THE ENGLISH CASTLE AFTER THE CONQUEST
A castle is a private fortress, built by an individual lord as a
military stronghold, and also as an occasional residence. In England
at the time of the Norman conquest, this type of military work was
known as _castel_, a word which is obviously the same as the Latin
_castellum_. _Castrum_, _munitio_, and _municipium_ are names which
are frequently given to it by chroniclers of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Its existence was the direct result of the consolidation of
the feudal system. The lord separated his dwelling from those of his
vassals: he defended it against the attacks of other individual lords
who naturally would seek to aggrandise themselves at his expense: he
also needed a stronghold which might be impregnable on occasion against
those vassals themselves, and might be a perpetual reminder to them of
their subject position. The castle rose within or as an addition to
the _burh_, the independent stronghold of one person within the walled
or stockaded town of the many. Thus, at one and the same time, it
protected and overawed the _burh_. Or it rose by itself, like the Peak
castle in Derbyshire, on a spot where no _burh_ existed, and so in many
cases drew a small community to seek its protection.
An unlimited number of castles implies an unlimited number of
independent magnates, uncontrolled by a supreme authority, and each
ready to fly at the other’s throat. The feudal lord, however, was the
king’s man, and his castle was therefore theoretically the king’s.
We have already noticed the edict of Pistes (864), which ordered the
destruction of all castles built without royal licence; and, save in
periods of total anarchy, legislation of this type, safeguarding feudal
order, was in operation during the middle ages wherever the feudal
system was at the base of the constitution. The king was _de jure_, if
not _de facto_, the owner of the castles of his realm.
The castle or private fortress was a feature in French social life
and warfare from at any rate the middle of the ninth century. But in
England it was certainly an unfamiliar and almost as certainly an
unknown feature, until the middle of the eleventh century. Danish
pirates who up to this time had visited England, had come from the
north and east, and passed on to France. There, in contact with the
feudal system as it existed under the later Carolingian monarchs, they
may have learned the use of the private fortress. At any rate when the
Northmen came back upon England from their continental duchy, they
brought with them the fully organised social system of the Continent,
and its most powerful symbol, the castle.
[Illustration: Harold’s _aula_, from Bayeux Tapestry]
We have seen that, throughout the Saxon and Danish period, the
_burh_, the home of the community, formed the unit, if the expression
may be used, of military defence by fortification. The English or
Danish nobleman lived, it may safely be assumed, in houses like
the two-storied house in the Bayeux tapestry, where Harold and his
friends are feasting on the upper floor, while the ground floor
apparently forms a cellar or store-room (36).[38] It is possible that
such a house, the prototype of the larger medieval dwelling-house,
may sometimes have been protected by its encircling thorn hedge
or palisade; but it was not a castle. In the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, a castle meant to an Englishman a special type of fortress,
of a construction and plan of a character more or less fixed. The
loose phraseology which, in later times, applied the title of castle
indiscriminately to prehistoric camps and medieval manor-houses, was
not yet customary.
The first castles on English soil appear to have been raised by Norman
favourites of Edward the Confessor before the Conquest, and to have
excited alarm among the English population. In 1048 some foreigners or
“Welshmen,” as the English called them, encroached on the territory of
Sweyn Godwinsson in Herefordshire, constructed a _castel_—the first
mention of such a thing in the Chronicle—and wrought harm to all the
country round. That they were Frenchmen appears from the events of
1052: one of Godwin’s demands to the king at Gloucester was that “the
Frenchmen of the castle” should be given up, and in the same year
“the Frenchmen of the castle” helped to defend the borders against a
Welsh inroad. The very fact that the Frenchmen’s stronghold was known
as “_the_ castle” proves that it was at any rate an unfamiliar type
of fortress. But, if it was the first, others were soon constructed.
When Godwin returned from his outlawry in 1052, and forced himself
back into Edward’s good graces, the Frenchmen in London left the city.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Robert of Jumièges, made his way to
the east coast: some fled westward to Pentecost’s castle, which is
probably identical with the Herefordshire fortress, others northward
to Robert’s castle, which is now identified with Clavering in Essex.
The Herefordshire castle is supposed to have been at Ewias Harold, some
twelve miles south of Hereford, where there is still the great mount of
a Norman stronghold on the north-west side of the village.[39]
[Illustration: Hastings Castle: from Bayeux Tapestry]
These two may not have been the only castles in England before the
Conquest. The reference to Arundel in Domesday Book, for example, seems
to imply an origin almost as early for the castle there.[40] Ordericus
Vitalis speaks of Dover as though there were already a castle there,
when William the Conqueror stormed the town after Hastings.[41] But
Ordericus is our authority for the important and explicit statement
that, in 1068, “the fortresses, which the Gauls call _castella_, had
been very few in the provinces of England; and on this account the
English, although warlike and daring, had nevertheless shown themselves
too feeble to withstand their enemies.”[42] A statement of this kind
at once disposes of the theory that the _burhs_ of the Danish wars
were castles; it could hardly be argued that such _burhs_ were very
few, or that the English had not taken advantage of them. As a matter
of fact, when William came to England, his military policy consisted
in the founding of castles, and many of these in places which had
been and were _burhs_, where, if the _burh_ and castle were one and
the same thing, the foundation of a castle was quite unnecessary.
_Arcem condidit_, _castellum construxit_, _munitionem firmavit_, are
terms used over and over again to describe the making of these new
strongholds. To William, the strength of a monarch lay in the castles
which he controlled; in warfare the castle formed his natural base
of operations. His first work on landing at Hastings was to throw up
a castle (38). Harold, on the other hand, although, as the Bayeux
tapestry shows us, he had seen something of castles and siege warfare
in William’s company, trusted for his defence to the shield-wall of his
men, and the protection of the banks and ditches of an old earthwork
in advance of his position. In 1067, after his coronation, William
stayed at Barking, close to the walls of London, while the city, the
Lundenburh whose walls Alfred had restored, was being overawed by
the construction of certain _firmamenta_—one of them, no doubt, the
White Tower, the other probably Baynard’s castle, near the present
Blackfriars.[43] Again, we find him at Winchester, building a strong
fortress within the walls of the city—a castle within a _burh_.
William’s operations in 1068 and 1069 were of great military
importance. In 1068 he quelled the resistance of Exeter. The city
was still surrounded by its Roman walls, to which the inhabitants
now added new battlements and towers. They manned the rampart walks
and the projections of the wall,[44] which for eighteen days William
endeavoured to undermine. When at last the keys of the city were
surrendered to him, his first work was to choose within the walls a
place where a castle might be raised; and, on departing, he left,
as at Winchester, a constable in charge of the castle, the king’s
lieutenant charged with the task of keeping the _burh_ under. From
Exeter a rebellion in the north called William to York. The insurgents,
an irregular band of freebooters, had thrown up defences in remote
places in woods and by the mouths of rivers; some were harboured in the
larger towns, which they kept in a state of fortification. As William
travelled northwards, he founded castles at Warwick and Nottingham.
He constructed a fortress in the city of York, and on his way home
founded castles at Lincoln, Huntingdon, and Cambridge. No sooner had
he left York than the rebels again began to stir; a movement was made
on behalf of the ætheling Edgar, and Danish aid was called in. William
Malet, the governor of York castle, was hard pressed by the enemy. The
Conqueror came to his relief, and, as a result of this visit, founded
a second castle in York. Both castles, however, were of little use
when the Danes came. The garrison of one or both rashly advanced to
fight the invaders within the city itself, and were massacred. It is a
significant fact that the castles were left open and deserted; neither
the men of York nor the Danes had any use for them. When William came
north again on his campaign of vengeance he repaired both the castles.
Shortly after, on his expedition to Wales, he founded castles at
Chester and Shrewsbury.[45]
[Illustration: Lincoln; Plan]
What do we find to-day at these places where William founded his first
English castles? At Hastings, on the cliff which divides the old town
from the modern watering-place, there are important remains of a later
stone castle within lines of earthwork which are, no doubt, William’s.
The mount remains at the north-east corner of the enclosure: the later
curtain wall has been carried up its side and over it. The present
remains of the castle of Winchester are later than William’s day. At
Exeter the gatehouse and much of the adjacent masonry of the castle are
unquestionably of a very early “Norman” date. In London we have the
White tower, probably much extended from William’s early plan, and not
completed till his son’s reign. But the stone fortresses of London and
Exeter were exceptional. When we come to his northern castles, we find
that at Warwick, York, Lincoln, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Shrewsbury,
the plan of the castle consists of a bailey or enclosed space,[46] with
a tall mount on the line of its outer defences, and on a side or at an
angle of the _enceinte_ remote from the main entrance. At Nottingham
the plan of the early castle is not so easy to make out. But, in
the other cases, although, at various dates during the middle ages,
additions were made in stone, the nucleus of the plan is a collection
of earthworks, which takes this form—a _motte_ or mount with a bailey
attached. At Lincoln there are two mounts. At York there are two
castles, one on either side of the river, but each with its mount. On
the mount of the castle north-east of the river is a later stone keep;
the mount of the south-western castle has never carried stonework, and
its bailey is now almost filled up with modern houses.
The presence of the double castle at York has been a great temptation
to those who would identify the castle with the _burh_. The
fortification of both banks of the river is, on the face of it, so like
the system adopted by Edward the Elder, that the York castles have been
often quoted as _burhs_ of Edward the Elder’s date, and it has been
concluded that similar earthworks must have existed at Nottingham,
Stamford, and so on. This idea is quite untenable. Had William followed
the example of Edward and Æthelflæd, he would simply have repaired or
renewed the defences of the two divisions of the _burh_ at York.[47]
But what he had to provide against was the spirit of rebellion in the
_burh_ itself, as well as the possible use of the water-way by Danish
pirates. Which castle he first founded at York we do not know. On the
tongue of land which runs out between the Ouse and Foss, outside the
_burh_, and between it and the river approach to the city, one castle
rose. The other, a fortress known in later times as the Old Baile, was
possibly from the beginning partly within the ramparts of the southern
_burh_. Later, at any rate, the city wall was built across the foot
of the outer side of its mount, and enclosed the bailey on two sides.
Elsewhere, the distinction between William’s castles and the _burhs_
within which they rose is very noticeable. At Lincoln the castle filled
up an angle of the Roman city. At Cambridge, the mount rises on the
highest point of a large enclosure—the original _burh_—surrounded by
earthworks of early date. Further, if any documentary proof is needed
of anything so self-evident as the distinct nature of the castle and
the _burh_, Domesday is clear upon the point. Apart from the evidence
which it gives us with respect to the borough or _burh_, it speaks in
one place of the _burgum circa castellum_—the _burh_ about the castle.
The case in point is the castle of Tutbury in Staffordshire, a fine
example of the mount-and-bailey stronghold.[48] One important feature
here is that the castle, very large in area, and with a ditch of great
depth on two sides, was apparently raised on the site of an early
hill-fort or _burh_, and that the actual _burh_ about the castle, the
modern village of Tutbury, has grown up under its protection on the
slope towards the Dove.
[Illustration: Berkhampstead]
The castle, then, was a Norman importation into England. It was a
stronghold with a definite plan, so that the word _castel_ had no
vague meaning to English ears. It is found in many cases in close
proximity to a _burh_, or fortified dwelling of a community; but it
was a royal stronghold, in charge of an individual, and its intention
was at once to protect and to keep the _burh_ in subjection. Or,
again, it may occupy, as at Tutbury or Conisbrough, the whole site
of an early _burh_; but in such cases the character of the _burh_ is
entirely changed by the presence of the castle, and the dwelling-place
of the community is shifted to the outskirts of the enclosure. At
York, Lincoln, and other places where a castle was constructed within
part of a _burh_, Domesday tells us that the site was _vastata in
castellis_—_i.e._, that houses were taken down to make room for the new
earthworks.
A figure of eight, with the lower portion elongated and widened to form
the bailey, may be taken as the normal form of the castle plan. Often,
as at Berkhampstead (42), where the mount and bailey were surrounded by
a broad wet ditch and outer earthworks, the bailey is much the larger
portion of the figure on plan; and it was only in small and unimportant
strongholds that the bailey formed, as at Mexborough, a mere forecourt
to the mount. At Alnwick (115) the mount stood as part of the outer
defences of the enclosure, on the slope to the river; but it was so
placed that it divided a western or outer from an eastern or inner ward
or bailey, and almost filled up the space between them. The arrangement
at Berkeley (186) is somewhat similar. If the larger mount at Lincoln
(40) were removed to the centre of the present enclosure, and the lines
of the curtain-wall returned inwards to meet it, the plan of Alnwick
would be obtained. Possibly, however, both at Alnwick and Berkeley, the
outer ward may form an extension of the earlier plan, or may have been
merely a covering platform, like the outer earthworks at Hastings. The
later stone defences have obscured the original designs in both cases.
[Illustration: Clun; Plan]
Although the plan followed fixed and familiar lines, there were no
fixed dimensions to the castle. The mount was intended to bear the
strong tower or donjon: within the bailey were the ordinary lodgings
of the garrison, and such domestic buildings as might be needed.
The bailey, which inclined, on the whole, to be oval in form, was
surrounded by a low earthen bank, outside which was a dry ditch of
more or less depth, with a parapet or counterscarp on the further
side. The mount was surrounded by its own ditch, which was joined at
two points by the main ditch on the side next the bailey. The entrance
to the castle was at the end of the bailey, opposite the mount. These
dispositions might vary: the mount might be within the enclosure, even,
as at Pickering, in its centre, and the position of the entrance might
be different, if the site required it. There might be more than one
bailey, and these might be set side by side, divided by an intermediate
ditch, as on the fairly level site at Clun (43), or end on end, as on
the ridge at Montgomery, or a small bailey might project as a kind of
outwork common to mount and bailey alike.[49] The usual arrangement,
however, was as described. The mount might be of any height, of
enormous proportions, as at Thetford, or of more modest size, as at
Brecon or Trecastle. It was usually entirely artificial; but positions
were sometimes chosen in which the ground afforded natural help. The
mount, for example, at Hedingham in Essex, on the levelled top of
which the later square donjon was built, appears to be partly natural;
while the great mount at Mount Bures, not many miles away, is wholly
artificial. The bailey, again, might vary much in size. It might have
a very large area, as at Lincoln and Tutbury, a moderate area, as at
Warkworth (49) or Durham (199); or it might be small and compact, as
at Trecastle (44). There are many cases, as at Clifford’s hill, near
Northampton, where the mount is found by itself: in such instances, the
bailey may have disappeared as the result of local cultivation, and
only the more important part of the earthworks may have been left. But
it is also probable that here and there the fortified mount with the
tower on its summit would be all that was needed, and that the absence
of a large garrison would render a bailey unnecessary. The size of the
bailey, in any case, would depend upon the importance of the position
and the size of the garrison required.
[Illustration: Trecastle; Plan]
[Illustration: Castle of Rennes: from Bayeux Tapestry]
The mount, at any rate, was the essential feature of this type of
fortress. The Bayeux tapestry gives us pictures of some of these
mounts, the fidelity of which is demonstrated by the remains which
we possess of such castles, and by some pieces of documentary
evidence (38). Two points are noticeable: (1) The mounts portrayed
are all either in Normandy and Brittany, or, like the _castellum_ at
“Hestengaceaster,” are the work of Norman hands. (2) The fortifications
shown in connection with these mounts are of timber, not stone. The
accuracy of the tapestry is not absolutely photographic, but the
workers knew well the type of structure which they wanted to represent.
Their work, in fact, whether the castle represented be Dol or Dinan
or Bayeux or Hastings, gives us a repeated picture of the recognised
type of castle mount. And the two points just noted lead us to the
conclusions, (1) that the castle was foreign to England and Englishmen,
and (2) that the time-honoured notion that the Englishman raised the
earthworks,[50] and the Norman built stone castles upon them is open
to objection, the fact being that the stone castle was an exception in
Normandy itself. The picture of the Breton castle of Dinan (46) shows,
as in a section, a large pudding-shaped mount surrounded by a ditch,
with a low bank of earth on the side towards the bailey. On the top of
the mount is a tower, clearly of timber. Round the edge of the mount,
encircling the tower, is a stockade formed of uprights with stout
hurdles between—a work to which Cæsar’s description of his breastworks
at Alesia might well be applied.[51] Access to the mount is gained by
a steep ladder, probably formed of planks with projecting pieces of
wood nailed to them for foot-holds, which spans the ditch, and has its
foot within the bailey. The mount itself—and this may be proved by many
surviving examples—is too steep to be scaled with any ease; and the
ladder, although affording the defenders an excellent communication
with the bailey, is hardly to be climbed with impunity by the opposing
force. The ladder ends in a wooden platform at the edge of the mount,
which serves as a _propugnaculum_ for the garrison, in front of the
stockade. In the picture of the construction of the castle at Hastings,
a timber tower and stockade are in course of erection. The pioneers are
busy digging earth from the fosse for their nearly completed mount, and
compacting the surface with blows from the flat of their spades (38).
[Illustration: Castle of Dinan: from Bayeux Tapestry]
In France the mount was usually known as the _motte_ from the turf of
which it was composed, and the occurrence of the word Lamotte as part
of a place-name is as tell-tale as a name like Mount Bures in England.
But a common name for the _motte_, employed by medieval writers, was
the Latin _dunio_ or _domgio_, a debased form of the word _dominio_.
This became in French _donjon_, and in English _dungeon_. The _motte_
at Canterbury is still known by the corrupted name of the Dane John.
The mount, the symbol of the dominion of the feudal lord, and the
centre of his _dominium_ or demesne, bore his strong tower; and to this
tower the name of the mount was transferred. When the tower on the
mount was superseded by the heavy and lofty rectangular or cylindrical
tower of later times, the new tower kept the old name. By a strange
transference of meaning, our English _dungeon_, frequently applied
to the chief tower of a castle until the seventeenth century, became
connected with the vaults or store-rooms in the basement of such a
tower, and now reminds us less of the dominion of the castle builders
than of the cruelty with which they are supposed to have exercised that
dominion.
[Illustration: Colchester Castle: great tower or keep.]
It may safely be assumed that the very large majority of castles of
the eleventh and early twelfth century were constructed on this plan.
There were exceptions, and certainly several English castles have
stonework of the period of the Conquest. London and Colchester (47)
had rectangular donjons from the first. At Richmond (93) the stonework
of part of the curtain and of the lower part of the rectangular
tower-keep is unquestionably of the eleventh century, when the castle
was constructed by Alan of Brittany. In several other places, in the
curtain at Tamworth (48) and in part of the curtain at Lincoln, there
is eleventh century stonework. But more will be said of these cases
later. It is enough to say here that, in most cases, stonework forms
a late Norman or Plantagenet addition to early Norman earthwork. At
Newcastle part of the early mount remained, side by side with the
late twelfth century tower-keep, until within the last hundred years.
Warkworth, most instructive of English castles, preserves the base of
its mount and the area of its original bailey: the mount bears a strong
tower-house of the early fifteenth century; on the line of the bank of
the bailey is a stone curtain of about the year 1200; within the area
is a series of elaborate and beautiful buildings of two or three dates
(49). Warkworth is the epitome of the history of the castle, from its
Norman origin to its practical identification, in the later middle
ages, with the large manor house; and to Warkworth we shall return more
than once.
[Illustration: Tamworth; Eleventh Century Stonework]
[Illustration: Warkworth; Plan]
There are exceptional cases in which two mounts occur. At Lincoln (40),
the smaller mount is at the south-east corner of the enclosure, and
probably may have carried the original donjon. The larger mount, of
formidable height and steepness, is west of the centre of the south
side. Both mounts, as is usual, are half within and half without the
line of the rampart. The stone curtain-wall has been brought up their
sides, and the larger mount is crowned by a stone “shell” keep of the
late twelfth century. The provision of this second mount was possibly
due to the exposed position of the castle, which formed the outer
defence of the city on the west and south-west, and needed its greatest
strength on that side. At Pontefract and Lewes, again, there were two
mounts, one at each end of the enclosure. At both places, the later
stone keep was built in connection with the western mount, at the end
nearest the town and the slope of the ridge on which it was built.
The sites are rather similar, and, in either case, the eastern mount
overlooked the river-valley defended by the castle. It is not certain
that two mounts ever formed part of an original plan. The natural
tendency would be to throw up the mount at first on the side nearer
the valley, where the slope was steeper, and the labour required in
construction would be less. An attack, however, on the town and castle
would come most naturally from the higher ground to the west, which
commanded the castle and its defences. A new mount would, in process
of time, be constructed on this side, and the old mount would become
of secondary importance. At Lewes (50), where the slope of the hill is
abrupt, the western mount rises from a higher level, and commands a
much wider stretch of country than the mount at the north-east angle of
the enclosure. At Lincoln, where an enemy’s force had no advantage of
higher ground, the larger mount simply occupies the most advantageous
position, protecting the most exposed side of the enclosure, and
commanding one of the most extensive views in England. The foot of one
mount is little more than two hundred feet distant from the foot of the
other; while, at Lewes and Pontefract, the length of the whole bailey
lay between the mounts. Thus, while it is possible that, at Lewes and
Pontefract, both mounts may be original, with the idea of strengthening
the enclosure at either end with a donjon, two original mounts at
Lincoln would not have this excuse; and we may infer that, at some
date later than the foundation of Lincoln castle, the Norman lords
of the fortress threw up a new mount at a point from which the slope
of the hill and the approaches from the valley of the Trent could be
commanded more thoroughly.
[Illustration: Lewes; Plan]
[Illustration: Builth; Plan]
The provision of more than one bailey, as at Clun (43), where two small
baileys, separated by ditches, cover the south and west sides of the
mount, was due, partly to the irregular nature of the site, and partly
to the need for the multiplication of defences. Such an arrangement,
inconvenient in time of peace, would be a considerable advantage in
case of siege, when each bailey would provide a separate difficulty
to the assailants, and a separate rallying point to the defenders. At
Builth (50), where the whole area of the castle earthworks is small,
and the ditches of mount and bailey are of considerable strength, the
main bailey is a narrow segmental platform covering the south side of
the mount. On the west side of the mount is a smaller and narrower
platform, between which and the main bailey is a broad ditch, forming
a cross-cut or traverse between the ditches of the mount and bailey.
As the enclosure is very nearly circular, with the mount north-west
of the centre, this second platform is somewhat squeezed into the
space, and the ditch between it and the counterscarp which runs
continuously round both mount and bailey is very narrow. In the more
usual instances, where the mount and its ditch form a regular circle,
which intersects with the bailey and its ditch, a secondary platform,
as has been noted, occurs outside the line of both ditches, and is
surrounded by a ditch of its own, communicating with both. This is the
case with the very symmetrical example of a mount-and-bailey castle
at Mexborough, at Lilbourne in Northants, Hallaton in Leicestershire
(51), and other cases. Here the secondary platform is an excrescence on
one side of the meeting of the two circles. Such platforms were mere
outworks where additional defence was necessary; it is possible that
on them stone-throwing engines might be planted by the defenders, as
the narrowness of the ditch would at these points bring the assailants
more nearly within range than at any other point within the enclosure.
Such engines would encumber the larger bailey, which would necessarily
be kept as clear as possible for the operations of the main body of the
garrison.
[Illustration: Hallaton; Plan]
The mount-and-bailey castle has been derived by some from a Teutonic
origin,[52] but it is difficult to trace it with any certainty at
an early period outside France and Normandy. There are many remains
of these castles in Normandy itself. The famous castle of Domfront
(Orne), founded originally by Guillaume Talvas (_d._ 1030), ancestor
of the house of Bellême, possibly took this form: as at Newcastle, a
rectangular tower of stone took the place, in the twelfth century, of
the tower on the mount.[53] The writer of a monograph on the castle of
Domfront enumerates five such mounts which exist or are known to have
existed within the local _arrondissement_.[54] Two, at Sept-Forges and
Lucé, remain intact, covered by plantations of trees. At Sept-Forges
the church and castle were side by side, as may still be seen at Earls
Barton in Northamptonshire.[55] At Lucé there are traces of a bailey.
On the other hand, at La Baroche, a large mount seems to have borne the
whole castle: one may compare with this the great mount of Restormel
in Cornwall, which is the natural summit of a hill, artificially
scarped and surrounded by a fosse, like a contour fort of early times.
It is important to notice that on these artificial mounts of southern
Normandy, there appears “no ruin, no trace of construction in masonry.”
The inference is obvious. The buildings which they carried were of
wood, and have yielded to the action of fire or the weather. On no
other hypothesis can the speed with which castles were constructed in
England after the Conquest, or the ease with which they were destroyed,
be explained. William’s subjects in Normandy threw up fortifications
against him with a speed which positively forbids us to imagine that
they procured masons to work in stone. In 1061, Robert, son of Giroie,
one of the powerful nobles of the Alençonnais, joined forces with the
Angevins against William, and fortified his castles of La-Roche-sur-Igé
and Saint-Cénéri. His cousin, Arnold, son of Robert, driven from
the castle of Échauffour, returned secretly and burned it.[56] The
quickness with which the two castles at York were constructed,
destroyed, and repaired, allowed no time for dressing stone.
The points which our evidence leads us to accept may be recapitulated
as follows:—(1) The castle was a foreign importation into England, of
the period of the Norman conquest. (2) It consisted, in its simplest
form, of a moated mount or _motte_, with a bailey or base-court
attached. (3) Its earliest fortifications were entirely of timber, save
in rare instances.
We may now examine the evidence which, in default of actual remains,
survives with regard to the timber constructions of these castles
and their use. The tower on the mount first demands our attention.
Apart from the pictures of the Bayeux tapestry, certain early twelfth
century chronicles of northern France have preserved for us accounts
of the main features of this structure and its _enceinte_.[57] Jean
de Colmieu describes the castle of Merchem, close by the church, as
_munitio quedam quam castrum vel municipium dicere possumus_. “It is
the custom,” he says, “with the rich men and nobles of this district,
because they spend their time in enmity and slaughter, and in order
that they may thereby be safer from their enemies, and by their
superior power either conquer their equals or oppress their inferiors,
to heap up a mount of earth as high as they can, and to dig round
it a ditch of some breadth and great depth, and, instead of a wall,
to fortify the topmost edge of the mount round about with a rampart
(_vallo_) very strongly compacted of planks of timber, and having
towers, as far as possible, arranged along its circuit. Within the
rampart they build in the midst a house or a citadel (_arx_) commanding
the whole site. The gate of entry to the place”—the word used is
_villa_, implying a place of habitation rather than a stronghold—“can
be approached only by a bridge, which, rising at first from the outer
lip of the ditch, is gradually raised higher. Supported by uprights in
pairs, or in sets of three, which are fixed beneath it at convenient
intervals, it rises by a graduated slope across the breadth of the
ditch, so that it reaches the mount on a level with its summit and at
its outer edge, and touches the threshold of the enclosure.” It will
be noticed that the moated mount described here had no bailey. It was
also obviously not merely a fortified stronghold, a place of refuge in
time of war, but a definite residence of the local lord. The turrets
round the timber rampart of the mount are mentioned as occasional, not
invariable features of the design. The habitation within the rampart
may be a strong tower or a mere house. The sense of the passage shows
clearly that there was a doorway in the rampart, by which the house was
approached from the bridge. Finally, the description is not applicable
merely to a single castle, but is a generic description of strongholds
in a particular neighbourhood.
The domestic, apart from the military, character of the building,
is emphasised in the story which follows the description. John of
Warneton, the sainted bishop of Thérouanne (_d._ 1130), was entertained
here, when he came to hold a confirmation in Merchem church. After
the confirmation was over, he went back to the castle to change his
vestments before proceeding to bless the churchyard. As he returned
across the sloping bridge, which at its middle point was about 35
feet above the ditch, the press of the people who crowded to see the
holy man was so great, and the old enemy, says the chronicler, so
alive to the opportunity, that the bridge broke, and the bishop and
his admirers, amid a terrible noise of falling joists, boards, and
spars, were thrown to the bottom of the ditch. The castle was, in
fact, the private residence of a man who, if he could indulge in the
peaceful pleasure of entertaining his bishop, could not afford to live
in an unfortified house. Private warfare with his neighbours was the
business of his life, and he had to make himself as comfortable as he
could within his palisade. Jean de Colmieu does not tell us whether
the castle stronghold at Merchem took the shape of a tower or not; but
Lambert of Ardres has left a description of the great wooden tower of
three stories which the carpenter Louis de Bourbourg constructed about
1099 for Arnould, lord of Ardres. The elaborateness of its design and
plan is remarkable, and the _motte_ which bore it must have been of
considerable size. The ground-floor contained cellars, store-rooms,
and granaries. The first floor contained the chief living-rooms—the
common hall, the pantry and buttery, the great chamber where Arnould
and his wife slept, with two other rooms, one the sleeping-place of the
body-servants. Out of the great chamber opened a room or recess with a
fire-place, where the folk of the castle were bled, the servants warmed
themselves, or the children were taken in cold weather to be warmed.
One may assume that the great chamber was at the end of the hall
opposite to the pantry and buttery. The kitchen was probably reached,
as in the larger dwelling-houses of later days, by a passage between
these offices: it was on the same floor as the hall, but occupied a
two-storied extension of the donjon on one side.[58] Below the kitchen
were the pig-sty, fowl-house, and other like offices. The third stage
of the donjon contained the bed-chambers of the daughters of the house:
the sons also could sleep on this floor, if they chose, and here slept
the guard of the castle, who relieved one another at intervals in the
work of keeping watch. On the eastern side of the first floor was a
projecting building, called the _logium_ or parlour, and above this
on the top floor was the chapel of the house, “made like in carving
and painting to the tabernacle (_sic_) of Solomon.” Lambert speaks of
the stairways and passages of the donjon, but his description of the
projecting parlour and chapel is not sufficiently explicit, and his
admiration may have magnified the proportions of the building. His
description, however, is of great service when applied to the tower
donjon of stone, the arrangements of which it serves to explain.
Here, again, the fortress was clearly designed as a dwelling house:
the supply of rooms, if it is not exaggerated, was quite remarkable
for the age. The _motte_ or donjon—Lambert gives it these alternative
names—rose in the middle of a marsh, which Arnould converted into a
lake or moat by forming sluices: his mill was near the first sluice.
No definite description is left of the defences of the bailey in a
castle of this date. There is no doubt, however, that the scarp,
or encircling bank of earth, was protected, like the summit of the
mount, by a hedge or palisade of the traditional type. Such hedges
were the normal defence of any kind of stronghold: the edict of Pistes
ordered the destruction of all unlicensed _castella, firmitates, et
haias_—castles, strong dwellings, and hedges. In 1225 Henry III.
ordered the forester of Galtres to supply the sheriff of Yorkshire
with timber for repairing and making good the breaches of the palisade
(_palicii_) of York castle. The “houses” and “bridge” of the same
castle—that is, the buildings within the bailey, and the drawbridge by
which the bailey was entered across the ditch, were also of timber. As
late as 1324 the stockade on the mount was still of wood, surrounding
the stone donjon of the thirteenth century.[59] This is an interesting
example of the survival, until a late date, of primitive fortification
in a strong and important castle. There is abundant evidence, in fact,
that the Norman engineer put his trust, not in stone, but in his
earthen rampart and its palisades. When, about 1090, the freebooter
Ascelin Goël got possession of the castle of Ivry, he enclosed it “with
ditches and thick hedges.”[60] In 1093, Philip I. of France and Robert
of Normandy took the part of William of Breteuil, the dispossessed lord
of Ivry, and laid siege to the fortified town and castle of Bréval
(Seine-et-Oise). With the aid of a siege engine, constructed by Robert
of Bellême, they were able to destroy the rampart and encircling
hedges.[61] Bréval was in a wooded and remote district, where stone
would have been hard to obtain in any case. The grand necessity, in
places which were in danger of constant attack, was to provide them
with adequate defences which could be constructed in the shortest time
possible.
Of the nature of the houses within the bailey, little can be said. They
doubtless included shelters for the garrison of the castle, stables for
their horses, and various sheds or store-houses. The hall, or building,
which was the centre of the domestic life of the castle, was, from the
earliest times, the chief building within the circumference of the
bailey. We read of the destruction of the _principalis aula_ of the
castle of Brionne in 1090, by the red-hot darts which were hurled upon
its shingled roof;[62] and stone halls, as at Chepstow and Richmond,
were built before the beginning of the twelfth century. But it is
certain, on the other hand, that the donjon was, now and later, adapted
to domestic as well as purely military uses; and it seems likely
that the owner of the castle, in certain cases, was content with his
dwelling upon the mount, until, at a later date, the strengthening of
the whole enclosure with a stone curtain made it possible for him to
raise a more convenient dwelling house within the more ample space of
the bailey. In the larger castles, however, where there was a strong
permanent garrison, a hall was a necessity for their entertainment.
Where mount-and-bailey castles are found without a trace of stonework,
it does not follow that they are necessarily of a date immediately
subsequent to the Conquest. Many of these castles, founded by the
Conqueror and his followers, became permanent strongholds, and in due
course of time were fortified with stone walls and towers. Others were
probably founded as an immediate consequence of the Conquest, and were
abandoned in favour of other sites. Thus it has been thought that the
earthworks at Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, were abandoned by Ilbert
de Lacy, when he fixed upon Pontefract as the head of his honour.[63]
Trecastle may have been deserted by Bernard of Newmarch for Brecon, or
it may have been held by a small garrison as the western outpost of his
barony. But it is well known that, for a long time after the Conquest,
in the period of constant strife between the Norman kings and their
barons, a large number of castles came into existence in defiance of
royal edicts. We know that, during the reign of Stephen, when every
man did what was right in his own eyes, an almost incredible number of
unlicensed or “adulterine”[64] castles were constructed. As a result
of the agreement between Stephen and Henry II., many of these were
destroyed, and the number of English castles was materially lessened.
Later on, when the revolt of the Mowbrays against Henry II. took place,
the victory of the king’s party was followed by the destruction of the
Mowbray castles at Thirsk, Kirkby Malzeard, and Kinnard’s Ferry in
the isle of Axholme, and of Bishop Pudsey’s castle at Northallerton.
Of these four castles earthworks or traces of earthworks, but no
stonework, remain. It is reasonable to suppose that the material of
their fortifications was timber. Haste in the construction of castles,
speed in their destruction, during the century following the Conquest,
are easily explained if their works were merely of earth and wood.
And it is thus possible that, when we meet with a mount-and-bailey
fortress, unnamed in history and untouched by medieval stonemasons, it
may be neither on a site chosen and then abandoned by an early Norman
lord, nor a mere outpost of some greater castle, but a stronghold
hastily entrenched and heaped up in time of rebellion, by some noble
of the time of Stephen or Henry II., and dismantled when peace was
restored, and the authority of the sovereign recognised.