The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.
by Ella Sophia Armitage · English · Gutenberg #48602 · 811,186 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.
Author: Ella Sophia Armitage
Illustrator: D. H. Montgomerie
Release date: March 29, 2015 [eBook #48602]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EARLY NORMAN CASTLES OF THE BRITISH ISLES. ***
THE EARLY NORMAN CASTLES OF THE BRITISH ISLES
[Illustration: MOTTE-CASTLES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.]
THE EARLY NORMAN CASTLES
OF THE BRITISH ISLES
BY ELLA S. ARMITAGE
HONORARY FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND
AUTHOR OF "THE CHILDHOOD OF THE ENGLISH NATION"; "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_ 1.--_For_ "construerat" _read_ "construxerat."
Page 40, line 9.--_For_ "there was only one motte, the site of the
castle of the Norman Giffards is now almost obliterated," _read_ "there
was only one motte, site of the castle of the Norman Giffards, now
almost obliterated."
Page 133, line 16.--_For_ "1282" _read_ "1182."
Page 145, _note_ 1.--_For_ "Legercestria" _read_ "Legecestria."
Page 147, line 15.--Delete comma after "castle."
Page 216, _note_ 2.--_For_ "instalment" _read_ "statement."
Page 304, _note_ 3.--_For_ "Galloway, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and
Dumfries," _read_ "Galloway (Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries)."
PREFACE
Some portions of this book have already appeared in print. Of these,
the most important is the _catalogue raisonné_ 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 Scotland
in March 1900, are incorporated in various parts of the book, but these
have been recast in the fuller treatment 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_. 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 carelessly 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 archæologists 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., 1898).[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.
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 archæologists; 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 ascription 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
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 10th century to the 13th,
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
architecture, 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, unsupported, 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 _History of York Castle_, for important facts and
documents 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 1
CHAPTER II
ANGLO-SAXON FORTIFICATIONS 11
CHAPTER III
ANGLO-SAXON FORTIFICATIONS--CONTINUED 31
CHAPTER IV
DANISH FORTIFICATIONS 48
CHAPTER V
THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE CASTLES 63
CHAPTER VI
DISTRIBUTION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF MOTTE-CASTLES 80
CHAPTER VII
THE CASTLES OF THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND 94
CHAPTER VIII
MOTTE-CASTLES IN NORTH WALES 251
CHAPTER IX
MOTTE-CASTLES IN SOUTH WALES 273
CHAPTER X
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 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" 387
I. THE WORD "HERICIO" 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 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, Lincs; Bramber, Sussex 108
11. Caerleon, Monmouth; Carisbrooke 114
12. Carlisle; Castle Acre, Norfolk 124
13. Clifford, Hereford; Clitheroe, Lancs; Corfe, Dorset 128
14. Dover (from a plan in the British Museum, 1756) 138
15. Dunster, Somerset; Dudley, Staffs 144
16. Durham 146
17. Ely, Cambs; Ewias Harold, Hereford; Eye, Suffolk 150
18. Hastings, Sussex; Huntingdon 158
19. Launceston, Cornwall; Lewes, Sussex 164
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, Lancs; 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,
Castleknock 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 archæology until quite recent years. It may even be said
that during the first half of the 19th 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 17th- and 18th-century
topographers have left us invaluable notices of earthworks which were
extant in their time. But if we turn over the archæological 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,
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
19th century is little to the credit of English archæology. Mr Clark's
work on _Mediæval 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 19th 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 archæology. 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 drew up the classification of earthworks which is now
being generally adopted by archæological 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, (_f_) banks and ditches surrounding homesteads,
(_g_) manorial works, (_h_) fortified villages.
We venture to think that still further divisions are needed, to include
(1) boundary earthworks; (2) sepulchral 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.[2]
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
circumstances. 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 attempt to disentangle
the dates of the various classes of prehistoric earthworks.[3] 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 breastwork 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.[4] 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 fortification.
The court is defended by earthen banks, both on the scarp and
counterscarp of the ditch, and these banks of course had also their
timber stockades, the remains of which have sometimes been found on
excavation.[5]
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--TYPICAL MOTTE-CASTLES.
Topcliffe, Yorks. Laughton-en-le-Morthen, Yorks. Anstey, Herts.
Dingestow, Monmouth. Hedingham, Essex.]
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.[6] Sometimes the length of the ditch separating the
hillock from the court is at a higher level than the main ditch.[7]
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.[8]
Now this type of fort will tell us a good deal about 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 Müller, the eminent Danish archæologist,
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."[9]
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 Köhler, 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.[10]
It would appear that some of the fortifications 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,[11] 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, 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 _Mediæval 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.[12] Dr Christison remarks
in his valuable work on Scottish fortifications that an overweening
importance has been attached to moot-hills, without historical
evidence.[13] And Mr George Neilson, in his essay on "The Motes in
Norman Scotland"[14] (to which we shall often have occasion to refer
hereafter), shows that 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.[15]
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.[16] 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 accompanying
court. Excavation or documentary evidence can alone decide in these
cases, though the presence of 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.[17]
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 Northumberland. 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. Unfortunately this celebrated passage is
merely the interpolation of a 12th-century scribe, and is consequently
of no authority whatever,[18] though there is nothing improbable in
the statement, and it is supported by Nennius.[19] 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.[20] Modern historians talk of this fort as a castle, but all
the older authorities call it a town;[21] 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 4-3/4 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,[22] though it is probable that eventually the townsmen were
expelled from the rock, and that thus the modern town of Bamborough
arose in the levels below. Although 4-3/4 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.[23] It 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[24]), 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.[25] 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 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 successively 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!"[26] The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ notices the restoration of
London (886),[27] about which two extant charters are more precise.[28]
It also mentions the building of a work (geweorc) at Athelney, 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.[29] 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 dominicæ
incarnationis Alfredus rex fecit hanc urbem, DCCCLXXX, regni sui
VIII."[30] Ethelred, Alfred's son-in-law, built the _burh_ at Worcester
in Alfred's lifetime, as a most interesting charter tells us.[31]
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.[32] On the death of Ethelred in 912,[33]
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, 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.[34] 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 independence than her husband had enjoyed. Up
to this date we find Edward disposing of the _fyrd_ of Mercia;[35] 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.
Ethelfleda goes her own way, subduing Western Mercia, while Edward
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_?
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 somewhat, 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_;[36]
the Anglo-Saxon gospels of the 11th century do the same;[36] and
the confederacy of five Danish towns which existed in Mercia in the
10th century is called in contemporary records _fif burga_, the five
boroughs.[37]
_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 manuscripts show that the hall
in which the thane dwelt, the 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.[38] This enclosure may
have been called a _burh_, and the innumerable place-names in England
ending in _borough_ or _bury_[39] 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.[40] 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 burh_ as an asylum, the violation
of which brings its special punishment; and Ethelred II. ordains that
every compurgation shall take place in _thaes kyninges byrig_; 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_.[41]
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.[42] He ordains that all _burhs_ are to be repaired fourteen
days after Rogations, and that no market shall be held outside the
town.[43] 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.[44]
_Burh_ is contrasted with wapentake as town with country.[45]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--ANGLO-SAXON MS. OF PRUDENTIUS.
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.[46] 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 _burh_ meant, translates it by _urbs_ in nineteen cases out
of twenty-six.[47] His authority alone is sufficient to settle this
question, and we need no longer have any doubt that a _burh_ was the
same thing which in mediæval 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
archæological world. We refer of course to the theory of the late Mr G.
T. Clark, who contended in his _Mediæval Military Architecture_[48]
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 inexplicable things in the history of
English archæology 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 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."[49] 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.[50] 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.
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
14th century)[51] and "arrayed themselves resolutely."[52] 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-ès-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.[53]
Or let us contrast the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ of 1051 with that of
1088, when certain Norman barons 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.[54] 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 him.[55] 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
connection 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.[56] 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 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 misunderstood 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 moenia supranominati,
id est Hrofescestri, unum viculum cum duobus jugeribus, etc.," where
_castellum_ is evidently the city of Rochester.[57] Offa calls
Wermund "episcopus castelli quod nominatur Hroffeceastre."[58] 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."[59] In this sense no
doubt we must interpret Asser's "castellum quod dicitur Werham."[60]
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 aquæ"--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."
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 A motte and a Norman castle.
Chester 908 A motte and a Norman castle.
Bremesburh 911 Unidentified.
Scærgate 913 Unidentified.
Bridgenorth 913 No motte, but a Norman stone keep.
Tamworth 914 A motte and a Norman castle.
Stafford, N. of Sowe 914 No motte and no Norman castle.
Eddisbury 915 No motte and no Norman castle.
Warwick 915 A motte and a Norman castle.
Cyricbyrig (Monk's Kirby) 916 No motte and no Norman castle.
Weardbyrig 916 Unidentified.
Runcorn 916 No motte; a mediæval castle (?).
_Burhs 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;[61] 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;[62] 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 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,[63] which, according to Professor Maitland, "sets forth
certain arrangements made early in the 10th century for the defence
of Wessex against the Danish inroads."[64] 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.[65] See Fig. 3.
To complete our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon fortification, 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.[66]
[Illustration:FIG. 3. Wallingford, Berks. Wareham, Dorset.]
In the following chapter we shall deal in detail with such archæological
remains as still exist of the boroughs 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
(9-1/2 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,[67] 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.[68] It was a town, a place 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.[69]
There appears to have been a small Roman settlement at Worcester, but
there is no evidence that it was a fortified place.[70] 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.[71]
The mediæval walls of Worcester were probably more extensive than
Ethelfleda'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 undoubtedly 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 13th century "a
poor compilation of little authority,"[72] was the first writer to
state that the walls of Chester were enlarged by Ethelfleda so as
to take in the castle, which he fancied to be Roman;[73] and this
statement, being repeated by Leland, has acquired considerable 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.[74] 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 identified. 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 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.[75] Thus the fortification appears to be of manorial use, though
this does not preclude the possibility 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;[76] 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."[77] 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 fortified against Henry I. in 1101.[78] 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 10th century. We may therefore 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.[79] This mound was far more probably the site of the siege
castle (no doubt of wood) which was erected by Henry I. when he
besieged the city.[80]
TAMWORTH was an ancient city of the Mercian kings, and therefore may
have been fortified before its walls were rebuilt by Ethelfleda.[81]
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 borough; some parts of
the mediæval walls still remain. The walls are mentioned in Domesday
Book.[82]
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 Archæological
Association_ for 1906, the _burh_ has been specially surveyed 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 mediæval times by a small fortified enclosure, whose defences are
apt to be confused with those of the older Saxon town. The rock makes
a triangular projection at this end, containing the foundations of
mediæval buildings,[83] 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."
[Illustration: FIG. 4. Eddisbury, Cheshire. Witham, Essex.]
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 15th century, that she was its builder.
The borough which Ethelfleda fortified probably occupied a smaller area
than the mediæval 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.[84]
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 barons hold outside the city, and are rated
there.[85] 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.[86]
CYRICBYRIG.--About this place we adopt the conjecture of Dugdale, who
identified it with Monk's Kirby in Warwickshire, not far from the
borders of Leicestershire, 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."[87]
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,[88] and but for the impossibility of the etymology,
the situation would suit well enough. Weardbyrig must have been an
important place, for it had a mint.[89] 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 16 feet wide, with an inner bank 6 or 7 feet
high, could still be traced in the early part of the 19th 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;[90] 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 12th century, and as a castle at Runcorn is spoken of in a
mediæval document,[91] it seems not impossible that there may have
been a Norman castle on this site, as we 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 Burhs of Edward 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";[92] 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.[93] 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 26-1/4 acres, an enclosure much too large for a castle; the
area of the inner enclosure was 9-1/2 acres. As far as is at present
known, Witham is the only instance we have of an Anglo-Saxon earthwork
which has a double enclosure.[94] 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, site of the
castle of the Norman Giffards, 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.[95] 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
building the _burh_. Mediæval 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 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.[96] It had rounded corners and a very wide ditch, with a bank on
both scarp and counterscarp. Maldon was a borough at Domesday;[97] 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."[98] There was a mill and an oven to which the citizens owed
soke,[99] and the value of the manor, which belonged to the king, had
risen very greatly since the Conquest;[100] 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."[101] 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.[102] The area is stated to be
about 35 acres.
WIGINGAMERE.--This place is not yet identified, for the identification
with Wigmore in 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.[103] 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.[104]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--PLAN OF TOWCESTER ABOUT 1830.]
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 _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.[105] 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.[106] It would be highly probable that
Edward completed the subjugation of East Anglia by planting a borough
at some important point. But as the real date of the fortification of
Cledemuthan is uncertain, we must be content to leave this matter in
abeyance.[107]
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.[108]
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 Burgræd king of Mercia 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."[109] 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.[110] 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.[111] 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 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 surprising that the frequent floods of the Trent
have carried away all trace of this second borough.[112] The important
position of Nottingham was maintained in subsequent times, and it was
still a borough at Domesday.
THELWALL.--According to Camden, Thelwall explains 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.[113]
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 old city." This is its title in mediæval deeds, and it is
still preserved in _Alport_ Street, a street near the remains of the
_castrum_.[114] The later borough of Manchester, which existed at least
as early as the 13th century, appears to have grown up round the Norman
castle, about a mile from the Roman castrum.[115]
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.[116] Bakewell was the seat of jurisdiction for the High
Peak Hundred in mediæval times.[117]
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"![118] 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_, a work, or _fæsten_
(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.[119]
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.[120] 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).--Hæsten 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
ships.[121] Steenstrup has calculated that the average number of men in
a Viking ship must have been from 40 to 50; Hæsten 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."[122] The enclosure was very large, one
side which remains being 600 feet long.[123]
5. BENFLEET.--Here Hæsten 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.[124]
"As the fleet of ships lay in the Beamfleet, it is obvious that the
camp must have partaken of the character of a fortified _hithe_, 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.[125]
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.[126] As Hæsten 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 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,"[127] it is more probable that it was Buttington in
Montgomery, west of Shrewsbury.[128] 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 constructed 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."[129]
[Illustration: FIG. 6. Shoebury, Essex.]
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 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 11th century.
10. TEMPSFORD.--Here the Danes wrought a work in 918.[130] 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 11 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."[131] 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.[132] Such a
small enclosure as this might possibly have been a citadel, but our
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.[133]
11. 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.[134] 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 now.[135] 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;[136] 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.[137]
Chippenham and Repton were ancient seats of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and
may have had fortifications, but nothing remains now. Chippenham is
a borough by prescription, 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 mediæval. There was formerly a
harbour at Fulham.[138]
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 evidence, the imitation of Roman models seems
to be clear. If we turn from remaining facts to _à priori_ likelihoods,
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 fortifications, 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.[139] Dudo speaks
of the Vikings "fortifying themselves, after the manner of a _castrum_,
by heaped up earth-banks drawn round themselves," and it is clear from
the rest of his description that the camp had no citadel.[140]
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 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
Cambridge is placed inside the original bounds of the borough, and was
part of the Norman castle.[141] 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. Willington, Beds.]
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 constructed
fortified harbours.[142] We have already quoted Mr Spurrell's remark
on the hithe[143] 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.[144] This "camp" consists
of two wards, and a wide outer enclosure (Fig. 7). "But one of the
most interesting features is the presence of two harbours, contained
within the defences and communicating with the 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 the _Jomsvikinga 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 archæology 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.[145]
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.[146] It also tells us of the
Five Boroughs, which, as we have already said, appear to have been a
confederation 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."[147] 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.[148] 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.[149]
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 powerful leaders, of whom one was chosen
as head, and was implicitedly obeyed, but had only a temporary
authority.[150] 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
Frankish 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."[151] That such an answer would be given
by men who were following a leader so distinguished as Rollo shows the
spirit of independence which pervaded the Danish hosts, and how little
a separate fortification for the chief would comport with their methods
of warfare.[152]
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.[153] 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.[154] The organisation of their armies was purely military, but
at the same time 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 Scandinavian institution, which we find still existing at
the time of the Domesday Survey.[155]
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
fortifications which were being raised in Western Europe in the 9th
century.
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
significance. 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 constitutional 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.[156] "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 later writers
named.[157] 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 11th century, they were not completely superseded by
feudal institutions till after the Norman Conquest.
We should naturally expect, then, that the fortifications 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 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.[158] 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.[159]
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 commanded Le Mans and Tours to be fortified "as a defence _for
the people_ against the Northmen."[160] The bishops were particularly
active in thus defending the people of their dioceses. Archbishop Fulk
rebuilt the walls of Rheims, between 884 and 900;[161] his successor,
Hervey, fortified the town of Coucy[162] (about 900); the Bishop of
Cambray built new walls to his city in 887-911;[163] and Bishop Erluin
fortified Peronne in 1001, "as a defence against marauders, and a
refuge for the husbandmen of the country."[164] 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 10th 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.[165] 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 10th 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 Germanic
invasion, the great landed proprietors dwelt either in the cities, or
in beautiful houses agreeably situated near the cities."[166] These
Gallo-Roman villas had no fortifications;[167] nor were the Roman
villas in England fortified.[168] 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.[169] Charles the Bald appears to have been the first to
fortify the palace of Compiègne.[170]
Although there can be no doubt that private castles had become
extremely common on the mainland of Western Europe before the end of
the 10th 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 _château_, and taking them in the sense of
the feudal or private castle.[171] We have already pointed out that
these words in our Anglo-Saxon charters mean a town or village.[172]
The fact is that from Roman times until toward the end of the 9th
century the words _castrum_ and _castellum_ are used indifferently
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 distinction 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 mediæval 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 12th 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,[173] in
which he 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 annoyance. 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.[174]
When we come to the chroniclers of the middle of the 10th century
we find a marked difference. It is true that the words _castrum_,
_castellum_, _municipium_, _oppidum_, _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 11th and 12th 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 11th or 12th 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 different in idea,
from the fortifications which had hitherto been thrown up for the
protection of the community.[175] How easily we may be mistaken in
the meaning of the word _castellum_, 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 Laurissenses_,
with Eginhards 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.[176] Mazières-on-the-Meuse, which
was besieged 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 10th century.[177] 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 _presidium_
where Herbert Count of Vermandois had imprisoned Charles the Simple
was burnt accidentally.[178] 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 told that he _restored_ the principal
tower and made it into his own house.[179] 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.[180] 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.[181] 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 11th century.[182] The first historical
mention of a castle which is clearly of the motte-and-bailey kind is
in the Chronicle of St Florent 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.[183] 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.[184] 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.[185]
Montrichard, Chateaufort, Chérament, Montboyau, and Baugé 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
outworks 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.[186]
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 architecture, he is the first mediæval chieftain who is
known to have employed mercenary troops.[187] Now as we have already
suggested in Chapter I., 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.[188]
But unfortunately for this theory, there is some evidence of the
raising of mottes at an earlier period in the 10th 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, Chateaudun,[189]
Blois, and Chinon,[190] and the castle of Saumur; these must have been
finished before 962. Now there was anciently a motte at Blois, for in
the 12th century, Fulk V. of Anjou burnt the whole fortress, "_except
the house on the motte_."[191] There was also a motte at Saumur;[192]
and the plan of the castle of Chinon is not inconsistent with the
existence of a former motte.[193] These instances seem to put back the
existence of the motte castle to the middle of the 10th 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.[194] If this were true, we have a
clear instance of a motte built in the first half of the 10th century.
But Lambert's work was written at the end of the 12th century, with the
object of glorifying 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.[195]
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."[196] "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."[197] 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 10th 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.[198]
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 10th century,
there is no mention of a private castle anywhere. We are told that
Rollo restored the walls and towers of the _cities_ of Normandy,[199]
and it is clear from the context that the _castra_ of Rouen, Fécamp,
and Evreux, which are mentioned, 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.[200] 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 at Norrei; the castle of Belesme; all of which appear
to have been private castles.[201] 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."[202] It is generally, and doubtless
correctly, 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 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 likely copied from castles outside the
Norman frontier.[203]
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 10th
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 Cæsar 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, 10th, 11th, and 12th 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 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.[204] 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 by
Thibault-le-Tricheur about the middle of the 10th 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
10th century.
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 anywhere else. We say _probably_, because there are as
yet no statistics prepared on which to base a comparison.[205] 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;[206] and even Cohausen in 1898 threw doubt upon
them,[207] although General Köhler 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 13th and 14th
centuries."[208] 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,[209] and are especially frequent in
Calabria, where we may strongly suspect that they were introduced by
the Norman conqueror, Robert Guiscard.[210] 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 Rey's _Architecture des Croisés_ show clearly enough the
motte-and-bailey plan.[211] In most of these cases the motte was a
natural rock.
On the other hand, we are told by Köhler that motte-castles are not
found among the Slavonic nations, because they never adopted the feudal
system.[212] Nor are there any in Norway or Sweden.[213] Denmark
has some, which are attributed by Dr Sophus Müller to the mediæval
period.[214]
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.[215] 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.[216] And mottes
were used not only throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, but even
as late as the 13th. 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 Rhé.[217] 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.[218] 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.[219]
Tickhill Castle in Yorkshire had a palisade on the counterscarp of the
ditch when it was taken by Cromwell.[220]
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 13th 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,[221] though the camp in which it is placed is supposed to
be prehistoric.
The great majority of mottes in England are planted either on or near
Roman or other ancient roads, or on navigable rivers.[222] 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.[223] The rivers of England were
much fuller of water in mediæval 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 mediæval 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.[224]
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.[225] It is not 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.[226] Hillocks
were also thrown up for the purpose of placing _balistæ_ 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 _burgus_ 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 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.[227] 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 commodities 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.[228]
That even in the 12th 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 always provided, as well as a perpetual spring of
water, and secret passages and posterns, by which help might reach the
besieged.[229]
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 11th century at Dol, Rennes, Dinan,
and Bayeux.[230] 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 makeshift 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 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 Dixmüde, 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, according 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 edge of the motte
(agger)."[231] 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 workshops, 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 important castle.
Lambert of Ardres, the panegyrist of the counts of Guisnes,[232]
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 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."[233]
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.[234]
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 was written at the
end of the 12th century. In the earlier and simpler manners of the 11th
century it is probable that the cooking was more generally carried on
in the open air, as it was among the Anglo-Saxons.[235] 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 12th 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.[236] 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.[237] 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 14th century. On the contrary, these wooden galleries
for the purpose of defending the foot of the walls by throwing missiles
down are called _hurdicia_ or hourdes in the documents, a word of
cognate origin to our word _hoarding_.[238] 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 surrounded 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.[239]
The _palitium_ was the stockade 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 _hérisson_, 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.[240]
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 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 11th century, because they are mentioned
either in Domesday Book, or in charters of the period, or in some
contemporary chronicle.[241] 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,[242]
but 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.[243] 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 unknown 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 11th century are of the motte-and-bailey type.
About forty-three of these castles are attached to 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.[244] 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.[245] 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.[246]
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.[247]
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.[248] 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 stonework is invariably
later than the 11th 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.[249]
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 _Coxe's Tour in Monmouthshire_,
1800, shows it in its original round form. The bailey is roughly of a
pentagonal shape, covering 1 acre, and is defended by a curtain wall
with mural towers and a gatehouse. The ditch on the W. 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.[250]
[Illustration: FIG. 8. Arundel, Sussex. Abergavenny, Monmouth.]
ARUNDEL (Fig. 8).--"The castrum of Arundel," says Domesday Book, "paid
40_s._ in King Edward's time from a certain mill, and 20_s._ from
three boardlands (or feorm-lands), and 2_s._ from one pasture. Now,
between the town feorm and the water-gate and the ships' dues, it pays
12_l._"[251] _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 11th
century.[252] Arundel is one of the towns mentioned in the "Burghal
Hidage."[253] But even accepting 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.[254] 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 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 4-1/2 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.[255] 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 the motte are the work of Henry II., as he
spent nearly 340_l._ 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.[256] The wall of the motte corresponds 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 12th 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.[257] The one Pipe Roll of Henry I. which we possess shows that
he spent 78_l._ 6_s._ 2_d._ on the castle in 1130, and possibly this
refers to this gatehouse.[258] 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.[259]
BAMBOROUGH, Northumberland.--We first hear of 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 13th 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.[260]
William certainly found no castle there, for Bamborough had fallen
into utter ruin and desolation by the middle of the 11th century.[261]
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.[262] 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.[263] As the Domesday Survey does not extend to Northumberland, we
have no statement of the value of Bamborough. The area of the castle is
4-3/4 acres.
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.[264]
Barnstaple, at the head of the estuary of the Taw, was a borough at
Domesday, and the castle was placed inside the town walls.[265] 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.[266] 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 1-1/3 acres.
The former value of Barnstaple is not given in the Survey, so we cannot
tell whether it had risen or not.
[Illustration: FIG. 9. Barnstaple, Devon. Bishop's Stortford, Herts.
Berkhampstead, Herts.]
BELVOIR, Leicester.--This castle was founded by the Norman Robert
de Todeni, who died in 1088.[267] 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 been a shell wall, from the descriptions
given by Nicholls and Leland.[268] 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.[269]
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."[270] 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.[271] 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.[272] Earl Godwin had
sometimes resided at Berkeley, but probably his residence there was the
monastery which by evil means had come into his hands;[273] 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."[274] The motte
raised by Earl William has, in fact, been revetted with a stone shell
of the 12th century, whose bold chevron ornament over the entrance
gives evidence of its epoch. What is still more remarkable 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.[275]
Robert's wish probably was to possess a stone keep, like those which
had been rising in so many places during the 12th 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.[276] 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 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.[277] 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,[278] 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.[279]
There is no statement in the Survey of the value of Ness, but the whole
manor of Berkeley had risen since the Conquest.[280]
BERKHAMPSTEAD, Herts (Fig. 9).--Mr D. H. Montgomerie rightly calls
this a magnificent example of an earthwork fortress.[281] 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.[282]
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 2-2/3 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 counterscarp bank
is enlarged into mounds which have evidently once carried wooden
towers;[283] 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 12th, 13th, and 14th 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 formerly 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 told that his engines kept up a most
destructive fire of stones.[284]
The value of the manor of Berkhampstead had considerably decreased,
even since the Count of Mortain received it.[285]
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.[286] 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.[287] 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 × 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 2-1/2 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."[288] The value of the manor had gone down at Domesday.[289]
BOURN, Lincolnshire (Fig. 10).--The manor of Bourn or Brune appears to
have been much split up amongst various owners at the time of Domesday.
A Breton named Oger held the demesne.[290] 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.[291] Bourn was the centre of a large soke in Anglo-Saxon
times. Leland mentions the "Grete Diches, and the Dungeon Hill of the
ancient Castel,"[292] 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,[293] 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."[294]
The value of Bourn had risen at Domesday.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. Bourn, Lincs. Bramber, Sussex.]
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.[295] 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 100_l._,"
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 waterways 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 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.[296] The church is dedicated to
St Nicholas, who was worshipped in Normandy as early as 1067;[297] 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.[298] 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 fortissimum."
Bishop Geoffrey held Bristol at the date of the Domesday Survey,
and he probably built the castle by William's orders.[299] It was
completely destroyed in 1655 (only a few 13th 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.[300] In Stephen's reign it was described as
standing on a very great _agger_.[301] 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.[302] 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."[303] 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 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.[304]
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.[305]
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."[306] It was outside the
city, and was not under its jurisdiction till James I. granted this
authority by charter.[307] The value T. R. E. is not given in Domesday
Book.
BUCKINGHAM.--The only mention of this castle as existing in the 11th
century is in the _Gesta Herewardi_,[308] 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 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."[309]
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.[310]
The value of Buckingham had considerably risen at the date of
Domesday.[311]
CAERLEON, Monmouthshire (Fig. 11).--Domesday Book speaks of the
_castellaria_ of Caerleon.[312] A _castellaria_ appears to have meant
a district in which the land was held by the service of castle-guard
in a neighbouring 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 40s. _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 statement 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, however,
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.[313] 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.[314] 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.[315] The motte and other remains
of the castle are outside the Roman _castrum_, between it and the
river. The bailey is roughly pentagonal, and covers 4-3/4 acres. The
manor of Caerleon was waste T. R. E. and had risen to 40s. T. R. W.[316]
[Illustration: FIG. 11. Caerleon, Monmouth. Carisbrooke.]
CAMBRIDGE.--Ordericus tells us that William built this castle on his
return from his first visit to Yorkshire in 1068,[317] and Domesday
Book states that twenty-seven houses were destroyed to make room for
the castle.[318] 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,[319] 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 machicolations
represented in the print published in 1575, was certainly not of Norman
date. The area of the bailey was 4-1/4 acres.[320] The castle was a
royal one, and like 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."[321] 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 impossibility 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
Canterbury, 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.[322] 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 16th and even the 18th century,[323] shows what its
origin was; it was the hill on which stood the dungeon or donjon of
a Norman castle.[324] 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.[325] We have
seen that there is no reason to think that the Danes ever constructed
fortifications of this kind, and their connection with this earthwork
is due to one of those guesses, too common in English archæology, 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."[326]
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 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.[327] 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 Canterbury have never yet received so careful an examination as
those of Rochester have had from the Rev. Greville Livett;[328] 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.[329] Certain
entries in the _Close Rolls_ show that the fortification of the town
of Canterbury was going on in the years 1215-1225.[330] 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 1168, of 5s. 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.[331] 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.[332]
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 Dungeon Hill itself remained
royal property.[333] 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 1166 and 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.[334]
The very small sum paid for the city gate (11s., equal to about £11
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.[335]
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.[336] 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 51_l._ to 54_l._ since the
days of King Edward.[337]
CARISBROOKE, Isle of Wight (Fig. 11).--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."[338] 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;[339] but as here the king was himself the
owner, the remission must have been granted to his tenants.
The original castle of Carisbrooke consists of a high motte, ditched
round, placed at the corner of a parallelogram with rounded corners.
This bailey, covering 2-3/4 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.[340] 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.[341] 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.
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.[342]
CARLISLE, Cumberland (FIG. 12).--This castle was built by William Rufus
in 1092, when for the first time Cumberland 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,[343] and it is possible
that he may have removed the motte. The castle appears to have had a
wooden _pelum_ or _palicium_ on its outer banks as late as 1319.[344]
The whole area covers 4 acres.
CASTLE ACRE, Norfolk (Fig. 12).--There can be no doubt that this castle
existed in the 11th 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.[345] 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 100 feet 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,[346] 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.[347] This earthwork has a northern entrance in masonry,
evidently of 13th 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
3-1/2 acres; that of the whole series of earthworks, 15 acres.
Acre was only a small manor in Saxon times; its value at the time of
the Survey had risen from 5_l._ to 9_l._[348]
[Illustration: FIG. 12. Carlisle. Castle Acre, Norfolk.]
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.[349] 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 Montgomerie, who had much ampler opportunities for studying
the remains. This ward is now a barbican, and the masonry upon it
belongs clearly to the 13th 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 part of the castle, as it contains
a very remarkable early Norman building (splendidly restored in the
13th 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.[350] 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 13th
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 1-2/3 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_s._ in his time from
ships' dues, 16_l._ in his son Earl Roger's time, and at the date of
the Survey it paid the king 12_l._[351] Chepstow was not the centre of
a large soke, and it appears to have owed all its importance to the
creation of William FitzOsbern'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.[352] The very valuable paper of Mr E. W. Cox on Chester
Castle[353] answers most of the questions which pertain to our present
inquiry. The original castle of Chester consisted 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 12th century; and
this would correspond with the entry in the _Pipe Rolls_ of 102_l._
7_s._ 0_d._ spent on the castle by Henry II. in 1159.[354] The tower,
nicknamed Cæsar's Tower, and frequently mistaken for the keep, is
shown in Mr Cox's paper to be only a mural tower of the 13th century,
probably built when the first ward was surrounded with walls and towers
in masonry.[355] The large outer bailey was first added in the reign
of Henry III.[356] 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.[357] This disposes of the ball set rolling by
Brompton at the end of the 13th century, and sent on by most Chester
topographers ever since, that Ethelfleda, when she restored the Roman
walls of Chester, 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.[358]
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.[359] This prosperity must have been due to
the security provided for the trade of Chester by the Norman castle and
Norman rule.
[Illustration: FIG. 13. Clifford, Hereford. Clitheroe, Lancs. Corfe,
Dorset.]
CLIFFORD, Herefordshire (Fig. 13).--It is clearly stated by Domesday
Book that William FitzOsbern built this castle on waste land.[360]
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 hands of Richard Fitz
Pons, the ancestor of the celebrated house of Clifford, and one of the
_barons_ of Bernard de Neufmarché, the Norman conqueror of Brecon.[361]
The castle has a large motte, roughly square in shape, which must be
in part artificial.[362] 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 2-1/3 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 3-1/2 acres.
The value of the manor had apparently risen from nothing to 8_l._ 5_s._
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.[363] A castellate implies a castle, and as there is 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
understand 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 architect 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 unconquered 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.[364]
The castle of Clitheroe stands on a lofty motte of natural rock.[365]
There are no earthworks on the summit, 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
fortification, 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, and it is probable that this date is correct.[366] 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.[367]
As the very name of Clitheroe is not mentioned in Domesday Book, it
clearl
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