William  de  Morlei.  Thus  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  Ha'  Hill,  about  100  yards  to  the  N.  of  the  present 
castle,  was  the  motte  of  the  first  castle  of  Morpeth, 
though  the  remains  of  the  motte,  which  are  mentioned 
by  Hodgson,  have  been  destroyed.2  A  natural  ridge 
has  been  used  to  form  a  castle  by  cutting  off  its  higher 
end  to  form  a  motte,  and  making  a  court  on  the  lower 
part  of  the  ridge.  The  great  steepness  of  the  slopes 
rendered  ordinary  ditches  unnecessary,  nor  are  there 
any  traces  now  of  banks  or  foundations.  In  the  court 
some  Norman  capitals  and  carved  stones  were  found  in 
1830.  This  early  castle  was  admirably  placed  for  com- 
manding the  river  and  the  bridge.3  The  present  castle 
of  Morpeth  was  built  in  1342- 1349."* 

NEWCASTLE,  Northumberland. — The  first  castle  here 
was  built  by  Robert,  son  of  William  I.,  on  his  return 
from  his  expedition  to  Scotland  in  io8o.5  It  was  of  the 

1  Gaimar,  214,  Wright's  edition.     Gaimar  wrote  in  the  first  half  of  the 
1 2th  century  ;  Wright  states  that  his  work  is  mainly  copied  from  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle,  but  its  chief  value  lies  in  the  old  historical  traditions  of 
the  north  and  east  of  England  which  he  has  preserved. 

2  Hodgson's  History  of  Northumberland,  Part  II.,  ii.,  384,  389. 

3  This  account  is  taken  from  a  description  kindly  furnished  by   Mr 
D.  H.  Montgomerie. 

4  Bates'  Border  Holds,  p.  u. 

5  Simeon  of  Durham,   1080.      "  Castellum  Novum  super  flumen  Tyne 
condidit." 


172      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

usual  motte-and-bailey  kind,  the  motte  standing  in  a 
small  bailey  which  was  rectilinear  and  roughly  oblong.1 
This  motte  was  in  existence  when  Brand  wrote  his 
History  of  Newcastle,  but  was  removed  in  1811.  The 
castle  was  placed  outside  the  Roman  station  at  Monk- 
chester,  and  commanded  a  Roman  bridge  over  the 
Tyne,  "and  to  the  north-east  overlooked  a  ravine  that 
under  the  name  of  The  Side  formed  for  centuries  a  main 
artery  of  communication  between  England  and  Scot- 
land."2 Henry  II.,  when  he  built  the  fine  keep  of  this 
castle,  did  not  place  it  on  the  motte,  but  in  the  outer 
and  larger  ward,  which  was  roughly  triangular.  The 
outer  curtain  appears  to  have  stood  on  the  banks  of  the 
former  earthen  castle,  as  the  Parliamentary  Survey  of 
1649  speaks  of  the  castle  as  "  bounded  with  strong  works 
of  stone  and  mud."8  The  area  of  the  whole  castle  was 
3  acres  and  i  rood. 

NORHAM,  Northumberland  (Fig.  22). — The  first 
castle  here  was  built  by  Ranulf  Flambard,  Bishop  of 
Durham,  in  the  reign  of  William  Rufus.  It  was  built 
to  defend  Northumberland  against  the  incursions  of  the 
Scots,  and  we  are  expressly  told  that  no  castle  had 
existed  there  previously.4  This  first  castle,  which  we 
may  certainly  assume  to  have  been  of  earth  and  wood, 
was  destroyed  by  the  Scots  in  1138,  and  there  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  any  stone  castle  until  the  time  of 

1  See  the  map  in  an  important  paper  on  Newcastle  by  Longstaffe,  Arch. 
^Eliana,  iv.,  45. 

2  Guide  to  the  Castle  of  Newcastle,  published  by  Society  of  Antiquaries 
of  Newcastle,  1901. 

8  Longstaffe,  as  above. 

4  "  Condidit  castellum  in  excelso  preruptae  rupis  super  Twedam  flumen, 
ut  inde  latronum  incursus  inhiberet,  et  Scottorum  irruptiones.  Ibi  enim 
utpote  in  confinia  regni  Anglorum  et  Scottorum  creber  prsedantibus  ante 
patebat  excursus,  nullo  enim  quo  hujusmodi  impetus  repelleretur  prcesidio 
locate  "  Symeon  of  Durham,  R.  S.,  i.,  140. 


NOBHAM. 


Approximate.  Line 
of  Original 


a.  OL       Modern 
additions  to  Mot 


NOTTINGHAM. 


FIG.  22. 


(To  face  p.  172. 


NORHAM— NORWICH  173 

Bishop  Puiset  or  Pudsey,  who  built  the  present  keep  by 
command  of  King  Henry  II.1  Mr  Clark  tried  hard  to 
find  some  work  of  Flambard's  in  this  tower,  but  found 
it  difficult,  and  was  driven  back  on  the  rather  lame 
assumption  that  "the  lapse  of  forty  [really  fifty  at  least] 
years  had  not  materially  changed  the  style  of  archi- 
tecture then  in  use."2  In  fact,  the  Norman  parts  of 
this  keep  show  no  work  so  early  as  the  nth  century, 
but  are  advanced  in  style,  for  not  only  was  the  basement 
vaulted,  but  the  first  floor  also.  The  simple  explanation 
is  that  Flambard  threw  up  the  large  square  motte  on 
which  the  keep  now  stands,  and  provided  it  with  the 
usual  wooden  defences.  It  also  had  a  strong  tower,  but 
almost  certainly  a  wooden  one ;  hence  it  was  easily 
destroyed  by  the  Scots  when  once  taken.3  The  motte 
was  probably  lowered  to  some  extent  when  the  stone 
keep  was  built.  It  stands  on  a  high  bank  overlooking 
the  Tweed,  and  is  separated  from  its  bailey  by  a  deep 
ditch.  The  bailey  may  be  described  as  a  segment  of  a 
circle ;  its  area  is  about  2  acres. 

NORWICH  (Fig.  23). — We  find  from  Domesday 
Book  that  no  less  than  1 1 3  houses  were  destroyed  for 
the  site  of  this  castle,  a  certain  proof  that  the  castle  was 
new.4  It  is  highly  probable  that  it  was  outside  the 
primitive  defences  of  the  town,  at  any  rate  in  part. 
Norwich  was  built,  partly  on  a  peninsula  formed  by  a 

1  "Castellum  di  Northam,  quod  munitionibus   infirmum  reperit,  turre 
validissima  forte  reddidit."     Geoffrey  of  Coldingham,  12  (Surtees  Society). 
Symeon   says  it  was  built  "  precepto  regis."    The  keep  was  extensively 
altered  in  the  Decorated  period. 

2  M.  M.  A.,  ii.,  331.  3  Richard  of  Hexham,  319  (Twysden). 

4  "  In  ilia  terra  de  qua  Herold  habebat  socam  sunt  15  burgenses  et  17 
mansurae  vastae,  quae  sunt  in  occupatione  castelli ;  et  in  burgo  190  mansuras 
vacuae  in  hoc  quod  erat  in  soca  regis  et  comitis,  et  81  in  occupatione  castelli." 
D.  B.,  ii.,  116.  This  shows  that  the  castle  and  its  ditches  occupied  ground 
partly  within  and  partly  without  the  ancient  burh. 


174      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

double  bend  of  the  river  Wensum,  partly  in  a  district 
lying  south-west  of  this  peninsula,  and  defended  by  a 
ridge  of  rising  ground  running  in  a  north-easterly 
direction.  The  castle  was  placed  on  the  edge  of  this 
ridge,  and  all  the  oldest  part  of  the  town,  including  the 
most  ancient  churches,  lies  to  the  east  of  it.1  In  the 
conjectural  map  of  Norwich  in  uoo,  given  in  Wood- 
ward's History  of  Norwich  Castle?  the  street  called 
Burg  Street  divides  the  Old  Burg  on  the  east  from  the 
New  Burg  on  the  west ;  this  street  runs  along  a  ridge 
which  traverses  the  neck  of  the  peninsula  from  south- 
west to  north-east,  and  on  the  northern  end  of  this 
ridge  the  castle  stands.8  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
this  street  marks  the  line  of  the  burk  or  enclosing  bank 
by  which  the  primitive  town  of  Norwich  was  defended.4 
A  clear  proof  of  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  castle  of 
Norwich  was  anciently  not  in  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
city,  but  in  that  of  the  county ;  the  citizens  had  no 
authority  over  the  houses  lying  beyond  the  castle  ditches 
until  it  was  expressly  granted  to  them  by  Edward  III.5 
The  mediaeval  walls  of  Norwich,  vastly  extending  the 
borders  of  the  city,  were  not  built  till  Henry  III.'s  reign.6 
The  motte  of  Norwich  Castle,  according  to  recent 

1  Harrod's  Gleanings  among  Castles^  p.  142. 

2  The  authorities  from  which  this  map  is  compiled  are  not  given. 

3  The  "new  borough"  at  Norwich  was  the  quarter  inhabited  by  the 
Normans.     D.   B.,   ii.,   118.      "Franci  de   Norwich:    in  novo  burgo   36 
burgenses  et  6  Anglici."     Mr  Hudson  says  that  Mancroft  Leet  corresponds 
to  the  new  burgh  added  to  Norwich  at  the  Conquest.     See  his  map  in 
Arch.  Joum.)  xlvi. 

4  Norwich   was  not  a   Roman  town  ;    see   Haverfield,    Viet.  Hist,  of 
Norfolk,  i.,  320.     But  the  Roman  road  from  Caistor  passed  exactly  under- 
neath the  castle  motte.    Brit.  Arch.  Assoc.  Journ.^  xlvi.,  Rev.  H.  Dukin- 
field  Astley. 

6  Harrod's  Gleanings  among  Castles ',  p.  137. 

6  Mon.  Ang.)  iv.,  13.  In  37  Henry  III.  the  monks  of  Norwich  Priory 
received  "licentiam  includendi  eandem  villam  cum  fossis,"  and  by  doing 
this  they  enclosed  the  lands  of  other  fees. 


SREEN 


NORWICH. 
(From  Harrod's  "Gleanings  among  the  Castles  and  Convents  of  Norfolk,"  p.  133.) 


FIG.  23. 


[To  face  p.  174. 


NORWICH  ,  175 

investigations,  is  entirely  artificial ; l  it  was  originally 
square,  and  had  "a  prodigious  large  and  deep  ditch 
around  it." 2  The  fancy  of  the  antiquary  Wilkins  that 
the  motte  was  the  centre  of  two  concentric  outworks 3 
was  completely  disproved  by  Mr  Harrod,  who  showed 
that  the  original  castle  was  a  motte  with  one  of  the 
ordinary  half-moon  baileys  attached.  Another  ward, 
called  the  Castle  Meadow,  was  probably  added  at  a 
later  date.  The  magnificent  keep  which  now  stands 
on  the  motte  is  undoubtedly  a  work  of  the  I2th 
century.4  The  castle  which  Emma,  wife  of  Earl  Ralf 
Guader,  defended  against  the  Conqueror  after  the 
celebrated  bride-ale  of  Norwich  was  almost  certainly  a 
wooden  structure.  As  late  as  the  year  1172  the  bailey 
was  still  defended  by  a  wooden  stockade  and  wooden 
bretasches;5  and  even  in  1225  the  stockade  had  not 
been  replaced  by  a  stone  wall.6 

Norwich  was  a  royal  castle,  and  consequently  always 
in  the  hands  of  the  sheriff;  it  was  never  the  property 
of  the  Bigods.7  As  the  fable  that  extensive  lands 
belonging  to  the  monastery  of  Ely  were  held  on  the 
tenure  of  castle  guard  at  Norwich  before  the  Conquest 
is  repeated  by  all  the  local  historians,8  it  is  worth  while 


1  Arch.  Joum.,  xlvi.,  445. 

2  Kirkpatrick's  Notes  of  Norwich  Castle,  written  about  1725.     He  states 
that  the  angles  of  the  motte  had  been  spoilt,  and  much  of  it  fallen  away. 

3  Archaologia^  vol.  xii. 

4  Mr  Hartshorne  thought  it  was  built  between  1120  and  1125.     Arch. 
Journ.,  xlvi.,  260.     It  is  certainly  not  as  late  as  Henry  II.'s  reign,  or  the 
accounts  for  it  would  appear  in  the  Pipe  Rolls. 

6  Pipe  Rolls)  19  Henry  II.,  p.  117.      In  reparatione  pontis  lapidei  et 
palicii  et  3  bretascharum  in  eodem  castello,  2O/.  4.?.  8^. 

6  Close  Rolls^  ii.,  22.     Order  that  the  palicium  of  Norwich  Castle,  which 
has  fallen  down  and  is  threatened  with  ruin,  be  repaired. 

7  Kirkpatrick,  Notes  on  Norwich  Castle. 

8  Except  Kirkpatrick,  who  shows  a  judicious  scepticism  on  the  subject. 
Ibid.,  p.  248. 


176      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

to  note  that  the  charters  of  Henry  I.  setting  the  convent 
free  from  this  service,  make  no  allusion  to  any  such 
ancient  date  for  it,1  and  that  the  tenure  of  castle  guard 
is  completely  unknown  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  laws.  The 
area  of  the  inner  bailey  is  3^  acres,  and  that  of  the 
outer,  4^-  acres.  The  value  of  Norwich  had  greatly 
risen  since  the  Conquest.2 

NOTTINGHAM  (Fig.  22). — This  important  castle  is 
not  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book,  but  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  says  that  William  I.  built  the  castle  at 
Nottingham  in  1067,  on  his  way  to  repress  the  first 
insurrection  in  Yorkshire.  Ordericus,  repeating  this 
statement,  adds  that  he  committed  it  to  the  keeping  of 
William  Peverel.8  The  castle  was  placed  on  a  lofty 
headland  at  some  distance  from  the  Danish  borough, 
and  between  the  two  arose  the  Norman  borough  which 
is  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book  as  the  novus  burgus. 
The  two  upper  wards  of  the  present  castle  probably 
represent  William's  plan.  The  upper  ward  forms  a 
natural  motte  of  rock,  as  it  is  15  feet  higher  than  the 
bailey  attached  to  it,  and  has  been  separated  from 
it  by  a  ditch  cut  across  the  rocky  headland,  which 
can  still  be  traced  below  the  modern  house  which 
now  stands  on  the  motte.  Such  a  site  was  not 
only  treated  as  a  motte,  but  was  actually  called  by 
that  name,  as  we  read  of  the  mota  of  Nottingham 
Castle  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  both  John's  and  Richard  I.'s 
reigns. 

Mr  Clark  published  a  bird's-eye  view  of  Nottingham 
Castle  in  his  Medieval  Military  Architecture,  about 
which  he  only  stated  that  it  was  taken  from  the 
Illustrated  London  News.  It  does  not  agree  with  the 

1  Man.  Ang.,  i.,  482.  2  D.  B.,  ii.,  117. 

3  Ordericus,  ii.,  184. 


NOTTINGHAM  177 

plan  made  by  Simpson  in  I6I7,1  and  is  therefore  not 
quite  trustworthy  ;  the  position  of  the  keep,  for  example, 
is  quite  different.  The  keep,  which  Hutchison  in  his 
Memoirs  speaks  of  as  "  the  strong  tower  called  the  Old 
Tower  on  the  top  of  the  rock,"  seems  clearly  Norman, 
from  the  buttresses.  It  was  placed  (according  to 
Simpson's  plan),  on  the  north  side  of  the  small  ward 
which  formed  the  top  of  the  motte,  and  was  enclosed  in 
a  yet  older  shell  wall  which  has  now  disappeared.  The 
height  of  this  motte  is  indicated  in  the  bird's-eye  view 
by  the  ascending  wall  which  leads  up  it  from  the  bailey. 
It  had  its  own  ditch,  as  appears  by  several  mentions  in 
the  accounts  of  "the  drawbridge  of  the  keep,"  and  "the 
bridge  leading  up  to  the  dongeon."2  It  is  highly 
probable  that  this  keep  was  built  by  King  John,  as  in 
a  Mise  Roll  of  1212  there  is  a  payment  entered 
"  towards  making  the  tower  which  the  king  commanded 
to  be  built  on  the  motte  of  Nottingham."8  But  the 
first  masonry  in  the  castle  was  probably  the  work  of 
Henry  II.,  who  spent  ^1737,  95.  5d.  on  the  castle  and 
houses,  the  gaol,  the  king's  chamber,  the  hall,  and  in 
raising  the  walls  and  enclosing  the  bailey.4  The  castle 
has  been  so  devastated  by  the  ijth  century  spoiler,  that 
the  work  of  Henry  and  John  has  been  almost  entirely 

1  Published  in  a  paper  on  Nottingham  Castle  by  Mr  Emanuel  Green,  in 
Arch.Journ.  for  December  1901. 

2  See  Mr  Green's  paper,  as  above,  p.  388. 

3  "Apud  Rokingham  liberavimus  Philippe  Marco  ad  faciendam  turrim 
quam  dominus  Rex  precepit  fieri  in  Mota  de  Notingham  100  marcas  quas 
burgenses  de  Notingham  et  Willelmus  Fil.  Baldwini  dederunt  domino  Regi 
pro  benevolencia  sua  habenda."     In  Cole's  Documents  Illustrative  of  English 
History,  235.     There  is  some  reason  to  think  that  John  instead  of  building 
the  cylindrical  keeps  which  were  then  coming  into  fashion,  reverted  to  the 
square  form  generally  followed  by  his  father. 

4  Pipe  Rolls,  1170-1186.     The  Pipe  Roll  of  6  Richard  I.  mentions  the 
making  of  "  i  postenie  in  mota,"  which  may  be  the  secret  passage  in  the 
rock. 

M 


178      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

swept  away,  but  the  one  round  tower  which  still  remains 
as  part  of  the  defences  of  the  inner  bailey,  looks  as 
though  it  might  be  of  the  time  of  Henry  II.  This 
bailey  is  semicircular  ;  the  whole  original  castle  covers 
only  if  acres.  A  very  much  larger  bailey  was  added 
afterwards,  probably  in  John's  reign.1  Probably  this 
later  bailey  was  at  first  enclosed  with  a  bank  and 
stockade,  and  this  stockade  may  be  the  palitium  of 
which  there  are  notices  in  the  records  of  Henry  III. 
and  Edward  I.2  The  main  gateway  of  this  bailey, 
which  still  remains,  is  probably  of  Edward  I.  or 
Edward  II.'s  reign.8 

The  castle  of  Nottingham  was  the  most  important 
one  in  the  Midlands,  and  William  of  Newburgh  speaks 
of  it  as  "so  well  defended  by  nature  and  art  that  it 
appears  impregnable."4  The  value  of  the  town  had 
risen  from  £iS  to  ,£30  at  the  time  of  the  Survey.6 

OKEHAMPTON,  Devon  (Fig.  24). — Baldwin  de  Molis, 
Sheriff  of  Devon,  held  the  manor  of  Okehampton 
at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  and  had  a  castle  there.6 
On  a  hill  in  the  valley  of  the  Okement  River 

1  This  is  rendered  probable  by  a  writ  of  Henry  I  II.'s  reign,  ordering  that 
half  a  mark  is  to  be  paid  annually  to  Isolde  de  Gray  for  the  land  which  she 
had  lost  in  King  John's  time  "per  incrementum  forinseci  ballii  Castri  de 
Notinge."     Close  Rolls,  i.,  508. 

2  Close  Rolls,  i.,  548b.     "  Videat  quid  et  quantum  maeremii  opus  fuerit 
ad  barbecanas  et  palitia  ipsius  castri  reparanda"   (1223).     Close  Rolls,  i., 
53 ib      Timber    ordered  for  the  repair   of  the  bridges,  bretasches,  and 
palicium  gardini  (1223).     Cal.  of  Close  Rolls,  1286,  p.  390  :  Constable  is  to 
have  timber  to  repair  the  weir  of  the  mill,  and  the  palings  of  the  court  of 
the  castle.     Nottingham  was  one  of  eight  castles  in  which  John  had  baths 
put  up.    Rot.  Misa.,  7  John. 

3  The  murage  of  the  town  of  Nottingham  was  assigned  "  to  the  repair 
of  the  outer  bailey  of  the  castle  there"  in  1288.     Patent  Rolls,  Edward  I., 

i.,  308. 

*  Chapter  xlii.  5  D.  B.,  i.,  280. 

6  "  Ipse  Baldwinus  vicecomes  tenet  de  Rege  Ochementone,  et  ibi  sedet 
castellum."    D.  B.,  i.,  iosb,  2. 


OKEHAMPTON,  DEVON. 


££//  M 


PKNWORTHAM,  LANCS. 


PEVKNSEY,  SUSSEX. 


FIG.  24. 


[To  face  p.  178. 


OKEHAMFION— OSWESTRY  179 

stand  the  remains  of  a  castle  of  the  motte-and-bailey 
pattern.  On  the  motte,  which  is  high  and  steep,  are  the 
ruins  of  a  keep  of  late  character,  probably  of  the  I4th 
century.1  The  oval  bailey  covers  ^  an  acre,  and  the 
whole  castle  is  surrounded  with  a  very  deep  ditch  (filled 
up  now  on  the  east  side)  which  is  in  part  a  natural 
ravine.  The  usual  ditch  between  the  motte  and  the 
bailey  is  absent  here.  This  castle  appears  to  have 
continued  always  in  private  hands,  and  therefore  there 
is  little  to  be  learned  about  it  from  the  public  records. 
The  value  of  Okehampton  manor  had  increased  since 
the  Conquest  from  ^8  to  £10.  As  there  is  no  burgus 
mentioned  T.  R.  E.,  but  four  burgenses  and  a  market 
T.  R.  W.,  Baldwin  the  Sheriff  must  have  built  a 
borough  as  well  as  a  castle.  Otherwise  it  was  a  small 
manor  of  thirty  ploughs. 

OSWESTRY,  Shropshire.  —  Mr  Eyton's  identification 
of  the  Domesday  castle  of  Louvre,  in  the  manor  of 
Meresberie,  Shropshire,  with  Oswestry,  seems  to  be 
decisive.2  The  name  is  simply  L'CEuvre,  the  Work,  a 
name  very  frequently  given  to  castles  in  the  early 
Norman  period.  Domesday  Book  says  that  Rainald 
de  Bailleul  built  a  castle  at  this  place.3  He  had  married 
the  widow  of  Warin,  Sheriff  of  Shropshire,  who  died 
in  1085.  The  castle  afterwards  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  Fitz  Alans,  great  lords-marcher  on  the  Welsh 

1  The  late   Mr  Worth  thought  the  lower  part  of  the  keep  was  early 
Norman.     He  was  perhaps  misled  by  the  round  arched  loops  in  the  base- 
ment.    But  round  arches  are  by  no  means  conclusive  evidence  in  them- 
selves  of  Norman   date,  and  the  size  of  these  windows,  as  well  as  the 
absence  of  buttresses,   and  the  presence    of   pointed  arches,  are    quite 
incompatible  with  the  early    Norman  period.     The  whole  architecture  of 
the  castle  agrees  with  a  I4th  century  date,  to  which  the  chapel  undoubtedly 
belongs. 

2  Eyton,  Antiquities  of  Shropshire,  vol.  vii. 

3  "Ibi  fecit  Rainaldus   Castellum   Luure."      D.  B.,  i.,  253b.      Rainald 
was  an  under-tenant  of  Roger,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury. 


180      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

border.  As  the  Welsh  annals  give  the  credit  of  building 
the  castle  to  Madoc  ap  Meredith,  into  whose  hands  it  fell 
during  the  reign  of  Stephen,  it  is  not  impossible  that 
some  of  the  masonry  still  existing  on  the  motte,  which 
consists  of  large  cobbles  bedded  in  very  thick  mortar, 
may  be  his  work,  and  probably  the  first  stonework  in 
the  castle.  A  sketch  made  in  the  i8th  century,  however, 
which  is  the  only  drawing  preserved  of  the  castle,  seems 
to  show  architecture  of  the  Perpendicular  period.1  But 
probably  the  keep  alone  was  of  masonry  in  the  i2th 
century,  as  in  1166,  when  the  castle  was  in  royal 
custody,  the  repair  of  the  stockade  is  referred  to  in  the 
Pipe  Rolls?  No  plan  has  been  preserved  of  Oswestry 
Castle,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  recover  the  shape  or 
area  of  the  bailey,  which  is  now  built  over.  The  manor 
of  Meresberie  had  been  unoccupied  (wasta)  in  the  days 
of  King  Edward,  but  it  yielded  405.  at  the  date  of 
the  Survey.  Eyton  gives  reasons  for  thinking  that 
the  town  of  Oswestry  was  founded  by  the  Normans. 

OXFORD  (Fig.  25). — This  castle  was  built  in  1071  by 
Robert  d'Oilgi  (or  d'Oilly),  a  Norman  who  received  large 
estates  in  Oxfordshire.3  Oxford  was  a  burgus  in  Saxon 
times,  and  is  one  of  those  mentioned  in  the  Burghal 
Hidage.  Domesday  tells  us  that  the  king  has  twenty 
mural  mansions  there,  which  had  belonged  to  Algar, 
Earl  of  Mercia,  and  that  they  were  called  mural  mansions 
because  their  owners  had  to  repair  the  city  wall  at 
the  king's  behest,  a  regulation  probably  as  old  as  the 
days  of  Alfred.  The  Norman  castle  was  placed  outside 

1  This  sketch  is  reproduced  in  Mr  Parry-Jones'  Story  of  Oswestry  Castle. 
Leland  says,  "  Extat  turris  in  castro  nomine  Madoci."    //**».,  v.,  38. 

2  "  In  operatione  palicii  de  Blancmuster  7.1.  6s.  &/."    XII.,  124.    Oswestry 
was  known  as  Blancmoustier  or  Album  Monasterium  in  Norman  times. 

3  Abingdon  Chronicle  and  Osney  Chronicle^  which,  though  both  of  the 
1 3th  century,  were  no  doubt  compiled  from  earlier  sources. 


[To  face  p.  180. 


OXFORD  181 

the  town  walls,  but  near  the  river,  from  which  its 
trenches  were  fed.1  It  was  without  doubt  a  motte-and- 
bailey  castle  ;  the  motte  still  remains,  and  the  accom- 
panying bird's-eye  view  by  David  Loggan,  1675,  shows 
that  the  later  stone  walls  of  the  bailey  stood  on  the 
earthen  banks  of  D'Oilly's  castle.  The  site  is  now 
occupied  by  a  gaol.  On  the  line  of  the  walls  rises  the 
ancient  tower  of  St  George's  Church,  which  so  much 
resembles  an  early  Norman  keep  that  we  might  think  it 
was  intended  for  one,  if  the  Osney  chronicler  had  not 
expressly  told  us  that  the  church  was  founded  two  years 
after  the  castle.2  It  is  evident  that  the  design  was  to 
make  the  church  tower  work  as  a  mural  tower,  a 
combination  of  piety  and  worldly  wisdom  quite  in  accord 
with  what  the  chronicler  tells  us  of  the  character  of 
Roger  d'Oilly. 

Henry  II.  spent  some  £260  on  this  castle  between 
the  years  1165  and  1173,  the  houses  in  the  keep,  and 
the  well  being  specially  mentioned.  We  may  presume 
that  he  built  with  stone  the  decagonal  [shell  ?  ]  keep  on 
the  motte,  whose  foundations  were  discovered  at  the  end 
of  the  1 8th  century.3  There  is  still  in  the  heart  of  the 
motte  a  well  in  a  very  remarkable  well  chamber,  the 
masonry  of  which  may  be  of  his  time.  The  area  of  the 
bailey  appears  to  have  been  3  acres. 

The  value  of  the  city  of  Oxford  had  trebled  at  the 
time  of  the  Domesday  Survey.4 

In  the  treaty  between  Stephen  and  Henry  in  1153 
the  whole  castle  of  Oxford  is  spoken  of  as  the  "  Mota" 
of  Oxford.5 

1  Osney  Chronicle,  1071. 

2  See  Ingram's  Memorials  of  Oxford  for  an  account  of  the  very  interest- 
ing crypt  of  this   church,  p.  8.     The   battlement  storey  of  the   tower   is 
comparatively  late.  3  Mackenzie,  Castles  of  England,  i.,  160. 

4  D.  B.,  p.  154.  5  Rymer's  Fcedera,  vol.  i. 


182      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

PEAK  CASTLE,  Derbyshire. — The  Survey  simply  calls 
this  castle  the  Castle  of  William  Peverel,  but  tells  us  that 
two  Saxons  had  formerly  held  the  land.1  There  is  no 
motte  here,  but  the  strong  position,  defended  on  two 
sides  by  frightful  precipices,  rendered  very  little  fortifica- 
tion necessary.  It  is  possible  that  the  wall  on  the  N. 
and  W.  sides  of  the  area  may  be,  in  part  at  least, 
the  work  of  William  Peverel ;  the  W.  wall  contains 
a  great  deal  of  herring-bone  work,  and  the  tower  at 
the  N.W.  angle  does  not  flank  at  all,  while  the  other 
one  in  the  N.  wall  only  projects  a  few  feet ;  the  poor 
remains  of  the  gatehouse  also  appear  to  be  Norman. 
It  would  probably  be  easier  to  build  a  wall  than  to 
raise  an  earthbank  in  this  stony  country ;  nevertheless, 
behind  the  modern  wall  which  runs  up  from  the  gate- 
house to  the  keep,  something  like  an  earthbank  may 
be  observed  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  which  ought 
to  be  examined  before  any  conclusions  are  determined 
as  to  the  first  fortifications  of  this  castle.  The  keep, 
which  is  of  different  stone  to  the  other  towers  and  the 
walls,  stands  on  the  highest  ground  in  the  area, 
apparently  on  the  natural  rock,  which  crops  up  in  the 
basement.  It  is  undoubtedly  the  work  of  Henry  II., 
as  the  accounts  for  it  remain  in  the  Pipe  Rolls,  and  the 
slight  indications  of  style  which  it  displays,  such  as  the 
nook-shafts  at  the  angles,  correspond  to  the  Transition 
Norman  period.2  The  shape  of  the  bailey  is  a  quadrant ; 
its  area  scarcely  exceeds  i  acre. 

1  "Terrain  castelli  Pechefers  tenuerunt  Gerneburn  et  Hunding."     D.  B., 
i.,  2;6a,  2. 

2  There  are  similar  nook-shafts  to  Henry  II.'s  keep  at  Scarborough,  and 
to   Castle   Rising.      Mr  Hartshorne   (Arch.  Journ.,  v.,  207)  thought   that 
there  had  been  an  earlier  stone  keep  at  Peak  Castle,  because  some  moulded 
stones  are  used  in  the  walls,  and  because  there  is  some  herring-bone  work  in 
the  basement.     But  this  herring-bone  work  only  occurs  in  a  revetment  wall 
to  the  rock  in  the  cellar ;  and  the  moulded  stones  may  be  quite   modern 


PEAK— PEN  WORT  HAM  183 

The  value  of  the  manor  had  risen  since  the  Conquest, 
and  William  Peverel  had  doubled  the  number  of  ploughs 
in  the  demesne.  The  castle  only  remained  in  the  hands 
of  the  Peverels  for  two  generations,  and  was  then 
forfeited  to  the  crown.  The  manor  was  only  a  small 
one  ;  and  the  site  of  the  castle  was  probably  chosen  for 
its  natural  advantages  and  for  the  facility  of  hunting  in 
the  Peak  Forest. 

PENWORTHAM,  Lancashire  (Fig.  24). — "  King  Edward 
held  Peneverdant.  There  are  two  carucates  of  land 
there,  and  they  used  to  pay  ten  pence.  Now  there  is  a 
castle  there,  and  there  are  two  ploughs  in  the  demesne, 
and  six  burghers,  and  three  radmen,  and  eight  villeins, 
and  four  cowherds.  Amongst  them  all  they  have  four 
ploughs.  There  is  half  a  fishery  there.  There  is  wood 
and  hawk's  eyries,  as  in  King  Edward's  time.  It  is 
worth  ^3." l  The  very  great  rise  in  value  in  this  manor 
shows  that  some  great  change  had  taken  place  since  the 
Norman  Conquest.  This  change  was  the  building  of  a 
castle.  The  modo  of  Domesday  always  expresses  a 
contrast  with  King  Edward's  time,  and  clearly  tells  us 
here  that  Penwortham  Castle  was  new.2  It  lay  in  the 
extensive  lands  between  the  Ribble  and  the  Mersey, 
which  were  part  of  the  Conqueror's  enfeoffment  of  Roger 
the  Poitevin,  third  son  of  Earl  Roger  de  Montgomeri.* 
Since  Penwortham  is  mentioned  as  demesne,  and  no 

insertions  for  repairs,  and  may  have  come  from  the  oratory  in  the  N.E. 
angle,  or  from  some  of  the  ruined  windows  and  doorways.  The  sums 
entered  to  this  castle  between  the  years  1172  and  1176  are  less  than  half  the 
cost  of  Scarborough  keep,  and  do  not  appear  adequate,  though  the  keep  was 
a  small  one.  But  there  is  some  reason  to  think  that  the  cost  of  castles  was 
occasionally  defrayed  in  part  from  sources  not  entered  in  the  Pipe  Rolls. 

1  Rex  E.  tenuit  Peneverdant.  Ibi  2  carucatae  terrae  et  reddebant  10 
denarios.  Modo  est  ibi  castellum.  .  .  .  Valent  3  libras.  D.  B.,  i.,  270. 

a  We  need  not  resort  to  any  fanciful  British  origins  of  the  name  Pene- 
verdant, as  it  is  clearly  the  effort  of  a  Norman  scribe  to  write  down  the  un- 
pronounceable English  name  Penwortham.  s  $e.e  ante^  uncfcr  Clitheroe, 


184      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

under-tenant  is  spoken  of,  we  may  perhaps  assume  that 
this  castle,  which  was  the  head  of  a  barony,  was  built  by 
Roger  himself.  He  did  not  hold  it  long,  as  he  forfeited 
all  his  estates  in  1102.  At  a  later  period,  though  we 
have  not  been  able  to  trace  when,  the  manor  of 
Penwortham  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  monks  of 
Evesham,  to  whom  the  church  had  already  been  granted, 
at  the  end  of  the  Conqueror's  reign.1  Probably  it  is 
because  the  castle  thus  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
church  that  it  never  developed  into  a  stone  castle,  like 
Clitheroe.  The  seat  of  the  barony  was  transferred  else- 
where, and  probably  the  timbers  of  the  castle  were  used 
in  the  monastic  buildings  of  Penwortham  Priory. 

The  excavations  which  were  made  here  in  1856 
proved  conclusively  that  there  were  no  stone  foundations 
on  the  Castle  Hill  at  Penwortham.2  These  excavations 
revealed  the  singular  fact  that  the  Norman  had  thrown 
up  his  motte  on  the  site  of  a  British  or  Romano-British 
hut,  without  even  being  aware  of  it,  since  the  ruins  of 
the  hut  were  buried  5  feet  deep  and  covered  by  a 
grass-grown  surface,  on  which  the  Norman  had  laid  a 
rude  pavement  of  boulders  before  piling  his  motte.8 

1  Mr  Halton's  book  (Documents  relating  to  the  Priory  of  Penwortham^) 
throws  no  light  on  this  point. 

2  Transactions  of  the  Historic  Society  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire,  vol. 
ix.,  1856-1857,  paper  on  "The  Castle  Hill  of  Penwortham," by  the  Rev.  W. 
Thornber  ;  Hardwick's  History  of  Preston,  pp.  103-11. 

3  In  a  paper  published  in  the  Trans.  Soc.  Ant.  Scot,  for  1900,  on  "Anglo- 
Saxon  Burns  and  Early  Norman  Castles,"  the  present  writer  was  misled  into 
the  statement  that  this  hut  was  the  remains  of  the  cellar  of  the  Norman 
bretasche.     A  subsequent  study  of  Mr  Hardwick's  more  lucid  account   of 
the  excavations  showed  that  this  was  an  error.     There  were  two  pavements 
of  boulders,  one  on  the  natural  surface  of  the  hill,  on  which  the  hut  had 
been   built,   the  other   5   feet   above   it,   and    12   feet  below  the    present 
surface.     The  hut  appeared  to  have  been  circular,  with  wattled  walls  and  a 
thatched  roof.     Several  objects  were  found  in  its  remains,  and  were  pro- 
nounced to  be  Roman  or  Romano-British.     The  upper   pavement   would 
probably  be  the  flooring  of  a  Norman  keep. 


PENWORTHAM— PETERBOROUGH  185 

Among  the  objects  found  in  the  excavations  was  a 
Norman  prick  spur,  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  Norman 
origin  of  the  motte.1  No  remains  appear  to  have  been 
found  of  the  Norman  wooden  keep  ;  but  this  would  be 
accounted  for  by  the  theory  suggested  above. 

Penwortham  is  a  double  motte,  the  artificial  hill 
rising  on  the  back  of  a  natural  hill,  which  has  been 
isolated  from  its  continuing  ridge  by  an  artificial  ditch 
cut  through  it.  The  double  hill  rises  out  of  a  bailey 
court  which  is  rudely  square,  but  whose  shape  is 
determined  by  the  ground,  which  forms  a  headland 
running  out  into  the  Ribble.  The  whole  area  cannot 
certainly  be  ascertained.  There  was  a  ferry  at  this 
point  in  Norman  times.2  The  castle  defends  the  mouth 
of  the  Ribble  and  overlooks  the  town  of  Preston. 

Penwortham  was  certainly  not  the  caput  of  a  large 
soke  in  Saxon  times,  as  it  was  only  a  berewick  of 
Blackburn,  in  which  hundred  it  lay.  It  was  the  Norman 
who  first  made  it  the  seat  of  a  barony. 

PETERBOROUGH. — The  chronicler,  Hugh  Candidus, 
tells  us  that  Abbot  Thorold,  the  Norman  abbot  whom 
William  I.  appointed  to  the  ancient  minster  of  Peter- 
borough, built  a  castle  close  to  the  church,  "which  in 
these  days  is  called  Mount  Torold."3  This  mount  is 

1  Mr  Roach  Smith  pronounced  this  spur  to  be  Norman.     As  its  evidence 
is  so  important,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  its  position  was  not  more  accur- 
ately observed.     It  was  found  in  the  lowest  stratum  of  the  remains,  but  Mr 
Hardwick  says :  "  As  it  was  not  observed  until  thrown  to  the  surface,  a 
possibility  remained  that  it  might  have  fallen  from  the  level  of  the  upper 
boulder  pavement,  5  feet  higher."    We  may  regard  this  possibility  as  a 
certainty,  if  the  lower  hut  was  really  British. 

2  Mr  Willoughby  Gardner  says  the  castle  commands  a  ford,  to  which 
the  ancient  sunk  road  leads.     Victoria  Hist,  of  Lancashire,  vol.  ii. 

3  Hugh  Candidus,  Coenob.  Burg.  Historia,  in  Sparke's  Scriptores,  p.  63. 
This  passage  was  kindly  pointed  out  to  me  by  Mr  Round.     Hugh  lived  in 
Henry  III.'s  reign,  but  he  must  have  had  the  more  ancient  records  of  the 
monastery  at  his  disposal. 


186      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

still  existing,  but  it  has  lost  its  ancient  name,  and  is 
now  called  Tout  Hill.  It  stands  in  the  Deanery  garden, 
and  has  probably  been  largely  ransacked  for  garden 
soil,  as  it  has  a  decayed  and  shapeless  look.  Still,  it  is  a 
venerable  relic  of  Norman  aggression,  well  authenticated. 
PEVENSEY,  Sussex  (Fig.  24). — The  Roman  castrum 
of  Pevensey  (still  so  striking  in  its  remains)  was  an 
inhabited  town  at  the  date  of  the  Norman  Conquest, 
and  was  an  important  port.1  After  taking  possession 
of  the  castrum,  William  I.  drew  a  strong  bank  across  its 
eastern  end,  and  placed  a  castle  in  the  area  thus  isolated. 
This  first  castle  was  probably  entirely  of  wood,  as  there 
was  a  wooden  palicium  on  the  bank  as  late  as  the  reign 
of  Henry  II.2  But  if  a  wooden  keep  was  built  at  first, 
it  was  very  soon  superseded  by  one  of  stone.3  The 
remains  of  this  keep  have  recently  been  excavated  by 
Mr  Harold  Sands  and  Mr  Montgomerie,  and  show 
it  to  have  been  a  most  remarkable  building4  (see 
Chapter  XII.,  p.  355) — in  all  probability  one  of  the  few 
nth  century  keeps  in  England.  We  may  perhaps 
attribute  this  distinction  to  the  fact  that  no  less  a  man 
than  the  Conqueror's  half-brother,  the  Count  of  Mortain, 
was  made  the  guardian  of  this  important  port. 

1  Domesday  Book  mentions  that  the  value  of  the  burgus  had  greatly 
risen.     It  was  one  of  the  burhs  mentioned  in  the  Burghal  Hidage. 

2  Pipe  Roll)  1187-1188.     William  of  Jumieges  says,  "Statim  firmissimo 
vallo  castrum   condidit,   probisque  militibus  commisit."    VII.,  34.     Wace 
professes  to  give  the  account  of  an  eye-witness,  who  saw  the  timber  for  the 
castle  landed  from  the  ships,  and  the  ditch  dug.     But  Wace  was  not  a 
contemporary,  and  as  he  has  made  the  mistake  of  making  William  land  at 
Pevensey  instead  of  Hastings,  his  evidence  is  questionable.     Roman  de  Rou, 
p.  293  (Andresen's  edition). 

3  The  ruins  of  this  keep,  until  1908,  were  buried  under  so  large  a  mound 
of  earth  and  rubbish  that  Mr  G.  T.  Clark  mistook  it  for  a  motte,  and  the 
present  writer  was  equally  misled.     It  ought  to  be  stated,  before  the  date  of 
this  keep  is  finally  settled,  that  the  Gesta  Stephani  speaks  of  this  castle  as 
"  editissimo  aggere  sublatum."    P.  106.  4  Ibid. 


PEVENSEY— PONTEFRACT         187 

Pevensey  is  mentioned  as  a  port  in  the  Close  Rolls 
of  Henry  III.'s  reign,  and  was  one  of  the  important 
waterways  to  the  Continent.1  As  has  been  already  noted, 
the  establishment  of  the  castle  was  followed  by  the  usual 
rise  in  the  value  of  the  b^trgus?  The  area  of  the  castle 
covers  i  acre. 

PONTEFRACT,  Yorkshire  (Fig.  26). — This  castle  is 
not  spoken  of  in  Domesday  by  its  French  name,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  "the  Castle  of  Ilbert  " 
which  is  twice  mentioned  and  several  times  alluded  to  in 
the  Clamores,  or  disputed  claims,  which  are  enrolled  at 
the  end  of  the  list  of  lands  in  Yorkshire  belonging  to 
the  tenants-in-chief.8  The  existence  of  Ilbert's  castle  at 
Pontefract  in  the  nth  century  is  made  certain  by  a 
charter  (only  an  early  copy  of  which  is  now  extant)  in 
the  archives  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  in  which 
William  Rufus  at  his  accession  regrants  to  Ilbert  de 
Lacy  "the  custom  of  the  castelry  of  his  castle,  as  he  had 
it  in  the  Conqueror's  days  and  in  those  of  the  bishop  of 
Bayeux."4  As  Mr  Holmes  remarks,  this  carries  us 
back  to  four  years  before  the  compilation  of  Domesday 
Book,  since  Odo,  Bishop  of  Bayeux,  whom  William  had 
left  as  regent  during  his  absence  in  Normandy,  was 
arrested  and  imprisoned  in  io82.5 

Pontefract  is  called  Kirkby  in  some  of  the  earlier 
charters,  and  this  was  evidently  the  English  (or  rather 
the  Danish)  name  of  the  place.  It  lay  within  the  manor 
of  Tateshall,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  same  as 
Tanshelf,  a  name  still  preserved  in  the  neighbourhood 

1  Close  Rolls,  i.,  63ia.          2  D.  B.,  i.,  2ob. 

3  D.  B.,  i.,  373^  4  Cited  in  Holmes'  History  of  Pontefract,  p.  62. 

5  Another  charter,  which  is  a  confirmation  by  the  second  Ilbert  de  Lacy 
of  the  ecclesiastical  gifts  of  Ilbert  I.  and  Robert  his  son,  states  that  the 
Chapel  of  St  Clement  in  the  castle  of  Pontefract  was  founded  by  Ilbert  I. 
in  the  reign  of  William  II.  Mon.  Ang.,  v.,  128. 


188      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

of,  but  not  exactly  at,  Pontefract.1  Tanshelf  claims  to 
be  the  Taddenescylf  mentioned  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle,  where  King  Edgar  received  the  submission  of 
the  Yorkshire  Danes  in  947.  There  is  no  proof  that 
the  hill  at  Kirkby  was  fortified  before  the  Conquest.  It 
was  a  steep  headland  rising  out  of  the  plain  of  the  Aire, 
and  needing  only  to  be  scarped  by  art  and  to  have  a 
ditch  cut  across  its  neck  to  be  almost  impregnable.  It 
lay  scarcely  a  mile  east  of  the  Roman  road  from 
Doncaster  to  Castleford  and  the  north. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  task  to  trace  the  fortunes  of  this 
famous  castle,  which  was  considered  in  the  Middle  Ages 
to  be  the  key  of  Yorkshire.2  In  spite  of  the  labels 
affixed  to  the  walls  we  venture  to  assert  with  confidence 
that  none  of  the  masonry  now  visible  belongs  to  the 
days  of  Ilbert.  The  structural  history  of  the  castle  was 
probably  this  :  Ilbert  de  Lacy,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Norman  tenants-in-chief  in  Yorkshire,3  built  in  this 
naturally  defensive  situation  a  castle  of  earth  and  wood, 
like  other  Norman  castles.  Whether  he  found  the  place 
already  defended  by  earthen  banks  we  do  not  attempt  to 
decide,  but  analogy  makes  it  fairly  certain  that  the 
motte  was  his  work,  and  was  crowned  by  a  wooden 
tower.  This  motte,  which  was  at  least  partially  scarped 
out  of  the  soft  sandstone  rock,  is  now  disguised  by  the 
remarkable  keep  which  has  been  built  up  around  it, 
consisting  at  present  of  two  enormous  round  towers  and 
the  ruins  of  a  third.  As  a  fourth  side  is  vacant,  it  may 

1  It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  the  meaning   of  the  name  Pontefract, 
since  for  whatever  reason  it  was  given,   it  was  clearly  bestowed  by  the 
Norman  settlers. 

2  "  Castrum  de  Pontefracto  est  quasi  clavis  in  comitatu  Ebor."     Letter  of 
Ralph  Neville  to  Henry  III.,  Fcedera,  i.,  429,  cited  by  Holmes,  Pontefract^ 
194. 

3  The  Conqueror  had  given  him  more  than  200  manors  in  Yorkshire. 
Yorks.  Arch.  Journ.)  xiv.,  17. 


//  ff 

PONTEFRACT,    YORKS. 


QUATFORD,    SALOP. 


PRESTON  CAPES,  NORTHANTS. 


FIG.    26. 


[To  face  p.  188. 


PONTEFRACT  189 

reasonably  be  conjectured  that  there  was  a  fourth 
roundel.1  If  the  plan  was  a  quatrefoil  it  resembled  that 
of  the  keep  of  York,  which  is  now  ascertained  to  belong 
to  the  reign  of  Henry  III.;  and  the  very  little  detail 
that  is  left  supports  the  view  that  Pontefract  keep  was 
copied  from  the  royal  experiment  at  York,  though  it 
differed  from  it  in  that  it  actually  revetted  the  motte 
itself.  There  is  no  ditch  now  round  the  motte,  but  we 
venture  to  think  that  its  inner  ditch  is  indicated  by  the 
position  of  the  postern  in  Piper's  Tower,  which  seems  to 
mark  its  outlet.  It  appears  to  have  been  partly  rilled  up 
during  the  great  siege  of  Pontefract  in  i648.2  The 
platform  which  is  attached  to  the  motte  on  the  side 
facing  the  bailey  is  probably  an  addition  of  the  same 
date,  intended  for  artillery ;  its  retaining  wall  shows 
signs  of  hasty  construction.  A  well  chamber  and  a 
passage  leading  both  to  it  and  to  a  postern  opening 
towards  the  outer  ditch  appear  to  have  been  made  in 
the  rocky  base  of  the  motte  in  the  1 3th  century. 

The  area  of  the  inner  and  probably  original  bailey  of 
this  castle,  including  the  motte,  is  2^  acres.  The  Main 
Guard,  and  another  bailey  covering  the  approach  on  the 
S.  side,  were  probably  later  additions,  bringing  up  the 
castle  area  to  7  acres.  The  shape  of  the  first  bailey  is 
an  irregular  oval,  determined  by  the  hill  on  which  it 
stands. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Tateshall  had  fallen  at 

1  Four  roundels  are   shown   in   the  plate   given   in    Fox's   History  of 
Pontefract,  "from  a  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries." 
But  the  drawing  is  so  incorrect  in  some  points  that  it  can  hardly  be  relied 
upon  for  others.     There  were  only  three  roundels  in  Leland's  time. 

2  Drake's  account   of  the  siege   says   that  there  was  a  hollow  place 
between  Piper's  Tower  and  the  Round  Tower  all  the  way  down  to  the  well ; 
the  gentlemen  and  soldiers  all  fell  to  carrying  earth  and  rubbish,  and  so 
rilled  up  the  place  in  a  little  space.     Quoted  in  Holmes'  Manual  of  Pontefract 
Castle. 


190      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  time  of  the  Survey  from  ^20  to  ^15,  an  unusual 
circumstance  in  the  case  of  a  manor  which  had  become 
the  seat  of  an  important  castle ;  but  the  number  of 
ploughs  had  decreased  by  half,  and  we  may  infer  that 
Tateshall  had  not  recovered  from  the  great  devastation 
of  Yorkshire  in  IO68.1 

PRESTON  CAPES,  Northants  (Fig.  26). — That  a 
castle  of  the  nth  century  stood  here  is  only  proved  by 
a  casual  mention  in  the  Historia  Fundationis  of  the 
Cluniac  priory  of  Daventry,  which  tells  us  that  this 
priory  was  first  founded  by  Hugh  de  Leycestre, 
Seneschal  of  Matilda  de  Senlis,  close  to  his  own  castle 
of  Preston  Capes,  about  1090.  Want  of  water  and  the 
proximity  of  the  castle  proving  inconvenient,  the  priory 
was  removed  to  Daventry.2  The  work  lies  about  3 
miles  from  the  Watling  Street.  The  castle  stands  on  a 
spur  of  high  land  projecting  northwards  towards  a  feeder 
of  the  river  Nesse,  about  3  miles  W.  of  the  Watling 
Street.  The  works  consist  of  a  motte,  having  a  flat  top 
80  to  90  feet  in  diameter,  and  remains  of  a  slight  breast- 
work. This  motte  is  placed  on  the  edge  of  the  plateau, 
and  the  ground  falls  steeply  round  its  northern  half. 
About  1 6  feet  down  this  slope,  a  ditch  with  an  outer 
bank  has  been  dug,  embracing  half  the  mound.  Lower 
down,  near  the  foot  of  the  slope,  is  another  and  longer 
ditch  and  rampart.  It  is  probable  that  the  bailey 
occupied  the  flatter  ground  S.E.  of  the  motte,  but  the 
site  is  occupied  by  a  farm,  and  no  traces  are  visible.3 

1  In  the  English  Historical  Review  for  July  1904,  where  this  paper  first 
appeared,  the  writer  spoke  of  two  mottes  at  Pontefract,  having  been  led  to 
this  view  by  the  great  height  of  the  east  end  of  the  bailey,  where  the  ruins  of 
John    of   Gaunt's   work    are    found.     This    view    is    now    withdrawn,    in 
deference  to  the  conclusions  of  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie,  F.S.A.,  who  has 
carefully  examined  the  spot. 

2  Man.  Ang.,  iv.,  178. 

3  From  a  description  by  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie. 


QUATFORD— RAYLEIGH  191 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Preston  Capes  had  risen 
from  6s.  to  405.  at  the  time  of  the  Survey.  It  was  held 
by  Nigel  of  the  Count  of  Mellent.1 

QUATFORD,  Shropshire  (Fig.  26). — There  can  hardly 
be  any  doubt  that  the  nova  domus  at  Quatford 
mentioned  in  the  Survey  was  the  new  castle  built  by 
Roger  de  Montgomeri,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury.  We  have 
already  suggested  that  the  burgus  which  also  existed 
there  may  have  been  his  work,  and  not  that  of  the 
Danes.2  The  manor  belonged  to  the  church  before  the 
Conquest.3  The  oval  motte,  which  still  remains,  is 
described  as  placed  on  a  bold  rocky  promontory  jutting 
into  the  Severn  ;  it  is  not  quite  30  feet  high,  and  about 
60  feet  by  120  in  diameter  on  top,  and  has  a  small 
bean-shaped  bailey  of  i  acre.  It  is  near  the  church, 
which  has  Norman  remains.4  Robert  Belesme,  son  of 
Earl  Roger,  removed  the  castle  to  Bridgenorth,  and  so 
the  Quatford  castle  is  heard  of  no  more.5  The  manor 
of  Quatford  was  paying  nothing  at  the  date  of  the 
Survey. 

RAYLEIGH,  Essex  (Fig.  27). — "  In  this  manor  Sweyn 
has  made  his  castle."1  Sweyn  was  the  son  of  Robert 
Fitz-Wymarc,  a  half  English,  half  Norman  favourite  of 
Edward  the  Confessor.  Robert  was  Sheriff  of  Essex 
under  Edward  and  William,  and  Sweyn  appears  to  have 
succeeded  his  father  in  this  office.7  Sweyn  built  his 
castle  on  land  which  had  not  belonged  to  his  father,  so 
Rayleigh  cannot  be  the  "  Robert's  Castle  "  of  the  Anglo- 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  224.  *  See  Chapter  IV. 

3  Domesday  Book  says:  "Ipse  comes  (Roger)  tenet  Ardinton.     Sancta 
Milburga  tenuit  T.  R.  E.     Ibi  molinum  et  nova  domus  et  burgus  Quatford 
dictus,  nil  reddentes."     I.,  254. 

4  G.  T.  Clark,  in  Arch.  Cambrensis^  1874,  p.  264. 
6  Ord.  Vit.)  iv.,  32. 

6  "  In  hoc  manerio  fecit  Suenus  suum  castellum."     D.  B.,  ii.,  33b. 

7  Freeman,  N.  C.t  ii.,  329,  and  iv.,  Appendix  H. 


192      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Saxon  Chronicle,  to  which  some  of  the  Norman 
adventurers  fled  on  the  triumph  of  Earl  Godwin.1  There 
is  a  fine  motte  at  Rayleigh,  and  a  semicircular  bailey 
attached ;  the  ditch  round  the  whole  is  still  well  marked. 
There  is  not  a  vestige  of  masonry  on  the  surface,  but 
some  excavations  made  in  1910  revealed  stone  founda- 
tions. The  inner  bailey  covers  f  of  an  acre.  The 
value  of  the  manor  had  risen  since  the  Conquest,  but  it 
was  only  a  small  one,  with  no  villages  in  its  soke. 

RICHARD'S  CASTLE,  Herefordshire  (Fig.  27). — There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  this  is  the  castle  referred  to  in 
Domesday  Book  under  the  name  of  Avreton,  as  it  is 
not  far  from  Overton,  on  the  northern  border  of 
Hereford.2  Richard's  Castle  is  almost  certainly  the 
castle  of  Richard,  son  of  Scrob,  one  of  the  Normans  to 
whom  Edward  the  Confessor  had  granted  large  estates, 
and  who  probably  fortified  himself  on  this  site.  At  the 
time  of  the  Survey  Richard  was  dead,  and  the  castle 
was  held  by  his  son  Osbern,  and  it  is  noted  that  he 
pays  IDS.,  but  the  castle  is  worth  205.  to  him.  Its  value 
was  the  same  as  in  King  Edward's  time,  a  fact  worth 
noting,  as  it  coincides  with  the  assumption  that  this 
was  a  pre-Conquest  castle.  There  is  a  high  and  steep 
motte  at  Richard's  Castle,  and  a  small  half-moon  shaped 
bailey.3  There  are  remains  of  a  stone  wing  wall  running 
down  the  motte,  and  on  the  top  there  is  a  straight  piece 
of  masonry  which  must  be  part  of  a  tower  keep.  The 
area  of  the  inner  bailey  is  f  of  an  acre.  Avreton  was 

1  Mr  Round  has  suggested  that  this  castle  was  at  Canfield  in  Essex, 
where  there  is  a  motte  and  bailey. 

2  "  Isdem  Osbernus  habet  23  homines  in  castello  Avreton  et  reddit  10 
solidos.     Valet  ei  castellum  hoc  20  solidos."     D.  B.,  i.,  i86b. 

3  Mr  Clark's  plan  is  strangely  incorrect,  as  he  altogether  omits   the 
bailey.     Compare    the    plan   in    Mr    Round's    Castles    of   the    Conquest, 

vol.  Iviii.,  and  Mr  Montgomerie's  plan  here,  Fig.  27. 


RAYLBIGH,  ESSEX. 


RICHARD'S  CASTLE,  HEREFORD. 


FIG.  27. 


(To  face  p.  192. 


RICHMOND  193 

not  the  centre  of  a  soke,  but  appears  to  have  lain  in  the 
manor  of  Ludeford. 

RICHMOND,  Yorks  (Fig.  28). — As  in  the  case  of 
Pontefract,  this  other  great  Yorkshire  castle  is  not 
mentioned  by  name  in  Domesday  Book,  nor  is  there 
any  allusion  to  it  except  a  casual  mention  in  the 
Recapitulation  that  Earl  Alan  has  199  manors  in  his 
castelry,  and  that  besides  the  castelry  he  has  43 
manors.1  The  castle  must  have  been  built  at  the  date 
of  the  Survey,  which  was  completed  only  a  year  before 
William  I.'s  death  ;  for  during  William's  lifetime  Earl 
Alan,  the  first  holder  of  the  fief,  gave  the  chapel  in  the 
castle  of  Richmond  to  the  abbey  of  St  Mary  at  York, 
which  he  had  founded.2  The  name,  of  course,  is  French, 
and  it  seems  impossible  now  to  discover  what  English 
manor-name  it  has  displaced.3  It  is  certainly  a  case  in 
which  the  Norman  castle  was  not  placed  in  the  seat  of 
the  former  Saxon  proprietor,  but  in  the  site  which 
seemed  most  defensible  to  the  Norman  lord.  The 
lands  of  Earl  Alan  in  the  wapentake  of  Gilling  had 
belonged  to  the  Saxon  Earl  Edwin,  and  thus  cannot 
have  fallen  to  Alan's  share  before  Edwin's  death  in  1071. 
The  Genealogia  published  by  Dods worth  (from  an  MS. 
compiled  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.),  says  that  Earl 
Alan  first  built  Richmond  Castle  near  his  chief  manor 
of  Gilling,  to  defend  his  people  against  the  attacks  of 

1  "Comes  Alanus  habet  in   sua  castellata   199  maneria.  .  .  .  Prseter 
castellariam  habet  43  maneria."     D.  B.,  i.,  381  a,  2. 

2  This  is  stated  in  a  charter  of  Henry  II.,  which  carefully  recapitulates 
the  gifts  of  the  different  benefactors  to  St  Mary's.     Mon.  Ang.,  iii.,  548.     It 
is  curious  that  the  charter  of  William  II.,  the  first  part  of  which  is  an 
inspeximus  of  a  charter  of  William  I.,  does  not  mention  this  chapel  in  the 
castle. 

3  Mr  Skaife,  the  editor  of  the  Yorkshire  Domesday,  thinks  that  it  was  at 
Hinderlag,  but  gives  no  reasons.     Hinderlag,  at  the  time  of  the  Survey, 
was  in  the  hands  of  an  under-tenant.     Yorks.  Arch.  Journ.,  Hi.,  527,  530, 

N 


194      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

the  disinherited  English  and  Danes.1  The  passage  has 
been  enlarged  by  Camden,  who  says  that  Alan 
"thought  himself  not  safe  enough  in  Gilling";  and 
this  has  been  interpreted  to  mean  that  Alan  originally 
built  his  castle  at  Gilling,  and  afterwards  removed  it  to 
Richmond ;  but  the  original  words  have  no  such 
meaning.2 

Richmond  Castle  differs  from  most  of  the  castles 
mentioned  in  Domesday  in  that  it  has  no  motte.  The 
ground  plan  indeed  was  very  like  that  of  a  motte-and- 
bailey  castle,  in  that  old  maps  show  a  small  roundish 
enclosure  at  the  apex  of  the  large  triangular  bailey.8 
But  a  recent  examination  of  the  keep  by  Messrs  Hope 
and  Brakespear  has  confirmed  the  theory  first  enunciated 
by  Mr  Loftus  Brock,4  that  the  keep  is  built  over  the 
original  gateway  of  the  castle,  and  that  the  lower  stage 
of  its  front  wall  is  the  ancient  wall  of  the  castle.  The 
small  ward  indicated  in  the  old  maps  is  therefore  most 
likely  a  barbican,  of  later  date  than  the  I2th  century 
keep,  which  is  probably  rightly  attributed  by  the 
Genealogia  cited  above  to  Earl  Conan,  who  reigned 
from  1 1 48-1 1 7 1.6  Some  entries  in  the  Pipe  Rolls 
make  it  almost  certain  that  it  was  finished  by  Henry  II., 

1  "Hie  Alanus    primo    incepit    facere   castrum    et  munitionem   juxta 
manerium  suum  capitale  de  Gilling,  pro  tuitione  suorum  contra  infestationes 
Anglorum  tune  ubique  exhasredatorum,  similiter  et  Danorum,  et  nominavit 
dictum  castrum  Richmond  suo  ydiomate  Gallico,  quod  sonat  Latine  divitem 
montem,  in  edition  et  fortiori  loco  sui  territorii  situatum."    Man.  Ang.^ 

v.,  574- 

2  There  are  no  remains  of  fortification  at  Gilling,  but  about  a  mile  and 
a  half  away  there  used  to  be  an  oval  earthwork,  now  levelled,  called  Castle 
Hill,  of  which  a  plan  is  given  in  M'Laughlan's  paper,  Arch.  Journ.,  vol.  vi. 
It  had  no  motte.     Mr  Clark  says,  "The  mound  at  Gilling  has  not  long  been 
levelled."    M.  M.  A.,   i.,   23.     It   probably  never  existed  except   in   his 
imagination. 

3  See  Clarkson's  History  of  Richmond. 

4  Journal  of  Brit.  Arch.  Ass.,  Ixiii.,  179. 

6  These  are  the  dates  given  in  Morice's  Bretagne. 


N 


RICHMOND,  YORKS. 


N. 


Feet 


ROCHESTER,  KENT. 


FIG.  28. 


[To  face  p.  194. 


RICHMOND— ROCHESTER  195 

who  kept  the  castle  in  his  own  hands  for  some  time  after 
the  death  of  Conan.1  There  are  some  indications  at 
Richmond  that  the  first  castle  was  of  stone  and  not  of 
earth  and  wood.  The  walls  do  not  stand  on  earthen 
banks  ;  the  Norman  curtain  can  still  be  traced  on  two 
sides  of  the  castle,  and  on  the  west  side  it  seems  of 
early  construction,  containing  a  great  deal  of  herring- 
bone work,  and  might  possibly  be  the  work  of  Earl 
Alan. 

The  whole  area  of  the  castle  is  2^  acres,  including 
the  annexe  known  as  the  Cockpit.  This  was  certainly 
enclosed  during  the  Norman  period,  as  it  has  a  Norman 
gateway  in  its  wall. 

As  we  do  not  know  the  name  of  the  site  of 
Richmond  before  the  Conquest,  and  as  the  name  of 
Richmond  is  not  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book,  we 
cannot  tell  whether  the  value  of  the  manor  had  risen  or 
fallen.  But  no  part  of  Yorkshire  was  more  flourishing 
at  the  time  of  the  Survey  than  this  wapentake  of 
Gilling,  which  belonged  to  Earl  Alan  ;  in  no  district, 
except  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  York,  are 
there  so  many  places  where  the  value  has  risen.  Yet 
the  greater  part  of  it  was  let  out  to  under-tenants. 

ROCHESTER,  Kent  (Fig.  28). — Under  the  heading 
of  Aylsford,  Kent,  the  Survey  tells  us  that  "  the  bishop 
of  Rochester  holds  as  much  of  this  land  as  is  worth 
173.  4d.  in  exchange  for  the  land  in  which  the  castle 
sits." 2  Rochester  was  a  Roman  castrum,  and  portions 
of  its  Roman  wall  have  recently  been  found.3  The  fact 

1  Henry  spent  $i/.  us.  $d.  in  1171  on  " operationes  domorum  et  turris," 
and  3o/.  6s.  in  1 1 74  on  "  operationes  castelli  et  domorum." 

2  "  Episcopus  de  Rouecestre,  pro  excambio  terras  in  qua  castellum  sedet, 
tantum  dehac  terra  tenet  quod  17  sol.  et  4  den.  valet."     D.  B.,  i.,  2b. 

3  See  Mr  George  Payne's  paper  on  Roman  Rochester,  in  Arch.  Cantiana^ 
vol.  xxi.     Mr  Hope  tells  me  that  parts  of  all  the  four  sides  are  left. 


196      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

that  various  old  charters  speak  of  the  castellum  of 
Rochester  has  led  some  authorities  to  believe  that  there 
was  a  castle  there  in  Saxon  times,  but  the  context  of 
these  charters  shows  plainly  that  the  words  castellum 
Roffense  were  equivalent  to  castrum  Roffense  or 
Hrofesceastre?  Otherwise  there  is  not  a  particle  of 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  a  castle  at  Rochester  in 
pre-Norman  times,  and  the  passage  in  Domesday 
quoted  above  shows  that  William's  castle  was  a  new 
erection,  built  on  land  obtained  by  exchange  from  the 
church. 

Outside  the  line  of  the  Roman  wall,  to  the  south  of 
the  city,  and  west  of  the  south  gate,  there  is  a  district 
called  Boley  or  Bullie  Hill,  which  at  one  time  was 
included  in  the  fortifications  of  the  present  castle.  It 
is  a  continuation  of  the  ridge  on  which  that  castle 
stands,  and  has  been  separated  from  it  by  a  ditch. 
This  ditch  once  entirely  surrounded  it,  and  though  it  was 
partly  filled  up  in  the  i8th  century  its  line  can  still  be 
traced.  The  area  enclosed  by  this  ditch  was  about  3 
acres  ;  the  form  appears  to  have  been  oblong.  In  the 
grounds  of  Satis  House,  one  of  the  villas  which  have  been 
built  on  this  site,  there  stills  remains  a  conical  artificial 
mound,  much  reduced  in  size,  as  it  has  been  converted 
into  a  pleasure-ground  with  winding  walks,  but  the 
retaining  walls  of  these  walks  are  composed  of  old 
materials ;  and  towards  the  riverside  there  are  still 
vestiges  of  an  ancient  wall.2  We  venture  to  think  that 
this  Boley  Hill  and  its  motte  formed  the  original  site 

1  Thus  Egbert  of  Kent,  in  765,  gives  "terram  intra  castelli  moenia  supra- 
nominati,   id    est    Hrofescestri,  unum    viculum    cum    duobus    jugeribus," 
Kemble,  i.,  138  ;  and  Offa  speaks  of  the  "episcopum  castelli  quod  nominatur 
Hrofescester,"  Earle,  Land  Charters,  p.  60. 

2  See  an  extremely  valuable  paper  on  Mediceval  Rochester  by  the  Rev. 
Greville  M.  Livett,  Arch.  Cantiana,  vol.  xxi. 


ROCHESTER  197 

of  the  (probably)  wooden  castle  of  William  the  Conqueror. 
Its  nature,  position,  and  size  correspond  to  what  we 
have  already  observed  as  characteristic  of  the  first 
castles  of  the  Conquest.  It  stands  on  land  which 
originally  belonged  to  the  church  of  St  Andrew,  as 
Domesday  Book  tells  us  William's  castle  did.1  The 
very  name  may  be  interpreted  in  favour  of  this  theory.2 
And  that  there  was  no  Roman  or  Saxon  fortification 
on  the  spot  is  proved  by  excavations,  which  have  shown 
that  both  a  Roman  and  a  Saxon  cemetery  occupied 
portions  of  the  area.3 

It  is  well  known  that  between  the  years  1087  and 
1089  the  celebrated  architect,  Gundulf,  Bishop  of 
Rochester,  built  a  new  stone  castle  for  William  Rufus, 
"in  the  best  part  of  the  city  of  Rochester."4  This 
castle,  of  course,  was  on  the  same  site  as  the  present 
one,  though  the  splendid  keep  was  not  built  till  the  next 

1  See  the  charter  of  Coenulf,  King  of  Mercia,  giving  to  Bishop  Beornmod 
three  ploughlands  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  city  of  Rochester,  from 
the  highway  on  the  east  to  the  Medway  on  the  west.     Textus  Roffensis, 
p.  96. 

2  The  name  Boley  may  possibly  represent  the  Norman-French  Beaulieu, 
a  favourite   Norman  name  for  a   castle  or  residence.     Professor   Hales 
suggested  that   Boley   Hill  was   derived  from   Bailey  Hill  (cited  in   Mr 
Gomme's  paper  on  Boley  Hill,  Arch.  Cantiana,  vol.  xvii.).     The  oldest  form 
of  the  name  is  Bullie  Hill,  as  in  Edward  IV.'s  charter,  cited  below,  p.  200. 

3  Roman  urns  and  lachrymatories  were  found  in  the  Boley  Hill  when  it 
was  partially  levelled  in  the  i8th  century  to  fill  up  the  castle  ditch.    History 
of  Rochester,  p.  281.    At  the  part  now  called  Watt's  Avenue,  Mr  George 
Payne  found  "  the  fag-end  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  cemetery."    Arch.  Cantiana, 
vol.  xxi. 

4  "In  pulchriore  parte  civitatis  Hrouecestre."     Textus  Roffensis^  p.  145. 
Mr  Freeman  and  others  have  noticed  that  the  special  mention  of  a  stone 
castle  makes  it  probable  that  the  first  castle  was  of  wood.     Mr  Round 
remarks  that  the  building  of  Rochester  Castle  is  fixed,  by  the  conjunction  of 
William  II.  and  Lanfranc  in  its  history,  to  some  date  between  September 
1087  and  March  1089.     Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  p.  339.     Probably,  therefore, 
it  was  this  new  castle  which   Bishop   Odo  held  against   Rufus   in    1088. 
Ordericus  says  that  "cum  quingentis  militibus  intra  Rofensem  urbem  se 
conclusit."     P.  272. 


198      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

reign.1  But  if  what  we  have  maintained  above  be 
correct  the  castle  of  Gundulf  was  built  on  a  different 
site  from  that  of  the  castle  of  William.  Nor  are  we 
without  evidence  in  support  of  this.  What  remains  of 
the  original  Norman  wall  of  Gundulfs  castle  (and 
enough  remains  to  show  that  the  circuit  was  complete 
in  Norman  times)  does  not  stand  on  earthen  banks  ; 
and  this,  though  not  a  proof,  is  a  strong  suggestion  that 
there  was  no  earthen  bank  belonging  to  some  previous 
castle  when  Gundulf  began  his  building.2  But  further, 
Mr  Livett  has  shown  in  his  paper  on  Mediceval Rochester  * 
that  in  order  to  form  a  level  plateau  for  the  court  of  the 
castle  the  ground  had  to  be  artificially  made  up  on  the 
north  and  east  sides,  and  in  these  places  the  wall  rests 
on  a  foundation  of  gravel,  which  has  been  forcibly 
rammed  to  make  it  solid,  and  which  goes  through  the 
artificial  soil  to  the  natural  chalk  below.  Now  what 
can  this  rammed  gravel  mean  but  an  expedient  to  avoid 
the  danger  of  building  in  stone  on  freshly  heaped  soil  ? 
Had  the  artificial  platform  been  in  existence  ever  since 
the  Conquest,  it  would  have  been  solid  enough  to  build 
upon  without  this  expense.  It  is  therefore  at  least 

1  It  is  now  attributed   to  Archbishop  William  of  Corbeuil,  to  whom 
Henry  I.  gave  the  custody  of  the  castle  in  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  his 
reign,  with  permission  to  make  within  it  a  defence  or  keep,  such  as  he 
might  please.      Continuator  of  Florence,   1126.      Gervase   of   Canterbury 
also  says  "  idem  episcopus  turrim  egregiam  aedificavit."     Both  passages  are 
cited  by  Hartshorne,  Arch.Journ.,  xx.,  211.     Gundulfs  castle  cost  6o/.  and  can 
scarcely  have  been  more  than  an  enclosing  wall  with  perhaps  one  mural 
tower.     See  Mr  Round,  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  340,  and  Mr  Livett's  paper, 
cited  above. 

2  Two  common  friends  of  Rufus  and  Gundulf  advised  the  king  that  in 
return  for  the  grant  of  the  manor  of  Hedenham  and  the  remission  of  certain 
moneys,  "episcopus  Gundulfus,  quia  in  opere  csementario  plurimum  sciens 
et  efficax  erat,  castrum  sibi  Hrofense  lapideum  de  suo  construeret."     Textus 
Rqffensis,  p.  146.     There  was  therefore  an  exchange  of  land  in  this  affair 
also. 

8  Arch.  Cantiana,  vol.  xxi. 


ROCHESTER  199 

probable  that   Bishop  Gundulf s  castle  was  built  on  an 
entirely  new  site. 

It  seems  also  to  be  clear  that  the  Boley  Hill  was 
included  as  an  outwork  in  Bishop  Gundulfs  plan,  for 
the  castle  ditch  is  cut  through  the  Roman  wall  near  the 
south  gate  of  the  city. l  Mr  Livett  remarks  that 
King  John  appears  to  have  used  the  hill  as  a  point  of 
vantage  when  he  attacked  the  city  in  1215,  and  he 
thinks  this  was  probably  the  reason  why  Henry  III.'s 
engineers  enclosed  it  with  a  stone  wall  when  they 
restored  the  walls  of  the  city.2  Henry  III.'s  wall  has 
been  traced  all  round  the  city,  and  at  the  second  south 
gate  it  turns  at  right  angles,  or  nearly  so,  so  as  to 
enclose  Boley  Hill.3  It  is  probable,  as  Mr  Livett 
suggests,  that  the  drawbridge  and  bretasche,  or  wooden 
tower,  ordered  in  1226  for  the  southern  side  of 
Rochester  Castle,4  were  intended  to  connect  the  Boley 
Hill  court  with  the  main  castle.  In  1722  the  owner 
of  the  castle  (which  had  then  fallen  into  private  hands) 
conveyed  to  one  Philip  Brooke,  "that  part  of  the  castle 
ditch  and  ground,  as  it  then  lay  unenclosed,  on  Bully 
Hill,  being  the  whole  breadth  of  the  hill  and  ditch 
without  the  walls  of  the  castle,  extending  from  thence 
to  the  river  Medway."5 

The  general  opinion  about  the    Boley    Hill  is  that 

1  Arch.  Cantiana,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  49. 

2  There  are  several  entries  in  the  Close  Rolls  relating  to  this  wall  of 
Henry  III.  in  the  year  1225. 

3  Mr  Beale  Poste  says  that  this  ancient  wall  was  met  with  some  years 
since    in    digging    the    foundations    of   the    Rev.    Mr    Conway's    house, 
standing  parallel  to  the  present  brick  walls  and  about  2  feet  within  them. 
"Ancient  Rochester  as  a  Roman   Station,"  Arch.  Cantiana,  ii.,  71.     The 
Continuator  of  Gervase  of  Canterbury  tells  us  (ii.,  235)  that  at  the  siege  of 
Rochester  in  1265,  Simon  de  Montfort  captured  the  outer  castle  up  to  the 
keep  (forinsecum  castellum  usque  ad  turrim),  and  Mr  Livett  thinks  this  outer 
castle  must  have  been  the  Boley  Hill. 

4  Close  Rolls,  ii.,  98b.  5  Hasted's  Kent,  iv.,  163. 


200      CASTLES  OP  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

it  is  a  Danish  earthwork,  thrown  up  by  the  Danes  when 
they  besieged  the  city  in  885.  But  if  our  contention 
in  Chapter  IV.  is  just,  the  Danish  fortifications  were 
not  mottes,  nor  anything  like  them  ;  and  (as  has  already 
been  pointed  out)  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  indicates 
the  nature  of  the  fortress  in  this  case  by  its  expression, 
"they  made  a  work  around  themselves";1  that  is,  it 
was  a  circumvallation.  Moreover,  at  Rochester  the 
Danes  would  have  had  to  pass  under  the  bridge  (which 
is  known  to  have  existed  both  in  Roman  and  Saxon 
times)  in  order  to  get  to  the  Boley  Hill ;  and  even  if 
their  ships  were  small  enough  to  do  this  they  would 
hardly  have  been  so  foolish  as  to  leave  a  bridge  in  their 
possible  line  of  retreat.  It  is  therefore  far  more  likely 
that  their  fastness  was  somewhere  to  the  north  or  east 
of  the  city.2 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  up  till  very  recently  the 
Boley  Hill  had  a  special  jurisdiction  of  its  own,  under  an 
officer  called  the.  Baron  of  the  Bully,  appointed  by  the 
Recorder  of  the  city.  This  appears  to  date  from  a 
charter  of  Edward  IV.  in  1460,  which  confirms  the 
former  liberties  of  the  citizens  of  Rochester,  and  ordains 
that  they  should  keep  two  courts'  leet  and  a  court  of  pie- 
powder  annually  on  the  Bullie  Hill.  The  anonymous 
historian  of  Rochester  remarks  that  it  was  thought 
that  the  baron  represented  the  first  officer  under  the 
governor  of  the  castle  before  the  court  leet  was 
instituted,  to  whose  care  the  security  of  the  Bullie 
Hill  was  entrusted.3  This  is  probably  much  nearer 
the  truth  than  the  theory  which  would  assign  such 
thoroughly  feudal  courts  as  those  of  court  leet  and 

1  "  Ymb  ssetan  tha  ceastre  and  worhton  other  faesten  ymb  hie  selfe."     See 
ante,  p.  49,  note  -2. 

2  Mr  Hope  suggests  the  east  side,  as  the  north  was  a  marsh. 

3  History  of  Rochester  (published  by  Fisher,  1772),  p.  285. 


ROCHESTER— ROCKINGHAM  201 

pie-powder  to  an  imaginary  community  of  Danes  resid- 
ing on  the  Boley  Hill.  When  we  compare  the  case 
of  the  Boley  Hill  with  the  somewhat  similar  cases 
of  Chester  and  Norwich  castles  we  shall  see  that  what 
took  place  in  Edward  IV.'s  reign  was  probably  this  : 
the  separate  jurisdiction  which  had  once  belonged 
to  an  abandoned  castle  site  was  transferred  to  the 
citizens  of  Rochester,  but  with  the  usual  conservatism  of 
mediaeval  legislation,  it  was  not  absorbed  in  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  city. 

The  value  of  Rochester  at  the  time  of  the  Survey 
had  risen  from  loos,  to  2O/.1  The  increase  of  trade, 
arising  from  the  security  of  traffic  which  was  provided 
by  William's  castles  on  this  important  route,  no  doubt 
accounts  in  great  measure  for  this  remarkable  rise  in 
value. 

ROCKINGHAM,  Northants  (Fig.  29). — Here,  also, 
the  castle  was  clearly  new  in  William's  reign,  as  the 
manor  was  uninhabited  (wasta)  until  a  castle  was  built 
there  by  his  orders,  in  consequence  of  which  the  manor 
produced  a  small  revenue  at  the  time  of  the  Survey.2 
The  motte,  now  in  great  part  destroyed,  was  a  large 
one,  being  about  80  feet  in  diameter  at  the  top  ; 
attached  to  it  is  a  bailey  of  irregular  but  rectilateral 
shape  (determined  by  the  ground)  covering  about  3 
acres.  There  is  another  large  bailey  to  the  S. 
covering  4  acres,  formed  by  cutting  a  ditch  across  the 
spur  of  the  hill  on  which  the  castle  stands,  which  is 
probably  later.  The  first  castle  would  undoubtedly  be 
of  wood,  and  it  is  probable  that  King  John  was  the 
builder  of  the  " exceeding  fair  and  strong"  keep  which 

1  D.  B,  i,  56. 

"  Wasta  erat  quando  Rex  W.  iussit  ibi  castellum  fieri.  Modo  valet 
36  solidos."  D.  B.,  i.,  220. 


202      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

stood  on  the  motte  in  Leland's  time,1  as  there  is  an  entry 
in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  reign  for 
1261.  iSs.  6d.  for  the  work  of  the  new  tower.2  This 
keep,  if  Mr  Clark  is  correct,  was  polygonal,  with  a 
timber  stockade  surrounding  it. 

Rockingham  was  only  a  small  manor  of  one  hide  in 
Saxon  times,  though  its  Saxon  owner  had  sac  and  soke. 
It  stands  in  a  forest  district,  not  near  any  of  the  great 
ancient  lines  of  road,  and  was  probably  built  for  a 
hunting  seat. 

The  value  of  the  manor  had  risen  at  the  time  of  the 
Survey.8 

During  the  Civil  War,  the  motte  of  Rockingham  was 
fortified  in  an  elaborate  manner  by  the  Parliamentarians, 
part  of  the  defences  being  two  wooden  stockades  : 4  an 
interesting  instance  of  the  use  both  of  mottes  and  of 
wooden  fortifications  in  comparatively  modern  warfare. 
Only  the  north  and  west  sides  of  this  mount  now 
remain. 

OLD  SARUM,  Wilts  (Fig.  30). — Sir  Richard  Colt 
Hoare  printed  in  his  Ancient  Wiltshire  a  document 
purporting  to  be  an  order  from  Alfred,  "  King  of  the 
English,"  to  Leofric,  "  Earl  of  Wiltunshire,"  to  maintain 
the  castle  of  Sarum,  and  add  another  ditch  to  it.5  The 
phraseology  of  the  document  suggests  some  doubts  of 
its  genuineness,  and  though  there  would  be  nothing 

1  "I  markid  that  there  is  stronge  Tower  in  the  Area  of  the  Castelle,  and 
from  it  over  the  Dungeon  Dike  is  a  drawbridge  to  the  Dungeon  Toure." 
///«.,  i.,  14. 

2  "  In  operatione  nove  turris  et  nove  camere  in  cast.    I26/.  iSs.  6d" 

3  D.  B.,  i.,  120. 

4  See  the  plan  reproduced  in  Wise's  Rockingham  Castle  and  the  Watsons^ 
p.  66. 

6  Vol.  i.,  p.  224  :  cited  by  Mr  Irving  in  his  valuable  paper  on  Old  Sarum 
in  Arch.  Journ.y  xv.,  1859.  Sir  Richard  made  a  vague  reference  to  an  MS. 
in  the  Cottonian  and  Bodleian  libraries,  for  which  Mr  Irving  says  he  has 
searched  in  vain. 


.-•'  300 


o         100      loo    3oo 


ROCKINGHAM,   NORTHANTS. 


FIG.  29. 


[To  face  p.  202. 


OLD  SARUM  203 

improbable  in  the  theory  that  Alfred  reared  the  outer 
bank  of  the  fortress,  recent  excavations  have  shown  that 
the  place  was  occupied  by  the  Romans,  and  therefore 
make  it  certain  that  its  origin  was  very  much  earlier  than 
Alfred's  time.  Moreover,  the  convergence  of  several 
Roman  roads  at  this  spot  suggests  the  probability  of  a 
Roman  station,1  while  the  form  of  the  enclosure  renders 
an  earlier  origin  likely.  Domesday  Book  does  not  speak 
of  Salisbury  as  a  burgus,  and  when  the  burgus  of  Old 
Sarum  is  mentioned  in  later  documents  it  appears  to 
refer  to  a  district  lying  at  the  foot  of  the  Castle  Hill,  and 
formerly  enclosed  with  a  wall.2  Nor  is  it  one  of  the 
boroughs  of  the  Burghal  Hidage.  But  that  Sarum  was 
an  important  place  in  Saxon  times  is  clear  from  the  fact 
that  there  was  a  mint  there ;  and  there  is  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  at  least  four  Saxon  churches,  as  well  as 
a  hospital  for  lepers.3 

For  more  exact  knowledge  as  to  the  history  of  this 
ancient  fortress  we  must  wait  till  the  excavations  now 
going  on  are  finished,  but  in  the  meanwhile  it  seems 
probable  that  the  theory  adopted  by  General  Pitt- Rivers 
is  correct.  He  regarded  Old  Sarum  as  a  British  earth- 
work, with  an  inner  castle  and  outer  barbicans  added  by 
the  Normans.  After  building  this  castle  in  the  midst  of 
it  the  Normans  appear  to  have  considered  the  outer  and 

1  General  Pitt-Rivers  in  his  Address   to  the  Salisbury  meeting  of  the 
Archaeological  Institute  in  1887,  says  that  traces  of  these  roads  may  still 
be  seen.  He  adds  that  Old  Sarum  does  not  resemble  the  generality  of  ancient 
British  fortifications,  in  that  the  rampart  is  of  the  same  height  all  round, 
instead  of  being  lower  where  the  ground  is  steeper ;  this  led  him  to  think 
that  the  original  fortress  had  been  modernised  in  later  times.     Sir  Richard 
Colt  Hoare  noticed  that  the  ramparts  of  Sarum  were  twice  as  high  as  those 
of  the   fine   prehistoric  camps  with    which  he  was  acquainted.     Ancient 
Wiltshire,  p.  226. 

2  Benson  and  Hatcher's  Old  and  New  Sarum,  p.  604. 

3  Cf.  Benson  and  Hatcher,  63,  with  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales^  xv., 
78. 


204      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

larger  fortification  too  valuable  to  be  given  up  to  the 
public,  but  retained  it  under  the  government  of  the 
castellan,  and  treated  it  as  part  of  the  castle. 

There  is  no  mention  of  the  castle  of  Salisbury  in 
Domesday  Book,  but  the  bishop  is  named  as  the  owner 
of  the  manor.1  The  episcopal  see  of  Sherborne  was 
transferred  to  Sarum  in  1076  by  Bishop  Hermann,  in 
accordance  with  the  policy  adopted  by  William  I.  that 
episcopal  sees  should  be  removed  from  villages  to 
towns  : 2  a  measure  which  in  itself  is  a  testimony  to  the 
importance  of  Salisbury  at  that  time.  The  first  mention 
of  the  castle  is  in  the  charter  of  Bishop  Osmund,  1091. 8 
The  bishop  was  allowed  to  lay  the  foundations  of  his 
new  cathedral  within  the  ancient  fortress.  As  might  be 
expected,  friction  soon  arose  between  the  castellans  and 
the  ecclesiastics  ;  the  castellans  claimed  the  custody  of 
the  gates,  and  sometimes  barred  the  canons,  whose 
houses  seem  to  have  been  outside  the  fortress,  from 
access  to  the  church.  These  quarrels  were  ended 
eventually  by  the  removal  of  the  cathedral  to  the  new 
town  of  Salisbury  at  the  foot  of  the  hill. 

The  position  of  the  motte  of  Old  Sarum  is  excep- 
tional, as  it  stands  in  the  centre  of  the  outer  fortress. 
This  must  be  owing  to  the  position  of  the  ancient 
vallum,  encircling  the  summit  of  one  of  those  round, 
gradually  sloping  hills  so  common  in  the  chalk  ranges, 
which  made  it  necessary  to  place  the  motte  in  the  centre, 
because  it  was  the  highest  part  of  the  ground.  The 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  66.     "Idem  episcopus  tenet  Sarisberie."     Part  of  the  land 
which  had  been  held  under  the  bishop  was  now  held  by  Edward  the  Sheriff, 
the  ancestor  of  the  earls  of  Salisbury.     This  in  itself  is  a  proof  that  the 
castle  was  new.     See  Freeman,  N.  C.,  iv.,  797. 

2  This  policy  had  been  dictated  by  an  oecumenical  council. 

3  He  gives  to  the  canons  of  the  church  two  hides  in  the  manor,  "  et  ante 
portam  castelli  Seriberiensis  terram  ex  utraque  parte  vice  in  ortorum  domo- 
rumque  canonicorum  necessitate."    M.  A.,  vi.,  1294. 


•ggSsP  &*$^    *^4r%1 


[To  face  p.  204. 


OLD  SARUM  205 

present  excavations  have  shown  that  it  is  in  part 
artificial.  But  though  the  citadel  was  thus  exception- 
ally placed,  the  principle  that  communication  with  the 
outside  must  be  maintained  was  carried  out ;  the  motte 
had  its  own  bailey,  reaching  to  the  outer  vallum.  The 
remains  of  three  cross  banks  still  exist,  two  of  which 
must  have  enclosed  the  magnum  ballium  which  is  spoken 
of  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  Henry  II.  Probably  this  bailey 
occupied  the  south-eastern  third  of  the  circle,  which 
included  the  main  gateway  and  the  road  to  the  citadel. 
In  the  ditch  on  the  north  side  of  this  enclosure,  an 
arched  passage,  apparently  of  Norman  construction,  was 
found  in  1795  ;  it  was  doubtless  a  postern  or  sallyport.1 
The  main  entrance  is  defended  by  a  separate  mount 
with  its  own  ditch,  which  is  conjectured  to  be  of  later 
date  than  the  vallum  itself.  The  area  of  the  top  of  the 
motte  is  about  if  acres,  a  larger  size  than  usual,  but  not 
larger  than  that  of  several  other  important  castles.2  In 
Leland's  time  there  was  "much  notable  ruinous  build- 
ing "  still  remaining  of  this  fortress,  and  the  excavations 
have  already  revealed  the  lower  portions  of  some 
splendid  walls  and  gateways,  and  the  basement  of  a 
late  Norman  keep  which  presents  some  unusual 
features.3  The  earthworks,  however,  bear  witness  to 
a  former  wooden  stockade  both  to  the  citadel  and  the 
outer  enclosure.  The  top  of  the  motte  is  still  sur- 
rounded by  high  earthen  banks. 

As  that  great  building  bishop,   Roger  of  Salisbury 

1  Gentleman's  Magazine ',  1795. 

2  The  area  of  the  outer  camp  is  29^  acres. 

3  It  is  unlikely  that  this  is  the  turris  mentioned  in  the  solitary  Pipe  Roll 
of  Henry  I.     "  In  unum  ostium  faciendum  ad  cellarium  turris  Sarum,  2os." 
This  entry  is  of  great  interest,  as  entrances  from  the  outside  to  the  base- 
ment of  keeps  were  exceptional  in  the  I2th  century;    but  the  basement 
entrance  of  Colchester  keep  has  every  appearance  of  having  been  added  b'y 
Henry  I. 


206      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

(1099-1139),  is  said  to  have  environed  the  castle  with  a 
new  wall,1  it  would  seem  likely  that  he  was  the  first  to 
transform  the  castle  from  wood  to  stone.  But  in  Henry 
II.'s  reign,  we  find  an  entry  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  for 
materials  for  enclosing  the  great  bailey.  An  order 
for  the  destruction  of  the  castle  had  been  issued  by 
Stephen,2  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  was  carried  out. 
The  sums  spent  by  Henry  II.  on  the  castle  do  not 
amount  to  more  than  ^266,  125.  5d.,  but  the  work 
recently  excavated  which  appears  to  be  of  his  date  is 
very  extensive  indeed. 

The  mention  of  a  small  wooden  tower  in  Richard  I.'s 
reign  shows  that  some  parts  of  the  defences  were  still 
of  wood  at  that  date.3  Timber  and  rods  for  hoarding 
the  castle,  that  is,  for  the  wooden  machicolations  placed 
at  the  tops  of  towers  and  walls,  were  ordered  at  the  end 
of  John's  reign.4 

It  is  not  known  when  the  castle  was  abandoned,  but 
the  list  of  castellans  ceases  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI., 
when  it  was  granted  to  the  Stourton  family.5  Though 
the  earls  of  Salisbury  were  generally  the  custodians  of 
Sarum  Castle,  except  in  the  time  of  Bishop  Roger,  it 
was  always  considered  a  royal  castle,  while  the  manor 
belonged  to  the  bishop.6  It  is  remarked  in  the  Hundred 
Rolls  of  Henry  III.,  that  no  one  holds  fiefs  for  ward  in 


1  William  of  Malmesbury,  Hist.  Nov.,  ii.,  91. 

2  In  1152  ;  the  writ  is  given  by  Benson  and  Hatcher,  p.  32. 

3  "In  operatione  unius  Bretesche  in  eodem  Castro  503."    Pipe  Rolls, 

II93-4- 

4  "Virgam   et  mairemium  ad  hordiandum  castrum."     Close  Rolls,   i., 
igSb  (1215). 

6  Benson  and  Hatcher,  p.  704. 

8  "  Dicunt  quod  castrum  cum  burgo  Veteris  Sarum  et  dominicus  burgus 
domini  Regis  pertinent  ad  coronam  cum  advocatione  cujusdam  ecclesiag 
quae  modo  vacat."  Hundred  Rolls,  Edward  I.,  cited  by  Benson  and 
Hatcher,  p.  802. 


SHREWSBURY  207 

this  castle,  and  that  nothing  belonged  to  the  castle 
outside  the  gate.1 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Salisbury  appears  to  have 
risen  very  greatly  since  the  Conquest.2 

SHREWSBURY  (Fig.  31). — The  passage  in  Domes- 
day Book  relating  to  this  town  has  been  called  by  Mr 
Round  one  of  the  most  important  in  the  Survey,  and  it 
is  of  special  importance  for  our  present  purpose.  "  The 
English  burghers  of  Shrewsbury  say  that  it  is  very 
grievous  to  them  that  they  have  to  pay  all  the  geld 
which  they  paid  in  King  Edward's  time,  although  the 
castle  of  the  earl  occupies  [the  site  of]  5 1  houses,  and 
another  50  are  uninhabited."3  It  is  incomprehensible 
how  in  the  face  of  such  a  clear  statement  as  this,  that 
the  new  castle  occupied  the  site  of  fifty-one  houses,  any- 
one should  be  found  gravely  to  maintain  that  the  motte 
at  Shrewsbury  was  an  English  work ;  for  if  the 
motte  stood  there  before,  what  was  the  clearance  of 
houses  made  for?  The  only  answer  could  be  to 
enlarge  the  bailey.  But  this  is  exactly  what  the 
Norman  would  not  wish  to  do  ;  he  would  want  only 
a  small  area  for  the  small  force  at  his  disposal  for 
defence.  Shrewsbury  was  certainly  a  borough  (that 
is,  a  fortified  town)  in  Anglo  -  Saxon  times  ;  probably 
it  was  one  of  the  towns  fortified  by  Ethelfleda,  though 
it  is  not  mentioned  by  name  in  the  list  of  those 
towns  furnished  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle?  Its 

1  Cited  by  Benson  and  Hatcher,  p.  802 

2  D.  B.,  66a,  i.     The  value  T.  R.  E.  is  not,  however,  very  distinctly 
stated. 

"Dicunt  Angligenses  burgenses  de  Sciropesberie  multum  grave  sibi 
esse  quod  ipsi  reddunt  totum  geldum  sicut  reddebant  T.  R.  E.  quamvis 
castellum  comitis  occupaverit  5 1  masuras  et  alias  50  masuras  sunt  wastae." 
D.  B.,  i.,  252. 

4  Some  writers,  such  as  Mr  Kerslake  and  Mr  C.  S.  Taylor,  have  supposed 
Sceargate  to  mean  Shrewsbury. 


208      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

ancient  walls  were  certainly  only  of  earth  and  wood, 
for  a  writ  of  1231  says  that  the  old  stockade  and  the 
old  bretasche  of  the  old  ditch  of  the  town  of  Shrews- 
bury are  to  be  granted  to  the  burghers  for  strengthen- 
ing the  new  ditch.1 

The  castle  of  Shrewsbury  was  built  on  the  neck  of 
the  peninsula  on  which  the  town  stands,  and  on  the  line 
of  the  town  walls.  The  oval  motte,  which  still  remains, 
stands,  as  usual,  on  the  line  of  the  castle  banks,  and 
slopes  steeply  down  to  the  Severn  on  one  side.  Its 
nearness  to  the  river  made  it  liable  to  damage  by  floods. 
Thus  we  find  Henry  II.  spending  5/.  on  the  repair  of 
the  motte,2  and  in  Edward  I.'s  reign  the  abbot's  mill  is 
accused  of  having  caused  damage  to  the  extent  of  60 
marks  to  the  motte.  But  the  men  of  the  hundred 
exonerate  the  mill,  and  from  another  passage  the  blame 
appears  to  lie  on  the  fall  of  a  great  wooden  tower.3 
This  can  hardly  have  been  other  than  the  wooden  keep 
on  the  motte,  and  thus  we  learn  the  interesting  fact  that 
as  late  as  Edward  I.'s  reign  the  castle  of  Shrewsbury 

1  Mandatum  est  vicecomiti   Salopie  quod  veterem  palum  et  veterem 
bretaschiam  de  vetere  fossato  ville  Salopie  faciat  habere  probos  homines 
ville  Salopie  ad  novum  fossatum  ejusdem  ville,  quod  fieri  fecerant,  efforci- 
andum  et  emendendum.     Close  Rolls^  1231,  p.  508.     The  honest  men  of  the 
city  are  also  to  have  "  palum  et  closturam  "  from  the  king's  wood  of  Liche- 
wood  "  ad  hirucones  circa  villam  Salopie  faciendas  ad  ipsam  villam  clau- 
dendam."    Ibid.     Hirucones  are  the  same  as  heritones  or  hericias,  a  defence 
of  stakes  on  the  counterscarp  of  the  ditch. 

2  "In  op.  castelli  de  Salop**  in  mota  5/.)3    Pipe  Rolls,  19  Henry  II., 
p.  1 08. 

3  "  Dampnum  mote  castri  Salopp'  ad  valenciam  60  marcarum,  sed  non 
recolligunt  totum  evenisse  propter  molendinum  abbatis  Salopp',  quia  30 
annis  elapsis  mota  castri  fuit  fere  deteriorata  sicut  nunc  est."    Hundred 
RollS)  ii.,  80.     "  Dicunt  quod  unus  magnus  turris  ligneus  (sic)  qui  aedificatur 
in  castro  Salopp'  corruit  in  terram  tempore  domini  Uriani  de  S.  Petro  tune 
vicecomitis,  et  meremium  ejus  turris  tempore  suo  et  temporibus  aliorum 
vicecomitum  postea  ita  consumitur  et  destruitur  quod  nihil  de  illo  remansit, 
in  magnum  damnum  domini   Regis   et   deteriorationem  eiusdem  castri." 
Ibid.)  p.  105. 


1  V 


SHREWSBURY. 


SKIPS KA,  YORKS. 


FIG.  31. 


[To  face  p,  208. 


SHREWSBURY— SKIPSEA  209 

had  only  a  wooden   keep.     The  present  tower  on  the 
motte  is  the  work  of  Telford. 

The  bailey  of  Shrewsbury  Castle  is  roughly  semi- 
lunar  and  covers  nearly  an  acre.     The  walls  stand  on 
banks,  which  shows  that  the  first  wall  was  of  timber. 
The  Norman  entrance  arch  seems  to  render  it  probable 
that  it  was  in  Henry  II.'s  reign  that  stone  walls  were 
first  substituted  for  a  wooden  stockade,  and  the  Pipe 
Rolls  contain  several  entries  of  sums  spent  by  Henry  on 
this  castle.1     But  the  first  mention  of  stone  in  connec- 
tion with  the  castle  is  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III.2     In 
the  reign  of  Edward  I.,  a  jarola  or  wooden  wall,  which 
had   been  raised  above  the  outer  ditch  in  the  time  of 
the  Barons'  War,  was  replaced  by  a  stone  wall.8     This 
perhaps    refers    to    the   second   bailey,   now   destroyed, 
which  lay  to  the  south  of  the  castle.     In  the  time  of 
Charles  I.  the  castle  still  had  a  wooden  palisade  on  the 
counterscarp  of  the  ditch.4     The  two  large  drum  towers 
on    the   walls,    and   the   building    between    them,    now 
converted  into  a  modern  house,  belong  to  a  much  later 
period  than  the  walls.     The  area  of  the  present  castle, 
including  the  motte,  is  4  of  an  acre. 

The  value  of  the  town  of  Shrewsbury  had  risen 
since  the  Conquest. 

SKIPSEA,  Yorks  (Fig.  31). — There  is  no  mention 
of  this  castle  in  Domesday  Book,  but  the  chronicle  of 
Meaux  Abbey  tells  us  that  it  was  built  by  Drogo  de 

1  Pipe  Rolls,  ii  Henry  II.,  p.  89;  12  Henry  II.,  p.  59;  14  Henry  II., 
p.  93  ;  15  Henry  II.,  p.  108  ;  20  Henry  II.,  p.  108. 

2  Payment  to  those  who  dig  stone  for  the  castle  of  Shrewsbury,  Close 
Rolls,  i.,  622b.     This  is  in  1224.    There  is  also  a  payment  of  5o/.  for  works 
at  the  castle  in  1223.    Ibid.,  533b. 

3  Hundred   Rolls,    ii.,    80.     A  jarola    or    garuillum    is    a    stockade ; 
apparently  derived  from  a  Gallic  word  for  oak,  and  may  thus  correspond  to 
an  oak  paling.     See  Ducange. 

4  Owen  and  Blakeway's  History  of  Shrewsbury,  i.,  450. 

O 


210      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Bevrere  in  the  reign  of  William  I.1  This  chronicle  is 
not  indeed  contemporary,  but  its  most  recent  editor 
regards  it  as  based  on  some  much  earlier  document. 
It  was  the  key  of  the  great  manor  of  Holderness,  which 
the  Conqueror  had  given  to  Drogo,  but  which  Drogo 
forfeited  by  murdering  his  wife,  probably  on  this  very 
site.  The  situation  of  Skipsea  is  remarkable,  but  the 
original  plan  of  Kenilworth  Castle  presented  a  close 
parallel  to  it.  The  motte,  which  is  46  feet  high,  and 
i  of  an  acre  in  space  on  top,  is  separated  from 
the  bailey  by  a  level  space,  which  was  formerly  the 
Mere  of  Skipsea,  mentioned  in  documents  of  the  I3th 
century,  which  reckon  the  take  of  eels  in  this  mere  as  a 
source  of  revenue.2  The  motte  thus  formed  an  island  in 
the  mere,  but  as  an  additional  defence — perhaps  when 
the  mere  began  to  get  shallow — it  was  surrounded  by  a 
bank  and  ditch  of  its  own.  No  masonry  is  to  be  seen 
on  the  motte  now,  except  a  portion  of  a  wing  wall  going 
down  it.  It  is  connected  with  its  bailey  on  the  other 
side  of  the  mere  by  a  causeway  which  still  exists.  This 
bailey  is  of  very  unusual  size,  covering  8J  acres ;  its 
banks  still  retain  the  name  of  the  Baile  Welts,  and 
one  of  the  entrances  is  called  the  Baile  Gate. 
Skipsea  Brough,  which  no  doubt  represents  the  former 
burgus  of  Skipsea,  is  outside  this  enclosure,  and  has 
no  defences  of  its  own  remaining.  A  mandate  of 
Henry  III.  in  1221,  ordered  the  complete  destruction 
of  this  castle,3  and  it  was  no  doubt  after  this 
that  the  earls  of  Albemarle,  who  had  succeeded 
to  Drogo's  estates,  removed  their  caput  baronicz  to 
Burstwick.4 

1  Chronicon  de  Melsa^  R.  S.     See  Preface,  p.  Ixxii. 

2  Yorks  Inquisitions  (Yorks  Rec.  Ser.),  i.,  83. 

3  Rot.  Lit.  Ctaus.,  i.,  474!). 

4  Poulson's  History  of  Holderness^  i.,  457. 


STAFFORD  211 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Cleeton,  in  which  Skipsea 
lies,  had  fallen  at  Domesday.1 

STAFFORD  (Fig.  32). — The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 
says  that  Ethelfleda  of  Mercia  built  the  burh  of  Stafford  ; 
and  consequently  we  find  that  both  in  King  Edward 
and  King  William's  time  Stafford  was  a  burgus,  or 
fortified  town.  Florence  of  Worcester,  who  is  con- 
sidered to  have  used  a  superior  copy  of  the  Chronicle  as 
the  foundation  of  his  work,  says  that  Ethelfleda  built  an 
arx  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Sowe  in  914.  A  rx,  in 
our  earlier  chronicles,  is  often  only  a  bombastic  expres- 
sion for  a  walled  town,  as,  for  example,  when  Ethel werd 
says  that  Ethelfleda's  body  was  buried  in  St  Peter's 
porch  in  the  arx  of  Gloucester.2  But  the  statement  led 
many  later  writers,  such  as  Camden,  to  imagine  that 
Ethelfleda  built  a  tower  in  the  town  of  Stafford  ;  and 
these  imaginings  have  created  such  a  tangled  skein  of 
mistake  that  we  must  bespeak  our  readers'  patience 
while  we  attempt  to  unravel  it. 

Domesday  Book  only  mentions  Stafford  Castle  under 
the  manor  of  Chebsey,  a  possession  of  Henry  de  Ferrers. 
Its  words  are:  "To  this  manor  belonged  the  land  of 
Stafford,  in  which  the  king  commanded  a  castle  to  be 
built,  which  is  now  destroyed."3  Ordericus  also  says 
that  the  king  placed  a  castle  at  Stafford,  on  his  return 
from  his  third  visit  to  the  north,  in  io;o.4  Now  the 
language  of  Domesday  appears  to  us  to  say  very  plainly 
that  in  the  manorial  rearrangement  which  followed  the 
Conquest  some  land  was  taken  out  of  the  manor  of 
Chebsey,  which  lies  immediately  to  the  south  of  the 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  323^  2  Ethelwerd,  anno  910. 

"  Ipse  Henricus  tenet  Cebbeseio.  Ad  hoc  manerium  pertinuit  terra  de 
Stadford,  in  qua  rex  precepit  fieri  castellum,  quod  modo  est  destructum." 
D.  B.,  i.,  2493. 

4  "  Apud  Estafort  alteram  [munitionem]  locavit."     Ord.  Vit.,  p.  199. 


212      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

borough  of  Stafford,  to  furnish  a  site  for  a  royal  castle.1 
It  is  exactly  in  this  position  that  we  now  find  a  large 
oblong  motte,  similar  to  the  other  mottes  of  the 
Conquest,  and  having  the  usual  bailey  attached  to  it. 
It  lies  about  a  mile  and  a  half  south-west  of  the  town, 
near  the  main  road  leading  into  Shropshire. 

The  position  was  an  important  one,  as  the  castles  of 
Staffordshire  formed  a  second  line  of  defence  against  the 
North  Welsh,  as  well  as  a  check  to  the  great  palatinate 
earls  of  Shropshire.2  The  motte  itself  stood  on  high 
ground,  commanding  a  view  of  twenty  or  thirty  miles 
round,  and  both  Tutbury  and  Caus  castles  could 
be  seen  from  it.  Between  it  and  the  town  lies  a  stretch 
of  flat  ground  which  has  evidently  been  a  swamp 
formerly,  and  which  explains  the  distance  of  the  castle 
from  the  town  ;  while  the  fact  that  it  lies  to  the  south  of 
the  Sowe  shows  that  it  has  no  connection  with  Ethel- 
fleda's  work.  There  is  no  dispute  that  this  motte  was 
the  site  of  the  later  baronial  castle  of  Stafford,  the  castle 
besieged  and  taken  in  the  Civil  War ;  the  point  we  have 
to  prove  is  that  it  was  also  the  castle  of  Domesday 
Book.3 

1  It  should  be  said  that  Mr  Eyton  interprets  the  passage  differently, 
and  takes   it   to  mean   that  the   castle  was  built  on  land  in  the  borough 
of    Stafford    belonging    to    the    manor    of    Chebsey.      But    he    himself 
says  that   "the   site   of  Stafford   Castle,  within  the  liberties,  though  not 
within  the  borough  of  Stafford,  would  suggest  a  royal  foundation  " ;  and 
he  believes  this   castle   (the  one  on  the  motte)  to  have  been   the  one 
garrisoned  by  Henry  I.  and  made  a  residence  by  Henry  II.     Domesday 
Studies,  p.  21. 

2  Salt.  Arch.  Soc.  Trans.,  vol.  viii.,  "  The  Manor  of  Castre  or  Stafford/' 
by  Mr  Mazzinghi,  a  paper  abounding  in  valuable  information,  to  which  the 
present  writer  is  greatly  indebted. 

3  In  the  addenda  to  Mr  Eyton's  Domesday  of  Staffordshire  (p.  135)  the 
learned  editor  says  there  are  two  Stafford  castles  mentioned  in  Domesday, 
in  two  different  hundreds.     We  have  carefully  searched  through  the  whole 
Stafford  account,  and  except  at  Burton  and  Tutbury,  there  is  no  other  castle 
mentioned  in  Staffordshire  but  this  one  at  Chebsey. 


O  tOO       200      300 


p        too     200 


-na*-^  I 


STAFFORD. 


TAMWORTH,  STAFFS. 


STANTON  HOLGATE,  SALOP. 


TlCKHILL,    YORKS. 


FIG.  32. 


(To  face  p.  212. 


STAFFORD  213 

If  the  first  castle  of  Stafford  was  of  earth  and  wood, 
like  most  of  William's  castles,  there  would  be  nothing 
wonderful  in  its  having  many  destructions  and  many 
resurrections.  This  castle  was  clearly  a  royal  castle, 
from  the  language  of  Domesday  Book.  As  a  royal 
castle  it  would  be  committed  to  the  custody  of  the  sheriff, 
who  appears  to  have  been  Robert  de  Stafford,1  ancestor 
of  the  later  barons  of  Stafford,  and  brother  of  Ralph  de 
Todeni,  one  of  the  great  nobles  of  the  Conquest.  Ralph 
joined  the  party  of  Robert  Curthose  against  Henry  I.  in 
noi,  and  it  is  conjectured  that  his  brother  Robert  was 
involved  in  the  same  rebellion,  for  in  that  year  we  find 
the  castle  held  for  the  king  by  William  Pantolf,  a  trusty 
companion  of  the  Conqueror.2  It  is  very  unlikely  that 
this  second  castle  of  Stafford  was  on  a  different  site  from 
the  one  which  had  been  destroyed  ;  and  an  ingenious 
conjecture  of  Mr  Mazzinghi's  helps  us  to  identify  it  with 
the  castle  on  the  motte.  In  that  castle,  when  it  again 
emerges  into  light  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  we  find  a 
chapel  dedicated  to  St  Nicholas,  which  Robert  de 
Stafford  gives  to  the  abbey  of  Stone,  and  the  king 
confirms  the  gift.8  The  worship  of  St  Nicholas  came 
greatly  into  fashion  after  the  translation  of  his  remains 
from  Asia  Minor  to  Bari,  in  Italy,  in  1087.  William 
Pantolf  visited  the  shrine  at  Bari,  got  possession  of 
some  of  the  relics  of  St  Nicholas,  and  with  great 
reverence  deposited  them  in  his  own  church  of  Noron, 
in  Normandy.4  It  is  therefore  extremely  probable  that 
Pantolf  founded  the  chapel  of  St  Nicholas  in  Stafford 

1  Dugdale  conjectures  that  Robert  was  sheriff  of  Staffordshire.     He  had 
large  estates  round  the  town  of  Stafford.     Eyton,  Staffordshire ',  p.  61. 

2  Mazzinghi,  Salt  Arch.  Soc.  Trans.)  viii.,  6  ;  Eyton,  Domesday  Studies^ 
p.  20. 

3  Monasticon,  vi.,  223  :  "Ecclesiam  S.  Nicholai  in  castello  de  Stafford." 

4  Ordericus,  vii.,  12.     See  also  vii.,  13,  p.  220  (ed.  Provost). 


214      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Castle  during  the  time  that  the  castle  was  in  his  custody.1 
But  about  the  situation  of  the  chapel  of  St  Nicholas 
there  is  no  doubt,  as  its  history  is  traceable  down  to  the 
1 6th  century.  It  stood  in  the  bailey  of  the  castle 
outside  the  town.  This  castle  was  therefore  certainly 
identical  with  that  of  Henry  II.,  and  most  probably 
with  that  of  Henry  I.  and  William  I. 

So  far,  as  we  have  seen,  Stafford  Castle  was  a  royal 
castle.  It  is  true  that  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.'s 
predecessor,  Stephen,  we  find  the  castle  again  in  the 
hands  of  a  Robert  de  Stafford,  who  speaks  of  it  as 
"castellum  meum."2  Apparently  the  troubles  of 
Stephen's  reign  afforded  an  opportunity  to  the  family  of 
the  first  Norman  sheriff  to  get  the  castle  again  into  their 
hands.  But  under  the  stronger  rule  of  Henry  II.  the 
crown  recovered  its  rights,  and  the  gift  of  the  chapel  in 
the  castle  evidently  could  not  be  made  without  the 
consent  of  the  king.  The  gaol  which  Henry  II.  caused 
to  be  made  in  Stafford  was  doubtless  in  this  castle.3 
John  repaired  the  castle,4  and  ordered  bretasches,  or 
wooden  towers,  to  be  made  in  the  forest  of  Arundel, 
and  sent  to  Stafford  : 5  a  statement  which  gives  us  an 
insight  into  the  nature  of  the  castle  in  John's  reign. 
But  it  was  the  tendency  of  sheriffdoms  to  become 
hereditary,  as  Dr  Stubbs  has  pointed  out,6  and  this 
seems  to  have  been  the  case  at  Stafford.  In  the  reign 

1  Mazzinghi,  Salt  Arch.  Soc.  Trans.,  viii.,  22. 

2  In  a  charter  to  Stone  Abbey,  Salt  Collections,  vol.  ii.     That  the  castle 
he  speaks  of  was  the  one   outside  the  town  is  proved  by  his  references  to 
land  "  extra  burgum." 

3  The  Pipe  Roll  contains  several  entries  relating  to  this  gaol  at  Stafford. 
It  is  clear  from  several  of  the  documents  given  by  Mr  Mazzinghi  that  the 
king's  gaol  of  Stafford  and  the  king's  gaol  of  the  castle  of  Stafford  are 
equivalent  expressions. 

4  Pipe  Rolls,  2  John.  5  Close  Rolls,  i.,  69. 
6  Constitutional  History,  i.,  272. 


STAFFORD  215 

of  Edward  I.  a  local  jury  decided  that  Nicholas,  Baron 
of  Stafford,  held  the  castle  of  Stafford  from  the  king  in 
capite,  by  the  service  of  three  and  a  half  knights'  fees  ; l 
and  in  1348,  Ralph,  Baron  of  Stafford,  obtained  a 
license  from  Edward  III.  "  to  fortify  and  crenellate  his 
manses  of  Stafford  and  Madlee  with  a  wall  of  stone  and 
lime,  and  to  make  castles  thereof."'  The  indenture 
made  with  the  mason  a  year  previously  is  still  extant, 
and  states  that  the  castle  is  to  be  built  upon  the  moele 
in  the  manor,  whereby  the  motte  is  evidently  meant.3 
Besides,  the  deed  is  dated  "at  the  Chastel  of  Stafford," 
showing  that  the  new  castle  of  stone  and  lime  was  on 
the  site  of  an  already  existing  castle. 

We  might  spin  out  further  evidence  of  the  identity 
of  the  site  of  William's  castle  with  that  of  the  present 
one,  from  the  name  of  the  manor  of  Castel,  which  grew 
up  around  it,  displacing  the  equally  suggestive  name  of 
Montville,  which  we  find  in  Domesday  Book.4  Against 
the  existence  of  another  castle  in  the  town  we  have  the 
absence  of  any  such  castle  in  William  Smith's  plan  of 
1588;  the  silence  of  Speed  and  Leland,  who  only 
mention  the  present  castle  ;5  and  the  statement  of  Plot, 
who  wrote  about  the  end  of  the  i7th  century,  that  "he 
could  not  hear  any  footsteps  remaining  "  of  a  castle  in 
Stafford.6  We  may  therefore  safely  conclude  that  it  was 
only  due  to  the  fancy  of  some  Elizabethan  antiquary 
that  in  an  old  map  of  that  time  a  spot  to  the  south- 

1  Cited  in  Salt  Arch.  Soc.  Trans.)  vi.,  pt.  i.,  258. 

2  Patent  Rolls,  22  Edward  iii.,  cited  by  Mazzinghi,  p.  80. 

3  Salt  Arch.  Soc.  Trans. ,  viii.,  122.     It  was  undoubtedly  at  this  time 
that  the  oblong  stone  keep  on  the  motte,  which  is  described  in  an  escheat  of 
Henry's  VIII.'s  reign,  was  built. 

4  Salt  Arch.  Coll.,  viii.,  14. 

5  Speed's  Theatre  of  Britain;  Leland,  Itin.,  vii.,  26. 

6  The  Stafford  escheat  of  Henry  VIII.'s  reign,  which  describes  the  town, 
also  makes  no  mention  of  any  castle  in  the  town.     Mazzinghi,  p.  105. 


216      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

west  of  the  town  is  marked  with  the  inscription,  "  The 
old  castle,  built  by  Edward  the  Elder,  and  in  memorie 
fortified  with  reel  walls."1 

The  value  of  Stafford  town  had  risen  at  the  time  of 
the  Survey,  as  the  king  had  7/.  for  his  share,  which 
would  make  the  whole  revenue  to  king  and  earl  io/.  ios., 
as  against  gl.  before  the  Conquest.  The  property  of 
the  canons  of  Stafford  had  risen  from  £i  to  £$? 

The  area  of  the  bailey  is  if  acres. 

STAMFORD,  Lincoln  and  Northants. — This  was  one 
of  the  boroughs  fortified  by  Edward  the  Elder,  and 
consequently  we  find  it  a  royal  burgus  at  the  time  of  the 
Survey.  But  Edward's  borough,  the  Chronicle  tell  us, 
was  on  the  south  side  of  the  Welland  ;  the  northern 
borough,  on  the  other  side,  may  have  been  the  work  of 
the  Danes,  as  Stamford  was  one  of  the  towns  of  the 
Danish  confederacy  of  the  Five  Boroughs.  The 
Norman  castle  and  its  motte  are  on  the  north  side,  and 
five  mansiones  were  destroyed  for  the  site.3  There  is  at 
present  no  appearance  of  masonry  on  the  motte,  which 
is  partly  cut  away,  and  what  remains  of  the  castle  wall 
is  of  the  1 3th  century.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the 
turris,  or  keep,  which  surrendered  to  Henry  II.  in  1153, 
was  of  wood.4  Henry  gave  the  castle  to  Richard 
Humet,  constable  of  Normandy,  in  H55-5  It  was  a 

1  Salt  Arch.  Trans.,  viii.,  231.     The  mistake  may  possibly  have  arisen 
from  the  fact  that  a  fine  castellated  gateway,  shown  in  W.  Smith's  map 
(Description  of  England] ,  stood  on  the  south-west  wall  of  the  town,  close  to 
the  spot  where  Speed's  map  marks  a  Castle  Hill. 

2  There  must  be  some  error  in  the  first  instalment  of  the  Stafford  revenue 
in  Domesday,  which  says  that  the  king  and  earl  have  jl.  between  them,  as  it 
is  contradicted  by  the  later  statement.     D.  B.,  i.,  2463.  and  247b,  2. 

3  There  were  141  mansiones,  T.  R.  E.,  "et  modo  totidem  sunt  praeter  5 
quae  propter  operationem  castelli  sunt  wastae."     From  a  passage   in   the 
Domesday  of  Nottingham  it  would  seem  that  a  mansio  was  a  group  of  houses. 

4  Gervase  of  Canterbury,  i.,  156,  R.  S. 

6  Peck's  Antiquarian  Annals  of  Stamford;  he  gives  the  charter,  p.  17. 


STAMFORD— STANTON  217 

very  exceptional  thing  that  Henry  should  thus  alienate 
a  royal  castle,  and  special  circumstances  must  have 
moved  him  to  this  act.  The  castle  was  destroyed  in 
Richard  III.'s  time,  and  the  materials  given  to  the 
convent  of  the  Carmelite  Friars.  It  appears  to  have 
been  within  the  town  walls,  with  a  bailey  stretching 
down  to  the  river ;  this  bailey  is  quadrangular.  An 
inquisition  of  1341  states  that  "the  site  of  the  castle 
contains  2  acres."1 

Stamford  had  risen  enormously  in  value  since  the 
Conquest.  "  In  King  Edward's  time  it  paid  i$l. ;  now, 
it  pays  forfeorm  5o/.,  and  for  the  whole  of  the  king's 
dues  it  now  pays  28/. 2 

STANTON,  Stanton  Long,  in  Shropshire  (Fig.  32). — 
At  the  time  of  the  Survey,  the  Norman  Helgot  was  Lord 
of  Corve  Dale,  and  had  his  castle  at  Stanton.3  The 
castle  was  afterwards  known  as  Helgot's  Castle,  corrupted 
into  Castle  Holdgate.  The  site  has  been  much  altered 
by  the  building  of  a  farmhouse  in  the  bailey,  but  the 
motte  still  exists,  high  and  steep,  with  a  ditch  round 
about  half  its  circumference ;  there  are  some  traces  of 
masonry  on  the  top.  One  side  of  the  bailey  ditch  is 
still  visible,  and  a  mural  tower  of  Edwardian  style  has 
been  incorporated  with  the  farmhouse.  The  exact  area 
cannot  now  be  calculated,  but  it  can  hardly  have 
exceeded  2\  acres.  The  manor  of  Stanton  was  an 

1  Cited  in  Nevinson's  "Notes  on  the  History  of  Stamford,"  Journ.  Brit. 
Arch.  Ass.)  xxxv. 

"T.  R.  E.  dabat  Stanford  157. ;  modo  dat  ad  firmam  5o/.  De  omni 
consuetudine  regis  modo  dat  287." 

"  Ibi  habet  Helgot  castellum,  et  2  carucas  in  dominio,  et  4  servos,  et 
3  villanos,  et  3  bordarios,  et  i  Francigenam  cum  3^  carucis.  Ibi  ecclesia 
et  presbyter.  T.  R.  E.  valebat  18  solidos ;  modo  25  solidos.  Wastam 
invenit."  D.  B.,  i.,  258b.  There  are  some  fragments  of  Norman  work  in 
the  church,  which  is  chiefly  Early  English,  doubtless  of  the  same  date  as 
the  mural  tower  of  the  castle. 


218      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

agglomeration  of  four  small  manors  which  had  been 
held  by  different  proprietors  in  Saxon  times,  so  it  was 
not  the  centre  of  a  soke.  The  value  of  the  manor  had 
risen. 

TAMWORTH,  Stafford  (Fig.  32).— Although  Tarn- 
worth  Castle  is  not  mentioned  in  Domesday  Book,  it 
must  have  been  in  existence  in  the  nth  century,  as  a 
charter  of  the  Empress  Matilda  mentions  that  Robert 
le  Despenser,  brother  of  Urso  d'Abetot,  had  formerly 
held  this  castle;1  now  Urso  d'Abetot  was  a  con- 
temporary of  the  Conqueror,  and  so  must  his  brother 
have  been.  Tamworth  Castle  stands  on  a  motte  50  feet 
high,  and  100  feet  in  diameter  across  the  top,  according 
to  Mr  Clark.  It  is  an  interesting  instance  of  what  is 
commonly  called  a  shell  keep,  with  a  stone  tower ;  one 
of  the  instances  which  suggest  that  the  shell  did  not 
belong  to  a  different  type  of  castle  to  the  tower,  but  was 
simply  a  ward  wall,  which  probably  at  first  enclosed  a 
wooden  tower.  The  tower  and  wall  (or  chemise)  are 
probably  late  Norman,  but  the  remarkable  wing  wall 
(there  is  only  one,  instead  of  the  usual  two)  which  runs 
down  the  motte  is  entirely  of  herring-bone  work,  and 
may  be  as.  old  as  Henry  I.'s  time.2  A  bailey  court, 
which  cannot  have  been  large,  lay  between  the  motte 
and  the  river  Tame,  but  its  outline  cannot  now  be 
determined,  owing  to  the  encroachments  of  buildings. 
Tamworth  is  about  a  mile  from  the  great  Roman  road 
known  as  Watling  Street.  We  have  already  referred 
to  the  fortification  of  the  burh  here  by  Ethelfleda;3 


1  Stapleton's  Introduction  to  Rot.  Scac.  Normannice,  vol.  ii. 

2  It  used  to  be  supposed  that  herring-bone  work  was  a  Saxon  sign,  and 
this  furnished  an  additional  claim  to  the  Saxon  origin  of  this  castle  ;  but  it 
is  now  known  that  herring-bone  work  only  occurs  in  the  later  Saxon  work, 
and  is  far  more  common  in  Norman.     See  notet  p.  136. 

3  See  ante,  p.  34, 


TICKHILL  219 

probably  she  only  restored  walls  or  banks  which  had 
existed  before  round  this  ancient  capital  of  Mercia. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Tamworth  is  not  given 
in  Domesday  Book. 

TICKHILL,  Yorks  (Fig.  32). — The  name  Tickhill  does 
not  occur  in  Domesday,  but  it  is  covered  by  that  of 
Dadesley,  the  manor  in  which  this  castle  was  built :  a 
name  which  appears  to  have  gone  out  of  use  when  the 
hill  was  thrown  up.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was 
the  castle  of  Roger  de  Busli,  one  of  the  most  richly 
endowed  of  William's  tenants-in-chief,  as  it  is  mentioned 
as  such  by  Ordericus.1  He  calls  it  the  castle  of  Blythe, 
a  name  which  it  probably  received  because  Blythe  was 
the  most  important  place  near,  and  Dadesley  was  so 
insignificant.  Florence  of  Worcester,  when  describing 
the  same  events,  calls  the  castle  Tykehill.  The  remains 
furnish  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  earthworks  of  this 
class.  The  motte  is  75  feet  high,  and  its  area  on  top 
about  80  feet  in  diameter  ;  about  a  third  of  it  is  natural, 
the  rest  artificial.  Only  a  slight  trace  remains  of  the 
ditch  separating  it  from  the  oval  bailey,  which  covers 
2  acres.  The  foundations  of  a  decagonal  tower,  built 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  are  still  to  be  seen  on  the  top.2 
The  bailey  retains  its  banks  on  the  scarp,  surmounted 
now  by  a  stone  curtain,  which,  along  with  the  older  part 
of  the  gatehouse,  is  possibly  of  the  time  of  Henry  I.3 
The  outer  ditch  is  about  30  feet  broad,  and  is  still  full 
of  water  in  parts.  On  the  counterscarp  a  portion  of  the 

1  Ordericus,  xi.,  ch.  iii. 

2  There  are  three  entries  for  the  works  of  the  turns  at  Tickhill  in  the 
Pipe  Rolls  of  1178  and  1179,  amounting  to  ^123,  125.  5d. 

3  Pipe  Roll,  31  Henry  I.,  33,  36.     Expenses  for  work  at  the  wall  of  the 
castle  are  mentioned.     Ordericus  says  that  Robert  Belesme  fortified  the 
castle  of  Blythe  at  the  time  of  his  rebellion  in  1 101,  but  he  also  says  that  it 
had  belonged  to  Roger  de  Busli.     Hist.  Ecc.,  iv.,  33  ;  xi.,  3. 


220      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

bank  remains.  This  bank  carried  a  wooden  palisade 
when  the  castle  was  besieged  by  Cromwell.1  The  site 
is  not  naturally  defensible  ;  it  is  about  three  and  a  half 
miles  from  the  northern  Roman  road. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Dadesley  had  risen  at  the 
time  of  the  Survey.2  The  stone  buildings  which  once 
stood  in  the  bailey  have  been  transformed  into  a  modern 
house. 

TONBRIDGE,  Kent  (Fig.  33). — This  notable  castle,  the 
first  English  seat  of  the  powerful  family  who  afterwards 
took  their  name  from  Clare  in  Suffolk,  is  first  mentioned 
in  1088,  when  it  was  stormed  by  William  Rufus  and  his 
English  subjects,  who  had  adopted  his  cause  against  the 
supporters  of  his  brother  Robert.3  The  castle  was  one 
of  great  importance  at  several  crises  in  English  history  ; 
but  it  began  as  a  wooden  keep  on  a  motte,  and  the 
stone  shell  which  now  crowns  this  motte  cannot  be 
earlier  than  the  i2th  century,  and  judging  by  its 
buttresses,  is  much  later.  The  castle  stands  outside  the 
town  of  Tonbridge,  separated  from  it  by  moats  which 
were  fed  from  the  river.  The  smaller  bailey  of  ij  acres, 
probably  the  original  one,  is  square,  with  rounded 
corners.  The  palatial  gatehouse,  of  the  I3th  or  i4th 
century,  is  a  marked  feature  of  this  castle.  There 
appears  to  have  been  only  one  wing  wall  down  the 
motte  to  the  bailey,  but  a  second  one  was  not  needed, 
owing  to  the  position  of  the  motte  with  regard  to  the 
river. 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Hadlow,  in  which 
Tonbridge  lay,  was  stationary  at  Domesday.4  It 
belonged  to  the  see  of  Canterbury,  and  was  held  by 

1  Vicar's  Parliamentary  Chronicle^  quoted  by  Hunter,  South  Yorks,  ii.,  235. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  3i9a.  3  A.-S.  C.  in  anno. 
4  D.  B.,  i.,  76. 


TOKBRIDGE,  KKST. 


FIG.  33- 


[To  face  p.  230. 


TOTNES  221 

Richard  de  Bienfaite,  ancestor  of  the  House  of  Clare, 
as  a  tenant  of  the  see. 

TOTNES,  Devonshire  (Fig.  33). — The  castle  of 
Totnes  belonged  to  Judhael,  one  of  King  William's 
men,  who  has  been  already  mentioned  under  Barnstaple. 
This  castle  is  not  noticed  in  Domesday  Book,  but  its 
existence  in  the  nth  century  is  made  certain  by  a 
charter  of  Judhael's  giving  land  below  his  castle  to  the 
Benedictine  priory  which  he  had  founded  at  Totnes  : 
a  charter  certainly  of  the  Conqueror's  reign,  as  it 
contains  a  prayer  for  the  health  of  King  William.1  The 
site  was  an  important  one ;  Totnes  had  been  one  of  the 
boroughs  of  the  Burghal  Hidage  ;  it  was  at  the  head  of 
a  navigable  river,  and  was  the  point  where  the  ancient 
Roman  (?)  road  from  Devonshire  to  Bath  and  the  North 
began  its  course.2  The  motte  of  the  castle  is  very  high 
and  precipitous,  and  has  a  shell  on  top,  which  is  perfect 
up  to  the  battlements,  and  appears  to  be  rather  late 
Norman.  This  keep  is  entered  in  a  very  unusual  way, 
by  a  flight  of  steps  leading  up  from  the  bailey,  deeply 
sunk  in  the  upper  part  into  the  face  of  the  motte,  so  as 
to  form  a  highly  defensible  passage.  Two  wing  walls 
run  down  to  the  walls  of  the  bailey.  There  is  at  present 
no  ditch  between  the  motte  and  the  bailey.  The  whole 
area  of  the  work  is  f  acre.  It  stands  in  a  very  defensible 
situation  on  a  spur  of  hill  overlooking  the  town,  and  lies 
just  outside  the  ancient  walls. 

The  value  of  the  town  of  Totnes  had  risen  at 
Domesday.3 

THE  TOWER  OF  LONDON. — Here,  as  at  Colchester, 
there  is  no  motte,  because  the  original  design  was  that 
there  should  be  a  stone  keep.  Ordericus  tells  us  that 

1  M.  A.)  iv.,  630.  2  Leland  is  responsible  for  this  last  statement. 

3  D.  B.,  i.,  io8b. 


222      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

after  the  submission  of  London  to  William  the  Conqueror 
he  stayed  for  a  few  days  in  Barking  while  certain 
fortifications  in  the  city  were  being  finished,  to  curb  the 
excitability  of  the  huge  and  fierce  population.1  What 
these  fortifications  were  we  shall  never  know,  but  we 
may  imagine  they  were  earthworks  of  the  usual  Norman 
kind.'2  Certainly  the  great  keep  familiarly  known  as  the 
White  Tower  was  not  built  in  a  few  days ;  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  even  begun  till  some  eleven  years 
later,  when  Gundulf,  a  monk  celebrated  for  his  archi- 
tectural skill,  was  appointed  to  the  see  of  Rochester. 
Gundulf  was  the  architect  of  the  Tower,3  and  it  must 
therefore  have  been  built  during  his  episcopate,  which 
lasted  from  1077-1  io8.4  In  1097  we  read  that 
"  many  shires  which  owe  works  to  London  were  greatly 
oppressed  in  making  the  wall  (weall)  round  the  Tower." 5 
This  does  not  necessarily  mean  a  stone  wall,  but 
probably  it  does,  as  Gundulfs  tower  can  hardly  have 
been  without  a  bank  and  palisade  to  its  bailey. 

As    the    Tower    in    its  general  plan  represents  the 
type  of  keep  which  was   the  model  for  all  succeeding 

1  "Egressus   Lundonice  rex   dies  aliquot  in  propinquo  loco  Bercingio 
morabatur,  dum  firmamenta  quaedam  in  urbe  contra  mobilitatem  ingentis  et 
feri  populi  perficerentur."     P.  165.     Ordericus  is  quoting  from  William  of 
Poitiers.     There  was  formerly  a  Roman  camp  at  Barking,  and  the  motte 
which  William  hastily  threw  up  on  its  rampart  to  defend  his  sojourn  still 
remains.     See  Victoria  History  of  Essex. 

2  Mr  Harold  Sands  suggests  to  me  that  the  first  fortification  may  simply 
have  been  a  bank  and  palisade  across  the  angle  of  the  Roman  wall,  with 
perhaps  a  wooden  keep,  and  that  the  great  fire  in  London  in  1077  deter- 
mined William  to  build  a  stone  keep. 

3  Hearne's  Textus  Roffensis^  212.     "Idem  Gundulfus,  ex  precepto  Regis 
Willielmi  Magni,  prasesset  operi  magnas  turris  Londonise." 

4  The  building  of  stone  keeps  was  generally  spread  over  several  years, 
as  we  learn  from  the  Pipe  Rolls.     Richard  I.  built  his  celebrated  keep  of 
Chateau  Gaillard  in  one  year,  but  he  himself  regarded  this  as  an  archi- 
tectural feat.     "  Estne  bella,  filia  mea  de  uno  anno,"  he  said  in  delight. 

6   A.-S.  C.  in  anno. 


TOWER  OF  LONDON  223 

stone  keeps  up  to  the  end  of  the  I2th  century,  it  seems 
appropriate  here  to  give  some  description  of  its  main 
features.  Its  resemblance  to  the  keep  of  Colchester, 
which  also  was  a  work  of  William  I.'s  reign,  is  very 
striking.1  Colchester  is  the  larger  of  the  two,  but 
the  Tower  exceeds  in  size  all  other  English  keeps, 
measuring  118  x  98  feet  at  its  base.2  As  it  has 
been  altered  or  added  to  in  every  century,  its  details 
are  peculiarly  difficult  to  trace,  especially  as  the 
ordinary  visitor  is  not  allowed  to  make  a  thorough 
examination.3  Thus  much,  however,  is  certain  :  neither 
of  the  two  present  entrances  on  the  ground  floor  is 
original ;  the  first  entrance  was  on  the  first  floor,  some 
25  feet  above  the  ground,  at  the  S.W.  angle  of  the 
south  side,  and  has  been  transformed  into  a  window. 
There  was  no  entrance  to  the  basement,  but  it  was 
only  reached  by  the  grand  staircase,  which  is  enclosed 
in  a  round  turret  at  the  N.E.  angle.  There  were 
two  other  stairs  at  the  N.W.  and  S.W.  angles,  but 
these  only  began  on  the  first  floor.  The  basement 
is  divided  by  a  cross  wall,  which  is  carried  up  to 
the  third  storey.  There  are  at  present  three  storeys 
above  the  basement.  The  basement,  which  is  now 
vaulted  in  brick,  was  not  originally  vaulted  at  all, 

1  Round's  History  of  Colchester,  ch.  iv. 

2  The  keep  of  Norwich   Castle  measures   100x95   feet;   Middleham, 
100  x  80  ;  Dover,  95  x  90.     These  are  the  largest  existing  keeps  in  England, 
next  to  the  Tower  and    Colchester.     The    destroyed    keep    of   Duffield 
measured  99  x  93  feet ;  that  of  Bristol  is  believed  to  have  been  1 10  x  95. 

3  The  reader  will  find  little  help  for  the  structural  history  of  the  Tower 
in  most  of  the  works  which  call  themselves  Histories   of  the  Tower  of 
London.     The  plan  of  these  works  generally  is  to  skim  over  the  structural 
history  as  quickly  as  possible,  perhaps  with  the  help  of  a  few  passages  from 
Clark,  and  to  get  on  to  the  history  of  the  prisoners  in  the  Tower.     For  the 
description  in  the  text,  the  writer  is  greatly  indebted  to  Mr  Harold  Sands, 
F.S.A.,  who  has  made  a  careful  study  of  the  Tower,  and  whose  monograph 
upon  it,  it  is  hoped,  will  shortly  appear. 


224      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

except    the   south-eastern  chamber,  under  the  crypt  of 
the  chapel. 

The  first  floor,  like  the  basement,  is  divided  into 
three  rooms,  as,  in  addition  to  the  usual  cross  wall,  the 
Tower  has  a  branch  cross  wall  to  its  eastern  section, 
which  is  carried  up  to  the  top.  This  floor  was  formerly 
only  lit  by  loopholes  ;  Clark  states  that  there  were  two 
fireplaces  in  the  east  wall,  but  there  is  some  doubt 
about  this.  The  S.E.  room  contained  the  crypt 
of  the  chapel,  which  was  vaulted.  It  is  commonly 
supposed  that  the  rooms  on  the  first  floor  were 
occupied  by  the  guards  of  the  keep.  In  the  account 
which  we  have  quoted  from  Lambert  of  Ardres,  the 
first  floor  is  said  to  be  the  lord's  habitation,  and 
the  upper  storey  that  of  the  guards ;  so  that  there 
seems  to  have  been  no  invariable  rule.1  No  special 
room  was  allotted  to  the  kitchen,  as  in  time  of 
peace  at  any  rate,  the  lord  of  the  castle  and  all  his 
retainers  took  their  meals  in  a  great  hall  in  the  bailey 
of  the  castle."2  The  ceilings  of  the  two  larger  rooms 
of  this  floor  are  now  supported  by  posts,  an  arrange- 
ment which  is  probably  modern,  as  the  present  posts 
certainly  are.3 

The  second  floor  contains  the  chapel,  which  in  many 
keeps  is  merely  an  oratory,  but  is  here  of  unusual  size. 
Its  eastern  end  is  carried  out  in  a  round  apse,  a  feature 
which  is  also  found  at  Colchester,  but  is  not  usual  in 

1  Ante,  p.  89. 

2  Many  of  the  larger  keeps  contain  rooms  quite  spacious  enough  to  have 
served  as  banqueting  halls,  and  it  is  a  point  of  some  difficulty  whether  they 
were  built  to   be  used  as  such.     But  as  late  as  the    uth   century,   Piers 
Ploughman  rebukes  the  new  custom  which  was  growing  up  of  the  noble  and 
his  family  taking  their  meals  in  private,  and  leaving  the  hall  to  their  retainers. 
Every  castle  seems  to  have  had  a  hall  in  the  bailey. 

3  Mr  Sands  says  the  main  floors  are  not  of  too  great  a  span  to  carry  any 
ordinary  weight. 


TOWER  OF  LONDON  225 

Norman  keeps.1  It  is  a  singularly  fine  specimen  of  an 
early  Norman  chapel.  This  floor  probably  contained 
the  royal  apartments  ;  it  was  lighted  by  windows,  not 
loops.  Both  the  eastern  and  western  rooms  had  fire- 
places ;  the  eastern  room  goes  by  the  name  of  the 
Banqueting  Chamber. 

The  third  storey  is  on  a  level  with  the  triforium  of 
the  chapel.2  This  triforium  is  continued  all  round  the 
keep  as  a  mural  passage,  and  it  has  windows  only 
slightly  smaller  than  those  of  the  floor  below.  These 
mural  galleries  are  found  in  most  important  keeps.  As 
their  windows  were  of  larger  size  than  the  loops  which 
lit  the  lower  floors,  it  is  possible  that  they  may  have 
been  used  for  defence,  either  for  throwing  down  missiles 
or  for  shooting  with  bows  and  arrows.  But  no  near  aim 
could  be  taken  without  a  downward  splay  to  the  window, 
and  the  bows  of  the  nth  and  i2th  centuries  were 
incapable  of  a  long  aim.  A  plausible  theory  is  that 
they  were  intended  for  the  march  of  sentinels.8 

The  masonry  of  the  Tower  is  of  Kentish  rag,  with 
ashlar  quoins.  In  mediaeval  times  it  had  a  forebuilding, 
with  a  round  stair  turret,  which  is  shown  in  some  old 
views  ;  but  it  may  reasonably  be  doubted  whether  this 
was  an  original  feature. 

As  regards  the  ground  plan  of  the  castle  as  a  whole, 

1  The  keep  of  Pevensey  Castle,  the  basement  of  which  has  been  recently 
uncovered,  has  no  less  than  four  apsidal  projections,  one  of  which  rests  on 
the  solid  base  of  a  Roman  mural  tower.     But  this  keep  is  quite  an  excep- 
tional building.     See  Excavations  at  Pevensey,  Second  Report,  by  H.  Sands. 

2  Mr  Sands  has  conjectured  that  the  third  floor  may  be  an  addition,  and 
that  the  second  storey  was  originally  open  up  to  the  roof  and  not  com- 
municating with  the  mural  passage  except  by  stairs.     This  was  actually  the 
case  at  Bamborough  keep,  and  at    Newcastle  and  Rochester   the  mural 
gallery  opens  into  the  upper  part  of  the  second  storey  by  inner  windows. 

3  Until  the  end  of  the  I2th  century  the  roofs  of  keeps  were  gabled  and 
not  flat,  but  probably  there  was  usually  a  parapet  walk  for  sentinels  or 
archers. 

P 


226      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

it  is  now  concentric,  but  was  not  so  originally.  The 
Tower  was  certainly  placed  in  the  S.E.  angle  of  the 
Roman  walls  of  London,  and  very  near  the  east  wall, 
portions  of  which  have  been  discovered.1  The  conversion 
of  the  castle  into  one  of  the  concentric  type  was  the 
work  of  later  centuries,  and  the  history  of  its  develop- 
ment has  still  to  be  traced.2 

TREMATON,  Cornwall  (Fig.  34). — "  The  Count  [of 
Mortain]  has  a  castle  there  and  a  market,  rendering  101 
shillings."3  Two  Cornish  castles  are  mentioned  in 
Domesday,  and  both  of  them  are  only  on  the  borders 
of  that  wild  Keltic  country ;  but  while  Launceston  is 
inland,  Trematon  guards  an  inlet  on  the  south  coast. 
The  position  of  this  castle  is  extremely  strong  by  nature, 
at  the  end  of  a  high  headland ;  on  the  extreme  point  of 
this  promontory  the  motte  is  placed.  It  carries  a  well- 
preserved  shell  wall,  which  may  be  of  Norman  date, 
from  the  plain  round  arch  of  the  entrance.4  It  has  been 
separated  by  a  ditch  from  the  bailey,  but  the  steepness 
of  the  hill  rendered  it  unnecessary  to  carry  this  ditch  all 
round.  The  bailey,  i  acre  in  extent,  in  which  a  modern 
house  is  situated,  still  has  an  entrance  gate  of  the  I3th 
century,  and  part  of  a  mediaeval  wall.  A  second  bailey, 
now  a  rose-garden,  has  been  added  at  a  later  period. 
In  spite  of  the  establishment  of  a  castle  and  a  market 

1  Parts  of  these  walls,  running  N.  and  S.  have  been  found  very  near  the 
E.  side  of  the  Tower.     No  trace  of  the  Roman  wall  has  been  found  S.  of  the 
Tower,  but  in  Lower  Thames  Street  lines  have  been  found  which,  if  produced, 
would  lead  straight  to  the  S.  wall  of  the  inner  bailey.     Communicated  by 
Mr  Harold  Sands. 

2  I  have  to  thank  Mr  Harold  Sands  for  kindly  revising  this  account  of 
the  Tower. 

3  "  Ibi  habet  comes  unum  castrum  et  mercatum,  reddentes  lois."    D.  B., 

i.,  122. 

4  It  must  be  remembered  that  round  arches,  in  castle  architecture,  are 
by  no  means  a  certain  sign  of  date.     Of  course  the  first  castle  on  this  motte 
must  have  been  of  wood. 


TREMATON,  CORNWALL. 


200. 


TUTBUKY,  STAFFS. 


FIG.  34- 


[To  face  p.  226. 


TREMATON— TUTBURY  227 

the  value  of  the  manor  of  Trematon  had  gone  down 
at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  which  may  be  accounted  for 
by  the  fact  that  there  were  only  ten  ploughs  where  there 
ought  to  have  been  twenty- four.  It  was  only  a  small 
manor,  and  no  burgus  is  mentioned. 

TUTBURY,  Staffordshire  (Fig.  34). — In  the  magnifi- 
cent earthworks  of  this  castle,  and  the  strength  of  its 
site,  we  probably  see  a  testimony  to  the  ability  of  Hugh 
d'Avranches  ;  for  we  learn  from  Ordericus  that  in  1070 
William  I.  gave  to  Henry  de  Ferrers  the  castle  of 
Tutbury,  which  had  belonged  to  Hugh  d'Avranches,1 
to  whom  the  king  then  gave  the  more  dangerous  but 
more  honourable  post  of  the  earldom  of  Chester. 
Domesday  Book  simply  states  that  Henry  de  Ferrers 
has  the  castle  of  Tutbury,  and  that  there  are  forty-two 
men  living  by  their  merchandise  alone  in  the  borough 
round  the  castle.2 

At  Tutbury  the  keep  was  placed  on  an  artificial 
motte,  which  itself  stood  on  a  hill  of  natural  rock, 
defended  on  the  N.W.  side  by  precipices.  There  is  no 
trace  of  any  ditch  between  the  motte  and  bailey.  At 
present  there  is  only  the  ruin  of  a  comparatively  modern 
tower  on  the  motte,  but  Shaw  states  that  there  was 
formerly  a  stone  keep.8  A  description  of  Elizabeth's 
reign  says,  "The  castle  is  situated  upon  a  round  hill,  and 
is  circumvironed  with  a  strong  wall  of  astilar  [ashlar] 
stone.  .  .  .  The  king's  lodging  therein  is  fair  and  strong, 
bounded  and  knit  to  the  wall.  And  a  fair  stage  hall  of 
timber,  of  a  great  length.  Four  chambers  of  timber, 
and  other  houses  well  upholden,  within  the  walls  of  the 

1  Ord.  Vit.,  ii.,  222  (Provost). 

2  "  Henricus  de  Ferrers  habet  castellum  de  Toteberie.     In  burgo  circa 
castellum  sunt  42  homines  de  mercato  suo  tantum  viventes."     D.  B.,  i., 
248b. 

3  Shaw's  History  of  Staffordshire,  i.,  49. 


228      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

castle."1  The  king's  lodging  will  no  doubt  be  the 
closed  gatehouse ;  the  custom  of  erecting  gatehouse 
palaces  arose  as  early  as  the  I3th  century.  This  account 
shows  how  many  of  the  castle  buildings  were  still  of 
timber  in  Elizabeth's  reign. 

The  bailey  is  quadrant-shaped,  and  has  the  motte  at 
its  apex.  Its  area  is  2^  acres.  Its  most  remarkable 
feature  is  that  it  still  retains  its  ancient  banks  on  the 
east  side  and  part  of  the  south,  and  the  more  recent 
curtain  is  carried  on  top  of  them.  This  curtain  is  of  the 
same  masonry  as  the  three  remaining  towers,  which  are 
of  excellent  Perpendicular  work,  and  are  generally 
attributed  to  John  of  Gaunt,  who  held  this  castle  after 
his  marriage  with  Blanche  of  Lancaster.  The  first 
castle  was  undoubtedly  of  wood  ;  it  was  pulled  down 
by  order  of  Henry  I.  in  H75,2  nor  does  there  seem  to 
have  been  any  resurrection  till  the  time  of  Earl  Thomas 
of  Lancaster  at  the  earliest. 

Though  Tutbury  was  the  centre  of  the  Honour  of 
Ferrers,  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  even  a  manor  in 
Saxon  times.  The  borough  was  probably  the  creation 
of  the  castellan,  who  also  founded  the  Priory.8  There  is 
no  statement  in  the  Survey  from  which  we  can  learn  the 
value  T.  R.  E.,  but  T.  R.  W.  it  was  4/.  IQS. 

TYNEMOUTH,  Northumberland. — Besieged  and  taken 
by  William  Rufus  in  1095.*  There  is  no  motte  there, 
and  probably  never  was  one,  as  the  situation  is  defended 
by  precipitous  cliffs  on  all  sides  but  one,  where  a  deep 
ditch  has  been  cut  across  the  neck  of  the  headland. 

WALLINGFORD,  Berkshire  (Fig.  35). — There  is  good 

1  Quoted  in  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales^  Staffordshire,  p.  1129. 

2  Diceto^  i.,  384.     The  castle  was  then  besieged  on  Henry's  behalf  by  the 
vassal  prince  of  South  Wales,  the  Lord  Rhys. 

3  The  foundation  charter  is  in  Mon.  Ang.,  iii.,  393. 
*  A.-S.  C. 


i/TT 


WALLINGFORD,  BERKS. 


FIG.  35- 


[To  face  p.  228. 


WALLINGFORD  229 

reason  to  suppose  that  in  the  vallum  of  the  town  of 
Wallingford  we  have  an  interesting  relic  of  Saxon 
times.  Wallingford  is  one  of  the  boroughs  enumerated 
in  the  Burghal  Hidage ;  it  was  undoubtedly  a  fortified 
town  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,1  and  is  called  a  burgus 
in  Domesday  Book  ;  but  there  appears  to  be  no  evidence 
to  connect  it  with  Roman  times  except  the  discovery  of 
a  number  of  Roman  coins  in  the  town  and  its  neighbour- 
hood. No  Roman  buildings  or  pavements  have  ever 
been  found.2  The  Saxon  borough  was  built  on  the 
model  of  a  Roman  Chester:  a  square  with  rounded 
corners.  The  rampart  of  Wallingford,  which  still  exists 
in  great  part,  is  entirely  of  earth,  and  must  have  been 
crowned  with  a  wooden  wall,  such  as  was  still  existing 
at  Portsmouth  in  Leland's  time.3  The  accounts  of 
Wallingford  in  the  great  Survey  are  very  full  and 
important.  "  King  Edward  had  eight  virgates  in  the 
borough  of  Wallingford,  and  in  these  there  were  276 
haughs  paying  n/.  of  rent.  Eight  have  been  destroyed 
for  the  castle."4  This  Norman  castle  was  placed  in  the 
N.E.  corner  of  the  borough.  At  present  its  precincts 
cover  30  acres,5  but  this  includes  garden  grounds,  and 
no  doubt  represents  later  enclosures.  No  ancient  plan 
of  the  castle  has  been  preserved,  but  from  Leland's 
description  there  appear  to  have  been  three  wards  in  his 

1  William  of  Poitiers  calls  it  an  oppidum^  p.  141. 
a  Hedges,  History  of  Wallingford. 

3  "The  Towne  of  Portsmuth  is  murid  from  the  Est  Tower  a  forowgh 
lenght  with  a  Mudde  Waulle  armid  with  Tymbre."    /#«.,  iii.,  113. 

4  "  In  burgo  de  Walingeford  habuit  Rex  Edwardus  8  virgatas  terrae  ;  et 
in  his  erant  276  hagse  reddentes  1 1  libras  de  gablo.  .  .  .  Pro  castello  sunt 
8  destructae."     D.  B.,  i.,  56.     If  we  divide  these  276  haughs  by  the  114  acres 
enclosed  by  the  town  rampart,  we  get  an  average  of  about  I  rood  26  perches 
for  each  haugh  ;  multiply  this  by  8  (the  number  destroyed  for  the  castle) 
and  we  get  an  area  of  3  acres,  which  is  about  the  average  area  of  an  early 
Norman  castle. 

5  Hedges,  History  of  Wallingford^  i.,  139. 


230      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

time,  each  defended  by  banks  and  ditches.  The  inner 
ward,  which  was  doubtless  the  original  one,  is  rudely 
oblong  in  shape ;  it  covers  4^-  acres.  Leland  says, 
"All  the  goodly  buildings,  with  the  towers  and  dungeon, 
be  within  the  third  dyke."  The  motte,  which  still 
exists,  was  on  the  south-eastern  edge  of  this  ward  ;  that 
is,  it  was  so  placed  as  to  overlook  both  the  borough  and 
the  ford  over  the  Thames.1  It  was  ditched  around, 
and  is  said  to  have  had  a  stone  keep  on  the  top ;  but 
no  foundations  were  found  when  it  was  recently 
excavated.  It  was  found  to  rest  on  a  foundation  of 
solid  masonry  several  feet  thick,  sloping  upwards  towards 
the  outside,  so  that  it  must  have  stood  in  a  kind  of 
stone  saucer.2  The  masonry  which  remains  in  the 
other  parts  of  the  castle  is  evidently  none  of  it  of  the 
early  Norman  period,  unless  we  accept  a  fragment  of 
wall  which  contains  courses  of  tiles.  Numerous  build- 
ings were  added  in  Henry  III.'s  reign;  the  walls  and 
battlements  were  repaired,  and  the  hurdicium,  which 
had  been  blown  down  by  a  high  wind,  was  renewed.3 
But  the  motte  and  the  high  banks  show  clearly  that 
the  first  Norman  castle  was  of  wood. 

The  value  of  the  royal  borough  of  Wallingford  had 
considerably  risen  since  the  Conquest.4 

WARWICK  (Fig.  36). — Here  again  we  have  a  castle 
built  on  land  which  the  Conqueror  obtained  from  a 
Saxon  convent,  a  positive  proof  that  there  was  no  castle 
there  previously.  Only  a  small  number  of  houses  was 

1  Camden  speaks  of  the  motte  as  being  in  the  middle  of  the  castle,  but 
this  is  a  mistake. 

2  Such  is  the  account  in  Hedges'  History  of  Wallingford,  p.  139,  but  it 
sounds  odd.     It  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  same  source  that  the  fragment  of 
a  round  building  which  stands  on  the  top  of  the  motte  must  be  modern  ;  it 
is  thick  enough  to  be  ancient. 

3  Close  Rolls,  i.,  anno  1223.  4  D.  B.,  i.,  56. 


WARWICK  231 

destroyed  for  the  castle,1  and  this  points  to  the  prob- 
ability, which  is  supported  by  some  other  evidence, 
that  the  castle  was  built  outside  the  town.  Warwick,  of 
course,  was  one  of  the  boroughs  fortified  by  Ethelfleda, 
and  it  was  doubtless  erected  to  protect  the  Roman  road 
from  Bath  to  Lincoln,  the  Foss  Way,  against  the  Danes. 
Domesday  Book,  after  mentioning  that  the  king's 
barons  have  1  1  2  houses  in  the  borough,  and  the  abbot 
of  Coventry  36,  goes  on  to  say  that  these  houses 
belong  to  the  lands  which  the  barons  hold  outside  the 
city,  and  are  rated  there.2  This  is  one  of  the  passages 
from  which  Professor  Maitland  has  concluded  that  the 
boroughs  planted  by  Ethelfleda  and  her  brother  were 
organised  on  a  system  of  military  defence,  whereby  the 
magnates  in  the  country  were  bound  to  keep  houses  in 
the  towns.3  Ordericus,  after  the  well-known  passage  in 
which  he  states  that  the  lack  of  castles  in  England  was 
one  great  cause  of  its  easy  conquest  by  the  Normans, 
says  :  "  The  king  therefore  founded  a  castle  at  Warwick, 
and  gave  it  in  custody  to  Henry,  son  of  Roger  de 
Beaumont."  4  Putting  these  various  facts  together,  we  . 
may  fairly  assert  that  the  motte  which  still  forms  part  \ 
of  the  castle  of  Warwick  was  the  work  of  the  Conqueror, 
and  not,  as  Mr  Freeman  believed,  "a  monument  of  1 
the  wisdom  and  energy  of  the  mighty  daughter  of  \ 
Alfred,"5  whose  energy  was  very  much  better  employed 

1  "Abbas  de  Couentreu  habet  36  masuras,  et  4  sunt  wastae  propter  situm 
castelli."     D.  B.,  i.,  238a. 

2  "Hae  masuras  pertinent  ad  terras    quas   ipsi  barones  tenent  extra 
burgum,  et  ibi  appreciatae  sunt."     D.  B.,  i.,  238. 

3  Maitland,  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  p.  189. 

4  Ordericus,  p.  184.    "  Rex  itaque  castellum  apud  Guarevicum  condidit,  et 
Henrico  Rogerii  de  Bello  Monte  filio  ad  servandum  tradidit."     Mr  Freeman 
remarks   that  no   authentic   records   connect    Thurkil    of   Warwick    with 
Warwick  Castle.     N.  C.,  iv.,  781. 

8  N.  C.,  iv.,  190. 


232      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

in  the  protection  of  her  people.  Dugdale,  who  also  put 
the  motte  down  to  Ethelfleda,  was  only  copying  Rous,  a 
very  imaginative  writer  of  the  I5th  century. 

The  motte  of  Warwick  is  mentioned  several  times  in 
the  Pipe  Rolls  of  Henry  II.;  it  then  carried  wooden 
structures  on  its  top.1  In  Leland's  time  there  were  still 
standing  on  this  motte  the  ruins  of  a  keep,  which  he 
calls  by  its  Norman  name  of  the  Dungeon.  A  fragment 
of  a  polygonal  shell  wall  still  remains.2  But  there  is  not 
a  scrap  of  masonry  of  Norman  date  about  the  castle. 
The  motte,  and  the  earthen  bank  which  still  runs  along 
one  side  of  the  court,  show  that  the  first  castle  was  a 
wooden  one.  The  bailey  is  oblong  in  shape,  the  motte 
being  outside  it ;  its  area  is  about  2^  acres. 

The  value  of  Warwick  had  doubled  since  the 
Conquest. 

WIGMORE,  Herefordshire  (Fig.  36). — We  have 
already  referred  to  the  absurdity  of  identifying 
this  place  with  the  Wigingamere  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle?  We  have  the  strongest  indication  that  the 
Norman  castle  at  Wigmore  was  a  new  erection,  since 
Domesday  Book  tells  us  that  William  FitzOsbern 
built  it  on  waste  land  called  Mereston.4  This  express 
statement  disposes  of  the  fable  in  the  Fundationis 
Historia  of  Wigmore  Priory,  that  the  castle  of 
Wigmore  had  belonged  to  Edric  the  Wild,  and  was 
rebuilt  by  Ralph  Mortimer.5  Wigmore  had  only  been 

1  In  operatione  unius  domus  in  mota  de  Warwick  et  unius  bretaschie 
$1.  7s.  lid.     Pipe  Rolls,  20  Henry  II.     As  domus  is  a  word  very  commonly 
used  for  a  keep,  it  is  probable  this  expenditure  refers  to  a  wooden  keep. 

2  From  information  received  from  Mr  Harold  Sands.     There  appears  to 
be  no  foundation  whatever  for  the  curious  ground  plan  given  by  Parker. 

3  See  ante,  p.  42. 

4  "Willelmus  comes  fecit  illud  castellum  in  wasta  terra  quae  vocatur 
Mereston."     D.  B.,  i.,  183. 

6  Man.  Ang.,  vi.,  349. 


O  100        ZOO      300 


WARWICK. 


'-.500 


o        iqo     zoo    3oo 

Feet. 


.600 


'?%!«( 

lMf^/% 


N 


WIGMORE,  HEREFORD. 


FIG.   36. 


[To  face  p.  232. 


WIGMORE— WINCHESTER  233 

a  small  manor  of  two  taxable  hides  in  Saxon  times. 
Whereas  it  had  then  been  unproductive,  at  the  date  of 
the  Survey  there  were  two  ploughs  in  the  demesne,  and 
the  borough  attached  to  the  castle  yielded  7/.  Here  we 
have  another  instance  of  the  planting  of  a  borough  close 
to  a  castle,  and  of  the  revenue  which  was  thus  obtained. 

There  is  a  very  large  and  high  motte  at  Wigmore 
Castle,  of  oval  shape,  on  a  headland  which  has  been  cut 
off  by  a  deep  ditch.  The  earthen  banks  of  its  first 
fortification  still  remain,  enclosing  a  small  ward,  but  on 
top  of  them  is  a  wall  in  masonry,  and  the  ruins  of  a 
polygonal  keep  ; 1  also  the  remains  of  two  mural  towers. 
Half-way  down  the  end  of  the  headland,  below  the  motte, 
is  a  small  square  court,  which  may  have  been  the 
original  bailey  ;  below  it,  again,  is  a  larger  half-moon 
bailey  furnished  with  walls  and  towers.  But  the  whole 
area  covered  is  only  i  acre.  The  masonry  is  none  of 
it  earlier  than  the  Decorated  period,  except  one  tower 
in  the  bailey  wall  which  may  be  late  Norman. 

WINCHESTER,  Hants.  —  We  include  Winchester 
among  the  castles  mentioned  or  alluded  to  in 
Domesday  Book,  because  we  think  it  can  be  proved 
that  the  domus  regis  mentioned  under  Alton  and  Clere 
is  the  castle  built  by  William  outside  the  west  gate  of 
the  city,  where  the  present  County  Hall  is  now  almost 
the  only  remaining  relic  of  any  castle  at  all.2  Under 
the  head  of  "  Aulton  "  we  are  told  that  the  abbot  of 

1  This  keep  rests  on  a  broad  extension  of  the  earthen  rampart,  similar  to 
what  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  mottes  of  Devizes,  Burton-in-Lonsdale,  and 
William  Hill,  Middleham. 

2  Ordericus  says  :   "  Intra  mcenia  Guentae,  opibus  et  munimine  nobilis 
urbis   et    mari    contiguae,   validam    arcem    construxit,   ibique    Willelmum 
Osberni  filium  in  exercitu  suo  precipuum  reliquit."     II.,  166.     The  infra 
mcenia  is  not  to  be  taken  literally,  any  more  than  the  mari  contigua.     It  is 
strange  that  Mr  Freeman  should  have  mistaken  Guenta  for  Norwich,  since 
under  1067  Ordericus  translates  the  Winchester  of  the  A.-S.  C,  by  Guenta. 


234      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

Hyde  had  unjustly  gotten  the  manor  in  exchange  for 
the  king's  house,  because  by  the  testimony  of  the  jurors 
it  was  already  the  king's  house.1  That  excambio  domus 
regis  should  read  excambio  terra  domus  regis  is  clear 
from  the  corresponding  entry  under  Clere,  where  the 
words  are/n?  excambio  terra  in  qua  domus  regis  est  in 
civitate?  The  matter  is  put  beyond  a  doubt  by  the 
confirmatory  charter  of  Henry  I.  to  Hyde  Abbey,  where 
the  king  states  that  his  father  gave  Aulton  and  Clere  to 
Hyde  Abbey  in  exchange  for  the  land  on  which  he  built 
his  hall  in  the  city  of  Winchester?  Where,  then,  was 
this  hall,  which  was  clearly  new,  since  fresh  land  was 
obtained  for  it,  and  which  must  not  therefore  be  sought 
on  the  site  of  the  palace  of  the  Saxon  kings?  The 
Liber  Winton,  a  roll  of  Henry  I.'s  time,  says  that  twelve 
burgesses'  houses  had  been  destroyed  and  the  land  was 
now  occupied  by  the  king's  house.4  Another  passage 
says  that  a  whole  street  outside  the  west  gate  was 
destroyed  when  the  king  made  his  ditch.5  These 
passages  justify  the  conclusion  of  Mr  Smirke  that  the 
king's  house  at  Winchester  was  neither  more  nor  less 
than  the  castle  which  existed  until  the  I7th  century 
outside  the  west  gate.6  Probably  the  reason  why  it  is 
spoken  of  so  frequently  in  the  earliest  documents  as  the 
king's  house  or  hall,  instead  of  the  castle,  is  that  in  this 
important  city,  the  ancient  capital  of  Wessex,  where  the 

1  "  De  isto  manerio  testatur  comitatus  quod  injuste  accepit  [abbas]  pro 
excambio  domus  regis,  quia  domus  erat  regis."    D.  B.,  i.,  43a,  I. 

2  Ibid.,  i.,  43a,  2. 

3  "  Sicut  rex  Willielmus  pater  meus  ei  dedit  in  excambium  pro  terra  ilia 
in  qua  aedificavit  aulam  suam  in  urbe  Winton.     Mon.  Ang.,  ii.,  444. 

4  "  Pars  erat  in  dominio  et  pars  de  dominio  abbatis  ;  hoc  totum  est  post 
occupatum  in  domo  regis."     P.  534.     This  passage  throws  light  on  the 
fraud  of  the  abbot  of  Hyde,  referred  to  above. 

6  "Extra  portamde  Vuest  .  .  .  ibi  juxta  fuit  quidam  vicus  ;  fuit  diffactus 
quando  rex  fecit  facere  suum  fossatum."     P.  535. 
0  Arch.  Inst.^  Winchester  volume,  p.  51. 


FIG.  37. 


234. 


WINCHESTER  235 

king  "wore  his  crown"  once  a  year,  William  built, 
besides  the  usual  wooden  keep  on  the  motte,  a  stone 
hall  in  the  bailey,  of  size  and  dignity  corresponding  to 
the  new  royalty.1  In  fact,  the  hall  so  magnificently 
transformed  by  Henry  III.,  and  known  to  be  the  old 
hall  of  the  castle,  can  be  seen  on  careful  examination  to 
have  still  its  original  Norman  walls  and  other  traces  of 
early  Norman  work.2  The  palace  of  the  Saxon  kings 
stood,  where  we  might  expect  to  find  the  palace  of 
native  princes,  in  the  middle  of  the  city ;  according  to 
Milner  it  was  on  the  site  of  the  present  Square.3 
William  may  have  repaired  this  palace,  but  that  he 
constructed  two  royal  houses,  a  palace  and  a  castle,  is 
highly  improbable.  The  castle  became  the  residence  of 
the  Norman  kings,  and  the  Saxon  palace  appears  to 
have  been  neglected.4  We  see  with  what  caution  the 
Conqueror  placed  his  castle  at  the  royal  city  of  Wessex 
without  the  walls.  Milner  tells  us  that  there  was  no 
access  to  it  from  the  city  without  passing  through  the 
west  gate.5  The  motte  of  the  castle  appears  to  have 
been  standing  in  his  time,  as  he  speaks  of  "the  artificial 
mount  on  which  the  keep  stands."6  It  is  frequently 

1  It  should  also  be  said  that  the  word  domus  is  frequently  used  for  a 
keep  in  chronicles  and  ancient  documents  of  the  nth  and  I2th  centuries. 

2  The  line  of  the  more  ancient  roof  gable  can  be  traced  in  the  north 
wall,  and  there  is  a  vestige  of  a  Norman  doorway  in  the  east  wall. 

3  History  of  Winchester,  ii.,  2 10. 

4  Henry  of  Blois,  Bishop  of  Winchester  and  brother  of  King  Stephen, 
pulled  down  the  royal  palace  close  to  the  cathedral,  which  presumably  was 
the  old  Saxon  palace,  and  used  the  materials  to  build  Wolvesey  Castle. 
See  Malmesbury,  "De  Vitis  Sex  Episcoporum,"  Anglia  Sacra,  ii.,  421.     He 
could  hardly  have  dared  to  do  this  if  the  palace  had  still  been  used  by  the 
Norman  kings. 

6  History  of  Winchester,  ii.,  210.     See  Fig.  37. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  195.  It  is  difficult,  now  that  the  area  has  been  levelled,  to  say 
exactly  where  this  motte  stood.  Woodward  says  that  the  keep  stood  in  the 
N.E.  corner  ;  but  he  probably  alludes  to  a  mural  tower  whose  foundations 
can  still  be  seen,  near  the  County  Hall.  History  of  Hampshire,  i.,  295-304. 


236      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

mentioned  in  mediaeval  documents  as  the  beumont  or 
beau  mont.  It  was  surrounded  by  its  own  ditch.1  The 
bailey,  if  Speed's  map  is  correct,  was  triangular  in  shape. 
With  its  ditches  and  banks  the  castle  covered  6  acres, 
according  to  the  commissioners  who  reported  on  it  in 
Elizabeth's  reign  ;  but  the  inner  area  cannot  have  been 
more  than  4^  acres.  We  may  infer  from  the  sums 
spent  on  this  castle  by  Henry  II.,  that  he  was  the  first 
to  give  it  walls  and  towers  of  stone ;  the  Pipe  Rolls 
show  entries  to  the  amount  of  H5o/.  during  the  course 
of  his  reign  ;  the  work  of  the  walls  is  frequently  specified, 
and  stone  is  mentioned. 

Domesday  Book  does  not  inform  us  whether  the 
value  of  Winchester  had  risen  or  fallen  since  the 
Conquest. 

WINDSOR  (Fig.  38). — Here  we  have  another  of  the 
interesting  cases  in  which  the  geld  due  from  the  tenant 
of  a  manor  is  lessened  on  account  of  a  castle  having 
occupied  a  portion  of  the  land.2  The  Survey  tells  us 
that  the  castle  of  Windsor  sits  in  half  a  hide  belonging 
to  the  manor  of  Clewer,  which  had  become  William's 
property  as  part  of  the  spoils  of  Harold.  It  was  now 
held  of  the  king  by  a  Norman  tenant-in-chief,  but 
whereas  it  was  formerly  rated  as  five  hides  it  was  now 
(that  is,  probably,  since  the  castle  was  built)  rated  as 
four  and  a  half  hides.  Of  course  we  are  not  to  suppose 

1  Turner,  History  of  Domestic  Architecture.     He  cites  from  the  Liberate 
Roll^  35  Henry  II.,  an  order  for  the  repair  of  the  ditch  between  the  great 
tower  and  the  bailey. 

2  "  Radulfus  films  Seifrid  tenet  de  rege  Clivor.     Heraldus  comes  tenuit. 
Tune   se   defendebat  pro   5   hidis,   modo   pro   4^   hidis,   et  castellum   de 
Windesores  est  in  dimidia  hida."     D.  B.,  i.,  62b.     The  Abingdon  History 
also  mentions  the  foundation  of  Windsor  Castle  and  gives  some  interesting 
details  about  castle  guard.     "  Tune  Walingaforde  et  Oxenforde  et  Wildesore, 
caeterisque  locis,  castella  pro  regno  servando  compacta.     Unde  huic  abbatiac 
militum  excubias  apud  ipsum  Wildesore  oppidum  habendas  regis  imperio 
jussum."    II.,  3,  R.  S. 


[To  face  p.  236. 


WINDSOR  237 

that  the  castle  occupied  the  whole  half  hide,  which 
might  be  some  60  acres ;  but  it  extinguished  the 
liability  of  that  portion.  At  Windsor,  however,  we 
have  no  occasion  to  press  this  argument  as  a  proof  that 
the  castle  was  new,  since  it  is  well  established  that  the 
palace  of  the  Saxon  kings  was  at  least  2  miles  from  the 
present  castle  and  town,  in  the  village  long  known  as 
Old  Windsor,  which  fell  into  decay  as  the  town  of 
Windsor  sprang  up  under  the  Norman  castle.1  The 
manor  of  Windsor  was  given  by  Edward  the  Confessor 
to  the  convent  of  Westminster,  but  recovered  by  the 
Conqueror.2  But  as  the  Survey  shows  us,  he  did  not 
build  his  castle  in  the  manor  of  Windsor,  but  in  that  of 
Clewer.  He  built  it  for  a  hunting-seat,3  and  it  may 
have  been  for  the  purpose  of  recovering  forest  rights 
that  he  resumed  possession  of  Old  Windsor ;  but  he 
placed  his  castle  in  the  situation  which  he  thought  best 
for  defence.  For  even  a  hunting-seat  in  Norman 
times  was  virtually  a  castle,  as  many  other  instances 
show. 

It  is  needless  to  state  that  there  is  no  masonry  at 
Windsor  of  the  time  of  the  Conqueror,  or  even  of  the 
time  of  his  son  Henry  I.,  in  spite  of  the  statement  of 
Stowe  that  Henry  "new  builded  the  castle  of  Windsor." 
This  statement  may  perhaps  be  founded  on  a  passage 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  which  says  that  Henry 
held  his  court  for  the  first  time  in  the  New  Windsor  in 

1  Leland,  iv.,  i,  37.     See  also  Tighe's   Annals  of  Windsor,  pp.    1-6. 
Until  recently  there   was    a    farmhouse    surrounded   by  a   moat  at   Old 
Windsor,  which  was  believed  to  mark  the  site  of  Edward's  regia  domus. 

2  Edward's  grant  of  Windsor  to  Westminster  is  in  Cod.  Dip.,  iv.,  227. 
Domesday  does  not  mention  the  rights  of  the  church,  but  says  the  manor 
of  Windsor  was  held  of  the  crown  T.  R.  E.  and  T.  R.  W.     Camden  gives 
William's  charter  of  exchange  with  the  convent  of  Westminster.     Britannia, 
i.,  151. 

3  This  is  stated  in  the  charter  given  by  Camden. 


238      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

i  no.  Perhaps  the  Chronicle  here  refers  to  the  borough 
of  New  Windsor,  as  an  entry  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of 
Henry  I.  seems  to  show  that  he  was  the  first  to  enclose 
the  burgus  of  Windsor.1  For  it  is  probable  that  the 
first  stone  castle  at  Windsor  was  built  by  Henry  II., 
who  spent  ^1670  on  it  in  the  course  of  his  reign.  One 
of  his  first  acts  after  his  accession  was  an  exchange  of 
land  at  Windsor,  which  seems  to  have  been  for  the 
purpose  of  a  vineyard,  and  was  possibly  the  origin  of 
the  second  bailey.2  At  present  the  position  of  the 
motte  is  central  to  the  rest  of  the  castle,  but  this  is  so 
unusual  that  it  suggests  the  idea  that  the  upper  ward 
is  the  oldest,  and  that  the  motte  stood  on  its  outer  edge. 
Henry  II.  surrounded  the  castle  with  a  wall,  at  a  cost 
of  about  I28/.3  The  other  entries  in  the  Pipe  Rolls 
probably  refer  to  the  first  stone  shell  on  the  motte,  and 
there  is  little  doubt  that  the  present  Round  Tower, 
though  its  height  has  been  raised  in  modern  times,  and 
its  masonry  re-dressed  and  re-pointed  so  as  to  destroy 
all  appearance  of  antiquity,  is  in  the  main  of  Henry  II.'s 
building.  The  frequent  payments  for  stone  show  the 
nature  of  Henry's  work. 

Although  so  much  masonry  was  put  up  in  Henry  II.'s 
reign,  the  greater  part  of  what  is  now  visible  is  not 
older  than  the  time  of  Henry  III.  The  lower  bailey 
seems  to  have  been  enlarged  in  his  reign,  as  the  castle 

1  In  i  virgata  terrae  quam  Willelmus  fil.  Walteri  habet  in  escambio  pro 
terra  sua  quae  capta  est  ad  burgum.     P.  721. 

2  The  Red  Book  of  the  Exchequer,  which  contains  an  abstract  of  the 
missing  Pipe  Roll  of  i  Henry  II.,  has  an  entry  of  12s.  paid  to  Richard  de 
Clifwar  for  the  exchange  of  his  land,  and  regular  payments  are  made  later. 
There  was  another  enlargement  of  the  bailey  in  Henry  I  II.'s  reign,  but  the 
second  bailey  was  then  existing.     See  Close  Rolls,  i.,  53 ib. 

3  "In  operatione  muri  circa  castellum  n/.  los.  ^d.     Summa  denariorum 
quos  idem  Ricardus  [de  Luci]  misit  in  operatione  predicta  de  ballia  I28/. 
gs."    Pipe  Roll,  20  Henry  II.,  p.  116. 


WINDSOR— WISBEACH  239 

ditch  was  extended  towards  the  town,  and  compensation 
given  for  houses  taken  down.1  The  upper  (probably 
the  original)  ward  is  rectangular  in  shape,  and  with  the 
motte  and  its  ditches  covers  about  6J  acres.2  The  state 
apartments,  a  chapel,  and  the  Hall  of  St  George,  are  in 
the  upper  ward,  showing  that  this  was  the  site  of  the 
original  hall  and  chapel  of  the  castle.  The  charter  of 
agreement  between  Stephen  and  Henry  in  1153  speaks 
of  the  motte  of  Windsor  as  equivalent  to  the  castle.3 
Repairs  of  the  motte  are  mentioned  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of 
Henry  II.4 

The  value  of  the  manor  of  Clewer  had  fallen  since 
the  Conquest;  that  of  Windsor,  which  was  worth  \$l. 
T.  R.  E.,  but  after  the  Conquest  fell  to  7/.,  was  again 
worth  i5/.  at  the  date  of  the  Survey.5 

WISBEACH,  Cambridgeshire. — William  I.  built  a 
castle  here  in  1072,  after  suppressing  the  revolt  of 
Hereward,  in  order  to  hold  in  check  the  Cambridgeshire 
fen  country.6  There  is  an  early  mention  of  it  in  the 
Register  of  Thorney  Abbey.  This  castle,  after  being 
several  times  rebuilt,  is  now  completely  destroyed,  and 
"several  rows  of  elegant  houses  built  on  the  site." 
Nevertheless,  there  still  remain  distinct  traces  of  the 
motte-and-bailey  pattern  in  the  gardens  which  now 
occupy  the  site  of  the  original  castle  of  King  William  ; 
the  present  Crescent  probably  follows  the  line  of  the 

1  Tighe's  Annals  of  Windsor,  p.  21. 

2  There  is  a  singular  entry  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  7  Richard  I.,  "pro  fossato 
prosternando  quod  fuit   inter  motam   et  domos   regis,"  clearly  the  ditch 
between  the  motte  and  the  bailey.     Mr  Hope  informs  me  that  this  can  only 
refer  to  the  northern  part  of  the  ditch,  as  the  eastern  portion  was  only  filled 

up  in  1824.     Mr  Hope  thinks  that  the  castle  area  has  always  included  the      M      \J 
lower  bailey.     I  regret  that  Mr  Hope's  History  of  Windsor  Castle  did  not         (j  *" 
appear  in  time  to  be  used  in  this  work. 

3  Fcedera,  vol.  i.  *  Pipe  Rolls^  30  Henry  1 1. 

5  D.  B.,  i.,  62b,  2  ;  56b,  2.  6  Roger  of  Wendover,  in  anno. 


240      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

ditch.  The  meagre  indications  preserved  in  casual 
accounts  confirm  this.  There  was  an  inner  castle  of 
about  2  acres,  just  the  area  of  the  present  garden 
enclosure,  and  an  outer  court,  probably  an  addition,  of 
some  4  acres.1  Both  areas  were  moated.  Weston,  a 
prisoner  who  was  confined  in  the  keep  of  this  castle  in 
the  i;th  century,  has  left  an  account  of  his  captivity,  in 
which  he  casually  mentions  that  the  keep  or  dungeon 
stood  upon  a  high  terrace,  from  which  he  could  overlook 
the  outer  bailey,  and  was  surrounded  by  a  moat  filled 
with  water.2 

The  castle  is  not  mentioned  in  Domesday,  but  as 
might  be  expected  in  a  district  which  had  been  so 
ravaged  by  war,  the  value  of  the  manor  had  fallen. 

WORCESTER. — This  borough,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
fortified  by  Ethelfleda  and  her  husband  Ethelred  in  the 
9th  century.  That  the  fortifications  thus  erected  were 
those  of  a  city  and  not  of  a  castle  is  shown  with 
sufficient  clearness  by  the  remarkable  charter  of  this 
remarkable  pair,  in  which  they  declare  that  they  have 
built  the  burh  at  Worcester  to  shelter  all  the  people, 
and  the  churches,  and  the  bishop.8  The  castle  is  first 
mentioned  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  in  1088,  and 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  it  is  styled  the  king's  castle.  Urse 
d'Abitot,  the  Norman  sheriff  of  Worcester,  has  the 
credit  of  having  built  the  first  castle,  and  Malmesbury 
relates  that  he  seized  part  of  the  monks'  cemetery  for 
the  bailey.4  The  monks,  however,  held  on  to  their  right, 

1  Walter  and  Cradock's  History  of  Wisbeach,  pp.  270-278. 

2  Morris'  Troubles  of  our  Catholic  Forefathers,  p.  223.     This  keep  was 
one  built  by  Bishop  Morton  in  1471. 

3  Birch's  Cartularium,  ii.,  222. 

4  Ursus  erat  vicecomes  Wigorniae  a  rege  constitutus,  qui  in  ipsis  poene 
faucis  monachorum  castellum  construxit,  adeo  ut  fossatum  coemiterii  partem 
decideret.     Gesta  Pontif.,  p.  253. 


WORCESTER  241 

and  in  the  first  year  of  Henry  III.  the  bailey  was 
restored  to  them  by  the  guardians  of  the  young  king, 
the  motte  being  reserved  for  the  king's  use.1  The  first 
wooden  castle  was  burnt  in  ni3.2  The  tower  or  keep 
which  succeeded  it,  and  which  was  repaired  by  Henry 
II.,3  may  have  been  either  of  stone  or  wood  ;  but  in  the 
order  of  John,  that  the  gateway  of  the  castle,  which  is 
of  wood,  is  to  be  made  of  stone,  we  get  a  hint  of  the 
gradual  transformation  of  the  castle  from  a  wooden  to  a 
stone  fortress.4 

Worcester  Castle  was  outside  the  town,  from 
Speed's  map,  and  was  near  the  Severn.  The  area  now 
called  College  Green  was  no  doubt  the  outer  ward  of 
the  castle,  which  was  restored  to  the  convent  by  Henry 
III.  The  tower  called  Edgar's  Tower  was  built  by  the 
monks  as  the  gatehouse  to  their  newly  conceded  close.5 
From  the  map  given  by  Green,  this  outer  bailey  appears 
to  have  been  roughly  square ;  but  there  was  also  a  small 
oblong  inner  ward,  retained  by  the  king,  where  the  gaol 
was  afterwards  built.  The  area  of  the  castle  is  said 
to  have  been  between  3  and  4  acres.6  The  motte, 
which  is  mentioned  several  times  in  mediaeval  docu- 

1  "  Castrum  Wigornise  nobis  redditum  est,  tanquam  jus  noster,  usquam 
motam    turris."    Annales    de    Wigornia,   R.    S.,    p.    407.     "Rex  Johanni 
Marescallo  salutem :  Mandamus  vobis  quod  sine  dilatione  faciatis  habere 
venerabili  patri  nostro  domino  Wigorniensi  episcopo  ballium  castri  nostri 
Wigornise,   quod  est  jus  ecclesiae  suse ;  retenta  ad    opus  nostrum  mota 
ejusdem  castri."     Patent  Rolls,  I  Henry  III.,  p.  46. 

2  Annales  de  Wigornia,  p.  375. 

3  "  In   reparatione  turris  Wigornise  8/."    Red  Book  of  Exchequer,  ii., 
656. 

4  "  Precipimus  tibi  quod  per  visum  liberorum  et  legalium  hominum 
facias  parari  portam  castri  Wigornise,  quse  nunc  est  lignea,  lapideam,  et 
bonam  et  pulchram."    Rot.  de  Liberate,  p.  93,  1204. 

5  Green's  History  of  Worcester,  i.,  19. 

6  Allies'  Antiquities  of  Worcestershire,  p.  15.     His  words  strictly  apply 
to  "  the  lofty  mound  called  the  keep,  with  its  ditches,  etc.,"  but  probably  the 
whole  area  was  not  more  than  4  acres. 

Q 


242      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

ments,1  was  completely  levelled  in  1848;  it  was  then 
found  out  that  it  had  been  thrown  up  over  some 
previous  buildings,  which  were  believed  to  be  Roman, 
though  this  seems  doubtful.2 

The  value  of  Worcester  had  risen  since  the 
Conquest.3 

YORK  (Fig.  39). — William  the  Conqueror  built  two 
castles  at  York,  and  the  mottes  of  both  these  castles 
remain,  one  underneath  Clifford's  Tower,  the  keep  of 
York  Castle,  the  other,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Ouse, 
still  bearing  the  name  of  the  Baile  Hill,  or  the  Old 
Baile.4  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  implies,  though  it 
does  not  directly  state,  that  both  these  castles  were 
built  in  1068,  on  the  occasion  of  William's  first  visit  to 
York.  The  more  detailed  narrative  of  Ordericus  shows 
that  one  was  built  in  1068,  and  the  other  at  the 
beginning  of  1069,  on  William's  second  visit.5  Both 
were  destroyed  in  September  1069,  when  the  English 
and  Danes  captured  York,  and  both  were  rebuilt  before 
Christmas  of  the  same  year,  when  William  held  his 
triumphant  Christmas  feast  at  York. 

This  speedy  erection,  destruction,  and  re-erection  is 
enough  to  prove  that  the  castles  of  William  in  York 
were,  like  most  other  Norman  castles,  hills  of  earth  with 
buildings  and  stockades  of  wood,  especially  as  we  find 
these  hills  of  earth  still  remaining  on  the  known  sites  of 

1  See  the  documents  cited  by  Mr  Round  in  his  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville, 
Appendix  O,  and  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  1173.     "  In  reparatione  Mote  et  Gaiole 
de  Wirecestra,  ^35,  135.  8d." 

2  Gentleman's  Magazine,  i.,  36,  1834.     See  Haverfield,  "Romano-British 
Worcester,"  Victoria  County  History  of  Worcestershire,  vol.  i. 

'         3    D>  B>)  JM   I?2. 

4  It  is  needless  to  remark  that  baile  is  the  Norman  word  for  an  enclosure 
or  courtyard ;  Low  Latin  ballia;  sometimes  believed  to  be  derived  from 
baculus,  a  stick. 

6  Ordericus,  ii.,  188  (edition  Prevost). 


YORK  243 

the  castles.  And  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  the 
Norman  masonry,  which  Mr  Freeman  pictures  as  so 
eagerly  destroyed  by  the  English,  never  existed.1  But 
the  obstinate  tendency  of  the  human  mind  to  make 
things  out  older  than  they  are  has  led  to  these  earthen 
hills  being  assigned  to  Britons,  Romans,  Saxons,  Danes, 
anybody  rather  than  Normans.  A  single  passage  of 
William  of  Malmesbury,  in  which  he  refers  to  the 
castrum  which  the  Danes  had  built  at  York  in  the 
reign  of  Athelstan,  is  the  sole  vestige  of  basis  for  the 
theory  that  the  motte  of  Clifford's  Tower  is  of  Danish 
origin.2  The  other  theories  have  absolutely  no  founda- 
tion but  conjecture.  If  Malmesbury  was  quoting  from 
some  older  source  which  is  now  lost,  it  is  extremely 
probable  that  the  word  castrum  which  he  copied,  did 
not  mean  a  castle  in  our  sense  of  the  word  at  all,  but 
was  a  translation  of  the  word  burh,  which  almost 
certainly  referred  to  a  vallum  or  wall  constructed  round 
the  Danish  suburb  outside  the  walls  of  York.  Such  a 
suburb  there  was,  for  there  in  1055  stood  the  Danish 
church  of  St  Olave,  in  which  Earl  Siward  was  buried, 
and  the  suburb  was  long  known  as  the  Earlsburgh  or 
Earl's  Burh,  probably  because  it  contained  the  residence 
of  the  Danish  earls  of  Northumbria.3  This  suburb 

1  Norman  Conquest^  iv.,  270.     Mr  Freeman  has  worked  out  the  course 
of  events  connected  with  the  building  and  destruction  of  the  castles  with 
his  usual  lucidity.     But  he  never  grasped  the  real  significance  of  mottes, 
though  he  emphatically  maintained  that  the  native  English  did  not  build 
castles. 

2  "  Ethelstanus  castrum  quod  olim  Dani  in  Eboraco  obfirmaverant  ad 
solum  diruit,  ne  esset  quo  se  tutari  perfidia  posset."     Gesta  Regum^  ii.,  134. 

3  Widdrington,  Analecta  Eboracensia,  p.  120.     It  was  this  suburb  which 
Alan,  Earl  of  Richmond  gave  to  the  Abbey  of  St  Mary  at  York,  which  he 
had  founded.     "  Ecclesiam  sancti  Olavii  in  qua  capud  abbatise  in  honorem 
sanctae  Mariae  melius  constitutum  est,  et  burgum  in  quo  ecclesia  sita  est" 
Mon.  Ang.)  iii.,  547.     For  the  addition  of  new  boroughs  to  old  ones  see 
ante,  p.  174,  under  Norwich.    Although  Athelstan  destroyed  the  fortifications 


244      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

was  not  anywhere  near  Clifford's  Tower,  but  in  quite  a 
different  part  of  the  city.  To  prove  that  both  the 
mottes  were  on  entirely  new  sites,  we  have  the  assurance 
of  Domesday  Book  that  out  of  the  seven  shires  or  wards 
into  which  the  city  was  divided,  one  was  laid  waste  for 
the  castles  ;  so  that  there  was  clearly  a  great  destruction 
of  houses  to  make  room  for  the  new  castles.1 

What  has  been  assumed  above  receives  striking 
confirmation  from  excavations  made  recently  (1903)  in 
the  motte  of  Clifford's  Tower.  At  the  depth  of  13  feet 
were  found  remains  of  a  wooden  structure,  surmounted 
by  a  quantity  of  charred  wood.2  Now  the  accounts  of 
the  destruction  of  the  castles  in  1069  do  not  tell  us  that 
they  were  burned,  but  thrown  down  and  broken  to 
pieces.3  But  the  keep  which  was  restored  by  William, 
and  on  the  repair  of  which  Henry  II.  spent  I5/.  in 
1172,*  was  burnt  down  in  the  frightful  massacre  of  the 
Jews  at  York  Castle  in  H9O.5  The  excavations  dis- 
closed the  interesting  fact  that  this  castle  stood  on  a 
lower  motte  than  the  present  one,  and  that  when  the 
burnt  keep  was  replaced  by  a  new  one  the  motte  was 
raised  to  its  present  height,  "an  outer  crust  of  firmer 
and  more  clayey  material  being  made  round  the  older 


of  this  borough,  they  were  evidently  renewed  when  the  Danish  earls  took 
up  their  residence  there,  for  when  Earl  Alan  persuaded  the  monks  from 
Whitby  to  settle  there  one  inducement  which  he  offered  was  the  fortification 
of  the  site,  "loci  munitionem."  Mon.  Ang.,  iii.,  545. 

1  In  Eboraco  civitate  T.  R.  E.  praeter  scyram  archiepiscopi  fuerunt  6 
scyrae  ;  una  ex  his  est  wasta  in  castellis.     D.  B.,  i.,  298. 

2  Notes  on   Cliffords    Tower^  by   George   Benson    and   H.   Platnauer, 
published  by  the  York  Philosophical  Society. 

3  "Thone  castel  tobraecon  and   towurpan."     A. -S.  C.     See    Freeman, 
N.  C.,  iv.,  270, 

4  "In    operatione    turris    de    Euerwick,    I5/.    ys.    $d."    Pipe  Roll,  19 
Henry  II.,  vol.  xix.,  2.     We  assume  that  William's  second  keep  lasted  till 
Henry  II.'s  reign. 

6  Benedict  of  Peterborough,  ii.,  107. 


FIG.  39. 


[To  face  p.  244. 


YORK  245 

summit,  and  a  lighter  material  placed  inside  this  crater 
to  bring  it  up  to  the  necessary  level."  This  restoration 
must  have  taken  place  in  the  third  year  of  Richard  I., 
when  28/.  was  spent  "  on  the  work  of  the  castle."1 
This  small  sum  shows  that  the  new  keep  also  was  of 
wood  ;  and  remains  of  timber  work  were  in  fact  found 
on  the  top  of  the  motte  during  the  excavations,  though 
unfortunately  they  were  not  sufficiently  followed  up  to 
determine  whether  they  belonged  to  a  wooden  tower  or 
to  a  platform  intended  to  consolidate  the  motte.2  It  is 
extremely  likely  that  this  third  keep  was  blown  down  by 
the  high  wind  of  1228,  when  2s.  was  paid  "for  collecting 
the  timber  of  York  Castle  blown  down  by  the  wind."3 
In  its  place  arose  the  present  keep,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  achievements  of  the  reign  of  Henry  III.4 

1  "In    operatione    castri    287.     13^.    9^."      Pipe    Roll,    3    Richard    I. 
Under  the  year  1193,  after  relating  the  tragedy  of  the  Jews  at  York  Castle, 
Hoveden  says  :  "  Deinde  idem  cancellarius  [William  de  Longchamp]  tradidit 
Osberto  de  Lunchamp,  fratri  suo,  comitatum  Eboracensem  in  custodia,  et 
precepit  firmari  castellum  in  veteri  castellario  quod  Rex  Willelmus  Rufus 
ibi  construxerat."     III.,  34,  R.  S.     The  expression  vetus  castellarium  would 
lead  us  to  think  of  the  Old  Baile,  which  certainly  had  this  name  from  an 
early  period  ;    and   Hoveden,  being  a    Yorkshireman  as  well  as  a  very 
accurate  writer,  was  probably  aware  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
castles.     But  if  he  meant  the  Old  Baile,  then  both  the  castles  were  restored 
at  about  the  same  time.     "  Rufus  "  must  be  a  slip,  unless  there  was  some 
rebuilding  in  Rufus3  reign  of  which  we  do  not  know. 

2  Messrs   Benson   and   Platnauer   are    of   the  former  opinion.     "The 
existence  of  a  second  layer  of  timber  seems  to  show  that  the  fortification 
destroyed  was  rebuilt  in  wood."    Notes  on  Cliffords  Tower^  p.  2. 

3  "  Pro  mairemio  castri    Ebor.  prostrato   per  ventum   colligendo,  2s." 
Pipe  Roll^  19  Henry  III.     It  is,  of  course,  a  conjecture  that  this  accident 
happened  to  the  keep  ;  but  the  keep  would  be  the  part  most  exposed  to  the 
wind,  and  the  scattering  of  the  timber,  so  that  it  had  to  be  collected,  is  just 
what  would  happen  if  a  timber  structure  were  blown  off  a  motte. 

4  As  the  writer  was  the  first  to  publish  this  statement,  it  will  be  well  to 
give  the  evidence  on  which  it  rests.     The  keep  of  York  is  clearly  Early 
English  in  style,  and  of  an  early  phase  of  the  style.     It  is,  however,  evident 
to  every  one  who  has  carefully   compared  our  dated  keeps,   that  castle 
architecture  always  lags  behind  church  architecture  in  style-development, 
and  must  be  judged  by  different   standards.     We  should    therefore    be 


246      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

The  old  ground-plan  of  the  square  Norman  keep  was 
now  abandoned,  and  replaced  by  a  quatrefoil.  The 
work  occupied  thirteen  years,  from  the  3Oth  to 
the  43rd  Henry  III.,  and  the  total  sum  expended 
was  19277.  8s.  7^.,  equal  to  about  40,000^  of  our 
money.  This  remarkable  fact  has  slumbered  in  the 
unpublished  Pipe  Rolls  for  700  years,  never  having 
been  unearthed  by  any  of  the  numerous  historians  of 
York. 

The  keep  was  probably  the  first  work  in  stone  at 
York  Castle,  and  for  a  long  time  it  was  probably  the 
only  defensive  masonry.  The  banks  certainly  had  only 
a  wooden  stockade  in  the  early  part  of  Henry  III.'s 
reign,  as  timber  from  the  forest  of  Galtres  was  ordered 
for  the  repair  of  breaches  in  ti\e palicium  in  I225.1  As 
late  as  Edward  II.'s  reign  there  was  a  pelum,  or 
stockade,  round  the  keep,  on  top  of  a  murus,  which  was 

prepared  to  find  this  and  most  other  keeps  to  be  of  later  date  than  their 
architecture  would  suggest.  Moreover,  the  expenditure  entered  to  York 
Castle  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  II.,  Richard  I.,  and  John,  is  quite  insufficient 
to  cover  the  cost  of  a  stone  keep.  The  Pipe  Rolls  of  Henry  I  II.'s  reign 
decide  the  matter,  as  they  show  the  sums  which  he  expended  annually  on 
this  castle.  It  is  true  they  never  mention  the  turris,  but  always  the 
castrum;  we  must  also  admit  that  the  turris  and  castrum  are  often  distin- 
guished in  the  writs,  even  as  late  as  Edward  I  II.'s  reign.  (Close  Rolls, 
J334-)  On  the  other  hand  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  Pipe  Rolls 
proves  that  though  the  mediaeval  scribe  may  have  an  occasional  fit  of 
accuracy,  he  is  generally  very  loose  in  his  use  of  words,  and  his  dis- 
.  tinctions  must  never  be  pressed.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  Orford, 
where  the  word  used  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  is  always  castellum,  but  it  cer- 
.  _  tainly  refers  to  the  keep,  as  there  are  no  other  buildings  at  Orford.  Other 
instances  might  be  given  in  which  the  word  castellum  clearly  applies  to 
the  keep.  It  should  be  mentioned  that  in  1204  John  gave  an  order  for 
stone  for  the  castle  (Close  Rolls,  i.,  4b),  but  the  amounts  on  the  bill  for 
it  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  show  that  it  was  not  used  for  any  extensive  building 
operations. 

1  "  Mandatum  est  Galterio  de  Cumpton  forestario  de  Gauteris  quod  ad 
pontem  et  domos  castri  Eboraci  et  breccas  palicii  ejusdem  castri  reparandos 
et  emendandos  Vicecomitem  Eboraci  masremium  habere  faciat  in  foresta  de 
Gauteris  per  visum,  etc."  Close  Rolls,  ii.,  6ib. 


YORK  247 

undoubtedly  an  earthen  bank.1  At  present  the  keep 
occupies  the  whole  top  of  the  motte  except  a  small 
chemin  de  ronde,  but  the  fact  so  frequently  alluded  to  in 
the  writs,  that  a  stockade  ran  round  the  keep,  proves 
that  a  small  courtyard  existed  there  formerly,  as  was 
usually  the  case  with  important  keeps.  Another  writ  of 
Edward  II.'s  reign  shows  that  the  motte  was  liable  to 
injury  from  the  floods  of  the  River  Fosse,2  and  probably 
its  size  has  thus  been  reduced. 

The  present  bailey  of  York  Castle  does  not  follow  the 
lines  of  the  original  one,  but  is  an  enlargement  made  in 
1825.  A  plan  made  in  1750,  and  reproduced  here, 
shows  that  the  motte  was  surrounded  by  its  own  ditch, 
which  is  now  filled  up,  and  that  the  bailey,  around 
which  a  branch  of  the  Fosse  was  carried,  was  of  the 
very  common  bean-shaped  form  ;  it  was  about  3  acres 
in  extent.  The  motte  and  bailey  were  both  considerably 
outside  what  is  believed  to  have  been  the  Anglo-Saxon 
rampart  of  York,3  but  the  motte  was  so  placed  as  to 
overlook  the  city. 

The  value  of  the  city  of  York,  in  spite  of  the  sieges 
and  sacks  which  it  had  undergone,  and  in  spite  of  there 
being  540  houses  "so  empty  that  they  pay  nothing  at 
all,"  had  risen  at  the  date  of  the  Survey  from  53/.  in 
King  Edward's  time  to  ioo/.  in  King  William's.4  This 
extraordinary  rise  in  value  can  only  be  attributed  to 

1  Order  to  expend  up  to  6  marks  in  repairing  the  wooden  peel  about  the 
keep  of  York  Castle,  which  peel  is  now  fallen  down.     Cal.  of  Close  Rolls,  17 
Edward  II.,  25. 

2  Cal.  of  Close  Rolls,  1313-1318,  262.     Mota  is  wrongly  translated  moat. 

3  See  Mr  Cooper's  York :  The  Story  of  its  Walls  and  Castles.     During 
Messrs  Benson  and  Platnauer's  excavations,  a  prehistoric  crouching  burial 
was  found  in  the  ground  below  the  motte,  4  feet  6  inches  under  the  present 
level.     This  raises  the  question  whether  William  utilised  an  existing  pre- 
historic barrow  for  the  nucleus  of  his  motte, 

4  D,  B.,  i.,  2983. 


248      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

increased  trade  and  increased  exactions,  the  former 
being  promoted  by  the  greater  security  given  to  the 
roads  by  the  castles,  the  latter  due  to  the  tolls  on  the 
high-roads  and  waterways,  which  belonged  to  the  king, 
and  the  various  " customs"  belonging  to  the  castles, 
which,  though  new,  were  henceforth  equally  part  of  his 
rights. 

THE  BAILE  HILL,  York  (Fig.  39). — There  can  be 
no  doubt  whatever  that  this  still  existing  motte  was  the 
site  of  one  of  William's  castles  at  York,  and  it  is  even 
probable  that  it  was  the  older  of  the  two,  as  Mr  Cooper 
conjectures  from  its  position  on  the  south  side  of  the 
river.1  The  castle  bore  the  name  of  the  Old  Baile  at 
least  as  early  as  the  i4th  century,  perhaps  even  in  the 
1 2th.2  In  1326  a  dispute  arose  between  the  citizens  of 
York  and  Archbishop  William  de  Melton  as  to  which 
of  them  ought  to  repair  the  wall  around  the  Old  Baile. 
The  mayor  alleged  that  the  district  was  under  the 
express  jurisdiction  of  the  archbishop,  exempt  from  that 
of  the  city  ;  the  archbishop  pleaded  that  it  stood  within 
the  ditches  of  the  city.8  The  meaning  of  this  dispute 
can  only  be  understood  in  the  light  of  facts  which  have 
recently  been  unearthed  by  the  industry  and  observation 
of  Mr  T.  P.  Cooper,  of  York.4  The  Old  Baile,  like  so 
many  of  William's  castles,  originally  stood  outside  the 
ramparts  of  the  city.  The  original  Roman  walls  of 
York  (it  is  believed)  enclosed  only  a  small  space  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  Ouse,  and  before  the  Norman 

1  York:  The  Story  of  its  Walls  and  Castles,  by  T.  P.  Cooper,  p.  222. 

2  See  the  passage  from  Hoveden  already  quoted,  ante,  p.  245. 

3  Drake's  Eboracum,  App.  xliv. 

4  See  Mr  Cooper's    York:  The  Story  of  its   Walls  and  Castles,  which 
contains  a  mass  of  new  material  from  documentary  sources,  and  sheds  quite 
unexpected  light  on  the  history  of  the  York  fortifications.     I  am  indebted  to 
Mr  Cooper's  courtesy  for  some  of  the  extracts  cited  above  relating  to  York 
Castle. 


YORK:  THE  BAILE  HILL  249 

Conquest  the  city  had  far  outgrown  these  bounds,  and 
therefore  had  been  enlarged  in  Anglo-Saxon  times.  It 
appears  that  the  Micklegate  suburb  was  then  for  the 
first  time  enclosed  with  a  wall,  and  as  this  district  is 
spoken  of  in  Domesday  Book  as  "the  shire  of  the 
archbishop,"  it  was  evidently  under  his  jurisdiction. 
At  a  later  period  this  wall  was  buried  in  an  earthen 
bank,  which  probably  carried  a  palisade  on  top,  until  the 
palisade  was  replaced  by  stone  walls  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  III.1 

The  evidence  of  the  actual  remains  renders  it  more 
than  probable  that  this  rampart  turned  towards  the 
river  at  a  point  500  feet  short  of  its  present  angle,  so  that 
the  Old  Baile,  when  first  built,  was  quite  outside  the 
city  walls.2  This  is  exactly  how  we  should  expect  to 
find  a  castle  of  William  the  Norman's  in  relation  to  one 
of  the  most  turbulent  cities  of  the  realm  ;  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  other  castle  at  York  was  similarly  placed. 
By  the  time  of  Archbishop  Melton  the  south-western 
suburb  was  already  enclosed  in  the  new  stone  walls 
built  in  the  I3th  century,  and  these  walls  had  been 
carried  along  the  west  and  south  banks  of  the  Old  Baile, 
so  as  to  enclose  that  castle  within  the  city.  This  was 
the  archbishop's  pretext  for  trying  to  lay  upon  the 
citizens  the  duty  of  maintaining  the  Old  Baile.  But 
probably  on  account  of  his  ancient  authority  in  this  part 
of  the  city,  the  cause  went  against  him  ;  though  he 

1  Cooper's   York,  chapters  ii.  and  iv.     ioo/.  was  spent  by  the  sheriff  in 
fortifying  the  walls  of  York  in  the  sixth  year  of  Henry  III.     After  this  there 
are  repeated  grants  for  murage  in  the  same  and  the  following  reign.     There 
are  some  Early  English  buttresses  in  the  walls,  but  the  majority  are  later. 
No  part  of  the  walls  contains  Norman  work. 

2  The  details  of  this  evidence,  which  consist  mainly  in  (i)  a  structural 
difference   in   the    extended   rampart ;    (2)    a   subsidence    in    the    ground 
marking  the  old  line  of  the  city  ditch,  will  be  found  in  Mr  Cooper's  work, 
p.  224. 


250      CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMANS  IN  ENGLAND 

stipulated  that  whatever  he  did  in  the  way  of  fortifica- 
tion was  of  his  own  option,  and  was  not  to  be  accounted 
a  precedent.  A  contemporary  chronicler  says  that  he 
enclosed  the  Old  Baile  first  with  stout  planks  18  feet 
long,  afterwards  with  a  stone  wall : 1  an  interesting  proof 
that  wooden  fortifications  were  still  used  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  III. 

Though  the  base  court  of  the  Old  Baile  is  now  built 
over,  its  area  and  ditches  were  visible  in  Leland's  time,2 
and  can  still  be  guessed  at  by  the  indications  Mr  Cooper 
has  noted.  The  area  of  the  bailey  must  have  been 
nearly  3  acres,  and  its  shape  nearly  square.  This 
measurement  includes  the  motte,  which  was  placed  in 
the  south-west  corner  on  the  line  of  the  banks ;  it 
thus  overlooked  the  river  as  well  as  the  city.3 

1  "  Locum  in  Eboraco  qui  dicitur  Vetus  Ballium,  primo  spissis  et  longis 
1 8  pedum  tabulis,  secundo  lapideo  muro  fortiter  includebat."    T.  Stubbs,  in 
Raine's  Historians  of  the  Church  of  York,  ii.,  417,  R.  S. 

2  "The  plotte  of  this  castelle  is  now  caullid  the  Olde  Baile,  and  the 
area  and  diches  of  it  do  manifestley  appere."    ltin.t  i.,  60. 

3  See  the  plan  in  Mr  Cooper's  York,  p.  217. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

MOTTE-CASTLES    IN    NORTH    WALES 

MOTTE-CASTLES  are  as  common  in  Wales  as  they  are  in 
England,  and  in  certain  districts  much  more  common. 
It  is  now  our  task  to  show  how  they  got  there.  They 
were  certainly  not  built  (in  the  first  instance  at  any  rate) 
by  the  native  inhabitants,  for  they  do  not  correspond  to 
what  we  know  to  have  been  the  state  of  society  in  Wales 
during  the  Anglo-Saxon  period.1  The  Welsh  were  then 
in  the  tribal  condition,  a  condition,  as  we  have  shown, 
inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  the  private  castle. 
The  residence  of  the  king  or  chieftain,  as  we  know 
from  the  Welsh  Laws,  was  a  great  hall,  such  as  seems 
to  have  been  the  type  of  chieftains'  residence  among  all 
the  northern  nations  at  that  time.  "  It  was  adapted  for 
the  joint  occupation  of  a  number  of  tribesmen  living 
together."2 

Pennant  describes  the  residence  of  Ednowen,  a 
Welsh  chieftain  of  the  i2th  century,  as  follows:  "The 
remains  are  about  30  yards  square  ;  the  entrance  about 
7  feet  wide,  with  a  large  upright  stone  on  each  side  for 
a  doorcase ;  the  walls  were  formed  of  large  stones 
uncemented  by  any  mortar  ;  in  short  the  structure  shows 

1  "  In  the  Wales  of  the  Laws,  the  social  system  is  tribal."    Owen  Edwards, 
Wales,  p.  39. 

2  Vinogradoff,  Growth  of  the  Manor^  pp.  15-16. 

251 


252  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

the  very  low  state  of  Welsh  architecture  at  this  time ; 
it  may  be  paralleled  only  by  the  artless  fabric  of  a 
cattle-house."  This  certainly  is  a  hall  and  not  .  a 
castle. 

The  so-called  Dimetian  Code  indeed  tells  us  that  the 
king  is  to  have  a  man  and  a  horse  from  every  hamlet, 
with  hatchets  for  constructing  his  castles  (gestyll)  at 
the  king's  cost ;  but  the  Venedotian  Code,  which  is  the 
older  MS.,  says  that  these  hatchet-men  are  to  form 
encampments  (uuesten) ;  that  is,  they  are  to  cut  down 
trees  and  form  either  stockades  on  banks  or  rude  zerebas 
for  the  protection  of  the  host.2  It  is  clearly  laid  down 
in  the  Codes  what  buildings  the  king's  villeins  are  to 
erect  for  him  at  his  residences  :  a  hall,  buttery,  kitchen, 
dormitory,  stable,  dog-house,  and  little  house.8  In  none 
of  these  lists  is  anything  mentioned  which  has  the 
smallest  resemblance  to  a  castle,  not  even  a  tower.  We 
can  imagine  that  these  buildings  were  enclosed  in  an 
earthwork  or  stockade,  but  it  is  not  mentioned.4 

Wales  was  never  one  state,  except  for  very  short 
periods.  Normally  it  was  divided  into  three  states, 
Gwynedd  or  North  Wales,  iPowys  or  Mid- Wales,  and 
Deheubarth,  all  almost  incessantly  at  war  with  each 

1  Pennant's  Tour  in  Wales,  Rhys'  edition,  ii.,  234. 

2  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales,  pp.  238,  94.     The  MS.  of  the 
Leges  Wallicce  is  not  earlier  than  the  I3th  century.     The  other  editions  of 
the  Laws  are  even  later.     See  Wade  Evans,  Welsh  Mediceval  Law,  for  the 
most  recent  criticism  of  the  Laws  of  Howel  Dda. 

3  The  Leges  Wallicce  say  :  "  Villani  regis  debent  facere  novem  domos 
ad    opus  regis  ;    scilicet,   aulam,   cameram,    coquinam,   penu    (capellam), 
stabulum,    kynorty    (stabulum    canum),    horreum,    odyn     (siccarium)    et 
latrinam."     P.  791. 

4  The  word  Din  or  Dinas,  so  often  used  for  a  fort  in  Wales,  is  cognate 
with  the  German  Zaun,  Anglo-Saxon   tun,   and  means  a  fenced  place. 
Neither  it  nor  the  Irish  form  dun  have  any  connection  with  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  dun,  a  hill.     See  J.  E.  Lloyd,  Welsh  Place-names,  "  Y  Cymmrodor," 
xi.,  24. 


WALES  AND  THE  SAXONS 


253 


other.1  Other  subdivisions  asserted  themselves  as 
opportunity  offered,  so  that  the  above  rough  division 
into  provinces  must  not  be  regarded  as  always  accurate. 
A  Wales  thus  divided,  and  perpetually  rent  by  internal 
conflicts,  invited  the  aggression  of  the  Saxons,  and  it 
is  probable  that  the  complete  subjugation  of  Britain 
would  have  been  accomplished  by  the  descendants  of 
Alfred,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  Danish  invasions. 
The  position  of  the  Welsh  kings  after  the  time  of 
Athelstan  seems  to  have  been  that  of  tributaries,  who 
threw  off  their  allegiance  whenever  it  was  possible  to  do 
so.  But  still  the  Anglo-Saxon  frontier  continued  to 
advance.  Professor  Lloyd  has  shown,  from  a  careful 
examination  of  Domesday  Book,  that  even  before  the 
Norman  Conquest  the  English  held  the  greater  part]  of 
what  is  now  Flintshire  and  East  Denbighshire,  and 
were  advancing  into  the  vale  of  Montgomery  and  the 
Radnor  district.2  "The  victories  of  Griffith  ap  Llywelyn, 
an  able  prince  who  succeeded  in  bringing  all  Wales 
under  his  sway,  devastated  these  English  colonies  ;  but 
his  defeat  by  Earl  Harold  in-  1063  restored  the  English 
ascendancy  over  these  regions.  The  unimpeachable 
evidence  of  Domesday  Book  shows  that  a  considerable 
district  in  North  Wales  and  a  portion  of  Radnor  were 
held  respectively  by  Earl  Edwin  and  Earl  Harold  before 
the  Norman  Conquest.  Moreover,  the  fact  mentioned 
by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  in  1065,  that  Harold  was 
building  a  hunting-seat  for  King  Edward  at  Portskewet, 
after  he  had  subdued  it,  suggests  that  the  land  between 
Wye  and  Usk,  which  Domesday  Book  reckons  under 
Gloucestershire,  was  a  conquest  of  Harold's.3 

1  It  is  doubtful  whether  Deheubarth  ever  included  the  small  independent 
states  of  Gwent,  Brecknock,  and  Glamorgan. 

2  "  Wales  and  the  Coming  of  the  Normans,"  Cymmrodorion  Trans.,  1899 

3  There  is  an  earthwork  near  Portskewet,  a  semicircular  cliff  camp  with 


254  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

The  Norman  Conqueror  was  not  the  man  to  slacken 
his  hold  on  any  territory  which  had  been  won  by  the 
J  I  Saxons.  But  there  is  no  succinct  history  of  his 
conquests  in  Wales  ;  we  have  to  make  it  out,  in  most 
cases,  from  notices  that  are  scarcely  more  than  allusive, 
and  from  the  surer,  though  scanty,  ground  of  documents. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  is  so 
hostile  to  the  Norman  kings  that  it  discounts  their 
successes  in  Wales.  ;  Thus  we  have  only  the  briefest 
notice  of  William  I.'s  invasion  of  South  Wales,  which 
was  very  probably  the  beginning  of  the  conquest  of 
that  region;  and  several  expeditions  of  William  II.  are 
spoken  of  as  entirely  futile,  though  as  we  are  told  that  the 
existing  castles  were  still  held  by  the  Normans,  or  new 
ones  were  built,  it  is  clear  that  this  summing-up  is  not 
strictly  correct.1  Our  Welsh  authorities,  the  Annales 
Cambrics  and  the  Brut  y  Tywysogion?  seem  to  give  a 
fairly  candid  account  of  the  period,  although  the  dates 
in  the  Brut  are  for  the  most  part  wrong  (sometimes  by 
three  years),  and  they  hardly  ever  give  us  a  view  of  the 
situation  as  a  whole.  They  tell  us  when  the  Welsh 
rushed  down  and  burnt  the  castles  built  by  the  Normans 

three  ramparts  and  two  ditches.  It  is  scarcely  likely  that  this  can  be 
Harold's  work,  as  Roman  bricks  are  said  to  have  been  found  there. 
Willet's  Monmouthshire,  p.  244.  Athelstan  had  made  the  Wye  the  frontier 
of  Wales.  Malmesbury,  ii.,  134. 

1  See  A.-S.  C.,  anno   1097,  and  compare  the  entry  for  1096  with  the 
account  in  the  Brut  for  1093,  which  shows  that  the  Norman  castles  had 
been  restored,  after  being  for  the  most  part  demolished  by  the  Welsh. 

2  The  Brut  y  Tywysogion,  or  Story  of  the  Princes,  exists  in  no  MS. 
older  than  the   I4th  century.     It  and  the  Annales  Cambria  have  been 
disgracefully  edited  for  the  Rolls  Series,  and  the  topographical  student  will 
find  no  help  from  these  editions.     See  Mr  Phillimore's  criticism  of  them,  in 
Y  Cymmrodor,  vol.  xi.     The  Aberpergwm  MS.  of  the  Brut,  known  also 
as  the  Gwentian  Chronicle,  has  been  printed  in  the  Archccologia  Cambrensis 
for  1864  ;  it  contains  a  great  deal  of  additional   information,  but  as  Mr 
Phillimore  observes,  so  much  of  it  is  forgery  that  none  of  it  can  be  trusted 
when  unsupported.        .  ^ 


WALES  AND  THE  NORMANS  255 

in  the  conquered  districts,  but  do  not  always  tell  when 
the  Norman  recovered  and  rebuilt  them. 

Fortunately  we  are  not  called  upon  here  to  trace  the 
history  of  the  cruel  and  barbarous  warfare  between 
Normans  and  Welsh.  No  one  can  turn  that  blood- 
stained page  without  wishing  that  the  final  conquest 
had  come  two  hundred  years  earlier,  to  put  an  end 
to  the  tragedy  of  suffering  which  must  have  been  so 
largely  the  portion  of  the  dwellers  in  Wales  and  the 
Marches  after  the  coming  of  the  Normans.1  Our 
business  with  both  Welsh  and  Normans  is  purely 
archaeological.  We  hold  no  brief  for  the  Normans,  nor 
does  it  matter  to  us  whether  they  kept  their  hold  on 
Wales  or  were  driven  out  by  the  Welsh ;  our  concern 
is  with  facts,  and  the  solid  facts  with  which  we  have 
to  deal  are  the  castles  whose  remains  still  exist  in 
Wales,  and  whose  significance  we  have  to  interpret. 

"  Wales  was  under  his  sway,  and  he  built  castles 
therein,"  says  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  in  summing 
up  the  reign  of  the  Conqueror;  a  passage  which  is 
scarcely  consistent  with  its  previous  almost  complete 
silence  about  events  in  Wales.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  William  aimed  at  a  complete  conquest  of 
Wales,  and  that  the  policy  he  adopted  was  the  creation 
of  great  earldoms  along  the  Welsh  border,  endowed  with 
special  privileges,  one  of  which  was  the  right  of  conquer- 
ing whatever  they  could  from  the  Welsh.2  To  these 
earldoms  he  appointed  some  of  his  strongest  men,  men 

1  The  barbarity  on  both  sides  was  frightful,  but  in  the  case  of  the  Welsh, 
it  was  often  their  own  countrymen,  and  even  near  relations,  who  were  the 
victims.     And  so  little  patriotism  existed  then  in  Wales  that  the  Normans 
could  always  find  allies  amongst  some  of  the  Welsh  chieftains.     Patriotism, 
however,  is  a  virtue  of  more  recent  growth  than  the  nth  century. 

2  There  is,  however,  no  contemporary  evidence  for  the  existence  of  the 
Marcher  lordships  before  the  end  of  the  i2th  century.     See  Duckett  "On 
the  Marches  of  Wales,"  Arch.  Camb.>  1881. 


256  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

little  troubled  by  scruples  of  justice  or  mercy,  but 
capable  leaders  in  war  or  diplomacy.  It  was  an  essential 
part  of  the  plan  that  every  conquest  should  be  secured 
by  the  building  of  castles,  just  as  had  been  done  in 
England.  And  we  have  now  to  trace  very  briefly  the 
outline  of  Norman  conquest  in  Wales  by  the  castles 
which  they  have  left  behind  them. 

We  shall  confine  ourselves  to  those  castles  which  are 
mentioned  in  the  Brut  y  Tywysogion,  the  Pipe  Rolls,  or 
other  trustworthy  documents  between  1066  and  1216, 
the  end  of  King  John's  reign.  Of  many  of  these  castles 
only  the  earthworks  remain  ;  of  many  others  the  original 
plan,  exactly  similar  to  that  of  the  early  castles  of 
Normandy  and  France,  is  still  to  be  traced,  though  masked 
by  the  masonry  of  a  later  age.  Grose  remarked  but 
could  not  explain  the  fact  that  we  continually  read  of 
the  castles  of  the  Marches  being  burnt  and  utterly 
destroyed,  and  a  few  months  later  we  find  them  again 
standing  and  in  working  order.  This  can  only,  but 
easily,  be  explained  when  we  understand  that  they  were 
wooden  castles  built  on  mottes,  quickly  restored  after 
a  complete  destruction  of  the  wooden  buildings. 

North  Wales  appears  to  have  been  the  earliest 
conquest  of  the  Normans,  though  not  the  most  lasting. 
North  Wales  comprised  the  Welsh  kingdoms  of 
Gwynedd  and  Powys.  Gwynedd  covered  the  present 
shires  of  Anglesea,  Carnarvon,  and  Merioneth,  and 
the  mountainous  districts  round  Snowdon.1  Powys 
stretched  from  the  estuary  of  the  Dee  to  the  upper 
course  of  the  Wye,  and  roughly  included  Flint,  Denbigh, 
Montgomery,  and  Radnor  shires.  Hugh  of  Avranches, 
Earl  of  Chester,  was  the  great  instrument  of  Norman 

1  The  districts  of  Cyfeiliog  and  Arwystli,  in  the  centre  of  Wales,  were 
also  reckoned  in  Gwynedd. 


NORMAN  ADVANCE  IN  NORTH  WALES         257 

conquest  in  Gwynedd,  and  in  the  northern  part  of 
Powys,  which  lay  so  near  his  own  dominions.  He  was 
evidently  a  man  in  whose  ability  William  had  great 
confidence,  as  he  removed  him  from  Tutbury  to  the 
more  difficult  and  dangerous  position  of  Chester,  and 
gave  his  earldom  palatine  privileges;  all  the  land  in 
Cheshire  was  held  under  the  earl,  and  he  was  a  sort 
of  little  king  in  his  county. 

Hugh  appears  to  have  at  once  commenced  the 
conquest  of  North  Wales.  As  Professor  Lloyd  remarks, 
Domesday  Book  shows  us  Deganwy  as  the  most 
advanced  Norman  post  on  the  North  Welsh  coast, 
while  on  the  Bristol  Channel  they  had  got  no  further 
than  Caerleon.1  In  advancing  to  the  valley  of  the 
Clwyd  and  building  a  castle  at  Rhuddlan,  the  Normans 
were  only  securing  the  district  which  had  already  been 
conquered  by  Harold  in  1063,  when  he  burnt  the  hall 
of  King  Griffith  at  Rhuddlan.  Nearly  the  whole  of 
Flintshire  (its  manors  are  enumerated  by  Domesday 
Book  under  Cheshire)  was  held  by  Earl  Hugh  in  1086, 
so  that  he  commanded  the  entire  road  from  Chester  to 
Rhuddlan.  His  powerful  vassal,  Robert  of  Rhuddlan, 
who  became  the  terror  of  North  Wales,  besides  the 
lands  which  he  held  of  Earl  Hugh,  held  also  directly 
of  the  Kingy  Rhos  and  Rhufeniog,  districts  which 
roughly  correspond  to  the  modern  shire  of  Denbigh, 
and  "Nort  Wales"  which  Professor  Lloyd  takes  to 
mean  the  remainder  of  the  principality  of  Gwynedd, 
from  which  the  rightful  ruler,  Griffith  ap  Cynan,  had 
been  driven  as  an  exile  to  Ireland. 

It  does  not  appear  that  there  was  any  fortification 
at  RHUDDLAN2  before  the  " castle  newly  Erected"  by 

1  "Wales  and  the  Coming  of  the  Normans,"  Cymmrodorion  Trans.,  1899. 

2  In  the  descriptions  of  castles  in  this  chapter,  those  which  have  not 

R 


258  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

Earl  Hugh  and  his  vassal  Robert.  They  shared 
between  them  the  castle  and  the  new  borough  which  was 
built  near  it.1  One  word  about  this  new  borough, 
which  will  apply  to  the  other  boroughs  planted  by 
Norman  castles.  There  were  no  towns  in  Wales  of 
any  importance  before  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  this 
civilising  institution  of  the  borough  is  the  one  great 
set-off  to  the  cruelty  and  unrighteousness  of  the 
conquest.^  Mills,  markets,  ancT  trade  arose  where  castles 
were  seated,  and  civilisation  followed  in  their  train. 

The  castle  of  Hugh  and  Robert  was  not  the 
magnificent  building  which  still  stands  at  Rhuddlan, 
for  that  is  entirely  the  work  of  Edward  I.,  and  there 
is  documentary  evidence  that  Edward  made  a  purchase 
of  new  land  for  the  site  of  his  castle.2  More  probably 
Robert  and  Hugh  had  a  wooden  castle  on  the  now 
reduced  motte  which  may  be  seen  to  the  south  of 
Edward's  castle.  In  Cough's  time  this  motte  was  still 
"  surrounded  with  a  very  deep  ditch,  including  the 
abbey."  Nothing  can  be  seen  of  this  ditch  now,  except 
on  the  south  side  of  the  motte,  where  a  deep  ravine  runs 
up  from  the  river.  As  from  Cough's  description  the 

been  specially  visited  for  this  work  are  marked  with  an  asterisk.  Those 
which  have  been  visited  by  others  than  the  writer  are  marked  with  initials  : 
D.  H.  M.  being  Mr  D.  H.  Montgomerie,  F.S.A. ;  B.  T.  S.,  Mr  Basil  T. 
Stallybrass  ;  and  H.  W.,  the  Rev.  Herbert  White,  M.A.  This  plan  will  be 
followed  in  the  three  succeeding  chapters. 

1  "  Hugo  comes  tenet  de  rege  Roelent  (Rhuddlan).     Ibi  T.  R.  E.  jacebat 
Englefield,  et  tota  erat  wasta.     Edwinus  comes  tenebat.     Quando  Hugo 
comes  recipit  similiter  erat  wasta.     Modo  habet  in  dominio  medietatem 
castelli  quod  Roelent  vocatur,  et  caput  est  hujus  terrae.  .  .  .  Robertus  de 
Roelent  tenet  de  Hugone  comite  medietatem  ejusdem  castelli  et  burgi,  in 
quo  habet  ipse  Robertus  10  burgenses  et  medietatem  ecclesiae.     Ibi  est 
novus  burgus  et  in  eo  10  burgenses.  ...  In  ipso  manerio  est  factum  noviter 
castellum  similiter  Roeland  appellatum."     D.  B.,  i.,  269a,  i. 

2  Ayloffe's  Rotuli  Wallice,  p.  75.     "De  providendo  indempnitati  magistri 
Ricardi  Bernard,  Personae  Ecclesiae  de  Rothelan3,  in  recompensionem  terrse 
suse  occupatae  ad  placeam  castri  de  Rothelan'  elargandam." 


RHUDDLAN— DEGANWY  259 

hillock  (called  Tut  Hill)1  was  within  the  precincts  of 
the  priory  of  Black  Friars,  founded  in  the  I3th  century, 
it  is  extremely  probable  that  Edward  gave  the  site  of  the 
old  castle  to  the  Dominicans  when  he  built  his  new  one.2 

Another  of  the  castles  of  Robert  of  Rhuddlan  was  f  y 
DEGANWY,  or  Gannoc,  which  defended  the  mouth  of  the 
Conway.3  Here  it  is  said  that  there  was  an  ancient 
seat  of  the  kings  of  Gwynedd.4  The  two  conical  hills 
which  rise  here  offer  an  excellent  site  for  fortification, 
one  of  them  being  large  enough  on  top  for  a  consider- 
able camp.  The  Norman  Conqueror  treated  them  as 
two  mottes,  and  connected  them  by  walls  so  as  to  form 
a  bailey  below  them.  The  stone  fortifications  are 
probably  the  remains  of  the  castle  built  by  the  Earl  of 
Chester  in  12 n.5  This  castle  was  naturally  a  sorely 
contested  point,  and  often  passed  from  hand  to  hand  ; 

1  Tut  or  Toot  Hill  means  "Iqok-out"  hill ;  the  name  is  not  unfrequentlyV-^5       Ifa 
given  to  abandoned  mottes.     The  word  is  still  used  locally.     Cf.  Christison, 

Early  Fortifications  in  Scotland,  p.  16. 

2  Such  presentations  of  abandoned  castle  sites,  and  of  old  wooden  castles, 
to  the  church,   were   not  uncommon.      We  have  seen  how  the   site  of 
Montacute  Castle  was  given  to  the  Cluniac  monks  (ante,  p.  170).     Thicket 
Priory,  in  Yorkshire,  occupied  the  site  of  the  castle   of  Wheldrake  ;  and 
William  de  Albini  gave  the  site  and  materials  of  the  old  castle  of  Buckenham, 
in  Norfolk,  to  the  new  castle  which  he  founded  there.     The  materials,  but 
not  the  site,  of  the  wooden  castle  of  Montferrand  were  given  in  Stephen's 
reign  to  Meaux  Abbey,  and  served  to  build  some  of  the  monastic  offices. 
Chron.  de  Melsa,  i.,  106. 

3  "  Fines  suos  dilatavit,  et  in  monte  Dagannoth,  qui  mari  contiguus  est, 
fortissimum    castellum   condidit."      Ordericus,   Hi.,   284   (edition  Prevost). 
The  verb  condere  is  never  used  except  for  a  new  foundation. 

4  The  Brut  says  that  in  the  year  823  the  Saxons  destroyed  the  Castle  of 
Deganwy.     This  is  one  of  the  only  two  instances  in  which  the  word  castell 
is  used  in  this  Welsh  chronicle  before  the  coming  of  the  Normans.     As  the 
MS.  is  not  earlier  than  the  I4th  century  it  would  be  idle  to  claim  this  as  a 
proof  of  the  existence  of  a   castle   at  this  period.     Castell,  in  Welsh,  is 
believed  to  have  come  straight  from  the  Latin,  and  was  applied  to  any  kind 
of  fortress.     Lloyd,  Welsh  Place-names,  "  Y  Cymmrodor,"  xi.,  28. 

"  The  "new  castle  of  Aberconwy"  mentioned  by  the  Brut  in  1211, 
undoubtedly  means  this  new  stone  castle  built  by  the  earl  at  Deganwy,  as 
the  castle  of  Conway  did  not  then  exist. 


260  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

but  it  was  in  English  possession  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
III.  It  was  abandoned  when  Edward  I.  built  his  great 
castle  at  Conway. 

With  its  usual  indifference,  the  Survey  mentions  no 
castle  in  Flintshire,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  the  castle 
of  MOLD,  or  Montalto  (Fig.  40),  was  one  of  the  earliest 
by  which  the  Norman  acquisitions  in  that  region  were 
defended,1  though  it  is  not  mentioned  in  authentic 
history  until  1147.  The  tradition  that  it  was  built  by 
Robert  de  Monte  Alto,  one  of  the  barons  of  the  Earl  of 
^ .  Chester,  is  no  doubt  correct,  though  the  assumption  of 
.  Welsh  legend-makers  that  the  Gwydd  Grug,  or  great 
tumulus,  from  which  this  castle  derives  its  Welsh  name, 
existed  before  the  castle,  may  be  dismissed  as  baseless. 
The  motte  of  Robert  de  Monte  Alto  still  exists,  and  is 
uncommonly  high  and  perfect ;  it  has  two  baileys,  sepa- 
rated by  great  ditches,  and  appears  to  have  had  a  shell  on 
top.  [D.  H.  M.]  The  castle  was  regarded  as  specially 
strong,  and  its  reduction  by  Owen  Gwynedd  in  1 147  was 
one  of  the  sweetest  triumphs  that  the  Welsh  ever  won.2 

It  is  clear  from  the  Life  of  Griffith  ap  Cynan*  that 
the  Earl  of  Chester  had  conquered  and  incastellated 
Gwynedd  before  the  accession  of  William  Rufus.  This 
valuable  document  unfortunately  gives  no  dates,  but  it 
mentions  in  particular  the  castle  at  Aberlleinog,4  one  at 

1  See  Pennant,  ii.,  151  ;  and  Arch.  Camb.,  1891,  p.  321. 

2  Brut  of  Tywysogion,  1145. 

3  Published  with  a  Latin  translation  in  Arch.  Camb.^  1866.     "  He  built 
castles  in  various  places,  after  the  manner  of  the  French,  in  order  that  he 
might  better  hold  the  country." 

4  The  Brut  also  mentions  the  castle  of  Aberlleinog,  and  says  it  was 
built  in  1096  ;  rebuilt  would  have  been  more  correct,  as  the  "  Life  of  Griffith 
ap  Cynan "  shows  that  it  was  built  by  the  Earl  of  Chester,  and  burnt  by 
Griffith,  before  the  expedition  of  1096  (really  1098),  when  Hugh,  Earl  of 
Shrewsbury,  met  with  his  death  on  the  shore  near  this  castle,  from  an  arrow 
shot  by  King  Magnus  Barefoot,  who  came  to  the  help  of  the  Welsh, 


399. 


O          IOO       ZOO     3OO 

Feet. 


MOLD. 


'Xs 


o          IPO       iqo     3cc 

Feet 
WELSHPOOL. 


Erddig 
ParK. 


WREXHAM. 


MATHRAVAL. 


FIG.  40.— MOTTE-CASTLES  OF  NORTH  WALES. 


[To  face  p.  260. 


ABERLLEINOG— CARNARVON— ABER  .261 

Carnarvon,  one  at  Bangor,  and  one  in  Merioneth.  The 
motte  at  ABERLLEINOG,  near  Beaumaris,  still  exists,  and 
the  half-moon  bailey  is  traceable,  but  the  curious  little 
round  towers  and  revetting  wall  in  masonry  on  the 
motte  were  probably  built  to  carry  guns  at  the  time  of 
the  Civil  War,  when  this  castle  was  besieged  by  the 
Royalists.  At  CARNARVON  the  magnificent  castle  of  "> 
Edward  I.  has  displaced  all  former  erections,  yet  some 
evidence  for  a  motte-and-bailey  plan  may  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  the  northern  portion  of  the  castle  has  evi- 
dently been  once  separated  by  a  ditch  from  the  southern, 
and  is  also  much  higher.1  On  the  hills  above  BANGOR, 
Pennant  thought  he  had  discovered  the  remains  of  Earl 
Hugh's  castle,  but  having  carefully  examined  these 
walls,  we  are  convinced  that  they  never  formed  part  of  a 
castle  at  all,  as  they  are  much  too  thin ;  nor  are  there 
any  vestiges  of  earthworks.2  We  are  disposed  to  think 
that  instead  of  at  Bangor,  the  castle  of  Earl  Hugh 
was  at  ABER,  often  spoken  of  as  ABERMENAI  in  the 
Chronicles,  and  evidently  the  most  important  port  on 
the  Straits.  At  Aber  there  still  remains  a  motte  which 
must  have  belonged  to  an  important  castle,  as  it  was 
afterwards  one  of  the  seats  of  Llywelyn  ap  Jorwerth, 
Prince  of  Gwynedd.  The  castle  in  Merioneth  cannot  be 
certainly  identified. 

In  one  of  the  invasions  of  William  Rufus,  which 
both  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  and  the  Brut  describe 
as  so  unsuccessful,  we  hear  that  he  encamped  at  MUR 

1  Mr  Hartshorne  in  his  paper  on  Carnarvon  Castle  (Arch.  Journ.,  vii.) 
cites  a  document  stating  that  a  wall  18  perches  long  had  been  begun  round 
the  moat  [possibly  motamj   original  not  given].     He  also  cites  from  the 
Pipe  Rolls  an  item  for  wages  to  carriers  of  earth  dug  out  of  the  castle. 

2  This  ruined  wall  runs  in  a  straight  line  through  the  wood  on  the  ridge 
to  the  east  of  the  town  ;  at  one  place  it  turns  at  right  angles  ;  at  the  back 
of  the  golf  pavilion  is  a  portion  still  erect,  showing  that  it  was  a  dry  built 
wall  of  very  ordinary  character. 


262  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

CASTELL,  a  place  undoubtedly  the  same  as  what  is  now 
called  TuMEN-v-MuR,  a  motte  standing  just  inside  a 
Roman  camp,  on  the  Roman  road  leading  from  Shrop-. 
shire  into  Merioneth  and  Carnarvon.  This  motte  is 
surrounded  by  a  ditch  ;  there  are  traces  of  the  usual 
earthen  rampart  round  the  top,  now  mutilated  by  land- 
slips.1 We  may,  with  great  probability,  assume  that 
this  motte  was  thrown  up  by  William  Rufus,  and  that 
the  Roman  camp  served  as  a  bailey  for  his  invading 
host.  Whether  it  was  garrisoned  for  the  Normans  we 
cannot  say,  but  it  evidently  formed  an  important  post  on 
a  route  often  followed  by  their  invading  armies,  as 
Henry  I.  is  said  to  have  encamped  there  twice.2  It  is 
one  of  the  few  mottes  which  stand  in  a  wild  and 
mountainous  situation,  and  its  purpose  no  doubt  was 
purely  military.3 

The  earls  of  Chester  did  not  retain  the  sovereignty 
of  Gwynedd  ;  on  the  death  of  Rufus,  Griffith  ap  Cynan 
returned,  and  obtained  possession  of  Anglesea.  He 
was  favourably  received  at  the  court  of  Henry  I.,  and 
gradually  recovered  possession  of  the  whole  of  Gwynedd. 
In  1114  Henry  had  to  undertake  a  great  expedition 
against  him  to  enforce  the  payment  of  tribute ; 4  from 
which,  and  from  the  peaceful  manner  in  which  Griffith 
seems  to  have  acquired  his  principality,  we  may  infer  that 
this  tribute  was  the  bargain  of  his  possession.  It  very 
likely  suited  Henry's  policy  better  to  have  a  tributary 
Welsh  prince  than  a  too  powerful  earl  of  Chester. 

1  Roman  masonry  has  been  exposed  in  the  bank  of  the  station. 

2  Life  of  Griffith  ap  Cynan;  Brut,  1 1 1 1. 

3  Arch.  Camb.,  iv.,  series  296  and  911. 

4  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  dates  this  expedition  in  1114,  and  says 
that  Henry  caused  castles  to  be  built  in  Wales.     The  Brut  mentions  the 
large  tribute,  mi. 


NORMAN  ADVANCE  IN  POWYS  263 

The  reigns  of  the  three  first  Norman  kings  were  the 
time  in  which  Norman  supremacy  in  Wales  made  its 
greatest  advances.  With  the  accession  of  Stephen  and 
the  civil  war  which  followed  it  came  the  great  oppor- 
tunity for  the  Welsh  of  throwing  off  the  Norman  yoke. 
Powys  appears  to  have  been  the  only  province  which 
remained  faithful  to  the  English  allegiance,  under  Madoc 
ap  Meredith.1  The  history  of  Norman  conquest  in 
Powys  is  more  confused  than  that  of  Gwynedd,  but 
Domesday  shows  us  that  Rainald,  the  Sheriff  of  Shrop- 
shire, a  vassal  of  Earl  Roger  of  Shrewsbury,  was  seated 
at  Edeyrnion  and  Cynlle,  two  districts  along  the  upper 
valley  of  the  Dee.2  Robert  of  Rhuddlan  held  part  of 
his  grant  of  "  Nort  Wales,"  namely  the  hundred  of 
Arwystli,  in  the  very  centre  of  Wales,  under  Earl  Roger. 
Professor  Lloyd  remarks,  "  Earl  Roger  claimed  the 
same  authority  over  Powys  as  Earl  Hugh  over  Gwynedd, 
and  the  theory  that  the  princes  of  this  region  were 
subject  to  the  lords  of  Salop  survived  the  fall  of  the 
House  of  Montgomery."3 

We  have  already  spoken  of  Earl  Roger  de  Mont- 
gomeri  and  his  brood  of  able  and  unscrupulous  sons.4 
The  palatine  earldom  of  Shrewsbury  lay  along  the 
eastern  border  of  central  Powys,  and  must  soon  have 
proved  a  menace  to  that  Welsh  kingdom.  Domesday 
Book  shows  us  that  Earl  Roger  had  already  planted  his 
castle  of  Montgomery  well  within  the  Welsh  border  at 
that  date.  But  the  ambition  of  Earl  Roger  and  his 

1  Brut,  1149.     Madoc  ap  Meredith,  with  the  assistance  of  Ranulf,  Earl 
of  Chester,   prepared  to  rise  against  Owen  Gwynedd,  son   of  Griffith  ap 
Cynan. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  255a.     Professor  Lloyd  says,  "  Maelor  Saesneg,  Cydewain, 
Ceri,  and  Arwystli  came  under  Norman  authority,  and  paid  renders  of 
money  or  kine  in  token  of  subjection."     "Wales  and  the  Coming  of  the 
Normans,"  Cymmrodor.  Trans.,  1899. 

3  Ibid.  4  see  page  130. 


264  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

sons  stretched  beyond  their  immediate  borders.  It  Is 
probable  that  they  used  the  upper  Severn  valley,  which 
they  fortified  by  the  castle  of  Montgomery,  and  possibly 
by  the  castle  of  Welshpool,  as  their  road  into  Ceredigion, 
for  we  find  Earl  Roger  named  by  the  Brut  as  the  builder 
of  the  castle  of  Cilgerran,1  and  some  say  of  Cardigan 
also.  Possibly  he  was  helping  his  son  Arnolf  in  the 
conquest  of  Pembroke.  In  1098  we  find  his  successor, 
Earl  Hugh,  allied  with  the  Earl  of  Chester  in  the 
invasion  of  Anglesea. 

MONTGOMERY.  —  This  castle  is  named  from  the 
ancestral  seat  of  its  founder.2  The  motte-and-bailey 
plan  is  still  very  apparent  in  the  ruins,  though  the  motte 
is  represented  by  a  precipitous  rock,  only  a  few  feet 
higher  than  the  baileys  attached,  and  separated  from  them 
by  a  ditch  cut  through  the  headland.  The  masonry, 
the  chief  part  of  which  is  the  shell  wall  and  towers  on 
this  isolated  rock,  is  none  of  it  older  than  the  reign  of 
Henry  III.,  when  large  sums  were  spent  on  this  castle, 
and  it  is  spoken  of  in  a  writ  as  "  the  new  Castle  of 
Montgomery." 3  Yet  even  then  the  whole  of  the 
defences  were  not  remade  in  stone,  as  bretasches  of 
timber  are  ordered  in  a  mandamus  of  122$.*  The  four 
wards  are  all  roughly  rectilateral.  The  castle  was  never 
recovered  permanently  by  the  Welsh,  and  after  the 
forfeiture  of  Robert  Belesme,  the  third  Earl  of  Shrews- 
bury, in  no i,  the  Crown  kept  this  important  border 
fortress  in  its  own  hands  throughout  the  Middle  Ages. 

Although  Montgomery  Castle  is  the  only  one 
mentioned  in  that  region  at  the  same  date,  there  must 
have  been  many  others,  for  in  1225  Henry  III.  ordered 

1  Brut)  under  1107.     The  castle  is  called  Dingeraint  by  this  chronicler. 

2  "Ipse    comes    construxit    castrum    Muntgumeri    vocatum."      D.   B., 
i.,  254. 

3  Montgomery  Collections^  x.,  56.  4  Close  Rolls,  i.,  558b. 


MONTGOMERY— WELSHPOOL  265 

all  who  had  mottes  in  the  valley  of  Montgomery  to 
fortify  them  with  good  bretasches  without  delay ; 1  and 
the  remains  of  these  mottes  are  still  numerous  in  the 
valley.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  mottes  at  Moat 
Lane  and  Llandinam  were  thrown  up  to  defend  the  road 
into  Arwystli ;  but  this  is  conjecture.2 

WELSHPOOL,  alias  Pol  or  Pool  (Fig.  40),  is  also  called 
the  Castle  of  Trallung. — In  Powell's  History  of  Wales 
(p.  137)  it  is  stated  that  Cadwgan  ap  Bleddyn,  when 
Henry  I.  took  Cardigan  from  him,  retired  to  Powys,  and 
began  to  build  a  castle  here.  Powell's  statements, 
however,  have  no  authority  when  unconfirmed,  and  we 
are  unable  to  find  any  confirmation  of  this  statement  in 
the  more  trustworthy  version  of  the  Brut.  And  as  the 
House  of  Montgomeri  was  firmly  established  in  the  valley 
of  Montgomery  as  early  as  1086,  it  seems  more  probable 
that  the  two  motte-and-bailey  castles  at  Welshpool, 
lower  down  the  Severn  valley,  are  relics  of  the  early 
progress  of  that  family,  especially  as  one  of  these  castles 
is  only  about  a  mile  east  of  Offa's  Dyke,  the  ancient 
border.  This  latter  motte  is  partly  cut  into  by  the 
railway,  and  diminished  in  size,  but  the  bailey  is  nearly 
perfect.  The  other  one  is  in  the  park  of  Powys  Castle, 
and  is  an  admirable  specimen  of  its  class.  The  breast- 
work round  the  top  of  the  motte  remains.  [H.  W.]  It 
seems  probable  that  this  was  the  precursor  of  Powys 
Castle,  and  was  abandoned  at  an  early  period,  as  the 
newer  castle  was  known  by  the  name  of  Castell  Coch,  or 

1  "  Firmiter  precipimus  omnibus  illis  qui  motas  habent  in  valle  de  Munt- 
gumeri  quod  sine  dilatione  motas  suas  bonis  bretaschiis  firmari  faciant  ad 
securitatem  et  defensionem  suam  et  partium  illarum."     Close  Rolls>  ii.,  42. 

2  Mr  Davies  Pryce  has  suggested  that  the  Hen  Domen,  a  very  perfect 
motte  and  bailey  within  a  mile  of  the  present  castle  of  Montgomery  was 
the  original  castle  of  Montgomery,  and  that  the  one  built  by  Henry  III. 
was  on  a  new  site.     This  of  course  is  quite  possible,  but  I  do  not  see  that 
there  is  sufficient  evidence  for  it.     See  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xx.,  709. 


266  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

the  Red  Castle,  as  early  as  1233.*  Leland  states  that 
there  were  formerly  two  castles  of  two  different  Lords 
Marchers  at  Welshpool ; 2  possibly  this  throws  some 
light  on  the  existence  of  these  two  motte-castles. 

When  Henry  II.  came  to  the  throne  in  1154,  one  of 
the  many  questions  which  he  had  to  settle  was  the 
Welsh  question.  His  first  expedition  against  North 
Wales  was  in  1157.  Here  he  was  one  day  placed  in 
grave  difficulties,  and  fortune  was  only  restored  by  his 
personal  courage.  But  in  spite  of  this  we  learn  even 
from  the  Welsh  chronicler  that  he  continued  his  advance 
to  Rhuddlan,  and  that  the  object  of  the  expedition, 
which  was  the  restoration  of  Cadwalader,  one  of  the 
sons  of  Griffith  ap  Cynan,  to  his  lands,  was  accom- 
plished. The  English  chronicler  Roger  of  Wendover 
says  that  Henry  recovered  all  the  fortresses  which  had 
been  taken  from  his  predecessors,  and  rebuilt  Basing- 
werk  Castle ;  and  when  he  had  reduced  the  Welsh  to 
submission,  returned  in  triumph  to  England.  The 
undoubted  facts  of  the  Pipe  Rolls  show  us  that  in  the 
year  1159  Henry  had  in  his  hands  the  castles  of 
Over  ton,  Hodesley,  Wrexham,  Dernio,  Ruthin,  and 
Rhuddlan,  castles  which  would  give  him  command  of 
the  whole  of  Flintshire  and  of  East  Denbigh  and  the 
valley  of  the  Clwyd.  Similarly,  after  the  expedition  of 
1165,  sometimes  stated  to  have  been  only  disastrous,  we 
find  him  in  possession  of  the  castles  of  Rhuddlan, 
Basingwerk,  Prestatyn,  Mold,  Overton,  and  Chirk ; 3  so 
that  after  the  battle  of  Crogen,  or  Chirk,  he  actually 
held  the  battlefield. 

1  Bruty  Tyivysogion.  2  Itin.,  vii.,  16. 

3  Pipe  Rolls,  1158-1164.     It  should  be  noted  that  the  Brut  does  not 
claim  the  battle  of  Crogen  as  a  Welsh  victory. 


BASINGWERK— OVERTON— DERNIO  267 

We  are  thus  introduced  to  an  entirely  new  group  of 
castles,  Rhuddlan  being  the  only  one  which  we  have 
heard  of  before.  But  it  is  highly  probable  that  most  of 
these  castles  were  originally  raised  by  the  earls  of 
Chester  or  Shrewsbury,  and  were  in  Henry's  hands  by 
escheat. 

*  BASINGWERK. — The  werk  referred  to  in  this  name 
has  probably  nothing  to  do  with  the  castle,  but  refers  to 
Wat's  Dyke,  which  reaches  the  Dee  at  this  point.  The 
abbey  at  this  place  was  founded  by  an  earl  of  Chester,1 
which  makes  it  probable  that  the  castle  also  was  origin- 
ally his  work,  especially  as  Wendover  says  that  Henry 
rebuilt  it.  There  is  no  trace  of  a  castle  near  the 
abbey,2  but  less  than  a  mile  off,  near  Holywell  Church, 
there  is  a  headland  called  Bryn  y  Castell,  with  a  small 
mound  at  the  farther  end,  which  has  far  more  claim  to 
be  the  site  of  Basingwerk  Castle,  especially  as  it  is 
mentioned  in  John's  reign  (when  it  was  retaken  from 
the  Welsh)  as  the  castle  of  Haliwell.3 

OVERTON,  in  East  Denbigh,  on  the  middle  course  of 
the  Dee.  In  custody  of  Roger  de  Powys  for  the  king 
in  1159-1160.  As  Leland  speaks  of  the  ditches  and  hill 
of  the  castle,  it  was  probably  a  motte-castle  of  the  usual 
type.  "  One  parte  of  the  ditches  and  Hille  of  the  castel 
yet  remaynith  ;  the  residew  is  in  the  botom  of  Dee." 
It  is  probably  all  there  now,  as  not  a  vestige  can  be 
traced.  [B.  T.  S.] 

DERNIO,  or  Dernant. — There  can  be  no  question  that 

1  Ly  ttleton's  History  of  Henry  II. 

2  Pennant  thought  he  saw  vestiges  of  a  castle  "  in  the  foundations  of  a 
wall  opposite  the  ruins"  [of  the  abbey];    but  his   accuracy  is  not  unim- 
peachable. 

3  Pipe  Rolls,  1211-1213.     "For  the  money  expended   in  rescuing   the 
castles  of  Haliwell  and  Madrael,  ^100." 

4  ///«.,  p.  67.     Toulmin  Smith's  edition  of  Welsh  portion. 


268  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

Dernio  is  Edeyrnion,  the  valley  stretching  from  Bala 
Lake  to  Corwen.  Domesday  Book  tells  us  that  Rainald 
the  Sheriff,  a  "man"  of  Earl  Roger  of  Shrewsbury,  held 
two  " fines"  in  Wales,  Chenlei  and  Dernio,  that  is, 
Cynllaith  and  Edeyrnion.1  Towards  the  end  of  the 
nth  century  there  must  have  been  a  Norman  castle  at 
Rug  in  Edeyrnion,  as  it  was  to  this  place  that  the  earls 
of  Chester  and  Shrewsbury  enticed  Griffith  ap  Cynan, 
the  rightful  ruler  of  Gwynedd ;  they  then  sent  him 
prisoner  to  Chester  for  twelve  years.2  Very  likely  the 
castle  of  Dernio,  which  Henry  II.  was  putting  into  a 
state  of  defence  in  H59,8  was  at  RUG,  i^  miles  from 
Corwen,  where  there  is  still  a  motte  in  some  private 
grounds,  and  there  was  formerly  a  bailey  also.4  The 
place  was  the  seat  of  an  important  family  in  later  times. 
At  any  rate,  the  castle  was  in  Edeyrnion,  and  shows  that 
Henry  was  holding  the  northern  part  of  Merionethshire. 

HODESLEY  ;  undoubtedly  "  The  Rofts  "  near  Gres- 
ford,  a  motte  with  remains  of  a  bailey,  on  a  headland 
above  the  river  Alyn.  It  is  in  the  former  lordship  of 
Hoseley.5 

WREXHAM,  the  Wristlesham  of  the  Pipe  Rolls  (Fig. 
40). —  Henry  was  paying  for  the  custody  of  this  castle 
and  that  of  Hoseley  in  1160  and  1161.  Both  castles  are 
in  the  district  of  Bromfield,  which  was  one  of  the  early 
acquisitions  of  the  earls  of  Chester.  Mr  Palmer  remarks 

1  D.  B.,  i.,  255a.  2  Life  of  Griffith. 

3  Pipe  Roll,    1159-1160.      £4,   35.   4d.   paid  to   Roger  de   Powys  "ad 
custodiam  castelli  de  Dernio" ;  **  In  munitione  turris  de  Dermant  ^6,  45.  od." 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  these  two  names  mean  the  same  place. 

4  Arch.  Camb.)  iv.,  1887. 

6  At  the  time  of  the  Survey  the  manor  of  Gresford  (Gretford)  was 
divided  between  Hugh,  Osbern,  and  Rainald.  Osbern  had  6£  hides  and  a 
mill  grinding  the  corn  of  his  court  (curiae  suae).  This  probably  is  a  reference 
to  this  castle.  D.  B.,  i.,  268.  It  was  waste  T.  R.  E.  but  is  now  worth 
£3,  5s.  od. 


WREXHAM— RUTHIN— CHIRK  269 

that  this  district  was  probably  ceded  to  the  princes  of 
Powys,  in  return  for  the  help  which  they  often  rendered 
to  the  English  king  against  other  Welsh  princes,  as  it 
is  found  as  part  of  Powys  at  a  later  period.1  There  are 
no  remains  of  any  castle  at  Wrexham  itself,  but  about  a 
mile  off,  in  Erddig  Park,  there  is  a  motte  and  bailey  of 
considerable  size  (though  the  motte  is  reduced)  showing 
that  a  castle  of  some  importance  once  stood  there. 
There  were  formerly  some  remains  of  masonry.2  Wat's 
Dyke  has  been  utilised  to  form  one  side  of  the  bailey. 
It  is  probable  that  the  importance  of  the  two  Bromfield 
castles,  Wrexham  and  Hoseley,  was  lost  when  the 
princes  of  Powys  built  their  castle  on  Dinas  Bran. 

^RUTHIN. — This  important  castle,  defending  the 
upper  valley  of  the  Clwyd,  was  probably  in  existence 
long  before  Henry  II.  repaired  it  in  1160,  and  may 
perhaps  be  attributed  to  Earl  Hugh  of  Chester.  The 
plan  shows  distinctly  that  it  was  once  a  motte  and  bailey, 
though  the  castle  is  now  transformed  into  a  modern 
house.8 

CHIRK,  or  Crogen,  in  the  valley  of  the  Ceiriog. — 
Henry  was  paying  for  the  custody  of  this  castle  in  1164, 
and  was  provisioning  it  in  1167.*  King  John  paid  for 
the  erection  of  a  bretasche  there,  possibly  after  some 
destruction  by  the  Welsh.5  Probably  the  first  castle  of 
Chirk  did  not  stand  in  the  commanding  situation  now 
occupied  by  the  castle  of  Edward  I.'s  reign,  but  is 

1  "  On  the  Town  of  Holt,"  by  A.  N.  Palmer,  Arch.  Camb.,  1907. 

2  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  North  Wales,  p.  589.     I  am  glad  to 
find  that  Mr  Palmer,  in  the  new  edition  of  his  Ancient  Tenures  of  Land  in 
the  Marches  of  Wales,  confirms  the  identifications  which  I  have  made  of 
these  two  last  castles,  pp.  108,  116,  118. 

3  Arch.  Camb.,  5th  ser.,  iv.,  352.     Camden's  statement  that  this  castle 
was  founded  in  Edward  I.'s  reign  shows  that  he  was  unacquainted  with  the 
Pipe  Rolls. 

4  Pipe  Rolls,  1164-1165,  and  1167-1168.  6  Pipe  Rolls,  1212-1213. 


270  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

represented  by  a  small  motte  in  a  garden  near  the 
Ceiriog  stream,  and  close  to  the  church.  An  Anglo- 
Norman  poem  of  the  i3th  century  attributes  the  first 
building  of  this  castle  to  William  Peverel,  Lord  of 
Whittington  and  Ellesmere,  and  says  he  placed  it  "on 
the  water  of  Ceiriog."1  No  doubt  it  defended  the 
passage  of  the  stream,  and  an  important  road  into 
Shropshire. 

PRESTATYN. — This  castle  defended  the  coast  road 
from  Chester  to  Rhuddlan.  Henry  II.  granted  it  to 
Robert  Banaster  for  his  services  in  n65.2  It  was 
destroyed  by  Owen  Gwynedd  in  1167,  an<^  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  rebuilt.  A  low  motte  with  a  half- 
moon  bailey,  and  a  larger  square  enclosure,  still  remain. 
[B.  T.  S.] 


Mr  Davis  has  remarked  that  John  was  more  successful 
in  extending  his  authority  over  the  British  Isles  than 
in  anything  else.3  In  1211  he  led  an  expedition  into  the 
heart  of  Wales,  and  reduced  his  son-in-law  Llywelyn  ap 
Jorwerth  to  complete  submission.  As  usual,  the 
expedition  was  marked  by  the  building  or  repair  of 
castles.  The  Earl  of  Chester  restored  Deganwy, 
which  shows  that  the  English  frontier  was  again 
advanced  to  the  Conway  ;  he  also  repaired  the  castle 
of  Holy  well,  which  the  Pipe  Roll  shows  to  have  been 
recovered  from  the  Welsh  about  this  time.4  These  Rolls 
also  show  that  in  1 2 1 2- 1 2 1 3  John  was  paying  for  works  at 

1  "Sur  1'ewe   de   Keyroc,"  History  of  Fulk  Fitz    Warine,  edited  by 
T.  Wright  for  Warton  Club. 

2  Victoria  County  History  of  Lancashire,  i.,  369. 

3  England  under  the  Normans  and  Angevins. 

4  "Ad  recutienda  castella  de  Haliwell  et  Madrael  ^100."    Pipe  Rolls, 
1212-1213. 


MATHRAVAL— EGLOE— YALE  271 

the  castles  of  Carreghova,  Ruthin,  and  Chirk,  as  well  as 
at  the  following  castles,  which  have  not  been  mentioned 
before. 

MATHRAVAL,  Madrael  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  (Fig.  40), 
near  Meifod  in  Montgomeryshire,  defending  the  valley 
of  the  Vyrnwy. — Here  was  the  chief  royal  residence  of 
Powys ; 1  but  the  castle  was  built  in  John's  reign  by 
Roger  de  Vipont.  It  occupied  2\  acres,  and  the  motte 
is  in  one  corner  of  the  area,  which  is  square,2  and 
surrounded  only  by  banks  ;  though  ruined  foundations 
are  found  in  parts  of  the  castle.  John  himself  burned 
the  castle  in  1211,  when  the  Welsh  were  besieging  it,3 
but  the  Pipe  Roll  (12 12-1 2 13)  shows  that  he  afterwards 
repaired  it.  [D.  H.  M.] 

EGLOE,  or  Eulo,  called  by  Leland  Castle  Yollo. — 
On  the  Chester  and  Holy  well  road,  about  8  miles  from 
Holywell.  The  mention  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  pikes  and 
ammunition  provided  for  this  castle  in  1212-1213  1S  tne 
first  ancient  allusion  to  it  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 
It  is  a  motte-and-bailey  castle,  with  additions  in 
masonry  which  are  probably  of  the  reign  of  Henry  III. 
The  keep  is  of  the  "thimble"  plan,  a  rare  instance.4  v 
[B.  T.  S.] 

*YALE. — The  Brut  tells  us  that  in  1 148  (read  1150) 
Owen  Gwynedd  built  a  castle  in  Yale.  Powell  identified 
this  with  Tomen  y  Rhodwydd,  a  motte  and  bailey  on 
the  road  between  Llangollen  and  Ruthin.  Yale, 
however,  is  the  name  of  a  district,  and  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  castle  of  Yale  was  the  motte  and 

1  Wade  Evans,  Welsh  Medieval  Law,  vol.  xii. 

2  It  has  in  fact  every  appearance  of  a  Roman  camp. 

3  Brut,  121 1. 

4  The  castle  of  Hawarden,  which  is  only  about  i\  miles  from  that  of 
Euloe,  is  not  mentioned  in  any  records  before  1215  ;  but  it  is  believed  to 
have  been  a  castle  of  the  Norman  lords  of  Mold.     It  also  is  on  a  motte. 


272  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  NORTH  WALES 

bailey  at  Llanarmon,  which  for  a  long  period  was  the 
caput  of  Yale.1  Yale  undoubtedly  belonged  to  the 
Normans  when  Domesday  Book  was  compiled,2  and  it 
is  therefore  not  unlikely  that  these  earthworks  were  first 
thrown  up  by  the  Earl  of  Chester.  The  castle  was 
burnt  by  Jorwerth  Goch  in  1158,  but  restored  by  John  in 
121 2.  One  of  the  expenses  entered  for  that  year  is 
"  for  iron  mallets  for  breaking  the  rocks  in  the  ditch  of 
the  castle  of  Yale."3  This  ditch  cut  in  the  rock  still 
remains,  as  well  as  some  foundations  on  the  motte,4 
which  is  known  as  Tomen  y  Vardra,  or  the  Mount  of 
of  the  demesne.5 


How  long  the  two  last-mentioned  groups  of  castles 
continued  in  Anglo-Norman  hands  we  do  not  attempt 
to  say.  North  Wales,  as  is  well  known,  reaped  a 
harvest  of  new  power  and  prosperity  through  the  civil 
war  of  the  end  of  John's  reign,  and  the  ability  of 
Llywelyn  ap  Jorwerth.  Our  task  ends  with  the  reign 
of  John.  We  have  only  to  remark  that  until  the  Pipe 
Rolls  of  Henry  III.'s  reign  have  been  carefully  searched, 
it  is  impossible  to  say  with  certainty  what  castles  of 
North  Wales,  or  if  any,  were  still  held  by  the  English 
king. 

1  I  am  indebted  for  this   identification   to  the  kindness  of  Mr  A.  N. 
Palmer  of  Wrexham. 

2  D.  B.,  i.,  254.     The  manor  is  called  Gal.     It  had  been  waste  T.  R.  E., 
but  was  now  worth  405. 

3  />#* /fo// (unpublished),  1212-1213. 

4  Whereas  there  is  no  rock  in  the  ditch  of  the  neighbouring  motte  of 
Tomen  y  Rhodwydd.     Pennant  (and  others  following  him)  most  inaccurately 
describe  Tomen  y  Rhodwydd  as  two  artificial  mounts,  whereas  there  is  only 
one,  with  the  usual  embanked  court.     See  Appendix  K. 

6  "  The  Maer  dref  [which  Vardra  represents]  may  be  described  as  the 
home  farm  of  the  chieftain."  Rhys  and  Brynmor  Jones,  The  Welsh  People^ 
p.  401. 


CHAPTER   IX 

MOTTE-CASTLES    IN    SOUTH    WALES 

IT  is  not  possible  to  fix  certain  dates  for  all  the  Norman 
conquests  of  the  several  provinces  of  South  Wales. 
These  conquests  proceeded  from  various  points,  under 
different  leaders.  We  might  have  expected  that  the 
earliest  advances  would  have  been  on  the  Herefordshire 
border,  the  earldom  of  Hereford  having  been  given  by 
William  I.  to  William  FitzOsbern,  one  of  his  most 
trusted  and  energetic  servants.  Ordericus  tells  us  that 
FitzOsbern  and  Walter  de  Lacy  first  invaded  the 
district  of  Brecknock,  and  defeated  three  kings  of 
the  Welsh.1  This  looks  as  though  the  conquest  of 
Brecknock  was  then  begun.  But  it  was  not  completed 
till  the  reign  of  Rufus  ;  in  1093  Bernard  of  Neufmarche 
defeated  and  slew  Rhys  ap  Tudor,  King  of  South  Wales, 
in  a  battle  which  the  Welsh  chronicler  speaks  of  as  the 
fall  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Britons.2  William  Fitz- 
Osbern died  in  1071,  and  he  had  scarcely  time  to 
accomplish  more  than  the  building  of  the  border  castles 
of  Wigmore,  Clifford,  Ewias,  and  Monmouth,  and  the 
incastellation  of/Gwent,  that  is  the  country  between  the 
Wye  and  the  Usk,  which  had  already  been  conquered 
by  Harold. 

It    seems    probable    that    Pembrokeshire    was    one 

1  Ordericus,  ii.,  218,  219  (edition  Prevost).         2  Bruty  Tywysogion^  1091. 

273  S 


274  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

of  the  earliest  Norman  conquests  in  South  Wales, 
as  in  1073  and  1074  the  Brut  tells  of  two 
expeditions  of  "the  French"  into  Dyfed,  a  region  which 
included  not  only  what  we  now  call  Pembrokeshire,  but 
also  Strath  Towy,  which  comprised  an  extensive  district 
on  both  sides  of  the  valley  of  the  Towy.1  The  Annales 
Cambria  name  Hugh  de  Montgomeri,  Earl  Roger's 
eldest  son,  in  connection  with  the  second  of  these 
expeditions,  seven  years  before  the  expedition  of  King 
William  into  Wales  in  io8i.2  The  House  of  Montgomeri 
certainly  took  the  most  conspicuous  part  in  the  conquest 
of  Dyfed  and  Cardigan,  which  was  completed,  accord- 
ing to  the  Brut,  in  1093. 3  Arnulf  of  Montgomeri,  fifth 
son  of  Earl  Roger,  was  the  leader  of  this  conquest. 
But  his  father  must  at  the  same  time  have  been 
operating  in  Cardigan,  as  the  building  of  the  castle 
of  Cilgerran,  which  is  on  the  very  borders  of  Pembroke 
and  Cardigan,  is  attributed  to  him. 

How  far  Earl  Roger  made  himself  master  of  Cere- 
digion  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Later  writers  say  that 
he  built  the  castle  of  Cardigan,  but  we  have  not  been 
able  to  find  any  early  authority  for  this  statement,  which 
in  itself  is  not  improbable.  Powell's  History  makes  him 
do  homage  to  William  Rufus  for  the  lordship  of  Cardigan, 
but  here  again  the  authority  is  doubtful.4  The  fact 

1  Brut,  1071.     "The  French  ravage  Ceredigion  (Cardigan)  and  Dyfed"  ; 
1072,  "  The  French  devastated  Ceredigion  a  second  time. 

2  A.-S.  C.,  1081.     "This  year  the  king  led  an  army  into  Wales,  and  there 
he  set  free  many  hundred  persons " — doubtless,  as  Mr  Freeman  remarks, 
captives  taken  previously  by  the  Welsh.     The  Brut  treats  this  expedition  as 
merely  a  pilgrimage  to  St  David's  ! 

3  "Then  the  French  came  into  Dyfed  and  Ceredigion,  which  they  have 
still  retained,  and  fortified  the  castles,  and  seized  upon  all  the  land  of  the 
Britons."    Brut,  1091  =  1093. 

4  Powell's  History  of  Wales  professes  to  be  founded  on  that  of  Caradoc, 
a  Welsh  monk  of  the  I2th  century  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  of 
it  is  Caradoc,  and  how  much  Powell,  or  Wynne,  his  augmentor. 


NORMANS  IN  CARDIGAN  275 

that  a  castle  in  or  near  Aberystwyth  was  not  built 
until  1109  may  indicate  that  the  conquest  of  Northern 
Cardigan  was  not  completed  till  it  became  the  portion 
of  the  De  Clares.  This  took  place  in  1109,  when 
Henry  I.  deposed  Cadwgan,  a  Welsh  prince  whom  he 
had  made  Lord  of  Cardigan,  and  gave  the  lordship  to 
Gilbert  de  Clare,  who  immediately  proceeded  to  build 
the  above-mentioned  castle,  and  to  restore  Earl  Roger's 
castle  at  Cilgerran  (Dingeraint).1  From  this  time  the 
castle  and  district  of  Cardigan  continued  to  be  an 
appanage  of  the  House  of  Clare  (of  course  with  frequent 
interruptions  from  Welsh  invasions),  and  of  the  family 
of  William  Marshall,  to  whom  the  Clare  lands  came 
by  marriage.  The  authority  of  these  earls  was  suspended 
during  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  when  he  made  Rhys 
ap  Griffith,  who  had  possessed  himself  of  Ceredigion 
by  conquest,  Justiciar  of  South  Wales,  but  in  the  reigns 
of  John  and  Henry  III.,  the  Close  Rolls  show  that 
Cardigan  Castle  and  county  were  generally  in  the  hands 
of  the  Marshalls. 

The  conquest  of  Pembrokeshire  must  have  been 
closely  followed  by  that  of  what  is  now  Carmarthenshire, 
which  was  then  reckoned  as  part  of  Dyfed.2  We  first 
hear  of  the  castle  of  Rhyd  y  Gors  in  IO94,3  Dut  it 
evidently  existed  earlier.  This  castle  we  believe  to 
have  been  the  important  castle  of  Carmarthen  (see 
post).  It  was  founded  by  William,  son  of  Baldwin, 
sheriff  of  Devon,  and  cousin  of  the  Gilbert  de  Clare 
who  at  a  later  period  was  made  Lord  of  Cardigan  by 

1  Brut,  1107. 

2  "  In  the  Brut,  Ystrad  Towy  does  not  only  mean  the  vale  of  Towy,  but 
a   very  large   district,   embracing  most   of  Carmarthenshire  and   part   of 
Glamorganshire.     Welsh  Historical  Documents,  by  Egerton  Phillimore,  in 
Cymmrodor,  vol.  xi. 

3  Brut,  1092. 


276  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

Henry  I.  We  thus  see  at  what  an  early  date  this 
important  family  made  its  appearance  in  Welsh  history. 

The  conquest  of  Brecknock  (Brecheiniog)  we  have 
already  briefly  referred  to.  It  must  have  begun  as  early 
as  1088,  for  in  that  year  Bernard  de  Neufmarche  gave 
to  St  Peter's  Abbey  at  Gloucester  the  church  and  manor 
of  Glasbury.  The  inheritance  of  Bernard  passed  by 
marriage  to  the  De  Braoses,  and  from  them  to  the 
Mortimers.  It  is  convenient  to  mention  in  this  con- 
nection the  Norman  conquest  of  Radnor,  of  which  the 
De  Braoses  and  Mortimers  were  the  heroes.  A  charter 
of  Philip  de  Braose,  not  later  than  1096,  is  dated  at 
"  Raddenoam." l  Even  during  the  anarchy  of  Stephen's 
reign,  the  Mortimers  were  able  to  maintain  their  hold 
on  this  district,  for  the  Brut  relates  that  in  1145,  Hugh, 
son  of  Ralph  Mortimer,  conquered  Malienydd  and 
Elvael  the  second  time.2  These  two  districts  properly 
belong  to  Powys,  though  geographically  in  South  Wales. 

We  leave  to  the  last  the  conquest  of  Glamorgan, 
which  may  possibly  have  been  one  of  the  earliest,  but 
whose  date  is  still  a  matter  of  dispute,  owing  to  the 
legendary  nature  of  the  Aberpergwm  version  of  the 
Brut,  the  only  one  which  even  alludes  to  this  conquest. 
We  have,  however,  an  initial  date  given  us  in  the  year 
1082,  when  the  Brut  y  Tywysogion  tell  us  of  the 
building  of  Cardiff  Castle.3  The  conquest  of  "  Mor- 
gannwg,"  that  is  the  country  between  the  Usk  and  the 
Neath,  was  the  most  permanent  of  any  of  those 
accomplished  by  the  Normans  in  Wales,  but  its  details 

1  Lloyd,  "Wales  and  the  Coming  of  the  Normans,"  Cymmrodor.    Trans., 
1899  :  refers  to  Marchegay,  Chartes  du  Prieurie  de  Monmouth. 

2  Brut,  1143. 

3  The  date  given   is  1080,  but  as  the  dates  in  the  Brut  at  this  period  are 
uniformly  two  years  too  early,  we  alter  them  accordingly  throughout  this 
chapter. 


CONQUEST  OF  GLAMORGAN  277 

are  the  most  obscure  of  any.  The  earlier  version  of  the 
Brut  takes  no  notice  of  the  conquest  of  Glamorgan  ; 
the  later  version  which  goes  by  the  name  of  the 
Gwentian  Chronicle^  tells  us  that  the  Norman  Robert 
Fitz  Hamon,  being  called  in  to  the  help  of  one  Welsh 
prince  against  another,  conquered  Glamorgan  for  him- 
self, and  divided  it  amongst  his  followers,  who  built 
castles  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The  date  given  is 
1088.  It  seems  to  be  agreed  by  historians  that  while 
the  facts  of  Robert  Fitz  Hamon's  existence  and  of  his 
conquest  of  Glamorgan  are  certain,  the  details  and 
the  list  of  followers  given  in  this  chronicle  are  quite 
untrustworthy.2 

The  district  called  Gower  did  not  then  form  part  of 
Glamorgan,  as  it  does  now,  though  it  is  still  ecclesiastically 
separate.  If  we  are  to  believe  the  Aberpergwm  Brut, 
it  must  have  been  conquered  in  1094,  when  William  de 
Londres,  one  of  the  "  knights"  of  Robert  Fitz  Hamon, 
built  a  strong  castle  in  Cydweli  (Kidwelly).3 

We  will  now  briefly  notice  such  of  the  castles  of  these 
various  districts  as  are  mentioned  in  the  sources  to  which 
we  have  already  referred  in  our  last  chapter,  taking  them 
in  the  order  of  the  modern  counties  in  which  they  are 
found. 

1  Now  more  often  called  the  Aberpergwm  Brut,  from  the  place  where 
the  MS.  is  preserved. 

2  See  Freeman,  Norman  Conquest,  v.,  820  ;  William  Rufus,  ii.,  79  ;  and 
Prof.  Tout,  in  Y  Cymmerodor,  ix.,  208.     For  this  reason  we  do  not  use  the 
list   of  castles    given    in  this   chronicle,   but   confine  ourselves  to  those 
mentioned  in  the  more  trustworthy  Brut  y  Tywysogion. 

3  The  same  MS.  says,  under  the  year  1099,  "Harry  Beaumont  came  to 
Gower,  against  the  sons  of  Caradog  ap  Jestin,  and  won  many  of  their  lands, 
and  built  the  castle  of  Abertawy  (Swansea)  and  the  castle  of  Aberllychor 
(Loughor),   and  the   castle  of  Llanrhidian   (Weobley),  and   the  castle  of 
Penrhys  (Penrice),  and  established  himself  there,  and  brought  Saxons  from 
Somerset  there,  where  they  obtained  lands  ;  and  the  greatest  usurpation  of 
all  the  Frenchmen  was  his  in  Gower." 


278  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 


CASTLES  OF  PEMBROKESHIRE. 

PEMBROKE. — Giraldus  says  that  Arnulf  de  Mont- 
gomeri  first  built  this  castle  of  sods  and  wattles,  a 
scanty  and  slender  construction,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
I.1  This  date,  however,  must  certainly  be  wrong,  for 
the  castle  sustained  a  siege  from  the  Welsh  in  1094,  and 
in  1098  Arnulf  gave  the  chapel  of  St  Nicholas  in  his 
castle  of  Pembroke  to  the  abbey  of  St  Martin  at  Sees.2 
There  is  no  motte  at  Pembroke  Castle  ;  the  magnificent 
keep  (clearly  of  the  I3th  century  or  later)  stands  in  a 
small  ward  at  the  edge  of  a  cliff,8  separated  by  a  former 
ditch  from  the  immense  encircling  bailey  whose  walls 
and  towers  are  clearly  of  Edwardian  date.  The  words 
of  Giraldus  "a  castle  of  wattles  and  turf"  might  lead  us 
to  think  that  the  first  castle  was  a  motte  of  the  usual 
type,  but  the  use  which  he  makes  of  the  same  expression 
in  his  work  on  Ireland  leads  one  to  think  that  he  means 
a  less  defensible  fort,  a  mere  bank  and  fence.4  There  is 
some  reason,  moreover,  to  doubt  whether  the  present 
castle  of  Pembroke  stands  on  the  same  site  as  Arnulf s, 
as  after  the  banishment  of  the  latter,  Gerald,  the  royal 
Seneschal  of  Pembroke  "  built  the  castle  anew  in  the 
place  called  Little  Cengarth."5 

But  however  this  may  be,  the  castle  of  Pembroke 
was  certainly  strong  enough  in  1094  to  resist  a  great 

1  "  Primus  hoc  castrum  Arnulphus  de  Mongumeri  sub  Anglorum  rege 
Henrico  primo  ex  virgis  et  cespite,  tenue  satis  et  exile  construxit."    I  tin. 
Cambria,  R.  S.,  89. 

2  Quoted  from  Duchesne  in  Mon.  Ang.^  vol.  vi. 

3  See  Mr   Cobbe's  paper  on  Pembroke  Castle  in  Arch.    Camb.,    1883, 
where  reasons  are  given  for  thinking  that  the  present  ward  was  originally, 
and  even  up  to  1300,  the  whole  castle. 

4  A  motte-castle  of  earth  and  wood  was  certainly  not  regarded  as  "  a 
weak  and  slender  defence"  in  the  time  of  Giraldus. 

5  Brut  y  Tywysogion,  1095. 


CASTLES  OF  PEMBROKESHIRE  279 

insurrection  of  the  Welsh,  when  all  the  castles  of  south- 
west Wales  were  destroyed,  except  Pembroke  and  Rhyd 
y  Gors.  And  it  continued  to  be  one  of  the  chief  strong- 
holds of  English  power  in  South  Wales  until  Edward 
I.  completed  the  conquest  of  the  country.  Its  splendid 
situation  on  a  high  cliff  at  the  mouth  of  an  excellent 
harbour,  to  which  supplies  could  be  brought  by  sea,  was 
one  of  the  secrets  of  its  strength.  A  passage  cut  in  the 
rock  led  from  the  castle  to  a  cave  below  opening  on  to 
the  water. 

^NEWPORT,  or  Trefdaeth,  was  the  head  of  the  Barony 
of  Keymes,  an  independent  lordship  founded  at  the  time 
of  the  first  Norman  advance,  by  Martin  of  Tours.1 
There  is  no  mention  of  it  before  1215.  The  present 
ruined  castle  of  Newport  is  not  earlier  than  the  I3th 
century,  but  about  i|-  miles  higher  up  the  river,  at 
Llanhyfer,  is  a  fine  motte  and  bailey,  which  probably 
mark  the  site  of  the  first  castle  of  Martin  of  Tours.2 

WISTON,  alias  Gwys  or  Wiz. — First  mentioned  in 
1148,  when  it  was  taken  by  the  Welsh.3  At  a  later 
period  we  find  it  one  of  the  castles  of  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke.  There  is  a  motte  still  remaining,  with  a 
shell  wall  on  top,  6  feet  thick,  having  a  plain  round 
arched  entrance.  This  masonry  is  probably  the  work  of 
William  Marshall,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  as  he  restored  the 
castle  in  1220  after  it  had  been  razed  to  the  ground  by 
Llywelyn  ap  Jorwerth.4  The  bailey  is  large  and  bean- 
shaped. 

LAWHADEN,  or  Llanyhadein,  or    Lauwadein. — First 

1  Bridgeman's  Hist,  of  South  Wales^  17. 

2  Arch.  Camb.,  3rd  ser.,  v.,  a  paper  on  Newport  Castle,  in  which  the 
writer  says  that  there  are  two  mottes  at  Llanhyfer,  the  larger  one  ditched 
round.     The  Ordnance  Map  only  shows  one. 

3  Brut  y  Tywysogion,  1146. 

*  Patent  Rolls  of  Henry  ///.,  255  ;  Foedera,  i.,  161. 


280  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

mention  in  HQ2.1  It  afterwards  became  a  palace  of  the 
bishops  of  St  David's.  There  is  no  motte,  though  the 
circular  outline  of  the  platform  on  which  the  fine  ruins 
of  the  castle  stand,  very  much  suggests  a  lowered  motte. 

HAVERFORDWEST. — First  mentioned  in  the  Pipe 
Roll  of  1214-1215,  when  it  was  in  the  custody  of  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke.  Although  this  castle  is  now  a  gaol,  and 
the  whole  site  masked  with  gaol  buildings,  the  motte 
can  still  be  seen  distinctly  from  one  side,  though  the 
keep  which  stands  upon  it  is  blocked  by  buildings.  The 
ditch  which  went  round  the  motte  can  also  be  traced. 
[H.  W.] 

NARBERTH. — This  castle  is  first  mentioned  in  1115, 
when  it  was  burnt  by  the  Welsh.  Said  to  have  been 
the  castle  of  Stephen  Perrot.2  The  present  ruins  are 
entirely  of  the  I3th  century,  and  there  is  no  motte;  but 
Lewis  states  that  the  first  castle  was  in  another  site, 
between  the  present  town  and  Templeton  ;  about  which 
we  have  no  information. 

TENBY. — First  mention  in  1 152.  An  important  coast 
station.  The  small  and  curious  round  keep  is  placed  on 
the  highest  point  of  a  small  island  ;  it  is  a  miniature 
copy  of  the  keep  of  Pembroke,  and  was  probably  built 
by  one  of  the  earls  Marshall,  not  earlier  than  the  i3th 
century.  There  is  no  motte,  nor  was  one  needed  in 
such  a  situation. 

CASTLES  OF  CARDIGAN. 

CARDIGAN  Castle,  or  Aberteifi,  has  been  so  much 
transformed  by  the  incorporation  of  the  keep  into  a 
modern  house  that  nothing  decisive  can  be  said  about 

1  Bruty  Tywysogion^  1192. 

2  Bridgeman  says  that  Narberth  was  given  to  Stephen  Perrot  by  Arnulf 
de  Montgomeri,  but  gives  no  authority  for  this  statement. 


CASTLES  OF  CARDIGAN  281 

its  original  plan,  but  there  is  nothing  to  foreclose  the 
idea  of  a  previous  motte,  and  Speed's  plan  of  161 1  seems 
to  show  that  the  keep  and  the  small  ward  attached  to  it 
were  on  a  higher  elevation  than  the  bailey.  That  the 
first  castle  was  a  wooden  one  is  rendered  almost  certain 
by  the  fact  that  Rhys  ap  Griffith,  after  having 
demolished  the  previous  castle,  rebuilt  it  with  stone  and 
mortar,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.1  The  Welsh 
chronicler  speaks  of  this  castle  as  the  key  of  all  Wales, 
an  exaggeration  certainly,  but  it  was  undoubtedly  the 
most  important  stronghold  of  South  Ceredigion.  [H.  W.] 

CILGERRAN,  or  Dingeraint  (Fig.  41). — This  castle 
was  certainly  built  by  Earl  Roger  ; 2  a  castle  of  great 
importance,  in  a  magnificent  situation.  Like  nearly  all 
the  castles  in  our  Welsh  list,  it  was  repeatedly  taken  by 
the  Welsh  and  retaken  from  them.  The  present 
masonry  is  of  the  I3th  century,  but  the  original  motte- 
and-bailey  plan  is  quite  discernible.  [H.  W.]  It  was 
a  connecting  link  between  the  castles  of  Pembrokeshire 
and  those  of  Cardigan,  and  stands  near  a  road  leading 
directly  from  Tenby  and  Narberth  to  Cardigan. 

ABERYSTWYTH,  also  Lampadarn  Vaur,  also  Aber- 
rheiddiol.3  In  1109  Henry  I.  deposed  Cadwgan,  a 
Welsh  prince  who  had  purchased  from  the  king  the 
government  of  Cardigan,  and  gave  that  country  to 
Gilbert,  son  of  Richard,  Earl  of  Clare,  who  took 
possession,  and  built  a  castle  "  opposite  to  Llanbadarn, 
near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Ystwyth."'  This  was 

1  Brut,  1171. 

2  Ibid.,  1107.     "Earl  Gilbert  built  a  castle  at  Dingeraint,  where  Earl 
Roger  had  before  founded  a  castle." 

3  The  castle  of  Aberrheiddiol  is  probably  the  name  of  the  present  castle 
of  Aberystwyth  when  it  was  first  built,  as  Lewis  Morris  says  that  the  river 
Rheiddiol  formerly  entered  the  sea  near  that  point.     Quoted  by  Meyrick, 
History  of  Cardigan,  p.  488. 

4  Brut,  1107. 


282  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

undoubtedly  the  precursor  of  the  modern  castle  of 
Aberystwyth,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  was  on  the 
same  site ;  the  present  ruins  are  not  opposite  Llanba- 
darn.  The  castle  was  as  important  for  the  defence  of 
N.  Cardigan  as  Cardigan  Castle  for  the  south.  It  was 
taken  at  least  seven  times  by  the  Welsh,  and  burnt  at 
least  five  times.  The  present  ruins  are  not  earlier  than 
the  time  of  Edward  I.,  and  there  is  no  motte  or  keep. 
[H.  W.] 

*BLAENPORTH,  or  Castell  Gwythan  (Fig.  41).— Also 
built  by  Gilbert  de  Clare,  and  evidently  placed  to  defend 
the  main  road  from  Cardigan  to  Aberystwyth.  The 
motte  and  bailey  are  still  remarkably  perfect,  as  shown 
by  the  25-inch  Ordnance  Map. 

YSTRAD  PEITHYLL. — Another  of  Gilbert  de  Clare's 
castles,  as  it  was  inhabited  by  his  steward.  It  was 
burnt  by  the  Welsh  in  IH5,1  and  is  never  mentioned 
again,  but  its  motte  and  ditch  still  survive,  with  some 
signs  of  a  bailey,  close  to  the  little  stream  of  the 
Peithyll,  near  Aberystwyth.  [H.  W.] 

CHASTELL  GWALTER,  or  Llanfihangel,  in  Pengwern 
(Fig.  41). — Castle  of  Walter  de  Bee,  probably  one  of 
the  barons  of  Gilbert  de  Clare.  First  mentioned  in 
1137,  when  it  was  burned  by  the  Welsh.2  There  is  a 
small  but  well-made  motte  and  part  of  an  adjoining 
bailey  standing  in  a  most  commanding  position  on  a 
high  plateau.  The  ditch  of  the  motte  is  excavated  in 
the  rock.  [D.  H.  M.] 

*DINERTH. — Also  burnt  in  1137  ;  restored  by  Roger, 
Earl  of  Clare,  in  1159,  after  which  it  underwent  many 
vicissitudes.3  Probably  originally  a  castle  of  the  Clares. 
"  In  the  grounds  of  Mynachty,  in  the  parish  of 

1  Brut,  1113.  2  Ibid.,  1135. 

3  Ibid.,  1135,  H57,  H99,  1203,  1207. 


N. 


ClLGERRAN. 


BLAENPORTH. 


CHASTELL  GWALTER. 


FlG.   41. — MOTTE-CASTLES  OF   SOUTH   WALES. 


[To  face  p.  282. 


CASTLES  OF  CARDIGAN  283 

Llanbadarn  Tref  Eglwys,  is  a  small  hill  called  Hero 
Castell,  probably  the  site  of  the  keep  of  Dinerth 
Castle."1  The  O.M.  shows  a  small  motte  and  bailey 
placed  between  two  streams. 

^CAERWEDROS,  or  Castell  Llwyndafydd,  also  burned  by 
the  Welsh  in  H37,2  after  which  it  is  not  mentioned 
again.  "  A  very  large  moated  tumulus,  with  founda- 
tions of  walls  on  the  top."8  Probably  a  Clare  castle. 

*  HUMPHREY'S  CASTLE,  now  Castle  Howel,  from  one 
of  its  Welsh  conquerors.  The  original  name  shows 
that  it  was  built  by  a  Norman,  and  it  was  restored  by 
Roger,  Earl  of  Clare,  in  H59.4  A  moated  tumulus  near 
the  river  Clettwr  marks  the  site  of  Humphrey's  Castle.5 

YSTRAD  MEURUG,  or  Meyric,  at  the  head  of  the  valley 
of  the  Teifi,  and  commanding  the  pass  leading  over 
into  Radnorshire. — Built  by  Gilbert  de  Clare  when  he 
reconquered  Cardigan,  and  one  of  his  most  important 
castles.6  Its  importance  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it 
had  a  small  stone  keep,  the  date  of  which  cannot  now 
be  determined,  as  only  the  foundations  remain,  buried 
under  sods.  There  is  no  motte,  and  the  bailey  can  only 
be  guessed  at  by  a  portion  of  the  ditch  which  still 
remains  on  the  N.  side,  and  by  two  platforms  which 
appear,  to  be  artificially  levelled.  The  castle  is  about 
three  miles  from  the  Sarn  Helen  or  Roman  road 
through  Cardigan. 

*PONT  Y  STUFFAN,  or  Stephen's  Bridge,  near 
Lampeter. — Burnt  by  the  Welsh  in  1138,  and  not 

1  Meyrick's  Hist,  of  Cardigan,  p.  293.     Dinerth  is  not  the  same  as 
Llanrhystyd,  though  Lewis  {Top.  Diet.   Wales)  says  it  is  ;  the  two  places 
have  separate  mention   in  Brut,    1157.     Mr    Clark  mentions  the  motte. 
M.  M.  A.,  i.,  115. 

2  Brut,  1135.  3  Meyrick's  Hist,  of  Cardigan,  p.  232. 

4  Brut,  1157.  5  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  Cardigan,  p.  502. 

6  Bmt,  under  1113. 


284  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

again  mentioned.1  In  the  outskirts  of  the  town  of 
Lampeter  is — or  was — a  lofty  moated  tumulus  (not 
shown  on  O.M.),  and  traces  of  a  quadrangular  court.2 
As  it  is  also  called  Castell  Ystuffan,  it  was  probably 
built  by  Stephen,  the  Norman  constable  of  Cardigan. 
There  appears  to  be  another  castle  mound  at  Lampeter 
itself,  near  the  church.  Lampeter  was  an  important 
post  on  the  Roman  road  up  the  valley  of  the  Teifi. 

^NANT  YR  ARIAN. — This  castle  is  only  mentioned 
once,  in  the  partition  of  Cardigan  and  Pembroke  which 
took  place  in  1216,  during  the  most  disastrous  part  of 
John's  reign.3  There  are  two  "castellau"  marked  at 
Nant  yr  Arian  in  the  N.  of  Cardiganshire  in  the 
O.M.  ;  neither  of  them  look  like  mottes.  This  castle, 
as  well  as  that  of  Ystrad  Peithyll,  seems  to  have  been 
placed  to  defend  the  road  from  Aberystwyth  to  Llanid- 
loes,  which  would  be  the  chief  highway  between  Shrop- 
shire and  Ceredigion. 

CASTLES  OF  CARMARTHENSHIRE. 

RHYD  Y  GORS,  or  Rhyd  Cors. — We  have  no  hesitation 
in  adopting  the  opinion  of  the  late  Mr  Floyd,  that  this 
is  another  name  for  the  castle  of  Carmarthen.4  As  it 
and  Pembroke  were  the  only  castles  which  held  out 
during  the  great  Welsh  revolt  of  IO96,5  it  is  evident  that 
they  were  the  two  strongest  and  best  defended  places, 
therefore  the  most  important.  Carmarthen  also  was  a 
Roman  city,  and  its  walls  were  still  standing  in 
Giraldus'  time ; 6  it  was  therefore  the  place  where  one 

1  In  the  Rolls  edition  of  the  Brut  this  castle  is  called  Llanstephan,  but 
the   context  makes   it   probable  that   Lampeter    is   meant ;    the  Annales 
Cambria  say  "  the  castle  of  Stephen." 

2  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales^  p.  492.  3  Brut^  1216. 

4  Arch.  Journ.^  xxviii.,  293.  5  Brut,  1094.  6  Desc.  Camb.,  i.,  10. 


CASTLES  OF  CARMARTHENSHIRE  285 

would  expect  to  find  a  Norman  castle.  Now  Car- 
marthen, along  with  Cardiff  and  Pembroke,  continued 
up  till  the  final  conquest  of  all  Wales  to  be  the  most 
important  seat  of  English  power  in  South  Wales. 
Moreover,  Rhyd  y  Gors  was  a  royal  castle ;  we 
are  expressly  told  that  it  was  built  by  William  Fitz 
Baldwin,  by  the  command  of  the  king  of  England.1 
Carmarthen  also  was  a  royal  castle,  and  the  only 
one  in  South  Wales  at  that  date  which  belonged 
directly  to  the  king.  It  was  temporarily  abandoned 
after  William  Fitz  Baldwin's  death  in  1096,  and 
afterwards  Henry  I.  gave  it  into  the  custody  of  a 
Welshman,  who  also  had  charge  of  Strath  Towy ;  a 
passage  which  proves  that  Rhyd  y  Gors  was  in  that 
district.  It  was  restored  by  Richard  Fitz  Baldwin 
in  iiO4,2  and  is  mentioned  for  the  last  time  in  1105. 
After  that  the  castle  of  Carmarthen,  which  has 
not  been  mentioned  before,  begins  to  appear,  and  its 
importance  is  clear  from  the  continual  references  to  it. 
Placed  as  it  is  on  a  navigable  river,  at  the  entrance  of 
the  narrower  part  of  the  vale  of  Towy,  and  on  the 
Roman  road  from  Brecon  to  St  David's,  its  natural 
position  must  have  marked  it  as  a  fit  site  for  a  royal 
castle.  The  castle  is  now  converted  into  a  gaol,  and 
disfigured  in  the  usual  way ;  yet  the  ancient  motte  of 
William  Fitz  Baldwin  still  remains,  partly  inside  and 
partly  outside  the  walls.  It  is  crowned  with  a  stone 
revetment  which  Colonel  Morgan  believes  to  have  been 
erected  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  to  form  a  platform 

1  Brut,  1094. 

2  Ibid,,  p.  no.     There  is  a  farmhouse  called  Rhyd  y  Gors  about  a  mile 
lower  down  than  Carmarthen,  and  on  the  opposite  side  are  some  embank- 
ments ;  but  I  am  assured  by  Mr  Spurrell  of  Carmarthen  that  these  are  only 
river-embankments.     Rhyd  y  Gors  means  the  ford  of  the  bog  ;  there  is  no 
ford  at  this  spot,  but  there  was  one  at  Carmarthen. 


286  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

for  guns.1  The  bailey  is  rectangular  and  covers  about  2 
acres.  The  motte  is  placed  at  one  corner  of  it,  on  the 
line  of  the  walls.  On  the  outside  it  is  now  built  over 
with  poor  cottages  ;  but  the  site  of  the  ditch  can  still  be 
traced. 

*LLANDOVERY,  or  Llanymdyfri,  or  the  castle  of 
Cantrebohhan. — It  is  referred  to  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of 
1159-1160  by  the  latter  name,  which  is  only  a  Norman 
way  of  spelling  Cantref  Bychan,  the  little  cantref  or 
hundred,  of  which  this  castle  was  the  head.2  It  was 
then  in  royal  custody,  and  Henry  II.  spent  nearly  ^60 
on  its  works.  But  it  had  originally  belonged  to  Richard 
Fitz  Pons,  one  of  the  barons  of  Bernard  de  Neufmarche, 
and  the  fact  that  he  held  the  key  of  this  cantref  goes  to 
prove  that  it  was  from  Brecknock  that  the  Normans 
advanced  into  northern  Carmarthenshire.  The  castle 
is  first  mentioned  in  the  Brut  in  1115,  when  Griffith  ap 
Rhys  burnt  the  bailey,  but  could  not  take  the  keep  on 
the  motte.8  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  long  in 
English  hands  after  1159,  but  its  alternations  were 
many.  The  25-inch  O.M.  shows  an  oval  motte, 
carrying  some  fragments  of  masonry,  to  which  is 
attached  a  roughly  quadrangular  bailey.  This  was  one 
of  the  many  castles  by  which  the  Normans  held  Strath 
Towy. 

LLANSTEPHAN/ — This  castle  stands  in  a  splendid 
situation  at  the  mouth  of  the  Towy,  and  was  doubtless 
built  to  secure  a  maritime  base  for  Carmarthen.  The 
motte  is  of  unusual  size,  semicircular  in  shape,  one  side 

1  See  Arch.  Camb.,  1907,  pp.  237-8. 

2  See  Round's  Ancient  Charters,  p.  9,  Pipe  Roll  Series,  vol.  x. 

3  Brut,  1113. 

4  The  first  mention  of  the  castle  of  Llanstephan  is  in  the  Brut,  1147, 
if,   as  has  been  assumed  above,  the  mention  in  1136  refers  to  Stephen's 
castle  at  Lampeter,  as  the  Annales  Cambria  say. 


CASTLES  OF  CARMARTHENSHIRE  287 

being  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff;  it  measures  300  feet 
by  200  in  the  centre  of  the  arc.1  Such  a  size  allowed 
all  the  important  parts  of  the  castle  to  be  built  on  the 
motte  ;  but  there  was  a  rectangular  bailey  attached,  which 
is  only  imperfectly  shown  on  the  O.M.  ;  the  scarp 
is  in  reality  well  marked  on  all  sides,  and  the  ditch 
separating  it  from  the  motte  is  a  very  deep  one.  [H.  W.] 
The  towers  that  now  crown  the  motte  are  not  earlier 
than  the  year  1256,  when  the  castle  was  destroyed  by 
Llywelyn.2 

DINEVOR,  or  Dinweiler. — Most  Welsh  writers  asso- 
ciate Dinevor  with  the  ancient  residence  of  the  kings 
of  South  Wales,  but  there  appears  to  be  some  doubt 
about  this,  as  the  place  is  not  mentioned  before  the  I2th 
century.8  Anyhow  the  castle  was  certainly  the  work  of 
Earl  Gilbert,  as  the  Brut  itself  tells  us  so.4  In  1162  it 
was  taken  by  Rhys  ap  Griffith,  the  able  prince  who 
attempted  the  consolidation  of  South  Wales,  and  who 
was  made  Justiciar  of  that  province  by  Henry  II.  It 
continued  in  Welsh  hands,  sometimes  hostile,  sometimes 
allied,  till  it  was  finally  taken  by  the  English  in  1277. 
The  existing  ruins  are  entirely  of  the  I3th  century,  but 
the  plan  certainly  suggests  a  previous  motte  and  bailey, 
the  motte  having  probably  been  lowered  to  form  the 
present  smaller  ward,  whose  walls  and  towers  appear  to 

1  The  motte  of  Conisburgh  in  Yorkshire  is  a  very  similar  case  known 
to  the  writer  ;  it  measures  280  x  1 50  feet.  Such  very  large  mottes  could 
rarely  be  artificial,  but  were  formed  by  entrenching  and  scarping  a  natural 
hill. 

'2  Bru^  1256.  See  Arch.  Camb.,  1907,  p.  214,  for  Col.  Morgan's 
remarks  on  this  castle. 

3  The  name  Gueith  tineuur  is  found  in  the  Book  of  Llandaff,   p.   78 
(Life  of  St  Dubricius),  but  it  seems  doubtful  whether  this  should  be  taken  to 
prove  the  existence  of  some  "  work "  at  Dinevor  in  the  6th  century.     See 
Wade-Evans,  Welsh  Medt&val  Law,  p.  337-8. 

4  Brut,  1145.     "Cadell  ap  Griffith  took  the  castle  of  Dinweiler,  which 
had  been  erected  by  Earl  Gilbert." 


288  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

be  of  Edward  I.'s  reign.  The  small  bailey  attached  to 
this  ward  is  separated  from  it  by  a  ditch  cut  through 
the  headland  on  which  the  castle  stands. 

KIDWELLY  (Cydweli). — This  castle,  though  in  Car- 
marthen, was  not  founded  by  the  conquerors  from 
Brecknock,  but  by  Normans  from  Glamorgan  or  Gower. 
Kidwelly  was  first  built  by  William  de  Londres,  in 
IO94.1  The  present  castle  shows  no  trace  of  this  early 
origin,  but  is  a  fine  specimen  of  the  keepless  pattern 
introduced  into  England  in  the  I3th  century.2  There  is 
no  motte. 

LAUGHARNE,  or  Talycharne. — Also  called  Aber- 
corran,  being  at  the  point  where  the  little  river  Corran 
flows , into  the  estuary  of  the  Taff.  In  1113  this  castle 
belonged  to  a  Norman  named  Robert  Courtmain.3  The 
ancient  features  of  the  plan  have  been  obliterated  by 
transformation  first  into  an  Edwardian  castle,  then 
into  a  modern  house.  There  is  of  course  no  motte. 
[H.  W.] 

^YSTRAD  CYNGEN. — This  must,  we  think,  be  the 
same  as  ST  CLEARS,  which  stands  in  the  Cynen  valley, 
near  its  junction  with  the  Taff.  Welsh  writers  identify 
St  Clears  with  the  castle  of  Mabudrud,  the  name  of  the 
commot  in  which  it  stands.  First  mentioned  in  H54.4 
There  is  no  notice  of  its  origin,  but  the  fact  that  a 
Cluniac  priory  existed  in  the  village,  which  was  a  cell  of 
St  Martin  des  Champs  at  Paris,  points  to  a  Norman 
founder,  and  renders  an  nth  century  date  probable.  It 

1  Gwentian  Chronicle. 

2  The  statement  of  Donovan  (Excursions  Through  South  Wales\  that 
the  castle  stands  on  an  artificial  mount  is  quite  incorrect. 

3  The  Rolls  edition  of  the  Brut  gives  the  corrupt  reading  Aber  Cavwy 
for  the  castle  of  "Robert  the  Crook-handed,"  but  a  variant  MS.  gives  Aber 
Korram,  and  it  is  clear  from  the  Gwentian  Chronicle  and  Powell  (p.  145) 
that  Abercorran  is  meant. 

1152. 


CASTLES  OF  CARMARTHENSHIRE  289 

was  a  motte-and-bailey  castle,  of  which  the  earthworks 


remain.1 


^NEWCASTLE  EMLYN. — This  castle  does  not  appear  to 
have  received  the  name  of  "  the  new  castle  of  Emlyn  " 
till  after  Edward  I.'s  conquest.2  The  new  castle,  which 
is  quite  Edwardian,  was  probably  built  on  a  different 
site  to  the  old,  as  "on  the  other  side  of  the  bridge  is  a 
considerable  mount,  of  a  military  character,  which  must 
have  commanded  the  river.  It  may  have  been  the 
original  strong  post  occupied  by  the  Normans."8  In 
the  1 2th  century  Pipe  Rolls  compensation  is  paid  to 
William  FitzGerald  for  many  years  "as  long  as  Rhys  ap 
Griffith  holds  the  castle  of  Emlyn,"  which  points  to 
Gerald,  the  Seneschal  of  Pembroke,  or  his  family,  as  its 
founders.  It  is  on  the  very  border  of  Carmarthenshire 
and  Cardiganshire,  defending  the  main  road  from 
Carmarthen  to  Cardigan. 

LLANEGWAD. — This  castle  is  only  once  mentioned,  in 
the  Brut,  under  the  year  1 203,  when  it  was  taken  by  the 
Welsh.  A  small  motte,  called  locally  Pen  y  Knap,  with 
an  earthen  breastwork  round  the  top,  is  still  standing 
about  a  mile  from  the  church  of  Llanegwad,  and  is  all 
that  is  left  of  this  castle.  The  position  commands  a  fine 
view  over  the  Towy  valley,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  it 
stands  very  near  the  supposed  Roman  road  from  Brecon 
to  Carmarthen.  [H.  W.] 

*LLANGADOG. — This  castle  also  does  not  appear  till 
1203  ;  it  was  razed  or  burnt  at  least  thrice  in  five  years.4 
A  mound  of  earth  on  the  banks  of  the  Sawddwy  River, 
near  where  the  Roman  road  from  Brecon  is  supposed  to 

1  See  paper  by  Mr  D.  C.  Evans,  Arch.  Camb.,  1907,  p.  224. 

2  The  first  mention  known  to  the  writer  is  in  1285. 

3  Arch.  Camb.,  3rd  ser.,  v.,  346. 

4  Annales  Cambria,  1205  ;  Brut,  1207,  1208.     The  Annales  call  it  the 
castle  of  Luchewein. 


290  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

have  reached  the  Towy  valley,  is  all  that  remains  of  it.1 
Lewis  says  that  it  stands  in  a  large  oval  entrenchment, 
and  that  the  motte  is  of  natural  rock,  scarped  conically, 
and  deeply  moated. 


CASTLES  IN  BRECKNOCKSHIRE. 

BRECON,  or  Aberhonddu,  the  seat  of  Bernard  de 
Neufmarche  himself. — A  charter  of  Bernard's  mentions 
the  castle.2  It  seems  to  have  been  a  particularly  strong 
place,  as  we  do  not  hear  of  its  having  been  burnt  more 
than  once.  The  newer  castle  of  Brecon  is  evidently  of 
the  time  of  Edward  I.,  but  across  the  road  the  old 
motte  of  Bernard  is  still  standing,  and  carries  the  ruins 
of  a  shell  wall,  with  a  gatehouse  tower.3  A  portion  of 
the  bank  and  ditch  of  the  bailey  remains  ;  the  whole  is 
now  in  a  private  garden.  The  situation  is  a  strong  one, 
between  the  Usk  and  the  Honddu.  Brecon  of  course 
was  a  burgus,  and  part  of  the  bank  which  fortified  it 
remains. 

BUILTH,  on  the  upper  Wye,  alias  Buallt  (Fig.  42). — 
A  remarkably  fine  motte  and  bailey,  presenting  some 
peculiarities  of  plan.  It  is  not  mentioned  till  i2io,4  but 
it  has  been  conjectured  with  great  probability  that  it 
was  one  of  the  castles  built  by  Bernard  de  Neufmarche 

1  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  "  Caermarthen,"  pp.  192,  309. 

2  Mon.  Ang.,  iii.,  244. 

3  This  motte  is  mentioned  in  a  charter  of  Roger,   Earl   of  Hereford, 
Bernard's  grandson,  in  which  he  confirms  to  the  monks  of  St  John  "molen- 
dinum  meum  situm  super  Hodeni  sub  pede  mote  castelli."     Arch.  Camb., 
1883,  p.  144- 

4  The  dates  in  the  Brut  are  now  one  year  too  early.      Under  1209  it 
says,  "  Gelart  seneschal  of  Gloucester  fortified  (cadarnhaaod)  the  castle  of 
Builth."    We  can  never  be  certain  whether  the  word  which  is  translated 

fortified,  whether  from  the  Welsh  or  from  the  Latin  firmare,  means  built 
priginally  or  rebuilt. 


BCTILTH. 


IM. 


PAYN'S  CASTLE. 


FIG.  42. — MOTTE-CASTLES   OF   SOUTH    WALES. 


[To  /ace  p  290. 


CASTLES  OF  BRECKNOCKSHIRE  291 

when  he  conquered  Brecknock.1  It  was  refortified  by 
John  Mortimer  in  I242,2  probably  in  stone,  as  in  the 
account  of  its  destruction  by  Llywelyn  in  1260  it  is  said 
that  "  not  one  stone  was  left  on  another." 8  Nevertheless 
when  Edward  I.  rebuilt  it  the  towers  on  the  outer  wall 
appear  to  have  been  of  wood.4  Mr  Clark  states  that 
there  are  traces  of  masonry  foundations  and  small 
portions  of  a  wing  wall.  The  bailey  of  this  castle 
consists  of  a  rather  narrow  platform,  divided  into  two 
unequal  portions  by  a  cross  ditch  which  connects  the 
ditch  of  the  motte  with  that  of  the  bailey.  The  ditch 
round  the  motte  is  of  unusual  breadth,  being  120  feet 
broad  in  the  widest  part.  The  whole  work  is  encircled 
by  an  outer  ditch  of  varying  breadth,  being  100  feet 
wide  on  the  weakest  side  of  the  work,  and  by  a  counter- 
scarp bank  which  appears  to  be  still  perfect.  The 
entrance  is  defended  by  four  small  mounds  which 
probably  cover  the  remains  of  towers.5  The  area  of 
the  two  baileys  together  is  only  i  acre.  [D.  H.  M.] 

*HAY,  or  Tregelli. — The  earliest  mention  of  this 
castle  is  in  a  charter  of  Henry  I.6  The  present  castle 
of  Hay  is  of  late  date,  but  Leland  tells  us  that  "  not 
far  from  the  Paroche  Chirch  is  a  great  round  Hille  of 
Yerth  cast  up  by  Men's  Hondes."7  It  is  shown  on  the 
25-inch  O.M.,  and  so  is  the  line  of  the  borough  walls. 


1  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  "  Brecknockshire,"  p.  153. 

2  Brut)  in  anno.    The  Mortimers  were  the  heirs  of  the  De  Braoses  and 
the  Neufmar dies. 

3  Annales  Cambrics,  1260.     This  may,  however,  be  merely  a  figure  of 
speech. 

4  Order  to  cause  Roger  Mortimer,  so  soon  as  the  castle  of  Built  shall 
be  closed  with  a  wall,  whereby  it  will  be  necessary  to  remove  the  bretasches, 
to    have    the    best    bretasche    of   the    king's    gift.     Cal.  of  Close   Rolls, 
Ed.  I.,  i.,  527- 

5  See  Clark,  M.  M.  A.,  i.,  307. 

6  Round,  Ancient  Charters,  No.  6.  Itin.,  v.,  74. 


292  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

^TALGARTH. — Mentioned  in  a  charter  of  Roger,  Earl 
of  Hereford,  not  later  than  1 156.1  A  13th-century  tower 
on  a  small  motte  is  still  standing,  and  can  be  seen  from 
the  railway  between  Brecon  and  Hereford. 

CASTLES  OF  RADNORSHIRE. 

^RADNOR,  or  Maes  Hyvaidd. — Though  this  castle  is 
not  mentioned  in  the  Brut  till  1196,  when  it  was  burnt 
by  Rhys  ap  Griffith,  it  must  have  been  built  by  the 
Normans  at  a  very  early  period.  The  English  had 
penetrated  into  the  Radnor  district  even  before  the 
Norman  Conquest,2  and  the  Normans  were  not  slow  to 
follow  them.  A  charter  of  Philip  de  Braose  is  granted 
at  "  Raddenoam "  not  later  than  io96.3  There  are 
mottes  both  at  Old  and  New  Radnor,  towns  three  miles 
distant  from  each  other,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  say 
which  was  the  Maes  Hyvaidd  of  the  Britt.  Both  may 
have  been  originally  De  Braose  castles,  but  New 
Radnor  evidently  became  the  more  important  place,  and 
has  massive  remains  in  masonry.  The  town  was  a 
biirgus. 

*GEMARON,  or  Cwm  Aron  (Fig.  42). — Near  Llandewi- 
Ystrad-denny.  The  Brut  mentions  its  repair  by  Hugh 
Mortimer  in  1145.*  The  6-inch  O.M.  shows  a  square 
central  bailey  of  i  acre,  containing  some  remains  of 
masonry,  lying  between  an  oblong  motte  in  the  S.  and 
an  outer  enclosure  on  the  N.,  the  whole  being  further 
defended  by  a  high  counterscarp  bank  on  the  W.  It 

1  Arch.  Camd.j  N.  S.,  v.,  23-28. 

2  "Wales  and  the  Coming  of  the  Normans,"  by  Professor  Lloyd,  in 
Cymmrodorion  Transactions,  1899. 

3  Marchegay,  Chartes  du  Prieurie  de   Monmouth^   cited  by  Professor 
Lloyd,  as  above. 

4  Brut,  1143. 


CASTLES  OF  RADNORSHIRE  293 

commands  a  ford  over  the  river  Aran.  There  is  no 
village  attached  to  it. 

^MAUD'S  CASTLE,  otherwise  Colwyn  or  Clun.1 — A 
ditched  motte  with  square  bailey  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  river  Edwy,  near  the  village  of  Forest  Colwyn. 
The  statement  that  this  castle  was  repaired  in  1145 
shows  that  it  must  have  been  older  than  the  time  of 
Maude  de  Braose,  from  whom  it  is  generally  supposed 
to  have  taken  its  name.  It  was  rebuilt  by  Henry  III. 
in  1231. 2 

*PAYN'S  CASTLE,  otherwise  "  the  castle  of  Elvael." 
— First  mentioned  in  1196,  when  it  was  taken  by  Rhys 
ap  Griffith.  This  is  also  a  motte-castle  (and  an  excep- 
tionally fine  one),  placed  on  a  road  leading  from  Kington 
in  Hereford  to  Builth.  Rebuilt  in  stone  by  Henry  III. 
in  1231. 3  (Fig.  42.) 

*KNIGHTON,  in  Welsh  Trefclawdd. — First  mentioned 
in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  1181.  The  motte  still  remains,  near 
the  church.  There  is  another  motte  just  outside  the 
village,  called  Bryn  y  Castell.  It  may  be  a  siege  castle. 

^NORTON. — First  mentioned  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  1 191. 
A  motte  remains  close  to  the  church,  and  two  sides  of  a 
bailey  which  ran  down  to  the  Norton  brook. 

*BLEDDFA,  the  Bledewach  of  the  Pipe  Roll  Q{  1195- 
1 196,  when  ^5  was  given  to  Hugh  de  Saye  adfirmandum 
castellum,  an  expression  which  may  mean  either  building 
or  repairing.  An  oval  motte,  and  traces  of  a  bailey,  are 
marked  in  the  6-inch  O.M. 

TYNBOETH,  alias  Dyneneboth,   Tinbech,4  and  Llan- 

1  Not  to  be  confounded  with  the  castle  of  Clun  in  Shropshire. 

2  Annales  Cambrics  and  Annales  de  Margam.     See  plan  in  Arch.  Camb.^ 
4th  ser.,  vi.,  251. 

3  Annales  Cambrics. 

4  Really  Ty-yn-yr  Bwlch,  the  house  in  the  pass.     Not  to  be^confounded 
with  Tenby  in  Pembrokeshire. 


294  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

anno. — First  mentioned  in  Pipe  Roll  of  1196-1197. 
There  is  a  fine  large  motte  in  a  commanding  situation,  and 
a  crescent-shaped  bailey,  now  marked  only  by  a  scarp. 
There  are  some  remains  of  masonry,  and  the  castle  was 
evidently  an  important  one.  It  is  first  mentioned  in  the 
Pipe  Roll  of  1 196,  and  it  occurs  in  lists  of  the  Mortimer 
castles  in  the  I4th  century.1  It  is  not  far  from  two 
fords  of  the  river  Ithon.  [H.  W.] 

These  four  castles  are  not  mentioned  in  the  Brut  y 
Tywysogion,  though  the  Annales  Cambrics  mentions  the 
capture  of  Bleddfa,  Knighton,  and  Norton  by  the  Welsh 
in  1262.  They  all  command  important  roads.  Knighton 
and  Norton  were  boroughs. 


CASTLES  OF  GLAMORGANSHIRE. 

CARDIFF  (Fig.  43). — The  first  castle  of  Cardiff  was 
certainly  a  wooden  one ;  its  lofty  mound  still  remains. 
It  is  placed  inside  a  Roman  station,  and  the  south  and 
west  walls  of  the  castle  bailey  rest  on  Roman  foundations, 
"but  do  not  entirely  coincide  with  those  foundations." 
The  Roman  fort  was  probably  ruinous  when  Robert 
Fitz  Hamon  placed  his  first  castle  there,  as  on  the  N. 
and  E.  sides  the  bailey  is  defended  by  an  earthbank,  in 
which  the  remains  of  a  Roman  wall  have  been  found 
buried.  The  area  of  the  Roman  castrum  was  about  8J 
acres,  and  evidently  the  Normans  found  this  too  large, 
as  they  divided  it  by  a  cross  wall,  which  reduces  the 
inner  fort  to  about  2  acres.  The  motte  has  its  own 
ditch.  The  position  of  Cardiff  was  a  very  important 
base,  not  only  as  a  port  near  Bristol,  but  as  a  point  on 

1  Cat.  of  Close  Rolls,  Ed.  II.,  iii.,  415,  643. 

2  See  "  Cardiff  Castle  :  its  Roman  Origin,"  by  John  Ward,  Archaologia, 
Ivii.,  335- 


Roman  Wo//s. 


LOUGHOR. 


FIG.  43. — MOTTE-CASTLES  OF  SOUTH  WALES. 


[To  face  p.  294. 


CASTLES  OF  GLAMORGANSHIRE  295 

the  probably  Roman  road  which  connected  Gloucester 
with  Carmarthen  and  beyond.1 

The  lands  of  Robert  Fitz  Hamon,  in  the  next 
generation,  passed  into  the  hands  of  Robert,  the  great 
Earl  of  Gloucester,  Henry  I.'s  illegitimate  son.  He  was 
a  great  castle-builder,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  first 
masonry  of  Cardiff  Castle  was  his  work.2 

NEWCASTLE  BRIDGEND. — This  castle  and  the  three 
which  follow  are  all  situated  on  or  near  the  "  Roman  " 
road  from  Cardiff  to  St  David's,  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken.  There  were  two  castles  at  Bridgend,  the  Old 
Castle  and  the  New  Castle,  from  which  the  town  takes 
its  name.  The  site  of  the  former  is  now  too  much  cut 
up  for  any  definite  conclusions  about  it ;  the  site  of  the 
latter  has  been  converted  into  market  gardens,  but  a 
motte  is  still  standing  in  one  corner  with  the  ruins  of  a 
tower  upon  it.  [H.  W.]  This  castle  is  not  noticed  either 
by  the  Brut  or  the  Aberpergwm  version  ;  the  earliest 
mention  known  to  us  is  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  1 1 84,  at  a 
time  when  the  castles  of  the  Earl  of  Gloucester  were  in 
royal  custody,  and  this  appears  to  have  been  one  of 
them. 

KENFIG. — This  castle  is  close  to  the  "  Roman"  road. 
The  Aberpergwm  Brut  says  that  it  was  one  of  the  castles 
of  Robert  Fitz  Hamon,  and  states  that  in  1092  it  was 
rebuilt  "  stronger  than  ever  before,  for  castles  prior  to 
that  were  built  of  wood."  This  is  a  good  specimen  of 
the  mixture  of  truth  and  error  to  be  found  in  this  i6th 
century  MS.  There  is  little  doubt  that  all  the  first 

1  See  "  Cardiff  Castle  :  its  Roman  Origin,"  by  John  Ward,  Archceologia, 
Ivii.,  335- 

2  Mr  Clark  thought  the  shell  wall  on  the  motte  was  Norman,  and  the 
tower  Perp.     But  the  wall  of  the  shell  has  some  undoubtedly  Perp.  windows. 
The  Gwentian  Chronicle  says  that  Robert  of  Gloucester  surrounded  the  town 
of  Cardiff  with  a  wall,  anno  1 1 1 1. 


296  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

castles  of  the  Normans  in  Wales  were  built  of  wood  ; 
but  it  is  extremely  unlikely  that  any  wooden  keep  was 
replaced  by  a  stone  one  as  early  as  1092.  The  town 
and  castle  of  Kenfig  are  now  almost  entirely  buried  in 
sand-drifts,  but  the  top  of  the  motte,  with  some  frag- 
ments of  masonry  upon  it,  is  still  visible.  [H.  W.]1  The 
note  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  the  repair  of  the  palicium  of 
this  castle  shows  that  the  bailey  wall  at  any  rate  was 
still  of  wood  in  1183.  Even  as  late  as  1232  the  keep 
was  only  defended  by  a  ditch  and  hedge  ;  yet  it  with- 
stood an  assault  from  Llywelyn  ap  Jorwerth.2  The 
bailey  is  said  to  contain  1 1  acres,  a  most  unusual 
size.  Kenfig  was  a  borough  in  Norman  times,  and  it  is 
possible  that  this  large  bailey  was  the  original  borough, 
afterwards  enlarged  in  mediaeval  times.  There  is 
evidence  that  there  were  burgage  tenements  within  the 
bailey.3 

ABERAVON. — The  Aberpergwm  MS.  says  that  Fitz 
Hamon  gave  Aberavon  to  the  son  of  the  Welsh  traitor 
who  had  called  him  into  Glamorgan.  At  a  later  period, 
however,  we  find  it  in  Norman  hands.  The  site  of  the 
castle  has  been  entirely  cleared  away,  but  it  had  a  motte, 
which  is  still  remembered  by  the  older  inhabitants. 
[H.  W.]4  It  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Brut  before  1152, 
when  it  was  attacked  and  burnt  by  Rhys  ap  Griffith. 

^NEATH. — The  site  of  the  first  castle  of  Neath  was 
given  by  Richard  de  Granville,  its  owner,  to  the  abbey 
of  Neath,  which  he  had  founded.5  About  the  year  1 1 1 1, 

1  See  Gray's  Buried  City  of  Kenfig,  where  there  are  interesting  photo- 
graphs.    The  remains  appear  to  be  those  of  a  shell. 

2  Annales  de  Mar  gam,  1232. 

3  Gray's  Buried  City  of  Kenfig,  pp.  59,  150. 

4  This  information  is  confirmed  by  Mr  Tennant,  town  clerk  of  Aberavon. 
6  See  Francis'  Neath  and  its  Abbey,  where  the  charter  of  De  Granville  is 

given.     It  is  only  preserved  in  an  Inspeximus  of  1468. 


CASTLES  OF  GOWER  297 

according  to  the  Aberpergwm  Brut,  Richard  returned 
from  the  Holy  Land,  bringing  with  him  a  Syrian 
architect,  well  skilled  in  the  building  of  monasteries, 
churches,  and  castles,  and  by  him  we  may  presume,  a 
new  castle  was  built  on  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
though  the  present  castle  on  that  site  is  clearly  of  much 
later  date.  The  monks  of  course  destroyed  all  vestiges 
of  the  first  (probably  wooden)  castle. 

^REMMI,  or  Remni. — Of  this  castle  there  is  only  one 
solitary  mention,  in  the  Pipe  Roll  oi  1184.  The  name 
seems  to  indicate  the  river  Rhymney,  which  is  the 
boundary  between  Glamorgan  and  Monmouth.  We  are 
unable  to  find  any  castle  site  so  near  the  Rhymney  as 
Ruperra,  where  Clark  mentions  a  fine  motte.1  But  we 
do  not  venture  on  this  identification  without  further 
information.2 

CASTLES  OF  GOWER. 

^SWANSEA,  or  Abertawy. — This  was  the  castle  of 
Henry  Beaumont,  the  conqueror  of  Gower.  The 
present  castle  is  comparatively  modern.  It  is  inside  the 
town  ;  but  there  used  to  be  a  moated  mound  outside  the 
town,  which  was  only  removed  in  1804.  It  seems 
probable  to  us  that  this  was  the  original  castle  of 
Beaumont.3  That  this  first  castle  had  a  motte  is 

1  M.  M.  A.,  i.,  112. 

2  Ruperra  is  not  quite  one  mile  from  the  river   Rhymney.     There   is 
another  site  which  may  possibly  be  that  of  Castle  Remni :  Castleton,  which 
is  nearly  2  miles  from  the  river,  but  is  on  the  main  road  from  Cardiff  to 
Newport.     "  It  was  formerly  a  place  of  strength  and  was  probably  built  or 
occupied  by  the  Normans  for  the  purpose  of  retaining  their  conquest  of 
Wentlwg.     The  only  remains  are  a  barrow  in  the  garden  of  Mr  Philipps, 
which  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  site  of  the  citadel,  and  a  stone  barn, 
once  a  chapel."     Coxe's  Monmouthshire,  i.,  63. 

3  It  is  right  to  say  that  Colonel  Morgan  in  his  admirable  Survey  of  East 
Gower  (a  model  of  what  an  antiquarian  survey  ought  to  be)  does  not  con- 


298  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

suggested  by  the  narrative  in  the  Brut  which  tells  how 
Griffith  ap  Rhys  burnt  the  outworks  in  1115,  but  was 
unable  to  get  at  the  tower.1 

*LOUGHOR,  or  Aberllychor  (Fig.  43). — Also  built  by 
Henry  Beaumont.  The  mound  of  the  castle  still 
remains,  with  a  small  square  keep  on  top.  There  was 
formerly  a  shell  wall  also.  The  place  of  a  bailey  was 
supplied  by  a  terrace  15  feet  wide.2  The  four  castles 
last  mentioned  are  all  at  the  mouths  of  rivers,  as  well  as 
on  an  ancient  (if  not  Roman)  coast  road. 

^LLANDEILO  TALYBONT,  or  Castell  Hu.  —  Only 
mentioned  once  in  the  Brut,  under  1215,  as  the  castle 
of  Hugh  de  Miles.  A  moated  mound  with  a  square 
bailey  and  no  masonry  still  remains.3  It  commands 
the  river  Loughor,  which  is  still  navigable  up  to  that 
point  at  high  tides.4  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  river 
is  another  motte  and  bailey,  called  Ystum  Enlle. 
Possibly  there  was  a  ford  or  ferry  at  this  point,  which 
these  castles  were  placed  to  defend.5 

OYSTERMOUTH,  a  corruption  of  Ystum  Llwynarth. — 
First  mentioned  in  the  older  Brut  in  1215,  when  it  was 
burnt  by  Rhys  Grug.  The  later  version  says  it  was 
built  by  Beaumont  in  1099.  The  castle  stands  on  a 
natural  height,  fortified  artificially  by  a  motte,  which  is 
of  great  size.  There  is  a  small  bailey  below  to  the 
N.E.,  and  a  curious  small  oval  embankment  thrown  out 
in  the  rear  of  the  castle  towards  the  N.W.  The 

nect  this  mound  with  the  old  castle  which  is  mentioned,  as  well  as  the  new 
castle,  in  Cromwell;s  Survey  of  Gower.  But  even  the  old  castle  seems  to 
have  been  Edwardian  (see  the  plan,  p.  85),  so  it  is  quite  possible  there  were 
three  successive  castles  in  Swansea. 

1  Brut,  1113.  2  Morgan's  Survey  of  East  Gower,  p.  24. 

3  Colonel  Morgan's  Survey  of  East  Gower. 

4  Lewis's  Topographical  Dictionary. 

5  The  passage  of  the  river  Lune  in  Lancashire  is  similarly  defended  by 
the  mottes  of  Melling  and  Arkholme. 


FEUDALISATION  OF  WALES  299 

architecture  of  this  magnificent  castle  is  all  of  the 
Edwardian  style,  and  as  the  castle  was  burnt  down  by 
Rhys  ap  Meredith  in  1287,  it  is  probable  that  only 
wooden  structures  stood  on  this  site  until  after  that  date. 
The  castle  is  in  a  fine  situation  overlooking  the  Bay  of 
Swansea.  [H.  W.] 


We  have  now  completed  our  list  of  the  Norman 
castles  built  in  Wales  which  are  known  to  history.  It 
must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  we  imagine  this  to 
be  a  complete  list  of  all  the  Norman  castles  which  were 
ever  erected  in  Wales.  The  fact  that  several  in  our 
catalogue  are  only  once  mentioned  in  the  records  makes 
it  probable  that  there  were  many  others  which  have 
never  been  mentioned  at  all.  In  this  way  we  may 
account  for  the  many  mottes  which  remain  in  Wales 
about  which  history  is  entirely  silent.  As  there  was 
scarcely  a  corner  in  Wales  into  which  the  Normans  did 
not  penetrate  at  some  time  or  other,  it  is  not  surprising 
if  we  find  them  in  districts  which  are  generally  reckoned 
to  be  entirely  Welsh.  But  there  is  another  way  of 
accounting  for  them ;  some  of  them  may  have  been 
built  by  the  Welsh  themselves,  in  imitation  of  the 
Normans.  As  the  feudal  system  and  feudal  ideas 
penetrated  more  and  more  into  Wales,  and  the  Welsh 
princes  themselves  became  feudal  homagers  of  the  kings 
of  England,  it  was  natural  that  the  feudal  castle  should 
also  become  a  Welsh  institution,  especially  as  it  was 
soon  found  to  be  a  great  addition  to  the  chieftain's 
personal  strength.  The  following  castles  are  stated  in 
the  Brut  to  have  been  built  by  the  Welsh.1 

1113.  ^CYMMER,  in  Merioneth. — Built  by  Uchtred  ap 

1  The  dates  given  are  those  of  the  Brut,  and  probably  two  years  too  early. 


300  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SOUTH  WALES 

Edwin,  whose  name,  as  we  have  already  remarked, 
suggests  an  English  descent.  Near  Cymmer  Abbey 
the  motte  or  tomen  remains. 

*CYNFAEL,  in  Merioneth,  near  Towyn. — Built  by 
Cadwalader,  son  of  Griffith  ap  Cynan,  on  whose  behalf 
Henry  II.  undertook  his  first  expedition  into  Wales, 
and  who  was  at  that  time  a  protege  of  the  Anglo- 
Normans.  Clark  gives  a  plan  of  this  motte-castle  in 
Arch.  Camb.,  4th  sen,  vi.,  66. 

1148.  ^YALE,  in  Denbigh  =  Llanarmon.  —  Said  to 
have  been  built  by  Owen  Gwynedd,  but  here,  as  we 
have  said,  an  earlier  Norman  foundation  seems  prob- 
able (see  p.  272). 

1148.  LLANRHYSTYD,  in  Cardigan. — Also  built  by 
Cadwalader,  who  was  then  establishing  himself  in 
Cardigan.  Probably  the  motte  and  bailey  called 
Penrhos,  or  Castell  Rhos,  to  the  east  of  Llanrhystyd 
village.  [H.  W.] 

1155.  ABERDOVEY. — Built  by  Rhys  ap  Griffith  to 
defend  Cardigan  against  Owen,  Prince  of  Gwynedd.  It 
must  therefore  have  been  on  the  Cardigan  shore  of  the 
Dovey,  and  not  at  the  present  town  of  Aberdovey, 
which  is  on  the  Merioneth  shore.  And  in  fact,  on  the 
Cardigan  shore  of  the  estuary,  about  two  miles  west  of 
Glandovey  Castle,  there  is  a  tumulus  called  Domenlas 
(the  green  tump),  which  was  very  likely  the  site  of  this 
castle  of  Rhys.1 

1155.  CAEREINION. — Built  by  Madoc  of  Powys,  who 
was  then  a  homager  of  Henry  II.  Remains  of  a  motte 
near  the  church  ;  the  churchyard  itself  appears  to  be  the 
former  bailey.  About  a  mile  off  is  a  British  camp  called 
Pen  y  Voel,  which  may  have  been  the  seat  of  the  son  of 
Cunedda,  who  is  said  to  have  settled  here.  [H.  W.] 

1  Meyrick's  History  of  Cardigan^  p.  146. 


MOTTES  IN  WALES  301 

*WALWERN,  or  Tafolwern,  near  Llanbrynmair,  in 
Montgomery,  may  have  been  a  Welsh  castle.  It  is  first 
mentioned  in  1163,  when  Howel  ap  Jeuav  took  it  from 
Owen  Gwynedd,  who  may  have  been  its  builder.  The 
motte  is  marked  in  the  O.M.  on  a  narrow  peninsula  at 
the  junction  of  two  streams. 

1169.  *ABEREINON,  in  Cardigan. — Built  by  Rhys  ap 
Griffith,  Henry  II.'s  Justiciar  of  South  Wales.  "A 
circular  moated  tumulus,  now  called  Cil  y  Craig."1  (It 
is  marked  on  the  25-inch  O.M.) 

1 177.  *RHAIDR  GWY. — Also  built  by  Rhys  ap  Griffith, 
no  doubt  as  a  menace  to  Powys,  as  this  castle  was 
afterwards  sorely  contested.  It  is  a  motte-and-bailey 
castle,  the  motte  being  known  as  Tower  Mount.2 

All  these  castles  are  of  the  motte-and-bailey  type,  and 
prove  the  adoption  by  the  Welsh  of  Norman  customs.3 
It  will  be  noticed  that  in  the  first  instances  they  were 
built  by  men  who  were  specially  under  Norman  influences. 
But  probably  the  fashion  was  soon  more  widely  followed, 
although  these  are  the  only  recorded  cases. 

The  contribution  made  by  the  castles  of  Wales  to 
the  general  theory  of  the  origin  of  mottes  in  these 
islands  is  very  important.  Leaving  out  the  seven 
castles  attributed  to  the  Welsh,  we  find  that  out  of 
seventy-one  castles  built  by  the  Normans,  fifty-three,  or 
very  nearly  three-fourths,  still  have  mottes ;  while  in  the 
remaining  eighteen,  either  the  sites  have  been  so  altered 
as  to  destroy  the  original  plan,  or  there  is  a  probability 
that  a  motte  has  formerly  existed. 

1  Meyrick's  History  of  Cardigan,  p.  146. 

2  Lewis's  Topographical  Dictionary. 

3  We  do  not  include  the  castles  which  the  Welsh  rebuilt.     Thus  in  1194 
we  are  told  that  Rhys  built  the  castle  of  Kidwelly,  which  he  certainly  only 
rebuilt. 


CHAPTER  X 

MOTTE-CASTLES    IN    SCOTLAND 

THE  Scottish  historians  of  the  igth  century  have  amply 
recognised  the  Anglo-Norman  occupation  of  Scotland, 
which  took  place  in  the  nth  and  1 2th  centuries,  ever 
since  its  extent  and  importance  were  demonstrated  by 
Chalmers  in  his  Caledonia.  Occupation  is  not  too 
strong  a  word  to  use,  although  it  was  an  occupation 
about  which  history  is  strangely  silent,  and  which 
seems  to  have  provoked  little  resistance  except  in 
the  Keltic  parts  of  the  country.  But  it  meant  the 
transformation  of  Scotland  from  a  tribal  Keltic  king- 
dom into  an  organised  feudal  state,  and  in  the 
accomplishment  of  this  transformation  the  greater 
part  of  the  best  lands  in  Scotland  passed  into  the 
hands  of  English  refugees  or  Norman  and  Flemish 
adventurers. 

The  movement  began  in  the  days  of  Malcolm 
Canmore,  when  his  English  queen,  the  sainted  Margaret, 
undoubtedly  favoured  the  reception  of  English  refugees 
of  noble  birth,  some  of  whom  were  her  own  relations.1 
Very  soon,  the  English  refugees  were  followed  by 
Norman  refugees,  who  had  either  fallen  under  the 
displeasure  of  the  king  of  England,  like  the  Mont- 

1  Malcolm    Canmore  himself  had   passed    nearly    fourteen    years    in 
England.     Fordun,  iv.,  45. 

302 


FEUDALISATION  OF  SCOTLAND  303 

gomeries,  or  were  the  cadets  of  some  Norman  family, 
wishful  to  carve  out  fresh  fortunes  for  themselves,  like 
the  Fitz  Alans,  the  ancestors  of  the  Stuarts.  The 
immigration  continued  during  the  reign  of  the  sons  of 
Margaret,  but  seems  to  have  reached  its  culminating 
point  under  David  I.  (1124-1153). 

David,  as  Burton  remarks,  had  lived  for  sixteen 
years  as  an  affluent  Anglo-Norman  noble,  before  his 
accession  to  the  Scottish  crown,  being  Earl  of  Hunting- 
don in  right  of  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  Simon  de 
Senlis,  and  granddaughter,  through  her  mother,  of  Earl 
Waltheof.  David's  tastes  and  sympathies  were  Norman, 
but  it  was  not  taste  alone  which  impelled  him  to  build 
up  in  Scotland  a  monarchy  of  the  Anglo-Norman  feudal 
type.  He  had  a  distinct  policy  to  accomplish ;  he 
wished  to  do  for  Scotland  what  Edward  I.  sought  to 
do  for  the  whole  island,  to  unite  its  various  nationalities 
under  one  government,  and  he  saw  that  men  of  the 
Anglo-Norman  type  would  be  the  best  instruments  of 
this  policy.1  It  mattered  little  to  him  from  what  nation 
he  chose  his  followers,  if  they  were  men  who  accepted 
his  ideas.  Norman,  English,  Flemish,  or  Norse 
adventurers  were  all  received  at  his  court,  and  endowed 
with  lands  in  Scotland,  if  they  were  men  suitable  for 
working  the  system  which  he  knew  to  be  the  only  one 
available  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  policy.  And 
that  system  was  the  feudal  system.  He  saw  that 
feudalism  meant  a  higher  state  of  civilisation  than 
the  tribalism  of  Keltic  Scotland,  and  that  only 
by  the  complete  organisation  of  feudalism  could 
he  carry  out  the  unification  of  Scotland,  and  the 

1  Burton  remarks  :  "  To  the  Lowland  Scot,  as  well  as  to  the  Saxon,  the 
Norman  was  what  a  clever  man,  highly  educated  and  trained  in  the  great 
world  of  politics,  is  to  the  same  man  who  has  spent  his  days  in  a  village." 
History  of  Scotland^  i.,  353. 


304  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

subjugation  of  the  wild  Keltic  tribes  of  the  north  and 
west.1 

The  policy  was  successful,  though  it  was  not  com- 
pletely carried  out  until  Alexander  III.  purchased  the 
kingdom  of  the  Isles  from  the  King  of  Norway  in  1266. 
The  sons  of  David,  Malcolm  IV.,  and  William  the  Lion 
were  strong  men  who  doughtily  continued  the  subjuga- 
tion of  the  Keltic  parts  of  Scotland,  and  distributed  the 
lands  of  the  conquered  among  their  Norman  or 
Normanised  followers.  The  struggle  was  a  severe 
one  ;  again  and  again  did  the  North  rebel  against  the 
yoke  of  the  House  of  Malcolm.  In  Moray  the  Keltic 
inhabitants  were  actually  driven  out  by  Malcolm 
IV.,  and  the  country  colonised  by  Normans  or 
Flemings.2  The  same  Malcolm  led  no  less  than  three 
expeditions  against  Galloway,  where  in  spite  of  extensive 
Norse  settlements  on  the  coast,  the  mass  of  the  inhabi- 
tants appear  to  have  been  Keltic.8 

We  know  very  little  about  the  details  of  this  remark- 
able revolution,  because  Scotland  had  no  voice  in  the 

1  Dr  Round  has  brought  to  light  the  significant  fact  that  King  David 
took  his  chancellor  straight  from  the  English  chancery,  where  he  had  been 
a  clerk.    This  first  chancellor  of  Scotland  was  the  founder  of  the  great 
Corny n  family.     The  Ancestor ,  10,  108. 

2  Fordun,  Annalia^  vol.  iv. 

3  It  is  tempting  to  connect  the  extraordinary  preponderance  of  mottes, 
as  shown  by  Dr  Christison's  map,  in  the  shires  which  made  up  ancient 
Galloway,  Wigton,  Kirkcudbright,  and  Dumfries,  with  the  savage  resistance 
offered  by  Galloway,  which  may  have  made  it  necessary  for  all  the  Norman 
under-tenants  to  fortify  themselves,  each  in  his  own  motte-castle.     It  is 
wiser,  however,  to  delay  such  speculations  until  we  have  the  more  exact 
information  as  to  the  number  of  mottes  in    Scotland,  which  it  is  hoped 
will  be  furnished  when  the  Royal  Commission  on  Historical  Monuments  has 
finished  its  work.     But  this  work  will  not  be  complete  unless  special  atten- 
tion is  paid  to  the  earthworks  which  now  form  part  of  stone  castles,  and 
which  are  too  often  overlooked,  even  by  antiquaries.     The  New  Statistical 
Account  certainly  raises  the  suspicion  that  there  are  many  more  mottes  north 
of  the  Forth  than  are  recognised  in  the  map  alluded  to.     In  one  district  we 
are  told  that  "  almost  every  farm  had  its  knap."    "  Forfarshire,"  p.  326. 


CASTLE-BUILDING  IN  SCOTLAND  305 

1 2th  century,  none  of  her  chroniclers  being  earlier  than 
the  end  of  the  i4th  century.  As  regards  the  subject 
which  concerns  this  book,  the  building  of  castles,  there 
are  only  one  or  two  passages  which  lift  the  veil.  A 
contemporary  English  chronicler,  Ailred  of  Rievaulx,  in 
his  panegyric  of  David  I.,  says  that  David  decorated 
Scotland  with  castles  and  cities.1  In  like  manner 
Benedict  of  Peterborough  tells  us  that  when  William 
the  Lion  was  captured  by  Henry  II.'s  forces  in  1174, 
the  men  of  Galloway  took  the  opportunity  to  destroy  all 
the  castles  which  the  king  had  built  in  their  country, 
expelling  his  seneschals  and  guards,  and  killing  all  the 
English  and  French  whom  they  could  catch.2  Fordun 
casually  mentions  the  building  of  two  castles  in  Ross  by 
William  the  Lion ;  and  once  he  gives  us  an  anecdote 
which  is  a  chance  revelation  of  what  must  have  been 
going  on  everywhere.  A  certain  English  knight, 
Robert,  son  of  Godwin,  whose  Norman  name  shows 
that  he  was  one  of  the  Normanised  English,  tarried 
with  the  king's  leave  on  an  estate  which  King  Edgar 
had  given  him  in  Lothian,  and  while  he  was  seeking  to 
build  a  castle  there,  he  was  attacked  by  the  men  of 
Bishop  Ranulf  of  Durham,  who  objected  to  a  castle 
being  built  so  near  the  English  frontier.3 

But  even  if  historians  had  been  entirely  silent  about 
the  building  of  castles  in  Scotland,  we  should  have  been 
certain  that  it  must  have  happened,  as  an  inevitable 
part  of  the  Norman  settlement.  Robertson  remarks 
that  the  Scots  in  the  time  of  David  I.  were  still  a 
pastoral  and  in  some  respects  a  migratory  people,  their 

1  Cited  by  Fordun,  v.,  43. 

2  Benedict  of  Peterborough,  i.,  68,  R.  S. 

3  Fordun,  v.,  26.     Bower  in  one  of  his  interpolations  to  Fordun's  Annals, 
tells  how   a   Highlander  named   Gillescop  burnt   certain  wooden   castles 
(quasdam  munitiones  ligneas)  in  Moray.     Skene's  Fordun,  ii.,  435. 

U 


306  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

magnates  not  residing  like  great  feudal  nobles  in  their 
own  castles,  but  moving  about  from  place  to  place,  and 
quartering  themselves  upon  the  dependent  population. 
There  is  in  fact  no  reason  for  supposing  that  the  Keltic 
chiefs  of  Scotland  built  castles,  any  more  than  those  of 
Wales  or  Ireland.1  But  the  feudal  system  must  very 
soon  have  covered  Scotland  with  castles. 

The  absence  of  any  stone  castles  of  Norman  type 
has  puzzled  Scottish  historians,  whose  ideas  of  castles 
were  associated  with  buildings  in  stone.2  In  1898  Dr 
Christison  published  his  valuable  researches  into  the 
Early  Fortifications  of  Scotland,  in  which  for  the  first 
time  an  estimate  was  attempted  of  the  distribution  of 
Scottish  motes?  and  their  Norman  origin  almost,  if  not 
quite,  suspected.  His  book  was  quickly  followed  by 
Mr  George  Neilson's  noteworthy  paper  on  the  "  Motes 
in  Norman  Scotland,"4  in  which  he  showed  that  the 
wooden  castle  is  the  key  which  unlocks  the  historians' 
puzzle,  and  that  the  motes  of  Scotland  are  nothing  but 
the  evidence  of  the  Norman  feudal  settlement. 


1  That  Fordun  should  speak  of  the  castra  and  municipia  of  Macduff  is 
not  surprising,  seeing  that  he  wrote  in  the   I4th  century,  when  a  noble 
without  a  castle  was  a  thing  unthinkable. 

2  Burton  actually  thought  that  the  Normans  built  no  castles  in  Scotland 
in  the  I2th  century.     Messrs  MacGibbon  and  Ross  remark  that  there  is  not 
one  example  of  civil  or  military  architecture  of  the  I2th  century,  while  there 
are  so  many  fine  specimens  of  ecclesiastical.     Castellated  Architecture  of 
Scotland,  i.,  63.     It  is  just  to  add  that  when  speaking  of  the  castles  of 
William  the  Lion,  they  say :  "It  is  highly  probable  that  these  and  other 
castles   of  the    I3th   century  were    of   the    primeval    kind,   consisting  of 
palisaded  earthen  mounds  and  ditches."    Ibid.^  iii.  6. 

3  Mote  is   the  word  used  in   Scotland,   as   in   the  north  of  England, 
Pembrokeshire,  and  Ireland,  for  the  Norman  motte.     As  the  word  is  still  a 
living  word  in  Scotland,  its  original  sense  has  been  partly  lost,  and  it  seems 
to  be  now  applied  to  some  defensive  works  which  are  not  mottes  at  all. 
But  the  true  motes  of  Scotland  entirely  resemble  the  mottes  of  France  and 
England. 

4  Scottish  Review \  xxxii.,  232. 


MOTTES  AND  COURT-HILLS  307 

Two  important  points  urged  in  Mr  Neilson's  paper 
are  the  feudal  and  legal  connection  of  these  motes.  He 
has  given  a  list  of  mottes  which  are  known  to  have  been 
the  site  of  the  " chief  messuages"  of  baronies  in  the 
1 3th  and  I4th  centuries,  and  has  collected  the  names  of 
a  great  number  which  were  seats  of  justice,  or  places 
where  "  saisine "  of  a  barony  was  taken,  not  because 
they  were  moot-hills,  but  because  the  administration  of 
justice  remained  fixed  in  the  ancient  site  of  the  baron's 
castle.  "The  doctrine  of  the  chief  messuage,  which 
became  of  large  importance  in  peerage  law,  made  it  at 
times  of  moment  to  have  on  distinct  record  the  nomina- 
tion of  what  the  chief  messuage  was,  often  for  the 
imperative  function  of  taking  sasine.  In  many  instances 
the  caput  baronia,  or  the  court  or  place  for  the  cere- 
monial entry  to  possession,  is  the  '  moit,'  the  '  mothill,' 
the  'auld  castell,'  the  'auld  wark,'  the  'castellsteid,' 
the  'auld  castellsteid,'  the  'courthill,'  or  in  Latin  mons 
placitiy  mons  viridis,  or  mons  castn."  In  certain  places 
where  two  mottes  are  to  be  found,  he  was  able  to  prove 
that  two  baronies  had  once  had  their  seats.  Another 
point  which  Mr  Neilson  worked  out  is  the  relation  of 
bordlands  to  mottes.  Bordland  or  borland,  though  an 
English  word,  is  not  pre-Conquest ;  it  refers  to  "  that 
species  of  demesne  which  the  lord  reserves  for  the  supply 
of  his  own  table."  It  is  constantly  found  in  the  near 
proximity  of  mottes.2 

The  following  is  a  list  of  thirty-eight  Anglo-Norman 
or  Normanised  adventurers  settled  in  Scotland,  on 
whose  lands  mottes  are  to  be  found.  The  list  must 
be  regarded  as  a  tentative  one,  for  had  all  the  names 
given  by  Chalmers  been  included,  it  would  have  been 
more  than  doubled.  But  the  difficulties  of  obtain- 

1  Scottish  Review^  xxxii.,  232.  2  Ibid.)  p.  236. 


308  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

ing  topographical  information  were  so  great  that 
it  has  been  judged  expedient  to  give  only  the 
names  of  those  families  who  are  known  to  have  held 
lands,  and  in  most  cases  to  have  had  their  principal 
residences,  in  places  where  mottes  are  or  formerly  were 
existing.1 

ANSTRUTHER. — William  de  Candela  obtained  the  lands 
of  Anstruther,  in  Fife,  from  David  I.  His  descendants 
took  the  surname  of  Anstruther.  The  "Mothlaw"  of 
Anstruther  is  mentioned  in  I59O.2  "  At  the  W.  end  of 
the  town  there  is  a  large  mound,  called  the  Chester  Hill, 
in  the  middle  of  which  is  a  fine  well."  (N.  S.  A.,  1845.) 
The  well  is  an  absolute  proof  that  this  was  the  site  of  a 
castle. 

AVENEL. — Walter  de  Avenel  held  Abercorn  Castle 
and  estate,  in  Linlithgow,  in  the  middle  of  the  i2th 
century.  The  castle  stood  on  a  green  mound  (N.  S.  A.) 
which  is  clearly  marked  in  the  O.M. 

BALLIOL. — The  De  Bailleul  family  had  their  seat  at 
Barnard  Castle,  in  Durham,  after  the  Conquest.  They 
obtained  lands  in  Galloway  from  David  I.,  and  had  strong- 
holds at  Buittle,  and  Kenmure,  in  Kirkcudbright.  At 
Buittle  the  site  of  the  castle  exists,  a  roughly  triangular 
bailey  with  a  motte  at  one  corner  ; 3  and  at  Kenmure  the 
O.M.  clearly  shows  a  motte,  as  does  the  picture  in  Grose's 

1  This  list  is  mainly  compiled  from  Chalmers3  Caledonia,  vol.  i.,  book  iv., 
ch.  i.    The  letter  C.  refers  to  Dr  Christison's  Early  Fortifications  in  Scotland; 
N.,  to  Mr  Neilson's  paper  in  the  Scottish  Review,  1898  ;  O.M.,  to  the  25-inch 
Ordnance  Map  ;  G.,  tb  the  Gazetteer  of  Scotland.     It  is  a  matter  of  great 
regret  to  the  writer  that  she  has  been  unable  to  do  any  personal  visitation  of 
the  Scottish  castles,  except  in  the  cases  of  Roxburgh  and  Jedburgh.     It  is 
therefore  impossible  to  be  absolutely  certain  that  all  the  hillocks  mentioned 
in  this  list  are  true  mottes,  or  whether  all  of  them  still  exist. 

2  Registrum  Magni  Sigilli,  quoted  by  Christison,  p.  19. 

3  A  plan  is  given  by  Mr  Coles  in  "the  Motes,  Forts,  and  Boons  of 
Kirkcudbright."     Soc.  Ant.  Scot.,  1891-1892. 


BARCLAY— BRUCE  309 

Antiqiiities  of  Scotland.  The  terraces  probably  date 
from  the  time  when  the  modern  house  on  top  was 
built. 

BARCLAY. — The  De  Berkeleys  sprang  from  the  De 
Berkeleys  of  England,  and  settled  in  Scotland  in  the 
1 2th  century.  Walter  de  Berkeley  was  Chamberlain  of 
Scotland  in  1 165  ;  William  the  Lion  gave  him  the  manor 
of  Inverkeilor,  in  Forfarshire  ;  there  he  built  a  castle,  on 
Lunan  Bay.  "  An  artificial  mound  on  the  west  side  of 
the  bay,  called  the  Corbie's  Knowe,  bears  evident  marks 
of  having  been  a  castle  long  previous  to  the  erection  of 
Redcastle."  (N.  S.  A.)  The  family  also  had  lands  in 
what  is  now  Aberdeenshire,  and  at  Towie,  in  the  parish 
of  Auchterless,  they  had  a  castle.  "  Close  to  the  church 
of  Auchterless  there  is  a  small  artificial  eminence  of 
an  oval  shape,  surrounded  by  a  ditch,  which  is  now  in 
many  places  filled  up.  It  still  retains  the  name  of  the 
Moat  Head,  and  was  formerly  the  seat  of  the  baronial 
court."  (N.  S.  A.  ;  N.  ;  C.) 

BRUCE. — The  De  Brus  held  lands  in  North  Yorkshire 
at  the  time  of  the  Domesday  Survey.  David  I.  gave 
them  the  barony  of  Annan,  .in  Dumfriesshire.  The 
original  charter  of  this  grant  still  exists  in  the  British 
Museum,  witnessed  by  a  galaxy  of  Norman  names.1 
Their  chief  castles  were  at  Annan  and  Lochmaben. 
At  Annan,  near  the  site  of  a  later  castle,  there  is  still 
a  motte  about  50  feet  high,  with  a  vast  ditch  and  some 
traces  of  a  bailey  (N.),  called  the  Moat  (N.  S.  A.). 
The  "terras  de  Moit  et  Bailyis,  intra  le  Northgate," 
are  mentioned  in  1582.  South  of  the  town  of  Loch- 
maben, on  the  N.W.  side  of  the  loch,  is  a  fine 
motte  called  Castle  Hill,  with  some  remains  of  masonry, 
which  is  still  pointed  out  as  the  original  castle  of  the 

1  M'Ferlie,  Lands  and  Their  Owners  in  Galloway -,  ii.,  47. 


310  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

Bruces.1  (G.)  The  fine  motte  and  bailey  at  Moffat 
must  also  have  been  one  of  their  castles,  as  Moffat  was 
one  of  their  demesne  lands.  (Fig.  44.) 

CATHCART. — Name  territorial.  Rainald  de  Cathcart 
witnesses  a  charter  (in  the  Paisley  Register)  in  1179. 
Near  the  old  castle  of  Cathcart,  Lanark,  is  "an  eminence 
called  Court  Knowe."  (N.  S.  A.)  As  Mr  Neilson  has 
shown,  these  court  knowes  and  court  hills  are  generally 
disused  mottes.  The  name  Rainald  is  clearly  Norman. 

CHEYNE. — This  family  is  first  known  in  1258,  but 
had  then  been  long  settled  in  Scotland,  and  were 
hereditary  sheriffs  of  Banffshire.  Chalmers  only  mentions 
their  manor  of  Inverugie,  in  Aberdeenshire.  Behind 
the  ruins  of  Inverugie  Castle  rises  a  round  flat-topped 
hill,  which  was  the  Castle  Hill  or  Mote  Hill  of  former 
days.  (N.  S.  A.) 

COLVILLE.  —  Appears  in  Scotland  in  the  reign  of 
Malcolm  IV.,  holding  the  manors  of  Heton  and  Oxnam, 
in  Roxburgh.  About  J  mile  from  Oxnam  (which  was  a 
barony)  is  a  moated  mound  called  Galla  Knowe.  (O.M., 
C.,  and  N.)  Hailes  identified  the  castle  in  Teviotdale, 
captured  and  burnt  by  Balliol  in  1333,  with  that  of 
Oxnam.2  Le  Mote  de  Oxnam  is  mentioned  in  1424  (N.). 

CUMYN,  or  COMYN. — The  first  of  this  family  came  to 
Scotland  as  the  chancellor  of  David  I.3  First  seated  at 
Linton  Roderick,  in  Roxburghshire,  where  there  is  a 
rising  ground,  surrounded  formerly  by  a  foss,  the  site 
of  the  original  castle ;  (G.)  a  description  which  seems  to 

1  This  description,  taken  from  the  Gazetteer,  seems  clear,  but  Mr  Neilson 
tells  me  the  site  is  more  probably  Woody  Castle,  which  is  styled  a  manor  in 
the  1 5th  century.     The  N.  S.  A.  says  :  "There  is  the  site  of  an  ancient  castle 
close  to  the  town,  on  a  mound  of  considerable  height,  called  the  Castle  Hill, 
which  is  surrounded  by  a  deep  moat."     "  Dumfries,"  p.  383. 

2  Annals,  ii.,  196,  cited  in  Douglas's  History  of  the  Border  Counties,  173. 

3  Round,  in  The  Ancestor,  10,  108. 


O  IOO         ZOO      3OO 


N. 


O  100       200      300 

Feet 


DUFFUS. 


FIG.  44. — SCOTTISH  MOTTE-CASTLES. 


[  To  face  p.\  310, 


COMYN— CUNNINGHAM  311 

suggest  a  motte.     William  the  Lion  gave  the  Cumyns 
Kirkintilloch  in  Dumbarton,  and  we  afterwards  find  them 
at  Dalswinton  in  Dumfriesshire,  and  Troqueer  in  Kirk- 
cudbright.    At  Kirkintilloch  the  O.M.  shows  a  square 
mount  concentrically  placed  in  a  square  enceinte.     The 
enclosure  was  apparently  one  of  the  forts  on  the  wall  of 
Agricola,  but  the  writer  on  Kirkintilloch  in  the  N.  S.  A. 
suspected  that  it  had  been  transformed  into  a  castle  by 
the  Cumyns.     At  Dalswinton  the  O.M.  shows  a  motte, 
and  calls  it  the  "site  of  Cumyn's  Castle."     At  Troqueer, 
"  directly  opposite  the  spot  on  the  other  side  the  river 
where  Cumyn's  Castle  formerly  stood  is  a  mote  of  circular 
form  and  considerable  height."     (N.  S.  A.)     The  Cumyn 
who    held    Kirkintilloch    in    1201,    was    made    Earl   of 
Buchan,  and  held  the  vast  district  of  Badenoch,  or  the 
great  valley  of  the  Spey.     The  N.   S.  A.  gives  many 
descriptions  of  remains  in  this  region  which  are  suggestive 
of  motte-castles  ;  we  can  only  name  the  most  striking  : 
Ruthven,  "a  castle  reared  by  the  Comyns  on  a  green 
conical  mound  on  the  S.  bank  of  the  Spey,  thought  to 
be  partly  artificial,"  now  occupied  by  ruined  barracks  ; 
Dunmullie,  in  the  parish  of  Duthill,  where  "there  can  be 
traced  vestiges  of  a  motte  surrounded  by  a  ditch,  on 
which,   according  to   tradition,   stood  the  castle  of  the 
early  lords  "  ;  Crimond,  where  Cumyn  had  a  castle,  and 
where  there  is  a  small  round  hill  called  Castle  Hill ;  and 
Ellon,  where  the  Earl  of  Buchan  had  his  head  court, 
on  a  small  hill  which  has  now  disappeared,  but  which 
was  anciently  known  as  the  moot-hill  of  Ellon.     Saisin 
of  the  earldom  was  given  on  this  hill  in  1476.     (N.  S.  A.) 
CUNNINGHAM.  —  Warnebald,    who    came    from    the 
north  of  England,  was  a  follower  of  the  Norman,  Hugh 
de  Morville,  who  gave  him  the  lands  of  Cunningham,  in 
Ayrshire,  from  which  the  family  name  was  taken.     In 


312  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

the  parish  of  Kilmaurs,  which  is  in  the  district  of 
Cunningham,  there  is  a  "mote,"  which  may  have  been 
the  castle  of  Warnebald ;  at  any  rate  the  original 
manor  place  of  Cunningham  was  in  this  parish.  It  is 
of  course  possible  that  this  motte  may  have  been  origin- 
ally a  De  Morville  castle. 

DOUGLAS.  —  Name  territorial ;  progenitor  was  a 
Fleming,  who  received  lands  on  the  Douglas  water,  in 
Lanark,  in  the  middle  of  the  i2th  century.  In  the  park 
of  Douglas,  to  the  east  of  the  modern  castle,  is  a  mound 
called  Boncastle,  but  we  are  unable  to  state  certainly 
that  it  is  a  motte.  Lag  Castle,  in  the  parish  of 
Dunscore,  "has  a  moat  or  court  hill  a  little  to  the  east." 
(N.  S.  A.  :  shown  in  Grose's  picture.)  It  must  have  been 
originally  Douglas  land,  as  in  1408  it  was  held  by  an 
armour-bearer  of  Douglas. 

DURAND. — Clearly  a  Norman  name,  corrupted  into 
Durham.  The  family  were  seated  at  Kirkpatrick 
Durham  in  the  i3th  century.  There  is  or  was  a  motte 
at  Kirkpatrick.1 

DURWARD. — This  family  was  descended  from  Alan 
de  Lundin,  who  was  dur-ward  or  door-keeper  to  the 
king  about  1233.  They  possessed  a  wide  domain  in 
Aberdeenshire,  and  had  a  castle  at  Lumphanan,  where 
Edward  I.  stayed  in  1296.  There  is  a  round  motte  in 
the  Peel  Bog  at  Lumphanan,  surrounded  by  a  moat, 
which  was  fed  by  a  sluice  from  the  neighbouring  burn. 
There  were  ruins  in  masonry  on  the  top  some 
hundred  years  ago.  The  writer  of  the  N.  S.  A.  account 
of  this  place,  with  remarkable  shrewdness,  conjectures 
that  a  wooden  castle  on  this  mound  was  the  ancient 

1  Dr  Christison  distinctly  marks  one  on  his  map,  but  Mr  Coles  says 
there  is  no  trace  of  one,  though  the  name  Marl  Mount  is  preserved.  Soc. 
Ant.  Scot.,  1892,  p.  108. 


FITZ  ALAN— FLEMING  313 

residence  of  the  Durwards,  superseded  in  the  i5th 
century  by  a  building  of  stone,  and  that  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  Macbeth,  whose  burial-place  is  said  to  be  a 
cairn  in  the  neighbourhood.1 

FITZ  ALAN. — This  is  the  well-known  ancestor  of  the 
House  of  Stuart,  Walter,  a  cadet  of  a  great  Norman 
family  in  Shropshire,  who  is  said  to  have  obtained  lands 
in  Scotland  in  Malcolm  Canmore's  time.  Renfrew  was 
one  of  his  seats,  and  Inverwick,  in  Haddington,  another. 
Renfrew  Castle  is  entirely  destroyed,  but  the  description 
of  the  site,  on  a  small  hill,  ditched  round,  called  Castle 
Hill,  strongly  suggests  a  motte.  The  keep  of  Inverwick 
stands  on  a  natural  motte  of  rock.2  Dunoon  was  one  of 
their  castles,  near  to  which  "  stood  the  Tom-a-mhoid,  or 
Hill  of  the  court  of  justice"  (G.),  possibly  an  ancient 
motte.3  Dunoon  Castle,  however,  itself  stands  on  a 
motte,  partly  artificial  and  partly  carved  out  of  a 
headland.  (N.) 

FLEMING. — There  were  many  Flemings  among  the 
followers  of  David  I.,  and  eventually  the  name  stuck  to 
their  descendants  as  a  surname.  Baldwin  the  Fleming 
obtained  lands  at  Biggar,  in  Lanarkshire.  There  is  a 
motte  at  the  west  end  of  the  town  of  Biggar,  36  feet 
high.  Biggar  was  the  head  of  a  barony.  (N.  S.  A. 
and  N.)  Colban  the  Fleming  settled  at  Colbantown,  now 
Covington,  Lanarkshire,  where  there  is  a  motte  (N.). 
Robert  the  Fleming  has  left  a  well-preserved  oblong 

1  See  the  Aberdeen  volume,  p.  1092. 

2  See  Grose's  picture,  which  is  confirmed  by  Dr  Ross. 

3  The  name  Tom-a-mhoid  is  derived  by  some  writers  from  the  Gaelic 
Tom,  a  tumulus  (Welsh  Tomen)  and  moid,  a  meeting.     Is  there  such  a 
word  for  a  meeting  in  Gaelic  ?     If  there  is,  it  must  be  derived  from  Anglo- 
Saxon  mot  or  gemot.     But  there  is  no  need  to  go  to  Gaelic  for  this  word,  as 
it  is  clear  from  the  Registrum  Magni  Sigilli  that  moit  was  a   common 
version  of  mote,  and  meant  a  castle  hill,  the  mota  or  mons  castri,  as  it  is 
often  called. 


314  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

• 

motte  at  Roberton,  in  Lanark,  which  was  a  barony,  and 
where  the  moit  was  spoken  of  in  1608.     (N.) 

GRAHAM. — Came  from  England  under  David  L,  and 
received  lands  in  Lothian.  A  Graham  was  lord  of 
Tarbolton,  in  Ayrshire,  in  1335,  so  it  is  possible  that  the 
motte  at  that  place,  on  which  stood  formerly  the  chief 
messuage  of  the  barony  of  Tarbolton,  was  one  of  their 
castles  (N.  S.  A.),  but  it  may  have  been  older. 

HAMILTON. — It  is  not  certain  that  the  Hamiltons 
came  to  Scotland  before  1272.  King  Robert  I.  gave 
them  the  barony  of  Cadzow,  Lanark,  which  had  origin- 
ally been  a  royal  seat.  In  Hamilton  Park  there  is  a 
mote  hill,  which  was  the  site  of  the  chief  messuage  of 
this  barony  (N.).  It  wfts  formerly  surrounded  by  the 
town  of  Hamilton.  (N.  S.  A.)  It  is  of  course  possible 
that  this  motte  may  be  much  older  than  the  Hamiltons, 
as  the  site  of  an  originally  royal  castle. 

HAY. — First  appears  in  the  i2th  century,  as  butler 
to  Malcolm  IV.  The  family  first  settled  in  Lothian, 
where  they  had  lands  at  Lochorworth.  The  Borthwick 
family,  who  got  this  estate  by  marriage,  obtained  a 
license  from  James  I.  about  1430  to  build  a  castle  "on 
the  mote  of  Locherwart,"  and  to  this  castle  they  gave 
their  own  name.  (N.  S.  A.)  No  doubt  it  was  the 
original  motte  of  the  Hays.  King  William  gave  the 
Hays  the  manor  of  Errol,  in  Perthshire,  which  was  made 
into  a  barony.  Here  is  or  was  the  mote  of  Errol, 
"a  round  artificial  mound  about  20  feet  high,  and  30 
feet  in  diameter  at  the  top  ;  the  platform  at  the  top 
surrounded  with  a  low  turf  wall,  and  the  whole  enclosed 
with  a  turf  wall  at  the  base,  in  the  form  of  an  equilateral 
triangle."  (N.  S.  A.  ;  evidently  a  triangular  bailey.)  It 
is  called  the  Law  Knoll,  and  is  spoken  of  as  a  fortali- 
cium  in  1546.  (N.) 


LENNOX— MELVILLE  315 

LENNOX. — The  earls  of  Lennox  are  descended  from 
Arkel,  an  Englishman,  who  received  from  Malcolm 
Canmore  lands  in  Dumbartonshire.  At  Catter,  near 
the  Earl's  castle,  is  a  large  artificial  mound.1 

LOCKHART. — Stevenston,  in  Ayrshire,  takes  its  name 
from  Stephen  Loccard,  and  Symington,  in  Lanark,  from 
his  son  (?),  Simon  Loccard.  At  Stevenson  there  was 
formerly  a  castle,  and  there  still  (1845)  is  a  Castle  Hill. 
Stevenston  was  given  by  Richard  Morville  to  Stephen 
Loccard  about  1170.  (N.  S.  A.)  At  Symington  there 
was  formerly  a  round  mound,  called  Law  Hill,  at  the 
foot  of  the  village,  but  it  has  been  levelled.  (N.  S.  A.) 

LOGAN. — A  Robert  Logan  witnesses  a  charter  of 
William  the  Lion,  and  appears  later  as  Dominus 
Robertus  de  Logan.  The  name  Robert  shows  his 
Norman  origin.  At  Drumore,  near  Logan  (parish  of 
Kirkmaiden,  Wigton),  there  was  a  castle,  and  there  is 
still  a  court  hill  or  mote.2  Another  mote,  at  Myroch, 
in  the  same  parish,  is  mentioned  by  Mr  Neilson  as  the 
site  of  the  chief  messuage  of  the  barony  of  Logan. 

LOVEL. — Settled  at  Hawick,  Roxburghshire.  The 
mote  of  Hawick,  from  the  picture  in  Scott's  Border 
Antiquities,  seems  to  be  a  particularly  fine  one. 
Hawick  was  a  barony,  and  Le  Moit  is  mentioned  in 

1511-     (N.) 

LYLE,  or  LISLE. — The  castle  of  this  Norman  family 
was  at  Duchal,  Renfrewshire.  The  plan  is  clearly  that 
of  a  motte  and  bailey,  but  the  motte  is  of  natural 
rock.3 

MALE,  now  MELVILLE. — Settled  in  Haddingtonshire 

1  Chalmers,  Caledonia^  iii.,  864.     Sir  Archibald  Lawrie,  however,  regards 
it  as  doubtful  whether  Arkel  was  the  ancestor  of  the  earls  of  Lennox. 
Early  Scottish  Charters^  p.  327. 

2  M'Ferlie,  Lands  and  Their  Owners  in  Galloway ',  ii.,  140-141. 

3  See  plan  in  MacGibbon  and  Ross,  Castellated  Architecture -,  iv.,  341. 


316  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

under  David  I.,  and  called  their  seat  Melville.  Melville 
Castle  is  modern.  They  afterwards  obtained  by 
marriage  lands  on  the  Bervie  River,  in  the  Mearns. 
Dr  Christison's  map  shows  a  motte  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Bervie. 

MAXWELL. — Maccus,  son  of  Unwin l  (evidently  of 
Scandinavian  origin),  received  lands  on  the  Tweed  from 
David  I.,  and  called  his  seat  Maccusville,  corrupted  into 
Maxwell.  There  is  a  motte  at  Maxwell,  near  Kelso. 
(N.)  Maxton,  in  Roxburghshire,  takes  its  name  from 
him,  and  there  is  a  motte  called  Ringley  Hall,  on  the 
Tweed,  in  this  parish.  (C.  and  N.  S.  A.) 

MONTALT,  or  MOWAT. — Robert  de  Montalto  (Mold, 
in  Flintshire)  witnesses  a  charter  of  David  I.  The 
family  settled  in  Cromarty.  Le  Mote  at  Cromarty  is 
mentioned  in  1470.  (N.) 

MONTGOMERY. — This  family  is  undoubtedly  de- 
scended from  some  one  of  the  sons  of  the  great  Earl 
Roger  of  Shrewsbury,  settled  in  Scotland  after  the  ruin 
of  his  family  in  England.  Robert  de  Montgomerie 
received  the  manor  of  Eaglesham,  Renfrew,  from 
Fitz  Alan,  the  High  Steward  of  Scotland.  The 
principal  messuage  of  this  manor  was  at  Polnoon,  |- 
mile  S.E.  of  Eaglesham.  Here  Sir  John  Montgomerie 
built  the  castle  of  Polnoon  about  1388.  (N.  S.  A.) 
The  O.M.  seems  to  show  that  the  ruins  of  this  castle 
stand  on  a  motte,  probably  the  original  castle  of 
Montgomerie. 

MORVILLE. — Hugh  de  Morville  was  a  Northampton- 
shire baron,  the  life-long  friend  of  David  I.2  He 
founded  one  of  the  most  powerful  families  in  the  south 

1  The  name  Maccus  is  undoubtedly  the  same  as  Magnus,  a  Latin 
adjective  much  affected  as  a  proper  name  by  the  Norwegians  of  the  nth 
and  1 2th  centuries.  2  Lawrie,  Early  Scottish  Charters,  p.  273. 


MORVILLE— OLIPHANT  317 

of  Scotland,  though  after  three  generations  their  lands 
passed  to  heiresses,  and  their  chief  seat  is  not  even 
known  by  name.  But  Mr  Neilson  states  that  Darnhall, 
in  Peebles,  was  the  head  of  their  "  Black  Barony,"  and 
that  there  is  a  motte  there.  As  Hugh  de  Morville  gave 
the  church  of  Borgue  to  Dryburgh  Abbey  about  1150, 
it  is  probable  that  the  motte  at  Boreland  of  Borgue  was 
one  of  his  castles.  The  barony  of  Beith,  in  Ayr,  given 
by  Richard  de  Morville  to  the  Abbey  of  Kilwinning, 
has  also  a  motte,  which  may  be  reckoned  to  be  the  site 
of  a  De  Morville  castle.  Largs,  in  Ayr,  belonged  to  the 
De  Morvilles,  and  has  a  Castle  Hill  near  the  village, 
which  appears  to  be  a  motte.  (G.) 

MoWBRAY. — This  well-known  Norman  family  also 
sent  a  branch  to  Scotland.  Amongst  other  places, 
about  which  we  have  no  details,  they  held  Eckford,  in 
Roxburghshire.  In  this  parish,  near  the  ancient 
mansion,  is  an  artificial  mount  called  Haughhead  Kipp. 
(N.  S.  A.)  This  seems  a  possible  motte,  but  its 
features  are  not  described. 

MURRAY. — Freskin  the  Fleming  came  to  Scotland 
under  David  I.,  and  received  from  that  king  lands  in 
Moray.  He  built  himself  a  castle  at  Duffus,  in  Elgin, 
which  is  on  the  motte-and-bailey  plan.1  The  stone 
keep  now  on  the  motte  appears  to  be  of  the  i4th 
century.  Freskin's  posterity  took  the  name  of  De 
Moravia,  or  Moray.  (Fig.  44.) 

OLIPHANT,  or  OLIFARD. — Cambuslang,  in  Lanark, 
belonged  to  Walter  Olifard,  Justiciary  of  Lothian  in 
the  time  of  Alexander  II.  About  a  mile  E.  of  the 
church  is  a  circular  mound  20  feet  high.  It'  was  here 
that  the  Oliphants'  castle  of  Drumsagard  formerly 
stood.  (N.  S.  A.)  Drumsagard  was  a  barony.  (N.) 

1  MacGibbon  and  Ross,  i.,  279. 


318  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

DE  QUINCY. — Obtained  from  William  the  Lion  the 
manors  of  Travernant,  in  East  Lothian,  and  Leuchars, 
in  Fife.  Near  the  village  of  Leuchars  is  a  motte  with 
some  slight  remains  of  a  stone  keep,  a  deep  well  in  the 
centre,  and  an  entrenched  bailey,  known  as  the  site  of 
the  castle  of  Leuchars.1 

Ross. — Godfrey  de  Ros,  a  vassal  of  Richard  de 
Morville,  held  of  him  the  lands  of  Stewarton,  in  Ayr. 
The  caput  of  the  lordship  was  Castletown,  where  Le 
Mote  is  spoken  of  in  1451  (N.  and  C.).  The  De  Ros 
were  also  the  first  lords  of  the  barony  of  Sanquhar.  A 
little  lower  down  the  river  Nith  than  the  later  castle 
of  Sanquhar  is  a  mote  called  Ryehill,  and  a  place 
anciently  manorial.  (N.) 

SOMERVILLE. — William  de  Somerville  was  a  Norman 
to  whom  David  I.  gave  the  manor  of  Carnwath,  in 
Lanarkshire.  There  is  a  very  perfect  entrenched  motte 
at  Carnwath  (N.  S.  A.  and  O.M.),  and  Le  Moit  de 
Carnwath  is  mentioned  in  1599.  (N.) 

DE  SOULIS. — Followed  David  I.  from  Northampton- 
shire into  Scotland,  and  received  Liddesdale,  in 
Roxburghshire,  from  him.  The  motte  and  bailey  of 
his  original  castle  still  remain,  very  near  the  more  cele- 
brated but  much  later  Hermitage  Castle.2  (Fig.  44.) 

VALOIGNES. — Philip  de  Valoignes  and  his  son 
William  were  each  successively  chamberlains  of 
Scotland.^  One  of  their  estates  was  Easter  Kilbride, 
in  Lanarkshire,  where  they  had  a  castle.  In  this  parish 
is  an  artificial  mount  of  earth,  with  an  oval  area  on  top, 
about  J  mile  from  the  present  house  of  Torrance. 
(N.  S.  A.) 

1  Proceedings  of  Soc.  Ant.  Scotland^  xxxi.,  and  N.  S.  A. 

2  See  Armstrong's  History  of  Liddesdale^  cited  by  MacGibbon  and  Ross, 

i-»  523- 

3  Round,  The  Ancestor >  No.  11,  130. 


VAUX— WALLACE  319 

VAUX,  or  DE  VALLIBUS. — Settled  in  Scotland  under 
William  the  Lion.  Held  the  manors  of  Dirleton  and 
Golyn,  in  East  Lothian.  Dirleton  has  been  transformed 
into  an  Edwardian  castle,  but  from  the  pictures  it 
appears  to  stand  on  a  natural  motte  of  rock.  But 
about  3  miles  from  Dirleton  the  O.M.  shows  a  large 
motte  called  Castle  Hill,  which  may  possibly  be  the 
original  castle  of  the  De  Vaux. 

WALLACE,  or  WALLENSIS. — Richard  Walensis  was 
the  first  of  this  family,  and  acquired  lands  in  Ayrshire 
in  David  I.'s  time.  He  named  his  seat  Riccardton, 
after  himself,  and  the  remains  of  his  motte  are  still 
there,  a  small  oval  motte  called  Castle  Hill,  on  which 
the  church  of  Riccarton  now  stands,  but  which  is 
recognised  as  having  been  a  "mote  hill."  (G.) 

To  this  list  must  be  added  a  number  of  royal  castles 
known  to  have  been  built  in  the  i2th  century,  which,  as 
they  were  built  on  mottes,  must  in  the  first  instance 
have  been  wooden  castles. 

BANFF. — It  seems  clear  that  Banff  Castle  had  a 
motte,  because  the  doggerel  rhymes  of  Arthur  Johnstone 
in  1642  say  : 

A  place  was  near  which  was  a  field  until 
Our  ancestors  did  raise  it  to  a  hill ; 
A  stately  castle  also  on  it  stood. 

The  Gazetteer  says  :  "  The  citadel  occupied  a  mount, 
originally  at  the  end  though  now  near  the  middle  of  the 
town."  The  site  is  still  called  Castle  Hill.  (N.  S.  A.) 

CRAIL,  Fife. — The  O.M.  does  not  show  a  motte  here. 
The  N.  S.  A.  says  "there  was  a  royal  residence  here, 
upon  an  eminence  overlooking  the  harbour."  That  this 
"eminence"  was  a  motte  seems  clear  from  the  Register 
of  the  Great  Seal,  quoted  by  Mr  Neilson,  which  speaks 
of  "  Le  Moitt  olim  castrum  "  in  1573. 


320  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

CUPAR. — There  seem  to  be  two  mottes  here,  both 
raised  on  a  natural  "esker";  the  one  formerly  called 
the  Castle  Hill  is  now  called  the  School  Hill,  the  school 
having  been  built  upon  it.  The  other  and  higher  hill  is 
called  the  Moot  Hill,  and  is  said  to  be  the  place  where 
the  earls  of  Fife  used  to  dispense  justice.  (N.  S.  A.) 
Mr  Neilson  states  that  both  are  mentioned  in  the 
Registrum. 

DUMFRIES. — Here  there  were  two  mottes,  one  being 
now  the  site  of  a  church,  the  other,  called  Castle  Dykes, 
a  short  distance  S.  of  the  town,  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  river.  Both  no  doubt  were  royal  castles,  and  Mr 
Neilson  has  suggested  that  as  an  old  castlestead  is 
spoken  of  in  a  charter  of  William  the  Lion,  it  implies 
that  a  new  castle  had  recently  been  built,  possibly  after 
the  great  destruction  of  the  royal  castles  in  Galloway  in 
1 174.1  The  Castle  Dykes  appears  to  be  the  later  castle, 
as  it  is  spoken  of  in  the  i6th  century.  (N.) 

DUNSKEATH,  Cromarty. — Built  by  William  the  Lion 
in  1179.  The  castle  is  built  on  a  small  moat  over- 
hanging the  sea.  (G.) 

ELGIN. — Built  by  William  the  Lion  on  a  small  green 
hill  called  Lady  Hill,  with  conical  and  precipitous  sides. 
(N.  S.  A.  and  G.) 

FORFAR. — "  The  castle  stood  on  a  round  hill  to  the 
N.  of  the  town,  and  must  have  been  surrounded  by 
water."  (N.  S.  A.)  It  was  destroyed  in  1307.  It  is 
called  Gallow  Hill  in  the  O.M.,  and  is  now  occupied  by 
gasworks. 

1  Benedict  of  Peterborough,  i.,  67.  See  Mr  Neilson's  papers  in  the 
Dumfries  Standard,  June  28,  1899.  Mr  Neilson  remarks  :  "  It  may  well  be 
that  the  original  castle  of  Dumfries  was  one  of  Malcolm  IV.'s  forts,  and 
that  the  mote  of  Troqueer,  at  the  other  side  of  a  ford  of  the  river,  was  the 
first  little  strength  cf  the  series  by  which  the  Norman  grip  of  the  province 
was  sought  to  be  maintained." 


FORRES— LANARK  321 

FORRES. — The  plan  in  Chalmers'  Caledonia  clearly 
shows  a  motte,  to  which  the  town  appears  to  have 
formed  a  bailey. 

INVERNESS. — Built  by  David  I.  when  he  annexed 
Moray.  The  site  is  now  occupied  by  a  gaol,  but  the 
O.M.  shows  it  to  have  been  a  motte,  which  is  clearly 
depicted  in  old  engravings. 

INNERMESSAN. — As  the  lands  here  appear  to  have 
been  royal  property  as  late  as  the  time  of  David  II.,  the 
large  round  motte  here  may  have  been  an  early  royal 
castle,  a  conjecture  which  finds  some  confirmation  in  the 
name  "  Boreland  of  Kingston,"  which  Pont  places  in 
the  same  parish.  (N.  S.  A.) 

JEDBURGH. — Probably  built  by  David  I.  The  site, 
which  is  still  called  Castle  Hill,  has  been  levelled  and 
completely  obliterated  by  the  building  of  a  gaol.  Yet 
an  old  plan  of  the  town  in  1762,  in  the  possession  of  the 
late  Mr  Laidlaw  of  Jedburgh,  shows  the  outline  of  the 
castle  to  have  been  exactly  that  of  a  motte  and  bailey, 
though,  as  no  hachures  are  given,  it  is  not  absolutely 
convincing. 

KINCLEVEN,  Perth. — The  O.M.  shows  no  earthworks 
connected  with  the  present  castle,  but  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river  it  places  a  motte  called  Castle  Hill, 
which  may  very  likely  be  the  site  of  the  original  castle. 

KIRKCUDBRIGHT. — Dr  Christison  marks  a  motte  here, 
to  the  W.  of  the  town.  The  place  is  called  Castle 
Dykes.  Mr  Coles  says  it  has  an  oblong  central  mound 
and  a  much  larger  entrenched  area.1 

LANARK. — Ascribed  traditionally  to  David  I.  "  On 
a  small  artificially  shaped  hill  between  the  town  and  the 
river,  at  the  foot  of  the  street  called  Castle  Gate,  and 

1  "  Mottes,  Forts,  and  Doons  of  Kirkcudbright,"  Soc.  Ant.  Scot.,  xxv., 
1890. 

X 


322  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  SCOTLAND 

still  bearing  the  name  of  Castle  Hill,  there  stood  in 
former  times  beyond  all  doubt  a  royal  castle."  (N.  S.  A.) 
Mr  Neilson  says,  "  It  certainly  bears  out  its  reputation 
as  an  artificial  mound." 

ROSEMARKIE,  Cromarty. — Was  made  a  royal  burgh  by 
Alexander  II.,  so  the  castle  must  have  been  originally 
royal.  "  Immediately  above  the  town  is  a  mound  of 
nearly  circular  form,  and  level  on  the  top,  which  seems 
to  be  artificial,  and  has  always  been  called  the  Court 
Hill."  (N.  S.  A.) 

Even  if  we  had  no  other  evidence  that  motte-castles 
were  of  Norman  construction,  this  list  would  be  very 
significant.  But  taken  in  connection  with  the  evidence 
for  the  Norman  origin  of  the  English,  Welsh,  and  Irish 
mottes,  it  supplies  ample  proof  that  in  Scotland,  as  else- 
where, the  Norman  and  feudal  settlement  had  its 
material  guarantees  in  the  castles  which  were  planted 
all  over  the  land,  and  that  these  castles  were  the  simple 
structures  of  earth  and  wood,  whose  earthen  remains 
have  been  the  cause  of  so  much  mystification. 


CHAPTER  XI 

MOTTE-CASTLES    IN    IRELAND 

IN  the  year  1169,  when  the  first  Norman  invaders 
landed  in  Ireland,  the  private  castle  had  been  in  exist- 
ence in  England  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  and 
had  it  been  suited  to  the  social  organisation  of  the  Irish 
people,  there  had  been  plenty  of  time  for  its  introduction 
into  Ireland.  Nor  are  we  in  a  position  to  deny  that 
some  chieftain  with  a  leaning  towards  foreign  fashions 
may  have  built  for  himself  a  castle  in  the  Anglo-Norman 
style  ;  all  we  can  say  is  t'hat  there  is  not  the  slightest 
evidence  of  such  a  thing.1  We  have  two  contemporary 
accounts  of  the  Norman  settlement  in  Ireland,  the  one 
given  by  Giraldus  in  his  Expugnatio  Hibernica,  and  the 
Anglo-Norman  poem,  edited  by  Mr  Goddard  H.  Orpen, 
under  the  title  of  the  "  Song  of  Dermot  and  the  Earl."  2 
Now  Giraldus  expressly  tells  us  that  the  Irish  did  not 

1  The  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  mention  the  building  of  three  castles 
(caisteol)  in  Connaught  in  1125,  and  the  Annals  of  Ulster  say  that  Tirlagh 
O'Connor  built  a  castle  (caislen)  at  Athlone  in  1129.     What  the  nature  of 
these  castles  was  it  is  now  impossible  to  say,  but  there  are  no  mottes  at  the 
three  places  mentioned  in  Connaught  (Dunlo,  Galway,  and  Coloony).     The 
caislen  at  Athlone  was  not  recognised  by  the  Normans  as  a  castle  of  their 
sort,  as  John  built  his  castle  on  a  new  site,  on  land  obtained  from  the  church. 
Sweetman's  Cal^  p.  80. 

2  The  meagre  entries  in  the  various  Irish  Annals  may  often  come  from 
contemporary  sources,  but  as  none  of  their  MSS.  are  older  than  the  I4th 
century,  they  do  not  stand  on  the  same  level  as  the  two  authorities  above 
mentioned. 

323 


324  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

use  castles,  but  preferred  to  take  refuge  in  their  forests 
and  bogs.1  The  statement  is  a  remarkable  one,  since 
Ireland  abounds  with  defensive  works  of  a  very  ancient 
character ;  are  we  to  suppose  that  these  were  only  used 
in  the  prehistoric  period  ?  But  if  castles  of  the  Norman 
kind  had  been  in  general  use  in  Ireland  in  the  i2th 
century,  we  should  certainly  hear  of  their  having  been 
a  serious  hindrance  to  the  invaders.  The  history  of  the 
invasion,  however,  completely  confirms  the  statement  of 
Giraldus  ;  we  never  once  hear  of  the  Irish  defending 
themselves  in  a  castle.  When  they  do  stand  a  siege,  it 
is  in  a  walled  town,  and  a  town  which  has  been  walled, 
not  by  themselves,  but  by  the  Danes,  to  whom  Giraldus 
expressly  attributes  these  walls.  Moreover,  the  repeated 
insistence  of  Giraldus  on  the  necessity  of  systematic 
incastellation  of  the  whole  country 2  is  proof  enough  that 
no  such  incastellation  existed. 

It  is  true  that  in  some  of  the  earliest  Irish  literature 
we  hear  of  the  dun,  Us,  or  rath  (the  words  are  inter- 
changeable), which  encircled  the  chieftain's  house. 

1  "  Hibernicus  enim  populus   castella  non   curat ;    silvis   namque   pro 
castris,  paludibus  utitur  pro  fossatis."     Top.  Hib.,    182,  R.  S.,  vol.  v.     In 
the  same  passage  he  speaks  of  the  "fossa  infinita,  alta  nimis,   rotunda 
quoque,   et   pleraque  triplicia  ;   castella  etiam  murata,  et  adhuc  Integra, 
vacua  tamen  et  deserta,"  which  he  ascribes  to  the  Northmen.     This  passage 
has  been  gravely  adduced  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  the  prehistoric  exist- 
ence of  mottes  !  as  though  a  round  ditch  necessarily  implied  a  round  hill 
within  it !     Giraldus  was  probably  alluding  to  the  round  embankments  or 
raths,  of  which  such  immense  numbers  are  still  to  be  found  in  Ireland.     By 
the   "walled  castles"  he  probably  meant  the   stone  enclosures  or  cashels 
which  are  also  so  numerous  in  Ireland.     In  the  time  of  Giraldus  the  word 
castellum,  though  it  had  become  the  proper  word  for  a  private  castle,  had 
not  quite  lost  its  original  sense  of  a  fortified  enclosure  of  any  kind,  as  we 
know  from  the  phrases  "the  castle  and  tower"  or  "the  castle  and  motte" 
not  infrequent  in  documents  of  the  I2th  century  (see  Round's  Geoffrey  de 
Mandeville,  Appendix  O,  p.  328).     We  may  add  that  Giraldus'  attribution 
of  these  prehistoric  remains  to  Thorgils,  the  Norwegian,  only  shows  that 
their  origin  was  unknown  in  his  day. 

2  See  Expug.  Hib.,  383,  397,  39^- 


THE  RATHS  OF  IRELAND  325 

Many  descriptions  of  royal  abodes  in  Irish  poems  are 
evidently  purely  fanciful,  but  underneath  the  poetical 
adornments  we  can  discern  the  features  of  the  great 
wooden  hall  which  appears  to  have  been  the  residence  of 
the  tribal  chieftain,  whether  Keltic,  Norse,  or  Saxon, 
throughout  the  whole  north  of  Europe  in  early  times.1 
The  thousands  of  earthen  rings,  generally  called  raths, 
which  are  still  scattered  over  Ireland,  are  believed  to  be 
the  enclosures  of  these  kings'  or  chieftains'  homesteads. 
Were  they  intended  for  serious  military  defence?  We 
are  not  in  a  position  to  answer  this  question  categori- 
cally, but  the  plans  of  a  number  of  them  which  we  have 
examined  do  not  suggest  anything  but  a  very  slight 
fortification,  sufficient  to  keep  off  wolves.  At  all  events 
we  never  hear  of  these  raths  or  duns  standing  a  siege  ; 
the  conquering  raider  comes,  sees,  and  burns.2  We  are 
therefore  justified  in  concluding  that  they  did  not  at  all 
correspond  to  what  we  mean  by  a  private  castle.  And 
most  certainly  the  motte-castle,  with  its  very  small 
citadel,  and  its  limited  accommodation  for  the  flocks  and 
herds  of  a  tribe,  was  utterly  unsuited  to  the  requirements 
of  the  tribal  system. 

A  good  deal  of  light  is  thrown  on  the  way  in  which 
Irish  chieftains  regarded  private  castles  at  the  time  of 
the  invasion  by  the  well-known  story  of  one  who  refused 
a  castle  offered  him  by  the  invaders,  saying  that  he 
preferred  a  castle  of  bones  to  a  castle  of  stones. 
Whether  legendary  or  not,  it  represents  the  natural 
feeling  of  a  man  who  had  been  accustomed  to  sleep 
trustfully  in  the  midst  of  men  of  his  own  blood,  tied  to 
him  by  the  bonds  of  the  clan.  The  clan  system  in 

1  I    am  informed  that  the   "Crith    Gablach,"   which   gives  a  minute 
description  of  one  of  these  halls,  is  a  very  late  document,  and  by  no  means 
to  be  trusted. 

2  Vide  the  Irish  Annals^  passim. 


326  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

Ireland  undoubtedly  led  to  great  misery  through  the 
absence  of  a  central  authority  to  check  the  raids  of  one 
clan  upon  another  ;  but  though  we  occasionally  hear  of 
a  chieftain  being  murdered  "by  his  own,"  we  have  no 
reason  to  think  that  clan  loyalty  was  not  sufficient,  as  a 
rule,  for  the  internal  safety  of  the  community.  So  that 
a  popular  chieftain  might  well  refuse  a  fortification 
which  had  every  mark  of  a  hateful  and  suspicious 
invader.1 

Unfortunately  there  is- — or  has  been  until  quite 
recently — a  strong  prejudice  in  the  minds  of  Irish 
antiquaries  that  works  of  the  motte-and-bailey  kind 
belong  to  the  prehistoric  age  of  Ireland.  Irish  scholars 
indeed  admit  that  the  word  mota  is  not  found  in  any  Irish 
MS.  which  dates  from  before  the  Norman  invasion  of 
Ireland.2  We  must  therefore  bear  in  mind  that  when 
they  tell  us  that  such  and  such  an  ancient  book  mentions 
the  "  mote "  at  Naas  or  elsewhere,  what  they  mean  is 
that  it  mentions  a  dun,  or  rath,  or  longport,  which  they 
imagine  to  be  the  same  as  a  motte.  But  this  is  begging 
the  whole  question.  There  is  not  the  slightest  proof 
that  any  of  these  words  meant  a  motte.  Dun  is  often 
taken  to  mean  a  hill  (perhaps  from  its  resemblance  to 
Anglo-Saxon  dun\  but  Keltic  scholars  are  now  agreed 
that  it  is  cognate  with  the  German  zaun  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  tun,  meaning  a  fenced  enclosure.3  It  may  be 
applied  to  a  fort  on  a  hill,  but  it  may  equally  well  be 

1  There  is  another  story,  preserved  in  Hanmer's  Chronicle,  that  the  Irish 
chief  Mac  Mahon  levelled  two  castles  given  to  him  by  John  de  Courcy, 
saying  he  had  promised  to  hold  not  stones  but  land. 

2  Joyce's  Irish  Names  of  Places,  p.  290. 

3  See  J.  E.    Lloyd,  Cymmrodor,  xi.,   24  ;    Skeat's  English  Dictionary, 
"town."     In  the  "  Dindsenchas  of  Erin,"  edited  by  O'Beirne  Crowe,  Journ. 
R.  S.  A.  /.,  1872-1873,  phrases  occur,  such  as  "the  dun  was  open,"  "she  went 
back  into  the  dun,"  which  show  clearly  that  the  dun  was  an  enclosure.     In 
several  passages  dun  and  cathair  are  interchanged. 


SEPULCHRAL  TUMULI  327 

applied  to  a  fort  on  the  flat.  Rath  is  translated  fossa 
in  the  Book  of  Armagh ;  Jocelin  of  Furness  equates  it 
with  murus.1  The  rath  of  Armagh  was  evidently  a 
very  large  enclosure  in  1166,  containing  several  streets, 
houses,  and  churches,  so  it  was  certainly  not  a  motte.2 
It  is  of  course  not  impossible  that  the  Normans  may 
sometimes  have  occupied  an  ancient  fortified  site,  but  we 
may  be  sure  from  the  considerations  already  urged  that 
the  fortifications  which  they  erected  were  of  a  wholly 
different  character  to  the  previous  ones,  even  if  they 
utilised  a  portion  for  their  bailey. 

It  is  of  course  difficult  to  decide  in  some  cases  (both 
in  Ireland  and  elsewhere)  whether  a  mound  which  stands 
alone  without  a  bailey  is  a  sepulchral  tumulus  or  a 
motte.  There  are  some  mottes  in  England  and 
Scotland  which  have  no  baileys  attached  to  them,  and 
do  not  appear  ever  to  have  had  any.  In  Ireland,  the 
country  of  magnificent  sepulchral  tumuli,  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  the  barrow  and  the  motte  have  become 
confused  in  popular  language.  It  would  appear,  too,  that 
there  exist  in  Ireland  several  instances  of  artificial 
tumuli  which  were  used  for  the  inauguration  of  Irish 
chieftains,  and  these  have  occasionally  been  mistaken  for 
mottes.3  As  Mr  Orpen  has  shown,  there  are  generally 
indications  in  the  unsuitability  of  the  sites,  in  the 
absence  of  real  fortification,  or  in  the  presence  of 
sepulchral  signs,  to  show  that  these  tumuli  did  not 
belong  to  the  motte  class.  Magh  Adair,  for  example, 
which  has  been  adduced  as  a  motte  outside  the  Norman 
boundary,  is  shown  by  Mr  Orpen  to  be  of  quite  a 
different  character. 

1  Joyce,  Irish  Names  of  Place -s,  p.  273. 

2  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters^  1 166. 

3  See   Orpen,   "Motes  and   Norman    Castles   in    Ireland,"  in   Journ. 
R.  S.  A.  /.,  xxxvii.,  143-147. 


328  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

At  many  sites  in  Ireland  where  the  Normans  are 
known  to  have  built  castles  at  an  early  period  of  the 
invasion  there  are  no  mottes  to  be  seen  now.  It  is 
probable  that  where  the  Norman  conquerors  had  both 
money  and  time  at  their  disposal  they  built  stone  keeps 
from  the  first,  and  that  the  motte-castles,  with  their 
wooden  towers  or  bretasches,  were  built  in  the  times  of 
stress,  or  were  the  residences  of  the  less  wealthy  under- 
tenants. But  we  know  from  documents  that  even  in 
John's  reign  the  important  royal  castle  of  Roscrea  was 
built  with  a  motte  and  bretasche,1  which  proves  that 
this  type  of  castle  was  still  so  much  esteemed  that  we 
may  feel  reasonably  certain  that  when  Giraldus  speaks 
of  " slender  defences  of  turf  and  stakes"  he  does  not 
mean  motte  -  castles,  but  mere  embankments  and 
palisades.2 

But  there  is  another  reason  for  the  absence  of 
mottes  from  some  of  the  early  Norman  castle  sites. 
Those  who  have  examined  the  castles  of  Wales  know 
that  it  is  rare  to  find  a  motte  in  a  castle  which 
has  undergone  the  complete  metamorphoses  of  the 
Edwardian 3  period.  These  new  castles  had  no  keeps, 
and  necessitated  an  entire  change  of  plan,  which  led 
either  to  the  destruction  of  the  motte  or  the  building  of 
an  entirely  new  castle  on  a  different  site.  The  removal 
of  a  motte  is  only  a  question  of  spade  labour,  and  many 

1  Sweetman's  Calendar  of  Documents  relating  to  Ireland,  i.,  412. 

2  That  a  motte-castle  of  earth  and  wood  seemed  to  Giraldus  quite  an 
adequate  castle  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  numbers  of  the  castles  which  he 
mentions  have  never  had  any   stone  defences.     It  may  be  a  mere  coin- 
cidence, but  it  is  worth  noting,  that  there  are  no  mottes  now  at  any  of  the 
places  which  Giraldus  mentions  as  exilia  municipia,  Pembroke,  Dundun- 
nolf,  Down  City,  and  Carrick. 

3  This  word  must  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  this  new  type  of 
castle  was  Edward's  invention,  nor  even  that  he  was  the  first  to  introduce  it 
into  Europe  from  Palestine  ;  it  was  used  by  the  Hohenstauffen  emperors  as 
early  as  1224.     See  Kohler,  Entwickelung  des  Kriegswesen,  iii.,  475. 


CTDONOVAN'S  GUESSES  329 

sites  in  England  can  be  pointed  out  where  mottes  are 
known  to  have  existed  formerly,  but  where  now  not  a 
vestige  is  left.1  There  are  many  other  cases  where  the 
Edwardian  castle  shows  not  a  trace  of  any  former 
earthworks,  but  where  a  motte  and  bailey  a  little  dis- 
tance off  probably  represents  the  original  wooden 
castle.2 

The  passion  for  identifying  existing  earthworks 
with  sites  mentioned  in  ancient  Irish  history  or 
legend  has  been  a  most  serious  hindrance  to  the 
progress  of  real  archaeological  knowledge  in  Ireland. 
It  is  not  until  one  begins  to  look  into  this  matter 
that  one  finds  out  what  giddy  guesswork  most  of 
these  identifications  of  Irish  place-names  really  are. 
O'Donovan  was  undoubtedly  a  great  Irish  scholar, 
and  his  editions  of  the  Book  of  Rights  and  the 
Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  are  of  the  highest  im- 
portance. The  topographical  notes  to  these  works 
are  generally  accepted  as  final.  But  let  us  see  what 
his  method  was  in  this  part  of  his  labours.  In  the 
Book  of  Rights,  he  says  very  naively,  about  a  place 
called  Ladhrann  or  Ardladhrann,  "  I  cannot  find  any 
place  in  Wexford  according  with  the  notices  of  this 
place  except  Ardamine,  on  the  sea-coast,  where  there  is 
a  remarkable  moat"*  No  modern  philologist,  we  think, 
would  admit  that  Ardamine  could  be  descended  from 
Ardladhrann.  In  the  same  way  O'Donovan  guessed 
Treada-na-righ,  "  the  triple-fossed  fort  of  the  kings,"  to 
be  the  motte  of  Kilfinnane,  near  Kilmallock.  But  this 
was  a  pure  guess,  as  he  had  previously  guessed  it  to  be 
"one  of  the  forts  called  Dun-g-Claire."  To  the  anti- 
quaries of  that  day  one  earthwork  seemed  as  good  as 

1  Newcastle,  Worcester,  Gloucester,  and  Bristol  are  instances. 

2  Rhuddlan  is  an  instance  of  this.  3  Book  of  Rights,  p.  203. 


330  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

another,   and  differences  of  type  were  not   considered 
important.1 


The  following  list  of  early  Norman  castles  in  Ireland 
was  first  published  in  the  Antiquary  for  1906.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  form  a  complete  list  from  contemporary 
historians  only,  that  is,  from  Giraldus  Cambrensis  and 
the  "  Song  of  Dermot,"  and  from  the  documents  published 
in  Sweetman's  Calendar,  of  the  Norman  castles  built  in 
Ireland,  up  to  the  end  of  John's  reign.2  Since  then,  the 
task  has  been  taken  up  on  a  far  more  philosophical  plan 
by  Mr  Goddard  H.  Orpen,  whose  exceptional  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  the  invasion  and  the  families  of  the 
conquerors  has  enabled  him  to  trace  their  settlements  in 
Ireland  as  they  have  never  been  traced  before.3  Never- 
theless, it  still  seems  worth  while  to  republish  this  list, 
as  though  within  a  limited  compass,  consistent  with  the 
writer's  limited  knowledge,  it  furnishes  an  adequate  test 
of  the  correctness  of  the  Norman  theory,  on  a  perfectly 
sound  basis.  The  list  has  now  the  advantage  of  being 
corrected  from  Mr  Orpen's  papers,  and  of  being 
enlarged  by  identifications  which  he  has  been  able  to 
make.4 

1  It  must  be  admitted  that  in  the  most  recent  and  most  learned  edition 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  the  topographical  identifications  are  quite  on 
a  level  with  O'Donovan's. 

2  The  Annals  have  not  been  used,  partly  because  in  their  present  form 
they  are  not  contemporary,  and  partly  because  the  difficulties  of  identifying 
many  of  the  castles  they  mention  appeared  insuperable. 

3  See  especially  two  papers  on  "Motes  and  Norman  Castles  in  Ireland," 
in  English  Historical  Review,  vol.   xxii.,   pp.  228,  240.      Mr  Orpen    has 
further  enriched  this  subject  by  a  number  of  papers  in  thefourn.  R.  S.  A.  /., 
to  which  reference  will  be  made  subsequently. 

4  The  only  castles  still  unidentified  are  Aq'i,   Kilmehal,    Rokerel,  and 
Inchleder. 


ANTRIM— ARDREE  331 

^ANTRIM1  (Cal.,  i.,  88). — A  royal  castle  in  1251. 
Present  castle  modern ;  close  to  it  is  a  large  motte, 
marked  in  25-inch  O.M. 

AQ'I  (CaL,  i.,  13). — Unidentified  ;  perhaps  an  alias  for 
one  of  the  Limerick  castles,  as  it  was  certainly  in  the 
county  of  Limerick. 

ARDFINNAN,  Tipperary  (Gir.,  v.,  386). — Built  in  1 185, 
immediately  after  John's  coming  to  Ireland.  No  motte  ; 
castle  is  late  Edwardian  and  partly  converted  into  a 
modern  house ;  one  round  tower  has  ogee  windows. 
[B.  T.  S.] 

ARDMAYLE,  or  ARMOLEN,  Tipperary  (CaL,  i.,  81). — A 
castle  of  Theobald  Walter.  A  motte  with  half-moon 
bailey,  and  earthen  wing  walls  running  up  its  sides, 
exactly  as  stone  walls  do  in  later  Norman  castles. 
Ruins  of  a  Perpendicular  mansion  close  to  it,  and  also  a 
square  tower  with  ogee  windows.  [B.  T.  S.]  Fig.  45. 

ARDNURCHER,  or  HORSELEAP,  King's  Co.  (Song  of 
Dermot  and  CaL,  i.,  145). — A  castle  of  Meiler  Fitz 
Henry's,  built  in  ii92.2  An  oblong  motte  with  one 
certain  bailey,  and  perhaps  a  second.  No  masonry  but 
the  remains  of  a  wall  or  bridge  across  the  fosse.  [B.  T.  S.] 

ARDREE,  Kildare  (Gir.,  v.,  356,  and  Song). — The 
castle  built  by  Hugh  de  Lacy  for  Thomas  the  Fleming 
in  1182,  was  at  Ardri,  on  the  Barrow.  There  is  an 
artificial  mound  at  Ardree,  turned  into  a  graveyard,  and 
near  it  a  levelled  platform  above  the  river,  on  which 
stands  Ardree  House.3  On  the  west  bank  of  the 

1  It  should  be  stated  that  the  great  majority  of  the  castles  in  this  list 
have  been  visited  for  the  writer  by  Mr  Basil  T.  Stallybrass,  who  has  a  large 
acquaintance  with  English  earthworks,  as  well  as  a  competent  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  architecture.     The  rest  have  t>een  visited  by  the  writer 
herself,  except  in  a  few  cases  where  the  information  given  in  Lewis's  Topo- 
graphical Dictionary  or  other  sources  was  sufficient.     The  castles  personally 
visited  are  initialled. 

2  Annals  of  Loch  C2.  3  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.)  xxii.,  249. 


332  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

Barrow,  opposite  Ardree,  is  a  low  circular  motte  with 
ditch  and  bank,  but  no  bailey.  A  piece  of  Norman 
pottery  with  green  glaze  was  found  by  Mr  Stallybrass, 
one  foot  below  the  surface  in  the  counterscarp  bank. 
Mr  Orpen  thinks  this  motte  may  have  been  the  castle  of 
Robert  de  Bigarz,  also  mentioned  by  Giraldus  as  near 
Ardree,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Barrow. 

ASKEATON,  or  HINNESKESTI,  Limerick. — Built  in 
1199,  probably  by  Hamo  de  Valoignes.1  An  excellent 
instance  of  a  rnotte-and-bailey  castle,  where  the  motte 
is  of  natural  rock.  The  splendid  keep  and  hall  are  of 
the  1 5th  century,  but  there  are  two  older  towers,  which 
might  date  from  1199.  This  natural  motte  has  been 
identified  with  the  ancient  Irish  fort  of  Gephthine 
(Askeaton  =  Eas  Gephthine),  mentioned  in  the  Book  of 
Rights.  But  this  work  does  not  mention  any  fort  at 
Gephthine,  only  the  place,  in  a  list  which  is  clearly  one 
of  lands  (perhaps  mensal  lands),  not  of  forts,  as  it 
contains  many  names  of  plains,  and  of  tribes,  as  well  as 
the  three  isles  of  Arran.2 

^ASKELON,  or  ESCLUEN  (Cal.,  L,  91). — Castle  restored 
to  Richard  de  Burgh  in  1215  ;  the  site  is  placed  by  Mr 
Orpen  at  Carrigogunell,  which  is  in  the  parish  of 
Kilkeedy,  Limerick.3  Carrigogunell  has  the  ruins  of  a 
castle  on  a  natural  motte  of  rock. 

1  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.)  xxii.,  450,  citing  from  MS.  Annals  of  Innis- 
fallen. 

2  The  poetical  list  enumerates  the  places  which  were  "  of  the  right  of 
Cashel   in  its  power."     The  prose  version,  which  may  be  assumed  to  be 
later,  is  entitled  "  Do  phortaibh  righ  Caisil,"  which  O'Donovan  translates 
"of  the  seats  of  the  king  of  Cashel."     But  can  one  small  king  have  had  sixty- 
one  different  abodes  ?     Professor  Bury  says  "  The  Book  of  Rights  still  awaits 
a  critical  investigation."    Life  of  St  Patrick,  p.  69. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  449.     See  Westropp,  Trans.  R.  1.  A.,  xxvi.  (c),  p.  146.     Mr 
Orpen  informs  me  that  the  Black  Book  of  Limerick  contains  a  charter  of 
William  de  Burgo  which  mentions  "  Ecclesia  de  Escluana  alias  Kilkyde." 
No.  cxxxv. 


ATHLONE— CARBURY  333 

Roscommon  (Cal.,  i.,  80). — Built  in  1210 
by  the  Justiciar,  John  de  Gray.  The  keep  is  placed  on 
a  lofty  motte,  which  has  been  revetted  with  masonry. 
Turlough  O'Connor  built  a  caislen  at  Athlone  in  1129, 
but  it  was  not  even  on  the  site  of  the  Norman  castle, 
for  which  John  obtained  land  from  the  church,  as  already 
stated. 

BAGINBUN  (Gir.,  i.,  13;  Song,  1406). — Mr  Orpen  has 
proved  that  this  was  the  spot  where  Raymond  le  Gros 
landed  and  entrenched  himself  for  four  months.1  It  is  a 
headland  on  the  sea-coast,  and  headland  castles  seldom 
have  mottes,  as  they  were  not  needed  on  a  promontory 
washed  on  three  sides  by  the  sea.  Moreover,  Baginbun 
was  of  the  nature  of  a  temporary  fort  rather  than  a 
residential  castle,  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that  Giraldus 
calls  it  "  a  poor  sort  of  a  castle  of  stakes  and  sods." 
Still,  the  small  inner  area,  ditched  off  with  a  double 
ditch,  and  the  large  area,  also  ditched,  roughly  corre- 
spond to  the  motte-and-bailey  plan.  [B.  T.  S.] 

BALIMORE  EUSTACE,  Kildare  (CaL,  i.,  28). — A  castle 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  A  motte,  with  a  remark- 
able platform  attached  to  one  side  (cf.  Wigmore  Castle). 
No  bailey  now  ;  no  stone  castle.  [B.  T.  S.J 

CAHERCONLISH  (Karkinlis,  Kakaulis,  Cal.,  i.,  81). — 
Castle  of  Theobald  Fitz  Walter.  There  is  nothing  left 
above  ground  but  a  chimney  of  late  date.  A  few  yards 
from  it  is  a  hillock,  which  has  very  much  the  appearance 
of  a  mutilated  motte.  [E.  S.  A.]  Mr  Orpen,  however, 
thinks  that  Theobald's  castle  may  have  been  at  Knock- 
atancashlane,  "the  hill  of  the  old  castle,"  a  townland  a 
little  to  the  north  of  Caherconlish.2 

CARBURY,    Kildare. — The    Song    says    Meiler    Fitz 

1  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /.,  1898,  155  ;  and  1904,  354. 
a  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  452. 


334  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

Henry  first  got  Carbury,  so  the  castle  was  probably  his. 
It  is  a  motte  with  two  baileys,  one  of  imperfect  outline, 
the  other  a  curious  little  half-circle.  A  15th-century 
castle  is  built  against  the  side  of  the  motte.  [B.  T.  S.] 

CARLINGFORD,  Louth  (Cal.,  i.,  95). — Apparently  a 
royal  castle  (CaL,  i.,  156),  first  mentioned  in  1215.  It 
stands  on  a  rock,  which  might  possibly  have  been  a 
former  motte.  There  certainly  has  been  a  former  castle, 
for  the  present  ruin  is  Edwardian  in  plan  and  in  every 
detail.  [E.  S.  A.] 

CARRICK,  Wexford  (GYr.,v.,  245). — This  again  seems 
to  be  one  of  the  temporary  forts  built  by  the  first 
invaders  (in  this  case  Fitz  Stephen),  in  a  strong  natural 
situation,  and  Giraldus  applies  to  it  the  same  con- 
temptuous language  as  to  Baginbun.  There  is  no  motte, 
but  an  oval  area  of  45  yards  by  25  is  ditched  and  banked  ; 
a  modern  imitation  of  a  round  tower  stands  within  the 
enclosure.  [B.  T.  S.] 

CARRICKFERGUS,  Antrim  (Cal.,  i.,  107). — This  was 
probably  one  of  the  castles  built  by  John  de  Courcy, 
the  conqueror  of  Ulster.  The  gatehouse  and  mural 
towers  are  late,  but  the  keep  may  well  be  of  De  Courcy 's 
time,  and  furnishes  an  excellent  instance  of  a  castle 
on  the  keep-and-bailey  plan,  built  by  the  Normans  in 
stone  from  the  beginning.  [E.  S.  A.] 

CASTLETOWN  DELVIN,  Westmeath  \_Gir.,  v.,  356]. — 
Castle  of  Gilbert  de  Nungent.  A  motte,  with  a  garden 
at  base,  which  may  have  been  the  bailey ;  near  it  the 
stone  castle,  a  keep  with  round  towers  at  the  angles, 
probably  not  as  early  as  John's  reign.  [B.  T.  S.] 

CLONARD,  Meath  (Gir.,  v.,  356). — Built  by  Hugh  de 
Lacy  about  1182.  A  motte,  with  broad  ditch  and 
curious  little  oblong  bailey ;  no  remains  in  masonry. 
[B.  T.  S.] 


CLONMACNOISE—  DOWNPATRICK  335 

CLONMACNOISE,  King's  Co.  (Cal.,  i.,  94). — First  con- 
temporary mention  1215  ;  the  Annals  of  Loch  Ce  say  it 
was  built  in  1214  "  by  the  foreigners."  A  royal  castle. 
A  large  motte  with  bailey  attached  ;  the  wing  walls  of 
the  bailey  run  up  the  motte.  The  importance  of  the 
castle  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  stone  keep  was  added 
not  very  long  after  it  was  built.  [B.  T.  S.] 

^COLLACHT  (Gir.,  v.,  355). — Castle  of  John  of  Here- 
ford. Collacht  appears  to  be  a  scribal  error  for  Tullaght, 
now  Tullow,  Carlo w.1  The  site  of  the  castle  is  marked 
on  the  6-inch  O.M.  ;  it  has  been  visited  by  Mr  G.  H. 
Orpen,  who  found  very  clear  indications  of  a  motte  and 
bailey.  (See  Appendix  L.) 

CROMETH  (CaL,  i.,  91). — Castle  of  Maurice  FitzGerald. 
Supposed  to  be  Croom,  Limerick,  though  the  identifi- 
cation is  by  no  means  certain.2  There  are  the  ruins  of 
an  Edwardian  castle  at  Croom  ;  no  motte.  [E.  S.  A.] 

DOWNPATRICK,  Down  (Gir.,  v.,  345). — The  traveller 
approaching  Downpatrick  sees  a  number  of  small  hills 
which  no  doubt  have  once  been  islands  rising  out  of 
the  swamps  of  the  Quoyle.  On  one  of  these  hills  stands 
the  town  and  its  cathedral ;  on  another,  to  the  east,  but 
separated  from  the  town  by  a  very  steep  descent  and  a 
brook,  stands  a  motte  and  bailey  of  the  usual  Norman 
type.  It  occupies  the  whole  summit  of  the  small  hill,  so 
that  the  banks  of  the  bailey  are  at  a  great  height  above 
the  outer  ditch,  which  is  carried  round  the  base  of  the 
hill  (compare  Skipsea).  The  motte,  which  is  not  a  very 
large  one,  has  had  an  earthen  breastwork  round  the  top, 
now  much  broken  away.  Its  ditch  falls  into  the  ditch 
of  the  bailey,  but  at  a  higher  level.  The  bailey  is  semi- 
lunar,  extending  round  about  three-quarters  of  the 

1  Butler's  Notices  of  the  Castle  of  Trim,  p.  13. 

2  %ng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  458. 


336  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

circumference  of  the  motte.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
sign  of  masonry.  As  the  size  of  this  work  has  been 
greatly  exaggerated,  it  is  as  well  to  say  that  when 
measured  on  the  25-inch  O.M.  with  a  planimeter,  its 
area  proves  to  be  3.9  acres  ;  the  area  of  the  motte  and 
its  ditch  .9,  leaving  3  acres  for  the  bailey.  [E.  S.  A.] 

Fig-  45- 

This  thoroughly  Norman-French  castle,  which  was 
formerly  called  a  Danish  fort,  has  lately  been  baptised 
as  Rathceltchair,  and  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  a 
mythical  hero  of  the  ist  century  A.D.  Mr  Orpen, 
however,  has  disposed  of  this  fancy  by  showing  that  the 
name  Rathceltchair  belonged  in  pre-Norman  times  to 
the  enclosure  of  the  ancient  church  and  monastery  which 
stood  on  the  other  hill.1  We  may  therefore  unhesitat- 
ingly ascribe  this  motte-castle  to  John  de  Courcy,  who 
first  put  up  a  slender  fortification  within  the  town  walls 
to  defend  himself  against  temporary  attack,2  but  after- 
wards built  a  regular  castle,  for  which  this  island  offered 
a  most  favourable  site.3  A  stone  castle  was  built  inside 
the  town  at  a  later  period  ;  it  is  now  entirely  destroyed. 

DROGHEDA,  Louth  (CaL,  i.,  93). — First  mention 
1203,  but  Mr  Orpen  thinks  it  probable  that  it  was  one 
of  the  castles  built  by  Hugh  de  Lacy,  who  died  in  1186. 
A  high  motte,  with  a  round  and  a  square  bailey,  just 
outside  the  town  walls ; 4  called  the  Mill  Mount  in  the 
time  of  Cromwell,  who  occupied  it ;  he  mentions  that  it 
had  a  good  ditch,  strongly  palisadoed.5  No  stone 

1  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  441. 

2  "Exile  municipium,"  Giraldus,  345.     See  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xx.,  717. 

3  Annals  of  Ulster,  1177. 

4  See  Orpen,  "  Motes  and  Castles  in  County  Louth,"  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  I., 
xxxviii.,  249.     The  town  walls  are  later  than  the  castle,  and  were  built  up 
to  it. 

5  Cited  by  Westropp,  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /.,  1904,  paper  on  "Irish  Motes 
and  Early  Norman  Castles." 


9        IPO    zoo 
Feet. 


i  pi^y ^ 

"'laiui'""1 


ARDMAYLE. 


DOWNPATRICK. 


N. 


r 


DROGHEDA. 


O  100        200       300 

Feet 

CASTLEKNOCK. 


FIG.  45.— IRISH  MOTTE-CASTLES. 


[Tojacep.  336 


DULEEK— DURROW  337 

castle,  though  much  of  the  bailey  wall  remains  ;  a  late 
martello  tower  on  top  of  motte.  [B.  T.  S.]  Fig.  45. 

DULEEK,  Meath  (the  castrum  Duvelescense  of 
Giraldus,  v.,  313). — Probably  first  built  by  Hugh  de 
Lacy;  restored  by  Raymond  le  Gros  in  1173.  The 
motte  is  destroyed,  but  an  old  weaver  living  in  the 
village  in  1906  says  that  it  existed  in  the  time  of  his 
father,  who  used  to  roll  stones  down  it  in  his  youth.  It 
was  in  the  angle  between  two  streams,  and  there  is  still 
a  slight  trace  of  it.  No  stone  castle.  [B.  T.  S.] 

DUNAMASE,  Queen's  Co.  (Dumath,  Cal.,  i.,  100). — 
First  mentioned  in  1215  as  a  castle  of  William 
Marshall's,  which  makes  it  not  unlikely  that  it  was 
originally  built  by  Strongbow.  The  plan  of  this  castle 
is  the  motte-and-bailey  plan,  but  the  place  of  the  motte 
is  taken  by  a  natural  rock,  isolated  by  a  ditch.  There 
are  three  baileys,  descending  the  hill.  The  stone  keep 
on  the  summit  is  of  the  i5th  or  i6th  century.  [B.  T.  S.] 

DUNGARVAN,  Waterford  (Cat.,  i.,  89). — Granted  to 
Thomas  Fitz  Antony  in  1215.  To  the  west  of  the  town 
is  a  motte  called  Gallowshill ;  it  has  no  bailey,  but  some 
trace  of  a  circumvallation.  The  castle  east  of  the  river 
is  not  earlier  than  the  i4th  or  i5th  century.  [B.  T.  S.] 

^DURROW,  King's  Co.  (Gir.,  v.,  387). — A  castle  of 
Hugh  de  Lacy's  ;  he  was  murdered  while  he  was  build- 
ing it,  because  he  had  chosen  the  enclosure  of  the 
church  for  his  bailey.1  A  plan  in  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /., 
xxix.,  227,  shows  clearly  the  motte  and  bailey,  though 
the  writer  mistakes  for  separate  mounds  what  are  clearly 
broken  portions  of  the  vallum.  It  is  possible  that  the 
bailey  may  have  followed  the  line  of  the  ancient  rath  of 
the  church,  but  it  would  almost  certainly  be  a  much 
stronger  affair. 

1  Annals  of  Ulster,  1 186. 

y 


338  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

*FAVORIE=  FORE,  Westmeath. — I  owe  this  identi- 
fication to  Mr  Orpen.  As  Hugh  de  Lacy  founded  or 
endowed  the  monastery  at  Fore,1  this  was  probably  one 
of  his  castles,  but  the  first  mention  is  in  1215 
(Cal.,  i.,  95).  Mr  Westropp  mentions  the  oval  motte 
of  Fore  with  its  bailey  in  his  list  of  " complex  motes."2 

FERNS,  Wexford  (Gzr.,  v.,  326). — A  castle  was  built 
by  Walter  the  German  near  Ferns.  Ferns  is  spoken  of 
as  a  city  in  the  time  of  King  Dermot.  There  is  no 
motte  at  Ferns  ;  the  stone  castle  has  a  keep,  which  is 
certainly  not  earlier  than  the  time  of  Henry  III. 
[B.  T.  S.] 

^FOTHERET  ONOLAN,  castle  of  Raymond  le  Gros 
(Gir.,  v.,  355). — Mr  Orpen  identifies  this  with  Castle- 
more,  near  Tullow,  Co.  Carlow.  There  is  an  oval 
motte,  and  a  rectangular  bailey  with  indications  of 
masonry.3 

GALTRIM,  Meath. — Identified  by  Mr  Orpen  with  the 
castle  of  Hugh  de  Hose,  or  Hussey,  mentioned  in  the 
"  Song  of  Dermot."  Destroyed  in  1 176  ;  no  stone  castle. 
An  oval  motte  ;  bailey  indistinctly  traceable.  [B.  T.  S.] 

GEASHILL,  King's  Co.  (CaL,  i.,  30). — Mentioned  in 
1203  as  a  castle  of  William,  Earl  Marshall.  There  are 
remains  of  a  motte,  on  which  stands  a  14th-century  keep  ; 
but  the  whole  site  has  been  so  pulled  about  in  making 
a  modern  house,  drive,  and  gardens,  that  nothing  more 
can  be  made  of  the  plan.  The  motte,  however,  is  plain, 
though  mutilated.  [E.  S.  A.] 

GRANARD,  Longford  (Cat.,  i.,  95). — Built  by  Richard 
Tuit  in  H99-4  A  magnificent  motte,  with  a  very  wide 

1  Round,  Cal.  of  Doc.  preserved  in  France,  i.,  105,  107. 

2  "On  the  Ancient  Forts  of  Ireland,"  Trans.  R.  L  A.,  1902. 

3  Orpen,  "The  Castle  of  Raymond  le  Gros  at  Fodredunolan,"  Journ. 
R.  S.  A.  /.,  1906. 

*  Annals  of  In nisf alien. 


GRANARD— KILBIXIE  339 

ditch,  and  a  small  fan-shaped  bailey.  Foundations  of 
a  shell  wall  round  the  top  of  the  motte,  and  of  a  small 
round  tower  in  the  centre.  [B.  T.  S.] 

*HlNCHELEDER,  Or    INCHELEFYRE  (CdL,    i.,  95). Said 

by  Butler  {Notices  of  Trim  Castle,  12)  to  be  Inchleffer, 
Meath,  a  castle  of  Hugh  de  Lacy.  No  further  infor- 
mation. 

JOHN  DE  CLAHULL'S  CASTLE. — Mr  Orpen  believes  this 
to  be  Killeshin,  Queen's  Co.,  as  it  corresponds  to  the 
description  in  the  Song,  "entre  Eboy  et  Lethelyn." 
There  is  a  motte  there,  and  traditions  of  a  town. 

*KARAKITEL,  or  CARRICKITTLE,  Limerick  (Cal.,  i.,  14). 
— Castle  of  William  de  Naas  in  1199.  There  was  a 
remarkable  natural  motte  of  rock  here,  with  the  founda- 
tions of  a  castle  upon  it,  now  destroyed.1 

*KILLAMLUN  (Cat.,  i.,  53). — Identified  by  Mr  Orpen 
with  Killallon,  Meath,  where  there  is  a  large  motte. 
There  is  a  stone  passage  into  this  motte,  but  no 
evidence  has  been  brought  forward  to  prove  that  it  is 
of  the  same  nature  as  the  prehistoric  souterrains  so 
common  in  Ireland.2  In  England  there  is  a  remarkable 
instance  at  Oxford  of  a  well-chamber  built  inside  a 
motte. 

KILLARE,  Westmeath  (Gir.,  v.,  356). — A  castle  of 
Hugh  de  Lacy,  built  in  1184  ;3  burnt  in  1187.  A  good 
motte,  with  ditch  and  well-preserved  bank  on  counter- 
scarp ;  no  bailey.  No  stone  castle.  [B.  T.  S.] 

KILBIXIE,    Westmeath. — Identified    by    Mr    Orpen 

1  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  449. 

2  "On  some   Caves   in  the   Slieve  na   Cailliagh   District,"  by   E.   C. 
Rotheram,  Proc.  R.  L  A.,  3rd  ser.,  vol.  iii.     Mr  Rotheram  remarks  that 
the  passages  in  the  motte  of  Killallon,  and  that  of  Moat  near  Oldcastle, 
seem  as  if  they  were  not  built  by  the  same  people  as  those  who  constructed 
the  passages  at  Slieve  na  Cailliagh. 

3  Annals  of  Ulster. 


340  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

with  Kelbery,  given  to  Geoffrey  de  Constantin 
(Song,  3154);  the  castle  is  mentioned  in  a  charter  of 
Walter  de  Lacy,  as  well  as  in  the  Annals  of  Loch  Ce, 
which  state  that  it  was  built  in  1192.  A  motte,  with  a 
broad  ditch,  and  no  bailey;  but  on  the  W.  side  the 
counterscarp  bank  of  the  ditch  widens  out  into  a  sort  of 
narrow  half-moon  terrace.  This  peculiarity  may  be 
noted  in  several  other  Irish  castles.  Foundations  of  an 
oblong  shell  on  top  of  motte,  and  of  a  small  square 
tower  in  the  centre  of  this  ward.  [B.  T.  S.J 

^KILFEAKLE,  Tipperary  (Cat.,  i.,  29). — A  castle  of 
William  de  Burgh.  Built  in  H93-1  A  motte  and 
bailey  ;  trace  of  a  stone  wing  wall  down  the  motte.2 

^KILMEHAL  (Cal.,  i.,  44). — Mr  Orpen  regards  the 
identification  of  this  castle  with  Kilmallock  as  extremely 
doubtful. 

*KILMORE  (Cal.,  i.,  95). — Restored  to  Walter  de 
Lacy  in  1215.  Identified  with  Kilmore,  near  Lough 
Oughter,  Cavan.3  Mr  Westropp  mentions  the  motte 
at  this  place,  which  is  outside  the  Anglo-Norman  area. 
The  castle  was  wrecked  in  1225  or  1226,  and  no  more  is 
heard  of  it.  The  Anglo-Norman  advance  in  this 
direction  failed. 

*KILSANTAN,  Londonderry  (Cal.,  i.,  70). — Built  by 
John  de  Courcy  in  1197.*  Now  called  Kilsandal,  or 
Mount  Sandal,  a  large  motte  on  the  Bann,  not  far  from 
Coleraine.  The  castle  of  Coleraine,  inside  the  town, 
was  built  in  1214,  apparently  of  stone,5  and  probably 
superseded  the  castle  of  Kilsandal. 

KILTINAN,  Tipperary  (Cal.,  i.,  94). — Castle  of  Philip 
of  Worcester  in  1215.  No  motte;  a  headland  castle 

1  Annals  of  Loch  Ct. 

2  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist  Rev.,  xxii.,  448.  3  Ibid.,  p.  242. 
4  Annals  of  Ulster.     See  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  443. 

6  Annals  of  Ulster. 


KILTINAN— LEIGHLIN  341 

overhanging  a  river  valley.  The  castle  has  not  only 
undergone  a  late  Edwardian  transformation,  but  has 
been  cut  up  to  make  a  modern  mansion  and  farm 
buildings.  No  fosses  or  earthworks  remain.  [E.  S.  A.] 

KNOCK,  or  CASTLEKNOCK,  Dublin  (CaL,  i.,  81). — 
Castle  of  Hugh  Tyrrel.  An  oval  motte,  walled  round 
the  top,  carrying  on  its  edge  a  smaller  motte  (with  traces 
of  a  ditch)  on  which  stand  the  ruins  of  an  octagonal 
keep.  No  other  bailey  ;  ditch  and  bank  double  for  more 
than  half  the  circumference.  [B.  T.  S.]  Fig.  45. 

^KNOCKGRAFFAN,  Tipperary  (Cal.,  i.,  27). — Castle  of 
William  de  Braose  in  1202.  One  of  the  finest  mottes  to 
be  seen  anywhere.  Built  in  1192,  at  the  same  time  as 
the  castle  of  Kilfeakle.1  The  motte  is  55  feet  high,  has 
a  wide  ditch  and  high  counterscarp  bank,  which  is  also 
carried  round  the  ditch  of  the  "hatchet-shaped"  bailey, 
in  proper  Norman  fashion.  "  There  are  indications  of  a 
rectangular  stone  building  on  the  flat  summit  of  the 
mote,  and  there  are  extensive  stone  foundations  in  the 
bailey."2 

^LAGELACHON  (Cal.,  i.,  95). — Probably  Loughan  or 
Castlekieran,  in  which  parish  is  the  great  motte  of 
Derver.3 

LEA,  Queen's  Co.  (Cal.,  i.,  30). — Castle  of  William, 
Earl  Marshall,  in  1203.  A  motte  with  two  baileys; 
motte  entirely  occupied,  and  partly  mutilated  by  a 
13th-century  keep,  with  two  large  roundels.  [B.  T.  S.] 

LEIGHLIN,  Carlow. — Mr  Orpen  has  shown  that  the 
fine  motte  of  Ballyknockan  answers  to  the  description 

1  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  vol.  iii.     See  Orpen,  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /., 
vol.  xxxix.,  1909. 

2  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,   xxii.,    448.      A    place    called    Graffan    is 
mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Rights,  and  on  the  strength  of  this  mere  mention 
it  has  been  argued  that  the  motte  is  a  prehistoric  work.     Trans.  R.  I.  A., 
vol.  xxxi.,  1902.  3  Mr  Qrpen. 


342  MOTTE  CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

given  by  Giraldus  of  the  site  of  the  castle  of  Lechlin 
built  by  Hugh  de  Lacy.1  There  is  a  trace  of  a  possible 
bailey.  The  stone  castle  called  Black  Castle  at 
Leighlin  Bridge  is  of  very  late  date.  Those  who 
believe  that  we  have  authentic  history  of  Ireland  in  the 
3rd  century  B.C.  will  be  able  to  believe  with  Dr  Joyce 
that  the  description  of  the  annalists  identifies  this  motte 
with  the  site  of  the  ancient  palace  of  Dinn  Righ,  burnt 
by  the  chieftain  Maen  at  that  date!  [B.  T.  S.] 

LISMORE,  Waterford  (Gir.y  i.,  386). — About  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  Lismore,  above  a  ford  of  the  river,  is  an 
excellent  specimen  of  a  Norman  motte  and  bailey,  called 
the  Round  Hill.  The  name  of  the  prehistoric  fort  of 
Dunsginne  has  lately  been  applied  to  it,  but  purely  by 
guesswork.2  The  Song  says  that  Henry  II.  intended 
to  build  a  castle  at  Lismore,  and  that  it  knows  not  why 
he  put  it  off.  Possibly  he  may  have  placed  these  earth- 
works here,  and  never  added  the  wooden  castle,  or  else 
this  is  the  site  of  the  castle  which  was  built  by  his  son 
John  in  1185.  The  castle  inside  the  town  is  certainly 
later  than  the  time  of  John,  as  although  much  modern- 
ised it  is  clearly  Edwardian  in  plan.  The  Norman 
fragments  incorporated  in  the  walls  probably  belonged  to 
the  abbey  of  St  Carthagh,  on  the  site  of  which  the 
town  castle  is  said  to  have  been  built.  The  so-called 
King  John's  Tower  is  only  a  mural  tower,  not  a  keep. 
[B.  T.  S.] 

^LOUTH,  or  LUVETH  (CaL,  i.,  30). — A  royal  castle  in 
1204,  but  it  must  have  been  in  existence  as  early  as 
1196,  when  the  town  and  castle  of  Louth  were  burnt  by 

1  Giraldus'   words   are  :    "  Castrum   Lechliniae,   super  nobilem    Beruse 
fluvium,  a  latere  Ossiriae,  trans  Odronam  in  loco  natura  munito."    V.,  352. 
See  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  245. 

2  See    Orpen,    Eng.   Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,   456,   and  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /., 
xxxvii.,  140. 


LOUTH— NAAS  343 

Niall  MacMahon.1  This  was  probably  the  "  Fairy 
Mount "  at  Louth,  of  which  a  plan  is  given  in  Wright's 
Louthiana.  This  plan  shows  "the  old  town  trench," 
starting  from  opposite  sides  of  the  motte,  so  that  the 
castle  stood  on  the  line  of  the  town  banks.  The  motte 
was  ditched  and  banked  round,  but  the  plan  does  not 
show  any  bailey  or  any  entrance. 

^LOSKE  (CaL,  i.,  30). — Mr  Orpen  has  pointed  out  to 
the  writer  that  this  cannot  be  Lusk,  which  was  a  castle 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  while  Loske  belonged  to 
Theobald  Walter,  and  is  not  yet  identified. 

*LOXHINDY  (Cat.,  i.,  95). — Mr  Orpen  identifies  this 
name  with  Loughsendy,  or  Ballymore  Loughsendy, 
Westmeath,  where  there  is  a  motte.2 

NAAS,  Kildare  (Gir.,  v.,  100). — The  dun  of  Naas  is 
mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Rights,  p.  251,  and  in  the 
Tripartite  Life  of  St  Patrick.  By  the  Dindsenchas  it 
is  attributed  to  the  lengendary  Princess  Tuiltinn  in  277 
A.D.  On  this  " evidence"  the  motte  at  Naas  has  been 
classed  as  prehistoric.  But  as  we  have  seen,  a  dun  does 
not  mean  a  motte,  or  even  a  hill,  but  an  enclosure. 
Naas  was  part  of  the  share  which  fell  to  the  famous 
Anglo-Norman  leader,  Maurice  FitzGerald,  and  the 
earthworks  are  quite  of  the  Norman  pattern;8  a  good 
motte,  ditched  and  banked,  with  trace  of  a  small  bailey 
attached.  The  terrace  round  the  flank  of  the  motte 
may  be  no  older  than  the  modern  buildings  on  the 
summit.4  [B.  T.  S.] 

1  Orpen,  "Motes  and  Norman  Castles  in  County  Louth,"  Journ. 
R.  S.  A.  /.,  xxxviii.,  241,  from  which  paper  the  notice  above  is  largely 
taken.  2  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  242. 

The  castle  is  casually  mentioned  by  Giraldus,  v.,  100,  and  the  date  of 
its  erection  is  not  given. 

4  As  far  as  the  writer's  experience  goes,  terraces  are  only  found  on 
mottes  which  have  at  some  time  been  incorporated  in  private  gardens  or 
grounds. 


344  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

NAVAN,  Meath. — The  Song  says  Navan  was  given 
to  Jocelin  de  Nangle,  and  it  is  known  that  the  castle  of 
the  Nangles  was  at  Navan.  A  lofty  motte,  with  a  very 
small  semilunar  platform  below,  formed  by  broadening 
out  a  part  of  the  counterscarp  bank  of  the  ditch. 
(Compare  Kilbixie.)  [B.  T.  S.] 

NOBBER,  Meath  (Cal.y  i.,  104). — A  castle  of  Hugh 
de  Lacy.  A  motte,  with  traces  of  a  breastwork  round 
the  top,  and  wing  banks  running  down  to  what  remains 
of  the  bailey  on  the  S.  Two  curious  little  terraces  on 
the  N.  side  of  the  motte.  No  masonry.  [B.  T.  S.] 

RATH'  (Cal.,  i.,  95). — This  castle,  evidently  one  of 
the  most  important  in  Ulster,  but  hitherto  unidentified, 
has  been  shown  by  Mr  Orpen  to  be  the  famous  castle 
of  Dundrum,  Down.1  This  castle  is  situated  on  a 
natural  motte  of  rock,  no  doubt  scarped  by  art,  with 
a  deep  ditch  cut  through  the  rock,  and  a  bailey 
attached.  The  top  of  the  motte  contains  a  small 
ward  fortified  in  stone,  and  a  round  keep.  It  is 
very  doubtful  whether  this  keep  is  as  old  as  the  time 
of  John  de  Courcy,  to  whom  the  castle  is  popularly 
attributed  ;  for  the  round  keep  without  buttresses  hardly 
appears  in  England  before  the  reign  of  Henry  III. 
[E.  S.  A.] 

RATHWIRE,  Meath. — Rathwire  was  the  portion  of 
Robert  de  Lacy  (Song,  3150),  and  a  castle  was  built 
here  by  Hugh  de  Lacy.2  There  is  a  motte  and  bailey, 
with  considerable  remains  of  foundations  in  the  bailey, 
and  one  wing  bank  going  up  the  motte.  [B.  T.  S.] 

*RATOUTH,  Meath,  now  RATOATII  (Cal.,  i.,  no). — A 
castle  of  Hugh  de  Lacy.  There  is  "a  conspicuous 
mount "  near  the  church,  about  which  there  is  a  legend 

1  Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /.,  vol.  xxxix.,  1909. 

2  Piers,  Collect,  de  Rebus  Hib.,  cited  by  Orpen. 


ROKEREL— SLANE  345 

that  Malachy,  first  king  of  all  Ireland,  held  a  convention 
of  states  (Lewis).  It  is  marked  in  the  map. 

^ROKEREL  (CaL,  i.,  81). — Unidentified. 

ROSCREA,  Tipperary  (CaL,  i.,  81). — A  motte  and 
bretasche  were  built  here  in  King  John's  reign,  as  is 
recorded  in  an  inquisition  of  29  Henry  III.  (Cal.,  i.,  412). 
There  is  no  motte  now  at  Roscrea,  but  an  Edwardian 
castle  with  mural  towers  and  no  keep  ;  a  14th-century 
gatehouse  tower.  Here  we  have  a  proved  instance  of 
a  motte  completely  swept  away  by  an  Edwardian  trans- 
formation.1 [E.  S.  A.] 

SKREEN,  Meath. — Giraldus  mentions  the  castle  of 
Adam  de  Futepoi,  and  as  Skreen  was  his  barony,  his 
castle  must  have  been  at  Skreen.  In  the  grounds  of 
the  modern  castellated  house  at  Skreen  there  is  a  motte, 
1 1  feet  high  (probably  lowered),  with  a  terrace  round  its 
flank  ;  some  slight  traces  of  a  bailey.  [B.  T.  S.] 

SLANE,  Meath. — The  Song  relates  the  erection  of  a 
motte  by  Richard  the  Fleming :  "  un  mot  fist  cil  jeter 
pur  ses  enemis  grever."2  It  also  tells  of  its  destruction 
by  the  Irish,  but  does  not  give  its  name,  which  is 
supplied  by  the  Annals  of  Ulster.  Probably  Richard 
the  Fleming  restored  his  motte  after  its  destruction,  for 
there  is  still  a  motte  on  the  hill  of  Slane,  with  a  large 
annular  bailey,3  quite  large  enough  for  the  "  100 
foreigners,  besides  women  and  children  and  horses,"  who 
were  in  it  when  it  was  taken.  The  motte  has  still  a 
slight  breastwork  round  the  top.  The  modern  castle  of 


1  Mr  Orpen  says  :  "  The  castle  was  '  constructed  anew '  in  the  sixth  and 
seventh  years  of  Edward  I.,  when  ^700  was  expended."    Irish  Pipe  Rolls, 
8  Edward  I.,  cited  in  Eng.  Hist  Rev.,  xxii.,  454. 

2  Line  3178. 

3  The  annular  bailey,  with  the  motte  in  the  centre,  is  a  most  unusual 
arrangement,  and  certainly  suggests  the  idea  that  the  motte  was  placed  in 
an  existing  Irish  rath. 


346  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

the  Marquis  of  Conyngham,  below,  incorporates  half  a 
round  tower  of  13th-century  work,  belonging  no  doubt 
to  the  stone  castle  which  succeeded  the  motte.1  [B.  T.  S.] 

THURLES,  Tipperary  (Dories,  CaL,  i.,  81).  —  A  castle 
of  Theobald  Walter.  Thurles  Castle  has  a  late  keep 
with  trefoil  windows,  and  according  to  Grose  was  built 
by  the  Earl  of  Ormond  in  1328.  From  information  on  the 
spot  it  appears  that  there  used  to  be  a  motte  in  the 
gardens  behind  the  castle  ;  mentioned  also  by  Lewis. 
[B.  T.  S.] 

TIBRAGHNY,  or  TiPPERAGHNY,  Kilkenny  (Gir.,  i.,  386  ; 
Cal.t  i.,  19).  —  Granted  to  William  de  Burgh  in  1200; 
built  by  John  in  n85.2  A  motte,  with  ditch  and  bank, 
and  some  trace  of  a  half-moon  bailey  to  the  north. 
About  200  yards  away  is  the  stone  castle,  a  late  keep 
with  ogee  windows.  [B.  T.  S.] 

TIMAHOE,  Queen's  Co.  (Gir.,  i.,  356).  —  Built  by  Hugh 
de  Lacy  for  Meiler  Fitz  Henry.  A  motte,  called  the 
Rath  of  Ballynaclogh,  half  a  mile  west  of  the  village. 
The  bailey,  the  banks  and  ditches  of  which  seem  remark- 
ably well  preserved,  is  almost  circular,  but  the  motte 
is  placed  at  its  edge,  not  concentrically.  There  are 
wing-banks  running  up  the  motte.  Near  it  are  the  ruins 
of  a  stone  castle  built  in  Elizabeth's  reign  (Grose). 
[B.  T.  S.] 

TRIM,  Meath.  —  The  Song  tells  of  the  erection  of  this 
castle  by  Hugh  de  Lacy,  and  how  in  his  absence  the 
meysun  (the  keep  —  doubtless  wooden)  was  burnt  by  the 
Irish,  and  the  mot  levelled  with  the  ground.  This 
express  evidence  that  the  first  castle  at  Trim  had  a 
motte  is  of  great  value,  because  there  is  no  motte  there 
now.  The  castle  was  restored  by  Raymond  le  Gros,3 

1  See  Appendix  M.  2  Annals  of  Loch  Ce. 

3  Giraldus,  v.,  313. 


TRISTERDERMOT— WATERFORD  347 

but  so  quickly  that  the  present  remarkable  keep  can 
hardly  have  been  built  at  that  date.1  [B.  T.  S.] 

^TRISTERDERMOT  (Gir.y  v.,  356). — Castle  of  Walter 
de  Riddlesford.  Tristerdermot  is  now  Castledermot ; 
there  used  to  be  a  rath  of  some  kind  here  close  to  the 
town.  But  Mr  Orpen  inclines  to  believe  that  the  castle 
Giraldus  alludes  to  was  at  Kilkea,  another  manor  of  De 
Riddles  ford's,  where  there  is  a  motte,  near  the  modern 
castle.  "  In  the  early  English  versions  of  the  Expug- 
natio  Kilcae  is  put  instead  of  Tristerdermot  as  the  place 
where  Walter  de  Riddlesford's  castle  was  built." 2 

^TYPERMESAN  (CaL,  i.,  no). — Mr  Orpen  writes  that 
this  name  occurs  again  in  a  list  of  churches  in  the 
deanery  of  Fore,  which  includes  all  the  parish  names  in 
the  half  barony  of  Fore,  except  Oldcastle  and  Killeagh. 
He  suspects  that  Typermesan  is  now  known  as  Oldcastle, 
"  where  there  is  a  remarkably  well-preserved  motte  and 
raised  bailey."3 

WATERFORD  (CaL,  i.,  89). — We  are  not  told  whether 
Strongbow  built  a  castle  here  when  he  took  the  town 
from  the  Ostmen  in  1170.  The  castle  is  not  mentioned 
till  1215,  when  it  was  granted  by  John  to  Thomas  Fitz- 
Antony.  Waterford  was  a  walled  town  in  1170,  and 
had  a  tower  called  Reginald's  Tower,  which  seems  to 
have  been  the  residence  of  the  two  Danish  chieftains, 
as  they  were  taken  prisoners  there.  Here  too,  Henry 
II.  imprisoned  Fitz  Stephen.4  It  is  possible  that  this 
tower,  as  Mr  Orpen  supposes,5  may  have  been  considered 
as  the  castle  of  Waterford.  But  the  existing  "Ring 


1  This  keep  has  a  square  turret  on  each  of  its  faces  instead  of 
angles.     A  similar  plan  is  found  at  Warkworth,  and  Castle  Rushen 
Man. 

2  Orpen,  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.)  xxii.,  248. 

3  Figured  in  The  Tomb  of  Ollamh  Fodhla,  by  E.  A.  Con  well,  1873. 

4  Gir.,  i.,  255,  277.  5  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxii.,  457. 


at  the\ 
,  Isle  of  I 


rb    ^J.^\ 


348  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

tower "  on  the  line  of  the  walls,  which  is  sometimes 
called  Reginald's  Tower,  is  certainly  a  round  mural  tower 
of  the  1 3th  century  ;  there  are  others  of  similar  masonry 
on  the  walls.  [B.  T.  S.] 

*WEXFORD  (Gzr.,  v.,  314). — Probably  built  by  Maurice 
Prendergast ;  first  mentioned  when  taken  from  his  sons 
in  1176.  Mr  Orpen  writes:  "  The  site  of  Wexford 
Castle  is  an  artificial  mound.  Two  of  the  scarped  sides 
still  remain,  and  the  other  two  are  built  up  above  streets. 
When  recently  laying  some  drainpipes,  the  workmen 
came  upon  no  rock,  but  only  made  earth." 

WICKLOW  (Gir.,  i.,  298). — Existing  when  Henry  II. 
left  Ireland  in  1173;  he  gave  it  to  Strongbow.  The 
Black  Castle  at  Wicklow  is  a  headland  castle ;  it 
preserves  the  motte-and-bailey  plan,  though  there  is  no 
motte,  as  there  is  a  small  triangular  inner  ward  (about 
thirty  paces  each  side)  several  feet  higher  than  the  outer 
bailey,  from  which  it  is  separated  by  a  very  deep  ditch 
cut  through  the  rock.  [B.  T.  S.] 

We  have  here  a  list  of  seventy-two  castles  mentioned 
in  the  contemporary  history  of  the  Norman  invasion. 
If  the  list  is  reduced  by  omitting  Aq'i,  Kilmehal,  Loske, 
Rokerel,  and  Incheleder,  which  are  not  yet  identified, 
and  five  castles  of  which  the  identification  may  be  con- 
sidered doubtful,  Caherconlish,  Croom,  Clahull's  Castle, 
Lagelachan,  and  Typermesan,  sixty-two  castles  are  left, 
and  out  of  these  sixty-two,  fifty-two  have  or  had  mottes.1 
In  five  cases  the  place  of  the  motte  is  taken  by  a  natural 
rock,  helped  by  art ;  but  as  the  idea  and  plan  are  the 
same  it  is  legitimately  classed  as  the  same  type. 

This  list  might  easily  have  been  enlarged  by  the 
addition  of  many  castles  mentioned  in  the  various  Irish 
annals  as  having  been  built  by  the  Normans.  But  this 

1  In  five  cases  the  mottes  are  now  destroyed. 


LATE  USE  OF  MOTTES  349 

would  have  involved  the  identification  of  a  number  of 
difficult  names,  a  labour  to  which  the  writer's  limited 
knowledge  of  Irish  topography  was  not  equal.  The 
greater  number  of  these  sites  have  now  been  identified 
by  Mr  Orpen,  and  to  his  papers,  so  frequently  cited 
above,  we  must  refer  the  reader  who  wishes  to  study 
the  fullest  form  of  the  argument  sketched  in  these  pages. 

One  can  easily  sympathise  with  the  feelings  of  those 
who,  having  always  looked  upon  these  mottes  as  monu- 
ments of  ancient  Ireland,  are  loath  to  part  with  them  to 
the  Norman  robber.  Many  of  us  have  had  similar 
feelings  about  the  mottes  of  England,  some  of  which  we 
had  been  taught  to  regard  as  the  work  of  that  heroic 
pair,  Edward  the  Elder  and  Ethelfleda.  But  these 
feelings  evaporated  when  we  came  to  realise  that  it 
would  have  been  highly  unpatriotic  in  these  founders  of 
the  British  empire  to  have  built  little  castles  for  their 
own  personal  safety,  instead  of  building  cities  which 
were  "  to  shelter  all  the  folk,"  in  the  words  of  Ethelfleda's 
charter  to  Worcester.  In  like  manner,  wretched  as  were 
the  intertribal  wars  of  Ireland,  it  would  have  been  a 
disgrace  to  the  Irish  chieftains  if  they  had  consulted 
solely  their  own  defence  by  building  these  little  strong- 
holds for  their  personal  use. 

The  Irish  motte-castles  furnish  us  with  interesting 
proof  that  this  type  of  castle  was  commonly  used,  not 
only  as  late  as  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  but  also  in  the 
reigns  of  his  sons,  Richard  I.  and  John  ; l  that  is  to  say, 
at  a  time  when  castle-building  in  stone  was  receiving 
remarkable  developments  at  the  hands  of  Richard  I. 
and  Philip  Augustus  of  France.  This,  however,  need 
not  surprise  us,  since  we  know  that  as  late  as  1242, 

1  The  dates  of  the  building  of  numbers  of  these  castles  are  given  in  the 
Annals  of  Ulster  and  the  Annals  of  Loch  Ce. 


350  MOTTE-CASTLES  IN  IRELAND 

Henry  III.  was  building  a  motte  and  wooden  castle  in 
the  Isle  of  Rhe,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Garonne.1  But 
those  who  imagine  that  the  Normans  built  stone  castles 
everywhere  in  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland,  will  have 
to  reconsider  their  views. 

Note. — Mr  Orpen's  work  on  Ireland  under  the 
Normans  did  not  appear  until  too  late  for  use  in  this 
chapter.  The  reader  is  referred  to  it  for  a  more  careful 
tracing  of  the  history  and  archaeology  of  the  Norman 
settlements  in  Ireland. 

1  Cal.  of  Pat.  Rolls,  1232-1247. 


CHAPTER  XII 

STONE    CASTLES    OF    THE    NORMAN    PERIOD 

IT  may  be  a  surprise  to  some  of  our  readers  to  learn 
how  very  few  stone  castles  there  are  in  England  which 
can  certainly  be  ascribed  to  the  first  period  of  the 
Norman  Conquest,  that  is  to  the  nth  century.  When 
we  have  named  the  Tower  of  London,  Colchester,  the 
recently  excavated  foundations  of  the  remarkable  keep 
atvPevensey,  and  perhaps  the  ruined  keep  of  Bramber, 
we  have  completed  the  list,  as  far  as  our  present  know- 
ledge goes,  though  possibly  future  excavations  may  add 
a  few  others.1 

It  is  obvious  that  so  small  a  number  of  instances 
furnishes  a  very  slender  basis  for  generalisations  as  to 
the  characteristics  of  early  Norman  keeps,  if  we  ask  in 
what  respect  they  differed  from  those  of  the  I2th 
century.  But  it  is  the  object  of  this  chapter  to  suggest 
research,  rather  than  to  lay  down  conclusions.  The 
four  early  instances  mentioned  should  be  compared  with 
the  earliest  keeps  of  France,  the  country  where  the 
pattern  was  developed.  This  has  not  yet  been  done  in 
any  serious  way,  nor  does  the  present  writer  pretend  to 
the  knowledge  which  would  be  necessary  for  such  a 

1  The  tower  at  Mailing  was  supposed  to  be  an  early  Norman  keep  by  Mr 
G.  T.  Clark  (M.  M.  A.,  ii.,  251),  but  it  has  recently  been  shown  that  it  is 
purely  an  ecclesiastical  building. 

351 


352     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

comparison.1     But  data  exist,  which,  if  they  were  used 
in  the  right  way,  would  greatly  add  to  our  knowledge. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  a  list  of  the  castles  built 
by  Fulk  Nerra,  Count  of  Anjou,  at  the  end  of  the  loth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  nth  century,  during  his  life- 
long struggle  with  the  Counts  of  Blois  for  the  possession 
of  Touraine.  This  list  may  be  regarded  as  authentic, 
as  it  is  given  by  his  grandson,  Fulk  Rechin,  in  the 
remarkable  historical  fragment  which  he  has  bequeathed 
to  us.2  The  list  is  as  follows  : — In  Touraine  :  Langeais, 
Chaumont-sur- Loire,  Montr^sor,  St  Maure.  In  Poitou : 
Mirabeau  (N.W.  of  Poitiers),  Montcontour,  Faye-la- 
Vineuse,  Musterolum  (Montreuil-Bonnin),  Passavent, 
Maulevrier.  In  Anjou:  Bauge,  Chateau-Gontier, 
Durtal.  "  Et  multa  alia,"  adds  Fulk's  grandson.  Nine 
of  these  others  are  mentioned  by  the  chroniclers : 
Montbazon,  Semblan^ay,  Montboyau,  St  Florent-le- 
Vieil,  Chateaufort  near  Langeais,  Cherament,  Montre- 
vault,  Montfaucon,  and  Mateflon.  Many  of  these  were 
undoubtedly  wooden  castles,  with  wooden  keeps  on 
mottes.8  In  many  other  cases  the  ancient  fabric  has 
been  replaced  by  a  building  of  the  Renaissance  period. 
Whether  any  remains  of  stone  donjons  built  by  Fulk 
Nerra  exist  at  any  of  these  places  except  at  Langeais, 
the  writer  has  been  unable  to  find  out ;  probably 
Langeais  is  the  only  one ;  but  French  archaeologists 

1  The  only  stone  castles  of  early  date  in  France  which  the  writer  has 
been  able  to  visit  are  those  of  Langeais,  Plessis  Grimoult,  Breteuil,  and  Le 
Mans.     The  two  latter  are  too  ruinous  to  furnish  data. 

2  Given  in  D'Achery's  Spicilegium^  iii.,  232. 

3  This  can  be  positively  stated  of  Bauge,  Montrichard,  Montboyau,  St 
Florent-le-Vieil,  Chateaufort,  and   Cherament.     M.   de   Salies  thinks  the 
motte   of  Bazonneau,   about   500  metres  from  the  ruins  of  the  castle  of 
Montbazon,  is  the  original  castle  of  Fulk  Nerra.     Histoire  de  Fulk  Nerra^ 
57.     About  the  other  castles  the  writer  has  not  been  able  to  obtain  any 
information. 


THE  KEEP  OF  LANGEAIS  353 

are  agreed  that  the  ruined  tower  which  stands  on  the 
ridge  above  the  15th-century  castle  of  Langeais  is  the 
work  of  this  count,1  a  venerable  fragment  of  a  loth- 
century  keep.2 

Unfortunately  only  two  sides  of  this  tower  and  the 
foundations  of  the  other  sides  remain.  The  walls  are 
only  3  feet  6  inches  thick,  contrasting  strikingly  with 
the  castles  of  the  i2th  and  i3th  centuries,  where  the 
usual  thickness  is  10  feet,  which  is  often  exceeded.  This 
points  to  a  date  before  any  great  improvement  had  taken 
place  in  assaulting-machinery.  The  masonry  is  what 
French  architects  call  petit  appareil,  very  small  stones, 
but  regularly  coursed.  There  is  no  herring-bone  work. 
The  buttresses,  of  which  there  are  five  on  the  front, 
certainly  suggest  a  later  date,  from  the  size  of  the  ashlar 
with  which  they  are  faced,  and  from  their  considerable 
projection  (3  feet  on  the  entrance  wall,  2  on  the  front). 
There  is  no  sign  of  a  forebuilding.  There  are  only  two 
storeys  above  the  basement.  The  floors  have  been 
supported  on  ledges,  not  on  vaults.  The  doorway,  a 
plain  round  arch,  with  bar-holes,  is  on  the  first  floor  ; 8 
it  is  now  only  a  few  feet  above  the  ground,  but  probably 
the  basement  has  been  partially  filled  up  with  rubbish. 
The  first  storey  is  quite  windowless  in  the  walls  which 
remain.  There  are  no  fireplaces  nor  any  loopholes  in 
these  two  fragments.  In  the  second  storey  there  are 
three  rather  small  windows  and  one  very  large  one  ; 4  they 
are  round  arched,  have  no  splay,  and  their  voussoirs  are 


1  See  Halphen,  Comtd  d*A njou  au  xiieme  Siecle^  153. 

2  The  building  of  Langeais  was  begun  in  994.     Chron.  St  Florent,  and 
Richerius,  274. 

3  It  somewhat  shakes  one's  confidence  in  De  Caumont's  accuracy  that 
in  the  sketch  which  he  gives  of  this  keep  (Abectdaire^  ii.,  409)  he  altogether 
omits  this  doorway. 

4  Measurements  were  impossible  without  a  ladder. 

Z 


354     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

of  narrow  stones  alternated  with  tiles.  In  these  details 
they  resemble  the  Early  Romanesque,  which  in  England 
we  call  Anglo-Saxon. 

The  Tower  of  London  and  Colchester  keep  are  some 
seventy  or  eighty  years  later  than  that  of  Langeais,  and 
if  we  attempt  to  compare  them,  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  Langeais  was  the  work  of  a  noble  wTho  was  always 
in  the  throes  of  an  acute  struggle  with  a  powerful  rival, 
whereas  the  Tower  and  Colchester  Castle  were  built  by 
a  king  who  had  reached  a  position  of  power  and  wealth 
beyond  that  of  any  neighbouring  sovereign.1  Langeais 
is  but  a  small  affair  compared  with  these  other  two 
keeps.  The  larger  area,2  thicker  walls,  the  angle  towers 
with  their  provision  of  stairways,  the  splayed  windows 
[of  Colchester]  the  fireplaces,  the  chapels  with  round 
apses,  the  mural  gallery  [of  the  Tower]  cannot  be 
definitely  pronounced  to  be  instances  of  development 
unless  we  have  other  instances  than  Langeais  to 
compare  with  them.  De  Caumont  mentions  Chateau 
du  Pin  (Calvados),  Lithaire  (Manche),  Beaugency-sur- 
Loire,  Nogent-le-Rotrou  (Eure  et  Loire),  Tour  de  1'Islot 
(Seine  et  Oise),  St  Suzanne  (Mayenne),  and  Tour  de 
Broue  (Charente  Inf.),  as  instances  of  keeps  of  the 
nth  century.8  These  should  be  carefully  examined  by 
the  student  of  castle  architecture,  and  De  Caumont's 
statements  as  to  their  date  should  be  verified.  Not 

1  It  is  well  known  that  William  the  Conqueror  left  large  treasures  at  his 
death. 

2  The  keep  of  Colchester  is  immensely  larger  than  any  keep  in  existence. 
Mr  Round  thinks  it  was  probably  built  to  defend  the  eastern   counties 
against  Danish  invasions.     Hist,  of  Colchester  Castle,  p.  32.     Its  immense 
size  seems  to  show  that  it  was  intended  for  a  large  garrison. 

3  Cours  <$  Antiquitfe  Monumentales,v.,  152,  and  Abecddaire,  ii.,  413-431. 
De  Caumont  says  of  the  keep  of  Colchester,  "  il  me  parait  d'une  antiquite 
moins  certaine  que  celui  de  Guildford,  et  on  pourrait  le  croire  du  douzieme 
siecle  "  (p.  205),  a  remark  which  considerably  shakes  one's  confidence  in  his 
architectural  judgment 


KEEPS  OF  THE  ELEVENTH  CENTURY          355 

having  had  the  opportunity  of  doing  this,  we  will  only 
ask  what  features  the  keeps  of  Langeais,  London,  and 
Colchester  have  in  common,  which  may  serve  as  marks 
of  an  earlier  date  than  the  i2th  century.1  The  square 
or  oblong  form  and  the  entrance  on  the  first  floor  are 
common  to  all  three,  but  also  to  the  keeps  of  the  first 
three-quarters  of  the  I2th  century.  The  absence  of  a 
forebuilding  is  probably  an  early  sign,2  and  so  is  the 
extensive  use  of  tiles.3  The  chapel  with  a  round  apse 
which  projects  externally  only  occurs  in  the  keeps  of 
London  and  Colchester,  and  in  the  ruins  of  Pevensey 
keep.4  The  absence  of  a  plinth  is  believed  by  Enlart  to 
be  an  early  token.5  But  Colchester  has  a  plinth  and  so 
has  the  Tower.  It  is,  however,  very  possible  that  in 
both  cases  the  plinth  is  a  later  addition ;  at  Colchester 
it  is  of  different  stone  to  the  rest  of  the  building,  and 
may  belong  to  the  repairs  of  Henry  II.,  who  was 
working  on  this  castle  in  1169;  while  the  Tower  has 
undergone  so  many  alterations  in  the  course  of  its 

\l^ 

1  As  only  the  foundations  of  Pevensey  are  left,  it  gives  little  help  in 
determining  the  character  of  early  keeps.     It  had  no  basement  entrance, 
and  the  forebuilding  is  evidently  later  than  the  keep. 

2  The  Tower  had  once  a  forebuilding,  which  is  clearly  shown  in  Hollar's 
etching  of  1646,  and  other  ancient  drawings.     Mr  Harold  Sands,  who  has 
made  a  special  study  of  the  Tower,  believes  it  to  have  been  a  late  12th- 
century  addition. 

3  Tiles  are  not  used  in  the  Tower,  but  some  of  the  older  arches  of  the 
arcade  on  the  top  floor  have  voussoirs  of  rag,  evidently  continuing  the 
tradition  of  tiles.     Most  of  the  arches  at  Colchester  are  headed  with  tiles. 

4  The  room  supposed  to  be  the  chapel  in  Bamborough  keep  has  a  round 
apse,  but  with  no  external  projection,  being  formed  in  the  thickness  of  the 
wall.     The  keep  of  Pevensey  has  three  extraordinary  apse-like  projections 
of  solid  masonry  attached  to   its  foundations.     See   Mr   Harold   Sands' 
Report  of  Excavations  at  Pevensey. 

5  "  In  the  course  of  the  I2th  century,  the  base  of  the  walls  was  thickened 
into    a    plinth,   in    order  better    to   resist  the   battering  ram."    (Manuel 
d '  ArchcEologie  Franqaise,  ii.,  463.)     The  keep  of  Pevensey  has  a  battering 
plinth  which  is  clearly  original,  and  which  throws  doubt  either  on  this 
theory  of  the  plinth,  or  on  the  age  of  the  building. 


356     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

eight  hundred  years  of  existence  that  it  is  difficult  to 
say  whether  the  rudimentary  plinth  which  it  still 
possesses  is  original  or  not. 

Wide-jointed  masonry  is  generally  recognised  by 
architectural  students  as  a  mark  of  the  early  Norman 
style.  Even  this  is  a  test  which  may  sometimes 
deceive ;  certain  kinds  of  ashlar  are  very  liable  to 
weather  at  the  edges,  and  when  the  wall  has  been 
pointed  at  a  comparatively  recent  period,  a  false  appear- 
ance of  wide  joints  is  produced.  Moreover,  there  are 
instances  of  wide-jointed  masonry  throughout  the 
1 2th  century.  The  use  of  rubble  instead  of  ashlar  is 
common  at  all  dates,  and  depends  no  doubt  on  local 
conditions,  the  local  provision  of  stone,  or  the  affluence 
or  poverty  of  the  castle-builder.  We  are  probably 
justified  in  laying  down  as  a  general  rule  that  the 
dimensions  of  the  ashlar  stones  increase  as  the  Middle 
Ages  advance.  There  is  a  gradual  transition  from  the 
petit  appareil  of  Fulk  Nerra's  castle  to  the  large 
blocks  of  well-set  stone  which  were  used  in  the  i5th 
century.1  But  this  law  is  liable  to  many  exceptions, 
and  cannot  be  relied  upon  as  a  test  of  date  unless  other 
signs  are  present.  The  Tower  of  London  is  built  of 
Kentish  rag  ;  Colchester  keep  of  small  cement  stones 
(septaria),  which  whether  they  are  re-used  Roman  stones 
or  not,  resemble  very  much  in  size  the  masonry  of 
Langeais.  It  is  of  course  unnecessary  to  say  to  anyone 
who  is  in  the  least  acquainted  with  Norman  architecture 
that  all  Norman  walls  of  ashlar  are  of  the  core-and- 
facing  kind,  an  internal  and  an  external  shell  of  ashlar, 
filled  up  with  rubble  ;  a  technique  which  was  inherited 

1  It  is  well  known  that  blocks  of  huge  size  are  employed  in  Anglo-Saxon 
architecture,  but  generally  only  as  quoins  or  first  courses.  See  Baldwin 
Brown,  The  Arts  in  Early  England^  ii.,  326. 


THE  KEEP-AND-BAILEY  PLAN  357 

from  Roman  times  in  Gaul,  but  which  was  not  followed 
by  the  Anglo-Saxons.1 

The  presence  or  absence  of  fireplaces  and  chimneys 
is  not  a  test  of  date.  Colchester  is  certainly  an  early 
keep,2  but  it  is  well  provided  with  fireplaces  which 
appear  to  be  original.  These  fireplaces  have  not 
proper  chimneys,  but  only  holes  in  the  wall  a  little 
above  the  fireplace.  But  this  rudimentary  form  of 
chimney  is  found  as  late  as  Henry  II.'s  keep  at  Orford, 
and  there  is  said  to  be  documentary  mention  of  a  proper 
chimney  as  early  as  816  in  the  monastery  of  St  Gall.3 
The  entire  absence  of  fireplaces  is  no  proof  of  early 
date,  for  in  Henry  II.'s  keep  at  the  Peak  in  Derbyshire, 
the  walls  of  which  are  almost  perfect  (except  for  their 
ashlar  coats)  there  are  no  fireplaces  at  all,  nor  are 
there  any  in  the  13th-century  keep  of  Pembroke.  It  is 
possible  that  in  these  cases  a  free  standing  fireplace  in 
the  middle  of  the  room,  with  a  chimney  carried  up  to  the 
roof,  was  used.  Such  a  fireplace  is  described  by  the  poet, 
Chrestien  of  Troyes,  but  no  example  is  known  to  exist.4 

But  apart  from  details,  if  we  look  at  the  general  plan 
of  these  four  early  stone  castles,  we  shall  see  that  it  is 
exactly  similar.  It  is  the  keep-and-bailey  plan,  the  plan 
which  prevailed  from  the  loth  to  the  I3th  century,  and 
was  not  even  superseded  by  the  introduction  of  the 
keepless  castle  in  the  latter  century.5  The  motte-and- 

1  Baldwin  Brown,  "Statistics  of  Saxon  Churches,3'  Builder,  Sept.  1900. 

2  Mr  Round  gives  ground  for  thinking  that  this  keep  was  built  between 
1080  and  1085.     Colchester  Castle,  p.  32.  3  Piper's  Burgenkunde,  p.  85. 

4  Schulz,  Das  Hofische  Leben  zur  Zeit  der  Minnesinger,  i.,  59.     Grose 
writes  of  Bamborough  Castle  :  "  The  only  fireplace  in  it  was  a  grate  in  the 
middle  of  a  large  room,  where  some  stones  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  are 
burned  red."     He  gives  no  authority.     Antiquities  of  England  and  Wales, 
iv.,  57. 

5  "The  type  of  castle  created  in  the   loth  century  persisted  till  the 
Renascence."     Enlart,  Manuel  d?Arch<zologie,  ii.,  516. 


358     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

bailey  type  was  of  course  only  another  version  of  the 
keep-and-bailey.  In  this  primitive  type  of  castle  the 
all-important  thing  was  the  keep  or  donjon.1  Besides 
the  donjon  there  was  little  else  but  a  rampart  and  ditch. 
"  Until  the  middle  of  the  I2th  century,  and  in  the 
simpler  examples  of  the  epochs  which  followed,  the 
donjon  may  be  said  to  constitute  in  itself  the  whole 
castle."2  Piper  states  that  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Crusades  German  castles  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
furnished  with  mural  towers.3  Kohler,  whose  work 
treats  of  French  and  English  castles  as  well  as 
German,  says  that  mural  towers  did  not  become 
general  till  the  second  half  of  the  I2th  century.4 
Nevertheless,  as  it  is  highly  probable  that  the 
baileys  of  castles  were  defended  at  first  with  only 
wooden  ramparts  on  earthen  banks,  even  when  the 
donjon  was  of  stone,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  mural 
towers  of  wood  may  have  existed  at  an  earlier 
period  than  these  writers  suppose.  It  is,  however, 
in  favour  of  the  general  absence  of  mural  towers 
that  the  word  turris,  even  in  12th-century  records, 
invariably  means  the  keep,  as  though  no  other  towers 
existed.5 

That  the  baileys  of  some  of  the  most  important 
castles  in  England  had  only  these  wooden  and  earthen 
defences,  even  as  late  as  the  i3th  century,  can  be  amply 

1  See  Appendix  N. 

2  Enlart,  Manuel  tfArchceologte,  ii.,  516.     "Jusqu5  au  milieu  du  xii'cme 
siecle,  et  dans  les  exemples  les  plus  simples  des  epoques  qui  suivent,  le 
donjon  est  bien  pres  de  constituer  a  lui  seul  tout  le  chateau." 

3  Abriss  der  Burgenkunde^  50-60. 

4  Entwickelung   des   Kriegswesen,  iii.,  352   and   428.     No   continental 
writers  are  entirely  to  be  trusted  about  English  castles  ;  they  generally  get 
their  information  from  Clark,  and  it  is  generally  wrong. 

5  This  of  course  explains  why  the  castle  of  London  is  always  called  The 
Tower  ;  it  was  originally  the  only  tower  in  the  fortress. 


ARRANGEMENTS  IN  STONE  KEEPS  359 

proved  from  the  Close  Rolls}  Colchester  Castle  had 
only  a  timber  wall  on  the  banks  of  its  bailey  as  late  as 
1215,  and  in  1219  \ti\spalicium  was  blown  down  and  an 
order  issued  for  its  reconstruction.2 

The  arrangements  in  the  stone  donjons  were  probably 
the  same  as  those  we  have  already  described  when 
writing  of  the  wooden  ones.3  The  basement  was 
the  storehouse  for  provisions,4  the  first  floor  was 
generally  the  guardhouse,  the  second  the  habitation, 
of  the  lord  and  lady.  Where  there  were  three  or  four 
storeys,  the  arrangements  varied,  and  the  finest  rooms 
are  often  found  on  the  third  floor.  An  oratory  was 
probably  an  invariable  feature,  though  it  cannot  always 
be  detected  in  ruined  keeps.  One  of  Mr  Clark's  most 
pronounced  mistakes  was  his  idea  that  these  keeps  were 
merely  towers  of  refuge  used  only  in  time  of  war.5 
History  abounds  with  evidence  that  they  were  the 
permanent  residences  of  the  nobles  of  the  nth  and 
1 2th  centuries.  The  cooking,  as  a  rule,  was  carried  on 
in  a  separate  building,  of  which  there  are  remains  in 
some  places.6 

Occasionally  we  find  a  variant  of  the  keep-and-bailey 
type,  which  we  may  call  the  gatehouse  keep.  The  most 

1  The  Close  Rolls  mention  palicia  or  stockades  at  the  castles  of  Norwich, 
York,  Devizes,    Oxford,    Sarum,  Fotheringay,    Hereford,   Mountsorel,  and 
Dover. 

2  Close  Rolh)  i.,  iQ5a  and  389. 

3  See  Chapter  VI.,  p.  89,  and  Appendix  O. 

4  Piper  states  that  the  evidence  of  remains  proves  that  the  lower  storey 
was  a  prison.     But  these  remains  probably  belong  to  a  later  date,  when  the 
donjon  had  been  abandoned  as  a  residence,  and  was  becoming  the  dungeon 
to  which  prisoners  were  committed.     The  top  storey  of  the  keep  was  often 
used  in  early  times  as  a  prison  for  important  offenders,  such  as  Conan  of 
Rouen,  William,  the  brother  of  Duke  Richard  II.,  and  Ranulf  Flambard. 

5  See  Appendix  P. 

6  At   Conisburgh    and   Orford   castles   there  are   ovens    on   the  roofs, 
showing  that  the  cooking  was  carried  on  there  ;  these  are  keeps  of  Henry 
II.'s  time. 


360     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

remarkable  instance  of  this  kind  in  England  is  Exeter, 
which  appears  never  to  have  had  any  keep  but  the 
primitive  gatehouse,  undoubtedly  the  work  of  Baldwin 
de  Moeles,  the  first  builder  of  the  castle.  In  Nor- 
mandy, De  Caumont  gives  several  instances  of  gate- 
house keeps.  Plessis-Grimoult  (which  has  been  visited 
by  the  writer)  has  a  fragment  of  a  gatehouse  tower, 
but  has  also  a  mural  tower  on  the  line  of  the  walls  ; 
as  the  castle  was  ruined  and  abandoned  in  1047,  these 
remains  must  be  of  early  date.1  The  gatehouse 
keep  is  probably  an  economical  device  for  combining 
a  citadel  with  the  defence  of  the  weakest  part  of  the 
castle. 

We  must  pass  on  to  the  keeps  of  Henry  I.2  There 
is  only  one  in  England  which  authentic  history  gives  to 
his  time,  that  of  Rochester.3  But  the  chronicler  Robert 
de  Torigny  4  has  fortunately  given  us  a  list  of  the  keeps 
and  castles  built  by  Henry  in  Normandy,  and  though 
many  of  these  are  now  destroyed,  and  others  in  ruins,  a 
certain  number  are  left,  which,  taken  along  with 
Rochester,  may  give  us  an  idea  of  the  type  of  keep 
built  in  Henry  I.'s  time.  The  keeps  attributed  by 
Robert  to  Henry  I.  are  Arques,  Gisors,  Falaise, 

1  De  Caumont  says  these  remains  are  on  a  motte,  a  strange  statement, 
as  they  are  only  a  foot  or  two  above  the  surrounding  level. 

2  No  stone  castles  in  England  are  known  to  have  been  built  by  William 
Rufus ;  he  built  Carlisle  Castle,  but  probably  only  in  wood.     As  we  have 
seen,   several  Welsh  castles  were  built   in  his  time,  but  all  in  earth  and 
timber. 

3  Built  by  Archbishop  William  of  Corbeuil.     Geruase  of  Canterbury^ 
R.  S.,  ii.,  382. 

4  Robert  de  Torigny,  also  called  Robert  de  Monte,  was  Abbot  of  Mont 
St  Michael  during  the  lifetime  of  Henry  II.,  and  was  a  favoured  courtier 
whose  means  of  obtaining  information  were  specially  good.     French  writers 
are  in  the  habit  of  discounting  his  statements,  because  they  do  not  recognise 
the  almost  universal  precedence  of  a  wooden  castle  to  the  stone  building, 
which   when  it  is  recognised,  completely  alters  the  perspective  of  castle 
dates.     See  Appendix  Q. 


KEEPS  OF  HENRY  I.  361 

Argentan,  Exmes,  Domfront,  Ambrieres,  Vire,  Waure, 
Vernon,  Evreux,  Aler^on,  St  Jean,  and  Coutances. 
How  many  of  these  survive  we  cannot  positively  say ; * 
we  can  only  speak  of  those  we  have  seen  (Falaise, 
Domfront,  and  Gisors),2  and  of  Arques,  described  by 
M.  Deville  in  his  Histoire  du  Chateaii  cT  Arques,  by 
M.  Viollet  le  Due  in  his  treatise  on  Donjons,3  and  by 
Mr  G.  T.  Clark.4 

Speaking  under  correction,  as  a  prolonged  study  of 
the  keeps  in  Normandy  was  impossible  to  the  writer,  we 
should  say  that  there  is  no  very  striking  difference  to  be 
observed  between  the  keeps  of  Henry  I.  and  those  built 
by  his  father.  The  development  of  the  forebuilding 
seems  to  be  the  most  important  change,  if  indeed  we 
are  justified  in  assuming  that  the  nth-century  keeps 
never  had  it ;  its  remains  can  be  seen  at  Arques, 
Falaise,5  Domfront,  and  Rochester.  At  Arques  and 
Falaise  the  doorway  is  on  the  second  floor,  which  is  an 
innovation,  a  new  attempt  to  solve  the  difficulty  of 
defending  the  entrance.  The  first  floor  at  Arques  could 

1  The  keep  of  Caen,  which  was  square,  was  demolished  in  1793.     -De 
Caumont,    Cours    d1  Antiquites,    v.,   231.      The  keep   of   Alen$on   is    also 
destroyed.     There  are  fragments  of  castles  at  Argentan,  Exmes,  and  St 
Jean-le-Thomas.     The  keep  of  Vernon  or  Vernonnet  is  embedded  in  a 
factory.     Guide  Joanne,  p.  6. 

2  The  writer  has  also  visited  Vire  and  Le  Mans,  but  even  if  the  walls  of 
the  keep  of  Vire,  of  which  only  two  sides  remain,  were  the  work  of  Henry  I., 
the  details,  such  as  the  corbelled  lintel,  the  window  benches,  and  the  loop 
in  the  basement  for  a  crossbow,  point  to  a  later  period.     At  Le  Mans,  to 
the  north  of  the  cathedral,  is  a  fragment  of  an  ancient  tower,  built  of  the 
rudest  rubble,  with  small  quoins  of  ashlar  ;  this  may  be  the  keep  built  by 
William  I.,  which  Wace  says  was  of  stone  and  lime  (p.  234,  Andresen's 
edition).     It  is  difficult  to  examine,  being  built  up  with  cottages.     Dom- 
front, like  Langeais,  is  only  a  fragment,  consisting  of  two  walls  and  some 
foundations. 

3  Dictionnaire  de  V Architecture.  4  M.  M.  A.,  i.,  186. 

6  In  speaking  of  Falaise,  of  course  we  only  mean  the  great  square  keep, 
and  not  the  Little  Donjon  attached  to  it  at  a  later  period,  nor  the  fine  round 
keep  added  by  Talbot  in  the  i$th  century. 


362     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

only  be  entered  by  a  trap  from  the  second  floor ;  at 
Falaise  there  is  a  stone  stair  from  one  to  the  other. 
Rochester  is  entered  from  the  first  floor.  The  basement 
storeys  of  Arques,  Falaise,  and  Domfront  are  quite 
unlit ;  at  the  Tower  the  basement  has  had  a  number 
of  loopholes,  and  the  angular  heads  of  those  which 
remain  suggest  that  they  are  at  least  copied  from 
original  lights.  The  main  floors  in  Henry  I.'s 
keeps  are  always  of  wood,  but  this  was  not  because 
vaulting  was  then  unknown,  because  the  crypt,  sub- 
crypt,  and  chapel  of  the  Tower  are  vaulted,  not  to 
speak  of  many  early  churches.1  The  four  keeps 
mentioned  have  all  three  storeys,  thus  not  exceeding 
Colchester  in  height ; 2  the  Tower  has  now  four 
storeys,  but  a  good  authority  has  remarked  that  the 
fourth  storey  has  not  improbably  been  made  by  dividing 
the  third. 

No  marked  advance  is  observable  in  the  masonry 
of  these  keeps.  Arques  is  built  of  petit  appareil ; 
Falaise  of  small  stones  in  herring-bone  work  ;  Domfront 
of  very  small  stones  rudely  coursed ;  Rochester  of  Kentish 
rag  mixed  with  flint  rubble.  Both  Falaise  and  Dom- 
front have,  plinths  of  superior  masonry,  but  there  is 
always  the  possibility  that  these  plinths  are  later 
additions.  The  voussoirs  of  the  arches  at  Falaise, 
Domfront,  and  Rochester  are  larger  than  the  rag  or 
tile  voussoirs  which  are  used  at  Colchester,  the  Tower, 
and  Langeais.  At  Rochester  and  Arques  provision  is 
made  for  carrying  the  water-supply  from  the  well  in  the 

1  Small  spaces,  such  as  the  chapel,  passages,  and  mural  chambers,  are 
vaulted  in  most  keeps. 

2  Colchester  keep  has  only  two  storeys  now,  but  Mr  Round  argues  that 
it  must  have  had  three,  as  a  stairway  leads  upward  from  the  second  floor, 
in  the  N.W.  tower,  and  some  fragments  of  window  cases  remain  as  evidence. 
Colchester  Castle ',  p.  92. 


KEEPS  OF  HENRY  I.  363 

basement  to  the  upper  floors,  a  provision  of  which  there 
is  no  trace  in  the  older  keeps.1 

As  Robert  de  Monte  says  that  Henry  I.  built  many 
castles  in  England  as  well  as  in  Normandy,  we  naturally 
ask  what  other  English  keeps  besides  Rochester  may 
be  assigned  to  him.  It  appears  to  the  writer  that 
Corfe  and  Norwich  keeps  may  very  likely  be  his. 
Both  were  royal  castles  in  his  time,  and  both  were 
originally  wooden  castles  on  mottes.2  Both  these 
castles  have  forebuildings,  and  neither  of  them  have 
floors  supported  on  vaults.3  Corfe  has  very  superior 
masonry,  of  larger  stones  than  those  used  in  the  keeps 
known  to  be  Henry  I.'s,  but  wide-jointed.  At  Norwich 
only  a  very  small  piece  of  the  original  ashlar  is  left. 
Corfe  is  extremely  severe  in  all  its  details,  but  quite 
corresponds  to  work  of  Henry  I.'s  reign.4  Norwich 
has  a  great  deal  of  decoration,  more  advanced  in 
style  than  that  to  be  seen  at  Falaise,  but  still  con- 
sistent with  the  first  half  of  the  i2th  century. 
Neither  keep  has  the  least  sign  of  Transition 
Norman,  such  as  we  seldom  fail  to  find  in  the  keeps 
of  Henry  II.  Moreover,  neither  of  them  figure  in 
the  Pipe  Rolls  of  Henry  II.,  except  for  repairs; 

1  The  Tower  and  Colchester  keep  both  have  wells,  which  are  seldom 
wanting  in  any  keep.     There  was  no  appearance  of  a  well  at  Langeais,  but 
excavation  might  possibly  reveal  one. 

2  The  first  castle  at  Corfe  was  built  by  William's  half-brother,  Robert, 
Count  of  Mortain.     The  keep  of  Corfe  is  sometimes  attributed  to  him,  but 
when  we  compare  its  masonry  with  that  of  the  early  hall  or  chapel  in  the 
middle  bailey,  we  shall  see  that  this  date  is  most  unlikely.     Norwich  was 
always  a  royal  castle. 

3  Part  of  the  basement  of  Norwich  keep  has  pillars,  from  which  it  has 
been  assumed  that  it  was  vaulted  ;  but  no  trace  of  vaulting  is  to  be  seen. 

4  The  only  decoration  at  Corfe  keep  is  in  the  oratory,  which  being  at  a 
vast  height  in  one  of  the  ruined  walls  is  inaccessible  to  the  ordinary  visitor. 
Corfe  was  so  much  pulled  about  by  Sir  Christopher  Hatton  in  Elizabeth's 
reign,  and  is  now  so  ruinous,  that  many  features  are  obscure.     Norwich  has 
suffered  greatly  from  restorations,  and  from  re-casing. 


364     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

and  as  Stephen  in  his  harassed  reign  can  hardly 
have  had  any  money  for  building  stone  keeps,  we 
may  with  some  confidence  ascribe  these  two  keeps  to 
Henry  I. 

A  few  words  should  be  given  to  the  castle  of  Gisors, 
which  contains  in  itself  an  epitome  of  castle  history. 
The  first  castle,  built  by  William  Rufus  in  1096,  was 
undoubtedly  a  wooden  castle  on  a  motte,  with  a 
stockaded  bailey  below  it ;  certain  portions  of  the 
present  bailey  walls  rest  on  earthen  banks,  which 
probably  belonged  to  the  original  castle,  and  show  what 
a  much  smaller  affair  it  was  than  the  present  one. 
Henry  I.,  Robert  de  Monte  tells  us,  strengthened  this 
castle  with  a  keep.  Probably  this  was  the  shell  wall 
which  now  crowns  the  motte ;  the  smallness  of  the 
masonry  (stones  about  5  inches  high,  rudely  dressed 
and  coursed)  and  the  slight  projection  of  the  buttresses 
(9  inches)  agree  with  much  of  the  work  of  his  time. 
There  would  be  a  wooden  tower  inside.1  The  chemise 
or  shell  wall  is  pierced  by  loopholes,  a  very  unusual 
arrangement ;  they  are  round  arched,  and  of  very  rude 
voussoirs.2  Inside  this  shell  there  is  a  decagonal 
tower,  called  the  Tower  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  which 
is*  almost  certainly  the  work  of  Henry  II.,3  as 
its  name  would  indicate ;  the  chapel  of  St  Thomas 

1  In  1184  Henry  II.  paid  "for  re-roofing  the  tower  of  Gisors."    Rotuli 
Scacc.  Normannice^  i.,  72. 

2  It  should  be  remembered  that  rude  work  is  not  invariably  a  sign  of 
age  ;  it  may  only  show  haste,  or  poverty  of  resources.     It  should  also  be 
mentioned  that  in  the  Exchequer  Rolls  of  Normandy  there  is  an  entry  of 
^650  in  1184  for  several  works  at  Gisors,  including  "the  wall  round  the 
motte  "  (murum  circa  motam).     Possibly  this  may  refer  to  a  wall  round  the 
foot  of  the  motte,  which  seems  still  to  exist.     The  shell  wall  of  Gisors  should 
be  compared  with  that  of  Lincoln,  which  is  probably  of  the  first  half  of  the 
1 2th  century. 

3  No  decagonal   tower  of  Henry  I.'s  work  is  known  to  exist ;  all  his 
tower  keeps  are  square. 


THE  KEEP  OF  CARLISLE  365 

is  close  to  it.  A  stair  turret  of  the  I5th  century 
has  been  added  to  this  keep ;  its  original  entrance 
was,  as  usual,  a  door  on  the  first  floor,  but  a  base- 
ment entrance  was  built  afterwards,  probably  in  the 
1 3th  century.  Philip  Augustus,  after  he  had  taken 
this  castle  from  John,  added  to  it  one  of  the  round 
keeps  which  had  then  become  the  fashion,  and  sub- 
sequent enlargements  of  the  bailey  converted  it  into 
a  "  concentric  "  castle,  of  which  the  motte  now  forms  the 
centre. 

There  is  one  keep  which  is  known  to  be  of  the 
reign  of  Stephen,  though  not  built  by  him,  that  of 
Carlisle,  built  by  David,  King  of  Scotland,  in  H36,1 
a  time  when  he  thought  his  hold  on  the  four  northern 
counties  of  England  was  secure,  little  reckoning  on 
the  true  character  of  his  great-nephew,  Henry,  son 
of  Matilda.  There  is  no  advance  to  be  seen  in  this 
keep  on  those  of  Henry  I.,  except  that  the  walls 
are  faced  with  ashlar.  The  vaulting  of  the  basement 
is  pronounced  by  Mr  Clark  to  be  very  evidently  a  late 
insertion.2 

With  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  a  new  era  opens  as 
regards  the  documentary  history  of  our  ancient  castles, 
because  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  that  king's  reign  have  most 
fortunately  been  preserved.3  These  contain  the  sheriff's 
accounts  for  money  spent  on  the  building  or  repair  of 
the  king's  castles,  and  are  simply  invaluable  for  the 
history  of  castle  architecture.  The  following  is  a  list  of 

1  Bower,  Scotichronicon^  v.,  42.     This  passage  was  first  pointed  out  by 
Mr  George  Neilson  in  Notes  and  Queries^  8th  ser.,  viii.,  321.     The  keep  of 
Carlisle  has  been  so  much  pulled  about  as  to  obscure  most  of  its  features. 
The  present  entrance  to  the  basement  is  not  original. 

2  M.  M.  A.,  i.,  353. 

3  Unfortunately  the   greater  part   of  these   valuable   Rolls  is  still  un- 
published.    The  Pipe  Roll  Society  is  issuing  a  volume  every  year,  and  this 
year  (1910)  has  reached  the  28th  Henry  II. 


366     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

the  keeps  which  the  Pipe  Rolls  show  to  have  been  built 
or  finished  by  Henry  II.  : — 

Scarborough,  built  between 
Windsor,  „          „ 

Orford, 


Bridgenorth, 

Newcastle, 

Bowes, 

Richmond, 

Chilham, 

Peak, 

Canterbury, 

Arundel, 

Tickhill, 


1157  and  1174. 

Tower 

1161     „    1177. 

Shell  wall 

1165    „    1172. 

Tower 

1166 

1173- 

Tower 

1167 

1177. 

Tower 

1171 

1187. 

Tower 

1171 

1174- 

Tower 

1171 

1173- 

Tower 

1172    „    1176. 

Tower 

1172    „    1174. 

Tower 

1176    „    1182. 

Shell  wall 

1178    „    1181. 

Tower 

The  dates  given  here  must  be  taken  as  only  roughly 
accurate,  as  owing  to  the  meagreness  of  the  entries  in 
the  Pipe  Rolls,  it  is  not  always  certain  whether  the 
expenses  were  for  the  great  tower  or  for  other  buildings. 
The  list  by  no  means  includes  all  the  work  which  Henry 
II.  did  on  his  English  castles,  for  he  was  a  great  builder  ; 
but  a  good  deal  of  his  work  seems  to  have  been  the 
substitution  of  stone  walls  with  mural  towers,  for  wooden 
stockades,  and  our  list  comprises  all  the  cases  in  which 
it  is  clear  that  the  keep  was  the  work  of  this  king.1  We 
confine  our  attention  to  the  keeps,  because  though  mural 
towers  of  stone  began  to  be  added  to  the  walls  of  baileys 
during  Henry  II.'s  reign  (a  detail  which  must  have 
greatly  altered  the  general  appearance  of  castles),  it  is 
certain  that  the  keep  was  still  the  most  important  part, 
and  the  residence  of  the  king  or  noble  whenever  he 
visited  the  castle. 

Seven    out   of  the    ten    tower    keeps    are   built    on 

1  The  keeps  of  Richmond  and  Bowes  were  only  finished  by  Henry  II. ; 
Richmond  was  begun  by  Earl  Conan,  who  died  in  1170,  when  Henry 
appears  to  have  taken  up  the  work.  Bowes  was  another  of  Earl  Conan's 
castles.  Tickhill  is  now  destroyed  to  the  foundations,  but  it  is  clear  that  it 
was  a  tower.  The  writer  has  examined  all  the  keeps  mentioned  in  this 
list.  It  will  be  noticed  that  most  of  the  towers  took  many  years  to  build. 


THE  KEEPS  OF  HENRY  II.  367 

precisely  the  same  plan  as  those  of  Henry  I.  The  chief 
advance  is  in  the  masonry.  All  the  tower  keeps  of 
Henry  II.,  except  Dover,  Chilham,  and  Canterbury,  are 
or  have  been  cased  with  good  ashlar,  of  stones  somewhat 
larger  in  size  than  those  used  by  Henry  I.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  shell  walls  (namely,  Windsor  and 
Arundel) ;  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Henry  II.  still 
used  this  elementary  form  of  citadel,  which  consisted 
merely  of  a  wall  round  the  top  of  a  motte,  with  wooden 
buildings  inside.1  In  three  cases  out  of  the  ten  tower 
keeps,  Newcastle,  Bowes,  and  Richmond,  the  basement 
storey  is  vaulted,  which  does  not  occur  in  the  older 
keeps.2  Yet  such  important  castles  as  Scarborough, 
Dover,  and  Canterbury  are  without  this  provision 
against  fire.  None  of  these  keeps  appear  to  have  more 
than  three  storeys  above  the  basement.3  None  of  the 
entrances  to  the  keeps  (except  Tickhill)  have  any  port- 
cullis grooves,4  nor  any  special  contrivances  for  defence, 
except  at  Canterbury,  where  the  entrance  (on  the  first 
floor)  takes  two  turns  at  right  angles  before  reaching 
the  hall  to  which  it  leads.1  There  are  nearly  always 

1  Henry  built  one  shell  keep  of  rubble  and  rag,  that  of  Berkeley  Castle, 
which  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Pipe  Rolls^  having  been  built  before  his 
accession.     It  is  noteworthy  that  he  did  not  build  it  for  himself,  but  for  his 
ally,  Robert  Fitz  Hardinge. 

2  The  basement  storey  of  Chester  keep  (the  only  part  which  now  remains) 
is  also  vaulted,  but  this  can  scarcely  be  Henry's  work,  for  though  he  spent 
,£102  on  this  castle  in  1159,  it  must  have  been  begun  by  Ranulf,  Earl  of 
Chester,  in  Stephen's  reign.     Moreover,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  vaulting, 
which  is  covered  by  whitewash,  is  really  ancient. 

3  Leland  says  of  Wark,  "the  dongeon  is  made  of  foure  howses  hight," 
but  probably  he  included  the  basement. 

4  The  earliest  instance  of  a  portcullis  groove  with  which  the  writer  is 
acquainted  is  in  the  basement  entrance  of  Colchester.     It  is  obvious  to  any- 
one who  carefully  examines  this  entrance  and  the  great  stair  to  the  left  of  it 
that  they  are  additions  of  a  later  time  than  William's  work.     The  details 
seem  to  point  to  Henry  I.'s  reign.     The  keep  of  Rochester  has  also  a  port- 
cullis groove  which  seems  to  be  a  later  addition. 


368     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

in  the  keeps  of  Henry  II.  some  signs  of  Transition 
Norman  in  the  details,  such  as  the  nook  shafts  at  the 
angles  of  the  towers  of  Scarborough  and  the  Peak, 
certain  arches  at  Canterbury,  the  Transition  capitals 
used  at  Newcastle,  and  the  filleted  string  round  the 
outside  of  Bowes. 

But  we  have  yet  to  speak  of  three  keeps  of  Henry  II. 's 
reign  which  are  on  a  different  plan  to  all  the  others, 
and  which  point  to  coming  changes — Chilham,  Orford, 
and  Tickhill.2  Chilham  is  an  octagonal  tower  of  three 
storeys,  with  a  square  annexe  on  one  side,  which  appears 
to  be  original.  Orford  is  polygonal  outside,  round  inside. 
Orford  indeed  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  keeps  to 
be  seen  anywhere,  and  we  must  regard  it  as  an  experi- 
ment, and  an  experiment  which  appears  never  to  have 
been  repeated.3  Instead  of  the  usual  Norman  buttresses, 
this  polygonal  keep  has  three  buttress  towers,  placed 
between  every  four  of  the  outer  faces,  22  feet  wide,  and 
12  feet  in  projection.4  Tickhill,  however,  the  last  keep 
he  built,  is  decagonal.  The  object  of  the  polygonal 
tower  was  to  deflect  the  missiles  thrown  from  siege 
engines,  and  the  round  tower  was  evidently  considered 

1  King,  paper  on  Canterbury  Castle  in  Arckaologia,  vi.,  298.    We  have 
not  observed  in  any  English  keeps  (except  in  this  single  instance)  any  of 
the  elaborate  plans  to  entrap  the  enemy  which  M.  Viollet  le  Due  describes 
in  his  article  on  Donjons.     He  was  an  imaginative  writer,  and  many  of  his 
statements  should  not  be  accepted  without  reserve. 

2  Wark  was  also  an  octagonal   keep,  but  there  is  considerable  doubt 
whether  this  octagonal  building  was  the  work  of  Henry  II.,  as  Lord  Dacre 
wrote  to  Wolsey  in  1519  concerning  Wark  that  "the  dongeon  is  clerely 
finished,"  and  mentions  that  all  the  storeys  but  one  were  vaulted  with  stone. 
This  makes  it  almost  certain  that  the  castle  of  Wark  was  entirely  rebuilt  at 
this  time,  after  having  been  demolished  by  the  Scots  in  1460.     It  is  now  an 
utter  ruin,  and  even  the  foundations  of  the  keep  are  buried. 

3  At  Thome,  near  Doncaster,  where  the  great  earls  Warenne  had  a  castle, 
there  are  the  foundations,  on  a  motte,  of  a  keep  which  seems  to  resemble 
that  of  Orford  ;  it  ought  to  be  thoroughly  excavated. 

4  These  measurements  are  from  Grose,  Antiquities^  v.,  74. 


CHANGES  IN  TWELFTH  CENTURY  369 

an  improvement  on  the  polygonal  for  this  purpose,  as 
it  subsequently  supplanted  the  polygonal  type.  It  is 
therefore  rather  remarkable  that  Henry  II.  built  both 
these  keeps  in  the  second  decade  of  his  reign,  and 
afterwards  went  on  building  square  keeps  like  his  pre- 
decessors. We  have  seen,  however,  that  he  built  at 
least  one  polygonal  tower  in  Normandy,  that  of 
Gisors.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  Norman 
and  Angevine  frontier  was  the  theatre  of  the  con- 
tinuous struggle  of  Henry  II.  with  the  French  kings, 
Louis  VII.  and  Philip  Augustus,  and  that  it  is  here  that 
we  must  expect  the  greatest  developments  in  military 
architecture. 

Speaking  generally,  we  may  say  that  just  as  there 
was  comparatively  little  change  in  armour  during  the 
1 2th  century  until  the  end  of  Henry  II.'s  reign,  so  there 
was  comparatively  little  change  in  military  architecture 
during  the  same  period.  But  great  changes  took  place 
towards  the  end  of  the  i2th  century.  One  of  these 
changes  was  a  great  improvement  in  missile  engines  ; 
the  trebuchet  was  one  of  the  most  important  of  these. 
It  could  throw  much  heavier  stones  than  the  largest 
catapult,  and  could  take  a  more  accurate  aim.1  These 
new  engines  were  useful  for  defence  as  well  as  attack, 
and  this  affected  the  architecture  of  castles,  because  flat 
roofs  covered  with  lead,  on  which  machines  could  be 
placed,  were  now  substituted  for  the  former  sloping 
roofs.2  There  are  several  payments  for  lead  for  roofing 
castles  in  the  Pipe  Rolls  of  Henry  II.,  the  earliest 
being  in  1166.  In  the  reigns  of  John  and  Henry  III. 

1  See  Payne   Gallwey,  The  Crossbow,  309;    Kohler,  Kriegswesen,   iii., 
192.     The  trebuchet  is  first  mentioned  at  the  siege  of  Piacenza  in  1199. 

2  As  far  as  we  can  tell,  the  tops  of  keeps  having  generally  been  ruined 
or  altered,  the  common  arrangement  was  either  a  simple  gable,  or  two 
gables  resting  on  a  cross  wall,  such  as  all  the  larger  keeps  possessed. 

2  A 


370     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

the  mention   of  lead  for  roofing  becomes    much    more 
frequent.1 

Hitherto,  in  the  defence  of  keeps,  reliance  had  mainly 
been  placed  upon  their  passive  strength,  though  not  so 
entirely  as  has  been  commonly  assumed,  since  it  was 
always  the  practice  to  shoot  with  arrows  from  the 
battlements  round  the  roof  of  the  tower.  But  not  only 
was  the  fighting  strength  of  the  keep  increased  by  the 
tr£buchet,  but  the  introduction  of  the  crossbow  gave 
it  a  defensive  arm  of  the  greatest  importance.  The 
crossbow  had  been  known  to  the  Romans,  and  was  used 
in  the  early  part  of  the  I2th  century,  but  it  was  forbidden 
by  the  SQCond  Lateran  Council  in  1139  as  a  weapon 
hateful  to  God.2  This  prohibition  seems  actually  to 
have  been  effective,  as  William  the  Breton  says  expressly 
that  the  crossbow  was  unknown  to  the  French  before 
the  wars  of  Richard  I.  and  Philip  Augustus.3  Richard 
learned  the  use  of  it  in  the  third  crusade.4  But  to  use 
the  crossbow  in  the  defence  of  buildings  it  was  necessar)/- 
to  construct  special  loopholes  for  shooting,  splayed 
downwards  externally,  so  that  it  was  possible  to  aim 
from  them.  Up  till  this  time  the  loopholes  of  castles 
had  been  purely  for  light  and  not  for  shooting ;  anyone 

1  Another  consequence  of  the  introduction  of  an  engine  of  longer  range 
was  the  widening  of  castle  ditches.    We  frequently  find  works  on  ditches 
mentioned  in  John's  accounts. 

2  Payne  Gallwey,  The  Crossbow,  p.  3.     We  find  it  used  by  Louis  VI.  of 
France,   before    1137.     Suger's  Gesta  Ludovici,    10  (ed.   Molinier).      Ten 
balistarii   are  mentioned   in   Domesday  Book,  but   they  may  have  been 
engineers  of  the  great  balista,  a  siege  machine.     There  is  no  representation 
of  a  crossbow  in  the  Bayeux  Tapestry.     There  are  entries  in  the  Pipe  Rolls 
of  6,  8,  and  9  Henry  II.  of  payments  for  arbelast3,  but  these  also  may  refer 
to  the  great  balista. 

3  Guill.  Brit.  Armorici  Philippides,  Bouquet  xvii.,  line  315. 

4  The  bow  brought  by  Richard  from   Palestine   is   believed   to  have 
been  an   improved  form   of  crossbow,   made   of  horn  and  yew,    "light, 
elastic,  and  far  more  powerful  than  a  bow  of  solid  wood."     Payne  Gallwey, 
The  Crossbow. 


LOOPHOLES  FOR  SHOOTING  371 

may  see  that  it  is  impossible  to  take  aim  through  an  \      . 
immensely  thick  wall  unless  there  is  a  downward  splay   | 
to  increase  the  field  of  vision.     William  the  Breton  tells 
us    that   Richard  built    windows   for  crossbows   to    his 
towers,  and  this  is  the  first  mention  we  have  of  them.1 

From  this  time  defensive  loopholes  become  common 
in  castles,  and  take  various  fanciful  forms,  as  well  as  the 
commoner  ones  of  the  circle,  square,  or  triangle  at  the 
base  of  the  loop.  The  cross  loophole,  which  does  not 
appear  till  the  latter  quarter  of  the  I3th  century,  is 
explained  by  Viollet  le  Due  as  an  ingenious  way  of 
allowing  three  or  four  archers  to  fire  in  a  volley.2  But 
up  to  the  present  time  very  little  study  has  been  given  to 
this  subject,  and  we  must  be  content  to  leave  the  question 
for  future  observation  to  settle.8 

The  crossbowmen  not  only  required  splayed  loop- 
holes, but  also  niches,  large  enough  to  accommodate  at 
least  three  men,  so  that  a  continuous  discharge  of  darts 
(quarrells)  might  be  kept  up.  Any  defensive  loop  which 
really  means  work  will  have  a  niche  like  this  behind  it. 
These  niches  had  the  defect  of  seriously  weakening  the 
wall. 

Another  innovation  introduced  by   Richard   I.   was 

1  "Fenestris   arcubalistaribus,"    Bouquet   xvii.,    75.      The    writer    has 
never  found  a  single  defensive  loophole  in  any  of  the  keeps  of  Henry  I.  or 
Henry    II.     Kohler  remarks   that  the  loopholes  up  to  this  period  do  not 
seem  to  be  intended  for  shooting  (Entivickelung  des  Kriegsivesen,  iii.,  409), 
and  Clark  has  some  similar  observations. 

2  Dictionnaire  de  P  Architecture  ^  art.  "  Meurtriere." 

3  Meyrick  in  his  Ancient  Armour  quotes  a  charter  of  1239,  m  which  the 
French  king  grants  a  castle  to  the  Count  de  Montfort  on  condition  "  quod 
non  possumus  habere  in  eodem  archeriam  nee  arbalisteriam,"  which  Meyrick 
audaciously  translates   "any  perpendicular  loophole  for  archers,  nor  any 
cruciform   loophole   for  crossbowmen."      The    quotation   is    unfortunately 
given  by  Sir  R.  Payne  Gallvvey  without  the  Latin  original.     It  is  at  any  rate 
probable  that  the  cruciform  loophole  was  for  archers j  it  does  not  appear 
till  the  time  of  the  long-bow,  which  was  improved  and  developed  by  Edward 
I.,  who  made  it  the  most  formidable  weapon  of  English  warfare. 


372     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

that  of  stone  machicolations,  or  hurdicia?  Whether 
wooden  galleries  round  the  tops  of  walls,  with  holes  for 
dropping  down  stones,  boiling-water,  or  pitch  on  the 
heads  of  the  besiegers  had  not  been  used  from  the 
earliest  times,  is  regarded  by  Kohler  as  extremely  doubt- 
ful.2 They  were  certainly  used  by  the  Romans,  and 
may  even  be  seen  clearly  figured  on  the  Assyrian 
monuments.  In  the  Bayeux  Tapestry,  the  picture  of 
Bayeux  Castle  shows  the  stockade  on  top  of  the  motte 
crested  with  something  extremely  like  hurdicia.  Yet 
the  writer  has  found  no  authentic  mention  of  them 
before  the  end  of  the  i2th  century.3  The  stone  machi- 
colations built  by  Richard  round  his  keep  of  Chateau 
Gaillard  are  of  an  unusual  type,  which  was  only  rarely 
imitated.4  But  from  this  time  wooden  hurdicia  became 
universal,  to  judge  from  the  numerous  orders  for  timber 
for  hoarding  castles  and  town  walls  in  the  Close  Rolls 
of  the  first  half  of  the  i3th  century.  Towards  the 
middle  of  the  1 3th  century  stone  brackets  for  the  support 
of  wooden  hurdicia  began  to  be  used ;  they  may  still 
be  seen  in  the  great  keep  of  Coucy,  which  was  begun 
in  1230.  But  machicolations  entirely  of  stone,  supported 
on  double  or  triple  rows  of  brackets,  do  not  become 
common  till  the  i4th  century.5 

1  See  Appendix  H. 

2  Entwickelung  des  Kriegsvuesen,  iii.,  417. 

3  In   1 1 86,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  caused  the  towers  and  walls  of  his 
castle  of  Chatillon  to  be  "hoarded"  (hordiari).     This  duke  had  been  a 
companion  of  Richard's  on  the  third  crusade.     William  le  Breton,  Philippides^ 
line  600.     Richard's  hurdicia  at  Chateau  Gaillard  were  two  years  earlier. 

4  See   Dieulafoy,    Le   Chateau  Gaillard  et  V Architecture  Militaire  au 
Treizieme  Siecle,  p.  13. 

6  The  best  French  and  German  authorities  are  agreed  about  this.  The 
holes  in  which  the  wooden  beams  supporting  the  hurdicia  were  placed  may 
still  be  seen  in  many  English  castles,  and  so  may  the  remains  of  the  stone 
brackets.  They  would  be  good  indications  of  date,  were  it  not  that  hurdicia 
could  so  easily  be  added  to  a  much  older  building. 


INTRODUCTION  OF  ROUND  KEEPS  373 

The  greatest  architectural  change  witnessed  at  the 
end  of  the  i2th  century  was  the  victory  of  the  round 
keep  over  the  square.  Round  towers  were  built  by  the 
Romans  as  mural  towers,  but  the  universal  type  of 
mediaeval  keep  appears  to  have  been  the  square  or 
oblong,  until  towards  the  end  of  the  I2th  century.1 
The  polygonal  keep  was  probably  a  transitional  form  ; 
we  have  seen  that  Henry  II.'s  polygonal  keep  at  Orford 
was  begun  as  early  as  1165.  Many  experiments  seem 
to  have  been  made  at  the  end  of  the  i2th  century,  such 
as  the  addition  of  a  stone  prow  to  the  weakest  side  of  a 
keep,  to  enable  it  better  to  resist  showers  of  missiles. 
Richard  I.'s  keep  at  Chateau  Gaillard  is  a  round  keep 
with  a  solid  prow  of  this  kind.  Five-sided  keeps  are 
said  to  be  not  uncommon  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine 
and  in  Nassau  ;  this  type  was  simply  the  addition  of  a 
prow  to  a  square  keep.  The  only  English  instance 
known  to  the  writer  is  that  of  Mitford,  Northumberland, 
but  this  is  merely  a  five-sided  keep,  the  prow  is  not  solid, 
as  at  Chateau  Gaillard.  The  castle  of  Etampes,  whose 
plan  is  a  quatrefoil,  is  assigned  by  French  archaeologists 
to  this  period  of  experiment.2  But  the  round  keep  was 
eventually  the  type  preferred.  Philip  II.  thought  it 
necessary  to  add  a  round  keep  to  the  castle  of  Gisors, 
after  he  had  taken  it  from  John,  and  he  adopted  the 
round  keep  for  all  his  new  castles,  of  which  the  Louvre 
was  one.3 

Along  with  the  round  keep,  ground  entrances  became 

1  Kohler  gives  the  reign  of  Frederic  Barbarossa  (1155-1191)  as  the  time 
of  the  first  appearance  of  the  round  keep  in  Germany. 

2  In  spite  of  this,  I  cannot  feel  satisfied  that  the  keep  of  Etampes  is  of 
so  early  a  date.     The  decorative  features  appear  early,  but  the  second  and 
third  storeys  are  both  vaulted,  which  is   a  late  sign.     The  keep   called 
Clifford's  Tower  at  York,  built  by  Henry  III.  1245  to  1259,  is  on  the  same 
plan  as  Etampes. 

3  This  keep  has  been  long  destroyed. 


374     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

common.1  Viollet  le  Due  states  that  when  the  French 
soldiers  broke  into  the  inner  ward  at  Chateau  Gaillard 
the  defenders  had  no  time  to  escape  into  the  keep  by  the 
narrow  stair  which  led  to  the  first  floor,  and  consequently 
this  proud  tower  was  surrendered  without  a  blow  ;  and 
that  this  event  so  impressed  on  Philip's  mind  the  danger 
of  difficult  entrances  that  he  abandoned  the  old  fashion. 
This  may  be  true,  but  it  is  a  pure  guess  of  Le  Due's,  as 
there  is  nothing  whatever  to  justify  it  in  William  the 
Breton's  circumstantial  narrative.  It  is,  however, 
certain  that  Philip  adopted  the  ground  entrance  to  all 
his  keeps.  In  England  we  find  ground  entrances  to 
many  round  keeps  of  the  i3th  century,  as  at  Pembroke  ; 
but  the  older  fashion  was  sometimes  retained ;  Conis- 
burgh,  one  of  the  finest  keeps  in  England,  has  its 
entrance  on  the  first  floor.2 

After  the  introduction  of  the  tr^buchet,  we  might 
expect  that  the  walls  of  keeps  would  be  made  very  much 
thicker,  and  such  seems  to  have  been  the  case  in  France,8 
but  we  do  not  find  that  it  was  the  rule  in  England.4 
The  lower  storeys  were  now  generally  instead  of  occa- 
sionally vaulted.  In  the  course  of  the  i3th  century  it 
became  common  to  vault  all  the  storeys.  But  in  spite 
of  the  military  advantages  of  the  round  keep,  in  its 
avoidance  of  angles  favourable  to  the  battering-ram,  and 


1  Ground  entrances  occur  in  several  much  earlier  keeps,  as  at  Colchester 
(almost  certainly  an  addition  of  Henry  I.'s  time),  Bamborough  (probably 
Henry  I  I.'s  reign),  and  Richmond,  where  Earl  Conan  seems  to  have  used  a 
former  entrance  gateway  to  make  the  basement  entrance  of  his  keep.     See 
Milward,  Arch.  Joum.,  vol.  v. 

2  Built  by  Earl  Hamelin,  half-brother  of  Henry  II.,  who  died  in  1201. 

3  Viollet  le  Due,  art.  "  Donjon." 

4  The  walls  of  the  Tower  are  from  12  to  15  feet  thick  at  the  base  ;  those 
of  Norwich  13  ;  the  four  walls  of  Dover  respectively,  17,  18,  19,  and  21  feet ; 
Carlisle,  15  feet  on  two  sides.     (Clark.)     William  of  Worcester  tells  us  that 
Bristol  keep  was  25  feet  thick  at  the  base  !     ///'«.,  p.  260. 


THE  KEEPLESS  CASTLE  375 

its  deflection  of  missiles,  the  square  keep  continued  to  be 
built  in  various  parts  of  both  France  and  England  till 
quite  late  in  the  Middle  Ages.1  On  the  Scottish  border, 
square  towers  of  the  ancient  type,  with  quite  Norman 
decorations,  were  built  as  late  as  the  i5th  century.2 
The  advantage  of  the  square  tower  was  that  it  was 
more  roomy  inside,  and  was  therefore  preferred  when 
the  tower  was  intended  for  habitation. 

We  come  now  to  the  greatest  of  all  the  changes  intro- 
duced in  the  I3th  century:  the  keepless  castle,  in  which 
the  keep  is  done  away  with  altogether,  and  the  castle 
consists  of  a  square  or  oblong  court  surrounded  by  a 
strong  wall  with  massive  towers  at  the  angles,  and  in 
large  castles,  in  the  curtain  also.8  Usually  this  inner 
quadrangle  is  encircled  with  an  outer  quadrangle  of 
walls  and  towers,  so  that  this  type  of  castle  is  frequently 
called  the  concentric.  But  the  castles  of  the  keepless 
kind  are  not  invariably  concentric ;  those  built  by 
Edward  I.  at  Conway,  Carnarvon,  and  Flint  are  not 
so.4  Instead  of  a  dark  and  comfortless  keep,  the  royal 
or  noble  owner  is  provided  in  this  type  of  castle  with  a 
palatial  house.  In  England  this  house  is  frequently 
attached  to  the  gateway,  forming  what  we  may  call 
a  gatehouse  palace ;  good  examples  may  be  seen 
at  Beaumaris,  Harlech,  and  Tonbridge.5  The  gate- 

1  See  Enlart,  Manuel  d>  Archceologie  Fran$aise,  ii.,  526. 

2  MacGibbon  and  Ross,  Castellated  Architecture  of  Scotland^  p".  159. 

3  This  type  of  castle  was  probably  borrowed  from  the  fortifications  of 
Greek  cities,  which  the  Crusaders  had  observed  in  the  East. 

4  Conway  and  Carnarvon  consist  of  two  adjoining  courts,  without  any 
external  enclosure  but  a  moat.     Flint  has  a  great  tower  outside  the  quad- 
rangle,  which   is   sometimes   mistakenly   called   a   keep,   but   its   internal 
arrangements  show  that  it  was  not  so,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  was  ever 
roofed  over.     It  was  simply  a  tower  to  protect  the  entrance,  taking  the 
place  of  the  13th-century  barbican. 

6  Kohler  states  that  the  gatehouse  palace  is  peculiar  to  England:  "  only  at 
Perpignan  is  there  anything  like  it,"    Entwtckelung  des  Kriegswesen,  iii.,  480, 


376     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

way  itself  -is   always    defended   by   a    pair   of   massive 
towers. 

Edward  I.  is  generally  credited  with  the  introduction 
of  this  type  of  castle  into  England,  but  until  the  Pipe 
Rolls  of  Henry  III.'s  reign  have  been  carefully  examined, 
we  cannot  be  certain  that  it  was  not  introduced  earlier. 
It  was  certainly  known  in  Germany  fifty  years  before 
Edward's  accession  to  the  throne,  and  in  France  as  early 
as  1231. 1 

It  is  always  supposed  that  this  type  of  castle  was 
introduced  by  the  Crusaders  from  Syria.  But  when  did 
it  make  its  first  appearance  in  Syria  ?  This  is  a  point 
which,  we  venture  to  think,  has  not  been  yet  sufficiently 
investigated.  We  do  not  believe  that  it  can  have 
existed  in  Syria  at  the  time  of  the  third  crusade, 
otherwise  Richard  I.,  who  is  universally  acknowledged 
to  have  been  a  first-class  military  architect,  would  have 
brought  the  idea  home  with  him.2  Yet  his  favourite 
castle  of  Chateau  Gaillard,  built  in  accordance  with  the 
latest  military  science,  is  in  the  main  a  castle  of  the 
keep-and-bailey  type,  and  has  even  a  reminiscence  of 
the  motte,  in  the  scarped  rock  on  which  the  keep  and 
inner  ward  are  placed. 

1  Kohler  mentions  the  castle  of  Neu  Leiningen  as  the  first  example  in 
Germany,  built  in  1224.     Kriegswesen,  iii.,  475.     Frederic  II.'s  castles  were 
of  this  type.     The  castle  of  Boulogne,  finished  in  1231,  is  one  of  the  oldest 
examples  of  the  keepless  type  in  France.     Enlart,  Archceologie  Fran$aise, 
ii.,  534.     The  Bastille  of  Paris  was  a  castle  of  this  kind.     According  to 
Hartshorne,  Barnwell  Castle,  in  Northants,  is  of  the  keepless  kind,  and  as 
the  Hundred  Rolls  state  that  it  was  built  in  1264,  we  seem  to  have  here  a 
positive  instance  of  a  keepless  castle   in  Henry  III.'s  reign.     Arch.  Inst. 
Newcastle,  vol.  1852.     And  it  appears  to  be  certain  that  Gilbert  de  Clare, 
Earl  of  Gloucester,  built  the  keepless  castle  of  Caerphilly  before  Edward 
came  to  the  throne.     See  Little's  Mediceval  Wales,  p.  87. 

2  French  archaeologists    are   enthusiastic   over  the    keep    of   Chateau 
Gaillard,  the  scientific  construction  of  the  towers  of  the  curtain,  the  avoid- 
ance of  "  dead  angles,"  the  continuous  flanking,  etc.    See  Viollet  le  Due,  art. 
"Chateau,"  and  Dieulafoy,  Le  Chateau  Gaillard, 


LAWS  RELATING  TO  CASTLES  377 

The  new  type  of  keepless  castle  never  entirely  dis- 
placed the  old  keep-and-bailey  type.  We  have  already 
seen  that  keeps  of  the  old  sort  continued  to  be  built  till 
the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Hawarden  Castle  has  a 
good  example  of  a  14th-century  round  keep;  Wark- 
worth  a  most  remarkable  specimen  of  the  I5th,  the 
plan  being  a  square  tower  with  polygonal  turrets  set  on 
each  face.1  In  France  and  Germany  also  the  old  type 
appears  to  have  persisted.2 

We  have  already  trespassed  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
subject ;  but  as  we  offer  this  chapter  more  as  a 
programme  of  work  than  as  a  categorical  outline,  we 
trust  it  may  not  be  without  use  to  the  student  who  may 
feel  disposed  to  take  up  this  much-neglected  subject. 

A  few  words  must  yet  be  said  about  the  state  of  the 
law  relating  to  castles.  Nothing  explicit  has  come 
down  to  us  on  this  subject  from  the  nth  century  in 
England,  but  it  is  clear  that  the  feudal  system  which 
William  introduced,  and  which  required  that  all  lands 
should  revert  to  the  king  on  the  death  of  the  holder, 
forbade  the  building  of  any  castle  without  the  king's 
license,  and,  further,  allowed  only  a  life  tenure  in  each 
case.  The  Council  of  Lillebonne  in  1080  had  laid  it 
down  in  express  terms  that  no  one  should  build  a 
castle  in  Normandy  without  the  permission  of  the  duke  ; 3 

1  This  type  is  extremely  rare :  Trim,  in  Ireland,  and  Castle  Rushen,  in 
the  Isle  of  Man,  are  the  only  other  instances  known  to  the  writer.     Trim  is 
a   square   tower  with   square  turrets  in  the  middle  of  each  face  ;  Castle 
Rushen  is  on  the  same  plan,  but  the  central  part  appears  to  have  been  an 
open  court. 

2  Enlart,  Archceologie  Fran^atse,  ii.,  516. 

3  Martene's  Thesaurus  Anecdotorum^  iv.,   118.     "  Nulli   licuit   in    Nor- 
mannia  fossatum  facere  in  planam  terrain,  nisi  tale  quod  de  fundo  potuisset 
terram  jactare  superius  sine  scabello.     Et  ibi  nulli  licuit  facere  palicium, 
nisi  in  una  regula  ;  et  id  sine  propugnaculis  et  alatoriis.     Et  in  rupe  et  in 
insula  nulli  licuit  facere  fortitudinem,  et  nulli  licuit  in  Normannia  castel- 
lum  facere." 


378     STONE  CASTLES  OF  THE  NORMAN  PERIOD 

and  William,  after  his  great  victory  over  his  revolted 
barons,  had  enforced  the  right  of  garrisoning  their 
castles.  He  was  not  able  to  do  this  in  England, 
while  he  must  have  desired  to  check  the  building  of 
private  castles  as  far  as  possible.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  had  to  face  the  dilemma  that  no  Norman  land-holder 
would  be  safe  in  his  usurped  estates  without  the  shelter 
of  a  castle.  In  this  situation  we  have  the  elements  of 
the  civil  strife  which  burst  forth  in  Stephen's  reign,  and 
which  was  ended  by  what  we  may  call  the  anti-castle 
policy  of  Henry  II.1 

The  rights  secured  by  this  able  king  were  often 
recklessly  sold  by  his  successors,  but  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  III.  it  was  evidently  illegal  even  to  fortify  an 
ordinary  house  with  a  ditch  and  stockade  without  royal 
permission.2 

Feudalism  was  an  inevitable  phase  in  the  evolution 
of  the  Western  nations,  and  it  ought  neither  to  be 
idealised  nor  execrated.  After  the  break-up  of  the 
tribal  system  the  nations  of  Europe  sought  refuge  in 
the  forms  of  imperialism  which  were  devised  by 
Charlemagne,  and  even  the  small  and  distant  island  of 
England  strove  to  move  in  the  same  direction.  But 
the  times  were  not  ripe  for  centralisation  on  so  great  a 
scale,  and  when  the  system  of  the  Carlovingian  Empire 
gave  way  under  the  inrush  of  Northmen  and  Huns, 
European  society  would  have  fallen  into  ruin  had  it  not 
been  for  the  institutions  of  feudalism.  These  offered, 

1  The  document  which  calls  itself  Leges  Henrici  Primi^  x.,  I,  declares 
the  "  castellatio  trium  scannorum  "  to  be  a  right  of  the  king.     Scannorum 
is  clearly  scamnorum,  banks.     It   is   noteworthy   that   a   motte-and-bailey 
castle  is  actually  a  fortification  with  three  banks  :  one  round  the  top  of  the 
motte,  one  round  the  edge  of  the  bailey,  one  on  the  counterscarp  of  the  ditch. 

2  See  the  case  of  Benhall,  Close  Rolls,  ii.,  52b  (1225). 


FEUDALISM  379 

in  place  of  the  old  blood  bond  of  the  tribe,  a  social 
compact  which,  though  itself  artificial,  was  so  admirably 
adapted  to  the  general  need  that  it  was  speedily  adopted 
by  all  the  progressive  nations  of  Europe.  The  great 
merit  of  feudalism  was  that  it  replaced  the  collective 
responsibility  of  the  tribe  by  the  individual  responsibility 
of  the  man  to  his  lord,  and  of  the  lord  to  his  man.  In 
an  age  when  the  decay  of  mutual  trust  was  the  worst 
evil  of  society  it  laid  stress  on  individual  loyalty,  and 
insisted  that  personal  honour  should  consist  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  obligations.  Being  a  system  so  wholly  personal, 
its  usefulness  depended  largely  on  the  nature  of  the  person 
in  power,  and  it  was  therefore  liable  to  great  abuses. 

But  it  is  probable  that  feudalism  worked  better  on 
the  whole  in  England  than  in  any  other  part  of  Western 
Europe.  The  worst  evils  of  French  feudalism  never 
appeared  in  this  country,  except  during  the  short  and 
disastrous  reign  of  Stephen.  The  strong  kings  of  the 
Norman  and  Plantagenet  Houses  held  in  check  the 
turbulence  of  the  barons  ;  and  private  war  was  never 
allowed  to  become  here,  as  it  was  on  the  Continent,  a 
standing  evil.  To  follow  out  this  subject  would  lead  us 
beyond  the  limits  of  this  book,  but  it  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  not  only  the  picturesque  ruins  of  our 
castles,  but  also  the  neglected  green  hillocks  of  which 
we  have  treated  in  this  work,  while  they  point  to  the 
skilful  machinery  by  which  the  Norman  Conquest  was 
riveted  on  the  land,  bear  witness  also  to  something  still 
more  important.  They  tell  of  a  period  of  discipline  and 
education  through  which  the  English  people  passed, 
when  in  spite  of  much  oppression  and  sometimes  even 
cruelty,  seeds  of  many  noble  and  useful  things  were 
sown,  from  which  succeeding  generations  have  garnered 
the  enduring  fruit. 


APPENDICES 

APPENDIX  A 

PRIMITIVE  FOLK-MOOTS 

THE  popular  meetings  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  those  of  the 
hundred  and  the  shire,  were  held  in  the  open  air.  Since  many 
of  those  who  attended  them  had  to  travel  far,  some  sign  was 
necessary  to  mark  out  the  place  of  meeting,  and  some  striking 
feature,  such  as  a  hillock,  or  a  particular  tree,  or  an  ancient 
barrow,  was  chosen.  Thus  we  have  the  Shire  Oak,  near  Leeds, 
which  gives  its  name  to  the  wapentake  of  Skyrack ;  and  in  a 
charter  of  Edgar  we  find  the  mot-beorh  mentioned,  and  trans- 
lated Congressionis  CoMem  =  the  meeting  barrow.  (M.  A.,  ii., 
324.)  It  does  not  appear  that  a  hillock  was  an  essential  feature 
of  these  meeting-places,  though  this  is  popularly  supposed  to  be 
the  clase,  because  the  "  Thing-wall "  in  Iceland  and  the  "  Tynwald  " 
in  the  Isle  of  Man  have  hillocks  from  which  laws  were 
proclaimed.  The  Thingwall,  or  field  of  meeting  in  Iceland  had 
a  natural  rock  just  above  it,  isolated  by  a  stream,  and  though 
proclamations  were  made  from  this  rock,  deliberations  took 
place  on  the  level.  (Gomme's  Primitive  Folk-Moots^  31.) 

The  Tynwald  Hill,  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  which  is  also  still  used 
for  the  proclamation  of  new  laws,  was  probably  an  ancient 
barrow,  as  there  are  other  barrows  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 
hood. (Kermode  and  Herdman,  Illustrated  Notes  on  Manx 
Antiquities,  pp.  23  and  6 1.)  At  Thingwall,  near  Liverpool,  and 
Thingwall  in  Wirral,  both  probably  Norse  settlements,  there  is 
no  hillock. 

In  Scotland,  the  use  of  a  former  motte  as  a  meeting-place 
for  the  baronial  court  appears  to  have  been  much  more  common 
than  in  England.  Mr  George  Neilson's  explanation  of  this  fact 
is  referred  to  in  Chapter  X.,  p.  307. 

381 


382  APPENDICES 

APPENDIX  B 
WATLING  STREET  AND  THE  DANELAGH 

IT  has  been  pointed  out  by  Schmid  (Gesetze  der  Angelsachsen^ 
xxxviii.)  that  the  document  called  Alfred  and  Guthrum's 
Peace  cannot  belong  to  the  year  of  Guthrum's  baptism  at 
Wedmore ;  and  Mr  J.  R.  Green  (Conquest  of  England \  p.  151) 
goes  further,  and  doubts  whether  the  boundaries  laid  down  in 
this  deed  refer  to  anything  except  to  the  East  Anglian  kingdom 
of  Guthrum.  But  Mr  Green  gives  no  adequate  reason  for 
rejecting  the  generally  accepted  conclusion  that  the  Watling 
Street  was  the  boundary  between  English  and  Danish  Mercia, 
which  is  borne  out  by  the  following  facts:  (i)  the  Danish 
confederacy  of  the  five  boroughs,  Lincoln,  Stamford,  Leicester, 
Nottingham,  and  Derby,  pretty  well  covers  the  part  of  Mercia 
north  of  Watling  Street,  especially  when  Chester  is  added,  as  it 
sometimes  is,  to  the  list;  (2)  the  division  into  wapentakes 
instead  of  hundreds,  now  believed  to  be  of  Danish  origin,  is 
found  in  Lincolnshire,  Notts,  Derbyshire,  Rutland,  Leicester- 
shire, and  Northamptonshire.  Staffordshire,  it  is  true,  is  not 
divided  into  wapentakes,  but  it  was  apparently  won  by 
conquest  when  Ethelfleda  fortified  the  town.  Chester  was 
occupied  by  her  husband  in  908.  Watling  Street  furnishes  such 
a  well-defined  line  that  it  was  natural  to  fix  upon  it  as  a  frontier. 


APPENDIX  C 

THE  MILITARY  ORIGIN  OF  ALFRED'S  BOROUGHS 

KEUTGEN  (Untersuchungen  ilber  den  Ursprung  der  Deutschen 
Stadtverfassungt  1895)  appears  to  have  been  the  first  to  notice 
the  military  origin  of  the  Old  Saxon  boroughs ;  and  Professor 
Maitland  saw  the  applicability  of  the  theory  to  the  boroughs  of 
Alfred  and  Edward  the  Elder.  (Domesday  Book  and  Beyond) 


APPENDIX  D  383 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  in  894,  speaks  of  "  the  men  whose 
duty  it  was  to  defend  the  towns  "  ;  this  proves  that  Alfred  had 
made  some  special  arrangement  for  the  defence  of  the  towns ; 
and  this  arrangement  must  have  been  something  quite  apart 
from  the  ordinary  service  of  the  fyrd  or  militia,  which  was  only 
due  for  a  short  time.  It  must  have  been  something  permanent, 
with  an  adequate  economic  tasis,  such  as  we  have  in  Henry  the 
Fowler's  plan. 


APPENDIX  D 

THE  WORDS  "CASTRUM"  AND  "CASTELLUM" 

IF  we  take  the  chroniclers  of  the  reign  of  Charlemagne  and  his 
successors  in  the  9th  century,  we  find  the  word  castrum 
constantly  used  for  places  such  as  Avignon,  Dijon,  Macon, 
Rheims,  Chalons,  Cologne,  Andernach,  Bonn,  Coblenz,  etc.,  all 
of  which  are  known  to  have  been  Roman  castra,  when  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  city  is  meant  Take,  for  instance,  the 
Annales  Mettenses  (Pertz,  i.,  326),  737:  Karl  Martel  hears  that 
the  Saracens  have  taken  "  castrum  munitissimum  Avinionem  " 
(Avignon) ;  he  marches  against  them,  and  "  predictam  urbem 
obsidione  circumdat."  But  these  cities  are  not  only  called 
castra,  they  are  also  called  castella.  Thus  the  chronicle  ascribed 
to  Hincmar  calls  Macon  both  castrum  and  castellum  in  the 
same  breath.  (Migne,  125,  1298.)  The  fortifications  built  by 
Charlemagne  against  the  Saxons  are  called  castra,  castella, 
and  civitates.  (Chron.  Moissiacense,  Pertz,  i.,  308.  Ann. 
Einhardi,  ibid.,  196,  204.)  The  camps  of  the  Northmen,  which 
as  we  have  seen,  were  of  great  size,  are  also  called  not  only 
castra,  but  civitates,  castella,  munitiones,  oppida.  {Annales 
Fuldenses,  Pertz,  i.,  397.)  The  camp  built  by  Charles  the  Bald 
at  Pistes  in  868  is  called  a  castellum,  though  it  was  evidently 
an  enclosure  of  great  size,  as  he  measured  out  quarters  in  it 
for  his  nobles,  and  formed  an  elaborate  scheme  for  its 
maintenance.  (Hincmar,  Migne,  125,  1242,  1244.)  Coming  to 
the  loth  century,  the  following  passage  from  Flodoard  will 


384  APPENDICES 

show  the  vagueness  of  the  words  in  common  use  for  fortifica- 
tions: "  Heribertus  Ansellum  Bosonis  subditum,  qui  praedictum 
custodiebat  castrum  (Vitry),  cum  ipso  castello  recipit,  et 
Codiacum  S.  Remigii  municipium  illi  cum  alia  terra  concedit. 
Nee  longum,  Bosonis  fideles  oppidanorum  proditione  Victoriacum 
(Vitry)  recipiunt,  et  Mosonum  fraude  pervadunt.  At  Heri- 
bertus, a  quibusdam  Mosomensibus  evocatus,  supervenit 
insperatus,  et  entrans  oppidum,  porta  latenter  a  civibus  aperta, 
milites  Bosonis,  qui  ad  custodiam  loci  residebant,  ibidem 
omnes  capit."  (Migne,  135,297.)  Here  it  is  clear  that  castrum, 
castellum,  municipium,  and  oppidum  all  mean  the  same  thing, 
and  the  one  word  civibus  betrays  that  it  is  a  city  which  is 
meant.  Undoubtedly  the  chronicler  thinks  it  elegant  to  change 
his  words  as  often  as  he  can.  Munitio  is  another  word 
frequently  used ;  in  classical  Latin  it  means  a  bulwark,  a  wall 
or  bank ;  in  the  chroniclers  of  the  roth  century  it  is  used 
indifferently  for  a  town  or  castle,  though  certain  passages,  such 
as  "  subversis  multarum  munitionibus  urbium  "  (Flodoard,  i.,  vi.), 
show  that  the  right  sense  is  not  far  from  the  mind  of  the 
writer.  The  numerous  passages  in  which  we  are  told  of 
monasteries  being  enclosed  with  walls  and  converted  into  castella, 
show  that  the  enclosure  is  the  chief  idea  which  the  chroniclers 
associate  with  this  word.  The  citations  made  above  are  not 
exceptional,  but  typical,  and  could  be  paralleled  by  countless 
others. 

Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  read  Keutgen's  Unter- 
suchungen  ilber  den  Ursprung  der  Deutschen  Stadtverfassung. 
He  remarks  that  the  Latin  words  for  a  town  (in  the  loth  and 
nth  century  writers)  are  urbs,  castellum,  civitas,  sometimes  arx ; 
for  a  village,  villa,  oppidum,  vicus.  This  absolutely  agrees  with 
what  I  have  observed  in  these  writers,  except  that  I  have 
certainly  found  oppidum  used  for  a  town,  as  in  the  passage  from 
Flodoard  cited  above. 


APPENDIX  E  385 

APPENDIX     E 

THE  BURGHAL  HIDAGE 

'Yttft  Burgkal  Hidage  has  been  printed  by  Birch,  Cartularium^  iii., 
671.  The  manuscript  is  very  corrupt,  and  several  of  the  places 
cannot  be  identified.  Those  which  can  be  identified  are : 
Hastings,  Lewes,  Burpham  (near  Arundel),  Chichester, 
Porchester,  Southampton,  Winchester,  Wilton,  Tisbury, 
Shaftesbury,  Twineham,  Wareham,  Bridport,  Exeter, 
Halwell,  Lidford,  Pilton,  Barnstaple,  Watchet,  Axbridge, 
Lyng  (near  Athelney),  Langport,  Bath,  Malmesbury,  Cricklade, 
Oxford,  Wallingford,  Buckingham,  Eashing  (near  Guildford), 
and  Southwark.  The  list  thus  seems  to  give  an  outline  of 
Alfred's  kingdom  as  it  was  at  his  death,  or  at  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  his  son.  Dr  Liebermann  refers  it  to  the  latter 
date.  (Leges  Anglorum,  9.) 


APPENDIX  F 

THELWALL 

A  WRITER  in  the  Manchester  Guardian  a  few  years  ago 
suggested  a  new  solution  of  the  name  Thelwall.  He  believes 
that  the  Thelwall  raised  by  Edward  was  a  boundary  wall  of 
timber,  stretching  from  Thelwall  to  Runcorn.  The  Mersey,  he 
argues,  above  Thelwall  formerly  broadened  out  into  a  series  of 
swamps  which  would  effectually  defend  the  frontier  towards  the 
east.  But  westward  from  Thelwall  there  were  no  such  obstacles, 
and  it  is  assumed  that  Edward  made  a  timber  wall  from 
Thelwall  to  Ethelfleda's  fortress  at  Runcorn.  Some  support  to 
this  hypothesis  is  given  inithe  names  of  places  between  Thelwall 
and  Runcorn:  Stockton,  Walton  (twice),  Stockham,  Walford, 
Wallmore,  and  Wall-hes.  Further,  when  the  bed  of  the  Mersey 

2  B 


386  APPENDICES 

was  delved  for  the  Ship  Canal,  discovery  was  made  of  "a 
remarkable  series  of  submerged  piles,  9  feet  long,  arranged  in 
two  parallel  ranks  which  were  30  feet  apart.  The  intervals 
between  the  piles  varied,  but  seem  to  have  averaged  5  to  6  feet. 
Between  the  ranks  were  diagonal  rows  of  upright  stakes,  each 
stake  about  5  feet  long,  extending  from  either  rank  chevron- 
wise  to  the  middle  and  there  overlapping,  so  that  the  ground- 
plan  of  them  makes  a  kind  of  herring-bone  pattern.  By  this 
plan,  anyone  passing  through  would  have  to  make  a  zigzag 
course.  In  some  places  sticks  and  sedges  were  found  interwoven 
horizontally  with  the  stakes,  a  condition  of  things  which 
probably  obtained  throughout  the  whole  series.  The  tops  of  the 
tallest  piles  were  10  feet  below  the  present  surface  of  the 
ground,  which  fact  goes  far  toward  precluding  the  possibility 
that  this  elaborate  work  may  have  been  a  fish-weir.  The 
disposition  of  the  stakes  points  to  a  military  origin.  So 
arranged,  the  advantage  they  offered  to  defending  forces  was 
enormous."  I  think  it  worth  while  to  reproduce  this  account, 
especially  because  of  the  place-names,  but  those  who  are  learned 
in  the  construction  of  fish-weirs  may  perhaps  think  that  the 
description  will  apply  to  a  work  of  that  kind. 


APPENDIX  G 

THE  WORD  "BRETASCHE" 

THIS  word,  which  also  appears  as  bretagium,  britagium,  or 
bristega,  evidently  means  a  tower,  as  is  clear  from  the  following 
passages :  Order  from  King  John  to  erect  a  mota  et  bretagium 
at  Roscrea,  in  Ireland  (Sweetman's  Calendar,  i.,  412)  ;  Order  by 
Henry  III.  to  the  dwellers  in  the  Valley  of  Montgomery  "quod 
sine  dilatione  motas  suas  bonis  bretaschiis  firmari  faciant " 
(Close  Rolls,  ii.,  42)  ;  Order  that  the  timber  and  bretasche  of 
Nafferton  Castle  be  carried  to  Newcastle,  and  the  bretasche  to 
be  placed  at  the  gate  of  the  drawbridge  in  place  of  the  little  tower 
which  fell  through  defect  in  its  foundations  (Close  Rolls,  i., 
549b). 


APPENDIX  H  387 

The  word  is  also  expressly  defined  by  William  the  Breton  as 
a  wooden  castle  :  "  Circuibat  castrum  ex  omni  parte,  et  fabricavit 
brestachias  duplices  per  septem  loca,  castella  videlicet  lignea 
munitissima."  (Bouquet,  xvii.,  78.) 

See  also  Wright, "  Illustrations  of  Domestic  Architecture," 
Arch.  Journ.,  i.,  212  and  301.  In  these  papers  it  is  clear  that 
"  breteske  "  means  a  tower,  as  there  are  several  pictures  of  it. 
At  a  later  period  it  seems  to  have  been  used  for  a  wooden 
balcony  made  for  the  purpose  of  shooting,  in  the  same  sense  as 
the  word  "  hurdicium  "  ;  but  I  have  not  met  with  any  instance  of 
this  before  the  I4th  century. 


APPENDIX   H 

THE  WORDS  "HURDICIUM"  AND  "  HORDIARI" 

THESE  words  refer  to  the  wooden  galleries  carried  round  the 
tops  of  walls,  to  enable  the  defenders  to  throw  down  big  stones 
or  other  missiles  on  those  who  were  attempting  to  attack  the 
foot  of  the  walls.  "  Hurdicia  quae  muros  tutos  reddebant." 
(Philippidos,  vii.,  201  ;  Bouquet,  xvii.)  The  word  "alures"  is 
sometimes  used  in  the  same  sense.  See  a  mandamus  of  Henry 
III.,  cited  by  Turner,  History  of  Domestic  Architecture,  i.,  198: 
"  To  make  on  the  same  tower  [of  London]  on  the  south  side,  at 
the  top,  deep  alures  of  good  and  strong  timber,  entirely  and 
well  covered  with  lead,  through  which  people  can  look  even  to 
the  foot  of  the  tower,  and  better  defend  it,  if  need  may  be." 
The  alures  of  the  castle  of  Norwich  are  spoken  of  as  early  as 
1187,  but  this  mention,  and  one  of  the  alures  round  the  castle 
of  Winchester  in  1193,  are  the  only  ones  I  find  in  the  I2th 
century  in  England. 


388  APPENDICES 

APPENDIX    I 

"HERICIO,  ERICIO,  HERITO,  HERISSON  " 

THIS  is  derived  from  the  French  word  herisson,  a  hedgehog, 
and  should  mean  something  bristling,  perhaps  with  thorns  or 
osiers.  Several  passages  show  that  it  was  a  defence  on  the 
counterscarp  of  the  ditch,  and  it  may  sometimes  have  been  a 
hedge.  Cohausen,  Befestigungen  der  Vorzeit^  shows  that  hedges 
were  frequently  used  in  early  fortifications  (pp.  8-13).  The 
following  passages  seem  to  show  clearly  that  it  was  on  the 
counterscarp  of  the  ditch  :  "  [Montreuil]  il  a  bien  clos,  esforce 
e  ferme  de  pel  e  hericon"  (Wace,  107.)  "  Reparato  exterioris 
Ardensis  munitionis  valli  fossato  et  amplificato,  et  sepibus  et 
ericiis  consepto  et  constipate."  (Lambert  of  Ardres,  623,  circa 
1117.)  The  French  poem  of  Jordan  Fantosme,  describing  the 
siege  of  Wark  by  the  Scots  in  1174,  says  the  Scots  attacked 
and  carried  the  hericon,  and  got  into  the  ditch,  but  they  could 
not  take  the  bayle,  i.e.,  they  could  not  get  over  the  palicium. 


APPENDIX    K 
THE  CASTLE  OF  YALE 

IN  the  year  1693,  tne  antiquary  Edward  Llwyd  was  sitting 
on  the  motte  of  Tomen  y  Rhoddwy  engaged  in  making  a  very 
bad  plan  of  the  castle  [published  in  Arch.  Camb.,  N.S.,  ii.,  57]. 
His  guide  told  him  that  he  had  heard  his  grandfather  say  that 
two  earls  used  to  live  there.  Llwyd  called  the  guide  an 
ignorant  fellow.  Modern  traditions  are  generally  the  work  of 
some  antiquary  who  has  succeeded  in  planting  his  theories 
locally ;  but  here  we  have  a  tradition  of  much  earlier  date 
than  the  time  when  antiquaries  began  to  sow  tares,  and 
such  traditions  have  usually  a  shred  of  truth  in  them.  Is 


APPENDIX  L  389 

it  possible  that  this  castle  of  Tomen  y  Rhoddwy  and  the 
neighbouring  one  of  Llanarmon  were  built  by  the  earls  of 
Chester  and  Shrewsbury,  who  certainly  went  on  expeditions 
together  against  Wales,  and  appear  to  have  divided  their 
conquests?  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  township  is  called 
Bodigre  yr  Yarll,  the  township  of  the  earls. 


APPENDIX    L 

THE  CASTLE  OF  TULLOW  OR  "COLLACHT,"  p.  335 

THIS  information  is  kindly  supplied  by  Mr  Goddard  H. 
Orpen,  who  writes  to  me :  "  I  visited  Tullow  lately,  and  asked 
myself  where  would  a  Norman  erect  a  mote,  and  I  had  no 
difficulty  in  answering:  on  the  high  ground  near  where  the 
Protestant  church  stands.  When  I  got  up  there  the  first  thing 
that  I  noticed  was  that  the  church  stood  on  a  platform  of  earth 
10  to  14  feet  higher  than  the  road,  and  that  this  platform  was 
held  in  position  by  a  strong  retaining  wall,  well  battered 
towards  the  bottom  on  one  side.  I  then  found  on  enquiry  that 
the  hill  on  which  it  stood  and  the  place  to  the  N.W.  of  it 
was  called  the  '  Castle  Hill.'  On  going  round  to  the  N.W. 
of  the  church  I  found  a  horseshoe-shaped  space,  scarped  all 
round  to  a  height  of  6  to  10  feet,  and  rising  to  about  16  feet 
above  the  adjoining  fields.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  was  the 
site  of  the  castle,  and  that  it  was  artificially  raised.  To  my 
mind  there  was  further  little  doubt  that  it  represented  an 
earlier  mote.  In  a  field  adjoining  on  the  W.  I  could  detect  a 
platform  of  about  50  to  70  paces,  with  traces  of  a  fosse  round 
the  three  outer  sides.  .  .  .  This  was  certainly  the  Castellum  de 
Tulach  mentioned  in  the  deeds  concerning  Raymond  le  Gros' 
grant  to  the  Abbey  of  St  Thomas. — Dublin  Reg.  St  Thomas,  pp. 
in,  113." 


390  APPENDICES 


APPENDIX   M 

THE  CASTLE  OF  SLANE 

MR  WESTROPP  says  that  the  "great  earthworks  and  fosses" 
on  the  Hill  of  Slane  are  mentioned  in  the  "  Life  of  St  Patrick  " 
(Journ.  R.  S.  A.  /.,  1904,  p.  313).  What  the  Life  really  says  is  : 
"  They  came  to  Ferta  Fer  Fiecc,"  which  is  translated  "  the  graves 
of  Fiacc's  men  " ;  and  the  notes  of  Muirchu  Maccu-Machtheni 
add,  "which,  as  fables  say,  were  dug  by  the  slaves  of  Feccol 
Ferchertni,  one  of  the  nine  Wizards"  (Tripartite  Life,  p.  278). 
It  does  not  mention  any  fort,  or  even  a  hill,  and  though  Ferta 
Fer  Fiecc  is  identified  with  Slane,  there  is  nothing  to  show 
what  part  of  Slane  it  was. 


APPENDIX  N 
THE  WORD  "DONJON" 

PROFESSOR  SKEAT  and  The  New  English  Dictionary  derive  this 
word  from  the  Low  Latin,  dominionem,  ace.  of  dominio,  lordship. 
Leland  frequently  speaks  of  the  keep  as  the  dungeon,  which  of 
course  is  the  same  word.  Its  modern  use  for  a  subterranean 
prison  seems  to  have  arisen  when  the  keeps  were  abandoned 
for  more  spacious  and  comfortable  habitations  by  the  noble 
owners,  and  were  chiefly  used  as  prisons.  The  word  dumo,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  Lambert  of  Ardres  used  for  a  motte,  probably 
comes  from  a  different  root,  cognate  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 
dun,  a  hill,  and  used  in  Flanders  for  the  numerous  sandhills  of 
that  coast. 


APPENDIX  O  391 


APPENDIX  O 

THE  ARRANGEMENTS  IN  EARLY  KEEPS 

WE  get  a  glimpse  of  these  in  a  story  given  in  the  "  Gesta 
Ambasiensium  Dommorum,"  D'Archery,  Spicilegium,  278. 
Sulpicius  the  Treasurer  of  the  Abbey  of  St  Martin  at  Tours, 
an  important  personage,  built  a  stone  keep  at  Amboise  in  1015 
(Chron.  Turonense  Magnum}^  in  place  of  the  "  wooden  house " 
which  his  brother  had  held.  In  the  time  of  Fulk  Rechin 
(1066-1106),  this  keep  was  in  the  hands  of  the  adherents  of 
the  counts  of  Blois.  Hugh,  son  of  Sulpicius,  with  two  other 
men,  hid  themselves  by  night  in  the  basement,  which  was  used 
as  a  storehouse ;  it  must  therefore  have  had  an  entrance  from 
outside.  With  the  help  of  ropes,  they  climbed  up  a  sewer  into 
the  bedchamber,  which  was  above  the  cellar,  and  evidently  had 
no  stair  communicating  with  the  cellar.  Here  they  found  the 
lady  of  the  house  and  two  maids  sleeping,  and  a  watchman  who 
was  also  asleep.  While  one  of  the  men  held  these  in  terror 
with  a  drawn  sword,  the  other  two  climbed  up  a  ladder  and 
through  a  trap-door  up  to  the  roof  of  the  tower,  where  they 
unfurled  the  banner  of  Hugh.  Here  we  see  a  very  simple 
keep,  which  has  only  one  storey  above  the  basement ;  this  may 
have  been  divided  into  two  or  more  apartments,  but  it  was 
thought  a  fitting  residence  for  a  lady  of  rank.  It  had  no 
stairs,  but  all  the  communications  were  by  trap-doors  and 
ladders.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  people  of  rank  of  the 
nth  and  I2th  centuries  were  content  with  much  rougher 
accommodation  than  Mr  Clark  imagined.  Even  Richard  I.'s 
much  admired  keep  of  Chateau  Gaillard  appears  to  have  had 
no  communication  but  ladders  between  the  floors. 


392  APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  P 

KEEPS  AS  RESIDENCES 

THE  description  of  a  keep  which  we  have  already  given  from 
Lambert  of  Ardres  (Chap.  VI.)  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  even 
wooden  keeps  in  the  I2th  century  were  used  as  permanent 
residences,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  many  scattered  notices  in 
the  various  chronicles  of  France  and  England.  It  was  not  till 
late  in  the  I3th  century  that  the  desire  for  more  comfortable 
rooms  led  to  the  building  of  chambers  in  the  courtyard. 


APPENDIX  Q 

CASTLES  BUILT  BY  HENRY  I. 

THE  castles,  which  according  to  Robert  de  Monte,  Henry  I. 
built  altogether  [ex  integro\  were  Drincourt,  Chateauneuf-sur- 
Epte,  Verneuil,  Nonancourt,  Bonmoulins,  Colmemont, 
Pontorson,  St  Denis-en-Lyons,  and  Vaudreuil.  Many  of  these 
may  have  been  wooden  castles  ;  Chateauneuf-sur-Epte  almost 
certainly  was ;  it  has  now  a  round  donjon  on  a  motte.  The 
"  Tour  Grise  "  at  Verneuil  is  certainly  not  the  work  of  Henry  I., 
but  belongs  to  the  I3th  century. 


APPENDIX  R  393 


APPENDIX  R 

THE  SO-CALLED  SHELL  KEEP 

WE  have  three  accounts  of  motte-castles  from  the  I2th 
century :  that  of  Alexander  Neckham,  in  the  treatise  De 
Utensilibus;  that  of  Laurence  of  Durham,  cited  in  Chapter  VII., 
p.  147  ;  and  the  well-known  description  of  the  castle  of  Marchem, 
also  cited  in  Chapter  VI.,  p.  88.  All  these  three  describe  the 
top  of  the  motte  as  surrounded  by  a  wall  (of  course  of  wood), 
within  which  is  built  a  wooden  tower.  The  account  of  Marchem 
says  that  it  was  built  in  the  middle  of  the  area.  This  supports 
the  conjecture  in  the  text.  Mr  H.  E.  Maiden  has  shown  (Surrey 
Archceolog.  Collections,  xvi.,  28)  that  the  keep  of  Guildford  is  of 
later  date  than  the  stone  wall  round  the  top  of  the  motte. 
Remove  this  tower,  and  there  would  be  what  is  commonly  called 
a  shell  keep.  It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  it  was  a  common 
practice  to  change  the  bank  or  stockade  round  the  top  of  the 
motte  into  a  stone  wall  (no  doubt  as  a  defence  against  fire), 
leaving  the  keep  inside  still  of  wood.  Four  of  the  pictures  from 
the  Bayeux  Tapestry  (see  Frontispiece)  all  give  the  idea  of  a 
wooden  tower  inside  a  stockade  on  a  motte. 


APPENDIX  S 
PROFESSOR  LLOYD'S  "HISTORY  OF  WALES" 

I  REGRET  that  this  valuable  work  did  not  appear  until  too  late 
for  me  to  make  use  of  it  in  my  chapter  on  Welsh  Castles.  It  is 
worth  while  to  note  the  following  points  in  which  Professor 
Lloyd's  conclusions  differ  from  or  confirm  those  which  I  have 
been  led  to  adopt. 

Aberystwyth  and  Aberrheiddiol.— "  After  the  destruction  of 
the  last  Aberystwyth  Castle  of  the  older  situation  in  1143,  the 


394  APPENDICES 

chief  stronghold  of  the  district  was  moved  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Rheiddiol,  a  position  which  it  ever  afterwards  retained,  though 
people  still  insisted  on  calling  it  Aberystwyth"  (514).  "The 
original  castle  of  Aberystwyth  crowned  the  slight  eminence  at 
the  back  of  the  farm  of  Tan  y  Castell,  which  lies  in  the  Ystwyth 
valley  i^  miles  S.  of  the  town.  There  is  the  further  evidence  of 
the  name,  and  the  earthworks  still  visible  on  the  summit "  (426, 
note). 

Carreghova. — I  ought  perhaps  to  have  included  this  castle  in 
my  list,  though  on  the  actual  map  its  site  is  within  the  English 
border ;  but  as  there  are  absolutely  no  remains  of  it  [D.  H.  M.] 
it  does  not  affect  the  question  I  am  discussing. 

Cardigan  and  Cilgerran. — "  Dingeraint  cannot  be  Cilgerran, 
because  Cilgerran  is  derived  from  Cerran,  with  the  feminine 
inflection,  not  from  Geraint ;  nor  is  Cilgerran  'close  to  the  fall 
of  the  Teifi  into  the  sea,'  as  the  chronicler  says  Dingeraint  was. 
The  castle  built  by  Earl  Roger  was  probably  Cardigan"  (401). 
Professor  Lloyd  afterwards  identifies  Cilgerran  with  the  castle 
of  Emlyn  (66 1).  This  seems  to  me  questionable,  as  the  "New 
Castle  of  Emlyn,"  first  mentioned  in  Edward  I.'s  reign,  pre- 
supposes an  older  castle,  and  as  I  have  stated,  a  mound  answer- 
ing to  the  older  castle  still  exists  not  far  from  the  stone  castle. 

Carmarthen. — Professor  Lloyd  thinks  this  castle  stood  at  the 
present  farm  of  Rhyd  y  Gors,  about  a  mile  below  the  town  ;  but 
I  see  no  reason  to  alter  the  conclusion  to  which  I  was  led  by 
Mr  Floyd's  paper,  that  the  Rhyd  y  Gors  of  the  castle  was  a  ford 
at  Carmarthen  itself.  The  fact  that  Henry  I.  founded  a  cell  to 
Battle  Abbey  at  Carmarthen  (431)  seems  to  me  an  additional 
piece  of  evidence  that  the  castle  was  there ;  castle  and  abbey 
nearly  always  went  together. 

Dinweiler.  —  Professor  Lloyd  assumes  Dinweiler  to  be  the 
same  as  the  castle  in  Mabudryd  built  by  Earl  Gilbert,  and  to  be 
situated  at  or  near  Pencader  (501).  It  should  be  noted,  however, 
that  Dinweiler  reads  Dinefor  in  MS.  B.  of  the  Brut,  in  1158.  I 
am  in  error  in  supposing  St  Clair  to  be  the  castle  of  Mabudryd 
(following  a  writer  in  Archceologia  Cambrensis),  as  St  Clair  is 
not  in  that  commote.  Professor  Lloyd's  map  of  the  cantrefs  and 
commotes  differs  widely  from  that  of  previous  writers. 

Llangadoc. — "  Luchewein  "  should  not  be  identified  with  this 
castle ;  Professor  Lloyd  thinks  it  may  refer  to  a  castle  at  Llwch 


APPENDIX  S  395 

Owain,  a  lake  in  the  parish  of  Llanarthney,  where  there  is  an 
entrenchment  known  as  Castell  y  Garreg. 

Maud's  Castle. — Camden  identified  "  Matildis  castrum  "  with 
Colewent  or  Colwyn,  but  Professor  Lloyd  is  of  opinion  that  "  a 
careful  collation  of  the  English  and  Welsh  authorities  for  the 
events  of  the  years  1198  and  1231  will  make  it  clear  that 
Payne's  Castle  and  Maud's  Castle  are  the  same."  This  of 
course  does  not  affect  what  is  said  about  Colwyn  Castle  in  the 
text. 

Montgomery. — Professor  Lloyd  deems  that  the  emphasis 
laid  (especially  in  the  Charter  Rolls>  i.,  101)  on  the  fact  that  the 
building  of  Henry  III.'s  reign  was  New  Montgomery,  leaves  no 
doubt  that  the  former  town  and  castle  stood  elsewhere,  probably 
at  Hen  Domen.  This,  if  true,  would  greatly  strengthen  my 
case,  as  Hen  Domen  is  an  admirable  motte  and  bailey. 


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INDEX 


ABER,  261 

Aberavon,  296 

Abercorn,  308 

Aberdovey,  300 

Abereinon,  301 

Abergavenny,  97 

Aberlleinog,  261 

Aberystwyth,  281,  393 

Aggeres,  77,  1 1 1 

Aldreth,  150 

Alfred,  King,  13,  14,  15 

Am  well,  52 

Annan,  309 

Anstruther  family,  308 

Antrim,  331 

Appledore,  50 

Aq'i,  331 

Aquila,  castle  of,  77 

Ardfinnan,  331 

Ardmayle,  331 

Ardnurcher,  331 

Ardree,  331 

Ardres,  75,  89 

Area  of  Norman  castles,  97 

Arques,  361 

Arundel,  98 

Arx,  211,  384 

Ashlar  masonry,  356 

Askeaton,  332 

Askelon,  332 

Athelney,  14 

Athlone,  333 

Auchterless,  309 

Avenel  family,  308 

BAGINBUN,  333 

Bailey,  ballium,  4,  5,  92,  207 


Bakewell,  47 

Balimore  Eustace,  333 

Balliol  family,  308 

Ballyknockan,  341 

Ballynaclogh,  346 

Bamborough,  11,  100,  355,  357 

Banff,  319 

Barclay,  309 

Barnstaple,  102 

Barnwell,  376 

Baronies,  307 

Basements  of  keeps,  359,  362 

Basingwerk,  267 

Bastille,  the,  376 

Bayeux  Tapestry,  87,  158,  393 

Bayford  Court,  49 

Bedford,  40 

Beith,  317 

Belesme,  Roger,  100,  191  ;  castle,  77 

Belvoir,  102 

Benfleet,  50 

Bensington,  28 

Berkeley,  103,  367 

Berkhampstead,  105 

Bernard  de  Neufmarche,  273,  276 

Bervie  River,  316 

Biggar,  313 

Bishop's  Stortford,  107 

Blaenporth,  282 

Bleddfa,  293 

Blois,  75 

Blythe,  219 

Boley  Hill,  49,  196,  199,  200 

Bordlands,  307 

Borgue,  317 

Boroughs,  21,  258,  382 

Boulogne,  376  n.  i 

2    C 


402 


INDEX 


Bourn,  107 

Bowes,  366 

Bramber,  109 

Braose,  De,  109,  276,  292 

Brecknock,  276,  290 

Bremesbyrig,  32 

Bretasche,  91,  386 

Bridgenorth,  33,  52 

Bristol,  23,  1 10 

Bromborough,  32 

Bruce  family,  309 

Brut  y  Tywysogion,  254 

Buckingham,  25,  40 

Burghal  Hidage,  28,  98,  160,  885 

Burgh  Castle,  44  n.  i. 

Burgus,  85 

Burh,    17-19,  123  ;   Clark's  theory  of, 

20-29 
Buttington,  51 

CADWALADER,  266 

Cadzow,  314 

Caen  keep,  361 

Caereinion,  300 

Caerleon,  113 

Caerphilly,  376  n.  i 

Caerwedros,  283 

Caherconlish,  333 

Cambridge,  55,  57,  114 

Camps,  of  refuge,  29  ;  prehistoric,  6  ; 

of  Danes,  61 
Canterbury,  116 
Carbury,  333 
Cardiff,294 

Cardigan,  274,  275  ;  Castle,  280 
Carisbrook,  121 
Carlingford,  334 
Carlisle,  25,  128,  365 
Carlovingian  Empire,  66 
Carmarthen,  275,  394 
Carnarvon,  261,  375 
Carnwath,  318 
Carreghova,  271,  394 
Carrick,  334 
Carrickfergus,  334 
Carrickittle,  339 
Carrigogunell,  332 
Castel,  the  word,  24,  98 


Castellum,  castrum,  25,  67,  169,  383 

Castles,  private,  Ch.  V.  ;  product  of 
feudalism,  66 ;  in  Normandy,  76, 
77  ;  wooden,  78  ;  stone,  Ch.  XII.  ; 
sites  given  to  church,  259  n.  2. 

Castle  Acre,  124 

Castledermot,  347 

Castle  guard,  175 

Castleknock,  341 

Castlemore,  338 

Castle  Rough,  49 

Castle  Rushen,  377  n.  i 

Castletown  Delvin,  334 

Cathcart  family,  310 

Catter,  315 

Ceredigion,  274,  275 

Chapels  in  castles,  355 

Chartres  keep,  74 

Chastell  Gwalter,  282 

Chateaudun  keep,  75 

Chateau  Gaillard,  372,  376,  391 

Chepstow,  125 

Chester,  31,  126,  367 

Chevron  moulding,  100 

Cheyne  family,  310 

Chilham,  368 

Chimneys,  357 

Chinon,  75 

Chippenham,  55 

Chirk,  269 

Christison,  Dr,  8,  31,  304,  306 

Cilgerran,  281,  394 

Citadels,  6,  54,  56 

Clare,  house  of,  275,  281 

Clark,  G.  T.,  2,  8,  19,  26,  48 

Clears,  St,  288,  394 

Cledemuthan,  43 

Clifford,  128 

Clitheroe,  129 

Clonard,  334 

Clonmacnoise,  335 

Colchester,  41,  132,  223,  354,  355 

Collacht,  335 

Colville  family,  310 

Comyn  family,  310 

Concentric  castles,  375 

Cooking  in  castles,  359 

Corfe,  185,  363 


INDEX 


403 


Coucy,  65,  372 
Courcy,  John  de,  336 
Court  hills,  310,  391 
Covington,  313 
Crail,  319 
Crimond,  311 
Crogen,  battle  of,  266 
Cromarty,  316 
Crometh,  335 
Cromwell,  220,  336 
Groom,  335 
Crossbow,  the  370 
Cunningham  family,  311 
Cupar,  320 
Cymmer,  299 
Cynewulf,  murder  of,  13 
Cynfael,  300 
Cyricbyrig,  37 

DALSWINTON,  311 
Dane  John,  116,  118,  121 
Danes  in  Ireland,  60 
Dangio,  75 

Danish  raths,  48  ;    camps,   61  ;    col- 
onies, 59,  60 
Darnhall,  317 

David  I.  of  Scotland,  123,  163,  303 
Deganwy,  259,  270 
Dernio,  267 
Derver,  341 
Dinan,  87 
Dinerth,  282 
Dinevor,  287,  394 
Dinweiler,  394 
Dirleton,  319 
Domfront  keep,  361 
Donjons,  358,  390 
Douglas  family,  312 
Dover,  138  ;  church,  144  ;  Pharos,  143 
Downpatrick,  335! 
Drogheda,  336 
Drumore,  315 
Drumsagard,  317 
Duchal,  315 
Dudley,  144 
Dudo  of  St  Quentin,  76 
Duffus,  317 
Duleek,  337 


Dumfries,  320 
Dun,  the  word,  326 
Dunamase,  337 
Dungarvan,  337 
Dunio,  75 
Dunmullie,  311 
Dunoon,  313 
Dunskeath,  320 
Dunster,  145 
Durand,  312 
Durham,  146 
Durward,  312 
Dyfed,  274 

EARTHWORKS,  Committee,  2 

Eddisbury,  35 

Edward,  14-16,  45,  65,  127 

Edward  the  Martyr,  135 

Edwardian  castles,  328,  345 

Egloe,  Eulo,  271 

Elgin,  320 

Ellon,  311 

Ely,  149 

Entrances  to  keeps,  355,  361,  373 

Errol,  314 

Escluen,  332 

Etampes  Castle,  373 

Ethelfleda,  14,  15,  16,  20,  21,  45,  232, 

342 
Eu,  56 

Eustace  of  Boulogne,  139 
Ewias,  150 

Exeter,  151  ;  siege  of,  154 
Eye,  155 

FALAISE,  361-363 

Favorie,  338 

Ferns,  338 

Feudalism,    63,     66,     378,    379 ;     in 

Normandy,  76  ;  in  Wales,  299,  378  ; 

in  Scotland,  303 
Fireplaces,  357 
Fitz  Alans,  1 79,  313 
Fitzhardinge,  Robert,  104 
FitzOsbern,    William,   103,   126,    128, 

150,  273 

Five  Boroughs,  the  44,  59 
Flambard,  Ranulf,  172 


404 


INDEX 


Fleming  family,  313 

Flint,  375 

Folk-moots,  381 

Fore,  338 

Forebuildings,  355,  361 

Forfar,  320 

Forres,  321 

Fortifications,  Anglo-Saxon,    29*  64 ; 

Danish,  55,  6 1  ;  wooden,  78 
Fotheret  Onolan,  338 
French  earthworks,  7 
Fulham,  55 
Fulk  Nerra,  73,  74,  352 

GAIMAR,  Geoffrey,  171 

Gallo-Roman  villas,  67 

Galtrim,  338 

Gatehouse  keeps,  359 

Gatehouse  palace,  375 

Geashill,  338 

Gemaron,  292 

Gephthine,  332, 

Gilling,  193,  194 

Gisors,  364 

Glamorgan,  276 

Gloucester,  156 

Godwin,  Earl,  22,  24,  103 

Gomme,  G.  L.,  8 

Gould,  I.  C.,  2 

Gower,  277,  297 

Graham  family,  314 

Granard,  338 

Greenwell,  Canon,  2 

Guildford,  393 

Guisnes,  75,  76 

Gundulf,  Bishop,  197,  198,  222 

Guy  of  Amiens,  1 39 

Gwyddgrug,  260 

Gwynedd,  256-262 

HASTEN  the  Dane,  49,  5° 

Hall,  the  Anglo-Saxon,  17,  24,  168 

Hallaton  Castle  Hill,  88 

Hamilton  family,  314 

Harold,  Earl  and  King,  138,  161,  257 

Hastings,  87,  158 

Haughead  Kipp,  317 

Haverfordwest,  280 


Hawarden,  377 

Hawick,  315 

Hay,  291 

Hay  family,  314 

Hen  Domen,  395 

Henry  I.,  castles  of,  360-364,  392 

Henry  II.,  castles  of,  365-369 

Henry  the  Fowler,  64 

Hericio,  388 

Hermitage  Castle,  318 

Herring-bone  work,  136,  168,  218 

Hincheleder,  339 

Hithes,  57 

Hodesley,  Hoseley,  268 

Holywell,  267,  270 

Hubert  de  Burgh,  140 

Hugh  of  Avranches,  256,  257 

Humphrey's  Castle,  283 

Huntingdon,  42,  162 

Hurdicia,  91,  372,  887 

IDA,  King,  n 
Inchelefyre,  339 
Innermessan,  321 
Inverness,  321 
Inverugie,  310 
Inverwick,  313 
Irish  chiefs,  325,  342 

JEDBURGH, 321 
John,  Bishop  of  Terouenne,  88 
John,  King,  137,  370  n.  I,  270 
Jomsborg,  59 

KARAKITEL,  339 

Keepless  castles,  328,  374 

Keep  and  bailey,  357 

Keeps,   arrangements   in,    359,    391  ; 

polygonal,    368 ;     prows    to,    373 ; 

residences,  392  ;  round,  368,  373 
Keeps  of  Henry  L,  360,  363,  392 
Keeps  of  Henry  II.,  366 
Keeps  of  William  I.,  351,  354 
Kelts  of  Scotland,  304 
Kenardington,  50 
Kenfig,  295 
Kenmure,  308 
Kidwelly,  288 


INDEX 


405 


Kilbixie,  339 
Kilbride,  318 
Kilfeakle,  340 
Kilfinnane,  329 
Kilkea,  347 
Killamlun,  339 
Killare,  339 
Kilmaurs,  311 
Kilmehal,  340 
Kilmore,  340 
Kilsantan,  340 
Kiltinan,  340 
Kincleven,  321 
Kirkcudbright,  321 
Kirkintilloch,  311 
Kirkpatrick  Durham,  312 
Kitchens  in  castles,  90 
Knighton,  293 
Knock,  341 
Knockgraffan,  341 

LACY,  Ilbert  de,  187,  188 ;  Hugh  de, 

337 

Lag  Castle,  312 
Lagelachon,  341 
Lagmen,  62 

Lambert  of  Ardres,  75,  89 
Lanark,  321 
Langeais  keep,  72,  353 
Laon,  72 
Largs,  317 
Laugharne,  288 
Launceston,  164 
Laurence  of  Durham,  147 
Law  about  castles,  377 
Lawhaden,  279 
Lea  Castle,  341 
Lea  River,  15,  52 
Lead  roofs,  369 
Leighlin,  341 
Lennox,  315 
Leuchars,  318 
Lewes,  165 
Lincoln,  167 
Linton  Roderick,  310 
Lismore,  342 
Llanarmon,  272 
Llandeilo  Talybont,  298 


Llandovery,  286 
Llanegwad,  289 
Llangadog,  289,  394 
Llanrhystyd,  300 
Llanstephan,  286 
Lloyd,  Professor,  253,  393 
Lochmaben,  309 
Lochorworth,  314 
Lockhart  family,  315 
Logan  family,  315 
London  fortified,  14 
Loopholes,  362,  370,  371  ;  cross  loop- 
holes, 371 

Lords-marchers,  255 
Loske,  343 
Loughor,  298 
Louth,  342 
Louvre,  the,  373 
Lovel  family,  315 
Loxhindy,  343 
Ludgarsburh,  170 
Lumphanan,  312 
Lyle  or  Lisle  family,  315 
Lympne,  15 

MABUDRYD,  394 

Machicolations,  372 

Magh  Adair,  327 

Maitland,  Professor,  27 

Maldon,  41 

Manchester,  46 

Manors,  Saxon,  and  mottes,  96 

Mans,  Le,  keep  of,  361 

Masonry,  356,  362,  367 

Mathraval,  271 

Maud's  Castle,  293,  394 

Maxton,  316 

Maxwell  family,  316 

Melton,  Archbishop,  248 

Melville  family,  315 

Mercenaries,  7,  74  n.  i 

Merchem  Castle,  88 

Mersey  Island,  54 

Military  service,  64 

Milton,  49 

Missile  engines,  369 

Mitford,  373 

Mofifat,  309 


406 


INDEX 


Mold,  260 

Monmouth,  168 

Montacute,  169 

Montalt,  316 

Montgomeri,  Roger  de,  53,  98>  180> 

191,   263  ;   Hugh  de,   274 ;  Arnolf, 

274,  278  ;  castle,  264,  395 
Montgomerie  family,  Scotland,  316 
Moot-hills,  8,  9,  381 
Moray,  colonisation  of,  304 
Morpeth,  171 
Mortain,  Count  of,  106,  138,  164,  169, 

186 

Mortimers,  276 
Morville  family,  316 
Mottes,   described,   4,    5  5    the   word> 

9  n.  i  ;  distribution,  80-82  ;  situation, 

83-96 ;    in   France,   85  ;  in  Wales, 

301  ;  in  Scotland,  322  ;  in  Ireland, 

348  ;  history,  72,  74 
Mowbray,  Earl  Robert,  101 
Mowbray  family,  317 
Miiller,  Dr  Sophus,  6 
Mural  towers,  358 
Murray  family,  317 

NAAS,  343 

Nantes  Castle,  71 

Nant  yr  Arian,  284 

Narberth,  280 

Navan,  344 

Neath,  296 

Neckham,  "  De  Utensilibus,"  86 

Neilson,  Mr  George,  8,  306 

Neu  Leiningen,  376  n.  i 

Newcastle,  171 

Newcastle  Bridgend,  295 

Newcastle  Emlyn,  289 

New  Grange,  10 

Newport,  279 

Nicetus,  his  castrum,  67 

Nicholas,  St,  110,213 

Nobber,  344 

Normandy,  22,  76,  77 

Norman  favourites,  23 

Norman  walls,  356 

Normans,  7 

Norrei  Castle,  77 


Northmen,  camps  of,  61,  383 
Norton,  293 
Norwich,  173,  363 
Nottingham,  44,  49,  57,  W6 

O'DONOVAN,  329 

Offa's  Dyke,  52 

Okehampton,  178 

Oldcastle,  347 

Old  Sarum,  202 

Oliphant  family,  317 

Orford,  246  n. 

Oswestry,  179 

Overton  (Denbigh),  267  ;  (Hereford), 

192 

Owen  Gwynedd,  260,  270 
Oxford,  1 80 
Oxnam,  310 
Oystermouth,  298 

PANTOLF,  William,  213 

Parliamentary  fortifications,  202 

Payn's  Castle,  293,  395 

Peak,  182 

Pembroke,  278 

Pentecost's  Castle,  24,  150 

Penwortham,  183 

Peterborough,  185 

Pevensey,  99,  186 

Pistes,  Capitulary  of,  68,  72 

Pitt-Rivers,  General,  2 

Plinths,  355 

Polnoon,  316 

Pontefract,  187  ;  siege  of,  189 

Pont  y  Stuffan,  283 

Powys,  263-266 

Prestatyn,  270 

Preston  Capes,  190 

Pretorium,  72 

Prisons  in  castles,  359 

Private  castles,  21,  68 

Pudsey,  Bishop,  173 

QUATBRIDGE,  58 

Quatford,  191 

Quincy,  De,  family,  318 

RADNOR,  292 

Rainald  the  Sheriff,  263 


INDEX 


407 


Rapes  of  Sussex,  299 

Rathceltchair,  336 

Raths  in  Ireland,  325,  327 

Rathwire,  344 

Ratouth,  344 

Rayleigh,  191 

Reading,  54 

Redcastle,  Lunan  Bay,  309 

Reginald's  Tower,  347,  348 

Remni,  297 

Renfrew,  313 

Retford,  55 

Rhaidr  Gwy,  301 

Rhe  Island,  motte  on,  350 

Rhuddlan,  257,  259 

Rhyd  y  Gors,  275,  284 

Rhys  ap  Griffith,  275,  287 

Riccarton,  319 

Richard  Sans  Peur,  76 

Richard  I.,  370-372 

Richard's  Castle,  192 

Richmond,  193 

Robert  Curthose,  no 

Robert  de  Monte,  360 

Robert,  Earl  of  Gloucester,  1 10,  295 

Robert  Fitz  Hamon,  277 

Robert  of  Rhuddlan,  257 

Roberton,  314 

Rochester,  25,  49,  195 

Rockingham,  201 

Roger  the  Poitevin,  129,  183,  184 

Rokerel,  345 

Rollo,  76 

Roscrea,  345 

Rosemarkie,  322 

Ross,  318 

Rouen,  77 

Runcorn,  38 

Ruthin,  269 

Ruthven,  311 

SANQUHAR,  318 

Sarn  Helen,  283 

Saumur  Castle,  75 

Saxon  fortifications,  Chapters  II.,  III., 

29 

Saxon  royal  seats,  151  n.  2,  235 
Scergeat,  33 


Sepulchral  hillocks,  9  ;  in  Ireland,  327 

Shaftesbury,  15 

Shell  keep,  99 

Sheppe-y  Isle,  54 

Shoebury,  51 

Shrewsbury,  207 

Siege  castles,  85 

Siegfried  the  Dane,  75 

Siward,  Earl,  22 

Skipsea,  209 

Skreen,  345 

Slane,  345 

Somerville  family,  318 

Somner,  antiquary,  117 

Soulis  family,  318 

Stafford,  34,  211 

Stamford,  44,  216 

Stanton,  217 

Stevenston,  315 

Stewarton,  318 

Swansea,  297 

Symington,  315 

TABLE  of  Boroughs,  26 

Talgarth,  292 

Tamworth,  34,  218 

Tarbolton,  314 

Tateshall,  187 

Tempsford,  53 

Tenby,  280 

Terraces  to  mottes,  102 

Thanet,  54 

Th  el  wall,  46,  385 

Thetford,  55,  56 

Thibault-le-Tricheur,  74 

Thingwall,  381 

Thorne,  368  n.  3 

Thurles,  346 

Tibraghny,  346 

Tickhill,  219 

Tiles,  use  of,  255 

Timahoe,  346 

Tom-a-mhoid,  313 

Tomen  y  Mur,  262 

Tomen  y  Rhoddwy,  271,  272,  388 

Tonbridge,  220 

Toot  Hill,  259 

Topcliffe,  5  n. 


408 


INDEX 


Torkesey,  55,  56 

Totnes,  221 

Towcester,  41 

Tower  of  London,  221,  354,  355 

Towers  to  castles,  71 

Towns,  fortification  of,  65 

Trade,  30 

Trebuchet,  369 

Trematon,  226 

Tribalism,  64 

Trim,  346,  377 

Tristerdermot,  347 

Tullow,  335,  389 

Tutbury,  227 

Tynboeth,  293 

Tynemouth,  228 

Tynwald  Hill,  381 

Typermesan,  347 

VALOIGNES  family,  318 
Value  of  manors  and  towns,  96 
Vaulting,  362,  365,  367,  374 
Vaux  family,  319 
Viking  crews,  90 
Viollet  le  Due,  368  n.  i 
Vire,  keep,  361    , 
Voussoirs,  362 

WALES,  Chapters  VIII.,  IX.;  Wales 
and  Saxons,  253  ;  Wales  and  Nor- 
mans, 254 

Wallace  family,  319 

Wallingford,  28,  228 

Walwern,  301 

Wareham,  25,  28 

Warenne,  Wm.,  124,  165 

Wark,  366,  367,  368  n.  2,  388 

Warkworth,  377 


Warwick,  36,  280 

Wasta,  114 

Waterford,  347 

Water-supply,  362-363 

Watling  Street,  16,  32,  382 

Waytemore  Castle,  107 

Weardbyrig,  36 

Welsh  halls,  251 

Welshpool,  265 

Wessex,  13 

Wexford,  348 

Wicklow,  348 

Wigingamere,  41 

Wigmore,  232 

William  I.,  22,  77 

William  the  Lion,  163,  305 

Willington,  57 

Winchester,  233 

Winding  walks  on  mottes,  102,  121 

Windsor,  236  ;  borough,  238 

Wisbeach,  239 

Wiston,  279 

Witham,  39 

Wolvesey  Castle,  235  n.  4 

Wooden   fortifications,    78,   208,   228, 

250,  306,  358,  359 
Worcester,  115,  23,  31,  240;   charter, 

21 
Wrexham  Castle,  268 


YALE  Castle,  271,  300 
Year  1000,  78 
York,  13,  242 
York,  Baile  Hill,  248 
Ystrad  Cyngen,  288 
Ystrad  Meurig,  283 
Ystrad  Peithyll,  282 


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