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Title: Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

Author: A. Hamilton Thompson

Release date: October 19, 2019 [eBook #60518]
                Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND DURING THE MIDDLE AGES ***

Transcriber’s Notes:—

Italic text is denoted _thus_.

The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the
original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.

Further transcriber’s notes can be found at the end of the book.




  MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN
  ENGLAND DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

[Illustration:

  _Frontispiece_

ROCHESTER: GREAT TOWER.]




  MILITARY ARCHITECTURE
  IN ENGLAND DURING THE
  MIDDLE AGES

  BY
  A. HAMILTON THOMPSON
  M.A., F.S.A.

  Illustrated by 200 Photographs, Drawings, and Plans

  HENRY FROWDE
  OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
  LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO, AND MELBOURNE
  1912




  _Printed at_
  THE DARIEN PRESS
  _Edinburgh_




PREFACE


Apart from the late Mr G. T. Clark’s _Mediæval Military Architecture_,
published in 1884, the greater portion of which is a series of
monographs dealing with individual castles, there has been no attempt,
until within the last few years, to apply systematic treatment to
this branch of science. Recently, however, more than one book has
been published upon the general subject of the castles of England.
Mr Alfred Harvey has lately given a lucid account of the growth of
the castle, with a valuable essay upon English walled towns; and the
present year has seen the appearance of a book in which Mrs Armitage
has embodied the result of labours of the utmost importance, extending
over many years. In addition to works of a general character, a
number of separate monographs, indispensable to students, have been
published during the last twenty years, in the transactions of various
archæological societies. The contributions of Mr W. H. St John Hope to
the study of castle architecture take a foremost place among these,
with papers such as those by Mr J. Bilson on Gilling castle and by
Mr Harold Sands on Bodiam and the Tower of London; and the late Mr
Cadwallader Bates’ unfinished _Border Holds of Northumberland_ contains
accounts of Warkworth and Bamburgh, as well as of smaller castles and
peles, which must take rank among the classics of the subject.

In the present volume an attempt is made to trace the growth of the
general principles of medieval fortification, with special reference
to castles, in which, within their limited area, the most complete
illustration of those principles is given. In order to give greater
clearness to the account of their evolution, a prefatory chapter deals
generally with earlier types of fortification in Britain, and the
critical period of Saxon and Danish warfare is treated in the second
chapter with some detail. This leads us to the early Norman castle of
earthwork and timber; and the stone fortifications to which this gave
place are introduced by a brief account of the progress of siegecraft
and siege-engines. The Norman castle and its keep or great tower are
then described. The developments of the later part of the twelfth
century and the arrangements of the thirteenth-century castle, with
those of the dwelling-house within its _enceinte_, follow and prepare
the way for the castles of the reign of Edward I. which represent
the highest effort of military planning. In the last two chapters
is related the progress of the transition from the castle to the
fortified manor-house, which followed the introduction of fire-arms
into warfare and preceded the Renaissance period. It will be seen that
the castle is taken as the unit of military architecture throughout;
but illustrations are constantly drawn from walled towns, which are, in
fact, the castles of communities, and in the eleventh chapter extended
allusion is made to the chief features of their plan and defences.

In speaking of the walled town, however, as the castle of the
community, it must not be forgotten that the castle is, in its origin,
the stronghold of a single owner. That origin is still to some extent
a vexed question; for the well-known theory of Mr G. T. Clark, that
the castle of Norman times was identical with the _burh_ of the Saxon
Chronicle, was accepted as a dogma by the antiquaries of twenty-five to
fifty years ago, and a theory thus established, however precipitately,
is not easily shaken. The patient and thorough work of Mrs Armitage,
which deserves the admiration of every scholar, has done much to
disturb the foundations on which Mr Clark built his hypothesis; and
Mr Neilson, Dr Round, Mr St John Hope, and others, have contributed
their share to the discovery of the real character of the evidence,
and the formulation of a sounder theory. The present writer has
devoted much time to the study of the original authorities for Saxon
and Norman military history, and it is his conviction that the weight
of documentary evidence is entirely upon the side of the views upheld
with so much ability and originality by these recent investigators. At
the same time, the earthworks of early castles still present several
difficult problems; and the discredit into which Mr Clark’s theory
has fallen is a warning against the too confident acceptation of the
conclusions of a more critical age, and against the danger of forcing
exceptions into the service of the rule.

In the earlier part of this book, some allusion is made to methods
of Roman warfare; and the main points of two of the sieges conducted
by Cæsar and his lieutenants are summarily described. It need hardly
be said, in view of what follows, that the methods of military
architecture in the middle ages have, for the most part, their
exact prototypes in Roman and Byzantine history. The student of the
siege-campaigns of Philip Augustus will be constantly reminded, for
example, of the relation by Ammianus of the exploits of Julian the
Apostate. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the importance, first,
of the contact of the Northmen who overran England and France with the
traditional expedients of Roman siegecraft, as they existed in the
eastern empire, and secondly, of the influence of the Crusades upon the
development of medieval fortification. The conditions of our military
architecture in the middle ages were naturally governed by the methods
of attack employed by a besieging force. As these had been brought
to a high state of perfection in the east, an advance upon which was
hardly possible, the history of English fortification, from the Norman
conquest to the general adoption of fire-arms in warfare, is that of a
progress towards a system of defence in which western Europe lagged far
behind the older centres of civilisation.

It is to be noted that, although the architecture of the castle and the
fortifications of towns naturally took its share in the formal progress
of Gothic art, the laws under which it was evolved bear no resemblance
to the principles of construction, in obedience to which the medieval
cathedral assumed its characteristic form. Ribbed vaults, Gothic
mouldings, and traceried windows afford a clue to the dates of the
various parts of a medieval castle, as they do to those of a church;
but they are merely incidental to a type of construction to which the
solid and impregnable wall is all-important. The cases are rare in
which the builders of castles paid much attention to elaborate detail
in the minor parts of their building: their decorative work is used
with the economy and simplicity appropriate to the massive construction
which their fortresses demanded.

A vast amount of work still remains to be done in the exploration
of our military buildings and the reconstruction of their history;
and, until that is accomplished, no thoroughly satisfactory general
hand-book can be written. Nevertheless, it is hoped that there is room
for books which may serve as general indicators to what has been done,
up to the present time, in this direction. The bibliography which will
be found preceding the text of this volume includes a selected list
of monographs or articles upon individual castles, many of which have
appeared in the transactions of various archaeological societies.
These vary considerably in value; but, taken as a whole, they serve to
enlarge our knowledge of the history and architecture of the buildings
with which they are concerned.

The author desires to express his thanks, first to his wife, without
whose constant help in the preparation of the book and in the provision
of drawings and plans to illustrate its pages, it could hardly have
been written. Mr Francis Bond, the editor of this series, has aided
the author with unfailing kindness, by reading through the proofs,
making suggestions as to the general form of the book, and arranging
for its adequate illustration. To the following, who have kindly
allowed the use of photographs, special thanks should be returned: Mrs
Jessie Lloyd, the Revs. J. Bailey and G. W. Saunders, and Messrs Harold
Baker, F. Bond, J. P. Gibson, F.S.A., G. J. Gillham, G. Hepworth, P. M.
Johnston, F.S.A., R. Keene, W. Maitland, E. A. and G. R. Reeve, F. R.
Taylor, and G. H. Widdows. The editors of the _Archaeological Journal_
have sanctioned the use of various plans from the annual programmes
of the Archaeological Institute. Mr A. Hadrian Allcroft and Messrs
Macmillan have given consent to the reproduction of three illustrations
from Mr Allcroft’s _Earthwork of England_. Permission to found the plan
of Chepstow castle on one in the official _Guide_ to that building
was kindly given by his Grace the Duke of Beaufort, through Mr Noel
H. P. Somerset. MM. Camille Enlart and Auguste Picard have permitted
the insertion of a plan of Château-Gaillard, founded on that in M.
Enlart’s _Manuel_. Mr R. Blair, F.S.A., has authorised a similar use of
illustrations founded on those of Dr Bruce’s _Roman Wall_. Thanks are
also due to the editor of the _Yorkshire Archæological Journal_ for the
plan of Sandal castle, and to Mr W. G. Watkins, jun., for his plan of
Lincoln castle. Special acknowledgments are due to Mr Godfrey L. Clark
for his liberality in putting at the disposal of the writer valuable
plans and drawings from his father’s work. The author much regrets that
questions of space and cost have prevented him from taking advantage of
more than a limited number of the generous offers of illustration which
reached him during the preparation of the book for the press.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                       PAGE

        PREFACE                                                  vii

        BIBLIOGRAPHY                                            xiii

     I. EARLY EARTHWORKS AND ROMAN STATIONS                        1

    II. THE SAXON AND DANISH PERIOD                               21

   III. THE ENGLISH CASTLE AFTER THE CONQUEST                     35

    IV. THE PROGRESS OF ATTACK AND DEFENCE                        58

     V. THE BEGINNING OF THE STONE CASTLE                         83

    VI. THE KEEP OF THE NORMAN CASTLE                            110

   VII. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: CYLINDRICAL TOWER-KEEPS        160

  VIII. THE DWELLING-HOUSE IN THE CASTLE                         188

    IX. CASTLES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY: THE FORTIFICATION
            OF THE CURTAIN                                       212

     X. THE EDWARDIAN CASTLE AND THE CONCENTRIC PLAN             252

    XI. MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE LATER MIDDLE
            AGES: FORTIFIED TOWNS AND CASTLES                    287

   XII. THE AGE OF TRANSITION: THE FORTIFIED DWELLING-HOUSE      334

        INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES                              369

        INDEX RERUM                                              381




BIBLIOGRAPHY


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2. General.

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  CLEPHAN, R. COLTMAN, F.S.A. An Outline of the History of Gunpowder
    and that of the Hand-Gun, from the epoch of the earliest records to
    the end of the fifteenth century (_Archaeol. Journal_, lxvi.
    145-70).

  —— The Military Handgun of the sixteenth century (_Archaeol.
    Journal_, lxvii. 109-50).

  —— The Ordnance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (_Archaeol.
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  CODRINGTON, THOMAS. Roman Roads in Britain. London, 1903.

  D’AUVERGNE, EDMUND B. The Castles of England. London, 1907.

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  OMAN, Prof. C. W. C., F.S.A. A History of the Art of War in the
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3. Special Monographs, etc.

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    xlvi. 93-113).

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    (privately printed). Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1910.

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    and _Trans. Durham and Northumb. Archaeol. Soc._).

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    Chesh. Antiq. Soc._, xix. 45-76).

  LANCASTER. Cox, E. W. (_Hist. Soc. Lancs. and Cheshire_, new ser.,
    xii. 95-122).

  LANGLEY. Bates, C. J. (_Archaeologia Æliana_, x. 38-56).

  LEEDS. Clark, ii. 176-8.

  —— James, F. V. (_Archaeologia Cantiana_, xxv. pp. xlix-liii).

  LEICESTER. Clark, ii. 182-8.

  —— Thompson, James. Leicester Castle. Leicester, 1859.

  LEWES. Clark (_Sussex Archaeol. Collections_, xxxiv. 57-70).

  LINCOLN. Clark, ii. 189-201.

  —— Sympson, E. Mansel, M.D. Lincoln, a historical and topographical
    account of the city. London, 1906.

  LLANSTEPHAN. Williams, Sir John (_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 6th ser.,
    vii. 108-18).

  LONDON, TOWER OF. Clark, ii. 203-72.

  —— Sands, H., F.S.A. (_Memorials of Old London_, London, 1908, vol.
    i. 27-65).

  LUDLOW. Clark, ii. 273-90.

  —— Hope, W. H. St John (_Archæologia_, lxi. 258-328).

  LUMLEY. Dodd, J. (_Journal British Archaeol. Assoc._, xxii. 45, 46).

  MANORBIER. Duckett, Sir J. (_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 4th ser., xi.
    134-145, 286-91, xiii. 166-73).

  MIDDLEHAM. Clark, ii. 293-300.

  MITFORD. Clark, ii. 300-3.

  MONTGOMERY. Clark, ii. 303-12.

  MONT-ST-MICHEL. Corroyer, E. Description de l’abbaye du
    Mont-Saint-Michel et de ses abords. Paris, 1877.

  —— Massé, H. J. L. J. A short history and description ... of Mont S.
    Michel. London, 1902.

  NEWARK-ON-TRENT. Blagg, T. M., F.S.A. A Guide to Newark, 2nd ed.,
    1911.

  NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. Bates, C. J. (_Archaeologia Æliana_, ix. 120-9).

  —— Heslop, R. O., F.S.A. (_ibid._, xxv. 91-105; _Journal of British
    Archaeol. Assoc._, new ser., xii. 137-8, 214-5).

  —— The Castle of Newcastle, a short descriptive guide. Newcastle,
    1906 (4th ed.).

  NORHAM. Bates, C. J. (_Archaeologia Æliana_, v. 52-5).

  —— Clark, ii. 322-35.

  —— Jerningham, Sir H. E. H. Norham Castle. Edinburgh, 1883.

  NORTHAMPTON. Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeol. Journal_, iii. 309-32).

  NORTHUMBRIAN CASTLES. Bates, Cadwallader J. The Border Holds of
    Northumberland (_Archaeologia Æliana_ [Newcastle-on-Tyne], xv.
    1-465).

  —— Hartshorne, C. H. Feudal and military antiquities of
    Northumberland and the Scottish Borders (_Memoirs of Brit. Archaeol.
    Inst._, Newcastle, vol. 2, 1858).

  NORWICH. Hartshorne, A., F.S.A. (_Archaeol. Journal_, xlvi. 260-8).

  —— The Walls of Norwich (report of corporation). Norwich, 1910.

  NOTTINGHAM. Green, Emanuel, F.S.A. (_Archaeol. Journal_, lviii.
    365-97).

  OAKHAM. Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeol. Journal_, v. 124-42).

  —— Thompson, A. Hamilton, F.S.A. (_Rutland Magazine_, v. 80-88).

  ODIHAM. Clark, ii. 336-45.

  OLD SARUM. Clark, ii. 447-458.

  —— Hope, W. H. St John, and Hawley, Lt.-Col. W., in _Proc. Soc.
    Antiq._, 2nd ser., xxiii. 190-200 and 501-17.

  ORFORD. Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeologia_, xxix. 60-9).

  —— Redstone, V. B. (_Trans. Suffolk Archaeol. Inst._, x. 205-30).

  OXFORD. Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeol. Journal_, viii. 354-65).

  —— Hope, W. H. St John (_ibid._, lxvii. 363-6).

  —— Lynam, Charles. The Crypts of the Churches of St Peter in the
    East, and of St George within the Castle, Oxford (_ibid._, lxviii.
    203-17).

  PEAK CASTLE. Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeol. Journ._, v. 207-16).

  —— Hope, W. H. St John (_Derbyshire Archaeol. Soc._, xi. 120-6).

  —— Kirke, Henry (_Derbyshire Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc._, xxviii.
    134-46).

  PEMBROKE. Clark (_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 3rd series, v. 1-13,
    etc.; vi. 1-11, etc.; vii. 185-204).

  —— Cobb, J. R. (_ibid._, 4th series, xiv. 196-220, 264-73).

  PEVENSEY. Clark, ii. 359-67.

  —— Salzmann, L. F. (_Sussex Archaeol. Collections_, xlix. 1-30, etc.).

  PICKERING. Clark, ii. 368-75.

  PONTEFRACT. Clark, ii. 375-88.

  —— Hartshorne, C. H., _Journal British Archaeol. Assoc._, xx. 136-55).

  PORCHESTER. Clark, ii. 388-400.

  PRUDHOE. Bates, _Border Holds_.

  RABY. Scott, O. S., Raby, its Castle and its Lords. Barnard Castle,
    1908.

  RAGLAN. Beattie, W. (_Jour. Archaeol. Assoc._, ix. 215-30).

  —— Bradney, J. A. (_Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc._, xx. 76-87).

  RICHMOND. Clark (_Yorkshire Archæol. Journal_, ix. 33-54).

  —— Curwen, J. F., (_Cumberland and Westmorland Antiq. and Archaeol.
    Soc._, vi. 326-32).

  —— _Yorks Archæol. Journal_, xx. 132-3.

  RISING. Beloe, E. M., F.S.A. (_Norfolk Archaeology_, xii. 164-89).

  —— Clark, i. 364-77.

  ROCHESTER. Beattie, W. (_Journal Archaeol. Assoc._, ix. 215-30).

  —— Clark, ii. 405-23.

  ROCHESTER. Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeol. Journal_, xx. 205-23).

  —— Payne, G. (_Archaeologia Cantiana_, xxvii. 177-92).

  ROCKINGHAM. Bigge, H. J. (_Assoc. Archit. Soc. Reports_, xi. 109-18).

  —— Clark, ii. 423-46.

  —— Hartshorne, C. H. (_Archaeol. Journal_, i. 356-78); and privately
    printed, Oxford, 1852.

  —— Wise, C. Rockingham Castle and the Watsons. London, 1891.

  SANDAL. Walker, J. W., F.S.A. (_Yorks Archæol. Journal_, xiii.
    154-88).

  SCARBOROUGH. Clark, ii. 458-67.

  —— Stevenson, W. H. (_East Riding Antiq. Soc._, xiv. 13-17).

  SKENFRITH. Bagnall-Oakeley, E. (_Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc._,
    xx. 93-6).

  —— Clark, ii. 467-72.

  SOUTHAMPTON (town walls). Clark, ii. 472-81.

  —— Hope, W. H. St John (_Proc. Soc. Antiq._, 2nd series, xvii. 221-4).

  STOKESAY. De la Touche, G. (_Journal British Archaeol. Assoc._, xxiv.
    238-40).

  —— J. G. D. (_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, xvi. 299-304).

  SUFFOLK CASTLES. Redstone, V. B. Suffolk Castles (_Suffolk Archaeol.
    Inst._, xi. 301-19).

  SUSSEX CASTLES. Blaauw, W. H. Royal licences to fortify towns and
    houses in Sussex (_Sussex Archaeol. Collections_, xiii. 104-17).

  SWANSEA. Capper, C. (_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 5th series, iii.
    302-7).

  TAMWORTH. Clark, ii. 481-8.

  TATTERSHALL. Sympson, E. Mansel (_Memorials of Old Lincolnshire_,
    1911, pp. 179-97).

  TICKHILL. Clark, ii. 494-9.

  TRETOWER. Clark, ii. 499-503.

  TUTBURY. Clark, ii. 505-8.

  WARK. Bates, _Border Holds_.

  WARKWORTH. Bates, _Border Holds_.

  WELLS (bishop’s palace). Davis, C. E. (_Journal British Archaeol.
    Assoc._, xiii. 177-86).

  WINGFIELD. Cox, J. C. (_Derbyshire Archaeol. Soc._, viii. 65-78).

  —— Edmunds, W. H. Guide to Wingfield Manor.

  YORK. Clark, ii. 534-48 (The Defences of York).

  —— Cooper, T. P. York, The Story of its Walls and Castles. London,
    1904.

  —— —— The Castle of York. London, 1912.

  YORKSHIRE CASTLES. Thompson, A. Hamilton. The Castles of Yorkshire
    (_Memorials of Old Yorkshire_, 1909, pp. 236-64).




MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND DURING THE MIDDLE AGES




CHAPTER I

EARLY EARTHWORKS AND ROMAN STATIONS


The history of military fortification in England begins with those
strongholds which, at vast expense of labour, the early inhabitants
of Britain hewed out of the soil, surrounding defensible positions
with ramparts of earth, divided by deep fosses. The approximate date
of these earthworks can be determined only by excavation, and a vast
amount of work remains to be done in this direction. The number,
however, of those which can be proved to be earlier than the Roman
occupation is very large; and, of this number, a considerable portion,
including some of the most stupendous examples of fortified hill-camps,
may have been the work of neolithic man some two thousand years before
the Christian era. Relative dates in this connection concern us less
than principles of fortification. The hill-camps of pre-Roman Britain
may be divided roughly into two classes. In the first place, there
are those which occupy the summit of a promontory of high land, which
slopes so steeply on all sides but one that artificial defence is
necessary on that side alone. The second class is that of the so-called
“contour forts,” in which the summit of a hill is utilised for the
camp, and encircled by trenches following the contour of the ground.

[Illustration: Maiden Castle]

In each case the defences provided by the inhabitants consist of
earthen banks, the materials of which have been dug from the fosses or
ditches which surround their outer face. An earthen bank and fosse,
thrown across the neck of land between the promontory and the plateau
beyond, convert the extremity of the promontory into a fortified
enclosure. Well-known examples of such fortresses are the three camps,
one on the east and two on the west side of the river, which guarded
the valley of the Avon at Clifton. The labour necessary for the
construction of these was naturally far less than that which went to
the making of the great contour fortresses, of which so many splendid
examples remain in Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, and in the chalk
districts generally. In these cases, the whole area, or at any rate the
greater part of it, stood in need of entrenchment. There are points
at which the slope is so precipitous that the bank and ditch were
dispensed with, or, as in part of Cissbury camp near Worthing, only a
single bank or ditch was necessary.[1] Also, the steeper the ground,
the less was the labour required in constructing the entrenchments.
But these positions often took the form of enclosures surrounded by
double or triple lines of defence, often of stupendous size. For the
greater part of its extent, the _vallum_ or bank of the oval camp of
Cissbury is double, and along the outer edge of the encircling fosse
is a formidable counterscarp or parapet. Poundbury, which lies on the
high ground west of Dorchester, has a single bank and ditch on its east
and south sides. On the west side the bank is doubled; but the north
side, where the hill falls almost perpendicularly to the Frome, was
left without artificial defence. The superb fortress of Maiden Castle
(2), which crowns an isolated hill, 432 feet high, south of Dorchester,
shows a bewildering complication of plan. The oval central space is
ringed by a number of banks and ditches, which varies from three on the
north side to as many as eight about the western entrance.

[Illustration: Maiden Castle; plan]

These early camps form merely the preface to our subject, and attention
need be called only to some general features. Their character, like
that of the medieval town or castle, was strictly defensive. They
were the strongholds of races whose weapons were of a very primitive
description, and could carry to no great range. What their inhabitants
needed was an impregnable fortress, within which they and their herds
could be well sheltered from attack. They belong to a day before siege
operations were possible. To carry them, a determined onset and a
hand-to-hand fight were necessary. Their strength therefore depended
on the complexity of their defences. No enemy could hope to scale the
flanking banks of Maiden Castle, one by one. The entrances to the camp,
at its eastern and western ends (3), were so elaborately concealed
by the overlapping ramparts, that even on a ground-plan they are far
from obvious; and it was almost inevitable that an attacking force,
without a guide acquainted with the ground, would be decoyed into a
_cul-de-sac_ and overwhelmed by the missiles of the defenders on the
ramparts.

[Illustration: Old Sarum

(From Mr Hadrian Allcroft’s _Earthwork of England_ by kind permission
of Messrs Macmillan & Co.)]

The steepness of the bank itself constituted a formidable means of
defence. At Maiden Castle the great northern banks rise to a height
of 60 feet or more. The top of the outer bank of Old Sarum (4) is
106 feet above the level of the ditch below.[2] In many cases, and
probably in all, the inner bank was crowned by a stockade, consisting
of a series of upright stakes, between and round which was twined an
impenetrable hedge of thorns. The plateau or berm which was sometimes
left behind the parapet of the bank, where there was more than a single
bank and ditch, was a valuable asset to the defenders of prehistoric
strongholds, forming an advance post from which they were able to wield
their missiles freely; while sometimes the summit of one or more of the
outer banks was made for the same purpose into a broad platform, which
allowed greater freedom of movement. The parapet or counterscarp of
the outer ditch was probably defended by a stockade, and it is known
that in some cases sharpened stakes or stones were fixed firmly in the
bottom of the ditches.

[Illustration: Bury Ditches]

The impregnable character of the _enceinte_ was thus ensured. But
further skill was necessary to defend the entrances of the camp. Of
these there was usually more than one, and these were necessarily
formed by cuttings through the banks. As in the case of Maiden Castle,
the path of entry could be converted into a labyrinth by multiplying
the banks and ditches. Every inch of this circuitous path is guarded
by tall ramparts: there are seven or eight points in its course at
which fatal error was possible, and one at any rate where an attacking
army could hardly fail to rush securely upon destruction. The eastern
entrance is so guarded by transverse banks that the path is almost
equally difficult to find. It was seldom, however, that entrances were
so elaborately protected. At Old Sarum the western entrance is covered
by a semicircular outwork, on the flanks of which are the two inlets to
the passage through the outer _vallum_. On the east side the entrance
is through a narrow passage which runs for some distance between the
parapet of the outer ditch and an outwork, and is at right angles
to the actual passage through the bank. The most common method of
defending the entrance was to make a diagonal path, usually from right
to left, through the banks. Each bank would thus overlap the next: the
summits above the path would be broadened out into platforms, capable
of occupation by bodies of defenders; and the right flank of the
enemy, unprotected by shields, would be exposed to their missiles. The
entrance, however, might be substantially protected by giving an inward
curve to the inner bank on each side of the path; and this is a plan
very frequently employed.[3] Where outworks were specially constructed,
their form differs considerably: we have seen them employed in two ways
at Old Sarum—as a kind of horn-work thrown out in front of a passage,
and as a spur projecting at right angles in front of an entrance. In
both cases an absolutely straight approach is precluded. Occasionally,
where an approximately direct approach was permitted, it is guarded on
one side by a spur thrown out at right angles to the bank. At Blackbury
castle, an early earthwork in south Devon, the main entrance has a
straight approach guarded on either side by a triangular outwork, which
is formed by a most ingenious arrangement of banks and by prolongations
of the main ditch (7). At the actual entrance the main bank is curved
outwards, with broad platforms at the top. The hollow interiors of the
outworks might serve as guard-houses, or the attacking force could
be driven into them from the gateway of the fort, and penned in a
position from which escape was impossible. Sometimes hollows were made
in the bank or in a projecting outwork near the gateway to serve as
guard-houses. On either side of the main entrance, the bank was often
slightly raised. At least one instance is known in which the main gate
was concealed by making a break in another part of the rampart, and
raising the bank on either side. The enemy, making for this point,
would miss the real entrance, and run the risk of losing his life in a
_cul-de-sac_ purposely constructed within the rampart.

[Illustration: Blackbury Castle

(From Mr Hadrian Allcroft’s _Earthwork of England_ by kind permission
of Messrs Macmillan & Co.)]

In these fortresses, the defences of which were due to instinctive
skill in the face of constant danger, it is impossible not to recognise
how many of the most scientific features of medieval fortification
were anticipated. The concentric plan of Caerphilly castle (270), with
its easy provisions of egress, and its difficulty of access; the spurs
which guard the approaches to Beaumaris (277) and Conway castles; the
barbicans which form so prominent a defence of Alnwick castle (243),
and the gateways of York have prototypes, of which their engineers were
probably unconscious, in the huge earthworks of prehistoric Britain.
Through a long interval, in which military art pursued a very gradual
evolution, the wheel came full circle. The devices of the earthwork
builders were translated into stone with far greater economy of labour.

Although the most conspicuous examples of early earthwork are found in
hill fortresses, camps were not confined to hilly sites, nor were their
defences always composed of earthwork. There are districts where the
hard nature of the soil forbade the construction of earthen banks and
fosses; and consequently there are many camps which are surrounded by
walls of rough uncemented stone, originally kept in place by facings
and bondings of larger and smoother stones.[4] These camps are usually
not large. They occur very commonly in the north of England: a good
example is that known as the Castles, in the valley of the Bedburn,
seven or eight miles west of Bishop Auckland. The enclosure, situated
on a boggy slope, is surrounded by shapeless masses of _débris_, the
ruins of the dry-built ring wall, which has lost its facing and so
has fallen to pieces. Stone was also used in the ramparts of some of
the camps on the rocky hills of Somerset, as in the camps on either
side of the Avon at Clifton. The great fortress of Worlebury, above
Weston-super-Mare, was surrounded by an immense wall of uncemented
stone, brought to great thickness by building several walls, each with
its own set of facing stones, up against each other. On its eastern
front, separated from the main rampart by a deep ditch, cut in the
solid rock, was another wall of stone; and this again was protected by
a series of outer earthworks (9). Dolebury, at the western extremity
of the Mendips, is surrounded by a double wall of loose limestone.[5]
In these cases, as in the Welsh strongholds of Penmaenmawr and Tre’r
Ceiri, geological conditions made the earthen bank an impossibility,
and the stone of the neighbourhood took its place.

[Illustration: Worlebury

(From Mr Hadrian Allcroft’s _Earthwork of England_, by kind permission
of Messrs Macmillan & Co.)]

It has often been argued that these prehistoric fortresses were merely
places of refuge, to which, in time of war, the dwellers in the levels
below betook themselves and their flocks. But it is much more probable
that they were the permanent habitations of communities, not merely
camps, but fixed settlements, chosen for habitation on account of their
strong position, and gradually fortified by labour which may have been
the work, in the more elaborate examples, of many generations. The
need of permanent protection for themselves and their flocks and herds
seems to have been felt by the early inhabitants of Britain to such an
extent that their regular settlements naturally took the semblance
of fortified camps. This is very evident in the case of those camps
which are found in positions where the natural advantages are very
small—positions which might be chosen by people in search of an abode,
but would hardly be chosen merely as a refuge. Camps in these positions
are never so imposing as those which crown hill-tops: the labour of
excavating the ditches and heaping up the banks was not aided by the
natural slope of a hill, and the earthworks, being slighter and nearer
the more recent haunts of men, are more liable to destruction. But the
defensive nature of such settlements is unmistakable.

The Roman invaders brought to England new methods of military
construction and the tradition of an architecture of dressed and
cemented stone. Their whole system of warfare was far in advance of
that pursued by the British tribes. They had developed the art of
siege to a high pitch. Their operations in open field were orderly and
scientific. Their walled strongholds were constructed with a view which
took into account, not only the mere strength of the ramparts, but
also the capacity of the defenders to man them. Men, not fortresses,
were the main asset of Roman warfare; and consequently their earthwork
was far less imposing than that of the Britons of the prehistoric age.
Their camps and permanent stations were usually surrounded by a single
fosse of no great depth: the rare cases in which traces remain of more
than a single fosse are camps upon the exposed northern frontier of
Roman Britain, where the onrush of the barbarian enemy was stayed by
a series of trenches, either covered with brushwood or filled with
sharp stones or stakes. Camps were hastily constructed of earthwork;
bank, ditch, and parapet playing their part. But where a camp became
a permanent station a stone wall took the place of the earthen bank.
The most important relic of the Roman occupation in Britain, the great
frontier wall from the Tyne to the Solway, was preceded by a _vallum_
of turf, a temporary defence which was superseded by permanent masonry.

No system of connected operations can be traced between prehistoric
forts. Each of these was probably an isolated stronghold. Roman
stations, on the other hand, were military posts manned by detachments
of one army, and connected by strategic roads. This is seen very
clearly in the case of the great wall already mentioned. The wall can
be traced for about 73 miles, from Wallsend (Segedunum) on the Tyne
to Bowness on the Solway. It is built in the usual Roman method, with
a core of cemented rubble between ashlar facings. Its breadth varies
between 7 and 9½ feet: the height appears to have been originally
from 16 to 18 feet.[6] Its northern face is defended by a ditch, marked
_a_ in the section below; but, as it follows the highest ground in its
course, and runs for some distance along the edge of basaltic cliffs
which dip northward, the ditch at these points becomes unnecessary and
is dispensed with. There were twenty-three stations in its length,
each garrisoned by a cohort of infantry or squadron of cavalry, chosen
from the Roman auxiliary troops of Gauls, Spaniards, Moors, &c.[7]
These were connected by a paved military road (_c_) along the south
side of the wall. At distances of a Roman mile from one another were
placed rectangular forts, now known as mile-castles, built against
the wall upon its south side; and the interval between each of these
was strengthened further by turrets, apparently two in number, which
also projected southward, but encroached slightly upon the thickness
of the wall. The south side of the military road was defended by an
earthen _vallum_, marked _d_,[8] the course of which is not directly
parallel to the wall, but is in places as much as half a mile distant,
keeping to lower ground where the wall prefers the summit of the basalt
ridge. This bank has a ditch (_e_) on its southern side, divided from
it by a level space or berm: the ditch has a southern parapet (_f_),
and another bank beyond (_g_). In certain places the ditch has also a
northern parapet; but the general arrangement of the earthen ramparts
is as described. Of the controversy as to the relative date of the wall
and its flanking earthworks nothing need be said here. Its military
purpose is abundantly clear. It provided not only a strong means of
defence against the attacks of the northern tribes, but a base of
operations for offensive warfare. Each of the stations and mile-castles
has a northern gateway in addition to its other entrances; and two of
the Roman roads which met the wall at intervals from the south passed
through it on their way to the Scottish border.

[Illustration: Section of Roman Wall and _Vallum_.]

The object of the great system of Roman roads was purely military.[9]
Along these broad paved “streets” the troops from the various stations
could be mobilised with great quickness. They kept as a rule to high
ground, choosing a convenient ridge, like that which runs from end to
end of Lincolnshire, and preserving as straight a line as possible.
The most important stations were placed at the crossing of rivers or
at the junction of roads. In the early days of the Roman occupation,
the operations of the army were directed entirely against the native
tribes. No system of coast defence was adopted. The necessity for
this came later, when Britain, under Roman dominion, was attacked by
bodies of Saxon pirates. A chain of fortresses was then constructed
along what was known as the Saxon shore, from Branodunum (Brancaster)
in north Norfolk to Portus Adurni in Sussex or Hampshire. The remains
of the walls of Gariannonum (Burgh Castle in Suffolk), Rutupiae
(Richborough in Kent), Anderida (Pevensey in Sussex), and Portus Magnus
(Porchester in Hampshire), are, next to the great wall, perhaps the
most interesting relics of the Roman epoch which we possess. The forts
of the Saxon shore were placed, for the most part, at the mouths of
estuaries, for which the foreign pirates would naturally make.

[Illustration: Cilurnum]

In several cases a Roman station was founded on the site of a British
settlement. It was, however, more compact in plan, and occupied only
a portion of the site. The earthworks defending the west side of the
settlement which preceded Camulodunum (Colchester) are two to three
miles beyond the Roman wall of the city, which occupied merely the
north-east angle of a very large and straggling enclosure. The original
Roman station at Lincoln may be taken as a typical example of a walled
town of this epoch.[10] It was a rectangular enclosure, with its longer
axis from east to west, occupying the south-west angle of the high
ridge above the valley of the Witham. In each of the four walls was a
gateway. The inner arch and the postern, with part of the side walls,
of the northern gateway still remain, and of the southern gateway there
are still substantial fragments; the line of the street which led from
one to the other is still fairly, though not accurately, preserved.
The positions of the east and west gateways are known: the line of the
street from the east gate to the centre of the city was deflected in
the middle ages, but its continuation to the west gate is represented
by the course of a street, much widened in modern times. Close to the
meeting of the four streets was the market-place or _forum_. This, in
the early days of Roman Lincoln, was the _praetorium_, or military
headquarters of the camp. But the legion quartered at Lincoln was
removed to York, as it seems, in the time of Vespasian, and the city
settled down to a civil and commercial existence. Round the _forum_
were clustered the chief public buildings of the city, and the
foundations of a large colonnaded building are still to be seen below
the present ground level. At Gloucester, Chichester, and Chester, the
course of the four main streets has been little, if at all, disturbed,
and their present meeting-place nearly represents the centre of the
Roman city. The arrangements of the _forum_ of a Romano-British town
have been made out very clearly by the excavations at Calleva Atrebatum
(Silchester) in Hampshire.[11] It was a closed rectangle, entered by
a gateway and surrounded by public buildings, in front of which were
colonnades; one side at Silchester was occupied by a great basilica,
which served the purposes of a hall of justice and mercantile exchange.

[Illustration: Borcovicus]

The stations on the Roman wall were of a more purely military character
than the towns which have been mentioned. They have the general
characteristic of a rectangular plan, with the angles rounded off, and
with a gateway, flanked by guard-houses, in each of the four sides. In
the two largest stations, however, Amboglanna (Birdoswald) and Cilurnum
(Chesters), there were, in addition to the main gateways, two smaller
gateways in the east and west walls respectively.[12] The walls of
the stations are generally 5 feet thick, and are built, like the wall
itself, of a core of cemented rubble, with facings of dressed stone.
The main gateways have a double passage, divided by a longitudinal
wall, which is pierced by a narrow passage in the centre. Their inner
and outer openings were spanned by arches, and closed by gates which
were hung on iron pivots fixed in the jamb of each opening next the
wall. At Borcovicus (Housesteads) there was no dividing wall through
the passage between the outer and inner openings of the gateway; but
each of these openings is composed of two arches, divided by a square
pier (15).[13] Each gateway had a stone sill, raised above the level
of the stone pavement. The interior passage was flanked by rectangular
guard-houses. The gateways of Borcovicus show interesting signs of
reconstruction, which point to the fact that, not long after its
construction, the station was seized by an enemy. At a subsequent time,
its Roman occupants reduced the width of the gateways by walling up
one half of the double openings. This was done apparently at different
times, the east gateway bearing signs of being treated in this way
at an earlier period than the others. The west gateway was walled up
with great ingenuity. Of its outer entrances, the northern, and of its
inner entrances, the southern, were blocked; so that a foe, choosing
this face of the station for attack, had to press his way through an
elbow-shaped, instead of a straight passage.

[Illustration: Borcovicus; West Gateway]

[Illustration: Pevensey]

The wall of a Roman station, between the gateways, was often flanked
by a series of towers, each projecting from the wall in the form of
a semicircle or rather more than a semicircle. This was the case
in some of the large Gallo-Roman cities, like Autun.[14] While the
rounded form of these towers made them difficult to undermine or
batter down, their summits served as standing-ground for the large
_ballistae_ or catapults, from which javelins or stones could be
hurled upon the attacking force. Their projection at regular intervals
made it possible for the defenders to command the whole line of wall
between each pair of towers; so that the besiegers’ attack would
necessarily be concentrated upon the towers themselves. At Pevensey
(16), where the enclosure of the station is almost oval, and not, as
usual, rectangular, in shape, there are remains of twelve solid round
towers, including those which flank the south-western gateway. At
Burgh Castle there are four towers in the east wall, two of which are
angle-towers.[15] Owing to the scarcity of good building stone in the
district, the walls at Burgh Castle are unfaced, and are built of flint
with bonding courses of tiles; only the upper portions of the towers
were bonded into the walls. A bed of concrete, with a platform of oak
planks above, formed the foundation of the towers.[16] The angles of
the wall of Roman York were strengthened by large polygonal towers. A
large portion of one of these, a magnificent example of Roman masonry,
remains; it formed the north-western angle of the city, and was hollow,
with an internal as well as an external projection (17). No outward
projections appear to occur upon the Roman wall or in the walls of
its stations. The “mile-castles,” as already noted, are built against
the inner side of the wall. At Cilurnum (13) and Borcovicus there
are foundations of square towers against and inside the containing
walls, while the angles of the stations are simply rounded off. The
western part of the north wall of Borcovicus has also been doubled in
thickness, apparently to give a safe foundation for a large catapult
planted on the top of the wall. The thickening was accomplished, at
a date later than the original building, by constructing an inner
wall, and filling up the space between this and the outer rampart with
clay. At Cilurnum, which appears to have been in existence before the
great frontier wall was made, the original east and west gateways were
left on the north side of the wall, which intersects the station.
As they were thus insufficiently protected, they were filled up
solid with masses of rubble, and were probably used as platforms for
catapults,[17] smaller gateways being made on the south side of the
wall.

[Illustration: York; Multangular Tower]

[Illustration: Borcovicus; Praetorium]

In the interior of the station, as at Lincoln, York, and Borcovicus,
the main street, or _via principalis_, led directly from the north
to the south gate.[18] The centre of the station, west of the _via
principalis_, was occupied by the _praetorium_, the headquarters
of the commander of the legion, answering to the space where, in a
temporary camp, the tents of the general and his staff were pitched.
As we have seen, the place of the _praetorium_ was taken in commercial
towns by the _forum_. The _praetorium_ at Borcovicus consisted of two
rectangular courts, open to the sky in the centre. The outer court,
with its main entrance facing the eastern street or _via praetoria_,
was surrounded on three sides by a colonnade. A doorway, immediately
opposite the main entrance, opened into the eastern colonnade of the
inner court. This had no northern or southern colonnades, but had
doorways to north and south: its western side was occupied by a line
of five rectangular chambers, the central one of which was the chapel
where the standards, with the other sacred treasures belonging to the
cohort,[19] were kept. The _praetorium_ faced the eastern street of
the station, which led to the east gate or _porta praetoria_. The gate
at the end of the western street was called _porta decumana_.[20]
The remaining buildings of the station consisted of straight blocks,
intersected by lanes: the majority of these buildings would be used as
barracks. It should be noted that, in the planning of a Roman station
or walled town, the _praetorium_ or _forum_ was taken as the central
point: the _via principalis_, in order to run clear from gate to gate,
was thus on one side of an axis of the rectangle, and the north and
south gates[21] were not in the centre of their respective walls.

It is clear that, as time went on and the power of Rome in Britain
grew weaker, the defensive character of the great wall and that of the
stations which it connected were emphasised at the expense of their
character as bases of active warfare. But it must be repeated that
Roman stations in Britain were not planned to form impregnable shelters
for communities mainly pastoral. They were centres for bodies of
fighting men, linked to each other by a splendid system of roads. The
Roman station at Dorchester, the lines of which are so well preserved
to-day, was founded, not within the ramparts of Maiden Castle or
Poundbury, but on the lower slopes near the passage of the Frome. The
single rampart and single ditch of a Roman town were almost invariable.
Free egress as well as entrance, provisions for attack as well as
defence, were necessary; and, with these objects in view, immense
earthen defences, such as those of Maiden Castle, would be cumbersome.
Bodies of Roman troops, as at Lincoln or Colchester, occasionally
occupied part of the _enceinte_ of a British settlement; but it is very
rarely that, as in the case of Old Sarum, we find a British hill fort
which also probably served as a Roman station. In this instance, the
occupation of the fort was due, doubtless, to its neighbourhood to the
military road: the road would not have been brought out of its way to
include the fort in its course. Roman stations, although they differed
in size, were small and compact, when contrasted with the large and
straggling areas occupied by the British settlers. Suburbs naturally
grew up outside their walls, and sometimes, although not very often,
the walled enclosure was extended to include a growing outer district.
This is supposed by many antiquaries to have happened at Lincoln, where
the original Roman station occupied the summit of the hill north of
the great bend of the Witham, which here turns from its northerly
course due eastward. After the city of Lincoln had settled down to
civil life, practically the whole slope of the hill south of the first
_enceinte_ was included within the city and encircled by a wall.
Part of the east wall of this later enclosure is still visible: the
Stonebow, the medieval south gate of the city, about a hundred yards
from the river and the bridge, appears to be on the site of the later
south gateway of Roman Lincoln.[22]




CHAPTER II

THE SAXON AND DANISH PERIOD


The Saxon invasions were a rude disturbance to the progress of English
civilisation. The Romanised Britons lay more and more at the mercy of
the invaders, as the soldiery were called away to take part in the last
struggles of the western Empire in Italy. Barbarians from the country
north of the wall, Saxon and Jutish pirates from across the sea, saw
in the monuments of the Roman occupation fair ground for pillage.
It is difficult to estimate the destruction caused by the invaders.
But, apart from the havoc wrought by the Teutonic immigrants and the
northern tribes, it is certain that the walled city of Roman times
did not commend itself as a habitation to the new settlers. The fact
that their settlements flank Roman roads, like Ermine street or the
Fosseway, at distances of a mile or so from the main thoroughfare,
proves little in itself; for the villas of the Roman period, which
probably included, like the _latifundia_ of Italy, a considerable
population of labourers on each estate, lay at some distance from
the main roads. The frequent villages—hams, tuns, and worths—were,
however, a new feature; and the life of each village, for which a
clearing was made in the wooded country-side, was pastoral, not
military. This fact is of importance with regard to the scanty traces
of defensive fortifications constructed during the Saxon occupation.
Here and there natural opportunities prompted the Saxon invaders to
found settlements on sites of Roman cities. The geographical position
of London or Exeter, at the head of a broad estuary, made such places
natural centres of traffic, of high importance to trade routes. On the
other hand, while some of the larger provincial capitals preserved
their life in part, other _urbes_ and the smaller _oppida_, or walled
towns, were left desolate. Pons Aelii, near the east end of the Roman
wall, was abandoned until in the tenth century a small monastery was
founded on the site, and the cluster of houses which gathered round it
received the name of Muncanceaster (Monkchester). The place, however,
did not recover its importance or become a permanent settlement
until the Conqueror founded there his New Castle on the Tyne, which
became the nucleus of the city of the middle ages and modern times.
The military stations of the Saxon shore were ruined and abandoned.
We know of the sack of Anderida in 492 A.D.: the walls of the station
were left standing, but the later settlement of Pevensey grew up in
the open country outside the walls. Richborough, Othona at the mouth
of the Blackwater, Burgh Castle, sheltered no new settlements: the new
villages or towns, Sandwich, Bradwell, Burgh, were all at a distance
from the Roman walls or outside their area. Othona (Ythanceaster) was
deserted when Cedd made it a missionary centre in the seventh century;
and the little church, which exists to-day and may have been Cedd’s own
church, was built across the site of the east gate of the station. In
Leicester, which became an important Danish centre, the topography of
the Roman station was much disturbed, and the church of St Nicholas,
the nave of which is probably a little earlier than the Norman
conquest, was built within the walls directly in front of the blocked
west gate of the city. Towns like Chester, Gloucester, or Chichester,
which have preserved the line of their Roman streets with little
alteration, are rare; and the continuity of plan does not necessarily
prove that there was a similar continuity in the life of the places.
On the contrary, the present lay-out of either town shows four streets
meeting at an open space or Carfax in the centre of the city: no trace
remains above ground of the closed _forum_, which at Silchester and
Corstopitum formed the centre of the plan and directed the course of
the streets. Silchester, laid waste by Saxon invaders, has shared the
fate of Anderida, Othona, and many other once prosperous Romano-British
towns.

In French history there was no such interruption as the Saxon invasion
caused in our own. The consequence is that the chief provincial
capitals of to-day, the centres of local government and religion, are
and always have been cities of Roman origin, which, although their
Latin name has not always been kept, preserve the names of the Gallic
tribes amid which they were founded. Reims, Paris, Amiens, Beauvais,
Bourges, Le Mans, Tours, Rouen, Sens, Troyes, Chartres, cities which
have taken a most prominent place in French history, and contain
the most noble monuments of French religious architecture, have an
unbroken history from Roman times and even earlier. The cathedrals
of Christianised Gaul rose in the centre of the cities: outside the
walls, as time went on, rose abbeys like those of Saint-Ouen at
Rouen, Saint-Taurin at Evreux, La Couture and Le Pré at Le Mans. The
fortresses of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, like the older
castle of Rouen, were founded in a corner of the city, possibly on
the site of the Roman _arx_ or citadel, of which we have substantial
remains in the abandoned Roman station of Jublains (Naeodunum
Diablintum). In time the city grew, extending into suburbs far
outside the original walls: a suburb sprang up round the neighbouring
monastery. The circuit of the walls was extended beyond their old
limit. The eastern Roman wall might be broken down, as at Le Mans,
where the cathedral was in a corner of the city, to make way for the
thirteenth-century quire of the principal church:[23] the defences of
the city were here transferred to a new outer ring of wall, the line of
which can be seen on the bank of the Sarthe. Within the present extent
of such cities the plan of the Roman station can frequently be traced:
whatever the vicissitudes of the place may have been, no year has
passed in which the chatter of the Vieux-Marché has been silent, or the
Grande-Rue has been untrodden daily by busy footsteps. But in English
towns of corresponding importance the case is different. If the cities
were preserved from pillage, traces of Christianity and civilisation
were obliterated. If York kept its position as an inhabited town,
its population must have been small and poor: the Anglian sovereigns
of Northumbria dwelt, not in the old Roman capital, but at country
settlements like Goodmanham. The history of York begins again with the
mission of Paulinus and the foundation of the first Saxon cathedral
there. We also hear of Lincoln in connection with Paulinus, who
consecrated a church there; and this city, like York, was large and
important at the time of the Conquest. But, in both these cases, the
Anglian invasion first, and the Danish invasion later, caused a serious
disturbance to civic and religious life. Although there is evidence
that the Saxon bishops who ruled at Dorchester (Oxon.) in the tenth
and eleventh centuries looked upon Lincoln as the real seat of their
authority, it did not recover its position as an ecclesiastical capital
until a Norman bishop raised his cathedral in the south-eastern corner
of the hill city. Even then the cathedral stood, not with its front to
the _via principalis_, as at Le Mans, nor with its face to the _forum_,
as at Coutances, but in an enclosure of its own, apart from the main
life of the city. When we think of the great ecclesiastical centres of
England, there are some names which recall the Roman occupation; but
of these Chichester, Exeter, Lincoln, did not become sees of bishops
until the time of the Norman conquest; Chester, although regarded
as one seat of their authority by the medieval bishops of Lichfield,
was never the real capital of their diocese. Bath and Old Sarum were
given episcopal rank by Norman prelates. The true Saxon cathedral
towns were villages of post-Roman origin—Lichfield, Wells, Sherborne,
Durham, Ripon, Elmham, Thetford. The fact is significant; for, upon the
continent of Europe, the ecclesiastical importance of a city was the
result of its prominent position as the civil metropolis of a district.
The choice of these obscure villages for the sees of Saxon prelates
is a testimony to the practical abandonment of Roman cities by the
invaders.

As a matter of fact, the Saxons trusted little to walls: their
strength, after they had settled in the country, lay neither in
earthwork, nor in stonework, but in the boundary of wood or marsh
that extended round their settlements. Consequently, during the six
centuries and a half between the final departure of the Roman legions
and the Norman conquest, the history of military construction in
England is very obscure. Work in stone, which can be distinguished as
Saxon, is practically confined to churches. Such fortifications of this
long period as can be identified are entirely in earthwork. In only a
few cases we hear of a stone wall of _enceinte_ being built, or an old
Roman town wall being repaired. Further, it may safely be said that
these fortifications, at any rate until the end of the period, whether
their builders were Saxons or Danes, were intended to protect, not
private individuals, but a community. Of the private citadel or castle
we hear nothing until the period immediately before the Conquest, and
then it is heard of only as a foreign importation.

The most formidable earthworks of the Saxon period are the great dykes
known as Wansdyke and Offa’s dyke, with the subsidiary works of the
Bokerley dyke and Wat’s dyke. Offa’s dyke, which ran from the Dee in
the north to the Wye in the south, with a ditch along its western side,
and the parallel line of Wat’s dyke,[24] are generally acknowledged
to have formed the boundary line between the Mercian kingdom of Offa
(757-96) and the territory of the conquered Britons. The object and
date of Wansdyke and the Bokerley dyke is not so clear. The Wansdyke
ran from the Bristol Channel near Portishead, across north Somerset and
along the downs south and south-west of Bath, passed through Wiltshire,
north of Devizes and south of Marlborough, and, leaving Wiltshire east
of Savernake park, turned southwards in the direction of Andover. The
Bokerley dyke, in its present state, is only some four miles long, and
forms the boundary between Wilts and Dorset, on the road from Salisbury
to Cranborne. In both cases the ditch is upon the north or north-east
side of the bank or dyke, which is clear proof that the defence was
provided against attack from that quarter. The Wansdyke is obviously
a late Roman or post-Roman work, for it encroaches in places upon the
adjacent Roman road. The system on which it is planned resembles that
of the Roman wall, in that its course includes a series of forts,
presumably of earlier date. The conclusion which seems irresistible
is that propounded by the late General Pitt-Rivers, that the Wansdyke
was raised by the Roman Britons, to defend their last refuge in the
south-west against the invading Saxons. If this is really the case,
one can only wonder at the energy of despair which constructed this
huge rampart, and at the uselessness of its builders’ attempt to ward
off an invasion from the inland country alone. Ceawlin’s victory at
Dyrham in 577 brought Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath into the hands
of the Saxons, and cut off the communication between the Britons of
the south-west and those of Wales. Whatever part the Wansdyke, on the
hills north of which the battle was fought, may have played during the
century before the fight at Dyrham, its history must have closed with
Ceawlin’s conquest.

The first work of fortification by the Teutonic invaders, of which
we have any account, is the royal city of Bebbanburh or Bamburgh in
Northumberland, which Ida (547-59), king of Northumbria, called after
his wife Bebba. This, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,[25] was first
girt by a hedge, and afterwards—probably long after the days of Ida—by
a wall. One of the most noble of English castles stands upon the
basaltic rock of Bamburgh, and its walls embrace the site of Ida’s
capital. But the later stronghold must not be confounded with the
earlier. The _burh_ of Ida, which Penda sought to burn in 651,[26]
was not the private castle which William Rufus afterwards besieged.
The name of Bebbanburh is significant. _Burh_ or _burg_ was a term
applied by Saxons to fortified places. Cissbury in Sussex, Badbury and
Poundbury in Dorset, Battlesbury and Scratchbury in Wilts, Cadbury,
Dolebury, and Worlebury in Somerset, are early camps to which Saxons
gave the name of _burh_. Searobyrig, the later Salisbury, was the
name given by them to the great fortress of Old Sarum. Peterborough
and Bury St Edmunds bear names derived from _burh_ and its dative
_byrig_, and were towns enclosed by a rampart.[27] And, although, by
a not very satisfactory method of argument, the Saxon _burh_ has been
taken very generally as the prototype of the castle, the very cases on
which this argument chiefly rests show that the _burh_ was a fortified
town, and not the fortress of an individual lord. It is true that, at
any rate until the time of Alfred the Great, the word _burh_ implies
a fortified house as well as a fortified collection of dwellings; but
the _burhs_ of which we read in connection with the Danish wars were
towns and villages. The term is equivalent to the Roman _oppidum_, the
French _bourg_, or the German _burg_. The first of the Saxon emperors,
Henry the Fowler, made the founding of _burhs_ a leading part of his
policy:[28] Merseburg, Brandenburg, Würzburg, all bear the familiar
suffix. And, had not a later age chosen perversely to call the greatest
of our prehistoric camps Maiden Castle, we should have had a Maidenbury
of our own to show, far more ancient than the German Magdeburg.[29]

Some uncertainty attaches to the rare remains of fortifications
of _burhs_ “wrought” by Saxons and Danes. It would seem that they
cannot have been very strong. The defences consisted of the usual
earthen bank with a stockade on the top and an outer ditch; but one
may safely assume that the strength of the defence lay mainly in the
actual stockade, and that the bank and ditch never reached formidable
proportions. Thelwall, near Warrington, takes its name from the wooden
stockade, the wall of thills or upright palisades with which Edward the
Elder surrounded the village in 923.[30] There are exceptional cases
in which we hear of a stone wall; but in these instances the _burh_
was a Roman city or station, and the wall was a Roman wall. This may
be fairly assumed with regard to the wall of Edward the Elder’s _burh_
at Towcester (921). It was certainly the case at Colchester, where the
Danish defenders were worsted in the same year by the _fyrd_ of Kent
and Essex. When Alfred the Great “repaired Lundenburh” in 886,[31] he
undoubtedly made good the weak places in the stone wall which the
Romans had made round their city of London.

The _burh_, the fortified stronghold of a Saxon community, comes into
prominence as the result of the Danish invasions of the ninth century.
The method of the invaders was in almost every case the same. Seamen
before everything else, they sought in their long ships the estuaries
of rivers, and proceeded to penetrate inland as far as the stream
would take them. From a base of operations, preferably an island in
the river, where they could harbour their boats safely, they rode into
the surrounding country, burning and pillaging. In 835, allied with
the Britons of Cornwall, they came up the Tamar, and fought a battle
with Egbert at Hingston down, west of Tavistock, in which they suffered
defeat.[32] In 843, they effected their first permanent settlement
in France, on the island of Noirmoutier, south of the estuary of the
Loire: they invaded the banks of the river, sacking Nantes and killing
the bishop, and, after their summer campaign was over, settled down
to build houses for winter quarters on their island.[33] Each of the
great French rivers was infested during the next few years by bands of
northern pirates. Northmen in 845 sailed up the Garonne to Toulouse,
and up the Seine to Paris, where destruction was avoided only by
buying them off. Towns which lay near the rivers or sea coast were
invariably sacked. Sometimes the pirates, growing bolder, left their
ships and rode for some distance inland. In 851, starting from Rouen,
they pillaged Beauvais. In 855, after burning Angers, they took to
the land and sacked Poitiers. In both cases, however, their return
journey was successfully cut off by a French army. In 856 the Danes of
the Seine made their winter quarters at Jeufosse, on the bend of the
river between Vernon and Mantes, and within no great distance of Paris.
Within the next few years, they established themselves in strong posts
at Oissel, above Rouen, and at Melun, above Paris. The greater part of
the last sixteen years of Charles the Bald (_d._ 877) was occupied in
defending Paris against their annual forays, repairing the bridges they
had destroyed, and so cutting off their return from expeditions up the
Marne and Oise. But, although they were constantly checked, they always
returned. They abandoned the siege of Paris in 885-6, but only after
Charles the Fat had paid them off. The last great invasion of France by
the Northmen was in 911, when, by the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte,
Charles the Simple ceded the duchy of Normandy to Rollo.

The actual settlement of the Northmen in England began in 851, eight
years after the occupation of Noirmoutier. They wintered in Thanet, and
sailed thence up the Stour and Thames, taking Canterbury and London.
As in France, their landward excursions from their boats were less
successful, and they were seriously beaten by Æthelwulf at Ockley in
Surrey. But failure did not hinder them from returning. As in France,
the system of buying off their attacks was adopted—a ready inducement
to repeated plunder. In 887 they were in the Humber, and dealt a final
blow to the decaying power of Northumbria at York. Next year they
invaded Mercia up the Trent, and established themselves at Nottingham.
The years 870 and 871 were remarkable for their land operations. The
defeat of the East Anglian king Edmund in Suffolk laid Mercia and
Lindsey open to their ravages, and so established their power in what
was to become the Danelaw; while in 871, within reach of the Danish
camp on the Thames at Reading, occurred the great series of battles
in Berkshire and Wiltshire, in which Alfred’s bravery was proved. The
details of Alfred’s defence of Wessex against the Northmen are well
known: the compromise effected at Wedmore in 878 preserved the south of
England to Englishmen, but established the Danes north of a line which
may roughly be represented by the course of the Welland, Soar, upper
Trent, and Mersey.

England, however, had to endure a long intestine warfare for years
after the death of Alfred. The strenuous efforts of his children,
Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd, prevented the men of the Danelaw from
extending their power southwards. But the Northmen used persevering
tactics, and not merely the enemy within, but fresh invasions from
without, disturbed the peace of the monarchs of Wessex during the later
part of the tenth century. After the disastrous reign of Ethelred the
Redeless came a period of Danish rule over the whole of England; while
the reigns of the last Saxon kings formed the prelude to the final
invasion of the Northmen, the Norman conquest.

The most interesting feature, from a military point of view, of the
contest between Wessex and the Danelaw, is the systematic defence of
the Midland rivers by _burhs_ during the reign of Edward the Elder,
either by himself or his sister Æthelflæd. Æthelflæd, who fixed
her chief residence at Tamworth, on the edge of Staffordshire and
Warwickshire, ruled over Mercia, and fortified her frontier between
909 and her death in 921. Her brother died in 925: his activity in
constructing _burhs_ began about 913. Of the construction of these
fortresses two phrases are used: their builders either “wrought” or
“timbered” them. Both words probably mean the same thing: the town
or village to be fortified was enclosed within the usual wooden
stockade.[34] The identity of a few of the _burhs_ is uncertain; but
the remainder may be classified as follows: (1) _Burhs_ wrought by
Æthelflæd on the river banks of her frontier: these include Runcorn and
possibly Warburton on the Mersey, Bridgnorth and possibly Shrewsbury
on the Severn, Tamworth and Stafford on tributaries of the Trent, and
Warwick on the Avon. (2) Frontier _burhs_ taken by Æthelflæd from the
Danes were Derby and Leicester, both on tributaries of the Trent.
(3) Eddisbury in Cheshire, an early hill fortress, was the site of
one of Æthelflæd’s _burhs_: here the inference is that the existing
hill fort was palisaded by her orders, and garrisoned as a camp of
refuge. Of Edward’s _burhs_, Witham and Maldon on the Essex Blackwater,
of which some probable traces remain, belong to class (1), as also
does Thelwall, his fortified post on the Mersey. To class (2) belong
Colchester, Huntingdon, and Tempsford, the first on the Colne, the
two latter on the Great Ouse. None of Edward’s works bear any analogy
to class (3), unless his last _burh_, Bakewell in Derbyshire, may be
taken into account. But (4) Bakewell represents a push northward along
a hostile border, and may be claimed, with Towcester, as belonging
to a fourth class of _burh_, unconnected with a navigable river, but
providing a constant menace to the enemy. (5) Towcester may, however,
also be classed with Colchester as a Roman _burh_ with stone walls.
A sixth class of _burh_ was riverine, like class (1), but with this
difference, that it was double. There was one _burh_ on one side, the
other on the opposite side of the river. The cases are Hertford on
the Lea, Buckingham and Bedford on the Ouse, Stamford on the Welland,
and Nottingham on the Trent. At Hertford and Buckingham both _burhs_
were the work of Edward. At Bedford, Stamford, and Nottingham, the
northern _burh_ was in the hands of the enemy, and Edward took it by
converting the southern suburb into a fortified and garrisoned post.
His proceedings were exactly analogous to those of Charles the Bald in
862. He gained control of the navigable rivers by placing garrisons on
both their banks; the natural places which he chose were the existing
towns on the river, and the garrison, as at Nottingham, was formed out
of the inhabitants.

Some of these _burhs_, as we have seen, were in the occupation of the
Northmen; and at a later date, when the frontier of the west Saxon
kingdom had been pushed back, and English kings were again placed on
the defensive, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford, and Leicester
became known as the five _burhs_, the centre of Danish power in the
Midlands. There is no reason to suppose that there was any essential
difference between the _burhs_ of Danes and Saxons—that the _burh_
which Æthelflæd took at Derby was in any way different from her own
_burh_ at Tamworth. When the Danes first landed on a river bank or
island and beached their ships, they constructed what is called in the
Chronicle a _geweorc_, _i.e._, a thing wrought. This probably consisted
of a slight bank and ditch enclosing the landward side of their
position. Where they raised permanent dwellings within the _enceinte_,
the _burh_ grew out of the _geweorc_, just as a Roman station developed
out of a mere camp. However, it is unsafe to push the phraseology
of the Chronicle too far, or to fasten a too technical meaning upon
its words; and the fact remains that the term _geweorc_ may be very
well applied to a wrought _burh_. The Danish _burhs_ at Huntingdon
and Tempsford, the landmarks of their progress up the Ouse to recover
Bedford in 921, are called indiscriminately _burh_ and _geweorc_.

[Illustration: Map of Saxon and Danish Burhs

[The line from the Mersey to the Wash roughly indicates the Danish
frontier.]]

Many of the _burhs_ wrought or taken during the Danish war became,
after the Norman conquest, sites of castles; and the presence of a
Norman castle at such places has led to the still popular inference
that the castle simply usurped the earthworks of the earlier
stronghold, and that therefore the _burh_ was equivalent to the later
castle.[35] It is not surprising that all the five places where we hear
of a _burh_ on either side of the river should have been chosen for
the foundation of later castles. But the castle earthworks of Hertford
and Bedford, the castles of which there is record at Buckingham and
Stamford, were private strongholds which formed part of the defences of
one of the _burhs_, but were not identical with either. The Conqueror’s
castle of Nottingham, greatly transformed in its present state, looked
down from its sandstone cliff upon the northern _burh_ where Edward
welded together Englishman and Dane in one common work of defence and
bond of citizenship.[36] But even were it not self-evident that the
_burh_ is identical with the _burgus_ or _burgum_ of Domesday and the
“borough” whose organisation plays so large a part in English history,
there is one fact which makes its identification with the castle
impossible. At Hertford, Buckingham, Bedford, Stamford, Nottingham,
there were two _burhs_, but there never has been more than one castle.
When the Conqueror wrought a castle on either side of the river at
York, he did not repeat Edward the Elder’s tactics literally: he
applied them to a form of fortification of which Edward knew nothing.
If the test by which the Norman castle is identified with the Saxon
_burh_ fails in these instances, we are obviously forbidden to make the
identification in the cases of single _burhs_ like Warwick or Tamworth.
The great earthen mount and curtain wall which stand in the south-west
corner of Tamworth, beside the Tame, are not the remains of Æthelflæd’s
_burh_, although it is not improbable that they were raised on the site
of her dwelling-house. Her _burh_ is the town of Tamworth itself; and
although her wall of palisades is gone, there are still traces of the
ditch with which, in the eighth century, Offa had ringed the _burh_
about.

[Illustration: Earthwork at Tempsford.]

There is no trace of any _arx_ or citadel within these enclosures.
Their defenders were the citizens. In France, for reasons sufficiently
indicated, the art of fortification was more advanced. Roman traditions
survived there without that abrupt break which the historical
continuity of England had suffered. No fortress of stone and wood, such
as that which Charles the Bald, in 869, built within the _enceinte_
of the abbey of St Denis, is heard of in Saxon England. The state of
society in which, as early as 864, Charles found it necessary, by the
edict of Pistes, to forbid his vassals to raise private fortresses
without royal authority, did not exist in England, and was only
beginning to exist there two centuries later. In both centuries we
have to deal with the same invaders, but with defenders whose state of
social development was quite different. Although the private fortress
or castle was introduced into England by the Normans, and although
the type of earthwork associated with it was developed to its highest
extent by Northmen, not only in Normandy and England, but also in
Denmark, it is nevertheless probable that the earliest development
of that form of earthwork took place on Frankish soil. The Danish
_geweorc_ or _burh_, where it can be traced with any certainty—and this
is in very few cases—supplied accommodation for the force, and probably
a harbour for its vessels, but no private stronghold belonging to a
prominent leader. The earthwork called Gannock’s castle (32), close
to the Ouse near Tempsford, is sometimes supposed to be the _geweorc_
wrought by the Danes in 921. In plan, it very closely resembles a
rather small mount-and-bailey castle of the usual early Norman type,
and could have accommodated only a very small body of defenders. But
the point in which it differs from the ordinary mount-and-bailey
plan—the smallness of the mount, which is a mere thickening of the
earthen bank, and the absence of a moat round its base—may show that
here the Danes anticipated their Norman successors with a plan with
which some of them may have gained acquaintance during marauding
expeditions in France. This, however, is mere conjecture, and the
utility of such a fortress for the immediate purposes of the Danes may
well be questioned.[37] Of the private dwellings of the Danish leaders,
and how far they may have approximated to the later type of the castle,
we know nothing. St Mary’s abbey at York is on the site of Galmanho,
the residence of the Danish earls outside the western wall of the
Roman city, but nothing of its earthworks remain. If they were at all
considerable, like those of a mount-and-bailey castle of Norman times,
it seems strange that no trace of them should be left.

The details of the doings of the Danish army, during the reign of
Ethelred the Redeless (979-1016), are recorded at great length in
the Chronicle. They show the old tactics, familiar for two hundred
years: the long ships are brought to the nearest point convenient
for a campaign of pillage; there the “army is a-horsed,” and they
ride at their will inland, lighting their “war-beacons,” the blazing
villages of the country-side, as they go. Year after year records
its tale of disaster, until the partition of England in 1016 between
Cnut and Edmund Ironside. The whole story of river and land warfare,
of plundering and burning, of the paying of Danegeld as a temporary
sop to the army, is in no way different from the record of the
Danish operations in France during the ninth century. In France the
Danish conquest was quicker, because the invaders had to deal from
the beginning with a worn-out civilisation: the partition of France,
owing to the superiority of the Danes to their opponents, was effected
within seventy years of their first settlement. The power of Normandy,
however, was checked by the rise of the Capetian dynasty in the later
part of the tenth century: the Northmen were kept strictly to their
Danelaw, and their subsequent expansion took place, not in France, but
in England. On the other hand, in England, the Danish invaders of the
ninth century had to contend with the rising power of Wessex and a race
younger and more vigorous than the contemporary Gauls of Neustria.
Their inroads were therefore checked and their conquest was delayed
until the house of Wessex had run its natural course, and Englishmen
and Danes had had time to be practically amalgamated into one nation.
The glory of Wessex ceases with Edmund Ironside, the glory of the Danes
with Cnut. Before Cnut died, the child William already had succeeded to
his father’s duchy of Normandy, and thirty-one years after the death of
Cnut, William was king of England, and, for all practical purposes, the
inroads of the Northmen from Scandinavia were over.




CHAPTER III

THE ENGLISH CASTLE AFTER THE CONQUEST


A castle is a private fortress, built by an individual lord as a
military stronghold, and also as an occasional residence. In England
at the time of the Norman conquest, this type of military work was
known as _castel_, a word which is obviously the same as the Latin
_castellum_. _Castrum_, _munitio_, and _municipium_ are names which
are frequently given to it by chroniclers of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Its existence was the direct result of the consolidation of
the feudal system. The lord separated his dwelling from those of his
vassals: he defended it against the attacks of other individual lords
who naturally would seek to aggrandise themselves at his expense: he
also needed a stronghold which might be impregnable on occasion against
those vassals themselves, and might be a perpetual reminder to them of
their subject position. The castle rose within or as an addition to
the _burh_, the independent stronghold of one person within the walled
or stockaded town of the many. Thus, at one and the same time, it
protected and overawed the _burh_. Or it rose by itself, like the Peak
castle in Derbyshire, on a spot where no _burh_ existed, and so in many
cases drew a small community to seek its protection.

An unlimited number of castles implies an unlimited number of
independent magnates, uncontrolled by a supreme authority, and each
ready to fly at the other’s throat. The feudal lord, however, was the
king’s man, and his castle was therefore theoretically the king’s.
We have already noticed the edict of Pistes (864), which ordered the
destruction of all castles built without royal licence; and, save in
periods of total anarchy, legislation of this type, safeguarding feudal
order, was in operation during the middle ages wherever the feudal
system was at the base of the constitution. The king was _de jure_, if
not _de facto_, the owner of the castles of his realm.

The castle or private fortress was a feature in French social life
and warfare from at any rate the middle of the ninth century. But in
England it was certainly an unfamiliar and almost as certainly an
unknown feature, until the middle of the eleventh century. Danish
pirates who up to this time had visited England, had come from the
north and east, and passed on to France. There, in contact with the
feudal system as it existed under the later Carolingian monarchs, they
may have learned the use of the private fortress. At any rate when the
Northmen came back upon England from their continental duchy, they
brought with them the fully organised social system of the Continent,
and its most powerful symbol, the castle.

[Illustration: Harold’s _aula_, from Bayeux Tapestry]

We have seen that, throughout the Saxon and Danish period, the
_burh_, the home of the community, formed the unit, if the expression
may be used, of military defence by fortification. The English or
Danish nobleman lived, it may safely be assumed, in houses like
the two-storied house in the Bayeux tapestry, where Harold and his
friends are feasting on the upper floor, while the ground floor
apparently forms a cellar or store-room (36).[38] It is possible that
such a house, the prototype of the larger medieval dwelling-house,
may sometimes have been protected by its encircling thorn hedge
or palisade; but it was not a castle. In the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, a castle meant to an Englishman a special type of fortress,
of a construction and plan of a character more or less fixed. The
loose phraseology which, in later times, applied the title of castle
indiscriminately to prehistoric camps and medieval manor-houses, was
not yet customary.

The first castles on English soil appear to have been raised by Norman
favourites of Edward the Confessor before the Conquest, and to have
excited alarm among the English population. In 1048 some foreigners or
“Welshmen,” as the English called them, encroached on the territory of
Sweyn Godwinsson in Herefordshire, constructed a _castel_—the first
mention of such a thing in the Chronicle—and wrought harm to all the
country round. That they were Frenchmen appears from the events of
1052: one of Godwin’s demands to the king at Gloucester was that “the
Frenchmen of the castle” should be given up, and in the same year
“the Frenchmen of the castle” helped to defend the borders against a
Welsh inroad. The very fact that the Frenchmen’s stronghold was known
as “_the_ castle” proves that it was at any rate an unfamiliar type
of fortress. But, if it was the first, others were soon constructed.
When Godwin returned from his outlawry in 1052, and forced himself
back into Edward’s good graces, the Frenchmen in London left the city.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Robert of Jumièges, made his way to
the east coast: some fled westward to Pentecost’s castle, which is
probably identical with the Herefordshire fortress, others northward
to Robert’s castle, which is now identified with Clavering in Essex.
The Herefordshire castle is supposed to have been at Ewias Harold, some
twelve miles south of Hereford, where there is still the great mount of
a Norman stronghold on the north-west side of the village.[39]

[Illustration: Hastings Castle: from Bayeux Tapestry]

These two may not have been the only castles in England before the
Conquest. The reference to Arundel in Domesday Book, for example, seems
to imply an origin almost as early for the castle there.[40] Ordericus
Vitalis speaks of Dover as though there were already a castle there,
when William the Conqueror stormed the town after Hastings.[41] But
Ordericus is our authority for the important and explicit statement
that, in 1068, “the fortresses, which the Gauls call _castella_, had
been very few in the provinces of England; and on this account the
English, although warlike and daring, had nevertheless shown themselves
too feeble to withstand their enemies.”[42] A statement of this kind
at once disposes of the theory that the _burhs_ of the Danish wars
were castles; it could hardly be argued that such _burhs_ were very
few, or that the English had not taken advantage of them. As a matter
of fact, when William came to England, his military policy consisted
in the founding of castles, and many of these in places which had
been and were _burhs_, where, if the _burh_ and castle were one and
the same thing, the foundation of a castle was quite unnecessary.
_Arcem condidit_, _castellum construxit_, _munitionem firmavit_, are
terms used over and over again to describe the making of these new
strongholds. To William, the strength of a monarch lay in the castles
which he controlled; in warfare the castle formed his natural base
of operations. His first work on landing at Hastings was to throw up
a castle (38). Harold, on the other hand, although, as the Bayeux
tapestry shows us, he had seen something of castles and siege warfare
in William’s company, trusted for his defence to the shield-wall of his
men, and the protection of the banks and ditches of an old earthwork
in advance of his position. In 1067, after his coronation, William
stayed at Barking, close to the walls of London, while the city, the
Lundenburh whose walls Alfred had restored, was being overawed by
the construction of certain _firmamenta_—one of them, no doubt, the
White Tower, the other probably Baynard’s castle, near the present
Blackfriars.[43] Again, we find him at Winchester, building a strong
fortress within the walls of the city—a castle within a _burh_.

William’s operations in 1068 and 1069 were of great military
importance. In 1068 he quelled the resistance of Exeter. The city
was still surrounded by its Roman walls, to which the inhabitants
now added new battlements and towers. They manned the rampart walks
and the projections of the wall,[44] which for eighteen days William
endeavoured to undermine. When at last the keys of the city were
surrendered to him, his first work was to choose within the walls a
place where a castle might be raised; and, on departing, he left,
as at Winchester, a constable in charge of the castle, the king’s
lieutenant charged with the task of keeping the _burh_ under. From
Exeter a rebellion in the north called William to York. The insurgents,
an irregular band of freebooters, had thrown up defences in remote
places in woods and by the mouths of rivers; some were harboured in the
larger towns, which they kept in a state of fortification. As William
travelled northwards, he founded castles at Warwick and Nottingham.
He constructed a fortress in the city of York, and on his way home
founded castles at Lincoln, Huntingdon, and Cambridge. No sooner had
he left York than the rebels again began to stir; a movement was made
on behalf of the ætheling Edgar, and Danish aid was called in. William
Malet, the governor of York castle, was hard pressed by the enemy. The
Conqueror came to his relief, and, as a result of this visit, founded
a second castle in York. Both castles, however, were of little use
when the Danes came. The garrison of one or both rashly advanced to
fight the invaders within the city itself, and were massacred. It is a
significant fact that the castles were left open and deserted; neither
the men of York nor the Danes had any use for them. When William came
north again on his campaign of vengeance he repaired both the castles.
Shortly after, on his expedition to Wales, he founded castles at
Chester and Shrewsbury.[45]

[Illustration: Lincoln; Plan]

What do we find to-day at these places where William founded his first
English castles? At Hastings, on the cliff which divides the old town
from the modern watering-place, there are important remains of a later
stone castle within lines of earthwork which are, no doubt, William’s.
The mount remains at the north-east corner of the enclosure: the later
curtain wall has been carried up its side and over it. The present
remains of the castle of Winchester are later than William’s day. At
Exeter the gatehouse and much of the adjacent masonry of the castle are
unquestionably of a very early “Norman” date. In London we have the
White tower, probably much extended from William’s early plan, and not
completed till his son’s reign. But the stone fortresses of London and
Exeter were exceptional. When we come to his northern castles, we find
that at Warwick, York, Lincoln, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Shrewsbury,
the plan of the castle consists of a bailey or enclosed space,[46] with
a tall mount on the line of its outer defences, and on a side or at an
angle of the _enceinte_ remote from the main entrance. At Nottingham
the plan of the early castle is not so easy to make out. But, in
the other cases, although, at various dates during the middle ages,
additions were made in stone, the nucleus of the plan is a collection
of earthworks, which takes this form—a _motte_ or mount with a bailey
attached. At Lincoln there are two mounts. At York there are two
castles, one on either side of the river, but each with its mount. On
the mount of the castle north-east of the river is a later stone keep;
the mount of the south-western castle has never carried stonework, and
its bailey is now almost filled up with modern houses.

The presence of the double castle at York has been a great temptation
to those who would identify the castle with the _burh_. The
fortification of both banks of the river is, on the face of it, so like
the system adopted by Edward the Elder, that the York castles have been
often quoted as _burhs_ of Edward the Elder’s date, and it has been
concluded that similar earthworks must have existed at Nottingham,
Stamford, and so on. This idea is quite untenable. Had William followed
the example of Edward and Æthelflæd, he would simply have repaired or
renewed the defences of the two divisions of the _burh_ at York.[47]
But what he had to provide against was the spirit of rebellion in the
_burh_ itself, as well as the possible use of the water-way by Danish
pirates. Which castle he first founded at York we do not know. On the
tongue of land which runs out between the Ouse and Foss, outside the
_burh_, and between it and the river approach to the city, one castle
rose. The other, a fortress known in later times as the Old Baile, was
possibly from the beginning partly within the ramparts of the southern
_burh_. Later, at any rate, the city wall was built across the foot
of the outer side of its mount, and enclosed the bailey on two sides.
Elsewhere, the distinction between William’s castles and the _burhs_
within which they rose is very noticeable. At Lincoln the castle filled
up an angle of the Roman city. At Cambridge, the mount rises on the
highest point of a large enclosure—the original _burh_—surrounded by
earthworks of early date. Further, if any documentary proof is needed
of anything so self-evident as the distinct nature of the castle and
the _burh_, Domesday is clear upon the point. Apart from the evidence
which it gives us with respect to the borough or _burh_, it speaks in
one place of the _burgum circa castellum_—the _burh_ about the castle.
The case in point is the castle of Tutbury in Staffordshire, a fine
example of the mount-and-bailey stronghold.[48] One important feature
here is that the castle, very large in area, and with a ditch of great
depth on two sides, was apparently raised on the site of an early
hill-fort or _burh_, and that the actual _burh_ about the castle, the
modern village of Tutbury, has grown up under its protection on the
slope towards the Dove.

[Illustration: Berkhampstead]

The castle, then, was a Norman importation into England. It was a
stronghold with a definite plan, so that the word _castel_ had no
vague meaning to English ears. It is found in many cases in close
proximity to a _burh_, or fortified dwelling of a community; but it
was a royal stronghold, in charge of an individual, and its intention
was at once to protect and to keep the _burh_ in subjection. Or,
again, it may occupy, as at Tutbury or Conisbrough, the whole site
of an early _burh_; but in such cases the character of the _burh_ is
entirely changed by the presence of the castle, and the dwelling-place
of the community is shifted to the outskirts of the enclosure. At
York, Lincoln, and other places where a castle was constructed within
part of a _burh_, Domesday tells us that the site was _vastata in
castellis_—_i.e._, that houses were taken down to make room for the new
earthworks.

A figure of eight, with the lower portion elongated and widened to form
the bailey, may be taken as the normal form of the castle plan. Often,
as at Berkhampstead (42), where the mount and bailey were surrounded by
a broad wet ditch and outer earthworks, the bailey is much the larger
portion of the figure on plan; and it was only in small and unimportant
strongholds that the bailey formed, as at Mexborough, a mere forecourt
to the mount. At Alnwick (115) the mount stood as part of the outer
defences of the enclosure, on the slope to the river; but it was so
placed that it divided a western or outer from an eastern or inner ward
or bailey, and almost filled up the space between them. The arrangement
at Berkeley (186) is somewhat similar. If the larger mount at Lincoln
(40) were removed to the centre of the present enclosure, and the lines
of the curtain-wall returned inwards to meet it, the plan of Alnwick
would be obtained. Possibly, however, both at Alnwick and Berkeley, the
outer ward may form an extension of the earlier plan, or may have been
merely a covering platform, like the outer earthworks at Hastings. The
later stone defences have obscured the original designs in both cases.

[Illustration: Clun; Plan]

Although the plan followed fixed and familiar lines, there were no
fixed dimensions to the castle. The mount was intended to bear the
strong tower or donjon: within the bailey were the ordinary lodgings
of the garrison, and such domestic buildings as might be needed.
The bailey, which inclined, on the whole, to be oval in form, was
surrounded by a low earthen bank, outside which was a dry ditch of
more or less depth, with a parapet or counterscarp on the further
side. The mount was surrounded by its own ditch, which was joined at
two points by the main ditch on the side next the bailey. The entrance
to the castle was at the end of the bailey, opposite the mount. These
dispositions might vary: the mount might be within the enclosure, even,
as at Pickering, in its centre, and the position of the entrance might
be different, if the site required it. There might be more than one
bailey, and these might be set side by side, divided by an intermediate
ditch, as on the fairly level site at Clun (43), or end on end, as on
the ridge at Montgomery, or a small bailey might project as a kind of
outwork common to mount and bailey alike.[49] The usual arrangement,
however, was as described. The mount might be of any height, of
enormous proportions, as at Thetford, or of more modest size, as at
Brecon or Trecastle. It was usually entirely artificial; but positions
were sometimes chosen in which the ground afforded natural help. The
mount, for example, at Hedingham in Essex, on the levelled top of
which the later square donjon was built, appears to be partly natural;
while the great mount at Mount Bures, not many miles away, is wholly
artificial. The bailey, again, might vary much in size. It might have
a very large area, as at Lincoln and Tutbury, a moderate area, as at
Warkworth (49) or Durham (199); or it might be small and compact, as
at Trecastle (44). There are many cases, as at Clifford’s hill, near
Northampton, where the mount is found by itself: in such instances, the
bailey may have disappeared as the result of local cultivation, and
only the more important part of the earthworks may have been left. But
it is also probable that here and there the fortified mount with the
tower on its summit would be all that was needed, and that the absence
of a large garrison would render a bailey unnecessary. The size of the
bailey, in any case, would depend upon the importance of the position
and the size of the garrison required.

[Illustration: Trecastle; Plan]

[Illustration: Castle of Rennes: from Bayeux Tapestry]

The mount, at any rate, was the essential feature of this type of
fortress. The Bayeux tapestry gives us pictures of some of these
mounts, the fidelity of which is demonstrated by the remains which
we possess of such castles, and by some pieces of documentary
evidence (38). Two points are noticeable: (1) The mounts portrayed
are all either in Normandy and Brittany, or, like the _castellum_ at
“Hestengaceaster,” are the work of Norman hands. (2) The fortifications
shown in connection with these mounts are of timber, not stone. The
accuracy of the tapestry is not absolutely photographic, but the
workers knew well the type of structure which they wanted to represent.
Their work, in fact, whether the castle represented be Dol or Dinan
or Bayeux or Hastings, gives us a repeated picture of the recognised
type of castle mount. And the two points just noted lead us to the
conclusions, (1) that the castle was foreign to England and Englishmen,
and (2) that the time-honoured notion that the Englishman raised the
earthworks,[50] and the Norman built stone castles upon them is open
to objection, the fact being that the stone castle was an exception in
Normandy itself. The picture of the Breton castle of Dinan (46) shows,
as in a section, a large pudding-shaped mount surrounded by a ditch,
with a low bank of earth on the side towards the bailey. On the top of
the mount is a tower, clearly of timber. Round the edge of the mount,
encircling the tower, is a stockade formed of uprights with stout
hurdles between—a work to which Cæsar’s description of his breastworks
at Alesia might well be applied.[51] Access to the mount is gained by
a steep ladder, probably formed of planks with projecting pieces of
wood nailed to them for foot-holds, which spans the ditch, and has its
foot within the bailey. The mount itself—and this may be proved by many
surviving examples—is too steep to be scaled with any ease; and the
ladder, although affording the defenders an excellent communication
with the bailey, is hardly to be climbed with impunity by the opposing
force. The ladder ends in a wooden platform at the edge of the mount,
which serves as a _propugnaculum_ for the garrison, in front of the
stockade. In the picture of the construction of the castle at Hastings,
a timber tower and stockade are in course of erection. The pioneers are
busy digging earth from the fosse for their nearly completed mount, and
compacting the surface with blows from the flat of their spades (38).

[Illustration: Castle of Dinan: from Bayeux Tapestry]

In France the mount was usually known as the _motte_ from the turf of
which it was composed, and the occurrence of the word Lamotte as part
of a place-name is as tell-tale as a name like Mount Bures in England.
But a common name for the _motte_, employed by medieval writers, was
the Latin _dunio_ or _domgio_, a debased form of the word _dominio_.
This became in French _donjon_, and in English _dungeon_. The _motte_
at Canterbury is still known by the corrupted name of the Dane John.
The mount, the symbol of the dominion of the feudal lord, and the
centre of his _dominium_ or demesne, bore his strong tower; and to this
tower the name of the mount was transferred. When the tower on the
mount was superseded by the heavy and lofty rectangular or cylindrical
tower of later times, the new tower kept the old name. By a strange
transference of meaning, our English _dungeon_, frequently applied
to the chief tower of a castle until the seventeenth century, became
connected with the vaults or store-rooms in the basement of such a
tower, and now reminds us less of the dominion of the castle builders
than of the cruelty with which they are supposed to have exercised that
dominion.

[Illustration: Colchester Castle: great tower or keep.]

It may safely be assumed that the very large majority of castles of
the eleventh and early twelfth century were constructed on this plan.
There were exceptions, and certainly several English castles have
stonework of the period of the Conquest. London and Colchester (47)
had rectangular donjons from the first. At Richmond (93) the stonework
of part of the curtain and of the lower part of the rectangular
tower-keep is unquestionably of the eleventh century, when the castle
was constructed by Alan of Brittany. In several other places, in the
curtain at Tamworth (48) and in part of the curtain at Lincoln, there
is eleventh century stonework. But more will be said of these cases
later. It is enough to say here that, in most cases, stonework forms
a late Norman or Plantagenet addition to early Norman earthwork. At
Newcastle part of the early mount remained, side by side with the
late twelfth century tower-keep, until within the last hundred years.
Warkworth, most instructive of English castles, preserves the base of
its mount and the area of its original bailey: the mount bears a strong
tower-house of the early fifteenth century; on the line of the bank of
the bailey is a stone curtain of about the year 1200; within the area
is a series of elaborate and beautiful buildings of two or three dates
(49). Warkworth is the epitome of the history of the castle, from its
Norman origin to its practical identification, in the later middle
ages, with the large manor house; and to Warkworth we shall return more
than once.

[Illustration: Tamworth; Eleventh Century Stonework]

[Illustration: Warkworth; Plan]

There are exceptional cases in which two mounts occur. At Lincoln (40),
the smaller mount is at the south-east corner of the enclosure, and
probably may have carried the original donjon. The larger mount, of
formidable height and steepness, is west of the centre of the south
side. Both mounts, as is usual, are half within and half without the
line of the rampart. The stone curtain-wall has been brought up their
sides, and the larger mount is crowned by a stone “shell” keep of the
late twelfth century. The provision of this second mount was possibly
due to the exposed position of the castle, which formed the outer
defence of the city on the west and south-west, and needed its greatest
strength on that side. At Pontefract and Lewes, again, there were two
mounts, one at each end of the enclosure. At both places, the later
stone keep was built in connection with the western mount, at the end
nearest the town and the slope of the ridge on which it was built.
The sites are rather similar, and, in either case, the eastern mount
overlooked the river-valley defended by the castle. It is not certain
that two mounts ever formed part of an original plan. The natural
tendency would be to throw up the mount at first on the side nearer
the valley, where the slope was steeper, and the labour required in
construction would be less. An attack, however, on the town and castle
would come most naturally from the higher ground to the west, which
commanded the castle and its defences. A new mount would, in process
of time, be constructed on this side, and the old mount would become
of secondary importance. At Lewes (50), where the slope of the hill is
abrupt, the western mount rises from a higher level, and commands a
much wider stretch of country than the mount at the north-east angle of
the enclosure. At Lincoln, where an enemy’s force had no advantage of
higher ground, the larger mount simply occupies the most advantageous
position, protecting the most exposed side of the enclosure, and
commanding one of the most extensive views in England. The foot of one
mount is little more than two hundred feet distant from the foot of the
other; while, at Lewes and Pontefract, the length of the whole bailey
lay between the mounts. Thus, while it is possible that, at Lewes and
Pontefract, both mounts may be original, with the idea of strengthening
the enclosure at either end with a donjon, two original mounts at
Lincoln would not have this excuse; and we may infer that, at some
date later than the foundation of Lincoln castle, the Norman lords
of the fortress threw up a new mount at a point from which the slope
of the hill and the approaches from the valley of the Trent could be
commanded more thoroughly.

[Illustration: Lewes; Plan]

[Illustration: Builth; Plan]

The provision of more than one bailey, as at Clun (43), where two small
baileys, separated by ditches, cover the south and west sides of the
mount, was due, partly to the irregular nature of the site, and partly
to the need for the multiplication of defences. Such an arrangement,
inconvenient in time of peace, would be a considerable advantage in
case of siege, when each bailey would provide a separate difficulty
to the assailants, and a separate rallying point to the defenders. At
Builth (50), where the whole area of the castle earthworks is small,
and the ditches of mount and bailey are of considerable strength, the
main bailey is a narrow segmental platform covering the south side of
the mount. On the west side of the mount is a smaller and narrower
platform, between which and the main bailey is a broad ditch, forming
a cross-cut or traverse between the ditches of the mount and bailey.
As the enclosure is very nearly circular, with the mount north-west
of the centre, this second platform is somewhat squeezed into the
space, and the ditch between it and the counterscarp which runs
continuously round both mount and bailey is very narrow. In the more
usual instances, where the mount and its ditch form a regular circle,
which intersects with the bailey and its ditch, a secondary platform,
as has been noted, occurs outside the line of both ditches, and is
surrounded by a ditch of its own, communicating with both. This is the
case with the very symmetrical example of a mount-and-bailey castle
at Mexborough, at Lilbourne in Northants, Hallaton in Leicestershire
(51), and other cases. Here the secondary platform is an excrescence on
one side of the meeting of the two circles. Such platforms were mere
outworks where additional defence was necessary; it is possible that
on them stone-throwing engines might be planted by the defenders, as
the narrowness of the ditch would at these points bring the assailants
more nearly within range than at any other point within the enclosure.
Such engines would encumber the larger bailey, which would necessarily
be kept as clear as possible for the operations of the main body of the
garrison.

[Illustration: Hallaton; Plan]

The mount-and-bailey castle has been derived by some from a Teutonic
origin,[52] but it is difficult to trace it with any certainty at
an early period outside France and Normandy. There are many remains
of these castles in Normandy itself. The famous castle of Domfront
(Orne), founded originally by Guillaume Talvas (_d._ 1030), ancestor
of the house of Bellême, possibly took this form: as at Newcastle, a
rectangular tower of stone took the place, in the twelfth century, of
the tower on the mount.[53] The writer of a monograph on the castle of
Domfront enumerates five such mounts which exist or are known to have
existed within the local _arrondissement_.[54] Two, at Sept-Forges and
Lucé, remain intact, covered by plantations of trees. At Sept-Forges
the church and castle were side by side, as may still be seen at Earls
Barton in Northamptonshire.[55] At Lucé there are traces of a bailey.
On the other hand, at La Baroche, a large mount seems to have borne the
whole castle: one may compare with this the great mount of Restormel
in Cornwall, which is the natural summit of a hill, artificially
scarped and surrounded by a fosse, like a contour fort of early times.
It is important to notice that on these artificial mounts of southern
Normandy, there appears “no ruin, no trace of construction in masonry.”
The inference is obvious. The buildings which they carried were of
wood, and have yielded to the action of fire or the weather. On no
other hypothesis can the speed with which castles were constructed in
England after the Conquest, or the ease with which they were destroyed,
be explained. William’s subjects in Normandy threw up fortifications
against him with a speed which positively forbids us to imagine that
they procured masons to work in stone. In 1061, Robert, son of Giroie,
one of the powerful nobles of the Alençonnais, joined forces with the
Angevins against William, and fortified his castles of La-Roche-sur-Igé
and Saint-Cénéri. His cousin, Arnold, son of Robert, driven from
the castle of Échauffour, returned secretly and burned it.[56] The
quickness with which the two castles at York were constructed,
destroyed, and repaired, allowed no time for dressing stone.

The points which our evidence leads us to accept may be recapitulated
as follows:—(1) The castle was a foreign importation into England, of
the period of the Norman conquest. (2) It consisted, in its simplest
form, of a moated mount or _motte_, with a bailey or base-court
attached. (3) Its earliest fortifications were entirely of timber, save
in rare instances.

We may now examine the evidence which, in default of actual remains,
survives with regard to the timber constructions of these castles
and their use. The tower on the mount first demands our attention.
Apart from the pictures of the Bayeux tapestry, certain early twelfth
century chronicles of northern France have preserved for us accounts
of the main features of this structure and its _enceinte_.[57] Jean
de Colmieu describes the castle of Merchem, close by the church, as
_munitio quedam quam castrum vel municipium dicere possumus_. “It is
the custom,” he says, “with the rich men and nobles of this district,
because they spend their time in enmity and slaughter, and in order
that they may thereby be safer from their enemies, and by their
superior power either conquer their equals or oppress their inferiors,
to heap up a mount of earth as high as they can, and to dig round
it a ditch of some breadth and great depth, and, instead of a wall,
to fortify the topmost edge of the mount round about with a rampart
(_vallo_) very strongly compacted of planks of timber, and having
towers, as far as possible, arranged along its circuit. Within the
rampart they build in the midst a house or a citadel (_arx_) commanding
the whole site. The gate of entry to the place”—the word used is
_villa_, implying a place of habitation rather than a stronghold—“can
be approached only by a bridge, which, rising at first from the outer
lip of the ditch, is gradually raised higher. Supported by uprights in
pairs, or in sets of three, which are fixed beneath it at convenient
intervals, it rises by a graduated slope across the breadth of the
ditch, so that it reaches the mount on a level with its summit and at
its outer edge, and touches the threshold of the enclosure.” It will
be noticed that the moated mount described here had no bailey. It was
also obviously not merely a fortified stronghold, a place of refuge in
time of war, but a definite residence of the local lord. The turrets
round the timber rampart of the mount are mentioned as occasional, not
invariable features of the design. The habitation within the rampart
may be a strong tower or a mere house. The sense of the passage shows
clearly that there was a doorway in the rampart, by which the house was
approached from the bridge. Finally, the description is not applicable
merely to a single castle, but is a generic description of strongholds
in a particular neighbourhood.

The domestic, apart from the military, character of the building,
is emphasised in the story which follows the description. John of
Warneton, the sainted bishop of Thérouanne (_d._ 1130), was entertained
here, when he came to hold a confirmation in Merchem church. After
the confirmation was over, he went back to the castle to change his
vestments before proceeding to bless the churchyard. As he returned
across the sloping bridge, which at its middle point was about 35
feet above the ditch, the press of the people who crowded to see the
holy man was so great, and the old enemy, says the chronicler, so
alive to the opportunity, that the bridge broke, and the bishop and
his admirers, amid a terrible noise of falling joists, boards, and
spars, were thrown to the bottom of the ditch. The castle was, in
fact, the private residence of a man who, if he could indulge in the
peaceful pleasure of entertaining his bishop, could not afford to live
in an unfortified house. Private warfare with his neighbours was the
business of his life, and he had to make himself as comfortable as he
could within his palisade. Jean de Colmieu does not tell us whether
the castle stronghold at Merchem took the shape of a tower or not; but
Lambert of Ardres has left a description of the great wooden tower of
three stories which the carpenter Louis de Bourbourg constructed about
1099 for Arnould, lord of Ardres. The elaborateness of its design and
plan is remarkable, and the _motte_ which bore it must have been of
considerable size. The ground-floor contained cellars, store-rooms,
and granaries. The first floor contained the chief living-rooms—the
common hall, the pantry and buttery, the great chamber where Arnould
and his wife slept, with two other rooms, one the sleeping-place of the
body-servants. Out of the great chamber opened a room or recess with a
fire-place, where the folk of the castle were bled, the servants warmed
themselves, or the children were taken in cold weather to be warmed.
One may assume that the great chamber was at the end of the hall
opposite to the pantry and buttery. The kitchen was probably reached,
as in the larger dwelling-houses of later days, by a passage between
these offices: it was on the same floor as the hall, but occupied a
two-storied extension of the donjon on one side.[58] Below the kitchen
were the pig-sty, fowl-house, and other like offices. The third stage
of the donjon contained the bed-chambers of the daughters of the house:
the sons also could sleep on this floor, if they chose, and here slept
the guard of the castle, who relieved one another at intervals in the
work of keeping watch. On the eastern side of the first floor was a
projecting building, called the _logium_ or parlour, and above this
on the top floor was the chapel of the house, “made like in carving
and painting to the tabernacle (_sic_) of Solomon.” Lambert speaks of
the stairways and passages of the donjon, but his description of the
projecting parlour and chapel is not sufficiently explicit, and his
admiration may have magnified the proportions of the building. His
description, however, is of great service when applied to the tower
donjon of stone, the arrangements of which it serves to explain.
Here, again, the fortress was clearly designed as a dwelling house:
the supply of rooms, if it is not exaggerated, was quite remarkable
for the age. The _motte_ or donjon—Lambert gives it these alternative
names—rose in the middle of a marsh, which Arnould converted into a
lake or moat by forming sluices: his mill was near the first sluice.

No definite description is left of the defences of the bailey in a
castle of this date. There is no doubt, however, that the scarp,
or encircling bank of earth, was protected, like the summit of the
mount, by a hedge or palisade of the traditional type. Such hedges
were the normal defence of any kind of stronghold: the edict of Pistes
ordered the destruction of all unlicensed _castella, firmitates, et
haias_—castles, strong dwellings, and hedges. In 1225 Henry III.
ordered the forester of Galtres to supply the sheriff of Yorkshire
with timber for repairing and making good the breaches of the palisade
(_palicii_) of York castle. The “houses” and “bridge” of the same
castle—that is, the buildings within the bailey, and the drawbridge by
which the bailey was entered across the ditch, were also of timber. As
late as 1324 the stockade on the mount was still of wood, surrounding
the stone donjon of the thirteenth century.[59] This is an interesting
example of the survival, until a late date, of primitive fortification
in a strong and important castle. There is abundant evidence, in fact,
that the Norman engineer put his trust, not in stone, but in his
earthen rampart and its palisades. When, about 1090, the freebooter
Ascelin Goël got possession of the castle of Ivry, he enclosed it “with
ditches and thick hedges.”[60] In 1093, Philip I. of France and Robert
of Normandy took the part of William of Breteuil, the dispossessed lord
of Ivry, and laid siege to the fortified town and castle of Bréval
(Seine-et-Oise). With the aid of a siege engine, constructed by Robert
of Bellême, they were able to destroy the rampart and encircling
hedges.[61] Bréval was in a wooded and remote district, where stone
would have been hard to obtain in any case. The grand necessity, in
places which were in danger of constant attack, was to provide them
with adequate defences which could be constructed in the shortest time
possible.

Of the nature of the houses within the bailey, little can be said. They
doubtless included shelters for the garrison of the castle, stables for
their horses, and various sheds or store-houses. The hall, or building,
which was the centre of the domestic life of the castle, was, from the
earliest times, the chief building within the circumference of the
bailey. We read of the destruction of the _principalis aula_ of the
castle of Brionne in 1090, by the red-hot darts which were hurled upon
its shingled roof;[62] and stone halls, as at Chepstow and Richmond,
were built before the beginning of the twelfth century. But it is
certain, on the other hand, that the donjon was, now and later, adapted
to domestic as well as purely military uses; and it seems likely
that the owner of the castle, in certain cases, was content with his
dwelling upon the mount, until, at a later date, the strengthening of
the whole enclosure with a stone curtain made it possible for him to
raise a more convenient dwelling house within the more ample space of
the bailey. In the larger castles, however, where there was a strong
permanent garrison, a hall was a necessity for their entertainment.

Where mount-and-bailey castles are found without a trace of stonework,
it does not follow that they are necessarily of a date immediately
subsequent to the Conquest. Many of these castles, founded by the
Conqueror and his followers, became permanent strongholds, and in due
course of time were fortified with stone walls and towers. Others were
probably founded as an immediate consequence of the Conquest, and were
abandoned in favour of other sites. Thus it has been thought that the
earthworks at Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, were abandoned by Ilbert
de Lacy, when he fixed upon Pontefract as the head of his honour.[63]
Trecastle may have been deserted by Bernard of Newmarch for Brecon, or
it may have been held by a small garrison as the western outpost of his
barony. But it is well known that, for a long time after the Conquest,
in the period of constant strife between the Norman kings and their
barons, a large number of castles came into existence in defiance of
royal edicts. We know that, during the reign of Stephen, when every
man did what was right in his own eyes, an almost incredible number of
unlicensed or “adulterine”[64] castles were constructed. As a result
of the agreement between Stephen and Henry II., many of these were
destroyed, and the number of English castles was materially lessened.
Later on, when the revolt of the Mowbrays against Henry II. took place,
the victory of the king’s party was followed by the destruction of the
Mowbray castles at Thirsk, Kirkby Malzeard, and Kinnard’s Ferry in
the isle of Axholme, and of Bishop Pudsey’s castle at Northallerton.
Of these four castles earthworks or traces of earthworks, but no
stonework, remain. It is reasonable to suppose that the material of
their fortifications was timber. Haste in the construction of castles,
speed in their destruction, during the century following the Conquest,
are easily explained if their works were merely of earth and wood.
And it is thus possible that, when we meet with a mount-and-bailey
fortress, unnamed in history and untouched by medieval stonemasons, it
may be neither on a site chosen and then abandoned by an early Norman
lord, nor a mere outpost of some greater castle, but a stronghold
hastily entrenched and heaped up in time of rebellion, by some noble
of the time of Stephen or Henry II., and dismantled when peace was
restored, and the authority of the sovereign recognised.




CHAPTER IV

THE PROGRESS OF ATTACK AND DEFENCE


The earthwork fortifications, the progress of which we have traced up
to the Norman conquest, were of a very simple kind. It is obvious that,
in the history of military architecture, any improvement in defence
is the consequence of improved methods of attack. The stone-walled
town of the middle ages, the castle or private citadel, with its
curtain wall and the subdivision of its enclosure into more than one
bailey, succeeded the palisaded earthwork as a natural result of the
development of the art of siege. Against an enemy whose artillery was
comparatively feeble the stockaded enclosure was effective enough:
slingers and bowmen, working at close quarters, might do damage to the
defenders, but the palisade on the bank, divided from the besiegers by
a formidable ditch, was proof against missiles launched against it by
individuals, and could be carried only by a determined rush, or if it
were not sufficiently protected against fire. Modern warfare against
uncivilised tribes has shown that a stronghold defended by a thick
hedge is a serious problem to a besieging force. If, under modern
conditions, the stockade is a barrier to troops equipped with powerful
firearms, the difficulty which it afforded to the early medieval
warrior is obvious.

The age of firearms, however, which brought the death-blow to medieval
siegecraft, was long in coming; and meanwhile the progress of the
science of attack depended upon the improvement in methods which could
be employed only in close proximity to the besieged stronghold, or
within a very limited range. Engines for hurling stones or javelins
increased in size and strength. Devices were brought into play for
scaling or undermining the defences of the town or castle. The attack
was directed against the defences rather than against the defenders.
A casual stone might do injury to the medieval soldier, or an arrow
might pierce between the joints of his harness; but his armour, which
became more heavy and more carefully protected as the chance of risk
from such missiles increased, made loss of life in the course of a
siege a misfortune rather than an inevitable contingency. His first
anxiety, therefore, was to make the defensive works which sheltered
him impregnable. As the enemy multiplied his designs against the
palisaded enclosure, the palisade gave place to the stone wall; as
the enemy’s means for prosecuting his attempts increased in power,
the wall increased in height and strength; and at last, during the
transitional epoch in which firearms gradually superseded the older and
more primitive weapons of attack, the wall presented to the besieger
a thoroughly guarded front which rendered his medieval siege tactics
obsolete, and called for new developments in his craft.

The progress of fortification under these conditions will be the
subject of the remaining chapters of this book, with special reference
to the castle, in the defences of which the military engineers of the
middle ages displayed the epitome of their science. Before we proceed,
however, to the growth of the stone-walled castle, some description is
necessary of the improvement in siege-engines and methods of attack by
which its development was governed. It must be kept in mind that the
siegecraft of the middle ages advanced upon lines that were by no means
new. Its engines, its devices for breaking down or scaling walls and
towers, were not new inventions, but relics of Roman military science.
With the decay of the Roman power in western Europe, these materials of
warfare, unknown to the Teutonic conquerors of Britain, had fallen into
disuse. Preserved in the east by the Byzantine empire, the inheritor of
Roman civilisation, they became familiar to the barbarians who overran
Europe in the dark ages; and their revival in the parts of Europe most
remote from the historic centres of Roman influence was due in no small
measure to the adoption of traditional siegecraft by the invading
tribes which had come into conflict with Byzantine strategy. So far as
England is concerned, the first advance in the art of attack was the
direct result of the Norman conquest; while subsequent improvement in
western Europe generally was primarily due to the knowledge of eastern
warfare gained during the Crusades. A slight retrospect, under these
conditions, is desirable, which will give us some insight into the
methods of siegecraft during the period of whose strongholds and art of
fortification we already have seen something.

Many classical texts, from the time of Cæsar to the latest days of the
western Empire, supply us with authority for Roman military methods.
No passage throws fuller light on their siege practice than Cæsar’s
description of his siege of Alesia in Burgundy, the hill fortress
occupied by Vercingetorix.[65] The lines which were first drawn round
the stronghold by Cæsar were eleven miles in circuit, and communicated
with three camps, on hills of a height equal to that of the hill of
Alesia. Along the lines there were twenty-three _castella_, small
forts to hold pickets, and temporary examples of the type of which
the “mile-castles” of the Roman wall were permanent instances. The
stubborn resistance of Vercingetorix and the prospect of the arrival of
a relieving army, however, gave Cæsar occasion to elaborate his lines,
the character of which is very minutely described. They consisted of
an earthen bank with a ditch 20 feet broad, 400 feet in front of it
on the side towards the besieged stronghold. The ditch was dug with
perpendicular sides: its distance from the bank was a precaution
against sudden attacks of the enemy, and placed the bank out of the
range of casual missiles. The space between the bank and ditch was not
a level “berm,” but was furrowed by two ditches, 15 feet in breadth
and depth, of which the inner was wet, the water of the neighbouring
streams being diverted into it. Behind the inner ditch rose the earthen
_agger_ or bank, to the height of 12 feet. The _vallum_, the rampart
on the top of the _agger_, was of a type common in early warfare and
for many centuries later, consisting of a breastwork of interlaced
twigs stiffened by a row of palisades. The hurdles of the breastwork
were finished off with battlement-like projections: at intervals
there were tall uprights with forked tops, which were called _cervi_
or “stags,” and acted as _chevaux-de-frise_ along the whole rampart.
There were also towers, obviously temporary constructions of timber,
at distances of 80 feet from one another. This, however, was not
enough. Cæsar aimed at holding his lines with as few men as possible,
so as to allow the rest to do the necessary foraging at a distance. He
therefore proceeded to sow the approach to the lines with pitfalls.
Five ditches, 5 feet deep, were dug out and filled with upright stakes
sharpened to a point and fastened together at the bottom by continuous
cross pieces. In front of these were three rows of pits, 3 feet deep,
arranged in a series of _quincunces_ or saltires: in these were placed
smooth sharpened stakes, so that little more than their points stuck
out of the ground, and the pits were then covered over with twigs and
brushwood. The eight rows formed by these obstructions were each 3
feet apart. The whole arrangement, producing the effect of a row of
fleurs-de-lys, was called _lilium_: to the stakes the soldiers gave
the name of _cippi_ or “grave-stones.” On the opposite side of the
_vallum_, where an attack from a relieving army was expected, a similar
arrangement was made. Also, in front of the _lilium_, wooden cubes
with hooks fastened into them were hidden in the ground, bearing the
appropriate name of _stimuli_.

Cæsar’s method of besieging Alesia was dictated by the probability
that, with an enemy on both sides, he would have to stand a siege
himself. After a doubtful battle, the Gallic army of relief made a
night attack on the lines, in which they found to their cost the
effectiveness of Cæsar’s death-traps. They brought with them hurdles,
with which to help themselves across the ditches, and scaling ladders
and grappling hooks, with the help of which they might climb or pull
down the rampart. Their weapons were slings, arrows, and stones, to
which the Romans replied with extemporised slings and spears. They
suffered two repulses, and then turned their attention to the weakest
of Cæsar’s camps, while Vercingetorix left Alesia to attack the
rampart. His force brought hurdles with long balks of timber to form a
footway across them, mantlets, or coverings under which an attacking
party, sheltered from Roman missiles, could undermine or make a breach
in Cæsar’s earthwork by the use of a bore, and hooks with which to cut
down the rampart on the top of the earthen bank. The attack was long
and determined. The Gallic pioneers filled up Cæsar’s fosses, so far
as they could, with earth, and themselves raised a mound from which
his devices of defence were easily seen. Where his lines were on level
ground, they were too formidable to attack: on the steep slopes of the
hills, on the tops of which his camps were pitched, there was more
chance for an enemy. Here the fiercest fighting took place: the towers
of the _vallum_ were assailed with javelins, the ditch was filled, and
an attempt was made to tear down the palisade and breastwork. Labienus,
unable to hold the lines, sent a message to Cæsar, whose intervention
with his cavalry turned the day and brought about the total defeat of
the Gallic army and the surrender of Vercingetorix.

The account of the siege of Marseilles by Gaius Trebonius in B.C. 49
gives us many of the methods employed by the Romans, and by Byzantine
and medieval engineers after them, in the siege of a walled town.[66]
Marseilles was no mere hill stronghold like Alesia: it was a strongly
fortified seaport town, well equipped for war with engines which hurled
pointed stakes 12 feet long against the besiegers, as they threw up
their earthen bank round the landward side of the city. Trebonius had
to make the line of penthouses (_vineæ_), by which his pioneers were
protected, of more than ordinary thickness to withstand these missiles.
In advance of the bank, a body of men, sheltered by a large penthouse
(_testudo_) levelled the soil. While this leaguer was established on
the landward side, Brutus gained a naval victory over the Massiliotes,
who nevertheless continued to hold out against the besiegers. The
right wing of the Roman army was especially open to attack from the
city; and on this side the besiegers built a tower of brick, to serve
as a base of operations and a refuge from attack. This tower, which
was raised to a height of six stories, was built by workmen who were
sheltered by hanging mantlets of rope. A roof was made of timber,
covered with a layer of bricks and puddled clay, to protect it against
fire, and with raw hides, to make it proof against darts and stones.
As the tower grew, this roof, from which the rope mantlets depended,
was raised by levers and screwed down as a covering to each story in
succession. When it was nearly completed, a wooden penthouse known as
the mouse (_musculus_) was constructed, consisting of a gallery 60 feet
long, with a gabled roof, which was covered, like that of the tower,
with bricks, clay, and hide. This was moved forward on rollers to the
nearest point in the city-wall. It withstood the huge stones which were
cast upon it; lighted barrels of pitch and resin, hurled from the wall,
rolled off its sloping roof and were pushed to a safe distance by the
men inside, armed with poles and pitchforks. Covered by their friends’
fire from the brick tower, the soldiers in the mouse were able to sap
with their levers and wedges the foundations of the tower on the wall,
and managed to effect a breach. The defenders submitted, and asked for
a truce until Cæsar arrived; but, taking advantage of the interval,
they made a treacherous sally from the city, and, aided by a favourable
wind, burned down the besiegers’ constructions, including the mouse
and the brick tower, and destroyed their machines. Trebonius, however,
lost no time in constructing, instead of his earthen bank, a strong
wall of countervallation, composed of two parallel walls of brick,
each 6 feet thick, with a timber floor above. This quickly brought the
defenders to their senses, and they reverted to their old conditions of
peace. In this account the devices which play the chief part are met
again in numberless medieval sieges. The lines of countervallation,
the successful sapping operation, appear, for example, in the tactics
of Philip Augustus: the besiegers’ brick tower is met again in William
Rufus’ timber castle at Bamburgh: the engines of war and the protected
penthouses are commonplaces of medieval warfare.

The bare record of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle throws little light to
speak of upon the strategy or military skill of the Danes. Nor does the
lyric form of the songs which celebrate the fight at Brunanburh and
the battle of Maldon allow of that definiteness of detail which the
student requires. More definite, although not unencumbered by rhetoric,
is the account which Abbo, the monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, gives
of the siege of Paris by the Northmen in 885-6.[67] The city of those
days was confined to the isle still known as La Cité, and was united
to its suburbs on the mainland by two bridges, where now are the
Pont-au-Change and the Petit-Pont. The approach to each bridge was
guarded, on the mainland, by a tower or _tête-du-pont_. The attack of
the Normans was directed against the northern tower, the construction
of which had not been finished. It is curious to notice how they
concentrated themselves on single points in the defence, neglecting
the prime necessity of closing all lines of communication to the
defenders. They came up to the tower with their ships, which were seven
hundred in number, not counting sailless boats, battered it with their
engines, and hurled darts at its defenders. The tower was shaken, but
its foundations stood firm: where the walls threatened to give, they
were repaired with planks of timber, and the tower was raised by these
wooden additions during a night to one and a half times its former
height. At daybreak the Northmen again began the attack. The air,
says Abbo, was full of arrows and stones flung from slings and from
the _ballistae_ or hurling machines. During the day the heightened
tower showed signs of succumbing to the enemy’s fire and their mining
efforts. Eudes, the brave defender of the town, poured down a mixture
of burning oil, wax, and pitch, which quenched the enthusiasm of the
besiegers, and cost them three hundred men. On the third day, the
Northmen established their land camp on the northern bank of the river,
near the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. The camp was probably a
_geweorc_ such as they wrought by the Thames or the Ouse, but it was
girt, not with an earthen rampart, but with walls of clay mingled with
stone. From this centre they cruelly ravaged the surrounding country
during the remainder of the siege. Having thus established their
base of operations, they returned to the attack of the tower. Their
devices were the common devices of Roman warfare, which naturally would
recommend themselves to the assailants of the dying Roman civilisation.
We hear of the three great battering rams which they prepared, and
moved up against the walls under the shelter of wooden penthouses
on wheels, of the bores brought up to undermine the tower by men
moving under wicker mantlets covered with raw hides, of the _mangana_
or stone-throwing machines used by the defenders, and of the forked
beams let down from the tower to catch the heads of the battering-rams
and render them powerless. Some of the Northmen worked at filling up
the ditches with whatever came to hand, earth, leaves, straw, meadow
grass, cattle, even the bodies of captives. Still the city held out,
and Eudes managed to slip through the enemy’s lines and reach Charles
the Fat with a request for relief. On his return the Northmen tried to
intercept him: he got back safely into Paris, while a relieving force
attacked the enemy and drove them back on their ships. When Charles
the Fat arrived he established his camp on the southern slopes of
Montmartre; but he was content, after a general attack upon the city
had failed, to let the Northmen go, taking with them an indemnity of
seven hundred pounds, and promising to leave the kingdom in March.
They, however, made an attempt to reach the upper Seine in boats, as
the larger vessels could not clear the bridges, and so proceed to
pillage Burgundy. Their purpose was discovered: the defenders of Paris
launched arrows at them from the walls, and a chance dart killed their
pilot. For a time their onward course was checked, but a series of such
assaults could not be sustained by the French. Eudes, elected king,
neglected the conflict, and gave words for deeds. “Their barks,” says
Abbo, “were in crowds on all the rivers of Gaul.” He ends his poem with
a call to France to give proof once more of those forces which she had
used in the past to conquer kingdoms more powerful than herself. “Three
vices,” he cries, “are causes of thy ruin: pride, the shameful love of
pleasures, the vain lust of gorgeous apparel.” The same words might
have been said to the English a hundred and twenty-five years later,
when Swegen and Thurkill were gripping London between their two armies.

A short passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle affords some help to the
question of Danish strategy. London bridge, like the two bridges of
Paris, was an obstacle to the long Danish ships with their sails. In
1016, however, the Danes managed to drag their ships round the south
side of the bridge, apparently by making a ditch on that side of the
river. They then proceeded to make entrenchments about the city, their
headquarters being thus removed above bridge. There is no reason to
doubt that the London which they thus beset was a stone-walled city,
the Roman Londinium which Alfred had repaired. So was Paris, and so
were a large number of the towns of France, whose walls had been set
in repair by their bishops or lay lords. We read of Saint Didier,
bishop of Cahors 630-55, that he “enlarged, built, and made strong
Cahors with abundant labour, and a notable work of defence, fortifying
gates and towers with a girdle of walls compacted of squared stones.”
In the next century the Saracen invaders of southern France restored
the Roman walls of Narbonne, and checked the advance of Charles Martel
into Spain.[68] But for the many instances in which the fortifications
of Roman cities in France played a part in the warfare of this troubled
epoch, there are few in England. The _burhs_ of the Danish wars were,
with the exception of London, Towcester, Colchester, and a few more,
not stone-walled cities of Roman foundation, such as those which in
France were the natural prey of the Norman marauders, but villages or
small towns which had grown into existence for the most part since
the Saxon conquest, and owed their strength to walls of timber. In
France military art, as regards both fortification and siege-craft, was
altogether on a higher plane. The break of continuity caused by the
extinction of Roman civilisation in England produced a stage in the
development of attack and defence to which contemporary French history
affords no parallel. It is not till a later period that the finished
methods employed by both sides in the siege of Paris were used in
English warfare.

The cases hitherto quoted refer to sieges of towns; and, as we have
seen, the castle or private fortress which plays so prominent a part
in medieval strategy was the result of the growth of the feudal
system, and takes its place in history at a comparatively late period.
A fortified town of Roman origin possessed its _arx_ or citadel:
this was, as it were, the keep of the walled enclosure, to which the
defenders could retire if the outer defences of the town were taken. A
castle, however, was a distinct enclosure, which frequently occupied
a portion of the area of a walled town, but had its own outer lines
of defence before the keep could be reached. The Norman conquerors of
England, regarding the castle as the main seat of defence and object
of attack, directed their attention to its fortification; and thus the
defence of the town or village in or near which the castle stood became
of secondary interest. We usually find that, where a castle forms
part of the defences of an English walled town, the castle has been
surrounded with a wall and provided with its necessary defences before
a wall has been built round the town in place of the earlier palisade.
In spite, however, of this change in the nature of the besieged
stronghold, the object of attack was still a fortified enclosure.
The methods of siege developed along the old lines; and the defences
applied to the castle were those which, on a more extended scale, were
applicable to the town.

The warfare of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was to a great extent
a succession of sieges of castles, by direct attack or by blockade. In
1083 William the Conqueror, besieging Hubert of Maine in the castle
of Ste-Suzanne, did not venture to attack the wooded precipice on
which the castle stood, but entrenched his army within earthworks in a
neighbouring valley. The blockade lasted three years, and the advantage
lay much on the side of Hubert, so that eventually the Norman army,
after a desperate attack had failed, withdrew.[69] The chief feature of
the blockade was the construction of an opposition castle,[70] a method
employed upon more than one occasion by William II., who, in 1088,
compelled Odo to surrender Rochester castle by making two _castella_
upon his lines of communication.[71] In 1095 William II. besieged
Robert Mowbray in Bamburgh castle. The great rock, with its girdle
of sea and marsh, did not lend itself to direct attack, and William
compelled its surrender by building a “new fortress,” which took the
form of a timber castle, probably of the ordinary mount-and-bailey
type, and was nicknamed Malvoisin, the “ill neighbour.”[72] From
this particular instance, the name of _malvoisin_ has been applied
generally, without sufficient reason, to the wooden towers which were
sometimes constructed to shelter a besieging force. As a matter of
fact, Malvoisin was merely one of many nicknames which were given, in
individual cases, to such besiegers’ castles,[73] and was no more a
generic term than is Château-Gaillard.

Until the end of the eleventh century, when the first Crusade
taught western warriors the use of more advanced siege-engines, the
methods of attack upon a castle seem to have been of a very simple
description. Earthworks defended by timber could be gained by a
rush and hand-to-hand fighting; while fire would always be fatal to
a wooden stronghold ill provided against it. The Bayeux tapestry
shows us none of those siege-machines which were employed more and
more frequently against stone castles during the next century; and,
although the Conqueror’s army seem to have employed an elementary
form of stone-throwing machine, handled, like the later cross-bow,
by individual soldiers, and other devices more familiar in later
times,[74] such machines can hardly have been common. It was, no doubt,
their growing frequency at the beginning of the twelfth century which
made stone walls imperative for the protection of a castle. We have
seen _ballistae_ and other siege-engines of Roman origin used by the
Northmen at the great siege of Paris in 885; but such engines were
certainly not in common use in western Europe before the period of
direct contact with Byzantine civilisation. Ordericus Vitalis mentions
the construction of such machines, a “belfry” on wheels and devices
for hurling large stones, by Robert of Bellême’s engineer at Bréval in
1093, as though they were a novelty, and says of the engineer himself
that his sagacious ingenuity had been of profit to the Christians at
the siege of Jerusalem.[75]

Suger’s detailed account of the attack made by Louis VI. upon the
castle of Le Puiset in 1111 may be taken as a fair description of the
methods employed by the besiegers and defenders of an ordinary castle
of earthwork and timber. The king brought numerous _ballistae_ to the
attack, but we have no indication as to their precise nature: the main
weapons employed were the bow, sword, and shield. The besieged came out
of the castle to meet the king; but, amid a hail of arrows from both
sides, were driven back through the main gateway, which was possibly,
as at Tickhill,[76] the only stone defence of the enclosure. From the
rampart of their stronghold, they hurled down wooden planks and stakes
upon the king’s knights. The besiegers, throwing away their broken
shields, made use of the missiles to protect themselves and force the
gateway. Carts laden with dry wood smeared with fat were brought up
to the doors, and a struggle took place, the royalists trying to set
the wood on fire, the defenders trying to put the fire out. Meanwhile
Theobald of Chartres made an attack on the castle from another quarter,
attempting to climb the steep scarp of the bailey. His followers,
however, were too hasty: many fell back into the ditch, while others
were surprised and killed by horsemen of the enemy, who galloped round
the defences of the castle to keep out intruders. The royalists had
almost given up hope, when a priest, bare-headed and holding before
him a piece of wood as an extemporised mantlet, reached the palisade,
and began to tear away the planks which covered the spaces between the
uprights. He was soon joined by others, who cut away the palisade with
axes and iron tools. The royal army poured into the castle, and the
defenders, taken between the entering force and Theobald’s men, retired
into the timber tower on the mount, but surrendered in fear. The king
burned the castle, but spared the donjon.[77]

The assault upon a stone castle or walled town was conducted by direct
attempts upon the walls themselves, for which movable machines were
necessary, and by throwing stones or inflammable materials into the
besieged enclosure from stationary machines. The chief engine used
directly against the walls was the battering-ram, an enormous pole,
furnished with an iron head. Hung by chains within a wooden framework
placed on wheels, it was brought up to the wall, and driven against
it again and again. The men who worked the ram were protected by
a pent-house with a rounded or gabled top, called the “tortoise”
(_testudo_), which covered the machine and its framework. The roof of
the “tortoise” was made very solidly, to resist missiles thrown from
the ramparts, and the whole was covered with raw hides or some other
incombustible material, as a precaution against fire thrown by the
defenders (69).[78]

[Illustration: Battering-ram protected by pent-house and mantlets]

While the ram delivered its blows upon the face of the wall, sappers
and miners, sheltered by a smaller pent-house, known as the “mouse,”
“cat,” or “sow,” made their attack upon the foundations with the bore
(_terebra_), a heavy pole with a sharp iron head, which slowly broke
up the stonework and hollowed out a cavity at the foundation of the
walls (70). This work was assisted by sappers, who, advancing to the
wall beneath the shelter of inclined frames of timber or wicker-work,
known as mantlets, which they wheeled in front of them, hacked away
the stone-work with picks. When a sufficient hollow had been made, the
miners underpinned the wall with logs, set fire to them, and retired.
This device was constantly used throughout the middle ages to effect a
breach, and was successful at Château-Gaillard in 1204,[79] and on
other occasions; but it obviously must have taken much time, and must
often have failed of its purpose.

Before, however, the movable engines could be brought to play upon the
stonework, it was necessary to fill up the ditch in front of the walls.
This work was done by soldiers, who, under the protection of mantlets,
flung into the ditch all the loose material on which they could lay
hands. When the Danes used their battering-rams against the northern
_tête-du-pont_ at Paris, the first thing which they attempted to do
was to fill the ditch, using even the dead bodies of their captives
when other material failed.[80] At Jerusalem in 1099, before Raymond
of Toulouse could bring up his “timber castle”[81] to the walls, a
deep natural hollow had to be filled. The work took three days and
nights: every man who put three stones into the hollow was promised a
penny.[82] Philip Augustus in February 1203-4 began his operations upon
Château-Gaillard by filling the ditch between the outer ward and his
lines, while his catapults played upon the masonry from a distance and
protected the workers between them and the wall.[83]

[Illustration: Bore protected by mantlets]

While the battering-ram, the bore, and the mine threatened the
stability of the walls, parties of the besiegers attempted to force
an entry into the stronghold. The simple method of bringing up fuel
to the main gateway, and burning down the door, was frustrated, in
process of time, by greater attention to the defences of the gateway,
and the reinforcement of its doors by herses or portcullises.[84]
Scaling-ladders were moved up against the walls: the daring spirits
who climbed these drew up with them other ladders, by which they could
descend into the enclosure. Another method of scaling walls was by the
movable “belfry,” a tower of several stories, in each of which a number
of men could be sheltered. The floor of the uppermost stage of the
tower was approximately on a level with the top of the ramparts, and a
drawbridge thrown out from it, when it was wheeled close to the wall,
formed a passage for the besiegers. The occupants of the lower stages
could mount by stairs to the top floor, and thus a considerable body
of men could come to close quarters with the defenders (72).[85] These
movable towers could be quickly constructed, where wood of sufficient
scantling was procurable. Philip’s belfries at Château-Gaillard
were composed of tree-trunks, untouched by the plane: all that the
carpenters had done to smooth them was to cut off the branches with
an axe.[86] In early instances of the employment of such towers, they
seem to have been chiefly used for bringing the small artillery of
the besiegers close to the walls. At Marrah in 1098, the Crusader
Raymond of Toulouse had a very lofty wooden “belfry,” of a height equal
to that of the towers on the town wall, made upon four wheels. Huge
stones were hurled and arrows shot from it upon the defenders of the
walls, and grappling-irons were thrust out to catch unwary persons with
their hooks. The walls were eventually climbed by scaling ladders of
the ordinary kind: if there was a drawbridge in connection with the
machine, it does not seem to have been used.[87] Antioch, earlier in
the same year, was entered by scaling ladders.[88] The belfry used
by Henry I. at Pontaudemer in 1123 was a movable tower, but was not
used for purposes of scaling. It was actually 24 feet higher than the
rampart: bow-men and arbalasters directed their arrows and bolts from
it upon the defenders, while others threw stones down from it.[89] Not
even at Château-Gaillard is there much reason to suppose that Philip
used his belfries to scale the walls. The miners and catapults did
the chief work, by opening breaches in the masonry of the outer and
inner wards: the middle ward alone was gained by an escalade, and this
was effected by a small body of men, who climbed through unguarded
openings in the substructure of the chapel, and so were able to unbar
the gates of the ward to the main body of the army.

[Illustration: Besiegers scaling walls from movable belfry]

The great siege-engines, capable of shooting stones or bolts,
which were often heated red-hot in an oven before delivery, from a
considerable distance, did their work from the background. The men who
looked after them were protected by a palisade, placed in front of the
engines; this was the case with Philip’s engineers at Château-Gaillard.
These machines are often indiscriminately called “stone-throwers”
(_petrariae_, _pierrières_) or catapults; and accounts of them differ
very considerably. It is clear that, in Roman and Byzantine warfare,
the two main types of engine were the stone-throwing machine, known
later as the mangon or mangonel, and the machine for shooting javelins,
known as _ballista_.[90] The first consisted of an upright flexible
beam between two solid upright posts. Cords were stretched from post
to post and wound round the beam. The beam was then drawn back with
the aid of winches and a stone placed in a hollow in its head; it was
then suddenly let go, so that the twisted cords slackened, and the
stone flew towards its mark, describing a high ellipse in its flight.
The force by which the _ballista_ was worked, depended, not on twisted
cords, but on the tension of the cord which joined the two extremities
of a great bow, and was attached to the movable grooved piece in
which the javelin was placed. The tension released, the javelin was
discharged. While the _ballista_ could be discharged with a definite
aim, the aim of the stone-throwing machine could be only general, and
its chief use was to cast stones which, by their elliptic flight,
dropped inside the walls of the besieged place.[91]

[Illustration: Engine for shooting javelins]

[Illustration: Stone-throwing engine]

The _ballista_, which was simply a huge bow, capable of shooting
enormous bolts by the tension of a horizontal cord, was developed
upon a small scale into the cross-bow or arbalast, which could be
carried and managed by one man. The cross-bow was invented, or at
any rate re-invented, in northern Europe towards the end of the
eleventh century, it was employed in the first Crusade, and struck
the Byzantines as a novelty.[92] The development of the larger
engines seems to have proceeded with a view to stone-throwing, and
combinations of the machines mentioned above may have been employed
for this purpose.[93] Viollet-le-Duc, in his elaborate reconstructions
of siege-machines, shows, for example, a mangon with a central upright
post, working on a pivot, in a slot near the top of which is fixed a
javelin. This post is strengthened by two diagonal beams fixed to the
back of the framework, which moves on the same pivot, at the foot of
the machine. Between these the flexible beam which propels the javelin
is fastened by a cord working through a pulley to a winch turned by
a man, and a bundle of cords is tightly twisted round the central
post and the beam (74). He also shows a large stone-throwing engine
on a wheeled carriage, which, in addition to an apparatus of twisted
cords held in place by a system of ratchet wheels, and bound round the
movable beam, has a cord stretched round the back of the beam, and
connected with two huge springs forming a bow. The centre of the bow
is a massive upright framework of wood, which acts as a buffer to the
beam, when it is allowed to fly forward and discharge the stone (74).
Minute as these reconstructions are, they seem to improve upon the data
supplied by medieval writers and the pictures in MSS. Guillaume le
Breton, the panegyrist of Philip Augustus, describes the stone-throwing
machine used at the siege of Boves in 1185, as a great sling worked by
several men, which threw immense rocks of great weight. The beam to
which the projectile was attached worked on an axis, and was dragged
backwards to the ground with ropes, and then set free.

[Illustration: Trébuchet or Slinging machine]

[Illustration: Trébuchet with ropes attached to counterpoise]

This description suggests that the beam, balanced on an axis, and
needing several people to attend to the discharge at one end, was
worked by a counterpoise at the other. This was the case with the
developed slinging machine, known as _trébuchet_. A pole, working on
a pivot between two upright stands, was weighted at one end with a
heavy wooden chest, filled with earth, which kept the pole, when not
in use, in a vertical position. To the other end was attached a long
sling, capable of containing large stones. When the tension of the
ropes which dragged the pole backwards and lifted the counterpoise was
released, the counterpoise fell heavily, bringing the pole abruptly
back into position, and the sling, describing a circle in the air, let
fly the stone when it reached the summit of the arc (75). Variations
of this form of catapult, which became general in the thirteenth
century, are found (76); the machine known as _cabulus_ which Philip
Augustus used with excellent effect against the strong inner wall
of Château-Gaillard, was possibly worked upon the principle of
counterpoise.

Against these modes and machines of attack the defenders of a castle
had to contend. The obvious means of defence was to oppose to the enemy
a thickness of wall which would be proof against the blows of the ram
or the slow labour of the pick. But even the very strong inner wall
at Château-Gaillard, which was constructed with the special object of
resisting these engines, yielded to the miners, reinforced by the
great slinging machine. In this instance the castle had undergone
a long blockade; its communications had been cut off some months
beforehand; and the garrison was greatly reduced in numbers. The lesson
of the siege was that against a persistent and well-conducted blockade
mere passive strength was of little avail. Here, too, the defenders,
driven back from one bailey to another, seem to have renounced the
opportunity of final shelter afforded them by the keep, and to have
made an attempt to evacuate the castle by a postern before they fell
into the hands of the enemy.

[Illustration: Aigues-Mortes]

[Illustration: Carcassonne]

Château-Gaillard, however, and the castles of its period will be
discussed in detail in the sequel. At present, we are concerned with
the direct methods employed to meet the attack of siege-engines
and attempts at escalade. Against the great catapults the besieged
were practically powerless. The use of such machines upon the walls
themselves was as dangerous to the stability of the masonry as their
use by the enemy, and hastened the chance of a breach: they could not
be employed from the interior of the enclosure, without endangering
the defenders on the rampart.[94] The summit of the rectangular
keep of the twelfth century was never constructed as a platform for
artillery: here, again, engineers probably feared the effect of the
constant vibration upon a flat wooden roof, and were content to conceal
their ridged roofs within high ramparts. The main arm of defence which
could be employed by the defenders was the cross-bow. Their superior
position upon the ramparts enabled them to throw down stones and
burning material upon the assailants engaged at the foot of the wall,
and the wheeled belfries formed a direct target for their arrows. The
ram could also be paralysed by letting down grappling-irons or beams
with forked heads, which gripped and disabled it; or sacks of wool or
earth could be lowered to meet its strokes. The assailants, however,
worked under their defences of pent-houses and mantlets, the solid tops
and sloping surfaces of which were specially devised against the shock
of stones and arrows; while, as we have seen, their coverings were so
protected that it was difficult for them to catch fire.

[Illustration:

  Parapet defended by hoarding, showing elevation, section through
  _hourd_ and _coursière_, and method of construction]

[Illustration: Laval]

The first improvements in defence, designed to meet an improved attack,
consisted in the protection of the ramparts. Behind the outer parapet
of the wall was the rampart-walk, a level path along the top of the
wall, which was sometimes protected by a parapet in the rear. From an
early date in stone fortification, it was customary to break the upper
portion of the parapet at intervals by openings called crenellations,
through which it was possible for an archer to command a limited part
of the field at right angles to the wall.[95] The crenellations,
however, were narrow compared with the unbroken parapets between them,
and, even in advanced examples of fortification like the ramparts
of Aigues-Mortes (77) and Carcassonne (78), these unbroken pieces
are still very broad, although they are pierced by arrow-slits. Even
allowing for an arrow-slit between each crenellation, the foot of the
wall could not be commanded from behind the parapet. In time of siege,
then, it became customary to supply the walls with projecting wooden
galleries, known as hoardings or brattices (_hourds_, _bretèches_),
which could be entered through the crenellations. The joists of the
flooring passed through holes at the foot of the parapet, and were
often common to the outer gallery and an inner gallery (_coursière_)
covering the rampart-walk. Both galleries had a common roof.[96] In the
floor of the outer gallery, between the joists, were holes, through
which missiles could be directed upon the besiegers at the foot of the
wall; while slits in the outer face were still available for straight
firing. The defenders of the ramparts were thus able to work under
shelter, with some command both of the field and the foot of the wall.
The defensive advantages of this scheme are obvious; but the galleries
were also liable, although the usual precautions for their covering
were taken, to destruction by fire, whether from arrows tipped with
burning tow, or the more formidable red-hot stones flung by catapults.
In any case, the catapults were a serious menace to their solidity.

[Illustration: Coucy; parapet of donjon]

The donjon and the towers of the _enceinte_ were also bratticed
at the rampart-level.[97] Indications of this practice are common
in military architecture abroad. The cylindrical donjon of Laval
(80), a work of the twelfth century, is covered with hoarding which
is supposed to be contemporary with the tower. The stone corbels
which carried the hoarding of the great thirteenth-century tower of
Coucy remain; and a row of plain arches pierced in the tall parapet
show how the gallery was entered from the roof (81). The somewhat
earlier round tower at Rouen was restored by Viollet-le-Duc on the
lines of Coucy, with a conical roof and hoarding. The inner wall at
Carcassonne and the curtain of Loches, among other examples, keep the
holes in which the joists of the hoarding were fixed; and the walls
of Nuremberg are still covered with inner galleries or _coursières_.
The practice of supplementing stone walls with timber defences lasted
till a late period; but, even before the end of the twelfth century,
corbelled-out parapets with machicolations appeared in isolated
instances. In subsequent chapters we shall see how military masons and
engineers applied their architectural skill to meet the problems which
siege-engines of greater strength and tactics more finished than those
of the past forced upon them. We have now to deal with earlier efforts,
which we have to some degree anticipated.




CHAPTER V

THE BEGINNING OF THE STONE CASTLE


[Illustration: Map of principal castles in north-east England]

In Domesday Book some fifty castles are mentioned by name or
implication; and the number was largely increased during the next
hundred years. In view, however, of the large number of temporary
private strongholds which came into being during the twelfth century,
it is difficult to estimate the number of permanent castles until, in
the later part of the century, Henry II. regulated and restrained the
efforts of private owners to guard their property with fortresses. The
castles included in Domesday do not represent the whole number which
existed at that period; and of such important castles as Colchester and
Exeter, which we know to have been founded before 1086, there is no
mention. To estimate the strategic plan which governed the foundation
of castles at its full value, we must therefore turn for a moment
to the later period at which the defence of England by a connected
system of these strongholds had been more thoroughly achieved. Here
also, it is not altogether easy, in view of the destruction of older
castles by Henry II., and the foundation of new ones at a later
epoch, to estimate the exact state of the castles of England at the
end of the twelfth century.[98] But, taking one special district, we
may at least gain an approximate notion of its lines of defence as
they existed about the year 1200. This is the north-eastern district
of England, containing the main strategic approach to Scotland, and
crossed by the rivers which descend eastwards to the sea. This was the
scene of the rebellion of the Mowbrays and the invasion of William
the Lion in 1174, in consequence of which four important castles
at least, those of Kinnard’s Ferry on the lower Trent, Thirsk and
Northallerton in the vale of Mowbray, and Kirkby Malzeard, on the
highlands above the right bank of the Ure, were demolished.[99] The
chief castles of this district will be found to guard the line of
the rivers. On the Trent were Nottingham, on the north bank, and the
bishop of Lincoln’s castle of Newark,[100] on the south; while the
greater part of the lower valley of the river was commanded at some
distance by the strongly-placed castles of Belvoir and Lincoln. On
the borders of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, Tickhill[101] stood in
advance of the Don, while the narrow passage of the Don, five miles
west of Doncaster, was guarded by Conisbrough. These castles defended
the approach from the high land on the west; the marshy country north
and east of Doncaster, towards the Humber, although it often proved
a refuge for freebooters, needed no permanent garrison. South of the
Calder, opposite Wakefield, stood Sandal. To the east, below the
junction of the Calder and the Aire, was Pontefract, in a position of
great strength and importance.[102] There was no great castle on the
Wharfe, although Harewood guarded the south bank of the river between
Otley and Tadcaster, and at Tadcaster itself there was a castle, of
which little is known; Cawood castle was simply a manor-house of the
archbishops of York.[103] On the Ouse, almost in the centre of the
shire, were the two castles of York, at the head of the tideway.
Knaresborough was west of York, on the north bank of the Nidd. Each of
the dales of the North Riding had its strong castle. In Wensleydale was
Middleham, south of the Ure. Richmond, from its cliff at the mouth of
Swaledale, commanded a vast tract of country, reaching to the Hambleton
hills and the forest of Galtres, north of York. Barnard Castle stood
in a strong position on the Durham bank of the Tees. The castles of
the eastern part of the North Riding were Skelton and Castleton, both
in Cleveland, and belonging to the house of Bruce. Helmsley stood at
the entrance of Ryedale; Pickering and Malton were on the Derwent,
and Scarborough guarded the coast. South of Scarborough, in the East
Riding, the one castle of importance at this date was Skipsea, on the
low coast-line of Holderness, between Flamborough and Spurn heads.
Returning to the border of Durham, and crossing the Tees, we find
Brancepeth and Durham on the Wear. On the south bank of the Tyne was
Prudhoe in Northumberland: north of the Tyne was the great fortress of
Newcastle. Most of the castles and small strongholds of Northumberland
were the growth of a later age. The principal castles at this period
were Mitford on the Wansbeck, Warkworth on the Coquet, Alnwick on the
Alne, Wark and Norham on the Tweed, and Bamburgh and Holy Island,
castles on the seaboard. This list might be extended, but the most
important fortresses east of the Pennine chain are included in it,
and from it the strategic geography of this important district can
be readily recognised. Of the thirty-four castles in this list, ten,
including the gateway-tower at Newark, had rectangular tower-keeps, of
which nine remain; Conisbrough and Barnard Castle (87) had cylindrical
tower-keeps. Of the rest, in most cases, as at Sandal (86), the mounts
remain, and in a few instances, as at Skipsea, there are remains of
a shell-keep. The shell-keeps of Lincoln and Pickering are still
excellent examples of their type. The masonry at York, Pontefract, and
Knaresborough belongs to a later period; and in almost all instances,
where masonry remains, it bears trace of substantial later additions.

[Illustration: Sandal Castle; Plan]

[Illustration: Barnard Castle; Plan]

It will be noticed that castles which guarded passes through hilly
districts were generally placed, like Middleham and Richmond, in
comparatively open country at the foot of the pass. This was the
case with Welsh castles like Brecon and Llandovery, or the tower of
Dolbadarn, below the pass of Llanberis. The isolated position at the
head of a pass was not easily victualled, nor was it so useful as the
situation on more open ground, from which, as at Brecon or Middleham, a
larger extent of mountain country could be commanded. Trecastle (44),
at the top of the pass between Brecon and Llandovery, has already been
mentioned as a site which was probably abandoned early: the tract which
it commanded is limited compared with that within reach of Brecon, the
point towards which all the valleys of the neighbourhood converge.

In places where a castle formed part of the defences of a walled town,
it was usually placed upon the line of the wall, so that the wall
formed for some distance part of its curtain. This can be well seen
at Lincoln, where the castle occupied the south-west angle of the
older Roman city. The castle of Ludlow is in the north-west angle of
the town, the wall of which joined it on its north face and at its
south-west corner. At Carlisle the castle filled up an angle of the
town, the town walls meeting its south curtain at either end. In such
cases, the castle, while defending the town, was also protected from
it by a ditch, across which a passage was furnished by a drawbridge.
The castle of Bristol stood upon the isthmus, east of the town, between
the streams of the Avon and Frome, and, in this strong position, was
joined by the city wall at either extremity of its west side. In 1313,
when the citizens were in rebellion, they cut off the castle from
the city by building a new wall on that side.[104] In the case of
Bristol, the building of the castle made some alterations in the town
wall necessary, as time went on, but, from the beginning, the castle
occupied its place in the regular _enceinte_. If, at York, the castles
were at first built, as seems to be the case, outside the defences
of the town, the circuit was soon extended to include the castle, at
any rate, upon the right bank of the river. Although the castle of
Southampton is almost entirely gone, the points of junction of its
curtains with the west wall of the town are quite clear. Similarly,
the position of castles such as Shrewsbury, Leicester, and Nottingham,
or close to the _enceinte_ of the town, can be traced, although little
is left of the walls. In foreign walled towns like Angers or Laval,
the castle formed, as in England, a portion of the outer defences. In
later castles like Carnarvon and Conway, the same relation to the plan
of the town was preserved. There are exceptions, of which the chief is
the Tower of London, within the Roman, but outside the medieval city
wall. Chepstow is also outside the town, between which and the castle
is a deep ravine: but in this case the town was of a growth subsequent
to the foundation of the castle. A distinction must be drawn between
castles founded in connection with fortified towns, in which the castle
formed part of a general scheme of defence, as at Bristol and Oxford,
and castles under the protection of which towns, like Chepstow, grew
up, and were subsequently fortified. A good example of this latter
class is Newcastle, in which the relations of town and castle are
exactly opposite to those at Chepstow. When the castle was founded by
the Conqueror, the place, once garrisoned by the Romans, and for a time
inhabited by a colony of English monks, was probably an inconsiderable
village. The town which grew up on the site took its name from the
castle, and was walled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The
walls, however, were brought down to the banks of the Tyne at some
distance east and west of the castle, which was thus contained entirely
within their circuit. At Norwich, a place of no great importance before
the Conquest, the castle is also entirely within the line of the old
city wall. One of the best examples of the connection between a walled
town and a castle is at Launceston, where the borough of Dunheved grew
up within a narrow area which was virtually the outer ward of the
strong hill-fortress.

The establishment of a castle upon a permanent site was followed,
sooner or later, by the building of stone fortifications. This work
was often very gradual. We have seen that even a castle so important
as that of York retained part of its timber stockade as late as 1324.
This, however, was an exceptional case. The walls and towers of
medieval castles show, as might be expected, a considerable variety of
masonry; but the epoch at which their fortification in stone became
general may be said to be the third quarter of the twelfth century. In
1155 Henry II. resumed castles and other royal property into his own
hands, and ordered the destruction of the unlicensed castles which had
risen during the civil wars of the previous reign.[105] This step was
followed unquestionably by much activity in strengthening the defences
of the castles which were left.

At the same time, there are many substantial remains of stone
buildings in castles earlier than this era. Stone donjons or keeps
were certainly exceptional in England before the reign of Henry II.,
although there are a few important examples of an earlier date. It
cannot be disputed, however, that a certain number of castles were
provided with a stone curtain-wall[106] and other stone buildings not
long after the Conquest. Curtain-walls thus built would follow the line
of the earthen bank surrounding the bailey, and take the place of the
timber stockade. They were at first of the simplest form. An edict of
the council of Lillebonne in 1080 laid down the rule, so far as the
Norman duchy was concerned, for constructing the defences of private
castles; and, although the details refer primarily to the ordinary
timber structure, they also have a bearing on the construction of early
curtains of stone. No ditch was to be deeper than the level from which
earth could be thrown by the digger, without other help, to the soil
above. The stockade was to follow a course of straight lines, and to
be without _propugnacula_ and _alatoria_—_i.e._, projecting towers and
battlements, and rampart-walks or galleries.[107]

The earliest type of curtain-wall would be strictly in accordance with
these rules—a strong wall of stone surrounding the bailey, and climbing
the sides of the mount to join the defences of the donjon. We read
of the destruction by Louis VI. of France of the stone fortification
with which the house of the lord of Maule was surrounded;[108] and the
edict already quoted applies to fortifications on level ground, and
includes, not merely castles, but strong private houses, which might
not necessarily follow the castle plan. The edict, however, proceeds
to forbid altogether the construction by private persons of castles
on rocks or islands. The reason of this is obvious. Such isolated
strongholds might become, in the hands of private owners, a centre
of rebellion against the suzerain. In 1083, Hubert of Maine held out
successfully against the Conqueror in his rock castle of Ste-Suzanne
(Mayenne) on the Erve, “inaccessible by reason of the rocks and the
thickness of the surrounding vineyards.”[109] William II. in 1095
besieged Robert Mowbray in his castle on the well-nigh impregnable
rock of Bamburgh, with considerably better fortune.[110] Such rocks
formed, as it were, natural mounts which made the construction of the
ordinary mount-and-bailey castle upon them unnecessary. The hardness
of the soil, moreover, made the construction of earthworks difficult
or impossible. The natural method of defence would be to raise a stone
wall which enclosed the stronghold.

[Illustration: BAMBURGH CASTLE: great tower]

[Illustration: BAMBURGH CASTLE]

[Illustration: Richmond; great tower]

Neither at Ste-Suzanne nor at Bamburgh (91) is there existing
stonework earlier than the twelfth century. Of the castle of
Saint-Céneri-le-Gérei (Orne), which we know to have been fortified
with stone walls before the end of the eleventh century,[111] only
indistinguishable masses of masonry remain to-day. On the other hand,
there are a certain number of castles on rocky and isolated sites, the
walls of which may be fairly attributed, in whole or part, to the later
half of the eleventh century. The most important example is Richmond
castle in Yorkshire (91), on a high promontory of rock above the Swale.
The shape of the enclosure is triangular. The most conspicuous feature
of the castle is the splendid square tower or donjon, which was
completed between 1170 and 1180, and stands on the north side of the
_enceinte_, at the head of the approach from the town. The curtain,
however, west of the donjon, contains “herring-bone” masonry,[112] and
is of a rough construction which affords the greatest contrast to the
regularly dressed and closely jointed masonry of the great tower. The
tower, on three sides, forms an outward projection from the curtain,
of great size and strength, and is a structure of one period from the
ground upwards. But, on entering the castle, it is at once obvious
that the lower part of the south wall of the tower is formed by part
of the earlier curtain. In the middle of this section of the work is a
wide doorway, with a round-headed arch of two unmoulded orders, which
now forms an entrance into the basement of the tower. The capitals
of the jamb-shafts of this archway are of an unmistakably eleventh
century character, with volutes at the upper angles, and a row of
acanthus leaves round the bell. This type of capital is seen in such
buildings as the two abbey churches at Caen, the nave of Christchurch
priory, the west front of Lincoln minster, and other fabrics completed
before 1100, and is a sure guide to the date of the work in which it
occurs. It would appear, then, that the masonry of this archway and
much of the curtain is the work of Alan of Brittany, earl of Richmond,
who certainly founded the castle, and died in 1088.[113] The castle
contains more work of his date, of which something will be said in the
sequel.

[Illustration: Ludlow; Entrance to inner ward]

When the great tower of Richmond was built, an entrance was made on
the first floor, from the rampart-walk of the curtain. It is quite
clear that, up to this time, the archway just described had been the
main entrance of the castle, and had probably been covered on the
side next the town by a rectangular building, which formed the lower
stage of a gateway-tower or gatehouse, lower than the present donjon.
This is borne out by a comparison with the keep at Ludlow, where it
is quite clear that an eleventh century gatehouse was converted at a
later period into a keep, by walling up the outer entrance (94). A
new entrance to the castle, as at Richmond, was made in the adjacent
curtain, where it could be easily commanded by the tower. The date of
the lowest stage of the donjon is revealed, as at Richmond, by the
details of capitals and shafts, which in this case belong to an arcade
in the east wall of the inner portion (95).[114]

[Illustration: Ludlow; Wall arcade in basement of great tower]

[Illustration: Ludlow; Plan]

The site of Ludlow (96), like that of Richmond, is a rocky peninsula,
where a stone curtain, for which material existed on the spot, formed
the obvious means of defence. There was no mount and no keep. Exeter,
again, is an early example of a stone-walled castle upon a rocky site,
where a gateway with a tower above formed the principal entrance.
Such sites were protected naturally by the fall of the ground on the
steeper sides; the side on which approach was possible was covered by
a ditch cut in the rock. The ditch would be crossed by a drawbridge,
let down from the inner edge, next the gateway. The gatehouse itself
would be a building of two or more stages; at Ludlow the upper stage,
as completed, was considerably loftier than the lower.[115] At Exeter
there were probably three stages. A single upper stage remains at
Tickhill. At Lewes and Porchester there is clear evidence of an upper
chamber. The gatehouse at Porchester, as at Ludlow, was the entrance
to an inner ward, divided by a ditch from the large outer ward,[116]
which, at Porchester, represented the greater part of the _enceinte_ of
the Roman station, and contained the priory church and buildings. In
these early gatehouses, the lower stage was closed at either end by a
heavy wooden door, and was covered by a flat ceiling of timber. There
was no arrangement for a portcullis. At Ludlow the lower stage appears
to have been divided into an outer porch and inner hall by a cross
wall, in which there must have been a door; but communication between
these parts was also obtained by a narrow barrel-vaulted passage in the
thickness of the east wall, which, opening from the outer division,
turned at right angles to itself in the direction of the length of the
wall, and, with another right-angled turn, opened into the inner hall
(95). This passage was guarded by doors, which opened inwards at either
end.[117] When the outer doorway of the gatehouse was blocked, the
lower stage was covered in with a pointed barrel-vault.[118]

[Illustration: Porchester; Plan]

As already indicated, the details of these gatehouses are very simple,
and it is only where an attempt is made at ornament that their date
can be fairly judged. Thus at Porchester, the entrance archway, masked
by defensive work of a more advanced period, consists of an unmoulded
ring of _voussoirs_, divided from the jambs by plain impost-blocks. The
outer bailey or base-court of the castle, which is still surrounded by
the Roman walls with their semicircular bastions, has two gatehouses.
These occupy the sites of the west and east gates of the Roman
_enceinte_, and the east or water-gate is in part Roman. The western
gatehouse was rebuilt at a date contemporary with the enclosure of the
castle proper within the north-west quarter of the Roman station, and
was much altered at a later period. The archways of the Norman building
remain, and show no attempt at ornament, the inner one alone having
impost-blocks below the arches. The work at Porchester is usually
attributed to the early part of the twelfth century, and the ashlar
facing of the side walls of the inner gateway appears to be of that
date. A similar severity of detail is seen in the parallel case of
Lewes, where the original gatehouse was also covered in the fourteenth
century by a barbican (98). The great gatehouse of three stages, at
Newark castle (99), was the work of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln from
1123 to 1148, whose uncle, Roger, bishop of Salisbury (1107-39),
appears to have built the gatehouse at Sherborne. The archways of the
lower stage at Newark are of great width, and are as simple in detail
as those at Porchester. The outer or northern wall of the tower is
faced with finely-jointed ashlar, and the archway on this side has a
hood-moulding, with billet ornament.[119]

[Illustration: Lewes; Barbican]

The position of the gatehouse in relation to the curtain varies. At
Richmond, Porchester, and Exeter the inner face of the gatehouse was
flush with the curtain. At Ludlow, Newark, and Tickhill it was partly
outside, but mostly inside the curtain. At Lewes the projection was
wholly internal. Its measurements also vary. Porchester was 23 feet
in length by 28 feet in breadth: Exeter and Lewes were about 30 feet,
Tickhill about 36 feet square: Ludlow was 31 feet broad, but was some
feet longer. The area of the gatehouse at Newark is larger than any,
and the general proportions and elevation were those of a rectangular
donjon rather than a mere gateway-tower.[120]

[Illustration: Newark; Gatehouse]

Stress has been laid on the occurrence of early stone fortifications
on rocky and precipitous sites, where the ordinary earthworks were at
once impracticable and unnecessary. It will be noted, however, that
the gatehouses which have been described are not found wholly in such
positions. Tickhill and Lewes were mount-and-bailey castles with strong
earthworks. Porchester is on level ground, open to Portsmouth harbour
on two sides, and defended by a ditch on the sides towards the land:
the site was already walled, but the rectangular keep appears to stand
upon the base of an earlier mount, which may have been thrown up so
as to enclose the Roman tower at the north-west angle of the station.
Newark (157) stands on a moderate height above the meeting of the Devon
and an arm of the Trent, with a deep ditch on the north and east sides
towards the town. There was no castle here before Alexander began to
build in or about 1130; and his work from the beginning consisted of
a rectangular enclosure without a mount, in which the gatehouse had
something of the importance of a keep. The necessity of defending the
entrance of the castle, whatever the nature of the site might be, led
to the construction of stone gatehouses at an early date; and, at
Tickhill or Lewes, the gate-towers were probably constructed at a time
when the mounts and embankments of the bailey were still defended by
timber.

Stone curtains which display “herring-bone” masonry may generally
be assumed to be early in date. It has been customary to look upon
“herring-bone” masonry as indicative of pre-Conquest work, and many
buildings have been described as “Saxon” on the strength of this detail
alone. On the other hand, it never occurs in direct association with
details which may be regarded as definite criteria of pre-Conquest
masonry; and the dimensions, apart from other features, of churches
in which it is found in any quantity, usually afford suspicion of its
post-Conquest origin.[121] Its use in castles, which, as has been
shown, were a Norman importation into England, demolishes its claim to
be regarded as a distinctive sign of Saxon work; and its employment
in Normandy, especially in the donjon of Falaise, where almost the
whole of the inner face of the walls shows “herring-bone” coursing,
may be set against any theory which would attribute it to English
masons after the Conquest.[122] It was used by Roman builders, and
much of it may be seen in the towers of the _enceinte_ at Porchester.
Saxon builders, however, did not copy Roman methods of walling, and
the surest criterion of Saxon work is the thin wall, wholly composed
of dressed stone, or of rag-work without facings. Norman builders,
coming from a country where the continuity of Roman influence was never
broken, used the ordinary Roman method of a compound wall, in which
a solid rubble core was faced with ashlar on one or both sides. It
is only natural that in early stone castles, which were constructed
as quickly as possible, the facing should be of a rough description,
of coursed rubble or of “herring-bone” courses laid in thick beds
of mortar. At a subsequent date, when masonry was added to already
fortified sites, the work could be pursued in a more leisurely manner.
The most striking example of “herring-bone” work in an English castle
is in the cross-wall of the great tower at Colchester (101), which is
unquestionably a building of the eleventh century. Here the work was
evidently hurried on, with the object of securing the greatest amount
of strength in the least possible time, and Roman tiles were re-used in
large quantities as bonding courses for the rubble walls, and for the
“herring-bone” coursing of the dividing wall. At Richmond, as has been
noted, there is a certain amount of “herring-bone” work in the curtain.
The castle was founded on an entirely new site by Alan of Brittany:
earthworks were out of the question, and the date of the older masonry
of the stone wall is beyond dispute.

[Illustration: Colchester; Cross-wall]

A very remarkable example of “herring-bone” walling is the curtain-wall
at Tamworth (48). The castle was founded by Robert Marmion after the
Conquest on the low ground at the meeting of the Tame and Anker, the
town, the fortified _burh_ of Æthelflæd, being on higher ground to the
north. Marmion’s fortress took the mount-and-bailey form. The bailey
was a triangular platform of earth, raised artificially above the level
of the river bank, with its apex towards the confluence of the streams.
The mount was on its west side, and was divided from it by a ditch. The
defences on the side next the town were of stone. Here the curtain-wall
remains in very perfect condition, crossing the ditch and climbing
the mount, with a sloping rampart-walk along the top. The inner face
is composed entirely of “herring-bone” courses, alternating with one,
two, and sometimes three, layers of thin horizontal stones. This
appearance of more than one horizontal course is very unusual.[123]
It is obvious that the site, being commanded by the town, would be
materially strengthened by a stone wall on that side: on the south
side, scarping and ditching would have been sufficient, and there is
no trace of stone-work of an early period here. The original entrance
was at the north-eastern angle of the enclosure, and probably took the
form of a stone gatehouse.[124] Other instances of “herring-bone” work
in curtain-walls that may be mentioned here are at Corfe, Hastings,
and Lincoln. Corfe was built on an isolated hill, which was scarped
and ditched, something after the manner of a “contour” fort of early
days: the portion of the curtain in which “herring-bone” coursing is
found follows the natural line of the edge of the hill. Hastings is
a fortress on a steep promontory: the mount, on the east side of the
enclosure, was defended by a deep ditch, and covered by a large outer
bailey with formidable earthworks. The curtain, on the east and north
sides of the inner ward, is chiefly of the thirteenth century; but part
of the north curtain, forming the north wall of the castle chapel, is
of “herring-bone” construction. Lincoln, as we have seen, was a large
mount-and-bailey fortress, surrounded by earthworks, which, on the west
side, enclosed portions of the wall of the Roman city. “Herring-bone”
masonry is seen here and there in the west and north curtains, which
have been raised on the top of the earthen banks.[125]

[Illustration: Chepstow; Hall]

The battlemented parapet with which the curtain-wall of a castle is
usually crowned, generally may be assigned, in its present state,
to a later repair and heightening of the curtain. This is the case
at Lincoln, where the parapet and upper part of the wall are of the
thirteenth century. It has been seen that the edict of Lillebonne
in 1080 forbade the defence of the curtain by flanking towers,[126]
rampart-walks, and other aids to defensive warfare; and, as a matter
of fact, the full development of the fortification of the _enceinte_
belongs to a later period. At the same time, towers projecting beyond
the line of the curtain are found in some of our early Norman castles
of stone. The line of the early curtain at Richmond is unbroken by
contemporary towers, and closely follows the edge of the rock on which
it is built. But at Ludlow (96) where the inner ward is the original
castle, founded probably by Roger de Lacy after 1085, the curtain is
flanked by four original towers in addition to the gatehouse, which has
been described. The shape of the ward is that of a triangle with convex
sides, the base of which, on the side of the outer ward and the town,
faces south and west. Some thirty feet to the east of the gatehouse, a
tower, in the basement of which an oven was inserted at a later date,
capped the south-west angle of the enclosure, projecting southwards as
far as the edge of the ditch. The west curtain continued in a line with
the west wall of this tower for some sixty feet, until it was broken
by a small postern tower. At the apex of the triangle, projecting to
the north-west, was another tower, the remaining tower being at the
north-east angle, with its north wall in a line with the north curtain.
All these towers are, roughly speaking, rectangular in shape, but the
outer angles of the north-east and north-west towers are chamfered.
The original openings were round-headed loops with wide inward splays.
Although the curtain was thus supplied with several projections, more
towers would be needed to flank it perfectly, and large portions of the
wall, particularly on the north and east sides, were left without more
protection than could be given by their own strength. Oxford castle is
another instance of early walling, where the tall rampart tower which
commanded the river and the castle mill still remains.[127]

[Illustration: Chepstow; Plan]

Of the stone buildings which existed within the enclosures of early
Norman castles, the traces which remain are comparatively few, and in
most cases work of an altogether later period has taken their place.
The great hall for the common life of the garrison, such as Robert
d’Oily built in Oxford castle in 1074, would be indispensable. At
Ludlow there can be little doubt that the original hall stood on the
site occupied by the present hall, much of the east wall of which is
apparently of the same date as the curtain. The two lower stages of
the oblong keep at Chepstow are the hall (103), with the cellar below,
founded by William, son of Osbern, before 1071. Although the upper
stage was transformed in the thirteenth century by the insertion of
traceried windows in the north wall, and of an arch between the daïs
and the body of the hall, the walls are of eleventh century masonry,
and the plain arcade which went round them is clearly visible on the
north and west sides. In the south wall of the cellar are the loops
which lighted it; these have lintel-heads with arch-shaped hollows
cut in the soffits. The hall and cellar at Richmond, which occupy the
south-east angle of the bailey, appear to be those built by Alan of
Brittany before 1088. A few additions took place here at the end of the
twelfth century,[128] but the windows in the north wall of the hall,
which are of two lights, with edge-rolls in the jambs, are clearly
of early date. When, for a time, the great stone tower became the
fashionable form of keep, a great hall formed part of its internal
arrangements; but this was the hall of the lord’s private dwelling, and
was used by the garrison only in time of siege. Domestic buildings,
including a great hall, may sometimes have been constructed of timber
within the bailey, and at the end of the twelfth century were probably
superseded by permanent buildings of stone, like the halls at Warkworth
or at Oakham. As at Richmond, such halls would be placed against or
close to the curtain, to leave the interior of the bailey as open as
possible. In case of siege, freedom of movement within the area of
the castle was essential, and the bailey formed the natural base of
operations. The hall at Chepstow was on the highest and narrowest part
of the rocky promontory on which the castle stands, at the head of the
bailey; its south wall formed part of the curtain overhanging the great
ditch between the castle and the town (106).[129]

[Illustration: LUDLOW CASTLE: inner bailey]

Norman castle-builders were careful to provide chapels within their
fortresses. In several cases, the chapel within the bailey appears to
have been the first building of stone raised inside the enclosure. The
small chapel at Richmond, in a tower of the east curtain, is almost
beyond doubt that which was granted by Alan of Brittany to St Mary’s
abbey at York about 1085. The details are very rude in character: there
is a plain wall arcade, supported on shafts, the capitals of which
have rough voluting and no abaci. The same type of capital is found in
the wall arcading of the original gatehouse at Ludlow (95), and also,
though with more finished ornament, in that of the circular nave of St
Mary Magdalene’s chapel (108) within the same castle. Certain details
in the chapel at Ludlow, especially the bands of chevron ornament round
the arches, seem to indicate that the nave is later than the eleventh
century. The arch which divided the nave from a rectangular chancel
ending in a half octagon, is of advanced twelfth century date; and it
is clear that the chancel must have been built or remodelled at a later
date than the building of the nave. The aisled chapel at Durham castle,
which now forms part of the basement of Bishop Pudsey’s building along
the north side of the bailey, has groined vaults, cylindrical columns,
and capitals with voluted crockets and square abaci, which may be
safely ascribed to 1075 or a little later. The capitals may be compared
with those of the original gateway arch at Richmond. The classical
spirit which is so noticeable in them, and is derived directly from
the contemporary work of Normandy, is also apparent in the capitals
of the crypt of the castle chapel at Oxford. Oxford castle was founded
in 1071, Durham in 1072. At Hastings, the first of the Conqueror’s
castles, there is, as has been said, much herring-bone work in the
north wall of the chapel nave and in the vice or turret-stair of
the central tower. Such definitely architectural detail as is left,
however, belongs to a rebuilding of the later part of the twelfth
century.

[Illustration: Ludlow; St Mary Magdalene’s Chapel]

The importance of the castle chapel in Norman times, and indeed
throughout the middle ages, deserves a note. Chapels were often
richly endowed, and, as at Hastings, Bridgnorth, and Leicester,
were sometimes founded as collegiate establishments, with a dean and
canons. The collegiate church of St Mary at Warwick, founded by Roger
of Newburgh, the second Norman earl, probably had its origin in a
castle chapel, removed to a new and enlarged site within the town. The
greatest of these collegiate chapels, although one of the youngest,
was St George’s at Windsor, founded by Edward III. The chapels at
Hastings, Bridgnorth, and Leicester were churches of some size and
importance; and their chapters, like those of the secular cathedrals,
usually consisted of royal clerks, generally non-resident, whose
duties were served by vicars. As royal chapels, they were exempt from
episcopal jurisdiction; and the term of “free chapel,” which was given
to them, became applied in course of time to chapels founded in private
castles and even upon manors.[130] In most cases a castle chapel was
served by a single priest, either the incumbent or his vicar. The
incumbent of the free chapel of St Michael in Shrewsbury castle,
usually a royal clerk holding his grant from the king, and inducted
by the sheriff as the king’s officer, held the church of St Julian in
Shrewsbury as parcel of his cure.[131] Where the Norman castle and
parish church stood side by side, as at Earls Barton or Higham Ferrers
in Northamptonshire, the lord of the castle and his household would
doubtless attend the church. But the foundation of a chapel within
the castle was a common thing, even when the church, as at Ludlow or
Warwick, was at no great distance; and in later years, when chantry
foundations became usual, castle chapels increased in number. Thus
at Ludlow, a second chapel, served by two chantry priests, was built
within the outer bailey about 1328;[132] and a college of eight chantry
priests was founded in 1308 by one of the Beauchamps in his castle of
Elmley in Worcestershire.[133]




CHAPTER VI

THE KEEP OF THE NORMAN CASTLE


We have seen that there were two types of early Norman castle in
England. There was the ordinary mount-and-bailey castle, with its
defences of earthwork and timber; and there was the castle founded
on a rocky site, in which there was no mount, and the defences were
of stone. In the first instance, the strongest position, the mount,
was occupied by the donjon or keep. In the second case, as at Ludlow,
the wall was defended by a strong gatehouse and a certain number of
towers; but at first there was, strictly speaking, no keep. During
the first half of the twelfth century, an era of constant rebellion
against the Crown, private owners constructed castles in very large
numbers, for purposes of aggression and self-defence. The second half,
the age of the first Plantagenets, was an era of consolidation, during
which the building of castles was methodised under royal control.
Unlicensed fortresses disappeared, leaving only their earthworks to
mark their place. The permanent castle of stone became the rule; and
to this period, the second age of our medieval military architecture,
belong some of our most formidable and imposing castles. The aim of the
builders, during this epoch, was to strengthen to the best of their
ability that point in the plan which would form a centre of ultimate
resistance to an attack from without. This point was the keep.[134]

[Illustration: CARISBROOKE: steps to keep]

The keep of Norman and early Plantagenet days was virtually a castle
within a castle. In the mount-and-bailey castle, there was generally
only one entrance to the enclosure. If the besiegers forced this and
entered the bailey, a ditch divided them from the mount, the most
formidable part of the defences. Here the defenders could concentrate
themselves for a last struggle, in which the advantage, unless the
siege could be prolonged indefinitely, was distinctly on their side.
Even where the mount was of inconsiderable height, it commanded the
bailey and the ditch at its base. Its sides were too steep to
allow of its being climbed without some artificial means of foothold.
A chance arrow, tipped with burning tow, might reach the palisade
round the summit of the mount, and set it alight in a dry season; but
the defending party had all the advantage of being able to discharge
their missiles downward and into a large portion of the bailey. Their
disadvantage lay in the possibility of a prolonged blockade by a large
force, and in consequent scarcity of ammunition and victuals. The
danger of fire could be minimised by covering the wooden defences with
skins newly flayed or soaked in water; but the work of renewing these
in case of a long siege would be difficult.

The wooden donjon on the mount took the form of a square tower
surrounded, at the edge of the mount, by a palisade, and approached,
as has been described already, by a steep wooden bridge, which crossed
the ditch into the bailey. But it is obvious that the existence of a
castle in any given place as a permanent centre of royal influence must
lead to the abandonment of wooden defences in favour of defences of
more lasting material. The stone curtain first took the place of the
palisade in the defences of the bailey, and was built across the ditch
and up the sides of the mount, ceasing, as can be seen at Berkhampstead
(42) or Tamworth, at the level of the summit. The next step was to
replace the palisade of the mount with a stone wall of circular or
polygonal shape. In some instances where this was done, it is possible
that the old wooden tower was left within the enclosure. Cases in which
a new tower of stone was built upon the mount are rare. Builders would
hesitate to charge the surface of the artificial hillock with the
concentrated weight of a large square tower. The encircling curtain
was much better adapted to the plan of the mount, and distributed
its weight more successfully over the edge of the surface. But, with
the building of a stone wall round the summit, the necessity of a
tower would be removed. Just as, in castles like Exeter and Ludlow,
there was from the first a stone wall without a definite keep, the
enclosure being virtually a keep in itself, so, in the more limited
area of the mount, the encircling wall formed the keep, and, in the
larger examples, sheltered upon its inner side buildings, usually of
timber, which afforded the necessary cover for the defenders, while
their roofs, abutting on the wall below the summit, left room for the
rampart-walk and the wooden galleries which were fitted to the curtain
in time of siege.

[Illustration: Cardiff; Keep]

This was the genesis of the so-called “shell” keep, which converted
the summit of the mount into a strong inner ward, the centre of which
was clear of buildings, and gave more chance of concentration to the
defenders than the narrow passage between the wooden tower and the
palisade, into which the angles of the tower would have projected
awkwardly. One of the best examples of the type which remains is the
keep upon the larger of the two mounts at Lincoln, a polygon of fifteen
faces on the outside, twelve on the inside. The wall has lost its
parapet, but retains its rampart-walk; it is 8 feet thick, and keeps
its height of 20 feet perfect round the whole of the enclosure. The
masonry is ashlar of late twelfth century character, and each of the
external angles is capped by a flat pilaster buttress. The marks on the
inner face of the walls indicate that the enclosure was surrounded by
timber buildings, with which two small mural chambers communicated, in
the thickness of the outer curtain where it joins the keep. The doorway
of the keep is in the north-east face of the wall, which is pierced by
a segmental-headed archway, with a semicircular covering arch on the
outer face. This doorway, defended by a wooden door with a draw-bar,
was approached by a stone stair made in the side of the mount. At the
present day the ditch at the foot has been filled up, and the stairs
are modern, but originally the ditch must have been crossed by a
drawbridge at the foot of the stair, which, when drawn up, would have
left the mount isolated from the bailey. There was a small doorway
in the south-west face of the keep wall, probably intended to be a
postern, through which an exit could be gained in emergencies.[135]

[Illustration: Alnwick; Plan]

The shell of masonry upon the mount, however, was by no means the
universal form taken by the keep. Sometimes, as at York, the timber
defences of the mount survived until a comparatively late period,
when their place was taken by a tower of a form in keeping with the
principles of fortification of the day.[136] At Alnwick (115) the
base of the great mount, with a considerable portion of its ditch,
remains between the two wards of the castle. The present cluster of
towers and connecting buildings upon the mount, surrounding a somewhat
dark and confined courtyard, is in large part a nineteenth century
reconstruction of the fourteenth century house of the Percys which
occupied the site. The outer and inner archways, however, of the
gatehouse through which the keep is entered, are twelfth century work,
and agree very well in date with the large remains of Norman masonry
which can be traced in the curtains of both wards. It is probable that,
about the middle of the twelfth century, Eustace, son of John, who
died in 1157, surrounded the whole of the present enclosure with stone
walls, and, levelling the mount to its present height, built in stone
the earliest domestic buildings of the castle, upon the enlarged site
of the earlier wooden donjon and palisade. The appearance of Eustace’s
buildings must have been very different from that of the mansion of the
Percys; and we may assume that he defended the summit of the levelled
mound by a thick curtain, against which his hall and other domestic
apartments were placed.

[Illustration: Beaugency]

[Illustration: Falaise]

In France and Normandy, the rectangular donjon of stone began
to supersede the wooden tower at an early date. At Langeais
(Indre-et-Loire), Fulk the Black, count of Anjou, built a stone donjon
as early as 992.[137] Three walls of this structure are left: it
was oblong in form and was composed of a basement and upper floor.
The masonry is largely faced with courses of small cubical stones,
following the manner inherited by the Romanesque builders of France
from their Roman predecessors: tiles are introduced in the arched heads
of the windows in the upper stage, which are not mere loops, but have a
considerable outward opening. This keep was obviously intended to be at
once stronghold and dwelling-house. Such a building was a translation
into stone of a wooden construction like the tower-house on the motte
at Ardres. It is built on a promontory above a small stream, and is
defended by a ditch on the landward side. Many of these stone towers
remain in Normandy and the country round the Loire; and, as a rule, are
earlier in date and larger in area than most of the similar buildings
in England. The tower of Beaugency (Loiret) is an oblong on plan,
measuring about 76 feet long by 66 feet broad (116): the present height
is 115 feet. The date indicated by the masonry is about 1100.[138] The
fabrics of the towers of Falaise (Calvados) and Domfront (Orne) may be
attributed to Henry I. In or about 1119 he systematically garrisoned
his fortresses at Rouen and other places, of which Falaise was
one.[139] Domfront, from 1092 onwards, was his favourite castle.[140]
Its strong position gave it an exceptional advantage as a base of
operations; and in 1101, when Henry ceded his Norman possessions to his
brother Robert, he kept Domfront for himself.[141] After the battle of
Tinchebray (1106) Henry was lord of Normandy, and restored order in
the duchy by razing the unlicensed strongholds built under Robert’s
weak rule.[142] The tower of Domfront, however, and possibly that of
Falaise, were not built until 1123.[143] At Domfront the castle is a
large enclosure, occupying the highest point of a long hill which has
a gradual eastward slope, but rises in an abrupt cliff from a narrow
valley on the west, and descends steeply on the north and south. A
deep ditch, through which the modern road from Caen to Angers has been
carried, divided the castle from the town. The great tower lies to the
east of the centre of the castle enclosure, so as to command the ditch
and the town beyond. Only the north-west angle, with a portion of the
adjacent walls, remains perfect. The height slightly exceeds 70 feet.
The area of the whole structure is 85 feet by 70, not counting the
buttresses and plinth. At Falaise (117) the great tower occupies nearly
the whole of the summit of the isolated cliff on which it stands, the
town occupying the hilly but lower ground on the north side. The length
of the tower is a little less than that of Domfront, while the breadth
is slightly greater. The height is about the same.

The tower of Domfront, like that of Beaugency, stood within a walled
castle, where the capture of the bailey would have exposed the tower
directly to the besiegers. It was therefore built with an exclusive
view to strength, and its window openings, even upon the second floor
above the basement, were small and narrow, those on the first floor
being mere loops. On the other hand, the tower of Falaise stands high
above the curtain-wall by which the ascent from the town was protected.
Its outer face is of ashlar throughout, and the window openings of the
two upper stages, far above the reach of stones and arrows, are double,
divided by shafts with carved capitals. Both towers were separated into
three parts by cross-walls; but the two upper stages at Falaise are
now undivided, and at Domfront, above the basement, there remain only
indications of such a division.

Returning to England, we may safely assert that, with very few
exceptions, our rectangular towers belong to a period which bears, from
the historical point of view, a close likeness to the period of Henry
I.’s fortifications in Normandy. Henry II. pursued the same policy of
destroying unlicensed castles and strengthening royal strongholds;
and his building operations took the form of providing his castles
with towers, such as already were a chief feature of the castles of
Normandy and Maine, but were certainly very exceptional in England. The
approximate date of several of these towers can be obtained from the
entries in the Pipe Rolls for the reign of Henry II.[144]

Henry II., like the Conqueror, directed his attention to the defence
of the main water-ways of his kingdom. The castles of the coast and
of the Welsh and Scottish frontiers were also chief objects of his
care. The Pipe Rolls of 1158-9 and 1160-1 contain accounts of large
sums spent on the castle of Wark-on-Tweed, at the extreme north-west
corner of the kingdom.[145] In 1158-9 occur charges for the tower of
Gloucester,[146] at the head of the Severn estuary; and in the same and
following years are many mentions of the castle and tower of the great
littoral stronghold of Scarborough.[147] Berkhampstead, commanding the
approach to London from the north-west, was an object of substantial
expense in 1159-60 and 1161-2.[148] In 1160-1 £215. 18s. 5d. was spent
in the fortification of the city of Chester:[149] work was also done
at Oswestry,[150] and other accounts show that attention was paid to
the victualling of castles on the Welsh border at Clun and Ruthin.[151]
Accounts, beginning in 1164-5, refer to the strengthening of Shrewsbury
castle.[152] Sums were spent on the tower of Bridgnorth, which
commanded the defiles of the Severn between Shrewsbury and Worcester,
in 1168-9 and following years;[153] and mentions of Hereford,[154]
Shrawardine,[155] and Ellesmere,[156] testify to the care with which
the western frontier of the kingdom was protected. Of the coast
castles, apart from Scarborough, Dover has a constant place in these
accounts. For example, in 1168-9, 40s. 6d. was paid for the hire of
ships to bring lime from Gravesend to Dover, and £34. 5s. 4d. was spent
on the work for which this was required.[157] Southampton castle was
repaired in 1161-2,[158] and a well was made there in 1172-3.[159] The
tower of Hastings was in progress in 1171-2.[160] In 1165-6 £256. 4s.
9d. was spent upon the castle of Orford, the great stronghold of the
Suffolk coast, which was an object of large yearly expense down to
1171-2.[161] On the line of the upper Thames, continual sums were spent
on the palace-castle of Windsor: the wall of the castle is referred
to in 1171-2 and 1172-3.[162] Work was done at Oxford and a well made
in 1172-3 and 1173-4.[163] Hertford castle was maintained to guard
the Lea.[164] In addition to Dover, the castles of Rochester,[165]
Chilham,[166] and Canterbury[167] protected the main routes to the
narrowest part of the Channel. The chief fortress of the vale of
Trent was at Nottingham, where large sums were spent in 1171-2 and
1172-3.[168] Of the inland castles of the north, the tower of Newcastle
cost some £385 between 1171-2 and 1174-5[169] This forms a contrast to
the small sum spent on the tower of York—£15. 7s. 3d.—in 1172-3:[170]
it is clear, from the Pipe Rolls of later reigns, that this was merely
a wooden structure.[171]

However, there are earlier instances of towers which are of first-class
importance, and these must be briefly described before we dwell upon
the characteristics of the donjons of the second half of the twelfth
century. We have seen that William the Conqueror, immediately after his
coronation, began the construction of certain strongholds in connection
with the city of London.[172] His first work was probably to enclose
within a palisade the undefended sides of the bailey, the east side of
which was covered by a portion of the Roman city-wall. Before the end
of his reign, the White tower had been begun as a principal feature
of the castle, and was completed in the reign of William Rufus, who
in 1097 built a wall about it.[173] This tower is therefore at least
as early in date as most of the early square towers of Normandy and
the adjacent provinces, and is considerably earlier than the towers
of Falaise and Domfront. A tradition attributes the design to the
direction of Gundulf, bishop of Rochester 1077-1108, who is also said
to have been the builder of the donjon-like tower at Malling in Kent,
originally attached to the church of St Leonard, and of the tower, the
ruins of which remain, on the north side of the quire of Rochester
cathedral.

The White tower is at present 90 feet in height, and is therefore
much lower than the nearly contemporary tower of Beaugency. Its area,
however, is far greater, covering an oblong of 118 feet from east to
west by 107 feet from north to south. It is four stages in height, and
was built of rubble masonry, ashlar work being confined entirely to
the pilaster buttresses and windows, and the plinth. Modern repairs
have made the original appearance of the tower hard to reconstruct.
The entrance was upon the first floor, and was never covered by a
fore-building: this entrance seems to have been in the western part
of the south wall. A well-stair or vice, in a round turret at the
north-east corner, was the chief means of communication between all the
floors; but vices were also made from the second floor to the roof in
the square turrets of the north-west and south-west angles. There is
also a square turret above the place which would ordinarily be occupied
by the south-east angle; but the south wall, throughout its height, is
continued into an apsidal projection, which is curved round to meet the
east wall. The two upper stages of this projection form the apse of
St John’s chapel, with its encircling gallery. The faces of the tower
and the apse are strengthened by flat buttresses at regular intervals,
which are gathered in at a string on the level of the floor of the
uppermost stage, and again at the level of the roof. There are no
window openings in the basement, which was originally used for stores.
The window openings of the first and second floors were originally
narrow loops, with wide internal splays, but have been considerably
enlarged, with some damage to the appearance of strength which the
tower once possessed. The openings in the aisle of the chapel on the
second floor, however, were wider than the rest. The third floor, being
out of the range of ordinary missiles, had wide window openings: the
two openings in the south wall of the larger room on this floor are
double. The greatest thickness of the walls of the basement is 15 feet:
the walls of the uppermost stage are from 10 to 11 feet thick.

[Illustration: White Tower; Plan of Second Floor]

[Illustration: White Tower; St John’s Chapel]

The tower is divided internally into two parts by a longitudinal wall,
east of the centre, 10 feet thick.[174] Thus in the basement there
is a large western chamber, 91 by 35 feet, and on every floor above
there is a corresponding room, the dimensions of which increase with
the thinning of the outer walls to a maximum of 95 by 40 feet. The
eastern chamber, however, is divided into two parts by a cross-wall,
considerably to the south of the centre. There is thus in the basement
and each floor an oblong north-eastern chamber, into which access is
obtained from the main well-stair. In the basement there is a doorway
in the longitudinal wall between this and the western chamber; but,
on each of the upper floors, the communication is maintained by five
openings in the wall. Apart from the recesses of the loops, and the
mural lobbies which lead to the vices in the turrets, there are only
two mural passages, one in the first and one in the second stage,
communicating with garde-robes; but the wall of the third floor is
pierced all round by a gallery, with a barrel vault, in the thickness
of the wall, which communicates at either end with the broad gallery
above the aisles of St John’s chapel.

[Illustration: Tower of London; St John’s Chapel

[Illustration: Christchurch]

The south-eastern quarter of the tower contains, in the basement, the
sub-crypt of the chapel, known in later days as “Little Ease.” On the
first floor is the upper crypt, which, as well as the sub-crypt, has a
barrel vault, and ends in an apse. The second floor is the ground-floor
of the chapel and its aisle or ambulatory, which is divided from the
nave by plain round-headed arches springing from cylindrical columns
with capitals, those of the eastern columns famous for the Tau-shaped
plaques left uncarved between their volutes, those of the western
columns scalloped (122). The nave of the chapel rises through the
third floor to the barrel vault. The aisles have groined cross-vaults:
the gallery above them on the third floor is covered by a half barrel
vault. This gallery, as before mentioned, is connected in its north
and west walls with the mural gallery of the main chambers. The ground
floor of the chapel communicated with the north-eastern chamber through
a doorway in the cross-wall; but the main entrance was through a short
mural lobby from the western chamber, which led into the west end of
the south aisle. At a late date a vice was made in the thickness of the
wall from this lobby to a doorway in the basement, by which access was
obtained to the chapel from the later domestic buildings adjoining the
south side of the tower.

The well of the tower, a most necessary feature in case of siege,
was in the floor of the western chamber of the basement, near its
south-western angle, and was cased with ashlar. Only three fireplaces
remain, all in the east wall, two on the first, and one on the second
floor: the smoke escaped through holes in the adjacent wall. The use of
the rooms on the various floors is uncertain, and it is possible that
they may have been separated by wooden partitions into smaller rooms.
The basement chambers, however, were obviously store-rooms; and the
great western chamber on the third floor was used by many of our kings
as a council-chamber. The first-floor rooms may have been intended for
the use of the garrison, while the larger room on the second floor was
probably the great hall of the tower, and the smaller room the king’s
great chamber. The upper room, next the council-chamber, may have been
for the use of the queen and her household. Accommodation, suited to
the scanty needs of the times, was thus provided for a large number
of persons; and the great size of the chapel alone indicates that the
tower was intended as an occasional residence for the royal family.
The palace hall at Westminster, however, was in building, when Rufus
made his wall round the Tower; and it is clear that the cold and dark
interior of the fortress was planned mainly with a view to defence, and
with little respect for comfort.

The great tower of Colchester castle (47), which is of the same date as
the White tower, covers an even larger area. The internal measurements
of the ground-floor, excluding the projections at the angles, are 152
feet north and south by 111 feet east and west. This, the greatest of
all Norman keeps, has unfortunately lost its two upper stages, and,
with them, the chapel, which, like that in the White Tower, was built
with an apsidal projection covering the junction of south and east
walls. The crypt and sub-vault of the chapel, however, remain. In this
respect, and in the division of the floors into larger and smaller
chambers by a cross-wall running north and south, the likeness between
these two great towers is very marked. The rectangular projections,
on the other hand, which cap three of the angles of the tower at
Colchester, are far more prominent than those of the Tower of London,
and form small towers in themselves; and, even at the angle where the
apse of the chapel is extended eastward, the south wall has been built
of a thickness to correspond with the projections at the north-east
and north-west angles. That at the south-west angle differs in plan
from the rest, being longer from east to west and wider on its western
face than the others. Its south face also is recessed from the level
of the south wall of the tower, but projects in a large rectangular
buttress at the point where it joins the main wall. This south-west
tower contained the main staircase. The entrance was on the ground
floor, immediately east of the buttress just mentioned, and not, as in
most rectangular keeps, upon the first floor. The ashlar with which
the exterior of the tower was cased has been stripped off, and the
rubble core of the walls, with its bonding courses of Roman tiles, is
now exposed. Below the ground floor the walls spread considerably:
this can be seen upon the north and west sides, where the hill drops
towards the river, and the upper part of the solid foundation is above
ground. Between the angle towers the walls are broken, on the east and
west sides, by two rectangular buttresses of slight projection: on the
north side there is only one, and on the south side none. The ground
floor and first floor were lighted by narrow loops, splayed inwardly
through about half the thickness of the wall. In each of the east,
north, and west walls of the ground floor there are three of these.
The south wall has only two: one lights the well chamber on the east
of the entry, while the other, at the opposite extremity of the wall,
lights the sub-vault of the chapel. The wall between the two, being on
the side of the tower most open to attack, is of great solidity, and
is unbroken by opening or buttress. In each face of the first floor,
exclusive of the angle towers and apse of the chapel, there were four
loops. The window openings of the upper stages were probably larger.
One of the most striking features of this tower is the plentiful use of
Roman tiles among the masonry, especially in the cross-wall, where they
are arranged in a very regular and beautiful series of “herring-bone”
courses (101). This employment of Roman material gave rise to a
tradition, not yet wholly extinct, that the tower was a Roman building.
It need hardly be said that nothing would be more natural than for the
Norman masons to adopt the economical principle of applying to their
own use material which lay ready to hand among the ruins of the Roman
station.

[Illustration: Dover]

[Illustration: Clun]

The towers of London and Colchester are exceptional in their date and
in the hugeness of their proportions. Although the towers of the later
part of the twelfth century have many features in common with them—the
division by means of cross-walls, the well-stairs in one or more of the
angles, the pilaster buttresses projecting from the outer walls, and
the mural galleries and chambers—no tower was subsequently attempted
upon their scale. The tower of Rochester (frontispiece), which appears
to have been begun somewhat earlier than 1140, and is therefore
intermediate in date between these two exceptional examples and the
later towers, is 113 feet high to the top of the parapet, and is 70
feet square (exterior measurement) at its base. The tower of Dover
(126), built in the early part of the reign of Henry II., measures
98 by 96 feet at the base. The walls, however, have the exceptional
thickness of 24 to 21 feet, so that the internal measurements are
considerably reduced, while the height to the top of the parapet is
only 83 feet. The towers of London and Colchester are also exceptional
in the importance given to the chapel in their plans. The great
prominence of the angle turrets at Colchester is an unique feature,
while the position of the main entrance upon the ground floor,
although not unique, is very unusual.

The later towers differ from those of London and Colchester in the
fact that they were additions to enclosures already existing, instead
of being the nucleus of a castle founded for the first time. Although
they have a general family likeness, neither their position on the
plan, which was necessarily dictated by the nature of the site, nor
the details of their arrangements, are uniform. Most of the castles in
which they occur are divided by a wall, built across the enclosure from
curtain to curtain, into an outer and inner ward or bailey. The tower,
standing at the highest point of the inner ward, was placed so as to
command both these divisions of the castle. If the outer ward were
entered, the besiegers were confronted by a second line of defence, the
wall of the inner ward, in conjunction with which the great tower, with
its superior height, could be used by the defenders. Finally, if the
inner ward were taken, the tower still remained as a formidable refuge
for the garrison.

[Illustration: Guildford]

Where a new tower keep was added to castles of the usual type, whose
main defences consisted of an earthen mount and banks, it was often
raised, as at Canterbury and Hastings, on a new site, independent
of the mount, which was probably avoided as affording insufficient
foundation. Thus, at Rochester, the old mount of the eleventh century
castle, now known as Boley Hill, remains at some distance from the
later enclosure. But there were cases, and possibly more than are
generally recognised, in which the mount was utilised for a tower. At
Christchurch the comparatively small keep was built entirely upon the
artificial mount. The keeps of Norwich and Hedingham (135), two of the
grandest of their class, were built upon mounts, which, if in great
part natural hills, had been scarped and heightened by art. The mounts
at Guildford and Clun (127) are artificial. In both these last cases
the summit of the mount was converted into a shell keep, surrounded
by a wall; but on the eastern side of this enclosure a tower, of
respectable if not large dimensions, was made. The tower at Clun was
built against the east slope of the mount, the basement being entirely
below the level of the summit of the earthwork. This is also partly the
case at Guildford (128), where the tower is placed across the eastern
edge of the mount. The inclusion at Kenilworth of artificial soil
within the basement of the keep has led to the suspicion that the mount
of the castle was reduced in height, and the tower built round the
lower portion (132).

[Illustration: Scarborough; Plan]

At Guildford and Clun the combination of a shell of masonry with a
tower keep produced the effect of a small inner ward—which is virtually
what a shell keep is—with a tower upon its _enceinte_. Frequently,
as at Scarborough (129) and Bamburgh the tower keep stood upon the
line of the curtain between the two wards. At Scarborough it actually
stands athwart that line, but its greater projection is towards the
inner ward, from which, of course, it was entered. The towers at
Norham (157) and Kenilworth fill up a corner of the inner ward, but
have no noticeable projection beyond the curtain. This is also the
case at Porchester (131), where the north-west angle, in which the
keep stands, is also the north-west angle of the Roman station.[175]
Some, however, of the finest of these towers, Rochester, Dover, and
Newcastle, stood wholly detached within the inner ward, although, as
at Rochester, near enough to the curtain to enable the defenders to
command the outer approaches from the upper stages.

[Illustration: Map of Rectangular Keeps]

[Illustration: Porchester]

From the point of view of dimensions the towers may be divided into two
classes. There are the towers proper, such as Clun, Corfe, Guildford,
Hedingham, Helmsley, Newcastle, Porchester, Richmond, Rochester, and
Scarborough, in which the height is greater than the length or breadth.
Such towers are approximately square; and to them must be added Dover,
in which, however, owing to the immense thickness of the walls, the
height is less than the length or breadth. In one case, Porchester
(131), the measurement from north to south exceeds that from east to
west by 13 feet, and at first was also in excess of the height; but
the tower was raised to nearly twice its height not long after the
completion of the original design. The second class is composed of
keeps, of which one or both of the dimensions of the ground-plan exceed
the height, without the exceptional circumstances which governed the
proportions of Dover. Such keeps are noticeably oblong in shape. At
Castle Rising and the tower of Bowes in Yorkshire the height is less
than either the length or breadth. At Kenilworth (132) the length from
east to west exceeds the breadth by nearly 30, and the height by 7
feet. Middleham, from north to south, measures approximately 100 feet
by 80 from east to west: its height is only 55 feet, which, though it
surpasses the 50 feet of Bowes and Castle Rising, is much less than
the 80 feet of Kenilworth. Its length and breadth, however, make up an
area far surpassing the 87 by 58 feet of Kenilworth, the 82 by 60 feet
of Bowes, and the 75 by 54 feet of Castle Rising. The foundations of
another keep of this class remain at Duffield in Derbyshire. Bamburgh,
69 by 61 feet, but only 55 feet high, is another member of the class.
Another great Northumbrian keep, Norham, although its height is 90
feet, is oblong in plan; and its measurement from east to west comes
within 4 feet of the height, so that it stands on the border between
the second and the first class.

[Illustration: Kenilworth]

The internal divisions of the keeps are not uniformly the same, and
do not always correspond to the height. The usual arrangement in the
loftier keeps, as at Hedingham, Porchester, Rochester, and Scarborough,
is a basement with three upper floors; but at Corfe, which is 80 feet
high, as at Guildford, which is only 63 feet high, there are only two
upper floors. At Dover, 83 feet high, and Newcastle, 75 feet high,
the second floor was surrounded by a mural gallery, high above the
floor-level, so that the second and third floors were combined into
one lofty room.[176] At Norham, however, there were four upper floors.
Kenilworth, only 10 feet lower, had a lofty basement with only one
floor above it. At Bowes there were two floors. At Middleham and Castle
Rising, there was one main floor; but, by the subdivision of the rooms
on this stage, a second floor was made in portions of the building.
As a rule, the walls grow thinner as they rise: this was achieved by
rebating the inner face at each floor to provide a ledge for the floor
timbers. In exceptional cases, there is an off-set on the exterior of
the tower; and at Rochester the walls are thinned from 12 feet at the
base to 10 feet at the top by a slight exterior batter. At Porchester
the walls are 11 feet thick at the base: this is reduced to 7 feet at
the first floor, and, by an off-set at the level of the original roof,
to 6 feet in the upper stage. The thickest walls, next to those at
Dover, appear to be at Newcastle, where their thickness at the first
floor is 14 feet.

Many of these towers, such as Rochester and Dover, are built of
rag-stone or coursed rubble, with dressings of ashlar. The masonry
at Guildford (128) is extremely rough, and “herring-bone” coursing
is extensively used: the date of the tower, however, to judge by its
internal details, is not earlier than the third quarter of the twelfth
century.[177] On the other hand, not a few have their walls cased with
ashlar. Hedingham and Porchester are noble examples from the east and
south of England; Bridgnorth and Kenilworth from the midlands. Of the
towers of Yorkshire, Bowes, Richmond, and Scarborough have ashlar
casing; Middleham is of rubble with ashlar dressings. Ashlar facing
is used throughout at Bamburgh, Newcastle, and Norham: at Norham the
ashlar is of two distinct kinds, small cubical stones being used in one
part, and larger stones in another.[178] As at Colchester, Dover, and
Kenilworth, the foundations of the larger towers spread considerably,
and rise above ground in a battering plinth, into which the
buttresses at the angles and on the face of the walls die off without
interruption. At Newcastle there is a roll string-course above the
plinth, and at Bamburgh (91) the plinth is moulded with a very imposing
effect. Where the tower is built on an uneven site, as at Middleham
or Scarborough, the plinth appears only on the faces where the ground
falls away from the tower.

The angles of the tower were always strengthened by rectangular
pilaster buttresses of the ordinary twelfth century type, formed by
thickening the two adjacent walls. In most cases these meet, forming
a solid exterior angle. Occasionally, as at Guildford, Hedingham,
and Rochester, a hollow angle is left between them, which, at Castle
Rising and Scarborough, is filled by a shaft or bead. Above the line
of the parapet the angle buttresses are continued into square turrets.
Within one or more of these angles, there was a vice. At Newcastle
(139) the angle buttresses are of such breadth and projection as to
form distinct towers: this is even more noticeable at Kenilworth, where
there are angle towers not unlike those at Colchester. On the faces of
the tower between these angles there were usually one or more pilaster
buttresses of slight projection. These varied in number according to
the plan and site of the tower. At Dover there is one on each face,
with the exception of the side which is covered by the forebuilding.
At Kenilworth there are four on one face, three on another, two on a
third: the remaining wall has disappeared. At Porchester there is one
on each of the west and north faces, none on the east or south: when
the tower was heightened, neither angle nor intermediate buttresses
were continued upwards. It is worthy of note that one of the angle
towers at Newcastle is polygonal, not rectangular, in shape. This
points to a transition in methods of fortification, of which more will
be said hereafter. The south-east angle at Rochester is rounded; but
this is the result of a repair of the tower which took place in the
thirteenth century.

[Illustration: HEDINGHAM: great tower]

As the main object of these towers was defensive, their external
architectural features were generally confined to their excellent
masonry. A moulded plinth, as at Bamburgh, is of very rare occurrence.
At Norwich and Castle Rising a wall is arcaded or recessed: this,
however, is quite contrary to the usual practice. String-courses,
where they were used, were generally confined to the buttresses, as
at Kenilworth; although in a few cases, as at Richmond, they were
continued along the wall. The necessary window openings were few and
small. Here, however, a distinction must be made. It has been remarked
already that the donjon of a castle sometimes formed the residence of
its lord as well as a strong tower in time of war. The towers of London
and Colchester were certainly planned upon their liberal scale with
this double end in view; and, destitute of comfort as they seem
to us to-day, the upper floors of the White Tower were at any rate
well lighted. Similarly, at Rochester, there was a large provision
of single-light windows in the floors above the basement. And, as
a rule, while the basement was lighted by a very few narrow loops,
set high in the wall, and the first floor, which was not above the
range of missiles, was lighted sparingly by narrow loops with wide
internal splays, the second floor, which formed the main apartment, had
much larger windows. These, as in the Tower of London, or at Dover,
Hedingham, and Scarborough, were sometimes of two lights, divided by
an intervening shaft or piece of wall. At Newcastle, where the second
floor, owing to the thickness of the walls, in which separate chambers
are contrived, is very dark, there is a wide single opening in the
intermediate buttress of the east face, which externally has a moulded
arch and jamb-shafts (139). At Richmond, a tower the single object
of which seems to have been defence, the window openings, with one
exception, are narrow loops with internal splays; and, of all twelfth
century towers, this was probably the darkest and least comfortable
(93).[179]

The main entrance of the tower was usually on the first floor,
although sometimes, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Norwich, it was on
the second floor, and led directly into the main apartment. It was
obviously unsafe to make an entrance in the basement, where the doors
could be easily forced or burned. At the same time, there is, as we
have noticed, a basement entrance at Colchester, where the approach
was protected by a strong ditch. The rocks on which Bamburgh and
Scarborough stand made the position almost impregnable, and in both
cases the main doorway of the tower is on a level with the soil of the
ward in which it stands.[180] When the outer opening of the original
gateway at Richmond was removed to make way for the new tower, the
inner opening was left, forming a direct communication between the
interior of the castle and the basement: this also was permitted by the
natural strength of the site; but the main entrance to the tower was
in the south-east corner of the first floor, from the rampart-walk.
At Ludlow, both openings of the gateway were walled up (94), and a
stair was made to the first floor against part of the west wall of the
tower.[181] Even in the tower on the mount at Guildford, the main
entrance was on the first floor (128). Where the doorway led into
the chief apartment of the tower, it received special architectural
treatment. That at Newcastle is a wide opening with a semicircular
arch of three orders and shafts in the jambs: it has been rebuilt, but
probably follows the original design closely. On the other hand, the
first-floor entrance at Kenilworth, which led into the main room, is
exceedingly plain, with a segmental arch, and a semicircular relieving
arch in the wall above.

[Illustration: NEWCASTLE: great tower]

Entrances on upper floors were necessarily approached by stairs,
which were habitually placed against the wall, at right angles to
the entrance, and sometimes, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Rochester,
turned the angle of the wall in their descent. These were usually
covered by a structure known as the fore-building, which provided a
formidable covered approach to the main entrance. The fore-building
formed a substantial annexe to the tower, and has some variety of plan.
Indications of it are found in its simplest form at Scarborough, where
it was of two stages. The lower stage was a vaulted passage against
the south wall, from the end of which the basement doorway was entered
at right angles; the upper stage was entered by a doorway from the
first floor of the tower. The entrance passage was closed by wooden
doors; if these were forced, an attacking party would still have some
difficulty and danger in breaking into the tower, while missiles,
hurled upon them through a hole in the floor of the upper stage, would
make retreat from the passage a delicate matter. The fore-building at
Kenilworth was also of two stages, enclosing an entrance stair, which
led to the doorway on the first floor. The arrangement at Rochester was
more complicated. Here the stair began against the north-west angle
buttress, where it was covered by a small tower of two stages, the
lower containing the doorway, the upper communicating with a vaulted
chamber in the angle of the first floor of the tower. The stair then
turned the angle, and, protected by an outer wall some 6 feet high,
rose along the north wall of the tower to a drawbridge, with a deep
pit below. At the further side of the drawbridge, the east part of
the north wall was covered by a building in three stages. The middle
stage, entered from the drawbridge, contained a chamber, in which was
the main entrance to the first floor of the keep. The lowest stage was
a vault, which communicated with the basement of the tower; the upper
stage, entered from the second floor of the tower, contained a room,
which may have been a chapel. At Dover and Newcastle the fore-buildings
were even more elaborate, including a lower tower which protected
the entrance and right-angled turn of the stair, a middle tower which
covered the stair half-way up, and an upper tower at the head of the
stair, beyond the platform from which the second floor was entered.
The basement of the fore-building at Newcastle was the castle chapel;
the lower tower was, as at Rochester, simply a gate-tower; the middle
tower formed a covering to a second gateway on the stair; and the
upper tower contained a vaulted guard-room commanding the platform of
entrance. At Dover, the upper tower, solid at the base, had vaulted
chambers on the first and second floors; the middle tower enclosed a
well, the mouth of which was contained in a chamber entered from the
platform in front of the main doorway of the keep; while the lower
tower formed a large projection at the south-west angle of the keep,
containing upon its first floor a covered landing for the stair, from
which opened to the east a room, probably an oratory, and to the west
a porter’s lodge. Upon the second floor was the chapel of the keep,
entered from the main apartments. A vault in the basement of the lower
tower of the fore-building communicates with the basement of the keep
through another vault, which is common to the keep and fore-building.
Similarly, the vault at the first-floor level of the upper tower
communicates with the main first floor through another common vaulted
chamber. The Dover fore-building is thus an integral portion of the
keep.

Of all existing fore-buildings, that at Castle Rising (143) is in the
best state of preservation. Here the main entrance to the keep is on
the east face of the building, near its north end. The stair, which
had a timber roof, ascends by the side of the east wall, straight from
the ground. There is a gateway at its foot, and another gateway at a
landing half-way up. The upper flight of stairs, which was also roofed
with timber, passes through a third gateway into the upper floor of
a tower, which, as at Rochester and Norwich, covers the main doorway
of the keep, and is not placed, as at Dover and Newcastle, beyond the
doorway. Each of the doorways of the fore-building has a rounded arch
with an edge-roll, and shafts with cushion capitals in the jambs. The
main doorway of the keep has five orders, the four outer orders being
shafted, and the arch having rich late Norman mouldings. The chamber
at the head of the stair is vaulted in two bays, but originally had a
timber roof. There is a vaulted chamber beneath it.

There is an exceptional arrangement at Porchester (131), where the
stair, instead of being covered by the fore-building, is set outside
it, against its eastern face. From the landing at the head there is a
straight passage, between the first-floor rooms of the fore-building,
to the main entrance of the tower; while, from the same landing,
another flight of stairs leads to the northern rampart-walk of the
castle. Another exceptional fore-building is found at Berkeley
(142). Here, however, the exception consists in the fact that it is
a fore-building, not to a tower, but to a shell-keep of peculiar
construction. The mount of the early Norman castle was reduced in
height, and its base, forming a platform some 20 feet above the ground,
was enclosed within a wall, 8 feet thick, which is strengthened by
pilaster buttresses and rises to a height of 60 feet. Against the
south-east face of this wall is a narrow fore-building. The stair,
which was covered by a timber roof, passes through the lower stage of
a gateway-tower, and ascends to a platform, from which, after another
gateway has been passed, the interior of the shell is entered. The room
upon the first floor of the gateway-tower is entered from the platform
by a narrow ledge above the stair.

[Illustration: Berkeley]

[Illustration: CASTLE RISING: stair of forebuilding]

[Illustration: Rochester; internal cross-wall]

As the main doorway of a tower-keep was set in the outer face of a
thick wall, a narrow passage had to be traversed before the interior
of the tower was reached. At Castle Rising, the wall is comparatively
thin, and the doorway is recessed deeply, so that the tower is
entered directly. In most cases, the keep was divided internally into
two parts by a cross-wall, which reached from the basement to the
summit.[182] This wall was often central, as at Porchester, Rochester,
and Scarborough; but in towers which are oblong in plan, as at Castle
Rising and Middleham, it divided the keep into two unequal rectangles.
At Bowes, as also in the Norman keep of Domfront, it was so far from
being central that it cut off only a narrow oblong from the interior,
the large main room on the first floor of Bowes being left nearly
square. In a square keep, the cross-wall was frequently opposite the
main entrance, and parallel with the fore-building. At Hedingham,
Lancaster, Porchester, and Scarborough, it is at right angles to the
fore-building, so that the main entrance is, as in the oblong keep
of Castle Rising, in an end, and not in a side of one of the rooms.
The cross-wall at Scarborough was not continued to the second floor;
and, on the first floor, a transverse arch took its place, throwing
the two main rooms into one. A great transverse arch, perhaps the
finest architectural feature in any of our tower-keeps, also spans the
second floor at Hedingham, in place of the cross-wall (147). On the
second floor at Rochester, the cross-wall is represented by two pairs
of rounded arches, divided by a central block of wall containing the
well-shaft (145). But a cross-wall was not an universal feature of a
tower-keep. Neither Clun nor Guildford, towers of moderate size, have
one; and, of the greater keeps, Newcastle, Richmond, and Kenilworth
have undivided interiors. This is remarkable in a keep of the area of
Kenilworth: at Newcastle and Richmond the walls are so solid that the
interior space is comparatively small, while at Newcastle additional
room was supplied by unusually spacious mural chambers. At Castle
Rising, in addition to the main cross-wall, each of the divisions
of the keep has a smaller cross-wall at its extremity, cutting off
additional apartments from the main rooms, and allowing in one place
the insertion of an upper floor.

Of the divisions of the tower, whether divided by a cross-wall or not,
the basement was probably used for the storage of arms and provisions.
It sometimes contained the opening of the well of the keep.[183] The
first floor, where there was no other, contained the main apartment or
hall. In the loftier type of keep, this was on the second floor, and,
as we have just seen, the substitution of an arch or arcade for the
cross-wall sometimes converted this floor into one large apartment. At
Dover and Porchester, as in the Tower of London, the division into two
apartments was maintained, and there is only a small doorway through
the cross-wall. The second room, in these instances, probably formed
the “great chamber” or private apartment of the lord of the castle when
in residence. Where the hall was on the second floor the first floor
was probably set apart for the garrison in time of siege and for the
servants. The provision for private bedrooms was, in those days of
publicity, extremely small; but where, as at Dover and Newcastle, the
thickness of the wall allowed of several large mural chambers, some of
them may have been devoted to this purpose; and in some keeps, as at
Hedingham, an upper floor above the main apartments was provided, which
doubtless served this end.[184]

[Illustration: HEDINGHAM: doorway of great tower]

[Illustration: HEDINGHAM: second floor of great tower]

For the purpose of communication between the floors, the example of
the towers of London and Colchester was followed. A well-stair was
constructed in one of the angles from the basement to the summit of
the tower, and had an entrance to each floor through a short passage
in the thickness of the wall, or sometimes in the embrasure of one of
the windows. This single stair was the only means of approach to the
basement. At Dover there are two such stairs; and, in a few instances,
there are small outer doorways to the basement, which may be
original, like the postern, high above the ground at Newcastle, or may
have been cut at a later date, like the entrance to the basement from
the fore-building at Kenilworth. The two stairs at Dover are diagonally
opposite to one another. At Rochester a second stair, also diagonal to
the other, begins at the first floor and ascends to the roof. The main
stair at Guildford starts in an angle of the first floor: the basement
was probably entered by a trap-door and ladder, but later, probably in
the thirteenth century, a doorway was cut through the wall into the
basement below the main entrance. At Scarborough, although the main
entrance was at the basement level, it merely opened on a stair leading
to the first floor: the stair to the basement, if there was one, seems
to have been in one of the angles which has been destroyed. In the
keeps of Richmond and Ludlow, owing to the preservation of the older
gatehouses in whole or in part, the arrangements are exceptional. The
basement at Richmond (93) had, as we have seen, its own entrance from
the interior of the castle; but there was also an inserted stair, now
blocked, in one of its angles from the first floor. The main stair of
the tower, however, started to the left of the main entrance on the
first floor, and continued upwards straight through the south wall to
the level of the second floor, where it stopped. The stair from the
second floor to the roof started from a point above the first floor
entrance, and also ran through the whole thickness of the south wall
above the lower stair, opening on the rampart at a point above the
entrance to the second floor.[185] At Ludlow, as a consequence of the
transformation of the gatehouse, the original straight stair from the
basement to the floor above, in the thickness of the east wall, was
blocked up, and the basement was entered only by a trap-door in the
first floor.[186]

The various floors of the tower-keep were of timber, and vaulted
chambers, even in the basement, were an exception. The basement at
Newcastle has an original vaulted roof, on eight ribs springing from
a central column: the vaulting of the basement at Richmond, also from
a central column, is an insertion. At Norham the basement is divided
by the cross-wall into two parts, one of which has a cross-wall of
its own, dividing it into two chambers, both barrel-vaulted: the
other division has four bays of groined vaulting, divided by plain
transverse arches. The basement at Bamburgh was also vaulted in three
chambers, the largest of which had a central arcade of three arches,
from which ribs were struck to the outer wall and cross-wall. The two
chambers of the basement at Middleham were also vaulted, one from a
central arcade of five bays. But these northern examples are quite
exceptional; and, even at Castle Rising, where the architectural
treatment of the various portions of the building is unusually
elaborate, and the larger chamber of the basement is divided by a row
of columns, vaulting was confined to the small subdivisions which
support the lesser first-floor chambers already mentioned.

[Illustration: NEWCASTLE: chapel]

Mural chambers, made in the thickness of the wall, were necessarily
vaulted, the usual form employed being the barrel-vault, which sprang
from the wall without any dividing string-course. Otherwise, the only
apartment which had a stone roof was the chapel, frequently found in
connection with the tower-keep. It must be added, however, that the
chapel hardly ever occupies any part of a main floor in the keep, and
that at Castle Rising, where it is in an angle of the first floor,
the chancel alone is vaulted, and is constructed in the thickness of
the wall. Chapels on the scale of those of London and Colchester were
never again attempted in a keep. According to the usual theory, chapels
in castles and houses were planned so that no room used for secular
purposes should be above them; and their position in a keep was usually
upon the upper floor of a tower in the fore-building, communicating
with the adjacent floor of the main structure. The altar was always
placed against an east wall, and the distinction between nave and
chancel was usually kept. Thus at Rochester, where all three stages of
the tower of the fore-building are vaulted, the top floor was probably
a chapel, the nave of which was entered directly from the second floor
of the keep through a mural passage, while the chancel communicated
through a small vaulted lobby and a short stair with the main stair of
the keep.[187] At Dover the chapel, with ribbed vaulting, and a chancel
arch of two orders with chevron moulding and jamb-shafts, occupies
the upper floor of the lower tower of the fore-building. The walls of
chancel and nave are arcaded, which is a very usual feature in a castle
chapel, but does not appear at Rochester. The entrance from the second
floor of the keep at Dover was through a mural chamber and a passage
along the west wall of the chapel, which led to the chapel doorway on
the left hand, and a small vaulted room, possibly a vestry, on the
right. At Porchester, again, the south chamber on the first floor of
the fore-building was the chapel, approached from the passage which led
through the fore-building to the main doorway. The chapel at Newcastle
(152) is in an unusual position, in the basement of the fore-building,
and is entered through a passage from the foot of the main stair. It
also had originally an outer doorway, which communicated directly with
the outer stair of the fore-building near its foot—another unusual
feature. The ribbed vaulting, wall-arcading, and chancel arch, are of
remarkably excellent workmanship, and the “water-leaf” ornament of the
capitals of the wall-arcade bears a close resemblance to that of the
capitals of the contemporary Galilee of Durham. As the fore-building
at Newcastle is against the east wall of the keep, the longer axis of
the nave of the chapel runs north and south, and is at right angles
to that of the chancel. The chapel is thus =T=-shaped: the altar was
placed on one side of the chancel, against the east wall, and was
practically invisible from the nave. It is probable that the constable
of the castle and his family or friends occupied the western part of
the chancel, facing the altar, while the nave was used by the garrison
and servants.[188]

Roomy chapels, like those at Newcastle and Old Sarum, were not merely
the chapel of the great tower, but of the whole castle. On the other
hand, the ordinary chapel of a tower-keep provided less accommodation,
and seems to have been intended for the lord of the castle or his
deputy and their immediate household. At Guildford the chapel of the
keep is a mere oratory, formed by two mural chambers at right angles
to one another, in the south-west angle of the first floor. The main
body of the chapel, covered with a barrel-vault, is in the west wall;
the space for the altar, arranged so that the priest faced eastwards,
is in the south wall, and is covered by a half-barrel-vault set at
right angles to the longer axis. The nave, which is thus quite out of
sight of the altar-chamber, has a wall-arcade of late twelfth-century
character, supplying a valuable clue to the real date of this rudely
built and archaic-looking keep. Although a chapel or oratory in the
keep was not uncommon, it was on the whole a luxury. At Richmond and
Ludlow no provision was made for one; the chapels of the castles, which
remain in both cases, were of earlier date than the conversion of the
gatehouse into a tower. It is not unlikely that the name of chapel may
have been given in later days to rooms in keeps and fore-buildings
which were intended for quite other purposes.[189]

Although, in time of siege, cooking in the keep itself would sometimes
be necessary, no special part of the tower was set aside as a kitchen.
Castle Rising is an exception, where the room cut off at the north-west
angle of the first floor seems to have served this purpose, and a
circular chimney-shaft was hollowed out in the angle itself.[190]
Fireplaces are found in most tower-keeps, though not on all floors.
Rochester and Dover were well provided in this way, while, on the
other hand, the tower of Porchester was without any apparent means
of artificial warmth. The fireplaces at Dover in the cross-wall are
of great size; those at Rochester are numerous, but small, and have
arches decorated with the thick and roughly-cut chevron ornament which
also appears in the arcade of the cross-wall on the second floor. The
original fireplaces at Newcastle are in the large mural chambers on the
first and second floors. The main apartment here was probably warmed by
a brazier on the floor; and this may have been a common method, as it
was in the halls of private houses. A vent for the smoke must have been
made in the roof.

Water, in view of the straitened circumstances of a siege, was a
necessity in a keep, and, where there are no remains of a well, it
is safe to assume that one has been filled up. In a mount-keep like
Guildford, the well may have been inside the shell which walls in the
front part of the mount. The wells of the Tower of London and Castle
Rising were in the basements. At Colchester there is a well-chamber in
the south wall of the basement, to the right of the entrance-passage.
But in the later keeps the pipe of the well, a cylinder lined with
ashlar, was often carried up through the thickness of a wall to the
upper floors, which thus received their supply of water directly,
without the necessity of a journey to the basement. At Kenilworth it
was in the south wall, close to the south-west angle, with an opening
on the basement and first floor. It is in the east wall at Newcastle,
near the north-east angle: it has only one opening, at the well-head
on the second floor, and is reached by a mural passage from the main
apartment. There are two wells at Dover, one in the middle tower of
the fore-building, with an opening at the level of the second floor,
the other in the south wall of the keep, with its only opening on the
second floor, in a mural chamber to the left of the main entrance. The
pipe at Rochester is in the centre of the cross-wall, and was carried
up to the third floor, with an opening in the north chamber of each
stage.

Mural chambers have been noticed incidentally. Some keeps, even of the
largest size, have their walls unpierced, save for window openings:
this is the case with Corfe. Porchester, in spite of its great size,
contains only two, which were used for the common and necessary purpose
of garde-robes or latrines. On the other hand, the exceptionally
massive walls of Dover contain a large number of such chambers, most
of which are of considerable size: the position of the garde-robes
here is not easy to determine. At Newcastle advantage was taken of
the thickness of the walls to construct large chambers in connection
with the first and second floors: that in the south wall of the second
floor, known as the “king’s chamber,” has an original fireplace, and
is well lighted. A doorway at its north-west corner leads into a
garde-robe in the west wall. The number of mural chambers at Newcastle
is small compared with that at Dover, but the walls were freely pierced
with passages and galleries. A stair, made through the upper part of
the south and west walls to the ramparts, seems to have been abandoned
during the progress of the work: the notion that it was deliberately
intended to lead a body of the enemy, who might have entered the tower,
into a _cul-de-sac_, is fanciful, but it certainly might have had
this unintentional effect. At Dover, Hedingham, Newcastle, Norwich,
and Rochester, where the hall or apartments on the second floor were
of unusual height, galleries were made in the walls round the upper
part of the stage. The gallery at Dover was not continued round the
north-west angle of the tower, but a passage, now blocked, was made
through the cross-wall from north to south, so that the east room on
this floor was completely surrounded by a gallery. The gallery at
Rochester surrounds the whole tower, communicating with the vices in
the south-west and north-east angles, and opening upon the interior of
the tower in no less than fourteen places, each of which corresponds to
a loop in the outer wall. Where the arcade which, on the second floor,
takes the place of the cross-wall, joins the east and west walls, the
floor of the gallery is raised by a few steps, to provide the adjacent
arch with a solid abutment. The arrangement of the mural galleries at
Bamburgh, which, owing to the modern alterations of the interior of the
tower, is rather obscure, seems to have been very like that at Dover,
with a passage through the cross-wall between two divided rooms upon
the second floor. The gallery at Hedingham, like that at Rochester, is
complete, and this floor, which is still roofed, is admirably lighted
(147). In cases where a mural chamber served as a garde-robe, as at
Guildford, Porchester, and the tower of the Peak, the outer wall, in
which the seat was contained, was slightly thickened and corbelled
out at this level, and a vent made below the seat. At Kenilworth the
north-west turret seems to have been used entirely as a garde-robe,
the lower part of the basement forming a pit for the refuse.[191] The
garde-robes at Castle Rising are contained in a vaulted chamber in the
west wall of the first floor, the vents opening upon the recesses by
which the outer face of the wall is broken up.

[Illustration: NORHAM: great tower]

[Illustration: NEWARK CASTLE]

The roof of the tower-keep was of timber with an outer covering of
lead, and was some feet below the level of the encircling rampart-walk
on the top of the outer walls. The rampart-walk had a parapet upon its
outer face, which at regular intervals was lowered to form embrasures.
The solid portions of the parapet were of much greater breadth than
the embrasures: the familiar type of battlemented parapet, in which
the embrasures are of equal width with the solid “cops” or _merlons_
between them, belongs to a later date. From the rampart-walk stairs
led into the summits of the angle turrets, which were some feet above
the level of the parapet. The original arrangement of the roof can be
gathered only from the marks left against the inside of the walls. In
towers with a cross-wall, like Rochester, each of the divisions was
covered, as a general rule, by a roof of more or less high pitch. A
central gutter ran along the top of the cross-wall, and side gutters
along each of the lateral walls, which were drained through spout-holes
made in the outer walls, which carried the rampart-walk. At Porchester,
where, as already noted, the tower was heightened, there was originally
a high-pitched central roof, with lean-to roofs against each of the
lateral walls, and gutters above the centre of each of the two interior
chambers. This curious arrangement seems to suggest that the cross-wall
itself was added when the tower was heightened, and that the gutters
originally were supported by timber struts in the second or attic stage
of the tower. When the tower was raised, a flat roof was planned and
possibly laid, and, by a curious and unique device, for which it is
hard to find an adequate reason, the parapets of the east and west
walls were slightly gabled. The present roof, however, is formed in
the usual way, with two gables and central and side gutters. In towers
without a cross-wall, like Ludlow, Newcastle, and Richmond, the
covering was a single high-pitched roof. In any case, the roof was
below the level of the rampart-walk, and was not intended to form a
free field for the defence of the tower: the occupation of the roof of
the tower for purposes of defence was not contemplated until a somewhat
later period than that at which the rectangular tower-keep was in
general fashion. At Rochester, and probably in many other instances,
the inner side of the rampart-walk was protected by a rear-wall, lower
than the parapet. The parapet at Rochester was 2 feet broad and 8 feet
high: the rear-wall had a breadth of 3 feet, and the rampart-walk of 4
feet. A foot of wall was left for the springing of the roofs and for
their side-gutters. The roof at Newcastle was re-laid in 1240; but here
and at Dover the insertion of comparatively modern vaults makes the
original arrangement difficult to trace. The present roof of Richmond
is modern, with a skylight to give light and air to the dark room on
the second floor: the height of the outer walls above the roof suggests
that the original roof was of unusually high pitch or rose above an
intermediate attic. The angle turrets formed elevated platforms,
approached from the rampart-walk by stone stairs. Their elevation
afforded a greater command of the proceedings of the enemy at the foot
of the tower; and their solid construction may sometimes have allowed
the defenders to employ them for stone-throwing engines, without
interference with the operations of the soldiers on the somewhat narrow
rampart-walk.

It has already been shown that, if the main object of these towers
was defensive, many of them seem to have been planned with a degree
of comfort which indicates that their builders had an eye to their
permanent use as the principal residence within the enclosure of the
castle, and that, in the towers built during the reign of Henry II., a
compromise between their military and domestic character was effected.
It is clear, however, that, in the cases of Richmond and Ludlow, the
converted gatehouse-towers were planned simply as military strongholds.
Their position, in both these instances, was exposed to direct attack,
while the early domestic buildings occupied a more sheltered position
on the further side of the inner ward. The tower-keep can never have
formed a convenient residence, even where, as at Hedingham, it was
well lighted, or, as at Dover, was unusually roomy. New methods of
fortification led to its general disuse, and although, in certain
parts of England, the type persisted upon a small scale until the end
of the middle ages, the period during which the fashion of building
rectangular tower-keeps was pursued was comparatively short.




CHAPTER VII

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: CYLINDRICAL TOWER-KEEPS


The development of the castle during the twelfth century was governed,
as has been explained, by the methods of attack which its defenders
had to meet. The strong fortresses of the reign of Henry II., with
their stone curtains and rectangular keeps, opposed to the enemy a
solid front of passive strength which defied attack. Sufficiently
provisioned, a small garrison was capable of holding out against a long
blockade, and tiring the patience of the assailants, whose artillery
could make but little impression upon the masonry of the castle. At
the same time, the stone castle with the rectangular tower-keep does
not represent a final point in the perfection of fortification. The
early Plantagenet castles were, on the contrary, merely a departure
from the ordinary type of castle, composed of earthwork and timber, in
the direction of an organised system of permanent stone castles. They
belonged to a transitional period; for, even while they were being
built, improvements upon their most striking feature, the rectangular
keep, were suggesting themselves. During the last twenty years of the
twelfth century, lessons learned by the Crusaders from the traditional
methods of fortification employed in the Eastern empire exercised
a profound influence upon the military architecture of France and
England; and the application of these lessons during the thirteenth
century entirely altered the defensive scheme of the castle, until
the plan of masterpieces of fortification like Caerphilly and Harlech
presented an entire contrast to the plan of defensive strongholds like
Norham and Scarborough.

The first necessity which had governed the development of
fortification was that of enclosing the defended position so as to
present an adequate barrier to attack. The bailey was surrounded
with its palisade; while the palisaded mount, with its wooden tower,
commanded—that is, overlooked—the operations of the defenders within
the bailey, and provided a second line of defence, if the bailey were
taken. As siege-engines increased in strength, stone-work took the
place of stockading. The bailey was encircled by a stone wall with a
certain number of towers on its circumference. It was sometimes divided
into an outer and inner ward by a cross-wall, or, as at Ludlow (96),
a large outer bailey was added to it, which formed a courtyard for
barracks and stabling, and a protection in time of war for dwellers on
the outskirts of the castle and for their flocks. A wall superseded
the palisade round the mount, or a strong tower was built, either
in connection with the mount or on a new site, which commanded the
whole enclosure. Thus the passive strength of the castle was ensured.
But stone walls and towers, however strong, were in themselves an
insufficient protection, unless the defenders could keep themselves
fully informed of the movements of the enemy. It was necessary that
they should be able to command the field in which the besiegers worked,
and especially the foot of the wall or tower on which the attack was
concentrated. The battering-ram, the scaling-ladder, and the mine must
be kept under constant observation. A first step towards this was the
establishment of projecting towers along the wall at intervals. These
flank the wall—that is, the outer face of the wall between them can be
overlooked and protected by bodies of men posted upon the projection on
either flank. At first, however, the system of flanking was far from
perfect; and therefore the next step was in the direction of improving
it, so that every portion of the outer surface of the _enceinte_ might
be covered by the fire of the defenders. This improvement, which we are
about to trace, was effected gradually, (1) by a change in the form of
the flanking defences themselves; (2) by their multiplication at more
frequent intervals. The first of these changes begins to be noticeable
during the later years of the twelfth century: the second was brought
to pass in the first half of the thirteenth century, and led to further
developments in the arrangement of the lines of defence.

The rectangular form of the keep and of the towers on the curtain was
in two respects a drawback to the defence of the castle. In the first
place, the salient angles of the masonry were liable to destruction
by sap and mine. The parallel jointing of the stonework made the
removal of fragments of stone by the bore or pick at these points a
comparatively easy, if still laborious, task. In the second place, the
angles of a tower or curtain, which were thus points of danger, were
precisely the places which the defenders were least able to command
satisfactorily. Each face of a rectangular tower commands the field
immediately in front of it: the range of shot, from the point of view
of each marksman, is in a direction at right angles to the face of
the tower. Strictly speaking, the foot of the whole curtain and its
towers lies within a “dead angle,” as vertical fire from the rampart is
impossible; but the wooden galleries attached to the rampart obviated
this difficulty. But, if the lines of two adjacent faces of the tower
are produced, it will be seen that the space contained by these is
out of the defenders’ range, and within it miners can work securely,
while the main attack is directed against the faces of the rectangle.
One obvious concrete illustration of this is seen at Rochester. When
King John, in 1215, besieged the castle, he directed against it his
stone-throwing engines. Finding that progress by this means was slow,
he set his miners to work. A breach was made in the outer curtain, and
the miners continued their operations on the tower, and eventually,
after much difficulty, broke their way through it.[192] We can see
to-day that the south-east angle of the tower has been rebuilt, and
that the form of the reconstructed turret is round, and not square.
This, no doubt, marks the place where the breach was made: the repairs
are evidently part of the work taken in hand by Henry III. in 1225.

A further weak point in the defences of the castle was the insufficient
flanking of the curtain. In the eleventh century, as we have seen,
flanking towers were discouraged by feudal over-lords, who rightly
recognised the danger which a strongly fortified castle, in the hands
of rebels, might mean to themselves. As time went on, stone curtains
were provided with towers; but these were not many in number, and,
so long as the rectangular form of tower continued in fashion, long
spaces of straight wall were left between the projections. The risk of
providing too many salient angles was probably recognised by military
engineers. From the flanking towers the adjacent part of the wall could
be covered by the artillery of the defence; but, where a long interval
existed between two towers, the wall mid-way was out of effective
range. To protect these unflanked points in time of siege, a body of
defenders would have to be kept on each spot. A twelfth-century castle,
therefore, to be thoroughly defended, needed a large garrison to cover
its numerous weak points. Any attempt to concentrate the defence upon
one threatened spot might lead to the weakening of the defence at other
points, of which the enemy would not be slow to take advantage.

Added to this was an inherent drawback in the normal plan of the
castle. Its wards and keep provided a system of successive lines of
defence, which caused an enemy immense trouble to pierce, but could
not offer a combined resistance to him. In many castles, like Norham
or Barnard Castle, the inner ward and keep were placed at a distant
angle of the enclosure, and were protected from external attack by
steep outer slopes and a river at their foot. In such cases, the wall
of the outer ward offered the first resistance: the inner ward did
not come into action until the enemy had entered the outer ward, and
the defenders had to retire to the inner enclosure. If the inner wall
was breached or stormed, the keep gave the defence its last shelter.
At Château-Gaillard, as has already been described, the chief feature
of the siege was the capture of ward after ward: the defenders, in
despair, did not even attempt to resort, as a final resource, to
the keep. Château-Gaillard was in its own day a model of scientific
fortification. Its fall was therefore a very striking example of the
disadvantage of successive lines of defence, of which only one could
be effectively used at a time. It is true that here and there, as
at Rochester, the keep was placed so near the curtain of an outer
ward that the exterior of the castle could be commanded from its
battlements, and its artillery could be brought into play over the
heads of the defenders of the curtain. At Richmond, the great tower
commands the one side of the castle from which attack was possible,
and was thus placed in the very fore-front of the defence. But such
arrangements were happy ideas which occurred to individual engineers,
and do not imply any systematic advance in the science of defence.

[Illustration: Château-Gaillard; Plan]

The experiences of the earliest Crusaders brought the warriors of
the west face to face with methods of defence far superior to those
employed in England and France. The city-wall of Antioch gave them an
example of a perfect system of flanking defences; and, in the triple
_enceinte_ of Constantinople they saw how successive lines of defence
could be used in co-operation. At Antioch the wall was flanked at
frequent intervals by fifty towers. Each of these, rising above the
curtain, commanded not only its space of intermediate wall, but the
rampart-walk as well. The rampart-walk, moreover, passed through the
towers, which were protected by strong doors. To gain the whole line
of wall, therefore, it was necessary to occupy the towers, each of
which could be converted into a separate stronghold, isolating the
intermediate rampart-walk. The siege was badly conducted, the Crusaders
limiting themselves to a strong position between the city and the
Orontes, and allowing the defenders to hold their communications on
two sides of the city open for some five months. Posts of observation
were eventually established on the two neglected sides; but the actual
capture of the city was due to the treachery of one of the commanders
of the Turkish garrison, who admitted a body of Franks into one of the
towers in his charge. They made their way into seven more towers, and
so gained access to the city.[193] The three walls of Constantinople
surrounded the whole city: each was higher than the one outside it,
so that all three could be used simultaneously by the defenders.[194]
Against such a system of concentric defence, the besiegers were
manifestly at a disadvantage.

These lessons from the east, stimulating though they were, did not
produce their full practical effect for some generations in the
west. Our engineers had to pass through a long epoch of gradual
experiment before they could arrive at a finished system of flanking
or of concentric lines of defence. The traditional mount-and-bailey
plan provided the foundation of the plan of the stone castle. The
traditional importance of the keep as the ultimate place of refuge
dictated the arrangement of ward behind ward, culminating in the great
tower. Meanwhile, the improvement of flanking defences led more and
more to the concentration of engineering skill upon the curtain, so
that the keep gradually took a place of secondary importance. As an
obvious result of further improvement, the keep was dispensed with,
and the whole attention of the engineer was directed to combining the
defences of the castle into a double or triple line of simultaneous
resistance to attack. These steps took time: the transition from one to
the other was effected by no sudden revolution, but by work along old
lines, a work of revision and improvement, until the finished product
formed an almost complete antithesis to the source from which it was
derived.

The earliest signs of transition in England are seen in the
strengthening of the masonry by the reduction and elimination of
salient angles. It is obvious that, if a rounded or polygonal form is
given to a projecting tower, or if the angle of a rectangular tower is
rounded off, a wider field will be commanded by the artillery of the
defence. The new range will be a large segment of a circle radiating
from the centre of the tower, instead of a rectangle in front of each
face. The sectors at the angles within which an attacking party can
work securely will be thus eliminated, and the chances of the success
of a mine will be less. The masonry also will offer much greater
resistance to the battering or boring engines of the enemy. The joints
are no longer parallel, but radiating, so that it becomes much harder
work to force out stones and effect a breach. The obtuse angles of
polygonal towers, with the joints of the masonry in the alternate faces
running in oblique directions to each other, have a much greater power
of resistance than the right angles of the ordinary twelfth-century
tower.

The general use of circular and polygonal forms is first found in
connection with the principal tower of the castle, the keep. The
main object was at first, no doubt, the greater cohesion imparted
to the masonry: the scientific advantages, from the point of view
of artillery, probably were not realised till later. In France the
cylindrical donjon appeared at an earlier date than in England: that
at Château-sur-Epte (Eure) is said to have been begun in 1097.[195]
The tower of Houdan (Seine-et-Oise) is a cylinder flanked by four
cylindrical turrets: it was built during the reign of Louis VI.
(1108-37),[196] and the form shows that the builders looked, not merely
to the strength of the masonry, but to the reduction of the enemy’s
chances of successful attack. The majority, however, of such donjons
in France belong to the second half of the twelfth century and the
beginning of the thirteenth, and were contemporary with our rectangular
towers. But the engineers of Henry II., to whom we owe so many of our
stone keeps, were certainly acquainted with the possible benefits of
forms other than square. The keep of Orford in Suffolk was probably
built between 1166 and 1172,[197] and is therefore earlier in date than
many rectangular keeps.

[Illustration: Conisbrough; Keep]

Internally, it is cylindrical; externally, a polygon of twenty-one
sides, with three very large rectangular turrets projecting from it.
It has a basement and two main floors, and is entered by a two-storied
fore-building, which forms a southward continuation of the eastern
turret. The sloping base of the tower is continued round the turrets,
and greatly strengthens their angles; while the turrets themselves
are so placed as to flank the whole tower and fore-building very
effectively, and to provide additional room in the interior. This
combination of the rectangular and polygonal forms is, for its date, an
unique departure from the ordinary type of English tower-keep. But it
must be remembered that the shell-keep on the mount usually took the
form of a cylindrical or polygonal wall strengthened by buttresses; and
at Orford, where the tower appears to stand upon the base of a levelled
mount, we may have a conscious adaptation of this form to the heavier
and loftier tower. At Gisors (Eure) the older donjon was an octagonal
tower, built on a mount, and surrounded by a circular wall. The tower
was probably built by Henry II. between 1161 and 1184,[198] within
the somewhat earlier shell, and took the form which was best suited
to the artificial soil on which it stood. But there are at least two
instances of English rectangular keeps in which a slight departure from
the normal form was made for obvious purposes of additional strength,
without reference to an artificial site. At Newcastle the north-west
turret is octagonal, with very obtuse angles. In the small tower of
Mitford, on the Wansbeck above Morpeth, the north wall is built with an
obtuse salient angle, so that the tower forms an irregular pentagon.
The date of this tower cannot be fixed with certainty, but it probably
belongs to the second half, at any rate, of the twelfth century; and
it can hardly be doubted that the object of this peculiar device was to
give the defenders better command of the angles of the tower which were
exposed to attack from the inner ward.

[Illustration: Conisbrough; Keep. Plans]

Somewhat later than these is the noble cylindrical keep of Conisbrough
(166), which is attributed to Hamelin Plantagenet, a natural brother of
Henry II., and husband of Isabel, heiress of William, earl of Surrey.
Hamelin died in 1201: the tower was built, as the architectural details
show, during the last quarter of the twelfth century. It is a regular
cylinder; and to its circumference are applied six bold buttresses,
which narrow slightly outwards, and rise above the parapet in turrets.
The whole is built of dressed stone in large rectangular blocks, the
fine condition of which, after more than seven hundred years, is
extraordinary. The construction is unusually solid: the thickness of
the wall in the basement exceeds 20 feet. On the first floor it is
just under 15 feet: in the two upper floors it is reduced by internal
off-sets, until, at the rampart level, 75 to 80 feet above the ground,
it is 12½ feet. In addition to this the buttresses, which project
9 feet at the basement level and 8 feet above, are not used, like the
turrets at Orford, to contain additional rooms, but are built solid.
The chapel, however, was formed by constructing a chamber in the
eastern buttress upon the third floor.

[Illustration: Conisbrough; Fireplace]

The tower of Conisbrough, like that of Orford, was intended for
residential as well as defensive purposes; but light and comfort were
sacrificed to military necessities. The entrance, as usual, was upon
the first floor, but there is no trace of any fore-building, nor is
the original means of approach at all clear. The basement was simply
a domed well-chamber and store-room: the only approach to it from the
first floor was an opening in the centre of the guard-chamber, over
which was probably the windlass by which buckets were lowered into the
well.[199] The first floor was a guard-chamber: there were no windows,
and the only means of admitting daylight was through the open door on
the far side of the passage through the wall. On the right-hand side of
this passage, a curved stair mounts through the thickness of the wall
to the second floor, which it enters by a landing in the embrasure[200]
of a loop on the north side. This floor was the hall of the keep.
There is a large fireplace (168) in the west wall, with a spreading
chimney-breast, and a lintel of joggled stones resting on triple
shafts with carved capitals. In the wall between the fireplace and the
entrance is a rectangular recess, containing a small sink, which was
drained through the wall. There are two windows, the loop close to the
entrance, and a double window opening to the south-east. The embrasures
are barrel-vaulted: that of the double window has a stone bench on all
three sides, and stands three steps above the floor of the hall. This
window was not glazed: the upright between the two rectangular openings
has at the back a rounded projection, through a hole in which the bolt
of the shutters passed, and the fastening was further secured by a
wooden draw-bar. On the north-east side of the hall a winding passage
with two turns and a flight of steps leads through the thickness of the
wall to a garde-robe.

To reach the third floor, the hall had to be crossed to a recess in
the direction of the south-west buttress. From this point a curved
staircase mounted through the wall to the embrasure of a loop in
the south-east face of the third floor. The apartment on this floor
contained a smaller fireplace, immediately above that on the second
floor, and treated with similar architectural ornament. The flue of
the lower chimney runs up through the wall behind that of the other:
the common chimney-top projects from the rampart-walk above. There is
also upon this floor a trefoil-headed recess with a sink. There are two
windows, the loop in the south-east face, and a double opening, similar
to that below, looking south. This room corresponded to the “great
chamber,” which is found in the larger houses of the middle ages. On
its east side the chapel, an irregular hexagon, vaulted in two ribbed
bays with a transverse arch between, was constructed in the eastern
wall and buttress. The details of its beautiful capitals, like those of
the fireplaces, show elementary foliage of the water-leaf type, such as
is found in the chapel of the tower at Newcastle (152). Chevron is used
in the stilted transverse arch and round the outside of the arch of the
loop at the east end. The quatrefoil openings north and south of the
chancel bay, and the trefoil-headed _piscinae_ in the same walls, are
of an advanced transitional character; and, by comparing these details,
a date approximating to 1185-90 may with some certainty be given to the
tower. In the north wall of the chapel a doorway leads into a small
vestry or priest’s chamber, lighted by a loop. The stairway to the
rampart-walk mounts through the wall above this chamber, and its head
is above the western bay of the chapel. It is entered from a recess in
the north-east wall of the second floor, and from this recess there is
also a zigzag passage to a garde-robe, the seat of which is corbelled
out in the angle between the north-east buttress and the north wall of
the tower. The two lower stairways and the two garde-robe chambers are
each lighted by a small loop.

In the roomier arrangement of the keep at Orford, the stair is a vice
in the turret or buttress to which the fore-building is annexed. The
chapel is upon the first floor of the fore-building, and, being on a
level of its own, not corresponding to the levels of the tower, is
approached from the stair by a separate passage. The entrance to the
chapel is a doorway on the left of this passage, which is continued
through the south-east wall of the tower to a priest’s room in the
south turret.

The defensive side of the arrangements at Conisbrough must now be
considered. The tower stands close to the north-east corner of a
large bailey, the shape of which follows that of the knoll on which
it is built: the north segment of the tower, with the two adjacent
buttresses, continues the line of the curtain; but five-sixths of the
circumference, with four of the buttresses, are within the enclosure.
On the north and east sides the steepness of the hill made access
nearly impracticable, and the natural point of attack was from the
south and south-west. The position of the keep is at the point furthest
removed from attack, and the capture of the inner ward, as will be
seen in a later chapter, was rendered very difficult by a well-guarded
approach.[201] The tower stood on higher ground than the rest of the
ward, and the entrance, on the south-east side, was sheltered by the
east curtain. The south and south-west faces were fully exposed to an
attack from the inner ward, and it was on this side, therefore, that
the defenders needed full command of the sides and base of the tower.
Accordingly, when we mount to the rampart-walk, and examine the tops of
the buttresses, we find that the two which are upon the north curtain,
and were not exposed to attack, contain cisterns. The two on either
side of the main entrance were not necessary for flanking purposes, as
the entrance itself would be defended by some kind of platform in time
of siege. One, therefore, above the chapel, was employed as a house for
carrier-pigeons; while the other contained an oven, in which stones
and arrows could be heated. The remaining two buttresses are raised
platforms which effectively flanked that part of the circumference
which was otherwise insufficiently guarded, and lay open to catapults
and mining operations. The spreading base of the tower and buttresses
served further to keep the battering-ram and bore from direct contact
with the main wall of the tower, and improved the flanking position of
the defenders; while missiles dropped from the summit upon this talus
or sloping surface would rebound upon the enemy with deadly effect.

Above the talus the solidity of the main wall defied the force of
catapults. These engines, however, had increased in strength and range,
and it was no longer safe to give light to the tower in the somewhat
lavish method adopted by the engineers of some of our large keeps. At
Conisbrough, as we have seen, the walls of the first floor, save for
the entrance passage, are absolutely solid. The loops in the upper
floors are very few in number, and the one on the most exposed face
is almost concealed by a buttress. The double window on the second
floor is immediately over the main entrance, on a side which it would
be difficult to command with a large siege-engine. That on the third
floor is placed upon an exposed face, but would probably be out of
range.[202] The garde-robe vents are on the side where the tower
crosses the line of the curtain.

In time of siege the larger windows would be shuttered and barred. The
defence would be conducted from the top of the tower, while a body
of the garrison would be told off to protect the main entrance. The
whole summit would be utilised. The defence was not confined, as in a
rectangular keep, to the rampart-walk; but there was a rear-wall to
the walk, through which openings probably gave access to a covered
round-house above the third floor. To this room, which, to judge
from contemporary instances, had a conical roof, arms and missiles
could be hauled up, through trap-doors in the floors below, from the
guard-room and the store-chamber in the basement. There was no vaulted
roof in the tower above the basement, so that the flat roof could
not be used as a platform for catapults. There is no indication that
hoarding was employed outside the rampart. The tower and its buttresses
were finished off with a battlemented parapet in the usual way; the
buttresses, as has been shown, were so constructed and so near together
that additional wooden defences were practically unnecessary.

[Illustration: Etampes; Donjon. Plan]

[Illustration: GOODRICH CASTLE: round tower with spur at base]

[Illustration: GOODRICH CASTLE: buttery hatches]

In France the treatment of the donjon was pursued with more variation
than in England. To the middle of the twelfth century belongs, for
instance, the donjon of Etampes (Seine-et-Oise), which takes the form
of a quatrefoil (172). The donjon of Provins (Seine-et-Marne) is of
much the same date, the ground-plan forming an octagon flanked by
four cylindrical turrets. Although both these towers have analogies
in England, they were constructed nevertheless by French engineers
at a period before even the rectangular tower had become common with
ours.[203] They are also only two out of many diverse experiments. The
cylindrical form, however, commended itself to the builders of the
finest French examples. Château-Gaillard (163) follows closely upon
Conisbrough in point of date, having been begun by Richard I. in 1196.
The donjon is not, as at Conisbrough, a tower to which the line of a
somewhat earlier curtain has been adapted, but is part of a homogeneous
scheme of fortification. The site of the castle is the top of a very
steep and almost isolated hill on the right bank of the Seine: the west
slope is a precipice, and the only practicable attack could be made
from the ridge joining the hill to the high ground on the south. The
donjon is set so that its west face projects from the curtain of the
inner ward, upon the very edge of the precipice. The interior forms a
regular cylinder, and the west face is a segment of a circle. On this
side the solidity of the masonry is increased by a tremendous outward
slope or batter, the whole height of the basement and adjacent
curtain. Towards the inner ward, however, the cylinder is strengthened
by a covering spur, also battered, so that, while the interior of
the castle was commanded from the rampart, the tower offered to the
besiegers an angle of immense thickness and strength, immediately
opposite the gateway of the inner ward. A possible prototype in
France of this form of defence is the donjon of La-Roche-Guyon
(Seine-et-Oise), higher up the Seine, where the spur covers about a
quarter of the circumference of the tower. Philip Augustus adopted
the same device a few years later in the White tower at Issoudun
(Indre).[204] It is seen at Goodrich (174), Chepstow, and elsewhere.

[Illustration: Château-Gaillard]

As the upper portion of the tower of Château-Gaillard is gone, its
internal arrangements are difficult to decipher. It was purely a tower
of defence; but the inaccessible nature of the west side allowed of
large windows being made in that face upon the first floor. There was
probably a low second floor, above which was the roof and rampart-walk.
The rampart was defended with the aid of a device, unusual at the
time, although very general at a later period. The sides of the tower
within the ward were furnished with narrow buttress projections above
the battering base, which gradually increased in breadth as they went
higher. These divided the face of the tower into a series of recesses
spanned by low arches, on the outer face of which the parapet was
carried. The top of each recess, between the parapet and the wall,
was left open, so that the defenders could use the holes for raining
down missiles upon their opponents. Such holes, formed by corbelling
out a parapet in advance of a wall or tower, are called machicolations
(_mâchicoulis_),[205] and gradually superseded the external gallery
of timber. Holes in stone roofs for the same purpose are found at an
earlier date, as in the fore-building at Scarborough; and, as early as
1160, they appear in connection with the parapet of a donjon at Niort
(Deux-Sèvres).[206] The general tradition is that they were invented
by the Crusaders in Syria, where wood for hoarding was not easily
obtained; and this is probably true.[207] They appear in a state of
perfection, which testifies to a long course of previous experiment,
at the great Syrian castle of Le Krak des Chevaliers (176), begun in
1202. But hoarding continued in use in Europe long after the building
of Château-Gaillard, and even the donjon of Coucy (Aisne), by far the
finest of all cylindrical donjons, was garnished with timber hoarding
carried on stone corbels—an interesting example of the transition from
one form of defence to another.

[Illustration: Le Krak des Chevaliers]

[Illustration: Coucy]

The cylindrical form of donjon was brought to perfection in France
under Philip Augustus (1180-1223). At Gisors, which came into
his hands in 1193, he built a new circular tower on the line of
the curtain, which superseded Henry II.’s octagonal tower on the
mount. His fortification of Gisors led directly to the building of
Château-Gaillard by Richard I., to cover the approach from French
territory to Rouen.[208] But in 1204 the capture of this great
stronghold delivered Rouen into Philip’s hands; and in 1207 he built
the donjon, now known as the Tour Jeanne d’Arc, at Rouen. Here we meet
with the tower vaulted from basement to roof, with a strongly defended
entrance at the level of the ward in which it stands, of which the most
perfect example is found at Coucy.[209] Coucy, the work of a powerful
vassal of the crown of France, represents a degree of scientific
fortification to which none of our cylindrical donjons attains. The
castle was constructed, like Conway at a later period, in connection
with the defences of a walled town.[210] It consists of two wards, a
large outer ward or base-court and an inner ward of irregular shape,
with four straight sides of unequal length and round towers at the
angles. In the middle of the east side, between the two wards, is the
donjon (177), a cylinder of some 200 feet high—90 feet higher than the
tower of Rochester. It stands isolated from the curtain of the inner
ward, from the line of which about one-third of its circumference
projects, and is surrounded by a ditch, originally paved with stone.
To this ditch there was no external access. On the outer edge of the
ditch, joining the east curtain of the inner ward at two points, was
a strong wall or _chemise_. Outside this was the ditch dividing the
inner ward from the base-court. Within the inner ward, a low wall took
the place of the _chemise_ of the donjon, and access to the tower was
provided by a bridge across the stone-flagged ditch. The bridge was
worked by a windlass, and, when not in use, remained drawn up on the
threshold of the tower.

The donjon of Coucy is built in three stages, and has a large
apartment, originally vaulted, on each floor. There is no basement
chamber below the level of the entrance. In order to facilitate
vaulting the various floors, each chamber was planned with twelve
sides, lofty niches being left between the abutments of the vault.[211]
Without giving a detailed description, we may notice the points in
which this great structure resembles and improves upon the tower of
Conisbrough. (1) The isolation of the tower, defended by its own ditch
and, towards the field, by its own curtain, makes an entrance on the
ground floor possible. In this respect, the builders of Coucy followed
the example of Philip Augustus at the Louvre and at Rouen. (2) The
defences of the entrance are more elaborate than at Conisbrough, where
the doorway was closed merely by a strong wooden door, reinforced
by two draw-bars, and a straight passage led into the guard-room on
the first floor. At Coucy there was a similar door, but in front of
it was an iron portcullis, worked from the first floor of the tower,
and sliding through grooves at the back of the jambs of the doorway.
The portcullis was defended further by a machicolation or open groove
in the floor above. The entrance passage behind the wooden door was
closed by a hinged grille at the entrance to the guard-room. (3) The
stair, as at Conisbrough, was on the right of the entrance passage,
but, instead of following the curve of the wall, was a vice, which
led straight to the roof, communicating with the two upper floors on
the way. The device adopted at Conisbrough, by which the stair ends
at each floor, and, in order to ascend further, the floor has to be
crossed, was adopted in the lesser towers at Coucy,[212] but not in the
donjon. The Conisbrough method has the advantage, very desirable in a
tower, of keeping the approach to the roof under direct observation
throughout its entire distance: we find it used in the stairs of the
rectangular keep at Richmond. (4) The tower of Coucy, as already
noticed, was defended by a lofty parapet, pierced with arches, which,
in time of siege, gave access to an outer wooden gallery supported
by stone corbels.[213] The form of the corbels is that which became
general in later times: each is composed of four courses of stone
projecting one above the other, with their outer ends rounded. (5)
The well at Coucy was in one of the niches between the abutments of
the ground-floor vault. (6) There are garde-robes at Coucy on the
left of the entrance-passage, and in a similar position at the entry
to the first floor. (7) We have seen that at Conisbrough arms were
probably transported from the basement to the roof through a series
of trap-doors in the floors. At Coucy there was a circular opening
left for this purpose in the crown of the vault of each floor. (8)
The solidity of the tower of Coucy is emphasised by the absence of
large windows, even more noticeable than at Conisbrough; and, although
the tower contains fireplaces, its purely defensive character is
unmistakable. It provided accommodation for an enormous garrison, but
for residential purposes, it would have been uncomfortable to the last
degree. It contains no trace of a permanent chapel: when the tower was
in use, an altar might have been set up in one of the niches on the
first floor; but the regular chapel was in the inner ward, and was
connected with the domestic buildings.

In the walls of the tower of Coucy can still be seen the holes which
served to attach the scaffolding during construction. The spiral course
which they take shows that the scaffolding, rising with the tower,
formed an inclined plane of a moderate slope, up which the necessary
materials could be wheeled. The advantage of a cylindrical tower from
this point of view is obvious. Another structural feature is the
provision of gutters for the drainage of the roof in the stonework at
the back of the vault-ribs of the second floor. The absence of any
effective provision for draining the centre of the roof at Conisbrough
points to the probability that it was sheltered, as already explained,
by a conical roof of its own.

[Illustration: Pembroke]

The introduction of the cylindrical donjon in England coincides with a
period at which the keep was already beginning to disappear from the
castle. The principal examples, which may be attributed to the early
years of the thirteenth century, are on the frontier and in the south
of Wales. Chief among them is the fine tower of Pembroke (180), which
was probably built by William Marshal, earl of Pembroke and Striguil,
about 1200. The castle of Pembroke was of great importance, owing to
its situation upon an arm of Milford haven,[214] and its command of the
passage to Ireland. The keep was probably the first completed portion
of the present castle, the stone-work of which, as it stands to-day,
is very largely of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century.[215]
It is a round tower, with a basement and three upper floors, standing
just within, but not touching, the curtain which divided the inner and
higher from the outer ward. The height is 75 feet; the floors were
of wood, but the uppermost stage was vaulted by a dome, which still
remains, rising in the centre of the tower above the rampart-walk. The
stair is a vice in the west wall, from the basement to the summit: the
main entrance was upon the first floor, but there is also a basement
entrance, which seems to have been pierced not long after the building
of the tower. The whole structure batters upwards, and the walls are
slightly gathered in at each stage on the outside, a method the reverse
of that pursued at Conisbrough: the masonry is roughly coursed rubble.
On each of the first and second floors there is, towards the inner
ward, a two-light window with pointed openings, the spandrils between
which and the enclosing arch are pierced with plate tracery. The third
floor was lighted by windows pierced in the dome.[216] Commanding, as
it does, the whole interior of the castle, this tower is remarkably
grand in situation; and its thick walls offered considerable resistance
to artillery. It shows, however, no advance upon the defence of
Conisbrough. The rampart-walk is narrow, and the dome in the centre
prevented the employment of the roof as a platform.

[Illustration: Pembroke; Plan]

The cylindrical donjon in England and Wales was simply an experiment
attempted here and there, as an improvement upon the rectangular tower,
but was never carried to the general perfection which it attained in
France. Its isolation at Coucy, upon the outer face of the inner ward,
protected by its own inner ditch, and covered by a strong curtain of
its own, are signs of a perfection of engineering skill to which our
builders did not attain. In one case, at Flint, we find a round tower
which is isolated within its own ditch at one corner of the castle,
but stands outside the main wall, and had no separate curtain of its
own.[217] The plan strongly suggests a mount-and-bailey fortress, the
isolated tower occupying the site of the mount, and the bailey walled
in, leaving the moat, which was marshy and was filled with water at
high tide, clear. The construction of this keep is peculiar: it is
composed of an outer and inner circle of masonry, with barrel-vaulted
passages between the two. Its actual date is unknown.[218] But, as
a rule, where the keep stands upon the outer line of defence, it is
joined by the curtain of the bailey. Thus at Caldicot, near Chepstow,
the castle is simply a mount-and-bailey enclosure surrounded by a stone
curtain of the thirteenth century. The keep is a round tower at one
corner, standing upon the partially levelled mount; and the curtain
crosses the ditch to join it on both sides. At Conisbrough, where the
keep was on the line of the curtain; at Pembroke, where it stood just
within the line, there was no ditch round it: the high ground on which
it was placed seems to have been thought a sufficient protection.

There are, however, a few round towers which, although they have not
their own curtain in the sense of Coucy, are yet within defences of
a peculiar nature, and therefore stand in a class apart. The most
remarkable of these is Launceston, where the tower stands upon the
summit of a lofty artificial mount of early Norman origin, and is
approached by a steep and well-defended stair, ascending the face of
the mount to the main entrance. Round the outer edge of the mount
remain the lower courses of a stone wall, concentric with the keep.
Within this is another and higher circular wall, which was crowned by
a rampart-walk, approached by a stair in the thickness of the wall, to
the left of the entrance. Inside this enclosure is the tower itself,
which now consists of a basement and a ruined upper floor. The narrow
space between the tower and the encircling wall was evidently roofed
over at the height of the first floor of the tower: holes for joists
still remain.[219] This double circle of masonry recalls Flint, where,
however, the intermediate passage was vaulted, and the outer circle was
probably the whole height of the tower.[220] Flint does not possess
the low outer wall which existed at Launceston. The nearest analogy to
Launceston is at Provins (Seine-et-Marne), where the octagonal keep
has its own outer curtain, and is composed of an outer octagon with
cylindrical turrets at the angles, commanded by an inner octagon rising
two stages higher. The upper stage at Provins is surrounded by a lofty
crenellated wall, on which rests a conical roof.

[Illustration: Dolbadarn]

Another case is the keep of Tretower in Breconshire, which stands on
a slightly elevated site near the confluence of the Rhiangol with the
Usk. Here the arrangement is very curious. The keep, a round tower
with a basement and three upper stages, stands within the ruins of
an approximately rectangular enclosure. This enclosure bears a close
resemblance to the outer wall of a rectangular keep, but has two
octagonal projections from the south face, one of which contains a
vice, and the other a large fireplace. The tower itself seems to be
somewhat earlier than the year 1200: the fireplaces on the first and
second floors have architectural decoration recalling that of the
fireplaces at Conisbrough, shafts with capitals carved with foliage of
a very elementary kind. The solution which suggests itself is that a
rectangular tower, of a somewhat original plan, was begun and raised
to a certain height, and that the builders then changed their minds,
built a circular tower within the unfinished keep, and left the outer
walls to serve as a curtain for the new structure.

The keep at Tretower, in its ordinary features, may be compared with
the tower of Bronllys, only a few miles distant, on the other side of
the pass through the Black mountains, at the southern foot of which
Tretower stands. This tower also seems to be a work of the end of the
twelfth century, but its architectural details are much plainer: both
seem originally to have been between 70 and 80 feet high, and each
contained a basement and three floors. Each has a battering base, and
above this the wall at Tretower batters slightly to the summit; the
diameter of Tretower exceeds that of Bronllys throughout. The original
entrance in each case was on the first floor, from which at Tretower
a vice led to the top of the building. The basement at Tretower had
its separate stair in the wall opposite the entrance. At Bronllys the
basement has a pointed barrel vault, and was entered by a stone stair
and ladder from a trap-door in one of the window recesses of the first
floor. The stair from the first floor to the second opened from another
window recess, and curved through the wall, as at Conisbrough; there
was, as also at Conisbrough, a separate stair to the third floor. The
wall of the basement at Bronllys has been broken through in two places,
and in one of these a hollow in the wall has been disclosed, in which
originally a great beam was inserted to give coherence to the masonry.
The same feature is seen in the outer building at Tretower. This device
was frequently employed in the construction of medieval walls, but its
traces are not often so clearly seen.

[Illustration: Dolbadarn; Interior]

One feature of the tower of Bronllys is that, like that of Caldicot, it
stands upon an artificial mount, which occupies the ordinary position
of such earthworks, at the head of the enclosure. The more roomy,
but lower, tower at Hawarden, the upper floor of which is internally
an octagon, almost surrounded by a mural passage, is built upon a
lofty mount. At Skenfrith in Monmouthshire the tower, nearly equal
to Bronllys in diameter, but not higher than Hawarden, stands upon a
very low mount, and is placed in an isolated position, nearly in the
centre of a trapezoidal enclosure. Here the lowness of the mount and
the absence of indications of a normal earthwork plan suggest that it
was raised to strengthen the foundations of the tower, and is not the
mount of an earlier castle. The knoll, on the other hand, on which
the round tower of Dolbadarn (183) stands, between the two lakes at
the foot of the pass of Llanberis, is natural. The details of this
tower are very plain, but it was probably built during the thirteenth
century. There is no trace of any castle in connection with this small
military outpost, which, like the not far-distant rectangular keep of
Dolwyddelan, on the eastern slopes of Moel Siabod, bears some analogy
to the “pele-towers” of the north of England, and may have been built
by a Welsh chieftain upon an English model during the reign of Henry
III.

[Illustration: York; Clifford’s Tower]

None of the towers in England and Wales mentioned in this chapter have
the inner spur which has been noticed as characteristic of French
towers. It appears, as has been said, at Goodrich and Chepstow. Other
instances are a tower in the outer curtain at Denbigh, and the spur on
the inward face of the great tower at Barnard Castle. Here the work
is not earlier than the time of Edward II., and the tower is little
more than a large mural tower added to a large shell-keep standing on
a high rocky point. The spur here is a half pyramid, the apex of which
dies away in the face of the tower. Of an octagonal tower we have one
example at Odiham in Hampshire, which may be of the end of the twelfth
century. This has the feature, anomalous for so early a date, of angle
buttresses which project 4 feet, but are only 2 feet broad.

[Illustration: Berkeley Castle; Plan]

Of donjons which were built in England during the reign of Henry III.,
the most interesting, by virtue of their plan, are those of York
and Pontefract. The tower of York (185), raised upon the mount of
the northern of the two castles, was built possibly about 1230, and
assumed the quatrefoil shape which is found in France at Etampes. This
keep, presumably because it is built on a mount, is usually called a
“shell”; it was, however, a regular tower, and the entrance, in the
angle between two of the leaves of the quatrefoil, is guarded by a
rectangular fore-building, on the first floor of which was the chapel.
As at Etampes, the quatrefoil plan is preserved internally, but the
angles formed by the meeting of the four segments are chamfered off:
there was no vaulting, as at Etampes, but the floors were of wood.
A quatrefoil plan was also adopted at Pontefract, with some slight
variation, owing to the irregular shape of the rocky mount. This keep
is in a state of complete ruin, although some idea of its former shape
may be gathered from a bird’s-eye view preserved among the records of
the duchy of Lancaster.[221] We can see, from what is left, that it
was not built upon the top of the mount; but that, on three sides, the
mount was enclosed by walls of revetment,[222] which formed the base
of the segments composing the quatrefoil. This process recalls the
walling-in of the mount at Berkeley, where, however, the lower part of
the mount was left, and the space between the slope and the wall filled
in with earth. At Pontefract the slope of the mount must have been much
reduced before the walls of revetment were added: the sandstone upon
which the castle was built is soft, and would lend itself easily to
such an operation.

The bird’s-eye view of Pontefract just mentioned cannot be regarded
as absolutely trustworthy, but it gives us the relative position of
the various towers of the castle. It shows us a curtain flanked by a
formidable row of mural towers; the keep, a complicated erection of
several segments, with bartizans[223] projecting from the battlements
in the angles formed by the junction of the segments, is still the
dominant feature of the castle; but our attention is equally claimed
by the defences of the curtain and the domestic buildings which it
encloses. And, in pursuing our subject, we must first trace the growth
of domestic buildings within the castle area, and then turn to that
strengthening of the curtain which led eventually to the disuse of the
keep.




CHAPTER VIII

THE DWELLING-HOUSE IN THE CASTLE


The castle needed, among its chief requirements, a dwelling-house which
might be occupied by the owner and his household. Thus the stronghold
of the lord of Ardres upon its mount was planned as a capacious
dwelling, with a kitchen attached; and where, as in this case, the
keep was the castle, it necessarily served the double purpose of
fortress and residence. Enough has been said of the rectangular and
cylindrical forms of tower-keep to show that the domestic and military
elements were often combined in their arrangements. But the use of the
tower-keep as the principal residence within the castle was a fashion
of comparatively short duration. The example of its double use had
been set in the great towers of London and Colchester, and in the
rectangular towers of Norman and French castles. Of the towers of Henry
II.’s reign, those which, like Castle Rising, are low in proportion
to the area they cover, generally have the best provision for living
purposes. Lofty towers, like Newcastle or Conisbrough, can never have
been comfortable residences; and it is not surprising to find that at
Newcastle, about half a century after the building of the tower, a
more commodious dwelling-house was built within the castle area.[224]
But we have seen already that in early castles, as at Oxford, a hall
for the lord or his constable was generally, if not always, built
within the bailey. The practical necessity of this is obvious in
mount-and-bailey castles, where the tower on the mount, or the stone
shell which took its place, was reserved for the main purpose of a
final refuge in time of siege. No one who examines the sites of castles
like Lincoln, Launceston, or Clare, with their formidable mounts, can
fail to realise that the mount was an inconvenient place of residence,
and that domestic buildings would be naturally provided in the annexed
bailey. Bishop Bek’s thirteenth-century hall at Durham, built against
the western curtain of the bailey, stands upon the substructure of a
far earlier building. The domestic buildings in the bailey at Guildford
appear to be of earlier date than the stone tower on the mount; while
at Christchurch in Hampshire (123), the dwelling-house next the river
and the tower on the mount appear to be almost contemporary.

Castles which, for reasons already explained, were surrounded from
the beginning with a stone wall, and had at first no regular keep,
contain even better examples of the existence of a separate hall.
The eleventh-century hall at Richmond is almost perfect, although
some additions, made nearly a century later to the upper part of
the structure, have led to the mistaken attribution of a later date
to the whole building.[225] At Ludlow, mingled with the fabric of
the fourteenth-century hall, are clear indications of the earlier
stone hall, built, as at Richmond, against the curtain on the least
accessible side of the inner ward. The fabric of the great hall at
Chepstow, much enriched and beautified in the thirteenth century, is
contemporary with the foundation of the castle in the eleventh century.
Part, at any rate, of the substructure of the hall at Newark belongs to
the castle founded in the twelfth century by Bishop Alexander, although
the whole building on that side of the enclosure, with the exception of
an angle-tower, bears witness to reconstruction and repair at two later
periods. At Porchester, again, the substructure of the hall contains a
considerable amount of early Norman work, which may be attributed to
the time of Henry I.

The situation and plan of the hall remained very much the same
throughout the middle ages. What we find at Richmond, Ludlow,
Chepstow, or Durham, we find also at Manorbier, Caerphilly, Harlech,
and Carnarvon, at Warwick and at Naworth. The domestic buildings were
placed against the curtain on one side or at an end of the inner ward,
and preferably where a precipice or steep slope made the assault of
the curtain on that side difficult or impossible. This position is
well illustrated in the fortified thirteenth-century house of Aydon
in Northumberland. Here there was, on the side of entrance, a large
walled outer ward, or, as it was called in the north of England, a
“barmkin.”[226] The house was built round two sides of a walled inner
courtyard, the hall and main apartments standing on the brink of a
deep ravine, where they were safe from approach or from the peril of
siege-engines. The curtain was therefore pierced with window-openings
of a fairly large size, which gave the house more light and comfort
internally than would have been possible upon a more exposed face of
the site. The hall at Warkworth (49) was built against a solid curtain
upon the steepest side of the peninsula occupied by the castle, and,
although there were no window-openings in the curtain at the level of
the hall, it was pierced by a postern, through which the kitchen could
be supplied, at the end nearest the tower. Castles on comparatively
level sites show the same disposition. At Cardiff (191), the domestic
buildings are on the west side of the enclosure, built against the
curtain, and protected by the river, and bear the same relation in the
plan to the main entrance and the shell-keep on the mount, as the hall
at Warkworth bears to the gateway and the mount with its later strong
house.[227]

[Illustration: Cardiff Castle; Plan]

The plan of the hall and its adjacent buildings was, and continued
to be, that of the ordinary dwelling-house. The _aula_ of Harold at
Bosham in Sussex is represented in the Bayeux tapestry (36) as a house
with a basement, apparently vaulted, and an upper floor approached by
an external staircase. No division of the upper floor is shown: it
consists apparently of one large room. This plan, with the division of
the hall by a cross-wall into a main and smaller chamber, is precisely
what we find, at the end of the century after the Conquest, at the
large town house in Bury St Edmunds known as Moyses hall, or at the
manor-house of Boothby Pagnell in Lincolnshire. It is represented in
manor-houses of the later Gothic period at the so-called “Goxhill
priory” in Lincolnshire or at the house of the bishops of Lincoln at
Liddington in Rutland. Its most familiar survival in non-military
architecture is in the halls of several of the Oxford colleges, like
Christ Church or New college. In the plan of the monastery, the frater
or dining-hall followed the same lines of an upper room upon a vaulted
substructure. Similarly, the hall of a castle was simply an ordinary
_aula_ placed within an enclosure walled for military purposes. The
hall at Christchurch is the exact counterpart of Harold’s _aula_ in
the Bayeux tapestry. It is a rectangular building, probably of the
third quarter of the twelfth century, with a basement, originally
vaulted, and lighted by narrow loops. The first floor formed one large
apartment, and was well lighted with double window openings, one of
which, at the south end, received special architectural treatment.
There was a fireplace in the east wall, on the side next the stream:
the cylindrical chimney-shaft still remains. The entrance, near the
south end of the west wall, was probably approached by an outer stair
at right angles to the wall, and led into the lower end of the hall,
opposite the daïs for the high table. The fireplace, set diagonally
to the entrance, warmed the daïs and the body of the hall: the end
near the doorway, corresponding to the “screens” of the ordinary hall,
was probably left free for the coming and going of the servants. The
basement was simply a cellar and storehouse. It had a doorway in the
west wall, while in the east wall was a gateway communicating with
the water. The elevation is nearly identical with that of the house
at Boothby Pagnell; but at Boothby Pagnell a cross-wall divides both
upper floor and basement into larger and smaller chambers; while
at Christchurch there was at the south-east corner a rectangular
garde-robe turret, built out into the stream, which kept the vents from
both basement and upper floor continually flushed.[228]

The division of the first floor into a larger and smaller apartment
corresponds to the division of the ordinary dwelling-house into hall or
common-room of the house, and bower or withdrawing-room and sleeping
apartment for the chief members of the family.[229] In the developed
plan of the medieval private house, the small vaults below the bower
became the cellar, and, as at Manorbier, a vice was provided by which
wine could be brought directly from it to the high table. The bower
or solar[230] itself was known in large houses as the great chamber,
and access to it was obtained through a door near one end of the
cross-wall behind the daïs. There was, however, a variation upon this
plan in which the hall and bower are on a different floor-level, and
this appears at a fairly early date. In this case the hall occupied the
whole height of the basement and first floor, and was entered from the
ground-level of the bailey: the cellar, in this case, was on a level
with the floor of the hall, and the solar was reached from the daïs by
a stair. This plan became very common in the later Gothic period; and
is well illustrated in manor-houses like Haddon and Compton Wyniates,
and in the colleges of Cambridge, where the common-room or parlour took
the place of the cellar, and the solar was occupied by the master’s
lodging. But it is also found in castles and fortified houses, as at
Berkeley and Stokesay. An indication of its employment at a date not
long after the Norman conquest is found in the story of the insult
offered to Robert of Normandy by William Rufus and Henry I. They came
to visit him, about the year 1078, at the castle of L’Aigle, where he
was staying, either in the constable’s house or some dwelling near the
castle. William and Henry played dice “upon the solar,” and indulged
in horseplay, which took the form of making a deafening noise, and
pouring water on Robert and his followers, who were below. Robert lost
his temper, and rushed into the dining-hall (_cenaculum_) to punish
his brothers: the quarrel, stopped for the time being by their father,
was the beginning of the long feud which ended for Robert in his
confinement at Cardiff. The mention of the “solar” distinctly implies
a room upon the upper floor, probably at some elevation above the
hall.[231]

This alternative plan supplied more direct communication with the
kitchen than was possible, where the hall was upon an upper floor; and
in connection with it, a kitchen and its accompanying offices are very
frequently found at the lower end, near the entry of the hall. This
became, in manor-houses and in the colleges of Cambridge, the normal
position of the kitchen, buttery, and pantry, divided from the body of
the hall by the “screens.” Most of the cooking in the earlier castles
must have been done either in temporary sheds or in the open air: the
basement of the hall, which, in later manor-houses, was sometimes used
as a kitchen, was not so used at an early period. The apartment in
a corner of the cleverly planned first floor of the keep at Castle
Rising was probably a kitchen, and is a rare instance of a room set
apart for this purpose before the end of the twelfth century. It must
be remembered, however, that the domestic buildings of castles were
very often, as at Ludlow, enlarged and entirely rebuilt, until they
became, as at Cardiff and Warwick, splendid mansions; and details with
regard to the original arrangement of the lesser apartments are thus
hard to recover.

[Illustration: LUDLOW: interior of building west of great hall]

At Warkworth (49), probably a little before 1200, a house of
considerable extent, including more than one private apartment and
a kitchen, was built against, and at the same time with the, west
curtain.[232] Up to this time, the castle had been an ordinary
mount-and-bailey stronghold with timber defences, and no earlier
stonework remains. The new house was much beautified by additions
made in the fifteenth century, but the plan was little altered. Its
central part was the hall, parallel with the curtain which it joined.
The entrance was in the side wall next the bailey, and led, as usual,
into the lower end of the hall, which occupied the full height of
the house, and thus formed the only internal means of communication
between the lord’s and the servants’ quarters. An unusual feature of
the hall, which cannot have been well lighted, was an eastern aisle,
over which the sloping roof was probably continued. At the upper
end, behind the daïs, the cellar was entered directly from the hall:
a straight stair next the curtain gave access to a landing, from
which a doorway gave access to the great chamber. The great chamber
communicated with a polygonal angle tower, called by the curious
name of “Cradyfargus,”[233] the first floor of which, next the great
chamber, may have been the chamber of the master of the house, while
the upper floor was probably used by the ladies. Nearly at right angles
to the great chamber, against the south curtain, was a chapel, of
which enough remains to show us that the ground-floor, entered from
the bailey, was used by the servants and garrison: while the west end
was divided into two stories, the upper one of which was entered from
the private apartments, and was a gallery for the use of the lord and
his family. It is difficult to speak positively of the arrangements of
the kitchen, which stood against the west curtain at the other end of
the hall. It may originally, like the kitchen at Berkeley, have had no
direct communication with the hall: the passage and offices between,
in their present state of ruin, are fifteenth-century additions or
reconstructions. But all the elements of the larger English house are
here. The chief alterations in the fifteenth century were the building
of a porch and gateway-tower in front of the hall entrance, and the
insertion of a lofty turret, with a vice and vaulted vestibule to the
great chamber, to the north-eastern angle of the hall, where it blocks
the last bay of the aisle.

An aisled hall, as at Warkworth, was a very exceptional feature. There
are, however, a few existing examples of a hall with a nave and two
aisles, the most famous of which is the thirteenth-century hall at
Winchester. The midland castles of Leicester and Oakham also had aisled
halls: that at Leicester was divided by arcades of timber, and still
exists, although many of its original features, including the timber
columns, have been removed or obscured. The hall at Oakham has been
more fortunate. This castle, upon a flat site which had no strategic
advantages, was really an _aula_ or manor-house, enclosed by a strong
earthen bank, and was probably not surrounded by a wall until the
thirteenth century. Within this enclosure Walkelin de Ferrers, towards
the end of the twelfth century, built an aisled hall of four bays, the
architectural details of which are of unusual beauty, and of great
importance in the history of early Gothic art in England. The building
runs east and west, the original entrance, from the ground-level of
the bailey, being, as usual, in the last bay of a side-wall, in this
case the easternmost bay of the south wall.[234] The daïs was at the
west end; and two doors, which probably communicated with the kitchen
and buttery, remain in the east wall. The aisles would doubtless be
kept clear of tables, to facilitate the service from the kitchen.[235]
At either end of the building, the arcades spring, not from responds,
but from corbels. Semicircular responds would have interfered with
the benches behind the high table, and with the free passage of the
servants between the kitchen and the aisles.[236] The columns are
slender cylinders of Clipsham stone: the capitals are tall, and carved
with a great variety of stiff-stalk foliage, with which are mingled
bands of nail-head and dog-tooth. The arches are rounded: dog-tooth
is used in the hood-mouldings, which rest upon figure-corbels. The
classical character of the foliage, and the refined sculpture of the
figures and heads in the corbels throughout the hall, have analogies in
one or two other buildings of the district: they recall very closely
the early Gothic work of the Burgundian province, and its English
derivatives at Canterbury and Chichester. Nothing, however, is known
of the masons employed; and the fabric has no documentary history. In
the low side-walls are double window-openings, each with a sculptured
tympanum beneath an enclosing arch: the pier dividing each of the
windows is faced with a shaft, and the jambs are adorned with elaborate
dog-tooth. These windows may be compared with those of the aisled
hall of the episcopal palace at Lincoln, built about a quarter of a
century later, where the arcades at both ends sprang from corbels. A
close parallel to the arrangements of the hall at Oakham is provided
by the contemporary hall, built by Bishop Pudsey at Auckland castle,
near Durham. Here, again, the so-called castle was simply an _aula_
without the strong earthworks which give Oakham a military character.
The proportions of the Auckland hall are larger, and its architecture
more simple, but with even more advanced Gothic characteristics. At the
end of the thirteenth century, considerable alterations were made in
the structure, and at the Restoration the hall was converted by Bishop
Cosin into a chapel.[237] This involved the blocking up of the original
entrance, the position of which exactly corresponded to that of Oakham.
A new doorway was made in the west wall, and the bay which originally
was set apart for the daïs was converted into an ante-chapel. In
neither case do any other contemporary buildings remain: the mansion at
Auckland, on the west side of the old hall, is a building of several
periods, of which the earliest existing portion is not earlier than the
reign of Henry VII.

[Illustration: DURHAM CASTLE

HISTORICAL GROUND PLAN]

Hugh Pudsey (1153-95), the prelate responsible for the hall at
Auckland, did much to increase the splendour of the episcopal
castle at Durham (199). Durham castle is an excellent example of a
mount-and-bailey fortress on a strong triangular site, with precipitous
natural defences on the north and west. The entrance was on the one
accessible side, from the plateau on which the cathedral and monastery
stood. At the apex of the site, on the right of the entrance, was the
mount, with a shell-keep on its summit; while to the left, along the
west side of the bailey, was the original hall. The eleventh-century
chapel was on the north side of the bailey, nearly opposite the
entrance. Pudsey’s chief work was the construction of a long building
of three stories in connection with the north curtain. The eastern part
of the basement was formed by the early chapel; the rest was probably
devoted to store-rooms and cellars. On the first floor was a great
hall, entered by a doorway (201) which may fairly be called the most
magnificent example of late Norman Romanesque art in England. Above
this, on the second floor, approached by a vice in the south-east
corner, was another hall, known as the Constable’s hall, and to-day as
the Norman gallery. The walls of this upper structure were lightened by
their construction as a continuous arcade, the arches forming frames to
window-openings, and the piers between them being faced with detached
shafts in couples (203). The internal arrangements of this building
are now much obscured by the partition of the lower hall into several
large rooms; while the south part of the upper hall has been cut up by
smaller partitions. Early in the sixteenth century a new chapel was
built on the east side of the lower hall, and against the south wall of
the basement and first floor was made a stone gallery of two stories.
The outer stair to the lower hall was then taken away; but Bishop
Pudsey’s doorway was left, and light was thrown upon it by a large
mullioned window in the outer wall of the gallery.[238]

Meanwhile, about the end of the thirteenth century, Bishop Bek, who
also improved upon Pudsey’s work at Auckland, raised against the
west curtain, and upon the substructure of the early hall, the great
banqueting-hall, which is now used as the dining-hall of University
college. This hall, again, has inevitably been much altered, but
its actual plan and arrangements are very fairly maintained to-day,
and the long two-light windows with simple geometrical tracery in
the side walls represent, with some restoration of stone-work, its
original lighting. The entrance, up a flight of stairs and through a
porch added by Bishop Cosin, is in the south end of the east wall,
and leads into screens roofed by a gallery, on the south of which
are the kitchen and servants’ offices. A doorway in the east wall
led from the daïs to the bishop’s private rooms; but at this end the
older arrangements were altered by the construction of Tunstall’s
gallery in the sixteenth century, and, later, still, by the addition
of Cosin’s splendid Renaissance staircase—alterations which provided
covered access from Bek’s hall to Pudsey’s building at right angles
to it. The buildings just described are some of the most beautiful
and instructive remains of domestic architecture in England, and have
no military characteristics. The strength of the castle, however, was
not forgotten. No English castle, even when Bamburgh and Richmond
are remembered, presents a more formidable defence than the curtain,
pierced by a few spare openings and by the narrow western windows of
Bek’s hall, which revets and crowns the cliff above the Wear; while, in
the fourteenth century, Bishop Hatfield (1345-81) replaced the older
keep by a new and probably more lofty polygonal shell.

[Illustration: Durham Castle; Doorway]

At Durham the buildings of Pudsey and Bek alike stand upon basements,
which were used as cellars and store-rooms; and the preference for
first-floor halls in castles was doubtless due to the necessity of
providing plenty of room for magazines, both for provisions and arms,
within a confined space, and keeping the muster-ground in the centre
of the bailey as clear as possible. At Newark (157), where the ground
fell away towards the river, the hall was built on the slope, and was
entered from the level of the bailey, the slope being utilised for the
construction of a large vaulted basement, lighted by loops from the
river side, and communicating with the water by a sloping passage and
a gateway opening on a small quay. The use of every available space
for storage is illustrated at Carew castle in Pembrokeshire, where
the whole space beneath the lesser hall and its adjacent buildings
is occupied by cellars, while the basement of the greater hall, on
the opposite side of the courtyard, appears to have been used as
stables. At Pembroke a large natural cavern below the hall and its
adjacent buildings was turned to use as a lower store-house. A vice
was constructed in the rock from a ground-floor chamber north of the
hall, and the mouth of the cavern was closed by a wall, in which was a
gateway, opening upon a path from the water-side.

[Illustration: DURHAM: arcading on south side of Constable’s hall]

If Henry II. may be given the chief credit for the construction of
rectangular keeps in castles, Henry III. was almost as active in
building halls. The finest example of his work now remaining is at
Winchester. At the Tower of London, at Scarborough, and at Newcastle,
the name alone of his halls, rectangular buildings with high-pitched
roofs, remains. But, in and after his reign, the hall and the adjacent
domestic buildings became a fixed feature of the plan of the castle.
In castles which, up to this time, may have possessed small and
inconvenient halls, or possibly halls built merely of timber, new
and more permanent domestic buildings were constructed. Thus, at
Rockingham castle, the beautiful doorway of the thirteenth-century hall
(205), with deeply undercut mouldings and jamb-shafts with foliated
capitals, still forms the entrance to the house of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the hall of which is probably of the exact
dimensions of its medieval predecessor.[239] In castles which are the
most perfect examples of fortification, such as Caerphilly or Conway,
the hall forms an integral part of the plan, filling its natural place
in the design; and of these, Caerphilly was completed about the end of
the reign of Henry III. The enthusiasm of Henry for fine architecture,
domestic as well as ecclesiastical, was imitated by many of his
powerful subjects; and it is actually from this period that we may
trace that prominence of the domestic element in our castles which was
eventually cultivated at the expense of fortification.

[Illustration: Rockingham Castle; Doorway of hall]

In the dwelling-houses, often of palatial size, which grew up within
castles, and reached their perfect development in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, the main apartments, in addition to the hall,
were the great chamber, the kitchen with its offices, and the chapel.
The normal plan, as already shown, was that of the first-floor hall,
with the great chamber at one end, and the kitchen at the other. The
plan of the chapel was not fixed, but, where it formed part of the
block of buildings, it is usually found in connection with the great
chamber end of the hall.

The main points of the hall may be briefly recapitulated. The entrance
was invariably in the side wall next the bailey, at the end nearest
the usual place for the kitchen. This end was screened off from the
hall by curtains or by a wooden partition containing one or more doors.
This shut out draught; while the passage thus formed was generally
covered by its own ceiling, the space above forming a gallery, which
was entered from a vice at a corner of the end wall. At the further
end of the hall was the daïs with the high table, at right angles to
which were placed the long tables in the body of the hall. The hall
was covered by a high-pitched timber roof, the principals of which
were borne by corbels in the side walls. In early examples, warmth was
supplied by a large hearth in the middle of the floor, a little below
the daïs, the smoke from which escaped through a louvre in the roof
above; but it became customary to make a fireplace in one of the side
walls.[240] Light was admitted through window-openings in the side wall
next the ward; but, where the outer wall of the castle was secure from
attack, as at Warwick or Ludlow, windows were made there also. These
windows were usually of two lights, divided by a mullion, with simple
tracery in the head. They also had a transom, below which they were
closed by shutters, the upper part of the window alone being glazed. In
the hall at Ludlow, the date of which is about 1300, there were three
two-light windows next the ward, while the curtain was pierced by three
single-light openings. The hearth stood in the body of the hall just
below the daïs, and was carried by a pier in the cellar beneath. In the
fifteenth century the middle window next the ward was blocked, and a
fireplace inserted: the hearth was then removed. The hall formed the
chief living-room of the house, and in it the majority of the lord’s
retinue not only had their meals, but slept.

The great chamber, as time went on, became the nucleus of a number of
private apartments. In the most simple examples, it is a rectangular
apartment behind the daïs, communicating with it directly through a
doorway on one side of the end wall. Where the hall occupied the ground
floor, a vice, or, as at Warkworth, a straight stair, furnished an
entrance to it. At Ludlow, where the kitchen was a detached building,
and at Stokesay (207), there was a first-floor chamber at both ends
of the hall. The domestic buildings at Ludlow are very symmetrically
arranged, the hall, in the middle, being slightly recessed between two
projecting blocks of building, each with a chamber on the first floor
(195). Of these, that at the east end of the hall, behind the daïs, was
evidently the more important; and, in the fifteenth century, it was on
this side that an additional block of private apartments was built.
From each floor of the great chamber block a large garde-robe tower was
entered: this tower projects from the north curtain of the castle, and
was added when the earlier hall was remodelled and the hall and its
adjoining blocks assumed their present shape.

[Illustration: Stokesay]

[Illustration: Manorbier Castle; Outer stair to Chapel]

Manorbier castle contains an interesting example of the enlargement
of domestic buildings, with a solar block at either end of the hall.
The castle stands on rising ground in a deep valley, about half a
mile from the sea. The inner ward or castle proper is surrounded by
a curtain, with a gatehouse in the east wall. The dwelling-house is
upon the west side of the ward, at the end opposite the main entrance,
and consists of two distinct portions. The earlier consists of a
first-floor hall and great chamber above cellars. There was a floor
above the great chamber, probably forming a bower for the ladies of
the household, the hall corresponding in height to these two upper
stages. The present entrance to the hall is in the side wall at the end
next the great chamber, and was probably made, with the outer stair
against the wall, in the thirteenth century. The hall itself with its
adjacent buildings appears to be originally of the later part of the
twelfth century: the cellars below have semicircular barrel vaults. In
the second half of the thirteenth century a new block of buildings was
made at the opposite or south end of the hall. It was now probably that
the new entrance was made. The position of the daïs seems to have been
reversed, and a window in the south end-wall of the hall blocked by a
fireplace. Behind this wall, and entered by a doorway in its west end,
was the new great chamber, a long, narrow building, with its principal
axis at right angles to that of the hall, and with a floor above. At
each end of the south wall of this apartment is a passage. That at the
west end passes along the line of the curtain to a garde-robe tower
which projects at the south-west angle of the castle: the passage is
still roofed with flat slabs on continuous corbelling, and is well
lighted by loops in the curtain. The other passage, at the south-east
corner of the great chamber, forms a lobby to a large chapel, which
was built across the south-west angle of the ward, so that a small
triangular yard was left between it and the curtain. There is a
separate outer stair to the chapel (208), placed, like the stair to the
hall, at right angles to the wall. The whole group of buildings, with
its two outer stairs, is unexcelled for picturesqueness in any castle.

The kitchen at Manorbier was placed, at any rate when the
thirteenth-century alterations were undertaken (probably about 1260),
at right angles to the hall and older great chamber, against the north
curtain. Owing to the confinement of the space within the curtain, and
the growing necessity of private accommodation, the position of the
kitchen was not fixed so regularly in the castle as in the ordinary
dwelling-house. At Berkeley (186), where the hall was built against the
east curtain of the inner ward, the kitchen is a polygonal building,
divided from the screens by a buttery, and occupying a more or less
normal place in the plan. At Warkworth (49), as we have noticed, the
kitchen is in its proper place, near the entrance end of the hall, but
may have been at first a separate structure. The original position of
the kitchen at Cardiff (191) seems to have conformed to this plan. The
desirability of placing the kitchen within easy reach of the hall is
obvious. At Kenilworth, where the magnificent hall, built towards the
end of the fourteenth century, occupies the whole north side of the
inner ward, and is on a first floor above a vaulted cellar, the private
apartments formed a wing against the west curtain of the ward, while
the kitchen was against the east curtain, and was within easy reach
of the stair to the hall, and the passage below it which led into the
cellar. The kitchen at Ludlow (106) was a separate building, opposite
the entrance to the hall and the western solar block, and placed
against the north outer wall of the small courtyard which covers the
keep. In the two great Edwardian castles of Conway and Carnarvon, where
the halls were large and the space limited, the kitchens were built
against the curtain opposite the hall.[241]

The chapel was also a variable factor in the plan. It has already been
remarked that, in some early castles, the chapel was a collegiate
church, standing separately within the precincts of the castle, and
sometimes, as at Hastings, filling up, with the houses of the dean and
canons or their deputies, a very considerable part of the enclosure.
Indeed, nearly all the ruins left within the curtain at Hastings are
those of the large cruciform church and the buildings in connection
with it. At Ludlow the Norman chapel was a detached building in the
inner ward (106). This was the private chapel of the lord of the
castle, and in the sixteenth century was joined by a gallery to the
block of buildings at the east end of the hall: the nave was then
divided into two floors, so that the first floor formed a private
gallery or solar, while the household used the ground-floor. This
method of division of the west end of the chapel into two floors is
very usual: it was employed twice at Warkworth, both in the chapel
attached to the domestic buildings already described, and in the
chapel of the later tower-house on the mount. It may also be seen
in the chapel at Berkeley, and in many manor-houses, as at Compton
Wyniates. At Ludlow we have noticed that there was a second chapel for
the garrison in the outer ward, built in the fourteenth century: with
this the arrangement at the Tower of London may be compared, where
the royal chapel of St John is in the White tower, but the garrison
chapel of St Peter was built on the north side of the inner ward. The
chapel at Kenilworth was against the south wall of the outer ward.
There was a chapel on the south side of the inner ward at Alnwick. As
a rule, however, only one chapel would be provided. The chapels found
in tower-keeps have already been discussed: with the exception of
Newcastle and Old Sarum, they were, as a rule, private chapels or mere
oratories.

In later castles, two considerations determined the planning of the
chapel. It was placed so that the altar should be as nearly as possible
against the east wall, and so that there should be direct access from
the private apartments to the gallery at the west end. These conditions
are met both in the earlier and later chapels at Warkworth: they can
be traced in the plan of Bodiam and other late medieval castles. At
Berkeley (186) where the solar block was at right angles to the hall,
against the south, or, more correctly, the south-west curtain, the
chapel fills the angle between the buildings, and the entrance is
masked by a vestibule from which a vice led to the private apartments.
The altar is placed rather north of east, against the wall at the back
of the hall daïs, and the gallery at the opposite end was entered
from the great chamber. The main axis of the chapel is at an obtuse
angle to that of the hall, and a vestry was made in the south-east
corner, where the wall dividing it from the hall is thickest. In the
plan of the great Welsh castles of the later part of the thirteenth
century the chapel was usually in close connection with the domestic
buildings. At Conway, where there is also a beautiful oratory, with
a vaulted chancel, on the first floor of the north-east tower, the
chapel was formed by screening off the eastern portion of the great
hall. At Harlech the chapel was built against the north curtain, the
solar block probably occupying the angle between chapel and hall. The
chapel at Kidwelly was in the two upper stages of the south-east tower
of the inner ward, and was in close communication with the hall and the
apartments adjoining it. The position of the beautiful little chapel at
Beaumaris is somewhat isolated, on the first floor of the tower in the
middle of the east curtain of the inner ward. The only communication
with the hall block on the north side of the court was through a long
and narrow passage in the thickness of the curtain; and the chapel is
too small to have served for the devotions of a large garrison. It was
so arranged, however, that, if the entrance to the tower were left
open, the service might be followed by worshippers in the bailey below.
Ample room, however, was given to the congregation in most cases: the
first-floor chapel at Manorbier is a chamber of considerable size. It
has a pointed barrel-vault and stands above a cellar, which also has a
pointed barrel-vault and contains a fireplace. The fashion of founding
collegiate establishments in castles did not cease until the end of the
middle ages. The chapel—the third within the castle—which was begun
during the fifteenth century at Warkworth bears witness to an intention
of this kind on the part of one of the earls of Northumberland; but the
actual details of the proposed foundation are not known, and probably
were never placed on paper.




CHAPTER IX

CASTLES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY: THE FORTIFICATION OF THE CURTAIN


The keep had a traditional importance in the scheme of the castle,
and the main energy of the castle-builders of the twelfth century
was directed towards strengthening its power of resistance. But the
improvement of siege artillery naturally turned their attention to the
strengthening of the outer defences as well. The day of the palisade
was past, and the stone curtain called for more scientific treatment
than it had yet received. In the thirteenth century, then, military
engineers began to concentrate their ingenuity upon the outer walls
and entrances of the castle. Their interest was transferred by degrees
from the keep to the curtain, while, at the same time, the domestic
employment of the keep ceased in favour of the more comfortable
quarters against the castle wall. In this way, as scientific
fortification developed, the keep dropped into a secondary position, or
was left out of the plan altogether.

[Illustration: PEMBROKE: inner side of gatehouse]

In tracing this gradual disappearance of the keep, it should be kept
in mind that the stone keep, when we first meet with it, is actually a
supplement of more permanent material added to a palisaded enclosure.
In early walled enclosures, like Richmond or Ludlow, the stone defences
made the special provision of a keep unnecessary: the whole castle,
protected by its stone wall, had in itself the strength of a keep. It
was only when it became likely that the stone curtain might show less
resistance than its builders anticipated, that, in both the castles
just mentioned, a tower-keep was provided. In both cases, the tower
stood in the forefront of the defence of the principal ward of the
castle. In the first instance it protected the curtain, while, if all
else failed, its use, the primary use of such buildings, as an ultimate
place of retirement for the defenders, could be demonstrated. During
the reign of Henry II., the stone keep, whether a tower or a shell on
the mound, was the dominating feature of the stone-walled castle. At
Conisbrough and Pembroke (181) the great tower still keeps its pride
of place, but the curtains of the ward in which it stands have
been built or reconstructed with a view to effectual flanking; while
the two semicircular towers which guarded the southern curtain of the
inner ward at Pembroke were evidently an addition, after the keep had
been built. In castles like Manorbier, the oldest parts of which are
of the later part of the twelfth century, the builders returned to the
original keepless plan of Richmond and Ludlow. The care, which, in the
earlier castles, had been expended upon a single rallying point in
the scheme of defence, was now applied to the whole outer wall of the
castle, so that it began to offer a connected front to an attack.

During the transition, however, the keep, as we have seen, received
its full share of attention. At Château-Gaillard (163) it was an
integral part of one united design, the outer defences of which remain
to be described. The great tower is at the highest point of the inner
or third ward, which forms an irregular oval. But, before reaching
this ward, two outer lines of defence had to be forced. There was
only one possible approach for a besieging army, along the isthmus
on the south-east side of the cliff. On this side the castle proper
was protected by a powerful outwork, which offered a sharp angle to
the isthmus. When Philip Augustus began to use his machines against
the castle in February 1203-4, the round tower at the apex of this
horn-work[242] was the main object of his attack. The sloping sides
of the angle were flanked by two smaller round towers, while the
entrance, close to the north angle, was covered on one side by a
cylindrical tower, to which there was probably a corresponding tower
in the opposite curtain. The horn-work was surrounded by an outer
ditch. The strength of the curtain seems to have been little affected
by the siege-engines. Breaches, both here and in the inner ward, were
not made until Philip’s miners had weakened the masonry by boring
galleries beneath it. A very deep ditch with perpendicular sides, cut
in the chalk, stretched across the whole ridge, and divided the outwork
from the middle ward, which was capped at the angles by cylindrical
towers, and contained buildings of which the substructures, and some
cellars excavated in the chalk, are left. The curtain of this ward
was continued along the face of the precipice and the north-eastern
slope, so as practically to enclose the inner ward. The two wards,
however, were not concentric, for the inner ward occupied one end of
the space enclosed by the middle ward, from which it was divided
by a ditch. The wall of the inner ward was the most remarkable and
original of the defences of the castle. Its whole outer face, save on
the side next the precipice, was formed of a series of convex curves
intersecting with each other, so that no flat surface was left. The
wall is solid, and, looking at its fluted outer surface, we may well
admire Philip’s military skill, which found it a not too formidable
obstacle. A gateway in the east face gave access to the inner ward from
the narrowest portion of the middle ward, and the ditch at this point
was originally crossed by a stone causeway. The projecting spur of the
great tower faced the gateway. The whole formidable design was perfect
from the point of view of flanking, while the plan was a step towards
the concentric arrangement of one ward within another. The prominence
of the keep in the plan was, however, an archaic feature; and the
history of the siege of 1204 shows very clearly that the great tower
was practically a superfluity, and that the last hopes of the defenders
were centred in the wall of the inner ward. When Philip’s miners had
endangered its stability, and his engines were brought to play upon the
weakened stonework, their hope was lost.[243]

The inventive skill shown in the inner wall of Château-Gaillard was not
displayed again in the same form. But a step in the flanking of the
curtain by round towers is seen in the wall of Conisbrough (217). Here
the inner ward is nearly oval, and the southern half of the curtain,
in which is contained the entrance from the outworks, is strengthened
by small solid towers with battering bases, projecting some two-thirds
of a circle from the wall.[244] Such solid projections for flanking
purposes are found at Scarborough and Knaresborough, and could be
easily added to an earlier wall, when necessity required. For the
convenience of the defenders, however, larger towers with rooms on each
floor were desirable; and the actual improvement of the defences of the
curtain is seen in the multiplication of such towers, so as to leave no
part of the wall unflanked. The circular or polygonal form was almost
universally adopted for them.

[Illustration: CONISBROUGH: barbican of inner bailey]

[Illustration: MANORBIER CASTLE from south-west]

Warkworth (49) is an example of a twelfth-century castle in which an
approach was made to an adequately defended curtain, although with long
distances between the towers. The arrangement, however, is a complete
contrast to the haphazard projection of towers from earlier curtains,
as at Ludlow. The castle stands high on the right bank of the Coquet:
the river bends round it, so that the only level approach is from
the plateau on the west side, and the town climbs the tongue of land
between the castle and the river.[245] The mount is at the apex of
the castle site, immediately above the town. On the west side of the
enclosure the curtain, which is strong and thick, is unbroken by any
tower: against the inner face are the domestic buildings. The south
wall, which contains the gatehouse, is flanked by two angle-towers,
on the west by the tower known as “Cradyfargus,” and on the east by a
square tower, called the Amble tower. In the east wall, which commanded
the ascent from the town, is a half-octagon tower, in each face of
which is a huge loop for a cross-bow, so that a few archers could
effectually rake the path outside with their fire. Of these towers,
Cradyfargus projects into the castle enclosure with a blunt angle,
its walls on this side being a mere continuation of the curtain. The
basement was entered from the cellar behind the hall, the first floor
from the great chamber above, and the second floor by a stair in the
thickness of the wall from the vestibule or landing, west of the great
chamber. The projection of the eastern tower is entirely outward: its
internal face was flat. There was a basement and two floors: the first
floor had an external stair from the ward, but it does not appear how
the second floor was reached, though the jamb of a door may still be
seen. The east tower had a garde-robe near the entrance of the basement
and on the first floor: in Cradyfargus there are only traces of
garde-robe arrangements. Although the space enclosed by the walls was
large, and the flanking by no means perfect, the two most assailable
sides of the fortress were very secure. The gatehouse, a building of
about the year 1200 (221), formed an intermediate projection in the
south wall between Cradyfargus and the Amble tower: the gateway is
recessed between two half-octagon turrets. The preference of polygonal
forms for the defences of this castle is rather characteristic of the
north of England. There was, however, a conservative spirit in this
district, which is seen in the retention of the rectangular form for
the Amble tower. Even in a fourteenth-century castle like Dunstanburgh
the angle towers are rectangular in form; while the “pele-tower” of
the northern borders, throughout the middle ages, shows no important
variation from the square form.

The importance given to the gatehouse at Warkworth was a sign of the
times. We have seen how, at Lewes and Tickhill, the first thought
of the builders was to provide their earthworks with a stone house
of entry. Norman gatehouses were very simple in construction. The
gatehouse at Warkworth, on the other hand, was anything but simple in
its arrangements, and all the forethought possible was taken for its
defence. There are three stories, the lowest of which is the vaulted
hall of entrance to the castle, flanked, in the ground-floor of the
half-octagon towers, by guard-rooms described in the survey of 1567 as
a porter’s lodge and a prison. The defences of the passage need close
attention. The entrance was closed by a gate which opened outwards,
and stood about 4 feet in advance of the portcullis: the space between
was commanded by arrow-loops in the walls of the guardrooms. The
herse of the portcullis seems to have been worked from the second
floor of the gatehouse:[246] the upper and broader portion ran in a
groove which ceases at the level of the string-course below the vault
of the passage, while the lower descended to the ground. Beyond the
portcullis, the passage was kept under observation through cross-loops
in the side walls. The vault stopped 5 feet short of the inner gateway,
and the passage was covered by a wooden roof. On each side of the inner
gateway were the entrances to the guard-rooms, which flanked the whole
passage.

[Illustration: WARKWORTH: gatehouse]

[Illustration: WARKWORTH: tower on mount]

The plan of the castle gatehouse at Warkworth was that of the great
majority of medieval gatehouses, whether in castles or in the walls
of fortified towns. The ground-floor of the main block of building,
which generally had two upper floors, contained the hall of entry, and
was flanked by two cylindrical or octagonal towers, the lowest stories
of which were guard-rooms, and were pierced with loops commanding the
approach and the passage. Usually the gateway was placed at the back
of an arched recess, which formed a porch. The position of the gate
and portcullis at Warkworth was rather exceptional. Ordinarily the
portcullis descended in front of the gate, which opened inwards, and
was secured, when closed, by one or more draw-bars. This, however, was
impossible, where the gate, as at Warkworth, opened outwards, so that
the usual arrangement had to be reversed. But, while the actual plan
of the gatehouse kept its general characteristics with little change,
the defences of the entrance were multiplied. Thus the Byward tower,
the outer gatehouse of the Tower of London, had an outer portcullis
in front of a wooden door opening inwards, behind which was a second
portcullis, blocking the entrance to the inner and wider portion of the
passage, which had a timber ceiling. In addition to this, between the
outer portcullis and the gate, the vault was crossed by a rib, pierced
with three holes, which allowed the defenders to harass an attacking
party from above, and also could be used for strengthening the gate
in time of siege by a timber framework, the upper ends of which were
fixed in the holes. Such holes, which were not merely machicolations
in the vault, are found elsewhere, as in the gatehouses of Pembroke
and Warwick castles and the west gatehouse of the town of Southampton.
In this last case, a single rectangular gate-tower projected from the
inner face of the wall only, next the town. The gate of the passage
through the ground floor was defended upon its outer face by these
holes alone: there were two portcullises, but both were upon the inner
side of the gate. It is possible that such holes were originally
left to fix the centering of the vault when it was first built:
they converge towards one another, and probably were not filled up
afterwards, in view of their defensive use.[247]

One prominent feature, however, of the defences of a gateway, as time
went on, was the provision of machicolations, in the shape of long
rectangular slits, in the vault of the passage and in the arch in
front of the portcullis. In some cases where they occur in connection
with a portcullis, they may have been used for a heavy wooden frame,
which could on occasion reinforce the iron herse of the portcullis.
At Warkworth there is no original arrangement of this kind: the wall
of the first floor above the gateway projects slightly upon a row of
corbels, but this was done merely to give it additional strength.
At a later date, however, the parapet at the top of the gatehouse
was corbelled out, and the spaces between the corbels left open for
machicolations. From the later part of the thirteenth century onwards,
the usual arrangement, as at Chepstow or Tutbury, was to carry the
parapet upon an arch in advance of the main face of the gatehouse, from
one tower to the other, and to leave the space between the parapet and
the main wall open, so that it commanded the field immediately in front
of the portcullis. The effect of recessing the front of the gatehouse
within a tall outer archway is magnificent, from the point of view of
design. The design of gatehouses reaches its highest point in the great
gatehouse of Denbigh, with its octagonal gate-hall, and in the King’s
gateway at Carnarvon, where the enclosing arch, recessing the two lower
stages of the gatehouse, bears the outer wall of the upper floor (253).

[Illustration: Pembroke Castle; Interior of gateway]

In some instances, as at Pembroke (224) and Kidwelly (225), where the
gatehouse passage was defended by inner and outer portcullises, there
are as many as three chases or slots in the vault between the outer
and inner entrances. At Pembroke, where the gatehouse has the unusual
feature of two flanking towers (213), of semicircular projection, on
the side next the ward, an arch was thrown out from one tower to the
other, some distance in advance of the inner archway. It is difficult
to see how this inner barbican, as it may be called, was intended to
be of use to an already strongly protected gateway; but the space
within it may have been covered by a wooden platform, accessible from
the first floor of the gatehouse, from which the interior of the castle
could be commanded, and an enemy who had forced an entrance could be
seriously annoyed. The vault of the entrance passage was generally a
pointed barrel-vault, strengthened by transverse ribs at intervals; but
the broader space in the centre of the passage was often ceiled, as
in the Byward tower, with timber. The entrance passages of the inner
gatehouses of Harlech (274) and Beaumaris (236) were roofed with wooden
ceilings, supported by transverse ribs of stone set with only a narrow
interval between them.

[Illustration: Kidwelly Castle; Interior of gateway]

The ground-floors of the flanking towers of the gatehouse were usually
vaulted. The lodges from which the towers were entered, upon each
side of the inner passage, had stone ceilings when the passage itself
was vaulted through its whole length, or when they formed one room
with the ground-floors of the towers. The ordinary plan, however,
was to treat the flanking tower as an outer guard-room, approached
from the inner lodge. If it was cylindrical in plan, the interior was
arranged as a polygon, and vaulted with ribs springing from shafts
in the angles.[248] This plan may be seen in the Byward tower and
Middle tower of the Tower of London. In both towers the inner part of
the passage was ceiled with timber, and the adjacent chambers formed
lobbies to the vaulted ground-floors of the towers. In the Middle
tower, however, the left-hand lobby was occupied by a vice leading to
the first floor; and in the same position in the Byward tower is a
square rectangular chamber with a ribbed vault.

[Illustration: Rockingham Castle; Gatehouse]

A good normal gatehouse, which may be taken as typical of the period,
is that of Rockingham castle (226). Its details indicate that it
belongs to the later part of the reign of Henry III. It is upon the
east side of the enclosure, and its projection is almost entirely
towards the field. The plan is, as usual, a rectangle with a passage
through the centre, and with semicylindrical towers projecting on
either side of the outer entrance. No vaulting was used. The passage is
entered through a porch beneath a drop arch—that is to say, a pointed
arch whose two segments are drawn from centres below the springing
line—and was guarded, just within the arch, by a portcullis in front
of a wooden door. At the inner end of the passage was another door.
Openings in the side walls of the passage communicated with rectangular
chambers;[249] and in the east walls of these were doorways into
semicircular chambers within the towers. There was only one upper
floor to the gatehouse and its towers. In this simple building, one
is reminded at once of the rectangular stone gatehouse of the early
Norman castle, with its upper chamber. Improvement is seen in the
substitution, for the original entrance, of a central passage flanked
by chambers upon the ground-floor; in the addition of flanking towers
of scientific form; and in the protection of the timber doors by an
iron portcullis.

[Illustration: Newcastle; Black gate]

The gatehouse at Newcastle, known as the Black gate (227), which became
the entrance to the castle in the thirteenth century, is an example of
a more elaborately constructed and exceptional type. The ground plan
is simplicity itself, a central passage flanked by towers containing
guard-chambers. The towers, however, are not merely projections from
a rectangular body, but flank the whole gateway with a wide convex
curve. There is a large single vaulted chamber on the ground floor
of each, lighted by loops which enabled the occupants to command the
castle ditch. The architectural details of the gateway are very simple,
but there is a short arcade of trefoiled arches in each of the side
walls, and the vaulting of the guard-rooms presents some ingenious
peculiarities. The upper portion of the gatehouse was much altered in
the seventeenth century. The original design, with its great segmental
flanking towers, may have been the prototype of the even more noble
gatehouse of Dunstanburgh, which is a work of nearly three-quarters of
a century later.[250]

[Illustration: Walled town in state of siege]

The upper floors of the gatehouse may be reserved for discussion
until we come to the concentric plan, in which the gatehouse became
a building of exceptional importance. For military purposes the one
necessary upper chamber was that in which the machinery controlling
the portcullis was worked. In the floor of this room was the upper end
of the groove, through which, by means of a pulley in the ceiling, the
iron frame was drawn up or down, hanging here when it was not in use
to close the entrance below. Many examples of a portcullis chamber
remain, as at Berry Pomeroy and in Bootham bar at York.[251]

[Illustration: York; Walmgate Bar]

The entrance of the castle, under improved conditions of fortification,
was defended by an outwork or barbican. The term “barbican,” which
seems to be of eastern derivation, was used indiscriminately to denote
any outwork by which the principal approach to a castle or a gateway
of a town was covered. The word “barmkin,” which is possibly, as
already noted, a corruption of “barbican,” was applied in the north
of England to the outer yard of a “pele,” or fortified (literally,
palisaded) residence. In many castles, as at Ludlow, Denbigh, or
Manorbier, the outer ward was an addition or supplement to the plan of
the castle, guarding the approach to the inner ward or castle proper,
and its curtain was subsidiary to the strongly fortified curtain of
the inner ward. Such outer wards or base-courts resemble the northern
“barmkins,” an exact parallel to which is seen in the base-court of the
fifteenth-century fortified house of Wingfield. Covering outworks were
by no means uncommon, and also served the purpose of a barbican. As at
Château-Gaillard, they might take the form of a walled outer ward, or,
as at Llandovery, they might be horn-shaped earthworks, thrown out at
an exposed point in the defences; in either case, they had their own
ditch, an extension of the main ditch of the castle. But the barbican
proper was a walled extension of a gatehouse to the field, confining
the approach to the limited area of a narrow passage. The most simple
instance is the barbican in front of Walmgate bar at York (229), where
a gatehouse, originally of the twelfth century, was strengthened by the
addition, upon the outer side, of two parallel walls at right angles
to the sides of the gateway. Thus, in order to force the gates, an
attacking party would have to traverse a long and narrow alley between
high walls, in which they were exposed to the missiles of the defenders
concentrated upon them from the ramparts of the gatehouse and the
adjacent wall.

The barbican was, in fact, an application to the main entrance of the
castle of the form of defence hitherto applied most scientifically to
the fore-building of the keep.[252] Its general employment as an outer
defence was the direct consequence of the removal of interest from the
keep to the curtain. Not merely had the wall itself to offer a stout
resistance to attack, so that every point was simultaneously engaged
in active defence; but the main approaches had to be so arranged as
to involve an enemy in perplexity. In the protection of the main
avenues of access to the town or castle, we arrive at an unconscious
reproduction in stone of the methods employed by prehistoric builders
of earthwork. Experience taught the engineers of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries the lessons which she had taught the makers of
Maiden Castle, and the adoption of the concentric plan of fortification
followed as a matter of course.

[Illustration: WARWICK: barbican]

The contraction of the main entrance of the castle by a barbican is
well seen at Bamburgh, Conisbrough (217), and Scarborough (129). In the
first two instances, owing to the isolated position of the fortress,
and the nature of the ground outside, the main approach would have
to be in any case by a path made up the steep face of the hill, and
immediately below the curtain. Bamburgh was unusually well aided by
nature, and the gateway, flanked by two slender round towers, is at
a level considerably lower than that of the summit of the rock; in
this case, the rising road within the gateway, cut in the basalt, and
commanded by the curtain and the keep within the curtain, was the
barbican of the castle. The hill on which Conisbrough was set is merely
a steep knoll, with a wide outer ditch on its less precipitous side.
The outer ward, on the south-west side of the ditch, was apparently an
earthwork without stone walls.[253] A gatehouse was set on the edge
of the ditch, in advance of and at a lower level than the curtain of
the inner ward. Its arrangements, so far as they can be traced, were
not greatly superior to those of early stone gatehouses. Its lateral
walls, however, were prolonged up the edge of the slope to the entrance
of the inner ward. The left-hand wall joined an angle of the curtain
half-way up the passage; the wall on the right hand was continued so as
to cover the inner gateway, which was at right angles to the passage
thus formed.[254] As at Bamburgh, the approach in this case is a narrow
gangway between high walls, commanded throughout from the rampart of
the inner ward, and, for the second half of the distance, passing
immediately beneath it. A passage of this type, with a right-angled
turn at its far end, might easily become a death-trap for a besieging
force.

At Scarborough the castle cliff is almost entirely separated from the
town by a deep ravine, and the approach is along the narrow ridge
between this chasm and the northward face of the rock. The gatehouse,
flanked by rounded towers, forms part of a small and irregularly shaped
walled outwork or barbican placed upon the outer curve of the ravine.
From this _tête-du-pont_, as it may be called, a straight passage,
walled on both sides, crosses the head of the ravine, passing over a
bridge on its way, and skirting, on the left hand, the sheer edge of
the cliff. On the further side, the space widens into the outer ward,
commanded and nearly blocked by the rectangular keep. The wall on the
left is continued along the edge of the cliff, while that on the right,
which, as being more open to attack, is much the thicker, bears away
with the curve of the slope, and joins the south curtain of the inner
ward upon its west face.[255]

[Illustration: Warwick Castle; Barbican]

The examples already given illustrate the precautions which
thirteenth-century engineers took to guard their castles from surprise
and storm; and the arrangements found in the Welsh castles of Edward
I.’s reign are even more remarkable. It will be noticed that in the
three castles just mentioned the main gatehouse is thrown forward to
the outer end of the barbican, which forms a narrow passage uniting
the gatehouse to the inner entrance. In late thirteenth and fourteenth
century castles, however, the barbican was, as we see it at Walmgate
bar in York, an addition to the front of a gatehouse. This method of
covering gateways by outer defences is seen at Kenilworth, where the
approach to the outer ward of the castle, across the lake formed by
the damming-up of two rivulets, was broken up into sections by three
lines of defence. First, an outer earthwork, segmental in shape, and
strengthened by round stone bastions, guarded the approach to the first
gatehouse. Beyond this gatehouse, which formed a _tête-du-pont_ like
the Middle tower at London, a long causeway or dam, with a wall on
its eastern face, crossed the lake to the strong gatehouse known as
Mortimer’s tower, which, guarded by two portcullises, stood upon the
end of the dam, in advance of the curtain. But the ordinary barbican,
which was characteristic of the castles of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, was not a long and elaborately protected line of outer
defences, but a stone building thrown out in front of a gatehouse, so
as to concentrate the attacking force into a small space, and prevent
a combined rush on the principal gateway. The contracted approach thus
made was usually, in the later examples, as at Warwick (231), Alnwick
(243), and Porchester, all barbicans of the fourteenth century, a
straight lane between walls. At Porchester it is set in front of the
twelfth-century gatehouse of the inner ward, which was covered in
the early fourteenth century by a rectangular projection, pierced by
lateral doorways opening upon the scarp of the inner ward outside the
curtain. The barbican proper, somewhat later in date, is composed of
two parallel walls, guarding the drawbridge from the base-court or
outer ward. A loop cut obliquely through the west wall of this passage
opened towards the west gateway of the base-court, so that a surprise
of the barbican could be prevented. In this case, as at Alnwick, the
approach to the barbican was a drawbridge; but at Alnwick, where the
drawbridge crossed an outer loop of the castle ditch, the ditch proper
was crossed by a second drawbridge within the barbican.

[Illustration: Mont-St-Michel; Châtelet]

At Lewes, about the end of the thirteenth century, a barbican was added
to the front of a Norman gatehouse which was of much the same character
as the gatehouses at Porchester and Tickhill. The addition here took
the shape of a short passage with a wall on each side, finished at
its outer end by a new and lofty gatehouse, rising from the middle of
the outer ditch of the castle, and approached by a mounting roadway.
The shape of the new gatehouse is an oblong, with its main axis
perpendicular to the road, but its angles were capped by round turrets,
corbelled out at a point near the spring of the entrance archway (98).
Such turrets are known as bartizans, and are common in French military
architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were not
so usual in England, and are seldom found on such a scale as at Lewes:
smaller bartizans, corbelled out at a point nearer the battlements
of the building in which they occur, may be seen in the gatehouse at
Lincoln, and at the angles of the towers of Belsay (313) and Chipchase
in Northumberland.[256] The parapet of the barbican gatehouse at Lewes
is brought forward from the wall on a row of corbels so as to allow
room for six formidable machicolations. The work bears some resemblance
to the _châtelet_ which covers the main entrance of the fortified abbey
of Mont-Saint-Michel (235).[257] In France an outer gatehouse like that
at Lewes, or an outer enclosure like that at Scarborough, bore the name
of _châtelet_ or _bastille_. All such defences in advance of a gateway,
whatever the special name they may bear, may be classed under the head
of barbicans.

[Illustration: Beaumaris Castle; Gateway]

[Illustration: TUTBURY: gatehouse]

[Illustration: YORK: Micklegate bar]

[Illustration: Carcassonne]

In the highest examples of military skill in fortification—at Conway
(254) and Beaumaris (236), for instance—the greatest care was taken to
cover the gateways with oblique or right-angled approaches, so that
straight access should be impossible to an enemy. The same method of
hampering the path of an enemy with right angled turns is noticeable
in French examples of fortification, and notably in the gateways of
Carcassonne (239). In England, however, an entrance defended by a
barbican in a straight line with it was generally preferred; and, even
in castles like Caerphilly and Harlech, the strength of the entrances
depended upon the disposition of the concentric wards of the castle,
and they were guiltless of the devices and traps which are one leading
feature of Beaumaris. A good example of an oblique approach to a
thirteenth-century castle is at Pembroke, where the main gateway
is covered by an open barbican, forming a rectangular vestibule, the
entrance to which is in a wall nearly at right angles to the gateway.
The west gate of Tenby is covered by an almost semicircular barbican,
the original entrance to which, with a groove for a portcullis, is on
the north side, so that an angle had to be turned before the gateway
was reached. At a much later date other openings were pierced in the
outer wall of the barbican, and the curious arrangement is known
to-day by the misleading name of the “Five Arches.” The east side of
the chief ward of Carew castle was protected by a rectangular outer
court, entered from the field by a small gatehouse. The gatehouse of
the inner ward is in the south half of the east wall, and is flanked
by a round angle-tower and a tower which projects from the middle of
the wall. The outer faces of these two towers were joined by a wall
which thus covered the gatehouse, and was pierced by a doorway, set a
little to the north of the main entrance, with its jambs sloping to
the left. This gave access to a walled-in passage, with an upper floor,
leading obliquely to the inner entrance. As this side of the castle was
on level ground and was much exposed, special care was taken to guard
the approaches; there was, however, only one portcullis, at the inner
end of the main gateway; but the wooden doors, four of which had to be
passed before the portcullis was reached, were of great strength, and
each was closed with several very massive draw-bars.

[Illustration: Tenby; West Gate]

The town gateway at Tenby may be compared to the Porte de Laon at
Coucy, which was also covered by a semicircular barbican. While,
however, the Tenby barbican was directly attached to the wall, the
barbican at Coucy was separated from the gateway by the town ditch
and a bridge, and was altogether more elaborate. The bridge itself
crossed the ditch in two sections, describing an obtuse angle, at the
apex of which was a round tower. The road passed through the tower,
and turned the angle at its inner gate, from which the second section
of the bridge passed straight to the actual gateway. At Coucy all
the resources of fortification were displayed; while at Tenby the
application of the same principle was simple and unpretending.[258]
Equally masterly is the oblique entrance to the castle of Kerak in
Syria, beside which the entrances to Pembroke and Carew are of small
account.[259] The long rectangular castle of Kerak is divided into
two nearly equal wards by a wall parallel to its major axis. The main
gateway is on the east side of the junction of the cross-wall with
the outer curtain; but, instead of leading directly into the castle,
the path turns to the left after passing through the gateway, and
is confined within a long inner barbican, from the end of which a
gatehouse at right angles gives admission to the interior of the upper
ward.

The importance attached, from the thirteenth century onwards, to the
gateway and its approaches, and the prominence of the gatehouse in
the concentric castle of Edward I.’s reign will now be understood. It
now remains to speak of the defences of the exposed face of curtain
between the towers, and of the towers themselves. The progress towards
effective flanking has been traced already, and the towered curtains at
Dover (126) or the Tower of London are examples of scientific flanking
achieved by long experiment. The towers rose above the level of the
curtain, and were entered on the first floor from the rampart-walk,
which they commanded. The walk, in fact, passed through the towers, as
it may still be seen passing through the gatehouses at York. Thus each
tower was the key to a section of wall; and, as the Crusaders found at
Antioch, the wall could be taken only by the capture of several towers,
each of which guarded a separate section.

[Illustration: Outer stair to tower and rampart-walk in town wall]

[Illustration: Carcassonne]

[Illustration: ALNWICK: barbican]

[Illustration: ALNWICK: gatehouse of keep]

[Illustration: Shutter closing opening in wall or parapet]

The rampart-walk between the towers occupied, as from the earliest
times, the top of the wall, and was defended by battlements upon the
outer, and sometimes by a low rear-wall on the inner side.[260] The
chief access to it was by stairs in the towers, but sometimes, as
at Alnwick, there was a stair from the interior of the castle, built
at right angles to the wall (241). In the shell-keep on the mount at
Tamworth, there is a small stair which ascends in the thickness of the
wall. The principal alterations which took place with regard to the
rampart-walk were concerned with the treatment of the parapet. The
division of the parapet into merlons or solid pieces by embrasures
has been explained already, and it has been seen that, in the first
instance, the embrasures are pierced at rather long intervals. The
tendency grows, however, to multiply embrasures and narrow down the
merlons between them, on the theory that the archer, discharging his
arrow through the embrasure, can shelter himself and re-string his
bow behind the merlon. The merlon, however, in works designed with a
purpose mainly military, is usually broader than the embrasure, and
is itself pierced with a small arrow-loop, splayed internally. This
may be seen in the town-walls of Aigues-Mortes (77) and Carcassonne
(78), where the merlons are of great breadth, and in such triumphs of
fortification as the castles of Carnarvon (246) and Conway.[261] The
merlons, however, were not always provided with loops, even in the
Edwardian period. The barbican at Alnwick (243), a work of the early
fourteenth century, is battlemented with plain merlons and embrasures.
In this case, there are two further points which deserve notice. The
embrasures at Alnwick were defended by wooden shutters, which hung from
trunnions working in grooves in the adjacent merlons. The shutters
could be lifted out at pleasure, and the embrasure left free: the
device may be noticed in some other instances.[262] Also, upon the
merlons at Alnwick stand stone figures of warriors, sometimes called
“defenders,” and supposed to be designed to strike terror into the
enemy. The present figures at Alnwick are comparatively modern; but the
fashion was not uncommon and was purely ornamental. Similar figures are
seen on the gatehouse of the neighbouring castle of Bothal, and upon
the gatehouses of York: among the figures on the merlons at Carnarvon
was an eagle, which gave its name to the famous Eagle tower. An enemy
who could be daunted by the illusion of a rather diminutive archer
or slinger balancing himself on a narrow coping, must have had very
little experience of warfare. The merlons were treated very plainly in
many French examples, as at Avignon, Aigues-Mortes, and Carcassonne
(242), where they are flat-topped and unmoulded, while the embrasures
have flat sills. In England they were generally finished off by a
gabled coping, as at Carnarvon, where the top of each is moulded with
a half-roll to the field (246).[263] The sill of the embrasure has
also an inner chamfer. It may be noted that the freedom with which
machicolations were employed in the parapets of French castles and
town-walls was unusual in England. Machicolated parapets were, as a
rule, confined to the fronts of gateways, until the later part of the
fourteenth century, when they began, as at Lancaster and Warwick, to
show themselves in the towers of the gateway and curtain. They are very
sparingly used in the Welsh castles, which are our noblest examples
of military architecture; and an _enceinte_, like the city wall of
Avignon, in which the whole parapet is machicolated and built out on
long corbels of considerable projection, is unknown in England.

[Illustration: Carnarvon Castle; Crenellated parapet]

What has just been said of the parapets of walls applies naturally to
the parapets of towers. Towers on the curtain had, as we have seen, a
double use. They flanked the wall, so that each pair could rake with
their shot the entire face of the _enceinte_ contained between them.
They also commanded the rampart-walk, so that an enemy who scaled the
wall was still exposed to their fire and confined to a limited area. A
distinction, however, must be drawn between the closed and open types
of tower, as they may be called. The ordinary rampart tower was of
two or three stages, divided into a basement and upper guard-room or
rooms. The basement was sometimes vaulted, as in the northern tower at
Pevensey (247) or towers at Alnwick. Fireplaces and garde-robe chambers
are often found in the upper rooms,[264] the garde-robes being often
placed at the junction of the tower with the curtain, and corbelled out
over the outer wall.[265] At Carew, where there was no keep, but the
castle formed a rectangular enclosure with drum-towers at the angles,
all the towers were provided with garde-robe chambers, which, with the
passages leading to them, are roofed by lozenge-shaped slabs, corbelled
out one above another. In the south-east tower, the first-floor chamber
has a pointed barrel-vault, and is entered by an outer stair from
the ward. In the east wall are two garde-robe chambers, entered by
elbow-shaped passages. Each had a door opening inwards, and was lighted
by a separate loop. The chambers were so planned that the seats were
placed on opposite sides of a partition wall, with a common vent.

[Illustration: Pevensey; Vaulting in basement of north tower]

The tower at Carew just mentioned is at earliest of late
thirteenth-century date, and has several advanced features. Though
its projection from the curtain is regularly rounded, its inward
projection is rectangular, so that its plan is actually an oblong
with a rounded end. It seems to have been intended to have been used
in connection with the gatehouse: its first and second floors had
no direct communication with each other, but both communicated with
the gatehouse, and the ground-floor of the gatehouse had a large
lateral opening in the direction of the first floor of the tower. The
corresponding tower at the north-east angle was used in connection
with the domestic buildings, and had a vaulted chapel (248) upon its
first floor, from the north wall of which open two rooms for the use
of the priest, with a garde-robe in the second. One tower, therefore,
was purely defensive, additional precautions having been taken, no
doubt, to guard a postern which opens from the basement upon the scarp
of the ditch; while the other was merely an annexe to one of the two
dwelling-houses within the enclosure. The use of the eastern and
south-western towers at Warkworth (49) was equally distinct. We have
seen that the south-west tower (Cradyfargus) was used in connection
with the domestic buildings: this may not have been its original
purpose, but it was certainly thus employed early in the fourteenth
century. The great feature of the east tower is the huge loop in each
of its five outer faces, designed for a cross-bow 16 feet long: these
loops, splayed throughout and fan-tailed at top and bottom, are the
finest examples of cross-loops left in England, and declare the main
purpose of the tower at once. In later years, when the cross-bow was
out of fashion, the interior of the tower was somewhat altered, and a
fireplace inserted.

[Illustration: Carew; Chapel]

[Illustration: Door of main gatehouse

Chepstow Castle]

[Illustration: Stair to vaulted chamber in outer bailey

Chepstow Castle]

The best examples of curtain-towers, both abroad and in England, form
complete cylinders, like the angle-towers at Coucy, or polygons, like
some of the towers at Carnarvon. But room was spared if the cylinder
or polygon was left incomplete, and its inner face made nearly flush
with the curtain. The two towers on the curtain of the inner ward
at Pembroke projected with semicircular curves into the outer ward,
but were flat at the back: the south tower covered the gateway of
the inner ward, which was not in the face of the wall, but round an
angle. The towers of the outer ward, on the other hand, are mostly
complete cylinders: the stairs were vices contained in rectangular
turrets on one side, the outer walls of which are curved to meet the
circumference of the towers (181).[266] Marten’s tower at Chepstow,
and the towers of the curtain of the fine early fourteenth-century
castle of Llanstephan, are cases in which the projection of the tower
is only external. The tower which caps the eastern angle at Llanstephan
is a half-cylinder, springing, not directly from the curtain, but
from a broad rectangular projection on its face.[267] The variations
which might be noticed in the attachment of towers to the curtain are
manifold: but, as time goes on, the ordinary curtain-tower, where it
was not placed at an angle of a ward, stood flush with the curtain on
its inner side (228). Where the tower stood on the curtain by itself,
unattached to other buildings within the castle, there was usually an
entrance to the basement direct from the bailey, on one side of which
a vice in a turret attached to the tower rose to the upper floors and
roof, communicating on the level of the first floor with the curtain.
The doorway opening on the curtain was fitted with a strong door, and,
in Marten’s tower at Chepstow castle, where the tower was of special
importance, standing as it does at the lowest and most vulnerable point
of the site, was provided with a portcullis.

[Illustration: Fougères]

There were cases, however, especially in walls of towns, where the
curtain-tower, although projecting outside and above the wall, and
covered with a timber roof, was left open at the gorge or neck, where
it was flush with the curtain, so that it was simply an open tower,
with a platform on the first floor, level with the rampart-walk, and a
rampart-walk of its own at the level of its battlements. Such a tower
could be actively employed in time of war, and had all the advantages
of the ordinary closed tower in flanking the wall and cutting the
rampart-walk up into sections. The numerous towers of the walls of
Avignon, between the gatehouses, were arranged thus.[268] At Conway,
the semi-cylindrical towers of the town walls, of which there are
twenty, and the similar towers which flank the gatehouses, are open to
the town: one tower only, on the south-west side of the town, where
the wall turns to join the castle, is walled at the gorge. The walls
of Chepstow provide further examples of open towers. At Carnarvon
(251), the round towers on the face of the town walls are open, but the
angle-towers were closed; and that at the north-west angle was entered
through the town chapel, which was built against the curtain at this
point. The open tower was not, as a rule, used in castles: even the
small towers which flank the outer curtain at Beaumaris have a wall
continued across the gorge.

[Illustration: Carnarvon; Tower of town wall]

Every large castle was provided with a postern or sally-port. This was
generally a small doorway, preferably in the base of a tower, but often
in the curtain, opening on the least frequented side of the castle. In
time of siege, in a castle of the ordinary plan, a postern might easily
be a source of danger; and its employment in the scheme of defence was
incompletely understood at first. But it was useful for the conveyance
of provisions to the castle; and a postern, as at Warkworth, is often
found in connection with a kitchen or store-room. Where a castle stood
near a river, a water-gate, communicating with a private wharf was
made. At Pembroke, where the castle stands between two water-ways,
there were two water-gates, one in the south side of the outer ward,
the other, as already mentioned, formed by walling in the mouth of
the cave below the great hall. For the scientific employment of the
postern, however, we have to look to the great castles of the later
part of the thirteenth century, in which the means of defence described
in this chapter were perfectly co-ordinated; and, with the introduction
of a new plan, the last signs of a merely passive strength vanished
from the castle.




CHAPTER X

THE EDWARDIAN CASTLE AND THE CONCENTRIC PLAN


Castles like Carew, enclosing a rectangular area with round towers at
the angles, were the fruit of the transition in the course of which
the fortified curtain wall took the place of the passive strength of
the keep. At Carew the castle was protected upon its most exposed side
by outer defences of stone; but on all other sides it presented a
single line of defence, flanked by the four formidable angle-towers. A
castle thus defended was, like the early stone castles at Richmond and
elsewhere, a keep in itself; but its wall no longer depended merely
upon its passive strength, but was calculated to resist attacks on
which the builders of Richmond and Ludlow had no means of reckoning.

The castle of the latter half of the thirteenth century, the golden
age of English military architecture, was, then, an enclosure within a
strong and well-flanked curtain wall. The keep, where the site was new,
was dispensed with: where an old plan was altered or enlarged, it took
a secondary position. The castles of this age may be divided into three
separate classes. First, there are castles without keeps, in which
the flanked curtain wall forms the sole line of defence. Secondly,
there are old castles, which, by extension of their site, have adopted
a concentric plan of defence. And thirdly, there are castles newly
planned, in which the defences are formed by two or more concentric
curtain walls.

[Illustration: Carnarvon Castle]

[Illustration: Conway Castle]

I. The grand examples of the first class are the castles of Carnarvon
(253) and Conway (254). Conway was begun in 1285 by the orders of
Edward I. Carnarvon, in which more architectural splendour is shown,
was begun in 1283, and was not finished until 1316-22.[269] Both
castles were built in connection with walled towns, and occupied an
angle of the defences; and both stand on a point of land where a river
meets the sea, so that two faces of the site were defended by water,
while the base was separated from the town by an artificial ditch.
Carnarvon, however, is situated on low ground, and commands the town
only by the height of its curtain and its formidable towers; while the
promontory on which Conway stands is raised high above the greater part
of the town and commands the whole (256).

The plan of both castles is very similar. The enclosure, in both cases
an irregular polygon of an oblong shape, was divided into two wards by
a cross-wall,[270] built at a point where the curtain is slightly drawn
in on both sides, and the site is consequently narrowed. At Conway the
main entrance is in the west or end wall of the lower ward, opposite
the cross-wall. The lower ward, thus entered, is a hexagon in shape,
flanked by six cylindrical or drum towers, one at each of the angles,
and occupies about two-thirds of the enclosure. The remaining third is
the upper ward, an irregular rectangle flanked by four drum towers, the
two towers to the west being common to both wards. The whole enclosure
is thus flanked by eight towers, four at the angles, and two on each of
the sides.

The two wards at Carnarvon (253) were more nearly equal, the upper
ward, placed, as in Conway, at the end next the confluence of the river
and the sea, occupying about two-fifths of the site. The main entrance
to the lower ward, the King’s gateway, is in the middle of the side
wall next the town, and the wall of division between the wards crossed
the enclosure from a point close to the right of the inner entrance.
The curtain of the lower ward was built in five sections, with a tower
at each of the projecting angles between them. With these towers must
be reckoned the two splendid gatehouses, the King’s gatehouse at the
north-west, and Queen Eleanor’s gatehouse at the east angle of the
ward. The curtain of the upper ward was built in four pieces, and this
ward, with its cross-wall, forms an irregular pentagon, at the apex
of which is the famous Eagle tower, at the point where the town wall
joins that of the castle. There are nine towers in all, counting the
two gatehouses, and a turret on each of the north-east and south-east
sections of the curtain. The towers are polygonal in shape, the
straight faces being for the most part very broad, and the angles very
obtuse.[271]

[Illustration: Conway Castle and Town]

Of the two castles, Conway, which stands, as we have seen, on the
better site, was the more economically defended. The leading features
of the plan at Carnarvon are the two large gatehouses and the Eagle
tower at the western angle, which was virtually a strong tower or
keep. The King’s gatehouse formed the main entrance. Queen Eleanor’s
gatehouse stands at the highest point of the castle, and is now
inaccessible from outside: when in use, it must have been approached by
a steeply rising bridge across the ditch.[272] There is also a postern,
through which provisions were, no doubt, brought to the kitchen, in the
basement of the Well tower, which caps the angle of the curtain between
the King’s gatehouse and Eagle tower. At Conway, there was no separate
strong tower, nor was there a real gatehouse: the gateway is in a
narrow end-wall, and the towers on each side are in close connection
with its machicolated rampart-walk. There is also a second and smaller
gateway in the wall at the opposite end of the castle, opening on a
platform at the edge of the rock, from which a stair led to the water.

Where the curtain was so well defended as in these two castles, a
double entrance was a source of strength rather than weakness. The
problem for the enemy was how to distribute his forces, so as to keep
the whole _enceinte_ under observation. To concentrate an attack
upon one gateway was to run the risk of being outflanked and taken
in the rear by a sortie from the other. Strong as Château-Gaillard
and other castles of the transition had been, they had simply met the
prospect of attack with successive lines of defence. Carnarvon and
the castles of the Edwardian period generally were not entirely a
refuge for a besieged garrison: they were shelters which provided a
base of operations for offensive as well as defensive stratagem. The
most imposing feature of the defences of Carnarvon castle is the long
irregular line of the south and south-west wall, fronting the river
Seiont (258). Here the curtain is pierced by three rows of loops,
one above another. The lowest open from a gallery in the thickness
of the wall: the middle row from an upper gallery, which is now open
internally, constructed on the top of the very massive lower wall;
while the top row is pierced in the merlons of the battlements (259).
The wall could be guarded simultaneously by three rows of archers, one
above another—not an inviting prospect to a besieging force. It is
obvious that such a castle, large enough to shelter an army, could also
be held by a relatively small body of men, so excellently was the area
of defence concentrated, and so readily could every part of the curtain
be reached from the interior of the fortress.

[Illustration: Carnarvon]

[Illustration: CARNARVON CASTLE: towers and rampart-walk]

[Illustration: CARNARVON CASTLE: interior]

While the actual defences of the curtain at Conway were more simple
than at Carnarvon, the isolation of the site was greater, and the
possibility of active movement in and out of the stronghold was less.
The attack was bound to be concentrated upon the one main entrance; and
consequently, next to the flanking of the curtain, the chief object
was the defence of the gateway. The end wall, in which the gateway
was pierced, is high above the adjacent town, and the level piece of
ground in front was broken short by a steep edge of cliff, at the
foot of which was the ditch. The entrance was therefore approached
by a well-guarded barbican at right angles to the gateway. This
outwork was reached from the town by passing along a rising causeway
with a drawbridge at the end, which gave access to the gateway of
the barbican, standing in advance of the north-west tower. A short
rising path then led through a doorway closed by a wooden door to the
platform in front of the gateway, along the west side of which, above
the ditch, was continued the outer wall of the barbican, flanked by
three small round towers, open at the gorge. The parapet above the
gateway was machicolated, and the large corbels still project from the
wall.[273] Into a narrow barbican like this, only a small detachment of
an attacking force could venture; indeed, the position is practically
impregnable. The north-west tower commands every inch of the approach;
and the drawbridge, the portcullis and upper gateway of the
barbican, and the oblique entrance to the gateway of the castle, formed
successive and intimidating obstacles. The main gateway was closed by a
portcullis, which was worked from a mural chamber, between the crown of
the arch and the rampart-walk. It may be noted that, while the oblique
entrance at Conway has some likeness to the ingenious entrances at
Beaumaris, the works of Conway have at least two points in common with
Harlech—the corbelling-out of the rampart-walk against the interior
face of the towers (261), and the carrying up of the stairs of the four
eastern towers into turrets above the level of the roof. The lofty
stair-turrets above the roof are also a prominent feature at Carnarvon.

[Illustration: Conway Castle; Rampart-walk]

The arrangements of the rampart-walks at Conway and Carnarvon were of
the usual type. At Conway, where the cross-wall between the wards is
still in existence, there is a walk along the top, so that no part of
the curtain is really distant from another. The domestic buildings
at Carnarvon unfortunately no longer stand; but the position of the
hall and kitchen in the inner ward is still known. Probably, as at
Conway, there was a large hall for the garrison in the outer ward.
The domestic arrangements at Conway can be easily followed, although
the kitchen, against the north curtain of the lower ward, is gone. The
great hall, which is built against the south curtain, and follows the
obtuse angle formed by it, stands above a cellar, but its floor was on
a level with the surface of the ward. Its timber roof was built upon
stone transverse arches, spanning the hall: the east end was screened
off and formed a chapel. The buildings surrounding the smaller or
upper ward formed a separate mansion, distinct from the great hall and
its appendages. The chief features of this set of apartments were the
smaller hall, against the south curtain, the separate withdrawing-rooms
called the King’s and Queen’s chambers, and the small chapel or oratory
in the north-east tower (263). This chapel was entered from the
main stair of the tower, but a straight stair also led to it in the
thickness of the east wall from the postern-gate, and communicated with
a similar stair in the other half of the wall, leading to the King’s
chamber and the lesser hall. Water at Carnarvon was supplied from a
well in the tower west of the kitchen: at Conway a cistern was made
near the south-east corner of the lower ward.

[Illustration: Conway Castle; Fireplace in hall]

[Illustration: Conway Castle; Oratory]

II. There are old castles, however, which were adapted to the new
form of fortification with an ingenuity equal to that shown on new
sites at Conway and Carnarvon. In alluding to the lessons learned by
the Crusaders in the east, we have noticed the concentric form of
fortification which they saw at Constantinople. The city was girt by
a triple wall, each ring of which was higher than the one outside it.
The advantage of this was obvious: while three successive lines of
defence were provided, the three could also be used simultaneously,
each row of defenders discharging its missiles over the heads of the
next. The Crusaders, the variety and ingenuity of whose castle plans
deserve much admiration, profited by the concentric method of walling
a stronghold; and none of their fortresses is so remarkable as Le
Krak des Chevaliers (176), rebuilt early in the thirteenth century,
where the curtain of the inner ward rises high above the curtain of
the outer _enceinte_.[274] Approximations to the concentric plan were
not unknown even in England at an early date. The earthen defences of
Berkhampstead castle (42) are concentric, although no attempt was made
to correlate them by giving the inner banks command of the outer.[275]
In the plan of the cylindrical tower-keep at Launceston, we have a
striking application of the concentric plan to a small area. In France,
Château-Gaillard, where the inner ward is nearly surrounded by the
curtain of the middle ward, was an approach to concentric methods;
but the leading idea was still the exclusion of an enemy by lines
of defence arranged upon an elongated plan, with the donjon as the
culminating point. Even at Coucy, where the defensive provisions are so
elaborate, the donjon is the great point of interest, and the castle
is not concentric in plan. In fact, the concentric plan, although long
known in the east, was not adopted as a basis of planning in the west
until the thirteenth century was far advanced. The fortifications of
Carcassonne, where the plan was applied to a town (264), were begun by
St Louis, and finished by Philip III.: begun earlier than Caerphilly,
their erection covered most of the time in which our chief concentric
castles were built.[276]

[Illustration: Carcassonne; Plan]

The concentric plan may be described as follows. The site on which
the castle was built was surrounded, as usual, by a ditch. The inner
scarp was crowned, and sometimes partly reveted, by a wall, flanked by
towers at the angles and, in the largest castles, on the intermediate
faces. Within this wall, and divided from it by a narrow space of open
ground, rose a second and much higher wall, also flanked by towers
at the angles and on the faces. This inner wall enclosed the main
ward of the castle, the intermediate space forming the outer ward
or “lists.” There was no keep: here, as in the plan of Conway and
Carnarvon, reliance was placed on the curtains. The entrances, however,
were elaborately defended by large gatehouses and by sundry ingenious
devices, as at Beaumaris, for perplexing a foe; and the castle was
sometimes reinforced, as at Caerphilly, by special outer defences
both of earth and stone. An enemy, attacking such a fortress, was
exposed first to a double fire from the two curtains. If he effected an
entrance, he had to fight every step of his way into the inner ward;
while, if he was driven, by determined resistance at the gateway, into
the narrow space of the outer ward, he was not merely in danger from
the archers on the inner wall, but also might find his way blocked
by one of the cross-walls which broke up the space in which he was
confined.

[Illustration: Kidwelly Castle; Plan]

Such a plan, although it might lack some of the advantages of a plan
worked out on a new site, could be applied to the new defences of an
old castle. Both at Dover and the Tower of London during the reign of
Henry III., additions were made which gave each castle a concentric
plan.[277] The effect at Dover was to ring the imposing keep about
with a double wall: the inner circuit, however, is largely of the same
date as the keep, and the outer is spreading and irregular in plan.
At London the defences were more closely planned in harmony, and one
feature of the additions is that, when the buildings are examined close
at hand, the White tower, originally the most important feature of the
fortress, becomes comparatively insignificant in the defensive scheme.
The inner and outer curtains, with their towers, are of more than one
date, from the end of the twelfth to the sixteenth century; but the
most important work was done in the reign of Henry III., during which
the concentric plan of the fortress was developed. The best idea of
the fortifications can be obtained from the open space before the west
front. Between the city and the castle lies the formidable ditch, which
runs round three sides of the fortress, the fourth side being guarded
by the Thames and a narrower ditch. Dug by the Conqueror’s workmen,
the ditch was widened and deepened by Richard I.’s chancellor, William
Longchamp: it originally seems to have admitted water at high tide.
The entrance to the castle is at the south-west angle. A gatehouse,
called the Middle tower, which was covered by an outer ditch[278] and
outwork, stands on the counterscarp of the great ditch, on this side
120 feet broad, and gives access to a stone bridge. This crossed the
ditch to the Byward tower, a gatehouse at the south-west angle of the
outer curtain. This curtain has been much altered, and its angles along
the north face are capped by bastions which belong to the age when
the cannon had taken the place of the catapult. Along its south face,
towards the narrow ditch, the quay, and river beyond, it is flanked by
towers, the chief of which is St Thomas’ tower, the water-gate of the
castle, well known by its name of Traitors’ gate, and, like the Byward
and Middle towers, originally a work of the thirteenth century.[279]
From the bridge leading to the Byward tower, the curtain of the inner
ward, flanked by three towers, the Beauchamp tower in the middle, the
Devereux and Bell towers at the angles,[280] can be seen commanding
the narrow outer ward. This approach was apparently defended by three
rows of archers, like the south curtain of Carnarvon. The highest row
occupied the rampart-walk and towers of the inner curtain. Loops were
made in the face of the same curtain, below the rampart-walk, for a
second row, on the raised ground-level of the inner ward; while a third
row could be stationed behind loops in the outer curtain. The outer
ward varies in breadth, but the passage to the gateway of the inner
ward, along the south face of the inner curtain, is very narrow, and is
flanked by the Bell tower and Wakefield tower.[281] The inner gateway
is in the ground-floor of the Bloody tower, which joins the Wakefield
tower; and is immediately opposite the water-gate in St Thomas’ tower.
At intervals the outer ward was traversed by cross-walls, so that an
unhindered circuit of it was impossible: one of these crosses it on the
east side of the Wakefield tower, and is continued across the ditch to
the river bank.[282] The well-flanked approach from the Byward tower,
arranged so that the gateway to the inner ward must be entered by
a right-angled turn, may be compared with the entrances at Conway
and Beaumaris, or with the earlier approach to the main bailey at
Conisbrough.

[Illustration: Chepstow; Basement chamber]

In some respects, the alterations undertaken at Chepstow (104) towards
the end of the thirteenth century give it a place among concentric
castles. The ridge on which the castle stands, between the town
ditch and a sheer cliff above the Wye, was too narrow for concentric
treatment, and the actual plan shows us four wards on end, each
on higher ground than the last. The first and lowest ward was the
Edwardian addition. The second ward formed the lower part of the
bailey of the early castle. The third ward, at a very narrow point in
the ridge, was almost filled by the great hall, which was virtually
the great tower or keep of this castle; and there is only a narrow
passage mounting the slope between the hall and the low curtain above
the river. The fourth ward, at the highest point, and divided from
the third ward by a deep rift in the rock, contains a wide gateway,
which, as at Kidwelly—the nearest parallel—was the back entrance to
the castle. We have only to imagine the ditch next the town filled up,
and the outer curtain continued so as to embrace the second ward and
great hall, and to unite the first and fourth wards; and we have what
is virtually the plan of Kidwelly (267). Free ingress and egress for
the garrison, so well studied in concentric plans, was provided by the
two gateways at Chepstow. The exposed condition, however, of the lower
ward, at the foot of the ridge, prompted an addition to the plan which
recalls the Eagle tower at Carnarvon, or the strong towers at the later
manor-castles of Raglan and Wingfield. Projecting from the lowest angle
of the curtain, commanding the approach from the town, and covering
the gateway, is the tower now called the Marten tower, rounded to the
field and flat at the gorge. This tower, entered from the ground-level
of the ward, had its own portcullised gateway, and a doorway, also
portcullised, from the first floor to the rampart-walk of the curtain.
Its three floors were very amply planned, and, projecting from the
second floor, and partly built on the battlements of the curtain, is
a small chapel or oratory, with an east window containing geometrical
tracery. The Marten tower is a valuable example of the protection of
a dangerous angle. Its flanking capacities were improved by a spur or
half-pyramid built against the base: this may be compared with the
rectangular plinths of the two western angle-towers at Carew, from
which spurs rise against the rounded surfaces of the towers themselves.
The first ward at Chepstow contains a lesser hall and other domestic
buildings on the side next the river: these, with the vaults below them
(268), contain work of great beauty. All the Edwardian work at Chepstow
has that simplicity and adequacy of design, admitting here and there of
beauties of detail, which is found in the best military work of the age
(249).[283]

[Illustration: Caerphilly Castle; Plan]

III. The castles, however, of the last twenty years of the thirteenth
century, planned with a system of concentric defences, may be taken,
with Carnarvon and Conway, as reaching the highest pitch of military
science attained in medieval England. The earliest of these, Caerphilly
(270), which was begun before the end of the reign of Henry III., was
also the most elaborate.[284] The castle proper was placed in the
middle of a lake, formed by the damming up of two streams; and in
this respect the situation was not unlike that of Kenilworth, which
was defended on the south and west by an artificial lake, and was
irregularly concentric in the ultimate development of its plan.[285]
The sides of the island were enclosed within strong retaining walls,
which rose to form the curtain of the outer ward. This curtain was
low, and was flanked, not by towers, but by curved projections forming
bastions at the angles. Within this outer defence rose the rectangular
inner ward, the lofty curtain of which was flanked by drum towers at
each angle, and by a very large gatehouse with two drum towers in each
of the east and west sides. The outer ward had also a front and back
gatehouse, flanked by small drum towers, in its east and west curtains:
these were directly commanded by the inner gatehouses, and the entrance
was not oblique. The inner ward was spacious and cheerful. In the
centre is the well: the great hall (272), the excellent stonework of
which is sheltered from the weather by a modern roof, was built against
the south curtain, and the chapel was at right angles to it at its
east end. The kitchen was contained in a projecting tower south of the
hall, which blocked the outer ward at this point: beneath the kitchen
was a postern communicating directly with the lake. The place of the
rampart-walk in the curtain next the hall was supplied by a gallery
running in its thickness, and looped to the field. At the east end of
the hall were apartments, through which the rooms in the first floor of
the east gatehouse could be reached.

[Illustration: Caerphilly Castle]

This plan, in which the military and domestic elements were so well
combined, is interesting upon its own account. But more interesting
still were the outer defences by which the castle was surrounded. The
whole east face of the castle on the outer edge of the lake was guarded
by an outer wall, which had in the centre, nearly opposite the inner
gateways, a large gatehouse, and was returned at the ends into clusters
of towers, the larger of which, on the south, covered a postern. A
wet ditch divided this outer line of defence from the village of
Caerphilly, and in its centre was a pier on which the two sections
of the drawbridge met. North of the gatehouse, the outer curtain was
defended simply by the rampart-walk: on the south side, however, there
was a narrow terrace left in the rear of the curtain, by which access
was obtained to the castle mill and other offices. These two portions
of the curtain were separated from each other by the gatehouse and a
dividing wall, which, in case of the capture of one part of the curtain
by besiegers, gave the defenders a distinct advantage. The inner lake
was crossed from the platform in front of the main gatehouse by a
drawbridge, which probably was worked by a counterpoise from the island
side.

[Illustration: Caerphilly Castle; Hall]

[Illustration: Harlech Castle]

[Illustration: Harlech Castle; Gatehouse]

[Illustration: Harlech; Inner side of gatehouse]

The lake on the north side of the castle was divided into an inner and
outer moat by a bank of earth which sprang from the platform of the
outer gatehouse, and curved round the north side of the island. This
bank ended at a second and smaller island, the sides of which were
reveted by a stone wall, covering the west face of the stronghold. This
horn-work or ravelin was connected by drawbridges across the outer
and inner moats with the mainland and with the western gatehouses of
the castle. It is evident that a fortress like this, in which every
resource of the defenders’ art has been brought into action, gave a
besieger very few opportunities. Every entry was guarded: if he once
effected an entrance, defence after defence had to be forced, while the
resources of the several lines of defence could all be used against him
at once. Moreover, he had to be careful to cut all communications off
from the rear entrance and posterns; and this was a difficult matter,
where the defenders of the castle had so much freedom of movement and
could assail him from so many different points. It is not surprising to
learn that the impregnable fortress of Caerphilly is almost without a
history. Constructed to defend the lower valley of the Rhymney and to
cover the coast castles round Cardiff from an attack from the Welsh of
the valleys which slope southwards from the Brecon Beacons, it endured
no important siege;[286] and it was not until the civil war that its
military capacity was really tested—and then only in an age which had
outgrown the methods responsible for its scheme of defence.[287]

Of Edward I.’s castles in North Wales, Harlech (273) and Rhuddlan, with
lofty inner curtains and cylindrical angle-towers, have much in common
with each other and with Caerphilly. The general plan of Harlech is
nearly identical with that of the island defences of Caerphilly. Its
situation on a lofty rock, however, does not call for elaborate outer
defences. The rock was isolated from the mainland by a dry ditch cut
across the east face. A causeway and a drawbridge led to the gatehouse
of the outer ward, which was flanked by bartizans. The wall of the
outer ward, like that at Caerphilly, is low, and has no towers: three
of its angles form bastions, while the other, at the least accessible
point, is simply curved. The unusually lofty curtain of the inner
ward, some 40 feet high, towers above the comparatively slight outer
defences; while the centre of the east side is occupied by the great
gatehouse (274), projecting far back into the inner ward. The entrance
is flanked by two semi-cylindrical towers; and in the rear of the
gatehouse are two round turrets, rising high above the roofs. Rhuddlan,
which stands on the right bank of the Clwyd, had a fairly broad outer
ward defended by a deep and wide ditch on the three faces on which the
site is fairly level. The inner ward had two gatehouses, of equal size
and importance, placed diagonally to each other at the north-east and
south-west angles of the curtain. Each of these was flanked by two
large drum towers; while each of the two remaining angles was capped by
a single tower.

There were at Harlech a hall and other domestic buildings against the
curtains; but the gatehouse was also a complete mansion in itself,
with its own small chapel or oratory above the gateway. There was an
outer stair to the bailey from the main hall of the gatehouse. Exactly
the same arrangement occurs at Kidwelly, while the importance of the
gatehouse as a dwelling reaches its climax in the hall of the northern
gatehouse at Beaumaris.[288] The dual arrangement of a hall, kitchen,
etc., for the garrison, and a private dwelling-house for the constable
or the lord of the castle, has already been noticed at Conway, whilst
its growth has been traced in connection with the castle of Durham.

Harlech presents two or three important points of interest. (1)
The outer ward was not blocked at any point, as at Caerphilly, by
projecting buildings, but was continuous: it was crossed, however, in
at any rate one place, by a wall which barred an enemy’s progress. (2)
Owing to the nature of the site, only one gatehouse was built. But a
small doorway in the centre of the north wall of the inner ward opened
directly opposite a postern, flanked by half-round bastions, in the
outer curtain. From this point an extremely steep path, now hardly
to be traced, followed the edge of the rock, rounded the north-west
bastion of the outer ward, and passed close beneath the west curtain
to the south-west angle of the rock. Here, doubling on itself, it
descended through a gateway into a long passage between the slope of
the rock and the outer wall, and ended at the water-gateway of the
castle, at the foot of the great crag and near the present railway
station. The wall which protected the outer face of this tortuous
passage, formed an outer curtain to the castle, descending the rock
from the south-west angle of the outer ward, continuing round the
foot of the rock on its north side, and climbing it again to meet the
north-east bastion.[289] (3) The rampart-walk had no machicolations
and, as at Conway (261), was continued round the inner faces of the
angle-towers on corbelling. This left the interior of the towers
free, while their doorways and stairs gave them ready command of
the rampart-walk. The walls are not only lofty, but very thick. The
section of the jambs of the hall windows and the small north postern
points to the fact that the lower part of the walls was thickened,
probably as an afterthought, when their present height was determined
upon. The upper part of the walls is homogeneous, and is evidently a
heightening. (4) Although vices in the angle-towers communicated with
the rampart-walk, freedom of action was given to the defenders of the
towers by the provision of a separate stair for those told off to guard
the intermediate ramparts. This stair is reached through the basement
doorway of the south-east tower, and, branching off from the internal
stair a few feet above the entrance, reaches a small external platform.
Here a narrow outer stair, with a rear-wall, is carried up the face
of the flat gorge of the tower, and, turning along the south curtain,
at length reaches the rampart-walk. The planning of this stair, with
its carefully covered ground-floor entrance, is very interesting and
curious.

[Illustration: Beaumaris Castle; Plan]

Nowhere, however, can the beauty of the concentric plan be so well
appreciated as at Beaumaris (278), one of Edward I.’s latest Welsh
castles.[290] The site is flat and low, on a tongue of land at the
northern entrance to the Menai straits. There is no attempt at any
elaborate outer system of defence, such as we see at Caerphilly. The
defences consisted of a ditch, filled with water at high tide, and an
inner and outer curtain, the inner curtain, as usual, commanding the
outer. The inner ward is square: it has a drum tower at each of the
angles, and another in the centre of each of the east and west sides.
The north and south curtains are broken by gatehouses, also flanked
by drum towers.[291] The north gatehouse was the largest, and upon
its first floor was an imposing hall. The curtain of the outer ward,
surrounding the inner curtain, was adapted to the projection of the
intermediate drum towers and the gatehouses of the inner ward by the
construction of each face with a salient angle in the centre (277).
There are no traces of any cross-walls barring the passage of the outer
ward. The outer curtain, which, owing to the flat site, is not the
mere low bastioned wall of Caerphilly or Harlech, has a drum tower at
each angle. On each of the north, east, and west curtains, there are
three smaller drum towers, the central one of which caps the salient.
The plan is thus of a most symmetrical and uniform kind. The south
curtain of the outer ward, however, has no intermediate drum towers,
and its salient is nearly capped by the outer gateway. This gateway,
however, flanked by rectangular towers,[292] is set obliquely to the
wall. Entering the outer ward, immediately on our right is the small
rectangular barbican, pierced with cross-loops, which covers the inner
gateway, so that two right-angled turns must be made before the inner
ward is entered (277).

[Illustration: Beaumaris Castle]

This entrance, most carefully protected, shows even higher skill than
the barbican of Conway and the elaborate passage from the water-gate at
Harlech. But there are two further remarkable defences in this castle.
We have seen that, as at Caerphilly, there is a large gatehouse at
either end of the inner ward. The rear gatehouse, which, as already
noted, is the more important, has no barbican. The rear gateway of
the outer ward is set obliquely to it, in the north curtain east of
the salient, and is simply a large postern in the wall. Outside it,
however, the wall is reinforced by four buttresses, each of which is
pierced by a loop; the outer buttresses are looped to the field, the
inner towards the gateway. The westernmost buttress projects beyond
the rest, and it is clear that the design was intended to conceal and
protect the postern from attack, and that the western side, in the
direction of the interior of Anglesey, was that on which an attack
was most to be expected. The other defence is the spur-wall, which,
running almost at right angles to the south wall of the outer ward,
shut off the main entrance and the beach on which it opened from the
beach on the eastern side of the castle. The wall is pierced by a
passage, is looped in both faces, and is flanked by a half-round tower
on the west face.

Although, at first sight, the towers of Beaumaris, on its absolutely
level site, look low and unimportant, and present an extraordinary
contrast to those of Harlech, Carnarvon, or Conway, the area of the
castle is actually large, and no other Edwardian castle presents
so perfectly scientific a system of defence. The outer curtain, in
addition to the rampart-walk, has loops pierced at regular intervals
in its lower portion; the rampart-walk is partly carried by continuous
corbelling upon the inner face of the wall. The inner curtain,
moreover, is pierced, on the level of the first floor of the gatehouses
and towers, by a continuous vaulted passage, looped to the field. This
extends round the whole ward, and is broken only at the north-west
angle, where it meets the northern gatehouse. Everywhere in the walls
of the castle where a loop could be of use, it was made. Of the points
noticed, both the entrances are unusual, and the design of the postern
at the rear seems to be unique. The spur-wall, though less elaborately
treated, is found covering a main entrance at Kidwelly and elsewhere;
and the long passages in the thickness of the wall are found in
portions of the defences at Caerphilly and Carnarvon. The towers at
Beaumaris are entered by straight stairs from the gorge; and throughout
the castle, in the gatehouses, great hall, and basements of the
towers, the method of carrying a wooden roof upon detached stone ribs
prevailed, which is very noticeable also at Conway and Harlech.

Kidwelly castle[293] (267), another late thirteenth-century building,
stands on a steep hill, the east side of which slopes abruptly to
the Gwendraeth Fach river. The castle is on the opposite side of the
river to the town of Kidwelly, and a long base-court, of which part
of the gatehouse remains, descended the slope towards the bridge. At
the head of this ascent a barbican and drawbridge formed the approach
to a strong gatehouse, flanked by two battering towers, and further
protected by a spur-wall across the end of the ditch. The gatehouse is
in the extreme south-east angle of the outer ward, which, describing
a wide curve, covers three sides of the nearly square inner ward, and
is separated from the suburb of Kidwelly on this side the river by the
ditch. The site was narrow, as at Chepstow, and the eastward slope so
steep that the outer ward was not completed along this side, but its
curtain was continued by the eastern drum towers and curtain of the
inner ward. Three half-round towers were made in the curving curtain of
the outer ward; at the opposite extremity to the gatehouse, near the
north-east angle, a postern, flanked by small drum towers, gave access
to a northern earthwork, which may be compared with the horn-work at
Caerphilly, but had no retaining wall.

Kidwelly, with its outworks in front and rear, at once recalls
Caerphilly. The irregularly concentric plan, with the inner ward on
one side of the interior of the outer, is very unusual, but provides
a link between the concentric plan and the extension of the early
plan of Chepstow. The provision of both front and rear gateways is a
feature of Caerphilly, Chepstow, Beaumaris, and Conway; and, as at
Caerphilly, Rhuddlan, and Beaumaris, the inner ward also has front
and rear entrances. These, however, at Kidwelly, are mere doorways in
the wall. The inner ward was small, with very large and perfect drum
towers at its angles: the domestic buildings arranged on either side
of it left only a narrow passage through the middle. A tower, of which
the two upper stories formed the chapel, was built out upon the east
slope, from the corner of the ward next the south-east drum tower. The
gatehouse, then, which here, as at Harlech and Beaumaris, contains a
large hall and other apartments, and, in addition to a vice to the
upper floors, has an outer stair and landing against its north face,
was on the outer, not the inner, line of defence, and was protected by
the ditch, the barbican, and the base-court beyond. There are remains
of buildings, probably intended for the garrison, in the outer ward.
The basement of the gatehouse, which is below the level of the ward,
contains vaulted chambers. In one of these is a lower vault, which has
had a domed roof, and may have been used for stores or a reservoir: in
another there appear to be indications of the mouth of a well.

[Illustration: Kidwelly Castle; Tower at south-west angle of inner ward]

The defensive precautions taken at Kidwelly were not so thorough as in
the other great Welsh castles of the time, and the chief reliance of
the builders was in the strength of their walls and towers. The outer
curtain has the peculiarity, rare in English castles of the date, of
possessing a stair built against it from the level of the ward.[294]
The inner ward has several curious features. The stair to the curtain
was a straight flight of steps protected by the west wall of the main
entrance from the outer ward. A path along the back of the rampart of
the south curtain led into the south-west drum tower, from the second
floor of which the rampart-walk was gained. The walk, though much
overgrown by ivy and other weeds, still keeps its rear-wall, and is
continued through the towers and round the inner ward. The two western
drum towers are interesting. The upper part of that on the north, where
it faces the ward, is not a simple curve, but is broken into two convex
curves, with a recess between: the reason of this is not apparent.[295]
The south-west tower (281), standing at an angle from which it commands
the inner face of the great gatehouse, has the most unusual peculiarity
of having all its stages covered with vaulting: the vaults themselves
are shallow domes, rather rudely constructed. It is probable that the
engineers may have intended to establish a catapult on the tower in
time of siege. The situation of the tower would have been excellently
suited for that purpose, but its unusual strength may be due merely
to its position in the line of attack. The basements of all the towers
are vaulted, but that of this particular tower, instead of being
entered from the ward or one of the domestic buildings directly, is
entered by a long and dark passage in the thickness of the south wall,
from the left-hand side of the doorway of the inner ward. The unusual
precautions taken with regard to this tower and its entrances give it a
prominent position in an account of the castle; and, although it is no
larger or loftier than the other angle-towers of the inner ward, it has
something of the special importance of Marten’s tower at Chepstow or
the Eagle tower at Carnarvon.

[Illustration: Carcassonne]

Although the Edwardian castle in Wales has many points of interest,
and provides a highly-developed scheme of defence, yet its devices
are simple when compared with the highest achievements of French
fortification. The elaborate care bestowed upon the outer defences
of Caerphilly, and the variety of ingenuity manifested at Beaumaris,
are exceptions to this general statement; while the general plan of
Carnarvon is as imposing as that of any castle in Europe. But such
carefully contrived approaches as the barbican of Conway and the
long ascent from the water-gate at Harlech take a second place when
compared with such a work as the outer approach to the castle of
Carcassonne, as restored with approximate faithfulness in the drawings
of Viollet-le-Duc (283). The castle stood within the inner wall of
the town, occupying a rectangular site on the south-west side of this
masterpiece of concentric planning. The entrance from the town was
guarded by a semicircular barbican; but the approach which called
for the most watchful defence was that from the foot of the hill, on
the edge of which the city stands. Where the hill meets the plain,
therefore, below the castle, a great barbican was constructed, within
the outer palisade and ditch of which was a great round tower, not
unlike the great tower on the mount at Windsor, surrounded by a wet
ditch. The centre of this _châtelet_ was open to the sky: the walls
were pierced with two rows of loops below the rampart. This tower
guarded the entrance to a walled and carefully protected ascent,
which, after making a right-angled turn, led upwards in a straight
passage,[296] commanded by the rampart of the outer curtain of the
town. Where it met the curtain, it turned to the right, along the foot
of the wall, and so reached a gateway into the outer ward or “lists” of
the town. But here the passage, passing through a covered vestibule,
turned back on its own course, and entered an inner barbican, with two
upper stages. Not until this was passed, were the lists entered, and
the chief gateway of the castle, in the inner curtain, reached. As we
trace this passage, we recall the ascent at Harlech and the traps set
for an enemy at Beaumaris; but their combination here is on a scale
undreamed of in those fortresses, minutely calculated though their
planning was.

[Illustration: Domfront; Casemates]

The wall-galleries, again, at Carnarvon and Beaumaris, are a device
of great utility, unusual in English castles, and are planned at
Carnarvon with exceptional skill; while, at Caerphilly, the gallery in
the south wall, between the hall and the moat, is a solution of the
defence of a point which the somewhat crowded plan of the domestic
buildings threatened to leave unguarded. But the covered gallery
below the ramparts was not a prominent feature of medieval defence in
England. On the other hand, it was used freely in France. Two examples
of the defensive use of covered galleries may be given here. One is
from Domfront, where, as at Coucy, the castle was separated from the
walled town by a very formidable ditch. On the side next the castle,
the rock was covered by a retaining wall flanked by two round towers at
the ends, and a polygonal tower near the centre. At some time in the
middle ages, probably late in the thirteenth century, the rock behind
the wall was pierced by a long gallery, communicating with all three
towers, and by stairs at intervals with the upper ward above. Loops
were made in the retaining wall, so that the approach upon this side
was thus provided with a line of defence below the level of the towers
and curtain. The gallery is not on one level throughout, but forms a
series of separate vaulted casemates, connected with one another by
short flights of stairs[297] (284).

In the second case, at Coucy, we have a case of a closed gallery,
without loops, which was designed as a counter-mine against the efforts
of the sappers of an attacking force. Remains of such galleries exist
in more than one part of the castle, forming a remarkable addition to
defences which, by themselves, were strong enough to discourage attack.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the curtain of the donjon,
the strongest tower in Europe, was thickened by the addition of a talus
or battering base, which was pierced by a passage. The main object of
this work was to cover in a spring which had its source in the ditch at
the foot of the curtain: the passage communicated at one end with an
earlier and well-guarded passage leading from the domestic buildings to
a postern in the wall which crossed the west end of the ditch, while,
at the other, it communicated by a stair with the rampart-walk of the
curtain and gatehouse of the inner ward. But it did not merely form a
convenient means of access to the spring. It afforded an opportunity
to the defenders of counteracting the miners of the enemy; while, if
the miners pierced their way through the talus, they would be met by
the thick curtain on the other side of the passage. The passage itself,
well protected at both ends, would be commanded by the defence; while
the spring in the middle, to those not acquainted with the geography of
the place, would form a dangerous barrier in the darkness.

To such finished achievements of military art as these, which have
been quoted as specimen examples, our English castles can afford no
exact parallel. In the military, as in the ecclesiastical architecture
of France, principles were worked out with a logical precision and
completeness, which, in its practical effect, provokes our wonder.
The effort manifested in the Edwardian castle is more humble; the
achievement more limited. This, however, is true rather of the scale
of the castle and the details of its defence than of the general idea.
The main object, of flanking the curtain effectually and completely,
is as fully realised as in any foreign example; while it may be safely
said that in no country were the advantages of concentric lines of
defence better exhibited than in the Welsh castles, whose main features
have been indicated in this chapter. The walls of Carcassonne may
provide us with the concentric plan on its largest scale; but the
Welsh castles show at least an equal understanding of the value of
concentric fortifications. The difference lies in the fact that the
French engineer proceeded to strengthen his defences by the addition of
intricate refinements and subtle devices; while the Englishman stopped
short at this point, and was satisfied when his aim of providing and
combining adequate towers and walls of defence was achieved.




CHAPTER XI

MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES: FORTIFIED TOWNS AND
CASTLES


The strengthening of the curtain of the castle was perfected in the
concentric plan, in which also was established, for the time being, the
superiority of defence to attack. But the very fact that the castle had
reached a point at which further development in the existing condition
of things was impossible, was fatal to its continued existence as
a stronghold. A castle like Caerphilly did not put an end to local
warfare: it merely warned an enemy off a forbidden track. Its own
safety was secured, because its almost impregnable defences made any
attempt at a siege ridiculous. Other circumstances, however, combined
to render the castle obsolete. The rise of towns and the growth of
a wealthy mercantile class hastened the decline of feudalism. The
feudal baron was no longer the representative of an all-important
class, and his fortress was of minor importance compared with the
walled boroughs which were symbolical of the real strength of the
country. But, in addition to this social transition, there took place
a change in warfare which had a far-reaching influence upon castle
and walled town alike. Fire-arms came into general use in the early
part of the fourteenth century.[298] Missiles, for which hitherto the
only available machines had been those involving discharge by torsion,
tension, or counterpoise, could now be delivered by the new method
of detonation. This produced an artillery which could be worked with
greater economy of labour, and discharged the missiles themselves with
greater force. Not merely can a ball of stone or iron be projected
with greater impetus than can be given by the older methods; but
the direction which it takes is more nearly horizontal than that
given to it by the mangonel and kindred machines. It is true that, at
first, the power of cannon remained relatively weak; but their gradual
improvement made the old systems of defence useless. Lofty walls, which
could resist the catapults of the past, were easily dismantled by
cannon-shot (288). Harlech, with its lofty curtains and angle-towers,
was an ideal stronghold, as long as explosives were not employed for
attack and defence. But, when cannon are directed against such defences
(273), and the surface of the walls is pounded with shot, the height
of the fortifications becomes a danger; and, in order to plant the
cannon of the defence on the walls, those walls have to be as solid as
possible to avoid the constant vibration arising from the discharge,
and as low as possible to increase their stability and to place the
enemy within range. The change is obvious, if we contrast the lofty
and comparatively slender towers of Carcassonne or Aigues-Mortes with
the massive drum towers of the French castles or walled towns of the
fifteenth century, like those of the castle of Alençon (289) or of
the town of Saint-Malo (290). Later still, the flanking of the walls
of towns and castles shows a transition from the round tower to the
bastion; and we find massive projections like the Tour Gabriel at
Mont-Saint-Michel (291), which rise little, if at all, above the level
of the adjacent wall. The ultimate outcome of this transition is the
bastion pure and simple, flanking the low and solid earthen bank
with its reveting wall, as at Saint-Paul-du-Var, or, later, at our
own Berwick-on-Tweed.[299] A step further brings us to the scientific
fortification of the seventeenth century, to Lille and Arras, and those
magnificent fortresses which the progress of the nineteenth century has
already made of historical, rather than practical, interest.[300]

[Illustration: Gatehouse, Barbican, and Curtain wall of Town battered
by cannon-shot]

[Illustration: Alençon]

[Illustration: Saint-Malo; Grande porte]

[Illustration: Mont-St-Michel; Tour Gabriel]

With these modern developments we have no concern in this book; and in
these two concluding chapters we can trace merely the later history,
from a defensive point of view, of that type of fortification whose
advance we have hitherto pursued, and of the gradual amalgamation
of the medieval castle with the medieval dwelling-house. The old
distinction between the castle and the _burh_ still asserted itself.
During the greater part of the middle ages, from the Norman conquest to
the fourteenth century, the castle, the stronghold of the individual
lord, was the highest type of fortification, and the town, as at
Berwick in the reign of Edward I., or at Conway or Carnarvon, was, when
walled, little more than an appendage or outer ward to the castle. With
the introduction of fire-arms, the town began once more to take its
place in the van of the defence. Warfare, from the time of the wars
of Edward III. in France, and even earlier, ceased to be an affair
of sieges of castles. Battles were fought more and more in the open
field, and the reduction of the fortified town, not of strongholds
of individuals, became the chief object of campaigns. The castle,
relegated to a secondary place, developed more and more on the lines of
the dwelling-house; and, finally, as the castle disappeared, the town
with its citadel became all-important as the object of attack and the
base of operations. In brief, the steps in the history of fortification
after the Conquest are these. The timber defences of the Saxon _burh_
became of secondary importance to the timber defences of the Norman
castle. These were subordinated to the keep, the symbol of the dominion
of the feudal lord. The keep reached its climax in the stone tower. At
this point the revulsion began. The strengthening of the stone curtain
made the keep obsolete; and, finally, the perfection of the curtain
of the castle once attained, military science applied itself to the
strengthening of the wall of the town, until, aided by social changes
and scientific improvements, the castle itself became altogether
unnecessary.

[Illustration: NEWCASTLE: town wall]

[Illustration: SOUTHAMPTON: town wall]

The principles of defence of the walled town are those of the castle;
and hitherto we have drawn illustrations from both with little
discrimination. In both cases the same methods of attack are provided
against by the use of the same means. But it must be remembered that
the area of the town is larger than that of the castle, and that
while, in the castle, the bailey is the common muster-ground from
which every part of the curtain can be easily reached, there can be
no such open space enclosed by the walls of a large inhabited town or
city. Thus, while the market-place, in or near the centre of the town,
would serve as a general rallying-ground,[301] it was necessary also
to keep a clear space at the foot of the inner side of the walls, so
that free communication between every part might be preserved. From the
continuous lane which was thus formed between the wall and the houses
of the town, and was crossed at intervals by the main thoroughfares
leading to the gates, access was gained to the rear of the flanking
towers, and to the stairs by which, from time to time, the rampart-walk
was reached. Most towns which have been walled retain traces of this
arrangement. At Southampton the _pomerium_,[302] as this clear space
is called in medieval documents, survives on the east side of the
town in the lane still known as “Back of the Walls.” At Carnarvon it
is nearly entire, except on the west side of the town. At Newcastle
(293) it remains in a very perfect state on the north-west side of the
enclosure, where the walls and their intermediate turrets are also
fairly perfect; and it can be traced in a paved lane on the west side,
where the walls are gone.[303] Nearly the whole extent of the inner
city walls of Bristol, of which little remains, can be easily traced
by the survival of the _pomerium_ in a series of curved lanes. The line
of the east wall of Northampton can be recovered in the same way; and
although, as at York, modern encroachments have in many places removed
the _pomerium_, it usually survived to mark the site of town walls,
even long after those walls had been destroyed.

[Illustration: Conway; Porth Isaf]

During the epoch at which fortification reached its highest point, the
wall of a town was systematically flanked by towers, which, as we have
seen at Conway and Avignon, were left open upon the side next the town.
Gates were made in the wall, where main roads approached the place.
Thus the gates of Coucy were three, admitting the roads from Laon,
Soissons, and Chauny. At Conway (256) there were three gates; but of
these one communicated merely with a quay, while another gave access to
the castle mill: the third or north-western gate alone was the direct
entrance to the promontory on which the town and castle were built. At
Chepstow, where the town also formed a _cul-de-sac_, there was only one
main gateway, at the north-west end of the town. The main gateway of
Carnarvon was on the east side of the town; while, opposite to it, in
the west wall, was a smaller gateway opening, like the Porth Isaf[304]
(295) at Conway, upon the quay. Not all towns, however, occupied
positions like Chepstow, Conway, and Carnarvon, where water takes so
large a share in the defence. Great centres of commerce like London and
York, towards which a number of roads converged, had many gates, not
counting the posterns in their walls. Four of the gates of York remain,
Micklegate bar on the south-west, through which the road from Tadcaster
entered the city, Walmgate bar on the south-east, admitting the road
from Beverley and Hull, Monk bar on the east, through which passed
the road from Scarborough, Bootham bar on the north, which was the
entrance from the direction of Thirsk and Easingwold. The gatehouses
are all rectangular structures, the plan and lower portions of which
are of the twelfth century, and recall the stone gatehouses of early
castles: the upper stages, however, are of the fourteenth century,
and have tall bartizans at the outer angles. The great Bargate at
Southampton, through which the road from the north entered the circuit
of the walls, is similarly a rectangular Norman gatehouse, enlarged and
supplied with flanking towers in the fourteenth century: the outer face
was further strengthened, within a century of these additions, by a
half-octagonal projection, the battlements of which were machicolated.
There was another gate on the east side of Southampton, which now has
disappeared. In the west wall the rectangular water-gate and a postern
remain; while, on the quay at the south-eastern angle of the walls,
there is another gate, covered by a long spur-work which projects
from the wall at this point and crossed the town-ditch. For smaller
gatehouses like the western gatehouses of Carnarvon and Southampton,
the old rectangular form was sufficient; but the principal entries of
towns needed effective flanking. As a rule, town gatehouses of the
Edwardian period and the fourteenth century generally were flanked
by round towers at the outer angles, like those at Conway (295),
Winchelsea, or the West gate at Canterbury. In the fifteenth century,
the warlike character of the defences of English towns was considerably
lessened. The Stonebow or southern gatehouse at Lincoln, a long
rectangular building with slender angle turrets of no great projection,
had no special provisions for defence beyond the gates by which it was
closed. Here and there, when the need of military defence ceased to
exist, churches were built upon the walls and gateways of towns. Thus
above the St John’s gate of Bristol, on the south side of the city,
rise the tower and spire which were common to the churches of St John
the Baptist and St Lawrence; while churches were built close to or
immediately above the east and west gates of Warwick.

[Illustration: Monmouth; Gatehouse on Monnow bridge]

Where one of the main approaches to a town crossed a river, the defence
of the passage was of course necessary. In the case of the St John’s
gate of Bristol, already mentioned, the course of the narrow river
Frome, on which it opened, was defended by an additional wall on the
other side of the stream; and in this wall, covering St John’s gate,
was the strongly fortified Frome gate. The case of York, where the
river nearly bisects the walled enclosure, is most unusual. In other
instances, the town was confined to one side of the stream, and the
approach from the river was protected by a barbican, which could take
the form either of an outer defence to the gateway itself, or of a
_tête-du-pont_ on the opposite side of the stream, or of a fortified
passage across the bridge. Of barbicans in general much has been
said already; and we have seen at York and Tenby something of town
barbicans, while in the Porte de Laon at Coucy, we have had an instance
of a barbican acting as a _tête-du-pont_ on the further side of a town
ditch. The arrangement of the south-western approach to Kenilworth
castle is a good instance of the combination, in castle fortification,
of _tête-du-pont_, fortified causeway, and gatehouse with barbican.
Fortified bridges were not uncommon in the middle ages, but those which
remain are few. The finest example of all is the fourteenth-century
Pont Valentré at Cahors (Lot), a noble bridge of six lofty pointed
arches, divided by piers which are supplied with the usual triangular
spurs or cut-waters. At each end of the bridge is a massive rectangular
gateway tower, battlemented, with pyramidal roofs, and machicolated
galleries below the battlements; while in the middle of the passage is
a third tower, the ground-floor of which was gated and portcullised.
The brick bridge, called the Pont des Consuls, at Montauban
(Tarn-et-Garonne), was somewhat similarly defended. Examples from
other countries are the thirteenth-century covered bridge at Tournai,
the bridge of Alcantarà at Toledo, and the bridge of Prague, which
was defended about the middle of the fourteenth century with a tall
rectangular gate-tower at one end, and a gateway, flanked by towers of
unequal size, at the other. In England two small examples of fortified
bridges remain. Upon the bridge at Monmouth (297) is a gatehouse with a
machicolated battlement and a gateway which was closed by a portcullis:
this stood well in advance of the Bridge gate of the town, which was
at a little distance from the stream. At Warkworth, on the side of the
bridge next the town, is a plain rectangular gatehouse, the arch and
ground-floor of which remain intact. The triangular patch of land,
south of the Coquet, on which Warkworth is built, was well defended on
two sides by the river, and on the third side by the castle, and the
gatehouse at the bridge was its only stone fortification.

[Illustration: WELLS: gatehouse of bishop’s palace]

The progress of the art of defence under Edward I. was accompanied
by the enclosure within defensive walls of areas and houses not
originally intended for military purposes. Disputes between the
cathedral priory and the citizens of Norwich led to the enclosure of
the monastery within a fortified precinct:[305] the royal licence for
the construction of the water-gate bears date 27th July 1276.[306] On
8th May 1285, the dean and chapter of Lincoln obtained their first
licence for the enclosure of their precinct with a wall 12 feet
high;[307] and ten days later a similar licence was issued to the
dean and chapter of York.[308] On 10th June the dean and chapter of
St Paul’s,[309] and on 1st January following the dean and chapter of
Exeter,[310] had letters patent to the same effect. Bishop Burnell
had licence to wall and crenellate the churchyard and close of Wells,
15th March 1285-6,[311] while he was busy building his strong house
at Acton Burnell. Licence to crenellate the priory of Tynemouth,
on its exposed site, was granted 5th September 1295.[312] Bishop
Walter Langton had licence to wall the close of Lichfield, 18th
April 1299.[313] Licence to the abbot and convent of Peterborough to
crenellate the gate of the abbey and two chambers lying between the
gate and the church was granted 18th July 1309.[314] At Lincoln, where
a large portion of the close walls may still be seen, there was some
delay in building. Two licences, confirming the letters patent of
1285, were granted by Edward II. in one year.[315] On 6th December
1318, the licence was again renewed: the wall might be raised to a
greater height than 12 feet, and might be crenellated and provided
with crenellated turrets.[316] Further, on 28th September 1329, Bishop
Burghersh received letters patent, permitting him, in the most liberal
terms, to “repair, raise, crenellate, and turrellate” the walls of the
bishop’s palace.[317] Thus, in the reign of Edward III., there were no
less than three fortified enclosures within the circuit of the walls
of Lincoln—the castle, the close round the cathedral, and the bishop’s
palace. To-day, as we stand in the open space at the head of the Steep
Hill, to our left is the gatehouse of the castle; while to our right
is the Exchequer gate, the inner gatehouse of the close. This is a
lofty oblong building of three stages, with a large central archway,
and a smaller archway on each side for pedestrians. On the west or
outer side the face is plain, but on the eastern side it is broken by
two half-octagon turrets, containing vices. There was also an outer
gatehouse, some yards to the west.[318] The south-eastern gatehouse of
the close, known as Pottergate, still remains, a rectangular building
with an upper stage. At Wells, Salisbury,[319] and Norwich, the
_enceinte_ of the close may still easily be traced; while at Wells,
close by the gatehouse of the close, is the outer gatehouse of the
bishop’s palace. The palace itself retains its wet moat, and is still
approached by its drawbridge and through a formidable inner gatehouse,
which is flanked by two half-octagon towers (300).

[Illustration: Thornton Abbey; Gatehouse]

[Illustration: Thornton Abbey; Plan of gatehouse]

Of gatehouses of abbeys and priories, many still remain, some of which,
like those at Bridlington, Tewkesbury, and Whalley,[320] are of
great size, and were capable of offering defence, if necessary. But
by far the most important of monastic gatehouses is that at Thornton
abbey in Lincolnshire, a magnificent building of brick with stone
dressings (302). The licence to the abbot and convent to “build and
crenellate a new house over and beside their abbey gate” bears date
6th August 1382.[321] The gatehouse is an oblong of three lofty stages
with half-octagon turrets at the angles. The single archway on the
ground-floor is approached through a narrow barbican, set obliquely to
the building (331). On each side of the entrance is a bold half-octagon
buttress. The inner face of the entrance is flanked by half-octagon
turrets, in the southern of which is the vice which gives access to the
upper floors. There are no straight side-passages as in the Exchequer
gate at Lincoln, where the porters’ lodges are between the main and
lateral entrances; but at Thornton an archway was built in the south
wall of the central passage, and a diagonal side entrance constructed,
with a wide inner archway. The outer entrance (303) was protected by
a portcullis, and the lodges and turrets on either side had loops to
the field. On the first floor of the gatehouse is a spacious room,
which communicates by mural passages with the first floor of the
angle-turrets and with galleries in the adjacent walls. These are
all provided with loops, so that the approach to the monastery was
effectually commanded. This gatehouse is nearly contemporary with the
West gate of the city of Canterbury, which was begun by Archbishop
Sudbury about 1379;[322] but the Canterbury gateway takes the orthodox
form of a central passage recessed between two round towers, which are
bold projections from a rectangular plan, and its architecture cannot
compare with the moulded archways, elaborate ribbed vaulting, and
canopied niches of Thornton.[323]

[Illustration: STOKESAY: hall]

[Illustration: STOKESAY CASTLE from south-west]

Fortified closes, abbeys, and bishop’s palaces bring us back to the
castle, in the history of which is the epitome of the art of defence.
The concentric plan displayed the resources of the defenders in their
most scientific form, but the concentric plan, as we have seen, is
not very common, and its systematic use in English architecture was
practically confined to a single period. The site, as at Kidwelly,
did not always allow of the full extension of the outer ward, so as
completely to encircle the inner. As a rule, we find that the English
castle of the fourteenth century consists, like Richmond and Ludlow in
their earliest form, or like Carew or Manorbier, of a single bailey
without a keep. This enclosure is flanked by towers at adequate
intervals, and is entered through an imposing gatehouse between two
drum towers. No English castle of this type can compare with the
fourteenth-century castle of Saint-André at Villeneuve d’Avignon (307),
which kept watch upon the castle of the popes on the opposite bank of
the Rhône, or with the Breton castles of Fougères (250) and Vitré. The
castle of Caerlaverock (364), near Dumfries, not the famous castle
besieged by Edward I., but a castle founded in 1333 on a new site, is
a good instance of a simple plan, in which a single ward is surrounded
by a flanked curtain. The castle stands on low and marshy ground near
the Solway firth. An island, surrounded by a broad wet ditch, which,
in the rear of the castle, assumes the proportions of a small lake, is
enclosed by three sections of curtain forming an equilateral triangle.
A drum tower, low and of rather slender proportions, covered each angle
of the base;[324] while at the apex was a lofty gatehouse, flanked
by drum towers, and approached by a drawbridge. The interior of the
castle is somewhat confined, and the older domestic buildings were
much enlarged in the sixteenth century by a mansion, somewhat in the
style of the French Renaissance, which was built against the curtain to
the left hand of the entrance. The old hall occupied the base of the
triangle, while the kitchen offices were against the right-hand curtain.

[Illustration: Villeneuve d’Avignon]

Licences to crenellate mansions are common in the Patent rolls of the
Edwards and Richard II. In this way, many private dwelling-houses
reached the rank of castles, while still retaining strongly marked
features of their domestic object. The fortified house of Stokesay
(306) in Shropshire, which Lawrence of Ludlow had licence to
crenellate, 19th October 1290,[325] is a case in point, where the
moated manor-house, with its strong tower, well deserves the name
of castle. At the same time, many of the houses for which licences
of crenellation were granted were never more than manor-houses to
which were added fortifications of a limited kind. This was the case
with Henry Percy’s houses of Spofforth, Leconfield, and Petworth,
the licence for which bears date 14th October 1308.[326] Markenfield
hall in Yorkshire, for which a licence was granted 28th February
1309-10,[327] is still one of our most valuable examples of domestic,
as distinct from military, architecture. Such fortifications as these
houses had or still have were not designed to stand a siege, but to
ensure privacy and keep off casual marauders. Even in the sixteenth
century, dwelling-houses like Compton Wyniates in Warwickshire or
Tolleshunt Major in Essex were surrounded by a moat or simply by a wall.

Against these minor fortifications, however, we must put the cases
in which the process of crenellation definitely meant conversion
into a castle. Dunstanburgh, which Thomas of Lancaster had licence
to crenellate in 1315,[328] is a military stronghold of the most
pronounced type. Its exposed position upon the Northumbrian coast was
one reason of its strength: coast castles needed strong defences, and
we find that, during the period of the wars with France and later,
the fortification of castles like Dover was a constant method of
precaution against invasion.[329] Dunstanburgh has much in common with
the ordinary strong dwelling-houses of Northumberland. Its base-court
is a very large enclosure, occupying most of the area of the promontory
on which the castle is situated; while the actual castle consists of a
small and gloomy bailey. A wall, flanked at each end by a rectangular
tower, shut off the enclosed space from the mainland. In the wall
between the two towers rose the great gatehouse, which, standing in the
front of attack, gave access to the smaller ward, and contained upon
its upper floors the chief domestic apartments. Strongly defended as
this gatehouse was, with two drum towers of great size flanking the
entrance, the immediate access which it gave to the heart of the castle
was evidently a source of danger. At a later date, the entrance was
walled up, and a new gateway made in the curtain at a point near by.
The gatehouse thus was practically turned into a keep, and the process
which had taken place at Richmond towards the end of the twelfth
century was virtually repeated, with this exception, that the actual
fabric of the gatehouse remained, and was not superseded by a new form
of strong tower. Precisely the same thing happened at Llanstephan
in Carmarthenshire. This castle, one of the most imposing of Welsh
strongholds, stands on a steep and almost isolated hill, where the Towy
enters the Bristol Channel. It is divided by a cross-wall into a large
outer ward and an inner ward which occupies the top of the sloping
summit of the hill. The chief buildings were in the outer ward, and the
finest of them was the great gatehouse, situated at the head of the
landward slope of the hill, and concealed from the river by the convex
curve of the curtain and by a large tower at the eastern angle of the
enclosure. This gatehouse is of trapezoidal form: the gateway and its
drum towers front the field, but the building spreads inwards, and has
two much smaller round towers at its inner angles. It was undesirable,
however, that the gatehouse, which, from the military and domestic
point of view alike, was the principal building in the castle, should
be the point on which the besiegers could concentrate all their force.
Consequently, the gateway was blocked not long after it was built, and
a new entrance was made beside it in the curtain. The way into the
higher ward at Llanstephan was closed by a small rectangular gatehouse,
built near one end of the dividing curtain.

Thus at Dunstanburgh and Llanstephan, castles in which the system of
defence was not founded upon the concentric plan, but relied upon
the strength of an adequately flanked curtain, gatehouses which are
worthy of Caerphilly and Harlech, and stand upon the outer line of
defence,[330] reverted to the condition of keeps. The possible use of
a keep as an ultimate refuge never ceased altogether to have weight
with castle-builders. The Percys, after their purchase of Alnwick early
in the fourteenth century,[331] although there was ample room for a
large mansion in one or other of the wards, built their dwelling as
a cluster of walls and towers round a courtyard on the mount between
the two wards. Some part of the substructure, the gatehouse with its
octagonal flanking towers, and the curious triple-arched recess at
the head of the well (310), are the most that remains to us of the
early fourteenth-century mansion; but with these is incorporated
twelfth-century work, which shows that the Percys built their house
upon the lines of an older house upon the mount.[332] Thus the
dwelling-house at Alnwick is in reality a keep of unusual form, a
large building with flanking towers built upon a mount which has been
considerably levelled to allow of more room for the house and its
internal courtyard (115).

[Illustration: Alnwick Castle; Well-head]

[Illustration: RABY CASTLE, DURHAM

GROUND PLAN.]

The strong tower, representing the survival of the keep, is found in
another great northern castle of the fourteenth century, Raby, the
castle of the Nevilles, where in other respects the domestic element
is very prominent (311).[333] Raby, like Alnwick, is occupied to-day,
but no such drastic changes as have converted the house on the mount
at Alnwick into a comfortable modern residence were necessary here.
There is an outer gatehouse slightly in advance of the north angle of
the castle, which was surrounded by a moat and is nearly rectangular.
The buildings are clustered round a main courtyard, the entrance to
which is a gatehouse with a long vaulted passage behind it in the west
block of buildings. At either end of the west front are two massive
rectangular towers: Clifford’s tower, at the north end, is almost
detached, and covers the north angle immediately opposite the gateway.
The remaining tower, known as Bulmer’s tower, projects on five sides
from the south angle of the building, and is the strong tower or keep
of the castle. The kitchen, in the north block, is also contained
within a strong tower, which does not project, however, from the rest
of the buildings. But it was in the north of England that the keep
survived most persistently. Middleham castle received much alteration
at the hands of its Neville owners in the fourteenth century; but
the twelfth-century keep was retained as the central feature of the
enclosure. The rectangular keep of Knaresborough is entirely of the
fourteenth century: it stood between an outer and inner ward, and its
great peculiarity is that the only passage from one to the other was
through the first floor of the keep.[334]

[Illustration: BELSAY CASTLE]

The tradition of the rectangular tower, however, was systematically
preserved in the buildings known as pele-towers. These formed the
chief defensive structures of enclosures called “peles,” a word
derived from the Latin _pilum_ (a stake). The twelfth-century tower
of Bowes, a large and important rectangular tower which guarded the
pass over Stainmoor from the valley of the Eden to that of the Tees,
is an early instance of the pele-tower; and probably a large palisaded
enclosure or “barmkin” was attached to it. In the fourteenth century
we find large pele-towers like those at Belsay (313) or Chipchase,
or the great tower-house of East Gilling, the proportions of which
recall the rectangular keeps of a century and a half earlier. Belsay,
with its traceried two-light openings on the first floor, and large
bartizans corbelled out at the angles of its battlements, is the most
handsome building of its kind in the north of England. The ordinary
pele-tower, however, is of a rather later date, and the large majority
of Northumbrian examples are of the fifteenth, and now and then of
the sixteenth century.[335] Halton tower, near Aydon castle, and the
small tower in the corner of the churchyard at Corbridge,[336] are
well-known examples; while one of the most imposing specimens is the
oblong tower of the manor-house of the archbishops of York at Hexham.
The normal elevation was of three stories. The ground-floor, in which
was the doorway, was vaulted as a protection against fire; it may have
been used as a stable, and certainly was used as a store-room. The door
was of wood, but its outer face was protected by a heavy framework
of iron. The first floor, reached by a mural stair, was the main
living-room. The second floor was a sleeping-room; and the battlements
at the top were generally machicolated. Garde-robes are usually found
in these towers; but they can hardly be called comfortable residences,
and had all the disadvantages of the twelfth-century tower-keep,
without its roominess. They are found, not only in Northumberland, but
throughout the northern counties and the south of Scotland, while, in
the hill country of Derbyshire, the pele seems to have been a favourite
form of stronghold. The twelfth-century tower of Peak castle is one of
those examples which allies the pele-tower to the normal tower-keep;
while Haddon hall gradually developed from an enclosure which was
neither more nor less than a pele with a tower at one angle.[337]

In this connection a word should be said about the fortification of
churches. Ewenny priory church in Glamorgan, with its crenellated
central tower and transept, is our only important example of
fortified religious buildings such as were common in the centre and
south of France—the cathedral of Albi (Tarn), the churches of Royat
(Puy-de-Dôme) or Les-Saintes-Maries-sur-la-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône).[338]
None of our abbeys is protected by a donjon, like that of Montmajour,
near Arles. There are, however, a certain number of churches, in
districts exposed to constant warfare, the architecture of which,
if not exactly military, was yet possibly constructed with a view
to defence. The massive structure of some twelfth-century towers,
like Melsonby in north Yorkshire, is probably due to the idea that
they could be converted into strongholds, in case of a raid from
the Scottish border. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
when Scotland was dreaded as a constant foe, the habit of giving
additional security to the church towers in this district was common.
Some otherwise simple church towers, as at Bolton-on-Swale and Danby
Wiske in north Yorkshire, have their lowest stage vaulted, probably
to minimise the danger of fire. The doorway to the tower-stair at
Bedale was defended by a portcullis, and there are a fireplace
and garde-robe upon the first floor. At Spennithorne, in the same
neighbourhood, the battlements of the tower borrowed an ornament from
military architecture, and are crowned with figures of “defenders.”
In border districts it is not unusual to find the ground-floor of the
tower roofed with a pointed barrel-vault, as at Whickham in county
Durham, where the church stands on a high hill near the confluence of
the Tyne and Derwent. This is a very general custom in South Wales,
where the towers are usually massive and unbuttressed, and stand upon
a battering plinth.[339] In Pembrokeshire a more slender type of tower
prevails, which usually batters upwards through its whole height: the
ground-floor is vaulted, and in many cases the whole church, or, at any
rate, the nave, is ceiled with a barrel-vault. It does not follow that
the object of this form of construction is defensive: lack of timber,
and the consequent employment of local stone for rubble vaulting, is
partly responsible for it. But in no part of the country are military
and ecclesiastical forms of architecture so closely allied. The
barrel-vaults of Monkton priory church and St Mary’s at Pembroke are
similar to those of the chapel and its substructure which occupy the
north-west corner of the inner ward of Pembroke castle: those of the
church at Manorbier have their counterparts in the vaults of the castle
chapel and the large room on its ground-floor.

If the pele-tower may be regarded as a direct survival of the
rectangular keep in a simplified form, it is probable that the
rectangular keep, with its angle turrets, also had a share in the
origin of a type of castle or strong house, which became common,
especially in the north of England, during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.[340] The plan of this species of castle is a rectangle,
which, in the largest examples, as at Bolton in Wensleydale, has an
open courtyard in the centre; but its distinguishing feature is the
provision of four towers, each at an angle of the structure. Such
keeps as those of Colchester and Kenilworth, where the turrets are of
considerable size and projection, suggest this plan; and some of the
earliest examples, like Haughton on the north Tyne, the oldest parts of
which are of the thirteenth century, have little to distinguish them
from the ordinary rectangular keep. The angle-towers at Haughton are
of no great prominence; but, in the early fourteenth-century castle
of Langley, to the west of Hexham, they are a striking feature of the
building, and one is entirely devoted to a series of garde-robes,
arranged in three stories, with a common pit in the basement. A
building with a somewhat similar plan to these northern castles is the
manor-house or castle which Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells,
and chancellor of England under Edward I., built at Acton Burnell,
in Shropshire.[341] Here, however, the building is of a thoroughly
domestic type, with large two-light window-openings of great beauty,
which at once remove any suspicion as to its military character. The
castle of the Scropes at Bolton and that of the Nevilles at Sheriff
Hutton represent the highest development of this quadrangular plan.
The licence to crenellate Bolton was granted in 1379:[342] the licence
for Sheriff Hutton bears date 1382.[343] Both castles are large
buildings with a central courtyard, and in both the military ideal
was uppermost. Sheriff Hutton is now in a complete state of ruin, but
Bolton is fairly perfect; and from its structure one important fact
may be deduced. While the usual precautions for defence were carefully
preserved, and the outer openings in the walls interfered little with
the general solidity of structure, the domestic buildings round the
courtyard formed part and parcel of the fabric itself. They were not
merely built up against or within the curtain, but the curtain was
actually their outer wall, and not simply their defensive covering. In
fact, the manor-house in these cases was not a separate building within
the enclosure of the castle; but the castle was also the manor-house.
The same combination of military with domestic aims is noticeable in
the contemporary castle of Raby (1378), of which the plan, already
described, approximates irregularly to the type.[344] Castles akin
to Bolton and Sheriff Hutton are Lumley, the licence for which was
granted in 1392,[345] and Chillingham, the angle-towers of which are
of a much earlier date than is usual in castles of this plan.[346]
At Chillingham the medieval work is somewhat obscured by alterations
made in the seventeenth century, but the original plan is retained.
Survivals of the quadrangular plan may be traced in some of the great
manor-houses of the early Renaissance period. It is not difficult to
detect in the plan of Hardwick hall (1587), while the ground-plan
of Wollaton hall (1580) is probably derived from a similar source.
Smaller houses like Barlborough hall, near Sheffield, or Wootton lodge,
near Ashbourne, have a kinship with it, although in these cases, and
especially in the first, the elevation is more tower-like than is usual
in medieval buildings of the type. It is needless to say that these
Renaissance buildings are without any military character.

The traditional form of the rectangular keep was also responsible, no
doubt, for the great tower-house which formed the principal feature,
and is now the only portion left, of the castle of Tattershall in
Lincolnshire. The discussion of this building belongs more properly
to the last chapter of this book, for its general construction and
architectural features are those of an age in which the military
architecture of the middle ages was already little more than a
survival. This age of transition begins in the last quarter of the
fourteenth century; and, as already pointed out, castles like Bolton
and Raby clearly show its influence. During the later half of the
fourteenth and the fifteenth century, outside the north of England, it
is rare to find a castle which actually deserves the name. The large
private residence, with a certain amount of defensive precautions,
became increasingly common; and, where alterations were made to
existing castles, they were generally entirely in the direction of
domestic comfort.

[Illustration: WARWICK: Guy’s tower]

[Illustration: Warwick Castle; Cæsar’s tower]

There are, however, a few striking exceptions which belong to the later
part of the fourteenth century. The two polygonal towers, Guy’s tower
(319) and Cæsar’s tower (321), which cover the angles of the eastern
curtain at Warwick and flank the gatehouse with its barbican, are cases
in point. Few castles show features of the military architecture of
all periods to such advantage. The plan is that of an early Norman
mount-and-bailey castle, which has in course of time been surrounded
with a stone curtain;[347] while a magnificent residence, in the
main a building of the fourteenth century, has grown up on the south
side of the bailey next the river.[348] The most commanding military
features, however, are the towers just mentioned, 128 and 147 feet high
respectively. The whole character of these towers is French rather
than English. Their great height may be contrasted with that of the
contemporary rectangular towers at Raby, the loftiest of which is only
81 feet high, and depends for its defence almost entirely upon the
thickness of its walls. The nearest parallel to the Warwick towers, on
the other hand, is such a building as the fifteenth-century Tour Talbot
at Falaise, a lofty cylindrical tower built at an angle of the donjon,
as is generally stated, during the English occupation of northern
France.[349] The chief characteristics of the towers at Warwick are the
bold corbelling out of their parapets, with a row of machicolations,
and the provision of a central turret, rising some distance above the
level of the rampart-walk—a feature common in France, but most unusual
in England.[350] The vaulting of both towers throughout is also a
French feature; and in every respect they bear traces of an influence
which, beginning in the cylindrical donjons of Philip Augustus’ castles
and of Coucy, survived to a late date in France, and may have affected
English military work in that country, but had little result in England
itself. While, throughout the fifteenth century, the French castle
maintained its character as a stronghold, and even kept that character
when Renaissance influence was strong in that country, the military
character of the English castle steadily diminished. The wars of the
Roses were a succession of battles in open field, in which castles and
walled towns played very little part. And while the military character
of Warwick continued to be emphasised during the period of transition,
the neighbouring castle of Kenilworth, in common with most English
castles, was transformed, during the same period, from a stronghold
into a palace.

[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX: gatehouse]

[Illustration: BODIAM: north front and gatehouse]

The most imposing of our later castles, which may be considered
primarily as military buildings, is Bodiam in Sussex (323). On 21st
October 1385, Sir Edward Dalyngrugge had licence to crenellate his
manor of Bodiam “by the sea,” and “to make a castle thereof in defence
of the adjacent country against the king’s enemies.”[351] The main
object of this licence was evidently to provide against a French
attack upon the ports of Rye and Winchelsea, at the mouth of the
Rother: in the following March, Sir Edward was named first upon the
commission appointed by letters patent to fortify and wall the town of
Rye.[352] Bodiam stands upon the left bank of the Rother, some miles
above Rye, and commands from its site, at some little height above the
valley, a long stretch of marsh in the direction of the mouth of the
river. The walls of the castle descend sheer into a lake, formed by the
damming up of a stream. The castle is simply a rectangular enclosure
surrounded by a lofty curtain. Each angle is capped by a cylindrical
tower, and in the middle of each face is a rectangular tower: the great
gatehouse, however, in the north face, has two rectangular towers, one
on each side of the entrance. The tower in the centre of the opposite
face is the lesser gatehouse of the castle. The plan bears a striking
analogy to that of the castle of Villandraut (Gironde), built about
1250: Nunney in Somerset (1373) and Shirburn in Oxfordshire (1377)
are coeval English examples. The interior is surrounded by domestic
buildings. Against the south curtain were the hall and kitchen: the
screens at the west end of the hall formed a passage to the lesser
gateway. The wall dividing the screens from the kitchen still remains,
with the three doorways which gave access to the kitchen, pantry,
and buttery (326). The private apartments were returned along the
east curtain, and at their north end was the chapel, which had the
usual arrangement of a western gallery, entered from the chambers on
the first floor of this range of building. Servants’ quarters and
barracks occupied the west side of the enclosure. All the buildings
were plentifully supplied with garde-robes in the towers; and the upper
portion of the south-west tower was arranged as a pigeon-house.

In spite of the ample space given to the domestic buildings, the
defensive nature of the works at Bodiam is very clearly apparent, not
only in the strength of the walls, the height of which (40 feet) is
equal to the height of the walls at Harlech, but in the provision made
for the defence of the approaches. The main gateway was protected by
a barbican, which occupied a small island in the lake, some 54 feet
in front of the gatehouse. A causeway, which is in part, at any rate,
original, connected the gateway with the barbican; but it is probable
that this had a bridge at one or both ends. A bridge, spanning a gap
of 6 feet, connected the outer end of the barbican with an octagonal
island in the middle of the broad moat. The straight causeway by which
this island is now reached from the mainland does not represent the
original approach; but a longer and more tortuous approach was planned
from a pier set against the west bank of the moat and joined, probably
by a double drawbridge, to the octagonal island, which thus stood at
a point where the road, commanded throughout by the curtain and its
flanking towers, turned at a right angle towards the north gatehouse
of the castle. The approach to the smaller or south gate has now
disappeared; but two walls project into the moat on each side of the
entrance, and against the south bank of the moat remains the pier on
which the outer drawbridge dropped.

[Illustration: Bodiam Castle; Courtyard]

The labour and pains which were taken to strengthen this castle are
shown by the revetting of the earthwork, not only of the main island,
but also of the lesser islands in the moat, and of portions of the
causeways of approach. The isolation of the castle in the middle of a
lake may have been suggested by the plan adopted, at a much earlier
date, at Leeds in Kent. The great barbican of Leeds, however, divided
by wet ditches into three separate parts, forms the approach to the
main bridge across the moat. It is, in fact, the _tête-du-pont_ of the
castle, and does not occupy a separate island, as at Bodiam, between
the mainland and the gateway.

The gatehouse of Bodiam is an imposing building, and the
castle-builders, from the days of Edward I. onwards, paid an attention
to their gatehouses almost equal to that which the late Norman builders
had given to their tower-keeps.[353] To the same twenty-five years
within which Bodiam was built and the two great towers at Warwick
were completed, belongs the greatest of English gatehouses, that of
the castle of Lancaster. It is known to have been built as late as
about 1405; for the arms of Henry V. as prince of Wales appear on a
shield above the gateway. It is therefore one of the latest military
works in the castles of the duchy, and the last of the series of
gatehouses which owed their origin to lords of the house of Lancaster,
and includes the noble structures at Dunstanburgh, Tutbury, and the
great tower between the wards at Knaresborough. The castle to which
it was added was surrounded by a curtain, largely of twelfth-century
date,[354] and contained a tower-keep and domestic buildings which
appear to have been in the main of the thirteenth century. Situated
at the head of a very steep hill, and flanked by two huge octagonal
towers, this gatehouse is the perfection of the type which is seen,
with more slender flanking towers, at Bothal and in the keep of
Alnwick. The window openings towards the field are few and small: the
battlements are boldly corbelled out, and machicolations of large size
are left between them and the wall. In a corner of each of the flanking
towers rises a turret, the interior of which apparently served as a
magazine for ammunition. The interior of this gatehouse, although the
space is ample, is fully in keeping with its sombre exterior. Each of
the two upper floors contains three rooms, one in the central block of
the gatehouse, the others in the towers at the sides. These rooms are
large and lofty, and their original wooden ceilings still retain traces
of colour; but they are gloomy and ill-lighted to the last degree. The
apartments on the first floor communicate directly with one another,
but those on the second floor are entered from an outer passage, which
passes between them and the inner or west wall of the gatehouse. The
guard-rooms on the ground-floor are approached in the usual way, by
doorways near the inner entrance. The main stair is a vice in the
south-west corner of building.

In the important additions made to the castle of Warkworth about 1400,
the compromise attained between the requirements of defence and comfort
is very striking. The plan of this castle, throughout its history, like
the plan of Warwick, remained that of the original mount-and-bailey
fortress. We have noticed already the addition of the stone curtain to
the bailey, and the building of a large mansion against its western
and southern faces. It is probable that a shell-keep was added to the
mount, when the stone curtain was made; for the foundations of the
present strong house on the mount are of masonry of an earlier and
rougher character than the elaborately dressed stonework of the house
itself. This house (221), which combines the features of keep and
private residence in a most unusual way, appears to have been built
by the first earl of Northumberland, who died in 1407.[355] The shape
is that of a square with chamfered angles; but from the centre of
each face projects a bold half-octagon, so that the ground-plan is a
Greek cross with short arms and a large central block. The elevation
consists of a basement and three floors. The basement contains tanks
and a vault with a corbelled roof, which was certainly a prison, and
bears a strong likeness to a similar vault in the inner gatehouse at
Alnwick. There is no basement stair, communication with the vaults
being through trap-doors in the floor above. On this floor are a number
of dark vaulted store-rooms, one of which was the wine-cellar, and
has its own stair to the daïs end of the hall on the floor above. The
two upper floors are comparatively cheerful and well lighted: a shaft
in the centre of the building gave light to the inner passage between
the hall and kitchen. The main stair is in the south half-octagon,
the chief doorway being in the west face of this projection, on the
first floor. From the lobby on the second floor, at the head of the
stair, two doorways open. That on the right leads into the hall, which
occupies the south-east angle of the central block, and is of the
full height of the two upper floors. That on the left leads to the
servants’ quarters and the kitchens, which occupied the western part
of the second floor, and communicated by separate doorways with the
hall and chapel. The great kitchen filled the north-west angle of the
central block, and, like the hall, was two stories in height. The north
half-octagon and the north-east angle of the main block adjacent to it,
were divided into two floors. The lower room in the half-octagon was
probably the private room of the master of the house, communicating
with the lower room in the main block, which was probably the common
room of his immediate retinue. Similarly, upon the upper floor were a
ladies’ bower and a separate room for the countess of Northumberland’s
own use. Between the private apartments and the hall, occupying the
centre of the east side of the main block and the half-octagon beyond,
was the chapel. The chancel, in the half-octagon, was the height of
both floors; but the western part of the chapel was in two floors, the
upper forming a gallery, with a doorway from the ladies’ bower. From
the south-east corner of this gallery, another doorway opened upon a
narrow stone gallery, formed by the internal thickening of the lower
part of the east wall of the hall: this may have served the purpose of
a minstrels’ gallery, or may have been used by the ladies of the house,
when they wished to watch the festivities below. The wall beneath this
gallery is pierced by a long vestry or priest’s chamber, opening out
of the south wall of the chapel, and built with a rising floor, in
order to give head-way to the stair from the wine-cellar below. The
ground-floor of the chapel also communicated with the hall and the
men’s apartments. In addition to the rooms already mentioned, there
were third-floor rooms in the south-west angle of the main block and
in the western half-octagon, which communicated with the gallery of
the chapel. The area covered is not large, but the ingenuity of the
plan is remarkable; and the disposition of the various apartments must
have required an amount of thought and skill, which no other medieval
dwelling-house shows in so high a degree.

[Illustration: RAGLAN CASTLE]

[Illustration: THORNTON ABBEY: gatehouse and barbican]

While the lower portions of the walls of the strong house at Warkworth
are of great solidity and strength, the upper floors are lighted by
large traceried window-openings, and the tall oblong windows of the
hall, and those of the chancel of the chapel, convey no idea of the
military purpose of the building. It is a curious fact that, in spite
of the pains which were evidently expended upon this tower-house, the
period of its employment as a residence seems to have been unusually
short. The various lords of Warkworth were never satisfied with one
residence for any length of time; and there is evidence that when
John, duke of Bedford, was sent by his father, Henry IV., to pacify
the north after Northumberland’s rebellion, he took up his quarters at
Warkworth in the gatehouse. Later in the fifteenth century, the old
mansion, already described, in the bailey, was restored and altered:
a porch-tower was made at the north-east end of the hall, and a
stair-turret intruded in the south-east angle. The dwelling-house,
which had been built within the castle about 1200, was converted,
in fact, into a stately mansion; and the house on the mount was
practically abandoned. No better instance could be found of the gradual
weakening of the military ideal in favour of domestic comfort. All the
castles of the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are examples
of this in some degree. At Warwick the domestic buildings are at
least of equal importance with the defences. The dwelling-house at
Ludlow gradually increased in size and splendour, while nothing was
added to its military defences. Even the outer walls of Bolton, a
strong and well-guarded castle, are pierced with windows which admit
a considerable amount of light. Bodiam and Raglan (331), relying on
the great breadth of their moats, have large outward window openings.
In all these instances, however, the dwelling-house, even at Raglan,
is still regarded as a house within a castle. In the planning of the
tower house at Warkworth the military and domestic ideals were both
present to the minds of the builders. Neither can be said to prevail:
the building was equally useful as house and castle. The hall at
Warkworth, on the other hand, when it was rebuilt, was treated with
an architectural splendour quite apart from any idea of its position
within the walls of a place of defence. Those walls had become
obsolete, and the house was the one object present to the aims of the
restorers. A step further was taken at Hurstmonceaux (323), where the
great brick house has the semblance of a castle, but little of its
reality. At Carew in Pembrokeshire, three stages in the development
of the domestic ideal as applied to military architecture can be
studied in close proximity. On the east side of the ward are the
earlier domestic apartments, somewhat cramped and gloomy, with outer
windows which, wherever they occur, as in the chapel (248) and adjacent
rooms, admit daylight very faintly. On the west side is the great hall
built in the fifteenth century by Rhys ap Thomas, with its imposing
porch-tower and entrance stair, a large and amply lighted room. On the
north are the additions made in the sixteenth century by Sir John
Perrott. The eastern rooms are those of a house within a castle: the
western hall is that of a house which, although military considerations
have had no part in its planning, is still confined within an earlier
curtain. On the north side, however, the curtain has been broken
through, and a series of apartments has been built out beyond its
limits, proclaiming, with their long mullioned windows piercing the
walls from floor to roof, that the day of castles is over, and that the
dwelling-house has the field to itself.




CHAPTER XII

THE AGE OF TRANSITION: THE FORTIFIED DWELLING-HOUSE


Some account has now been given of the change which came over the
English castle in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The life
of the feudal warrior in his stronghold gradually became the life of
the country gentleman in a house whose fortification, such as it was,
was of a merely precautionary character. It now remains for us to say
something of those domestic buildings which are the principal feature
of the English castles of the later middle ages, and of those houses
which, while preserving the name and to some extent the appearance of
castles, were designed primarily as dwelling-houses. In these examples
the main lines of the normal dwelling-house plan, which have already
been described, were preserved. The hall still formed the nucleus of
the buildings and the centre of the life of the household: the kitchen,
buttery, and pantry still took their place at the end of the hall next
the screens, while the two-storied block, with the great chamber on
the first floor, was found at the other end behind the dais. But, with
the increase of comfort and splendour, came the desire for more space
and greater privacy. The great hall at Ludlow (96), reconstructed in
the early part of the fourteenth century, had a first-floor chamber
at either end of the hall; and the additions made to these domestic
buildings in the fifteenth century considerably increased the number
of private apartments in a house which was already of great size. At
Manorbier (208) the whole dwelling-house was enlarged and the number
of rooms increased by a reconstruction in the second half of the
thirteenth century. The dwelling-house in the inner ward of Conway,
the hall and its adjacent rooms at Caerphilly, were planned on a more
liberal scale than had been thought necessary in the castles of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. The essentially military character,
however, of the Edwardian castle cramped the free development of
domestic buildings within the precinct; and it was not until the middle
of the fourteenth century that the plan of the dwelling-house in the
castle had reached the stage at which it began to be considered for its
own sake, apart from the curtain wall which protected it.

The development of the private mansion within the castle is well
illustrated at Porchester. The outer defences of the castle, the
twelfth-century great tower, the curtain of the inner ward, the
fourteenth-century barbican, were all kept under repair; for the French
wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries made the defence of
Portsmouth harbour a desirable factor in English strategy, and the
considerations which prompted the building of Bodiam also demanded that
the military character of Porchester castle should be preserved. The
barbican, however, was the last important addition to the defences. The
later work included the remodelling of the twelfth-century hall against
the south curtain.[356] This was in great part rebuilt, the hall on the
first floor being supplied with large traceried windows towards the
interior of the bailey: late in the fifteenth century, a porch with
an upper floor was added at the end next the screens. Along the west
side of the inner ward, between the great hall and the keep, a smaller
hall was added late in the fourteenth century, the towers upon the east
curtain were converted to domestic purposes, and a range of buildings
was eventually added upon this side of the bailey (97).

[Illustration: Carew Castle; Entrance to great hall]

Externally, Porchester castle is simply a fortress: internally, the
domestic buildings rivet the attention, and only the imposing mass of
the keep (131) reminds us of the military origin of the stronghold.
Similarly, in the Cornish castle of Restormel, where the one ward
is nearly circular in shape, and is surrounded by a deep ditch, the
whole interior face of the curtain is covered by a series of domestic
buildings, with partition walls radiating from the centre of the plan.
The position of the hall, kitchen, and great chamber can easily be
traced: the chapel was on the east side of the ward, separated from the
hall by the great chamber, and the chancel, with a substructure, formed
a rectangular projection from the curtain at this point. Here, too,
as at Porchester, Ludlow, or Manorbier, the dwelling-house was masked
by the fortress. But there are also castles in which the importance
of the dwelling-house, as time went on, began to overshadow its
military surroundings. At Tutbury the strong position of the castle, an
entrenched stronghold which was probably ditched about for the first
time long before the Conquest, the high mound raised by the Norman
founder of the castle, and the fine fourteenth-century gatehouse[357]
(237), approached by an ascent which was commanded by the whole length
of the eastern curtain, strike the visitor far less than the remains of
the great hall and its adjacent chambers. This beautiful work, often
attributed, like so much else in castles of the duchy of Lancaster,
to John of Gaunt, is probably of the middle of the fifteenth century:
there is a remarkable similarity between the details of the stonework
here and at Wingfield, a house the date of which is well known to be
somewhat later than 1441. As a whole, the castles which, like Tutbury,
became merged in the possessions of the house of Lancaster, and came
to the Crown on the accession of Henry IV., furnish us with some of
the best examples of castle dwelling-houses on a palatial scale. At
Pontefract, for example, a range of buildings, known later as John
of Gaunt’s buildings, rose upon the site of the eastern mound. The
drawings of Pontefract and of Melbourne in Derbyshire, preserved
among the duchy records, show us castles which have utterly changed
their aspect, and have become palaces. Nowhere, however, is this more
noticeable to-day than at Kenilworth, where the erection of the great
hall may be fairly attributed to John of Gaunt.[358] The whole of the
north and part of the west side of the inner ward, on the summit of
the raised ground on which the castle stands, are covered by a splendid
series of late fourteenth-century buildings, chief among them the hall,
probably the finest apartment of its date in England, Westminster hall
alone excepted (337). Later still, just as at Carew, the transformation
of the stronghold was completed by the addition, in Henry VIII.’s time,
of apartments, which have now disappeared, along the south side of the
ward; and, in the reign of Elizabeth, the south-west angle was filled
by a tall block of buildings erected by the earl of Leicester.

[Illustration: Kenilworth Castle; Entrance to hall]

One may compare the growth of the domestic element at Kenilworth
with that of the French château of Blois, where the military aspect
of the building was obliterated by degrees. To the great hall in the
north-east corner of the castle bailey[359] were added, first, the
buildings of Charles of Orléans (1440-65) on the west face.[360] Then
came the late Gothic work, on the east, of Louis XII. (1498-1502). In
the sixteenth century the hall was joined to Charles of Orléans’ block
by the Renaissance pile of building raised under Francis I. and Henry
II. The castle by this time had become a palace, and the transformation
was completed in the seventeenth century (1635) by the erection of the
tall range of Palladian buildings in the north-west angle, which is the
most prominent feature in the northern view of the château.[361] A
similar work of transformation took place at Amboise under Louis XII.
and Francis I. In both these instances, however, the chief changes
were made at a period when the Renaissance was exercising a powerful
influence on French life and thought. As a rule, French castles of
the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, while increasing in
splendour, preserved much of the character of the feudal stronghold.
The two splendid halls and the northern range of buildings at Coucy,
built by Enguerrand VII., lord of Coucy, in the last quarter of the
fourteenth century, were added without detriment to the strength of
the fortress; and to this same period belongs the talus covering the
spring at the foot of the donjon curtain, a work of purely military
character.[362] In the châteaux of Méhun-sur-Yèvre (Cher), built by
John, duke of Berry, between 1370 and 1385, and Pierrefonds (Oise),
built by Louis, duke of Orléans, between 1390 and 1420, the splendour
of the palace was equally balanced by the strength of the fortress.

In tracing the development of the castle until it is merged in the
manor-house, we must not forget that the fortified dwelling-house was
not merely the creation of an age which was ceasing to build castles.
Many of the strongholds to which allusion has been made, especially
in the north and west of England, were dwelling-houses rather than
castles. Acton Burnell, Aydon, Markenfield, Haughton, or those
houses which, like Mortham in Yorkshire or Yanwath in Westmorland,
have pele-towers attached to them, whether as part of their original
equipment or as a later addition, are all fabrics in which military
precautions had to be taken, but the everyday needs of the occupants
were first considered. A castle is a military post which may include
one or more dwelling-houses within its walls: the house which may
be turned into a castle, when occasion requires, is on a different
footing. Bishops’ palaces, such as Auckland, Cawood, Wells, or Lincoln,
are examples of the large manor-house in which fortification was
merely a measure of precaution. The splendid houses of the bishops of
St David’s are not the least remarkable of the remains of medieval
architecture, half-domestic, half-military, which are common in
south-west Wales. Bishop Henry Gower (1328-47) developed at Swansea
castle, and at his manor-houses of Lamphey and St David’s, a type of
architecture which deserves mention on account of its originality. The
three houses mentioned are somewhat different from each other.

[Illustration: HADDON: upper courtyard and tower]

[Illustration: Lamphey Palace]

Swansea castle is a large block of building, obviously military in
character, and in general appearance not unlike the earlier castle
which so nobly commands the town of Haverfordwest. Bishop Gower’s
hall at Lamphey is a plain building, the chief architectural feature
of which is the great cellar on the ground-floor: this was covered by
a pointed barrel-vault, originally strengthened by heavy transverse
ribs, most of which have fallen away. The vast palace of St David’s,
on the other hand, displays in all its details, and especially in the
ogee-headed doorway of the porch of its larger hall, a sumptuousness
of decoration which is not often found in the domestic architecture of
the time. The great hall on the west side of the courtyard, the smaller
hall and private apartments on the south side, the vaulted cellars
which occupy the whole of the basement in each range, are planned upon
a scale equal to that of a castle of first-rate size. But, although
these buildings differ so much in general character, they have a common
feature in the parapet, pierced with a row of wide pointed arches,
and corbelled out above the top of the walls. Comparatively rough and
coarse at Swansea and Lamphey (341), this parapet at St David’s is
treated with much delicacy, and the jambs of the arches are furnished
with slender shafting. Whether there was any thought of its employment
in war is a doubtful point; although it might be useful in such a
case, it was probably intended in the first instance merely as an
ornament. The corbelling is very slight, without machicolation. The
whole design of the parapet is a curious feature which deserves special
notice. There is another and later hall at Lamphey, west of the earlier
building; and adjoining this on the north is the handsome chapel, built
by Bishop Vaughan early in the sixteenth century. The gatehouse at
Llawhaden, another manor of the bishops of St David’s, appears to be
of the fifteenth century, and, with its flanking towers, rounded to
the field, has a more distinctly warlike appearance than anything at
Lamphey or St David’s.

[Illustration: HADDON: chapel]

We may now take a few typical examples which illustrate the change
from the fortified residence to the large dwelling-house, which
was accomplished by the beginning of the sixteenth century. At a
comparatively early date, a divorce between military and domestic
architecture is manifest in such a house as Stokesay (306). Here the
hall and its adjacent buildings are those of a private house pure
and simple; and the defensive portion of the plan is confined to the
polygonal tower at the south end of the range of buildings, which,
in time of war, could be used as a separate stronghold, and was
ingeniously planned and well lighted.[363] But at Stokesay (207) the
tower appears to be a somewhat later addition to a thirteenth-century
dwelling-house. Defensive precautions are added. Of the opposite case,
in which they disappear, Haddon hall (340), the most attractive and
most thoroughly preserved of English medieval houses, is the best
example. In its earliest state, it appears to have been a mere pele,
occupying a portion of its present site, with a tower at its north-east
and highest corner. The chapel (343), in which large portions of
twelfth-century work still remain, was probably built outside the
palisade, as the parochial chapel of the hamlet of Nether Haddon.
As time went on, the fortified enclosure enlarged its boundaries. A
wall was built round it, and the chapel was taken into the line of
circumference.[364] In the fourteenth century the present hall was
built between the upper and lower courts.[365] At its north end were
the screens, forming the communication between the two courts, with
the pantry, buttery, and passage to the kitchen leading directly out
of them. At the south end, behind the dais, was the cellar with the
great chamber above. Later on, a porch with an upper chamber was built
at the entry to the screens. During the fifteenth century, the upper
courtyard was gradually surrounded by buildings; a new chancel and
octagonal bell-turret were built to the chapel; and, at the end of this
period, the old curtain wall, between the chapel and the great chamber,
was covered by an outer wall on either side, and reduced to the state
of a mere partition wall on which wooden upper buildings were carried.
Wide windows were opened in the west walls of the cellar and the great
chamber, and the cellar was turned into a private dining-room at the
back of the hall. Early in the sixteenth century, the buildings round
the entrance court were completed, and the timber stage east of the
chapel was rebuilt in stone. Finally, in the reign of Elizabeth, came
the addition which marks the last stage in this transition from pele
to dwelling-house, when, on the south side of the upper courtyard,
was built the long gallery, with its row of wide mullioned windows,
and deep bays projecting towards the garden. While the manor-house at
Wingfield, not many miles distant, is practically all of one period,
and illustrates a definite compromise between war and peace, Haddon is
a growth of from four to five centuries, and from an early date showed
a tendency to rid itself of its military character.

[Illustration: Wingfield Manor; Plan]

Wingfield manor is probably the most striking example of a later
English manor-house with certain defensive features. It was begun by
Ralph, Lord Cromwell, between 1441 and 1455. Its position is naturally
strong. From an almost isolated hill, with steep slopes to the east,
north, and west, it commands the valley in which it stands, but is
itself commanded by the much higher hills which separate it from the
Derwent valley on the west.[366] The buildings are arranged round two
courtyards (346). The outer and larger court, which is entered by
a wide gateway, with a postern on one side, at the south end of the
east wall, contained store-houses and farm-buildings, with a large
barn on the south side. This base-court, like the “barmkin” of a
fortified house in the north of England, would be useful in time of war
for the protection of tenants and their flocks and herds, who had no
other means of defence. A gatehouse in the north wall gives admission
to the second court, which was surrounded by buildings on all sides
but the east. The whole length of the north side was covered by a
magnificent block of buildings, which included the hall, kitchen, and
chief private apartments (349). These buildings have not received the
full attention which they deserve, but they obviously belong to two
periods of work, the great kitchen block at the west end being added
as an afterthought.[367] The plan is curious and unusual. The hall
occupies the eastern extremity of the block. Although the roof and a
large part of the south wall are entirely gone, and the north wall was
mutilated by the later partition of the hall into two floors and a
number of rooms, the porch, with its upper chamber, and the bay-window,
at opposite ends of the south wall, are still fairly perfect. The hall
was the full height of the block, and had a high-pitched roof, with
large window openings in the gables: it is not certain whether the
fireplace was in the centre of the room, with a louvre in the roof for
the smoke, or in the south wall. The porch led into screens at the
west end, over which was probably a minstrels’ gallery. At the north
end of the screens was a lobby, from which a vice led to the upper
floor of the building dividing the hall from the kitchen; while a wide
and well-moulded doorway opened upon a stair which descended into the
garden behind the hall. On this side the slope of the ground is very
abrupt, and the hall is built upon a very large and handsome cellar
(348), divided into two longitudinal halves by a row of five columns.
The aisles thus formed are vaulted in oblong compartments upon broad
four-centred ribs. The bold wave-mouldings of the ribs and the carving
of the bosses at their junction are carved with a masculine vigour of
design which gives this cellar a place among the chief architectural
masterpieces of its age. There is a short vice with broad steps at
each corner of the cellar: those at the north-east and south-east
corners communicated directly with the dais and sideboard of the hall,
the entrance to the south-east stair being a lobby opening on the
bay-window. The south-west vice was entered from the courtyard, while
the north-west stair opened into a room on one side of the passage from
the hall to the kitchen.

[Illustration: Wingfield Manor; Cellar of hall]

[Illustration: WINGFIELD: bay-window of hall]

The kitchen and its offices were not entered in the usual way,
directly from the screens. A block of buildings, with its main axis
at right angles to that of the hall, intervenes. There are, however,
three doorways, as usual, in the west wall of the hall. Of these,
the middle and largest was that of a central passage leading to the
kitchen. A smaller doorway, on either side of this, gave access to two
ground-floor rooms, beneath which were cellars. The whole floor above
these, entered by a vice from the large lobby at the garden end of the
screens, was the great chamber, which had a high-pitched roof, and
was lighted, towards the courtyard, by a large window-opening of four
lights, with good rectilinear tracery and transoms, beneath a segmental
arch. It need hardly be said that the position of the great chamber,
at the entrance end of the hall, is most unusual. The best parallel
example is found in connection with the hall of the thirteenth-century
bishop’s palace at Lincoln. Here the slope at the north end of the hall
prevented the construction of a large block of buildings on that side.
At the south end the ground fell away almost vertically, and here, upon
a vaulted substructure, was built a block of two stories, the lower
of which contained the pantry, buttery, and passage to the kitchens,
while the upper was the great chamber. The kitchen was contained in a
detached tower, between which and the intermediate block was a bridge,
with a covered passage on the first floor. The two-storied block has
now been converted into the bishop’s chapel, of which the windows of
the great chamber form the clerestory; while the passage across the
kitchen bridge has been turned into a vestry.

At Wingfield the great chamber was evidently placed at the entrance end
of the hall to avoid the type of construction which had been adopted
as a _pis aller_ at Lincoln, and the side of the hall was chosen where
the ground was comparatively level. Nevertheless, at the dais end of
the hall, where there is a fall of several feet in the ground, there
are considerable remains of buildings on the lower level; and it is
possible that the first kitchen buildings may have been planned at
this end. The position, with easy access to the large cellar, and,
by a stair which still partly remains, to the hall, would not have
been inconvenient, and expense in building would have been saved by
this reversal of the usual arrangement, which placed the more costly
great chamber block on level foundations, although at the far end of
the hall. The four stairs of the cellar made it easy, whatever the
position of the kitchen might be, to serve food directly to the dais,
or through the screens to the lower end of the hall. However, whether
this was the original arrangement or not, the kitchen block west of
the great chamber was an addition made probably a few years after the
original planning of the house.[368] The central passage below the
great chamber was continued to the kitchen, passing between a large
pantry and buttery. Its south wall, next the buttery, is pierced by
two broad arched openings, forming a buttery hatch upon a magnificent
scale, through which drink would be served. There were upper floors to
the buttery and pantry; but the kitchen itself, which contained three
fireplaces, filled the whole west end of the block. Its floor is sloped
and grooved, to facilitate drainage: the floor-drains were emptied
through spouts in the west wall.

The use of the buildings on the south side of the inner courtyard,
on either hand of the gateway, cannot be determined with certainty;
but the west side of the court is covered by an important range of
buildings, between the kitchen on the north and the high tower at the
south-west corner of the enclosure. Of these buildings, which belong
to the original fifteenth-century work, little remains but the west
and the foundations of the east wall, in which were two bay-windows.
They were probably a suite of private rooms, containing a smaller hall
or private dining-room, such as is found at Conway and Porchester, and
in most of our castles from the later thirteenth century onwards.[369]
At the south end of this block stands the one distinctively military
feature of the manor-house, the tall tower of four stories, which,
containing comfortable apartments in time of peace, could be isolated
and converted into a stronghold in time of war.[370]

[Illustration: WINGFIELD: strong tower]

This provisional arrangement for defence is characteristic of the
age. The primary object of the house at Wingfield was comfort and
pleasure; and its type is as far removed from the military perfection
of Caerphilly or Harlech as it can possibly be. The need of a
perpetual garrison was not felt; for, in case of war, siege would
be only the last resort of an attacking force. Consequently, the
defences of the house, apart from the accommodation for barracks and
the safety of refugees in the base-court, and from ordinary strength
of the gateways,[371] were restricted to the provision of a tower as
a last resource. The house, however, which the builder of Wingfield
constructed at Tattershall in Lincolnshire between 1433 and 1443, on
the site of an earlier stronghold, took the shape of a brick tower
of four stages, with a basement half below the ground (356). There
is an octagonal turret at each angle, the vice which leads from the
ground-floor to the roof being contained in the south-east turret
(357). The walls are of considerable thickness throughout, but are
pierced above the basement with large two-light windows, two in each
stage of the west wall. In the east wall are the chimneys of the
fireplaces on the ground-floor and first floor; but behind these the
wall is pierced by mural passages, lighted to the field. The north
wall on the first and third floor also is pierced by passages. These
communicated with chambers in the turrets and with garde-robes. The
internal features, the vaulted stairs and passages in the thickness
of the walls, and the stone fireplaces on the upper floors, with
rectangular mantels ornamented with shields of arms,[372] are elaborate
and sumptuous; but the tower is a shell, and the floors above the
vaulted basement are gone. A peculiar feature of the tower, however, is
the covered gallery which is corbelled out on stone arches above each
wall of the building between the turrets: the floor is machicolated
between the corbels, and the gallery has rectangular windows opening to
the field. Such a gallery is seen in French military architecture, as,
for example, in the Pont Valentré at Cahors, but appears to be unique
in England.[373] In the same part of Lincolnshire, and about the same
period, towers of the type of Tattershall are not uncommon. Kyme tower,
in the fens north-east of Sleaford, Hussey tower, on the north-east
side of Boston, and the Tower on the Moor, between Tattershall and
Horncastle, are cases in point: none of these, however, can compare
with Tattershall in beauty and size, or can show anything like the same
union of defensive with purely domestic arrangements.

[Illustration: Tattershall Castle]

[Illustration: BASEMENT

GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR

THIRD FLOOR

FOURTH FLOOR

Tattershall Castle; Plan]

Brick-work was employed in all these Lincolnshire towers: they lie in
a district where stone was not abundant, and where brick-making on the
spot was a more simple process than the conveyance of building-stone
from Ancaster or Lincoln. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
brick was very freely used for domestic architecture in the eastern
counties; and houses like Oxburgh in Norfolk or the rectory at Hadleigh
in Suffolk, with their gatehouse towers, are prominent examples
of late fifteenth-century work.[374] The old hall at Gainsborough
in Lincolnshire is a large mansion of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. This again is chiefly of brick, but with a considerable
amount of timber and plaster employed in the hall and one of the wings;
while the bay-window of the hall is of the grey Yorkshire limestone in
large blocks, which was much used in the churches of the lower Trent
valley. At one corner, however, is a polygonal tower entirely of brick,
with cross-loops in the walls of the ground-floor, and battlements
at the top. These battlements are corbelled out, so as to give an
impression of machicolation: there is, however, no machicolation at
all, and the spaces between the corbels are arched and filled with
simple tracery. The principle here is the same as that at Wingfield
and Tattershall: the residence is provided with its strong tower,
which, at Tattershall, as at Warkworth, is identical with the residence
itself. But while, at Warkworth, considerations of safety and comfort
were fairly balanced, with perhaps a slight inclination of the scales
to safety, at Tattershall, in spite of the covered gallery with its
machicolated floor, the balance is on the side of comfort. Both at
Tattershall and Wingfield the splendid residence is studied in the
first instance, while the defensive stronghold is a secondary idea. The
tower at Gainsborough is simply an imitation of the strong towers of
the past, conceived in admiration of their strength and conservative
love of their beauty, but with no serious idea of practical
utility.[375]

The fine manor-house of Compton, in a secluded Devonshire valley a few
miles west of Torquay, was probably built about 1420 by one of the
family of Gilbert. The main entrance, in the centre of the east front,
beneath a tall archway including the ground-floor and first floor in
its height, is flanked by bold rectangular projections finishing in
corbels some feet above the ground. It does not lead, however, into a
vaulted passage barred by portcullises and flanked by guard-rooms, but
into one giving direct access to the hall. This no longer exists, and
a modern building covers part of the site, but the weathering of the
high-pitched roof still remains, and at its south end we can still see
the entrances of the kitchen and buttery, and the stair-door of the
minstrels’ gallery. The courtyard and domestic buildings are enclosed
by a wall with a continuous rampart-walk, from the parapet of which
are corbelled out at intervals machicolated projections which are so
arranged as to be directly above doorways and windows, and thus to
protect the most vulnerable points of the house, such as the large
four-light east window of the chapel, north of the hall. The house
was not surrounded by a ditch; but the space between it and the road
probably formed a base-court, although any remains of fortification
have disappeared. The whole building is a good example of the reversal
of the usual process. The dwelling-house has not grown up within a
castle, but has been converted by a very thorough process of walling
and crenellation into a fortified post to which the name of castle may
well be applied. The situation is anything but commanding, but the
house lying hidden in its valley, might be a formidable obstacle, like
the neighbouring castle of Berry Pomeroy, to marauders pushing their
way inland from Tor Bay.

[Illustration: Hurstmonceaux Castle; Chapel]

The character of house first, and castle afterwards, which is
remarkable at Wingfield, is also prominent in two of the great
Yorkshire residences of the house of Percy, Spofforth and Wressell,
princely manor-houses dignified by the name of castle. But perhaps the
best example in England of a castle which is one only in name is the
brick house of Hurstmonceaux in Sussex. This splendid building was
begun about 1446 by Sir Roger Fiennes. Its position, in a sheltered
hollow at the head of a small valley, has no military advantages: it
may be compared with the secluded site of Compton Wyniates, or with
the low sites, within easy reach of water, which the builders of
Elizabethan houses were fond of choosing. The house was surrounded by
a wet ditch—a feature shared by Compton Wyniates, Kentwell, and other
Tudor houses.[376] The imposing gatehouse is in the centre of the south
front, a rectangular building flanked by tall towers,[377] with its
portal and the room above recessed beneath a tall arch which at once
recalls the machicolated archways that guard the entrance to castles
like Chepstow and Tutbury. The gatehouse has certain military features:
its rampart and that of the towers is machicolated, and the entrance
was closed by a portcullis (323). If cannon had made the curtain of
comparatively little importance, it was still advisable to defend the
gatehouse. There was no base-court, like that at Wingfield, in advance
of the main buildings. The castle was simply a collection of buildings
arranged round a series of courtyards, none of which was of any great
size, or corresponded to that distinctive feature of the military
stronghold—the open ward or bailey, which served as the muster-ground
for the garrison. The hall was in its usual position, on the side
of the first court opposite the main entrance. Most of the private
apartments were against the east wall, from which the chancel of the
chapel (359) projected in a half-octagonal apse.

An unrivalled opportunity for studying the progress of the castle
in England is provided by a comparison of Hurstmonceaux with its
neighbours at Pevensey and Bodiam. Pevensey, taking us back, in its
outer circuit, to the Roman era, is, so far as the actual castle
area is concerned, a Norman mount-and-bailey stronghold, with stone
fortifications chiefly of the thirteenth century. Bodiam represents
one of the last and highest efforts of perfected castle building in
England. Hurstmonceaux is a house designed for ease and comfort,
but keeping something of the outer semblance of the stronghold of
an English landowner. A further step was taken at Cowdray, near
Midhurst. Here the house, nominally a castle, was built about 1530 by
Sir William Fitzwilliam: the battlements of the great hall and its
beautiful porch-tower are the only relic of military architecture
which it retains; and these are really no more military in character
than the battlements of a church tower or clerestory. The comparison
and contrast between these Sussex buildings may be further extended
by including in the list the early fortresses of Lewes and Hastings,
and the episcopal castle of Amberley.[378] In these, with what remains
of the early castle of Arundel, we have as perfect an epitome of the
history of the rise and decline of castle architecture in England as
any county can afford.

Castle building, after the fitful examples of later Plantagenet times,
ceased altogether under the powerful monarchy of the Tudors, when
prominent subjects were made to feel the reality of the influence of
the Crown. Only once again, during the civil wars of the seventeenth
century, were castles generally resorted to as strongholds. The three
sieges of Pontefract, the operations of the royal troops in the Trent
valley, between the castles of Newark and Belvoir and the fortified
house of Wiverton, the defence of Denbigh, Rockingham, and Scarborough,
show that the private fortress could still be used on occasion; while
such a mansion as Basing house proved itself capable of stubborn
resistance. To this belated castle warfare we owe much destruction: it
was followed by the “slighting” of defences, and the general reduction
of castles to their present state of picturesque ruin. In concluding
this account of military architecture, it may be useful to gather, from
some of the surveys drawn up in the reign of Henry VIII., the state
of some of our principal castles at a period when medieval ideas were
disappearing. The coloured drawings, already mentioned, of castles
among the duchy of Lancaster records, which probably belong to the
early part of the reign of Elizabeth, may owe something to fancy. But
of the general accuracy of these verbal surveys, apart from inadequate
measurements, there can be less doubt. They all show clearly that
castles, as military strongholds, were obsolete, and that not merely
their defences, but even their domestic buildings, were allowed to
go to decay in time of peace. A survey of Carlisle castle, returned
22nd September 1529, is eloquent of the neglect of the fortress by
its constable, Lord Dacre. The wooden doors of the gatehouse of the
base-court had rotted away: the lead of the roof had been cut away,
probably with an eye to business, so that the rain soaked through the
timber below, and had leaked through the vault into the basement, which
was at this time used as the county gaol. The gatehouse of the inner
ward was in a not much better state; but the gates were of iron and
offered more resistance to the weather. The domestic buildings, on the
east side of the inner ward, had been roofed with stone slates: the
roof of the great chamber had fallen in, and the gallery or passage
between the great chamber and hall was “clean gone down.” The chapel
and a closet adjoining were partly unroofed: the closet chimney had
fallen, and the parlour beneath was in a ruinous state. The hall itself
was “like to fall”: the kitchen and some of its offices had fallen, and
the bakehouse and pantry were on the point of falling, while rain had
gone through the pantry floor into the buttery, which in this case was
apparently on a lower level. The great tower, “called the Dungeon,”
was, through the decay of the leaden roof, open to rain, and the floors
of its three “houses” or stages were gradually rotting. The castle
was supplied with artillery, but this was of “small effect and little
value.” It included twenty-three iron serpentines or small cannon, six
of which were provided with iron axletree pins or trunnions for use
on gun-carriages; a small brass serpentine, a foot long; nine other
serpentines; forty-five chambers; one iron sling for discharging stone
shot; four “hagbushes” (arquebuses or hand-guns); and two bombards or
mortar-shaped cannon. The ammunition for the serpentines and arquebuses
consisted of 560 leaden bullets: there was also some stone shot and
gunpowder. Some gun-stocks, bows, and arrows complete the list of
artillery.[379]

Sheriff Hutton castle in Yorkshire, surveyed during the same year, was
better off as regards its dwelling-house; for this, as we know from
contemporary history, had been occupied with little intermission from
the end of the fourteenth century onwards. There were three wards,
the outermost being evidently a large base-court, and the middle ward
probably, as at Carew, a small court in advance of the inner gatehouse.
The hall, kitchen, buttery, pantry, bakehouse, chapel, and lodgings for
the lord were in the inner ward. In the base-court were the brew-house
and horse-mills, with stables, barns, and granaries. The lead on the
roofs was in a generally bad state, and the gutters and spouts wanted
mending; but the timber of the inner roofs was still fairly good. The
walls and towers of the inner ward, the plan of which, as we have seen,
was akin to that of the contemporary Bolton castle, were “strong and
high, but must be mended with lime and sand.” Three tons of iron were
required to mend the gate of the inner ward. The “mantlewall” of the
middle ward was defective and partly in ruin; while the base-court was
“all open,” its walls decayed, and its gates gone. In the inner ward
was a well, and ponds “for baking and brewing” were near the outer
walls. The artillery included “six brass falcons with their carts” and
twenty-one arquebuses, for which six barrels of powder and ten score
iron shots were provided, bows, bowstrings, and arrows, and two bullet
moulds.[380]

[Illustration: CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE]

[Illustration: MAXSTOKE CASTLE]

After the attainder and execution of the third duke of Buckingham in
1521, two royal escheators took a survey of his lands and houses.
Their return, contained in a book of eighty-eight pages,[381] supplies
details as to eleven manor-houses and castles. Of these, Caus castle,
in west Shropshire, was a mere ruin. Huntingdon castle was decayed,
but a tower was reserved for prisoners. The description of Oakham
castle might be repeated at the present day. It was “all ruinous, being
a large ground within the mantell wall.” The hall, however, was in
excellent repair, “and of an old fashion”: the escheators recommended
its preservation, because the courts were held there. The three
towers of the castle of Newport next the Usk are mentioned, with the
water-gate below the middle tower, “to receive into the said castle a
good vessel”: the hall and other lodgings were decayed, especially in
timber, but the stone could be renewed with a quantity of freestone
and rubble stored in the castle. Here, as at Carlisle, Launceston, and
elsewhere, the basement of the gatehouse was used as a prison; and its
maintenance is therefore insisted upon. The hall at Brecon castle had
a new and costly roof with pendants: it was “set on height,” with
windows at either end, and none upon the sides. As a matter of fact,
the remains of this hall stand above a twelfth-century substructure,
which was vaulted from a central row of columns: the south side wall
still remains, and is pierced with a row of lancet windows, so that
the statement of the survey may refer to a newer hall which has
disappeared. There was a new hall in the inner ward at Kimbolton, which
had been built some sixty years before by the duke’s great-grandmother.
The old curtain against which it stood was in a bad way, and threatened
to ruin the hall. Round the inner ward was a moat: the base-court on
the outer edge was overgrown with grass, but the barn and stables were
in good condition.

“The strongest fortress and most like unto a castle of any other
that the Duke had” was the castle of Tonbridge, a mount-and-bailey
stronghold whose shell-keep is still one of the finest examples of the
type. The keep or “dungeon”—no mention of the mount is made—was at this
time covered with a lead roof, half of which was gone. Otherwise, the
castle and its curtain were in good repair, the rampart-walk keeping
its battlemented outer parapet and rear-wall. The gatehouse, on the
north side of the castle, was “as strong a fortress as few be in
England”: on the east curtain was a square tower called the Stafford
tower, and at the south-east corner, next the Medway, was the octagonal
Water tower. The river constituted the chief southern defence of the
castle, and there was no south curtain: the substructure of the hall
and lodgings, 26 feet high and built of ashlar, was on this side, but
the buildings themselves had never been finished.

Castles of a later type were Stafford, and Maxstoke (364) in
Warwickshire. Stafford castle at this time consisted of a single block
of lodgings with two towers at either end and another in the middle
of the south front. The hall was in the centre of the block, with the
kitchen, larder, buttery, and pantry beneath it: at one end of the
hall was the great chamber with a cellar below, and at the other was a
“surveying chamber,” or service-room, to which dishes would be brought
from the kitchen. Each of the five towers contained three rooms, in
each of which was a fireplace. The towers were machicolated, “the
enbatelling being trussed forth upon corbelles.” Outside the house
were the chapel, gatehouse, and another kitchen; but this front court
was apparently without defensive walls. Maxstoke, originally a castle
of the Clintons, which was built and fortified in or after 1345,[382]
had been largely repaired by the duchess Anne, the builder of the
hall at Kimbolton. There was a base-court with a gatehouse, stables,
and barns, which were walled with stone and covered with slate. Round
the castle, “a right proper thing after the old building,” was a moat.
The house, with a tower at each corner, was built round a quadrangle,
and in the side next the bridge over the moat was a gatehouse tower,
with a vaulted entry. The hall, the chapel, the great chamber, and
the lodgings generally were in good condition, although they were not
entirely finished and much glazing was still necessary. The provision
of fireplaces is specially mentioned, as well as a point in the
planning of the house—the convenient access to the chapel, or, rather,
to its gallery or galleries, from the various first-floor rooms at “the
over end” of the hall and great chamber.

The moated manor-house of Writtle in Essex can hardly be counted among
castles: it was a timber building round a cloistered quadrangle. There
was no hall, but “a goodly and large parlour instead.” Thornbury castle
in Gloucestershire, however, which was in great part of the duke’s own
building, was one of those houses in which some semblance of military
architecture was kept. There was no moat, but a base-court and an inner
ward. The buildings of the base-court itself had been set out, but
were in a very incomplete state, and little had been finished beyond
the foundations of the north and west sides. The entrance to the inner
ward was in the west face of the quadrangle; but of the west and north
blocks only the lower story had been completed. This was of ashlar,
while in the base-court ashlar had been used only for the window
openings, doorways, and quoins. The hall and kitchen offices formed the
east block, “all of the old building, and of a homely fashion”; but
the south block, of the newer work, was “fully finished with curious
works and stately lodgings,” and from it a gallery of timber cased with
stone, with an upper and lower passage, crossed the south garden to the
parish church and the duke’s chapel therein. A magnificent feature of
this house, which became more and more characteristic of the palaces of
noblemen of the age, were the great parks to the east of the castle,
and the gardens on its east and south side. Between the east garden
and the New park was the orchard, “in which are many alleys to walk
in openly,” and round about the orchard were other alleys on a good
height, with “roosting places,” covered with white thorn and hazel.

Thornbury castle had reached this degree of unfinished splendour only
a few years before the survey was made. The gateway of the outer ward
still bears an inscription with the date 1511, while at the base
of the moulded brick chimneys of the south block is the date 1514.
Remains may still be seen of most of the buildings mentioned in these
surveys. Thornbury and Maxstoke are still occupied, and of Thornbury
in particular the details of the survey still hold good. The great
value of these descriptions is the fact that they tell us something,
on the eve of the Renaissance period, of the state of a series of
fortresses which represented almost every type of an architecture
that had grown up under the influence of conditions rapidly becoming
obsolete. At Tonbridge we see the mount-and-bailey fortress of early
Norman times, built to meet needs which were purely military, and
strengthened with a stone keep and walls and towers of stone as those
needs became more pressing. At Carlisle we have the fortress with its
compact inner ward and great tower, approached through the spacious
base-court which served the needs of the garrison and might shelter
flocks and herds in time of war. No castle of the most perfect type,
planned in the golden age of military architecture, is represented. At
Brecon, however, we can study the growing importance of the domestic
buildings of the castle. At Sheriff Hutton we have the quadrangular
castle of the fourteenth century with its angle-towers, and its walled
base-court serving the purposes of a farm-yard. Stafford castle, the
plan of which has been imitated in the modern house on the site, is
a fortified residence built in a single block, to which some of the
strong houses of the north of England are analogous. The moated house
of Maxstoke preserves the quadrangular plan, and has its provisions for
defence; but its domestic character was the first aim of its builders,
and its walls and towers are without the formidable height and strength
of Sheriff Hutton and Bolton. Here and at Thornbury the base-court
was still retained; but at Thornbury the energy of the builders was
concentrated in the beautiful mansion, and the idea of the defensive
stronghold had almost departed. The day of the castle and the walled
town was over, and, in the face of methods of attack of which the
builders of Norman castles had never dreamed, military engineers were
beginning to move along new lines to which architectural considerations
were no longer a matter of great importance. An architecture which,
developed from earthwork in the beginning, reproduced in stone, at
its height, the disposition of the concentric earthworks of primeval
times, gave place in its turn to a science in which the employment of
earthwork and the natural resources of a defensive position played an
increasingly prominent part.




FOOTNOTES:


[1] Plan in Allcroft, _Earthwork of England_, 1908, p. 647. The
same feature is well seen in the fine camp of Bury Ditches (6) in
Shropshire, between Clun and Bishops Castle.

[2] The defences of Old Sarum are now in process of excavation, and the
plan of the medieval castle, in the centre of the early camp, has been
recovered. See _Proceedings Soc. Antiquaries_, 2nd series, vol. xxiii.,
pp. 190-200 and 501-18.

[3] It is well seen at Bury ditches (6), where the diagonal entrance is
also a feature of the south-west side of the camp, and on the west side
of Caer Caradoc, between Clun and Knighton.

[4] The effect of similar conditions on the construction of early
Norman castles will be noticed in a later chapter.

[5] Plan in Allcroft, _op. cit._, p. 686; the camp is described fully
pp. 682-97.

[6] See Bruce, _Hand-Book to the Roman Wall_, 5th ed., 1907 (ed. R.
Blair), pp. 19-21.

[7] The list from the _Notitia Dignitatum_ is given, _ibid._, pp. 11,
12.

[8] The bank is, strictly speaking, the _agger_, the _vallum_ being the
rampart on the top of the bank.

[9] The large villas of Romano-British landowners, as at Bignor
(Sussex), Chedworth (Gloucestershire), Horkstow (Lincolnshire), were
within easy reach of the military roads, but were not directly upon
them.

[10] The topography of Roman Lincoln is described by Dr E. M. Sympson,
_Lincoln_ (Ancient Cities), 1906, chapter I.

[11] See _Archæologia_, vol. liii., pp. 539-73.

[12] See below as to the blocking of the main gateways at Cilurnum
after the building of the great wall. The small single gateways at
Cilurnum are on the south side of the wall. At Amboglanna both gateways
were south of the wall.

[13] Borcovicus is described by Bruce, _u.s._, pp. 140-60.

[14] Plan in Besnier, _Autun Pittoresque_, 1888. The north-west and
north-east gateways of the Roman city remain, but the centre of the
city was shifted in the middle ages.

[15] Plan in Allcroft, _u.s._, p. 322. As Burgh Castle had the sea on
its west side, it possibly had no west wall. Another tower, on the east
side of the north gateway, has fallen away from the wall.

[16] At Pevensey the foundation of the wall is of chalk and flint,
covered in one part by an upper layer of concrete, composed of flints
bedded in mortar. Below the foundation is a layer of puddled clay,
in which oak stakes were fixed vertically at intervals. See L. F.
Salzmann, F.S.A., _Excavations at Pevensey_, 1906-7, in _Sussex
Archæol. Collections_, vol. li.

[17] Cilurnum is described by Bruce, _u.s._, pp. 86-119, with plan. See
also the description and plan in _An Account of the Roman Antiquities
Preserved in the Museum at Chesters_, 1903, pp. 87-120.

[18] This was not invariable. At Cilurnum the main street was from east
to west, and this was also the case at Corstopitum (Corbridge-on-Tyne).

[19] In this case, the first cohort of the Tungri.

[20] The tenth cohort of the legion had its quarters here: hence the
name.

[21] Or the east and west gateways, as already noted, at Cilurnum. The
_forum_ occupied the centre of Cilurnum, the _praetorium_ forming a
block of buildings east of the centre. The first wing or squadron of
the Astures was stationed at Cilurnum.

[22] Prof. Haverfield holds the view that this southern extension is
post-Roman. See _Archæol. Journal_, lxvi. 350.

[23] The same thing happened at Lincoln, where the eastern wall of
the city followed a line now covered by the eastern transept of the
cathedral.

[24] Wat’s dyke, of which remains can be traced south of Wrexham and
near Oswestry, was to the east of Offa’s dyke.

[25] _A.-S. Chron._, anno 547.

[26] Bede, _Hist. Ecc._, iii. 16.

[27] It may be noted that not all names in “borough” and “bury” are
derived from _burh_ and _byrig_. Some are merely derived from _beorh_
or _beorg_ = a hill (dative _beorge_).

[28] See Oman, _Art of War_, p. 120.

[29] In Germany the word _burg_ is also applied to the citadel of a
town or to a castle. In England and France more careful discrimination
was made between the two types of stronghold.

[30] References to _burhs_ wrought by Edward and his sister Æthelflæd
will be found in _A.-S. Chron_. under the dates mentioned in the text.
There is some variety of opinion with regard to the exact accuracy of
these dates.

[31] _A.-S. Chron._, sub anno.

[32] _A.-S. Chron._, sub anno. The true date seems to be 837 or 838.

[33] The chief authority for the early invasions of the Northmen in
France is the _Annales Bertinenses_, of which the portion from 836 to
861 is attributed to Prudentius, bishop of Troyes.

[34] _Timbrian_ is the ordinary Anglo-Saxon word for “to build,” but it
indicates the prevalent material used for building.

[35] This is the main contention of the theory so attractively
enunciated by the late G. T. Clark, and endorsed by the authority of
Professor Freeman.

[36] Nottingham castle is, in fact, considerably to the west of the
probable site of the Saxon _burh_, which was more or less identical
with the “English borough” of the middle ages, the western part of
Nottingham being known as the “French borough.”

[37] The Danes were again at Tempsford in 1010, and, if the earthwork
is of pre-Conquest date, it is more likely to have been thrown up
during the earlier than during the later visit.

[38] The story (_A.S. Chron._, sub an. 755) of the murder of Cynewulf
and its consequences, mentions the _burh_ or _burg_ of Merton with its
gate: the house in which the king was murdered within the _burh_ is
called _bur_ (_i.e._, bower, private chamber).

[39] Dr J. H. Round, _Feudal England_, 1909, p. 324, points to the
phrase _hoc castellum refirmaverat_ in the Domesday notice of Ewias,
as indicative of the existence of the castle before the Conquest, and
gives other reasons for the identification.

[40] Domesday, i., f. 23; “Castrum Harundel Tempore Regis Edwardi
reddebat de quodam molino xl solidos,” etc. “Castrum Harundel,”
however, applies to the town, not the castle; and it does not follow
that the name was given to the town before the Conquest.

[41] Ord. Vit., _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 14; “id castellum situm est in
acutissima rupe mari contigua.” The phrase may be used generally to
describe a site which, in Ordericus’ own day, had become famous for its
castle.

[42] Ord. Vit., _Hist. Eccl._ iv. 4.

[43] The Tower of London was outside the east wall of the medieval
city. Baynard’s castle was at the point where the west wall approached
the Thames.

[44] Ord. Vit., _op. cit._, iv. 4; “pinnas ac turres ... in
munimentis addebant vel restaurabant ... Portæ offirmatæ erant,
densæque turbæ in propugnaculis et per totum muri ambitum prostabant.”

[45] The foundation of these castles is noted by Ord. Vit., iv. 4, 5.

[46] The word “bailey” (_ballium_) literally means a palisaded
enclosure. The synonym “ward,” applied to the various enclosed
divisions of a medieval castle, means a guarded enclosure. The term
“base-court” (_basse-cour_) is also applied to the bailey.

[47] It should be noted that at York there were not two distinct
_burhs_ or fortified towns, such as are found in the earlier cases. The
river passed through and bisected the _burh_, which was surrounded by
an earthen bank, save at the point where the Foss formed the boundary
of the city.

[48] Domesday, i. 248 _b_.

[49] An example of this is the fine earthwork at Lilbourne, in
Northamptonshire. There are many other instances, and the lesser bailey
at Clun partakes of this character.

[50] There are cases, of course, which give rise to perplexity. Thus
at Earls Barton, in Northamptonshire, the famous pre-Conquest church
tower stands on a site which appears to be within the original limit
of the ditch of the adjacent castle mount. It is doubtful, however,
whether the mount was ever ditched on this side; and the church does
not encroach upon the mount.

[51] Cæsar, _De Bell. Gall._, vii. 73; “huic [vallo] loricam pinnasque
adiecit, grandibus cervis eminentibus ad commissuras pluteorum atque
aggeris, qui ascensum hostium tardarent.” See p. 60 below.

[52] See Enlart, ii. 494.

[53] Domfront, however, on its rocky site, may, like Richmond, have
been surrounded by a stone wall from the first.

[54] L. Blanchetière, _Le Donjon ou Château féodal de Domfront (Orne)_,
1893, pp. 29, 30.

[55] See note above, p. 45.

[56] Ord. Vit., iii. 5.

[57] The essential portions of these texts are quoted by Enlart, ii.
497-9.

[58] The “lesser donjon” at Falaise, which contained the great chamber,
is a rectangular projection of two stories from the great donjon.

[59] Mrs Armitage in _Eng. Hist. Review_, xix. 443-7.

[60] Ord. Vit., viii. 12; “fossis et densis sepibus.”

[61] _Ibid._, viii. 24; “Hic machinas construxit, contra munimentum
hostile super rotulas egit, ingentia saxa in oppidum et oppidanos
projecit, bellatores assultus dare docuit, quibus vallum et sepes
circumcingentes diruit, et culmina domorum super inhabitantes dejecit.”

[62] Ord. Vit., viii. 13; “Callidi enim obsessores in fabrili fornace,
quæ in promptu structa fuerat, ferrum missilium callefaciebant,
subitoque super tectum principalis aulæ in munimentis jaciebant, et
sic ferrum candens sagittarum atque pilorum in arida veterum lanugine
imbricum totis nisibus figebant.”

[63] See J. H Round, _Castles of the Conquest_ (_Archæologia_, lviii.
333).

[64] _Adulterinus_ = spurious, counterfeit.

[65] Cæsar, _Bell. Gall._, vii. 68 _seq._ Alesia, near the modern
village of Alise-la-Reine, is in the Côte d’Or department, some 36
miles N.W. of Dijon.

[66] Cæsar, _De Bell. Civ._, ii. 1 _seq._

[67] A detailed account of this siege is given by Oman, _Art of War_,
pp. 140-7.

[68] Enlart, ii. 413, 414.

[69] Ord. Vit., vii. 10.

[70] _Ibid._ “Rex itaque quoddam municipium in valle Beugici construxit
ibique magnam militum copiam ad arcendum hostem constituit.”

[71] _Ibid._, viii. 2.

[72] _Ibid._, viii. 23; Roger of Wendover.

[73] Thus Henry I., in his wars with Louis VI., conducted one blockade
by building two castles, which the enemy called derisively Malassis and
Gête-aux-Lièvres (Ord. Vit., xii. 1). So also (_ibid._, xii. 22) his
castle of Mäte-Putain near Rouen. Many other instances might be named.

[74] Oman, _Art of War_, pp. 135, 139: his authority is Guy of Amiens,
whose poetical rhetoric, however, may not be altogether accurate in
description.

[75] Ord. Vit., viii. 24. _Cf._ viii. 16, where Robert of Normandy,
another great Crusader, besieging Courcy-sur-Dives in 1091, caused
a great wooden tower or belfry (_berfredum_) to be built, which was
burned by the defenders. Robert of Bellême was also present at this
siege.

[76] See below, p. 99.

[77] Suger, _Gesta Ludovici Grossi_ (ed. Molinier, pp. 63-66).

[78] Pent-houses were sometimes elaborately defended. Thus Joinville
describes the large “cats” made by St Louis’ engineers to protect
the soldiers who were making a causeway across an arm of the Nile
near Mansurah (1249-50). These had towers at either end, with covered
guard-houses behind the towers, and were called _chats-châteaux_.

[79] See the account of the sieges of Boves and Château-Gaillard
by Guillaume le Breton, _Philippis_, books ii. and vii. At the
siege of Zara in the fourth Crusade, after five days of fruitless
stone-throwing, the Crusaders began to undermine a tower which led to
the surrender of the city (Villehardouin).

[80] Abbo: see the account of the siege of Paris above.

[81] Ord. Vit., ix. 15: “Machinam, quam ligneum possumus vocitare
castellum.” It was strictly a belfry (see below).

[82] _Ibid._

[83] _Cf._ the account of the operations at the siege of Marseilles
(Cæsar, _De Bell. Civ._, ii. 11): “Musculus ex turri latericia a
nostris telis tormentisque defenditur.”

[84] The _porte-coulis_ is literally a sliding door. Its outer bars
fitted into grooves in the walls on either side. See pp. 227, 229.

[85] Vitruvius, _De Architectura_, x. 13, § 3, mentions among Roman
scaling-machines, an inclined plane, “ascendentem machinam qua ad murum
plano pede transitus esse posset.”

[86] Guillaume le Breton, _Philippis_, book vii. This poem is an
important source of information for the wars of Philip Augustus, and
for the siege of Château-Gaillard in particular.

[87] Ord. Vit., ix. 13.

[88] _Ibid._, ix. 11.

[89] _Ibid._, xii. 36.

[90] This is the usual distinction. But the use of the names varies.
In Vitruvius (_op. cit._, x. 10, 11) the _catapulta_ or _scorpio_ is a
machine for shooting arrows, while the _ballista_ is used for throwing
stones. The pointed stakes at the siege of Marseilles (Cæsar, _De Bell.
Civ._, ii. 2) were shot from _ballistae_. Vitruvius indicates several
methods of working the _ballista_ by torsion: “aliae enim vectibus et
suculis (levers and winches), nonnullae polyspastis (pulleys), aliae
ergatis (windlasses), quaedam etiam tympanorum (wheels) torquentur
rationibus.”

[91] For the injuries inflicted by stone-throwing machines, see
Villehardouin’s mention of the wounding of Guillaume de Champlitte at
Constantinople, and of Pierre de Bracieux at Adrianople.

[92] Oman, _op. cit._, 139, quotes Anna Comnena to this effect.

[93] Stone-throwing engines and _ballistae_ alike were employed by
the Saracens at Mansurah (1250), for hurling Greek fire at the towers
constructed by St Louis to protect his causeway-makers (Joinville).

[94] Thus, in the first siege of Constantinople by the Crusaders
(1203), Villehardouin emphasises the number of siege-machines used by
the besiegers upon shipboard and on land, but gives no account of their
use by the defenders. They were employed, however, by the defence, as
we have seen at Marseilles; see also Chapter I. above, for possible
traces of their use in the stations of the Roman wall. A special
platform might in some cases be constructed for them and wheeled to the
back of the rampart-walk.

[95] Such crenellations are indicated even in the timber defences at
Alesia and Trebonius’ second rampart at Marseilles. They are familiar
features of oriental fortification, _e.g._, of the great wall of China
or the walls and gates of Delhi.

[96] This roof was sometimes gabled, the timbers, as in the donjon at
Coucy, following and resting on the slope of the coping of the parapet.

[97] Sometimes, as at Constantinople in 1204 (Villehardouin), towers
were heightened by the addition of one or more stages of wood. _Cf._
the heightening of the unfinished _tête-du-pont_ at Paris in 885-6.

[98] Clark, i. 68-120, gives an elaborate list of castles in England
and Wales at this date. A large number, however, of those which he
mentions, had been already destroyed; and many were of later foundation.

[99] Accounts of this rebellion are given by Benedict of Peterborough
and Roger of Hoveden.

[100] Nottingham was a foundation of the Conqueror: Newark was not
founded until after 1123.

[101] Ord. Vit., xi. 2, mentions the capture of the castle of Blyth
(Blida castrum) by Henry I. from Robert de Bellême. By this Tickhill is
probably meant. It is four miles from Blyth, where was a Benedictine
priory founded by Roger de Busli, the first Norman lord of Tickhill,
and granted by him to the priory of Ste-Trinité-du-Mont at Rouen.
Ordericus, who, as a monk of a Norman abbey, was familiar with the name
of Blyth priory, may have supposed the castle of Roger de Busli to have
been at Blyth.

[102] See Rymer, _Fœdera_ (Rec. Com., 1816), vol. i. pt. i. p. 429:
“castrum de Pontefracto, quod est quasi clavis in comitatu Eborum.”

[103] The remains are chiefly of the second quarter of the fifteenth
century; but it was a residence of the archbishops as early as the
twelfth century.

[104] A. Harvey, _Bristol_ (Ancient Cities), pp. 35, 116.

[105] Rob. de Monte, quoted by Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 8th ed.,
1905, p. 128: “Rex Henricus coepit revocare in jus proprium urbes,
castella, villas, quae ad coronam regni pertinebant, castella noviter
facta destruendo.”

[106] The curtain (Lat. _cortina_, Fr. _courtine_) is a general name
for the wall enclosing a courtyard, and is thus applied to the wall
round the castle enclosure.

[107] Martène, _Thesaurus Anecdotorum_, iv. 47, quoted by Enlart, ii.
418. From _alatorium_ is derived the word _allure_, often employed as a
technical term for a rampart-walk.

[108] Ord. Vit., v. 19: “Lapideam munitionem, qua prudens Ansoldus
domum suam cinxerat, cum ipsa domo dejecit.” In this case the wall
seems to have been built, not round an open courtyard, but round a
house or tower. The French term for a fortified wall, forming the outer
defence of a single building, is _chemise_. Thus, in a mount-and-bailey
castle, the palisade round the tower on the mount was, strictly
speaking, a _chemise_, while that round the bailey was a curtain.

[109] Ord. Vit., vii. 10.

[110] _Ibid._, viii. 23.

[111] _Ibid._, viii. 5. Robert, son of Giroie, “castellum Sancti
Cerenici ... muris et vallis speculisque munivit.”

[112] “Herring-bone” masonry consists of courses of rubble bedded
diagonally in mortar, alternating with horizontal courses of thin
stones, the whole arrangement resembling the disposition of the bones
in the back of a fish. The horizontal courses are frequently omitted,
and their place is taken by thick layers of mortar.

[113] See _Yorks. Archæol. Journal_, xx. 132, where the evidence quoted
points to the conclusion “that the doorway was not erected later than
about 1075.” Harvey, _Castles and Walled Towns_, p. 85, assumes that
the doorway was cut through the south wall of the tower at a later
date: the evidence of the masonry is decisively against this idea.

[114] The architectural history of Ludlow castle has been thoroughly
examined by Mr W. H. St John Hope in an invaluable paper in
_Archæologia_, lxi. 258-328.

[115] The original design probably included an upper chamber of
moderate height. There was, however, a considerable interval between
the completion of the gateway and the building of the upper stage.

[116] The large outer bailey at Ludlow was an addition to the original
castle, late in the twelfth century, and is contemporary with the
blocking of the gatehouse entrance. Originally the castle consisted
merely of the present inner ward. The outer bailey or base-court gave
enlarged accommodation for the garrison, and contained stables, barns,
and other offices for which there was no room in the inner ward.

[117] The explanation of this passage through the wall was long a
mystery. Clark, ii. 278, recognised that it led from an outer to an
inner “room,” but was puzzled by the bar-holes which showed that the
doors had been carefully defended.

[118] Mr Hope thinks that it was originally intended to cover the
gateway with a semicircular barrel-vault. The lower stage of the keep
at Richmond has a ribbed vault with central column. This, however,
with the vice, now blocked, in the south-west corner, was inserted
many years after the building of the great tower on the site of the
gatehouse.

[119] The string-courses of the upper stages of the tower, and the
windows of the southern chamber, which was of the full height of the
two upper stories, and probably formed the chapel of the castle, have
further enrichment; but the detail is nowhere elaborate. See T. M.
Blagg, F.S.A., _A Guide to Newark, &c._, 2nd ed., pp. 19-22.

[120] Harvey, _op. cit._, p. 98, says that Newark castle “has now no
trace of a keep, and possibly never possessed one.” The gatehouse,
however, may fairly be considered as belonging to the category of
tower-keeps, and has one characteristic of that type of building—viz.,
the cross-wall which divides the upper stages, and is borne by an
archway in the centre of the gateway passage.

[121] The churches of Upton, near Gainsborough, Burghwallis, near
Doncaster, and Lois Weedon in Northamptonshire, are examples of this
type. “Herring-bone” work occurs at Brixworth, in a portion of the
tower to which a pre-Conquest date cannot safely be attributed. At
Marton, near Gainsborough, it occurs in a tower of “Saxon” type, which
was probably not built until after the Conquest. It is found twice at
York, but the date of the so-called Saxon work in the crypt of the
minster is very doubtful; while the tower of St Mary Bishophill Junior,
although Saxon in type, is more likely to be Norman in date. Examples
of “herring-bone” work in the churches of Normandy are found, _e.g._,
at Périers and in the apse at Cérisy-la-Forêt (Calvados).

[122] The donjon of Falaise belongs to the early part of the twelfth
century, and is therefore a late example of “herring-bone” work. The
“herring-bone” work in the keep at Guildford is probably still later,
and that in the curtain wall at Lincoln, raised on the top of earthen
banks, can hardly be attributed to a very early date.

[123] It has also been noted in the tower of Marton church, near
Gainsborough.

[124] The lodge which now occupies its site was built in 1815, while
the present main entrance to the castle, south-west of the mount, was
made in 1810, and is quite outside the original _enceinte_.

[125] See note 122 on p. 100.

[126] A curtain is said to be flanked when its line is broken at
intervals by projections, so near one another that the whole face of
the piece of curtain between them can be covered by the fire of the
defenders stationed in them.

[127] Much of the curtain of Lancaster castle is of fairly early date.
For the supposed Roman origin of the castle and its probable history,
see note 354 on p. 327 below.

[128] These additions have given rise to the common theory that this
hall is a work of late twelfth century date.

[129] Other examples of early stone halls will be mentioned in a later
chapter.

[130] This is very noticeable in Shropshire, where a large number of
parish churches, to which rectors were presented and instituted in the
ordinary way, are described as free chapels in the registers of the
bishops of Lichfield and Hereford during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries.

[131] See Pat. Rolls, 18 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 28; 3 Hen. IV., pt. 1, m.
6.

[132] Pat. 2 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 4. The walls of this chapel,
dedicated to St Peter, remain. In the fifteenth century it was enlarged
as far as the west curtain by a western annexe, and in the sixteenth
century it was divided into two floors, the upper floor being the
court-house, and the lower floor the record-room of the court of the
Marches.

[133] Pat. 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 24.

[134] The word _keep_ is a comparatively modern term, unknown to
medieval castle-builders, to whom this part of the castle was the
_donjon_ or _dungeon_, or the _great tower_.

[135] Other important shell keeps of the normal type are at Arundel,
Cardiff (114), Carisbrooke (111), Farnham, Lewes, Pickering, Totnes,
and Tonbridge—the last one of the most considerable and finest examples.

[136] Clifford’s tower at York is sometimes quoted as a shell keep. It
was actually a tower with a forebuilding.

[137] See Enlart, ii. 500, 676: Anthyme Saint-Paul, _Histoire
Monumentale_, p. 168, gives the date 993, with an expression of doubt.
Fulk the Black was count of Anjou 987-1039.

[138] Enlart, ii. 685, says “début du xiiᵉ siècle.”

[139] Ord. Vit., xii. 14.

[140] _Ibid._, viii. 19.

[141] _Ibid._, x. 18.

[142] _Ibid._, xi. 20: _adulterina castella_ is the phrase used.

[143] Enlart, ii. 710. Blanchetière, _op. cit._, 83, mentions Henry’s
operations in 1123, but believes in an earlier date for the donjon.

[144] Rad. de Diceto, _Abbrev. Chron._, sub anno.

[145] _Pipe Roll Soc._, vol. i., pp. 13, 14; iv. 23.

[146] _Ibid._, i. 27.

[147] _Ibid._, i. 29, 30, 31; ii. 14; iv. 36; v. 50; vi. 57, 58; vii.
11, 12; xii. 79; xiii. 31.

[148] _Ibid._, ii. 12; v. 49.

[149] _Ibid._, iv. 35.

[150] _Ibid._, iv. 39.

[151] _Ibid._, iv. 40.

[152] _Ibid._, viii. 89; ix. 59, etc.

[153] _Ibid._, xiii. 107, 108; xv. 132; xvi. 32.

[154] _E.g._, _ibid._, xiii. 140.

[155] _Ibid._, xvi. 32; xviii. 110.

[156] _Ibid._, xviii. 110.

[157] _Ibid._, xiii. 161.

[158] _Ibid._, v. 35.

[159] _Ibid._, xix. 53.

[160] Charles Dawson, _Hastings Castle_, ii. 524.

[161] _Pipe Roll Soc._, ix. 17; xi. 18; xii. 15; xiii. 95; xv. 2; xvi.
2.

[162] _Ibid._, xviii. 16; xix. 68.

[163] _Ibid._, xix. 167; xxi. 77; see also xvi. 92.

[164] _Pipe Roll Soc._, xvi. 118, 119.

[165] _Ibid._, xvi. 141.

[166] _Ibid._, xvi. 137.

[167] _Ibid._, xix. 81.

[168] _Ibid._, xviii. 7; xix. 173.

[169] _Ibid._, xviii. 66; xix. 110; xxii. 183. Malcolm, king of Scots,
yielded Bamburgh, Carlisle, and Newcastle to Henry II. in 1157; and the
towers at all three places were begun within a few years of this event.
That at Bamburgh is mentioned in 1164.

[170] _Ibid._, xix. 2.

[171] See evidence brought by Mrs Armitage, _Eng. Hist. Rev._, xix.
443-7.

[172] Ord. Vit., iv. 1. He calls these strongholds _firmamenta quaedam_.

[173] _A.S. Chron._, sub anno.

[174] Such cross-walls, found in the larger towers, were not merely
useful as partitions between the rooms. They enabled the builders to
lay their floors more conveniently, as timber of sufficient scantling
for so large an undivided space was obtainable with difficulty. In case
of the great tower being taken by storm, the cross-wall on each floor
formed a barrier to the besiegers, shutting off the tower as it did
into two halves. This is well seen, for example, at Porchester.

[175] At Norham and Kenilworth the towers are at an angle of the inner
ward where the two wards are adjacent. At Porchester it is at an outer
angle of the inner ward, so that two of its sides are on the outer
curtain of the castle.

[176] At Hedingham and Rochester there are mural galleries above the
level of the second floor, the height of which therefore corresponds
to that of two external stories. Both towers are exceptionally lofty,
Rochester being 113, Hedingham 100 feet high.

[177] We know from the Pipe Roll for 1173-4 that work was being done at
Guildford in that year (_Pipe Roll Soc._, xxi. 3).

[178] This points to two separate dates for the structure. The earlier
masonry has been attributed to Bishop Flambard, who founded the castle
in 1121; the later to Bishop Pudsey, who made additions to the castle
about 1157. If this is so, the history of the tower is parallel to that
of Porchester—a low stone tower, possibly of the reign of Henry I.,
heightened in the reign of Henry II.

[179] Porchester, in spite of its great size, is a tower which was
apparently built for exclusively military purposes. The floors are
feebly lighted, and there is no fireplace in the building.

[180] Both these castles belong to the class of cliff strongholds which
were walled from their earliest foundation.

[181] Further alterations were made in the fifteenth century, when a
new stair was inserted in the north-east angle, and the outer stair
against the west wall was removed.

[182] For the reason, see note 174 on pp. 121, 122.

[183] Legends about the cruelties practised on prisoners, often
connected with these basement chambers, need not be believed too
readily. Specially constructed prison chambers in castles usually
belong to a period later than the twelfth century. On the origin of the
word “dungeon” see Chapter III.

[184] See the description of the tower at Ardres in Chapter III. Such
upper floors were probably divided into rooms by wooden partitions.

[185] It was thus impossible to reach the roof from the first floor
without passing through the second-floor chamber—a precaution which was
adopted also in the cylindrical tower at Conisbrough.

[186] Here the basement was probably used as a prison. The upper part
of the original stair still remains.

[187] There are indications, however, of a second chapel in the keep
itself, occupying the south-east angle of the third floor.

[188] The recently excavated chapel of the great tower of Old Sarum was
a vaulted building occupying the south-eastern part of the basement of
the tower itself. It was entered directly from the bailey, and had no
direct communication with the first floor of the tower.

[189] Such as the so-called oratories in the fore-buildings of Dover
and Newcastle.

[190] At Old Sarum, the room in the basement, west of the chapel, was
probably the kitchen.

[191] _Cf._ the employment of one of the angle towers at the later
castle of Langley in Northumberland as a garde-robe tower. Some of the
late medieval pele-towers of the north of England, _e.g._, Chipchase
and Corbridge, provide excellent examples of mural garde-robes with
corbelled-out seats.

[192] Roger of Wendover, ann. 1215.

[193] See the description of the fortifications of Antioch in Oman,
_Art of War_, pp. 527-9; plan facing p. 283.

[194] _Ibid._, 526-7.

[195] Enlart, ii. 504.

[196] _Ibid._, ii. 508: it is attributed to Amaury, count of Evreux
(1105-37): the masonry (_ibid._, 461) is of coursed rubble with
bonding-courses of ashlar.

[197] See note 161, p. 119. The keep of Orford is described at some
length by Harvey, _Castles and Walled Towns_, pp. 106-111.

[198] Enlart, ii. 505.

[199] Possibly there was a trap-door in the centre of each floor: see
below. All the floors are gone above the entrance stage.

[200] An embrasure is the splay or inner opening of a window. The word
is also applied to the openings between the _merlons_ or solid pieces
of a crenellated parapet.

[201] See pp. 217, 230, 233.

[202] It may also be noted that the practice of placing windows
immediately above one another would be naturally avoided, as tending to
weaken the masonry of the whole wall at these points. This is well seen
in the irregular position of the numerous loops which light the vice of
the donjon at Coucy.

[203] Enlart, ii. 735, gives the date of the donjon (Tour Guinette) at
Etampes as about 1140.

[204] Enlart, ii. 674, gives the date of completion at Issoudun as 1202.

[205] Or _mâchecoulis_. _Coulis_ = a groove. The first part of the word
is probably derived from _mâcher_ = to break or crush, and implies the
purpose effected by missiles sent through those openings.

[206] Drawing in Enlart, ii. 504. Here there are two rectangular
towers, with rounded angle-turrets, connected by a lofty intermediate
building.

[207] The same cause undoubtedly led, at an earlier date, to the
covering of Syrian churches with roofs of stone.

[208] Château-Gaillard was on the French side of the Seine, in
territory purchased by Richard I. from the archbishop of Rouen.

[209] E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Le Château de Coucy_, pp. 48, 49, shows
that the donjon forms part of the latest work undertaken by Enguerrand
III., lord of Coucy, the founder of the present castle, who died in
1242: it was evidently completed about 1240.

[210] The town walls appear to be rather earlier than the castle
(_ibid._, 34).

[211] On the third floor, these niches are divided into two stages
and connected by an upper gallery which pierces the abutments of the
vault, and surrounds the whole apartment. The method of vaulting this
gallery behind the abutments, so as to give additional resistance to
the masonry of the tower, is described by Lefèvre-Pontalis, _op. cit._
94: see plan _ibid._, p. 93.

[212] In the angle-towers at Coucy, however, the stairs take the form
of vices, and do not curve with the wall, although ceasing at each
floor.

[213] The gabled coping of the parapet formed the central support
for the sloping roof of the outer gallery and of the corresponding
_coursière_ on the inner side.

[214] It stands on a promontory between two creeks at the head of the
inlet known as the Pembroke river.

[215] The domestic buildings may be in part earlier, but were largely
reconstructed in the thirteenth century.

[216] The tower is sometimes described as being of five stages: the
dome, however, was merely a vault, and did not form a separate stage.

[217] An account of Flint castle is given by Harvey, _Castles and
Walled Towns_, p. 123 _seq._ Speed’s map of Flintshire, made _c._ 1604,
shows that the tower was joined to the adjacent curtain by a wall, the
rampart-walk of which probably gave access to the entrance on the first
floor of the tower.

[218] In 1277 the castle of Flint was a timber structure, so that the
present work cannot be earlier than the end of the thirteenth century.
The masonry is composed of large blocks of yellow sandstone, decayed
where they are exposed to the tide. There was an outer bailey, the
platform of which alone remains, with a ditch between it and the castle
proper.

[219] These holes do not, however, surround the tower, so that the
passage may have been only partially roofed.

[220] The keep of Launceston was probably built about the close of the
twelfth century: that at Flint later, as already noted.

[221] Reproduced in _Memorials of Old Yorkshire_, 1909, opposite p. 256.

[222] _I.e._, retaining walls used to face (_revêtir_) a sloping
surface.

[223] A bartizan is a small turret or lookout corbelled out at an
angle of a tower or on the surface of a wall. The word is connected
with “brattice” (_bretèche_); and such turrets, like the machicolated
parapet, are the stone counterpart of the bratticing and hoarding of
timber applied to fortresses at an earlier date.

[224] Ventress’s model of the castle, made in 1852, shows the great
hall near the north-east corner of the outer ward, its west end being
nearly opposite the main entrance of the castle. The outer ward nearly
surrounded the small inner ward, which contained the keep.

[225] At Richmond the hall and its adjacent buildings were unusually
complete for their date, and the tower-keep was not planned as a
dwelling-house. None of our tower-keeps, Porchester excepted, are so
purely military in character.

[226] The origin of this term is doubtful; some think it to be a
corruption of “barbican”—a work covering the entrance to the house
or castle proper. Large outer baileys, as at Ludlow (96) and Coucy,
correspond to the “barmkins” of the north of England.

[227] At Arundel, Cardiff, and Warwick, mount-and-bailey castles which
are still inhabited, the present great halls stand on sites which
were doubtless occupied by the original halls built by the founders.
All three were largely rebuilt at a later date, and have been further
restored in modern times. Warwick was one of the Conqueror’s earliest
castles; Arundel was founded before 1086, Cardiff about 1093. A large
portion of the _enceinte_ at Cardiff follows the line of the curtain of
the Roman station (see _Archæologia_, lvii. pp. 335-52).

[228] At Boothby Pagnell there is a cylindrical chimney-shaft very
similar to that of the hall at Christchurch.

[229] The usual arrangement even in small cottages: _cf._ Chaucer,
_Cant. Tales_, B. 4022 (the house of the dairy-woman in the Nonne
Preestes Tale), “Ful sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle.”

[230] The word “solar” or “soller” (_solarium_ = a terrace exposed to
the sun) was used indiscriminately of any room, gallery, or loft above
the ground-level of a building: _e.g._, the loft or gallery above a
chancel-screen was commonly known as a “solar,” and the same word
should be applied to the chamber, inaccurately called a “parvise,” on
the first floor of a church porch. The word, however, is sometimes
applied to a well-lighted parlour facing south, without respect to
the floor on which it stands, _e.g._, the abbot’s solar at Haughmond
(_Archæol. Journal_, lxvi. 307) and at Jervaulx (_Yorks. Archæol.
Journal_, xxi. 337).

[231] Ord. Vit., iv. 19: “Super solarium ... tesseris ludere ceperunt.”
The word “solarium” may be used, of course, in this passage with
reference merely to the site of the house—_i.e._, it may mean “the
first floor above the ground.” In this case William and Henry may have
been playing dice in the hall itself, which, as at Christchurch, may
have occupied the whole “solarium.” Robert was evidently outside the
house.

[232] Bates, _Border Holds of Northumberland_ attributes the walling,
etc., of Warkworth castle “on its present general lines” to Robert,
son of Roger (1169-1214), who obtained in 1199, for 300 marks, a
confirmation of the grant of the castle and manor from John.

[233] So called in Clarkson’s survey, made in 1567. One explanation of
the name is that the tower was similar to one in Carrickfergus castle,
on Belfast Lough. Clarkson describes its polygonal form as “round of
divers squares.”

[234] This entrance has been blocked, and the modern entrance has been
cut through a window-opening, in the adjoining bay to the west.

[235] The aisle-walls are low and the whole building is covered by a
single high-pitched roof, so that there is no clerestory.

[236] The same feature occurs at the west end of the great hall at
Auckland, where the daïs was placed: there are regular responds at the
east end, but the eastern bay was made somewhat wider than the rest, to
give room for the screens.

[237] Bishop Bek (1284-1311) probably heightened the aisle-walls and
inserted traceried windows. Cosin (1660-72) rebuilt the greater part
of the outer walls, renewed Bek’s windows, and added the present
clerestory and roof: the splendid screen, which divides the chapel from
the ante-chapel, was also part of his work.

[238] The work of this late period is attributed to Bishop Tunstall
(1530-59). Cosin at a later date made additions to the chapel.

[239] At the fortified manor-house of Drayton, some fourteen miles
south-east of Rockingham, the great hall is a fabric of the later half
of the thirteenth century, although the date has been obscured by later
alterations. The vaulted cellar at the east end of the hall (_c._ 1270)
is almost intact; but the great chamber above was rebuilt about the end
of the seventeenth century.

[240] As at Penshurst. The hearth-stone remains at Stokesay. At Haddon
the great fireplace in the west wall was inserted several years after
the hall was built.

[241] At Harlech the kitchen was at right angles to the hall, against
the south curtain.

[242] The words “horn-work,” “demilune,” or “ravelin,” were applied in
later fortification to flanked outworks which presented a salient angle
to the field, _i.e._, on the side of attack. To such defences in the
middle ages the general name of “barbican” seems to have been given.

[243] The mining operations, so successful at Château-Gaillard, were
not without their own danger to the miners. In the siege of Coucy by
the count of Saint-Pol in 1411, the traditional method was used to
undermine one of the towers of the base-court. A party of the besiegers
descended to admire the preparations. The wooden stays, however, were
not strong enough to support the weight of the tower, which fell
unexpectedly, and buried the men in the mine. Their remains have never
come to light.

[244] These are additions to the wall, probably made soon after the
building of the great cylindrical tower. The wall seems to be of the
earlier part of the twelfth century, and may have enclosed the bailey
from the first. No traces of a mount remain.

[245] The position of Appleby town and castle, within a great sweep of
the Eden, is somewhat similar.

[246] Apartments, known as the Constable’s lodging, were on the first
floor of the gatehouse: the portcullis probably descended through the
thickness of the south wall of this floor, which was not pierced for a
window.

[247] The common idea that molten lead was poured through these holes
on the besiegers is a mere legend. This valuable material would hardly
have been employed for this purpose. Powdered quick-lime, however, may
have been used, with even more deadly effect.

[248] This applies, of course, to almost all vaulted towers which
are cylindrical in plan, and not to gatehouse towers alone: _e.g._,
the towers of the inner ward of Coucy. But, even where there is
no vaulting, the interior plan of cylindrical towers is sometimes
polygonal—_e.g._, in the western angle-towers at Harlech, on all floors
as well as in the basement. In the eastern angle-towers of the same
castle, the interior of the basements is cylindrical. Clark, ii. 73,
describes these angle-towers inaccurately.

[249] The entrances to such guard-rooms, where great thickness was
given to the outer wall, took the form of narrow elbow-shaped lobbies,
which would be a source of difficulty and deception to an attacking
force.

[250] The Black gate was built in 1247: the entrance was protected by
an outer barbican in 1358.

[251] Holes in the masonry for the beam to which the pulley was fixed
may be seen, _e.g._, in the gateways at Conway and Rhuddlan.

[252] At Sandal (86) there was a barbican guarding the entrance to a
shell-keep.

[253] Conisbrough is virtually a castle of one ward set on an isolated
hill, not unlike Restormel in Cornwall.

[254] The entrance may be compared to the more perfect plan of the
barbican and platform at Conway (254).

[255] The wall of _enceinte_ at Scarborough is probably in great part
the wall which defended the castle from its foundation.

[256] They appear to have been a feature of the keep at Pontefract;
_cf._ also Micklegate, Monk, and Bootham bars at York, which have
bartizans at the outer angles. At Lincoln the wall of the upper floor
of the gatehouse, between the bartizans, presents an obtuse angle to
the field.

[257] The main gatehouse (Belle-Chaise) was built under abbot Tustin
(1236-64); the _châtelet_ was added under Pierre Le Roy in 1393.

[258] The fortifications of Coucy were built in the thirteenth century:
the round tower in front of the Porte de Laon was superseded in 1551
by a bastion of pentagonal form. The southern gate of Coucy (Porte
de Soissons) was made in a re-entering angle of the town wall: the
southern gate at Conway (Porth-y-Felin) shows the same disposition. The
walls of Tenby were originally built early in the reign of Edward III.:
letters patent, granting murage for seven years to the men of Tenby for
the construction of their walls, were issued 6th March 1327-28 (Pat. 2
Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 22).

[259] Plan in Oman, _Art of War_, opposite p. 530.

[260] The northern rampart-walk at Coucy was widened by the building
of an arcade of thirteen pointed arches against the inner face of the
wall, connecting a series of internal buttresses. Part of the western
wall of the town of Southampton was widened, some time later than the
actual building of the wall, by the addition of eighteen arches upon
the outer face (293). The soffits of the arches were pierced by long
machicolations—a necessary precaution in so exceptional an arrangement.

[261] In the battlement of the donjon of Coucy, each piece of solid
wall between the arched embrasures is pierced by an arrow-loop (177).

[262] Viollet-le-Duc, _La Cité de Carcassonne_, p. 27, has a drawing
of a similar device with an upper and lower shutter (245): the upper
shutter is propped open by iron guards: while the lower is hung in iron
hooks fixed in the face of the wall.

[263] _Cf._ sections of church parapets in Bond, _Gothic Architecture
in England_, pp. 385-8.

[264] At Kenilworth the Water tower, on the south curtain of the
base-court, has a fireplace in the basement.

[265] Garde-robes built upon arches across re-entering angles of a wall
occur on each side of a large buttress in the west wall of Southampton.
A similar feature occurs at the junction of the north curtain of
Porchester castle with one of the Roman towers. In both cases the
addition was probably made in the fourteenth century.

[266] These towers appear to be of the fourteenth century, and are
therefore much later in date than the towers of the inner curtain.

[267] At Flint, Rhuddlan, and several other castles, the angle-towers
were three-quarter circles, the face towards the bailey being a flat
wall, on which, at Rhuddlan as at Harlech, the rampart-walk was
corbelled out.

[268] These walls, pierced by seven gates and flanked by thirty-nine
rectangular towers, were begun under Pope Clement VI. in 1345, and
finished _c._ 1380. The rampart is reached by stairs set against the
inner face of the walls. The walls of Aigues-Mortes, built 1272-5, and
of Carcassonne, begun earlier and completed later than Aigues-Mortes,
belong to an earlier period of fortification, corresponding to that of
our Edwardian castles. Of other well-known French examples, the walls
of Mont-Saint-Michel are of various dates from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth century: those of Domfront are partly of the thirteenth,
those of Fougères (250) of the fifteenth century, and those of
Saint-Malo chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The
thirteenth-century _enceinte_ of Coucy has already been referred to. A
list of the numerous remains of town walls in France will be found in
Enlart, ii. 623 _seq._, under the name of each department.

[269] Clark, i. 460, 312, 314.

[270] The cross-wall at Carnarvon is gone.

[271] The polygonal towers which flank the great gatehouse at Denbigh
had the same characteristic of obtuse angles, as can be still seen
where the masonry has not been stripped from the rubble core.

[272] The threshold of the gateway was from 35 to 40 feet above the
bottom of the ditch.

[273] The eastern gateway was defended in the same way.

[274] Le Krak (Kala’at-el-Hosn) was rebuilt in 1202, and held by the
Franks till 1271 (Enlart, ii. 536). It was a frontier fortress of the
county of Tripoli in Syria, commanding the mountain country to the
east, and must be distinguished from the great castle of Kerak in Moab,
near the Dead sea, built about 1140, and surrendered in 1188, “the
eastern bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem” (Oman, _Art of War_, 541).
The entrance to the castle of Kerak has been described above, pp. 240,
241.

[275] One feature of the defences of Berkhampstead is the series of
earthen bastions, applied to the outer bank on the north side of the
castle, probably at a date long after the foundation of the stronghold.

[276] The breadth of the “lists” or intermediate defence of
the town-walls at Carcassonne varies. On the steep western and
south-western sides they are very narrow, and in one place are covered
by the rectangular Bishop’s tower. The ground-floor of this was a
gateway, which could be used to shut off one part of the lists from
each other. Of the castle and its defences more will be said later.

[277] At Newcastle the plan was nearly concentric; but the curtains
of the outer and inner ward met at one point, and the outer ward was
a large space, containing the domestic buildings, while the inner was
nearly filled by the keep. The concentric scheme was therefore almost
accidental, and no simultaneous use of both lines of defence was
possible.

[278] _Cf._ the outer ditch constructed to cover the barbican at
Alnwick, where there was possibly a further outwork next the town.

[279] All these gatehouses, like the gatehouse at Rockingham and others
of the same period, have a central passage, flanked by round towers
towards the field. Traitors’ gate, however, has an entrance of great
breadth, wide enough to admit a boat from the river; and the interior
is an oblong pool, without flanking guard-rooms. The round towers cap
the outer angles, but are of relatively small importance in the plan.
The interior pool is actually part of the ditch between the outer ward
and the Thames, and the gateway is “a barbican ... placed astride upon
the ditch” (Clark, ii. 242).

[280] These angle-towers appear to belong in great part to the end of
the twelfth century: the Beauchamp tower is generally attributed to the
reign of Edward III.

[281] These and the adjacent curtain are largely of the twelfth
century: the Bloody tower was added in the fourteenth century.

[282] Thus protecting the quay outside Traitors’ gate. _Cf._ the
spur-wall at Beaumaris.

[283] The thirteenth-century work in the great hall (103) of Chepstow
castle is unusually elaborate for military work of the period: nowhere
in English castles have we such splendour and beauty of detail as that
of which there remain many indications at Coucy.

[284] It was begun about 1267 by Gilbert de Clare, eighth earl of
Gloucester and seventh earl of Hertford (d. 1295).

[285] The inner ward at Kenilworth lay at all points within an outer
line of defence. The outer ward, narrow on the south and west, was
very broad on the east and north, and its western half was cut up into
sections by cross-walls: it was also crossed by a ditch in front of the
inner ward. The lake did not surround the castle, and on the north its
outer defence was a very deep dry ditch.

[286] The partisans of the Despensers held Caerphilly against Queen
Isabel in 1326: its defenders were granted a general pardon, from which
Hugh, son of Hugh le Despenser the younger, was excepted, 15th February
1326-7 (Pat. 1 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 29). One of the defenders, John
Cole, received a special pardon on 20th February (_ibid._, m. 32).
There is no record of a definite siege.

[287] The earthwork or redoubt on the north-west side of the castle is
probably of this period: no definite details of the destruction of the
castle are preserved.

[288] The inner buildings at Rhuddlan have entirely disappeared: traces
of one or two fireplaces are left in the curtain.

[289] At Rhuddlan a passage, protected by an outer wall ending in a
square tower, descended the river-bank to the water-gate.

[290] Clark (i. 217) places the date of foundation about 1295.

[291] The outer drum towers are large and imposing, though low: the
inner angles are capped by smaller towers, which bear much the same
relation to the gatehouses as the outer round towers to Traitors’ gate
in the Tower of London.

[292] Of these towers, that on the west has an outer salient or spur,
on the sides of which two bartizans are corbelled out: these are united
into one, so that the outer face of the upper stage of the tower is
rounded into a semicircle. The eastern tower is smaller, with a solid
base: the western part of the upper portion is corbelled off in the
angle between the tower and a rectangular southern projection. The
upper stages of the towers completely command the approach, while the
projection just mentioned would conceal a small body of defenders
posted between the gateway and the spur-wall (236).

[293] This was not founded by the Crown, like the great castles
of North Wales, but, like Caerphilly, was a private foundation.
It passed by marriage, early in the fourteenth century, into the
possession of the house of Lancaster. Some of the most important
English castles—_e.g._, Kenilworth, Knaresborough, Lancaster, Lincoln,
Pontefract, and Pickering—came at various times into the possession of
this royal house, and, at the accession of Henry IV., became castles of
the Crown as seized of the duchy of Lancaster.

[294] The stair to the rampart-walk, built against the curtain, was,
however, normal in the defences of towns (241).

[295] It may be compared with the division of the outer face of the
polygonal tower at Stokesay into two smaller half-octagons (306).

[296] Viollet-le-Duc’s drawing (_La Cité de Carcassonne_, p.75) shows
a rampart-walk on each of the enclosing walls of this passage. He also
shows the passage crossed by a series of looped barriers, so placed
that each formed a separate line of defence, guarded by a few soldiers,
and compelled an enemy to pursue a zigzag course through the passage.
Much allusion has been already made to oblique and elbow-shaped
contrivances for impeding an enemy’s progress: the antiquity of these
is evident from the entrances to earthworks like Maiden Castle (see
Chapter I.).

[297] Description and plan in Blanchetière, _Le Donjon ... de
Domfront_, pp. 59-63. The date there given is actually earlier than the
probable epoch of construction.

[298] The progress of fire-arms in English warfare was slow. See the
various articles by R. Coltman Clephan, F.S.A., in _Archæol. Journal_,
lxvi., lxvii., and lxviii. The earliest picture of a cannon is in a
MS. at Christ Church, Oxford, written in 1326 (lxviii. 49), while
the earliest mention of a hand-gun in England appears to be in 1338
(lxvi. 153-4). The long-bow continued to be the popular weapon of the
individual English soldier until long after this date.

[299] The ramparts of Saint-Paul-du-Var (Alpes Maritimes) are said
to belong to the epoch of the wars between Francis I. and Charles
V. To the same period belong the fortifications of Lucca, Verona,
and Antwerp. The present walls of Berwick were begun somewhat later,
in 1558, enclosing a space considerably smaller than the original
_enceinte_ of the town, as fortified by Edward I.

[300] Holes with embrasures for cannon were in many cases pierced
in the walls of fortresses during the fifteenth century, or were
formed, as in the eastern tower at Warkworth, by blocking the ordinary
cross-loops through most of their height.

[301] This is very clearly seen in the fortified towns of Italy, or
in the towns founded by Edward I. and by the kings of France in the
southern districts of France.

[302] _Pomerium_ = the space _pone muros_, _i.e._, at the back of the
walls. The word was at first applied to the sacred boundary of Rome and
other towns, which limited the _auspicia_ of the city.

[303] The re-erection of the rectangular wall-turrets at Newcastle,
which are of very slight projection from the wall, appears to date
from 1386: a writ of aid was granted to the mayor and bailiffs on 29th
November in that year for the repair of the walls and bridge of the
town (Pat. 10 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 8).

[304] _I.e._, the lower gate. The north-western gateway is the upper
gate, Porth Uchaf.

[305] Every monastery was, of course, surrounded by a wall; but it was
only in certain cases and after a certain period that such walls were
crenellated.

[306] Pat. 4 Edw. I., m. 12.

[307] _Ibid._, 13 Edw. I., m. 22.

[308] _Ibid._

[309] _Ibid._, m. 15.

[310] _Ibid._, 14 Edw. I., m. 24.

[311] _Ibid._, m. 19 (sched.).

[312] _Ibid._, 24 Edw. I., m. 8.

[313] _Ibid._, 27 Edw. I., m. 29.

[314] _Ibid._, 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 25. The abbot and convent of St
Mary’s, York, had licence to crenellate their wall, except on the side
towards the city, 12th July 1318 (_Ibid._, 12 Edw. II., pt. I, m. 31).

[315] September 1315 (Pat. 9 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 18), and 24th February
1315-6 (_Ibid._, pt. 2, m. 31).

[316] _Ibid._, 12 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 7. No licence for crenellation
had previously been given. The licences, here and elsewhere, explain
that homicide and other crimes in the close by night made walling
desirable. The gates were to be closed from twilight to sunrise.

[317] Burghersh also had licence to crenellate his manor-houses of
Stow Park and Nettleham in Lincolnshire and Liddington in Rutland,
16th November 1336 (Pat. 10 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 18). A comprehensive
licence was granted, 20th July 1377 (_Ibid._, 1 Rich. II., pt. 1, m.
26) to Ralph Erghum, bishop of Salisbury, to wall and crenellate the
city of Salisbury and his manor-houses at Salisbury, Bishop’s Woodford,
Potterne, Bishops Cannings, and Ramsbury in Wilts, Sherborne in Dorset,
Chardstock in Devon, Sonning in Berks, and his house in Fleet Street.

[318] There were four of these double gatehouses in the _enceinte_. The
fifth gatehouse, Pottergate, was single.

[319] Bishop Wyvill had a grant, 1st March 1331-2, of the stones of the
cathedral of Old Sarum and the old residential houses, for the repair
of the cathedral and enclosure of the precinct (Pat. 5 Edw. III., pt.
1, m. 27).

[320] Licence to crenellate Whalley, “the church and close,” was
granted 10th July 1348 (Pat. 22 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 20).

[321] Pat. 6 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22: a further licence to crenellate
the abbey precinct bears date 1389, 6th May (Pat. 12 Rich. II., pt. 2,
m. 13).

[322] Pat. 3 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 10.

[323] The beautiful rectangular gatehouse of Battle abbey is earlier
than Thornton. Licence to crenellate was granted 9th June 1339 (Pat. 12
Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 28).

[324] One of these towers remains: the other, with the adjacent
curtain, is gone.

[325] Pat. 19 Edw. I., m. 2.

[326] _Ibid._, 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 19.

[327] Pat. 3 Edw. II., m. 18.

[328] 28th August 1315 (Pat. 9 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 25).

[329] See a commission to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, to survey and
repair defects in Dover castle, 22nd May 1425 (Pat. 3 Hen. VI., pt. 2,
m. 17).

[330] It will be remembered that the gatehouse of the quasi-concentric
castle of Kidwelly, only a few miles distant from Llanstephan, is also
situated upon the outer line of defence.

[331] Bishop Bek enfeoffed Henry Percy of the manor and town, 19th
November 1309 (Pat. 3 Edw. II., m. 23).

[332] It has been already pointed out that this older house may have
simply taken the form of a series of buildings against the encircling
wall of a large shell-keep.

[333] John, Lord Neville, obtained licence from Bishop Hatfield of
Durham to crenellate Raby in 1378 (O. S. Scott, _Raby, its Castle and
its Lords_, 1906, P-47).

[334] At Middleham, where the plan of the fore-building is rather
exceptional, there was a passage through the eastern part of the
ground-floor of the forebuilding: this, however, was not the only way
from the northern to the southern half of the castle. The first floor
of the tower at Knaresborough, which formed a great guard-room, is
in a very ruinous state; but there are clear indications of the main
entrance near the north-east angle, and the inner entrance in the south
wall, at right angles to the outer, still remains. There is also a vice
in the south wall, by which the inner ward could be reached when the
gates were closed. This tower, of course, never contained the domestic
buildings of the castle; but the kitchen was in the basement, to which
there were three doors of entry from the inner ward. The approach to
each gateway from outside seems to have been a rising causeway built on
arches.

[335] The tower of Belsay measures 51½ by 47½ feet. The tower of
Knaresborough, which is of the same period, measures 62 by 54 feet;
while that of Gilling measures 79½ by 72½ feet.

[336] This is said to have been the medieval vicarage of the church,
which was appropriated to the cathedral priory of Carlisle. A
pele-tower forms part of the rectories of Elsdon and Rothbury and of
the vicarage of Embleton, Northumberland.

[337] The term “pele-yard” is applied to the base-court of the castle
of Prudhoe in Pat. 1 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 1; where there is a licence
to Gilbert de Umfraville, earl of Angus, to apply a rent to the
augmentation of a chaplain’s stipend in the “chantry of St Mary in le
Peleyerde of Prodhowe.”

[338] Enlart (ii. 623-753) quotes 242 examples of French churches
which show remains of fortification. Most of the midland and southern
departments of France contain a few; but the thickest clusters occur
near the northern frontier (15 in the Aisne, 10 in the Ardennes
department), and on the coast of Languedoc and Roussillon, where
inroads of pirates were common (Pyrénées-Orientales 22; Hérault, 12).
Among the larger fortified churches were the cathedrals of Agde,
Béziers, Lodève, and Saint-Pons (Hérault), Elne (Pyrénées-Orientales),
Pamiers (Ariège), Viviers (Ardèche), and Saint-Claude (Jura),
and the abbey churches of Saint-Denis (Seine), Saint-Victor at
Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhône), La Chaise-Dieu (Haute-Loire), Moissac
(Tarn-et-Garonne), and Tournus (Saône-et-Loire). The example of Ewenny
was followed in one or two churches of the same district, such as
Newton Nottage, and in the peninsula of Gower.

[339] At Llanfihangel-cwm-Du, near Crickhowell, there was a fireplace
upon the first floor of the tower until recently: the vent for the
smoke remains in one of the corner turrets of the tower.

[340] The constant pressure of Scottish invasion upon the northern
border is illustrated by the persistence of military architecture in
the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland. Thus, as late as 1399,
William Strickland undertook the building of Penrith castle “for
fortifying that town and the whole adjacent country” (Pat. 22 Rich.
II., pt. 2, m. 16; _cf._ pt. 3, m. 37).

[341] Bishop Burnell was building this house in 1284. He left the king
at Conway on 25th July, to look after the progress of the works (Pat.
12 Edw. I., m. 7).

[342] 4th July (Pat. 3 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 43). A contract is still
preserved, of 14th September 1378.

[343] 26th April (Pat. 5 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 21).

[344] The builder of Raby, John, Lord Neville (d. 1388), was also
responsible for the fortification of Sheriff Hutton.

[345] This date is given in the 43rd Report of the Deputy-Keeper of
the Public Records, p. 71. The licence, as the castle was within the
palatinate, was granted by Bishop Skirlaw.

[346] The licence to Thomas de Heton to “make a castle or fortalice” of
Chillingham bears date 27th January 1343-4 (Pat. 18 Edw. III., pt. 1,
m. 46). Some of the masonry in the angle-towers is, however, of a much
earlier date than this.

[347] The mount remains at the west end of the enclosure, but the
shell-keep on its summit has been removed.

[348] The gatehouse and barbican in the east curtain, as well as the
older portion of the dwelling-house, were the work of Thomas Beauchamp,
earl of Warwick (d. 1369): Cæsar’s tower and Guy’s tower were the work
of his son Thomas, who died in 1401.

[349] This-is the usual date given for the tower, which is entered from
the first floor of the great donjon, and from the lower floor of the
“lesser donjon” attached to one side of the keep. E. Lefèvre-Pontalis,
_Le Château de Coucy_, p. 82, departs from the usual date to assign the
tower to Philip Augustus, two centuries earlier. The details certainly
appear to be of a period much earlier than the fifteenth century.

[350] The turrets attached to some of the towers at Conway and Harlech
are at the side, not in the centre. Such raised turrets were useful
as look-out posts, and a watcher posted upon them could inform the
defenders on the rampart-walk below of movements which they might not
be able to follow for themselves.

[351] Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22.

[352] Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 24.

[353] An interesting gatehouse, belonging to the later years of Edward
I., is that of Denbigh, which was probably built by Henry de Lacy,
the last earl of Lincoln (d. 1310). Here a noble archway, flanked by
two octagonal towers, gives access through a passage to an octagonal
central hall, beyond which is a smaller octagonal guard-room. The inner
gateway to the enclosure is set in a side of the octagon, obliquely to
the outer entrance. The plan is apparently unique. The upper portion of
the gatehouse is badly ruined, and the walls have been much stripped;
but there is a statue, probably of the founder, left above the entrance
archway, which is set in a niche and panel treated with a considerable
amount of ornamental detail.

[354] The barrel-vault of a basement chamber in one of the
curtain-towers retains the marks of the wattled centering on which it
was built. This is persistently asserted to be a mark of Roman origin.
As a matter of fact, no part of the present castle can be proved to be
earlier than the beginning of the twelfth century, when Roger of Poitou
may have moved the head of his honour here from Penwortham, south of
the Ribble. The castle, however, lies partly within, and partly outside
the limits of a Roman military station.

[355] This is the date proposed by Bates, _Border Holds_: C. H.
Hartshorne (_Archæol. Inst._, Newcastle, vol. ii.) proposed a later
date, _c._ 1435-40. Mr Bates’ date is more likely than the other: for
neither is there any direct evidence.

[356] New works were begun at Porchester in 1386, when Robert Bardolf,
the constable, was appointed to impress masons, carpenters, etc.,
and to take materials at the king’s expense (Pat. 8 Rich. II., pt.
2, m. 23). This probably applies to the building of the barbican,
but the hall may also have been remodelled at this period. There are
considerable remains of twelfth-century work in the substructure of the
hall, as already noted.

[357] The stone gatehouse of the Norman castle appears to be
incorporated in the fourteenth-century work, the outer archway, which
was covered by a barbican, being merely a facing added to earlier work.
The inner walls of the gatehouse were also lengthened, as part of the
fourteenth-century enlargement.

[358] John of Gaunt was duke of Lancaster 1362-99. The gatehouse of
Lancaster castle, known as John of Gaunt’s gateway, was not built until
after his death. See p. 327.

[359] This hall was probably built late in the thirteenth or early in
the fourteenth century.

[360] Charles also seems to have rebuilt the chapel on the south side
of the enclosure.

[361] See the drawing by Androuet du Cerceau and plans in W. H. Ward,
_French Châteaux and Gardens in the XVIth Century_, Plates III., IV.,
and p. 11.

[362] See p. 285 above.

[363] The three principal features of the strong tower at Stokesay
are (1) its isolation from the range of buildings adjoining it, its
only entrances being from the outside, in the basement and on the
first floor; (2) the division of its face towards the field into two
small half-octagons; (3) the stairs carried from floor to floor in
the thickness of the wall. The stair from the basement to the first
and second floors crosses the entrance-lobby on the first floor; but,
in order to reach the roof, the second-floor chamber has to be passed
through, and a new stair entered in the embrasure of a window. This was
planned partly, as at Richmond and Conisbrough, to give the defenders
complete control of the stair, and partly to keep the stair within the
wall of the tower which was least open to attack, and could therefore
be lightened most safely.

[364] This was done towards the end of the twelfth century. The licence
stated that the wall was to be without crenellations (_sine kernello_).

[365] The hall may be a little earlier than the fourteenth century: the
windows seem to indicate the period 1290-1310. The great chimney and
the heavy battlement were added when the porch to the hall was built.

[366] Such a position for a medieval stronghold was not unusual. Thus
Richmond castle is commanded by much higher hills on the north and
south-west. In medieval warfare, however, before fire-arms had received
any full development, an enemy would have gained little advantage
by occupying a commanding position at some distance from the place
attacked. In 1644, the Parliamentary force which besieged Wingfield
attempted to breach the walls from Pentrich common, on slightly higher
ground to the south-east. This was found impossible, and the cannon had
to be moved to a wood on the west side of the manor before any damage
was done.

[367] The additions at this end were possibly the work of John Talbot,
second earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1460), to whom Cromwell sold the manor
shortly before his death. The earl certainly did some building at
Wingfield: see the short, but carefully compiled _Guide to Wingfield
Manor_, by W. H. Edmunds, p. 11.

[368] This can clearly be seen from the small open courtyard on the
north-west side of the great chamber block. The kitchen block is there
seen to have been built up against the west wall of the great chamber
and its lower stage, without any bonding.

[369] At Conway, Porchester, etc., however, the large hall was probably
intended for the use of the garrison. The great hall at Wingfield was
essentially the hall of a dwelling-house, in which the inner court is
kept quite separate from the base-court, where possibly a common hall
was provided for the men-at-arms who might be lodged there.

[370] This tower, like that at Stokesay, can be entered only by an
outer door. This is at the foot of a turret containing a broad vice.
The doorway had no portcullis, but was commanded by a slit in the wall
from the stair, which ascends on the left of the entrance lobby.

[371] The gateways of the outer and inner courtyards each had double
doors. There was no provision for portcullises. Each gateway has a
small postern entrance on one side of the main archway. This would be
used after the great doors had been closed for the night.

[372] These have recently been removed, to the great detriment of this
noble tower.

[373] The high tower at Wingfield is not machicolated, and affords a
curious contrast in this respect to Tattershall.

[374] The late thirteenth-century hall at Little Wenham, near Hadleigh,
is an early example of a brick house in this district.

[375] Other Lincolnshire examples of brick-work are the gatehouse
of Thornton abbey (1382), already described, and the early
sixteenth-century manor-house on the Trent above Gainsborough, known as
Torksey castle.

[376] The ditch at Hurstmonceaux is now dry. That at Compton Wyniates
has been partly filled up. The moat of Kentwell, an Elizabethan house,
is still perfect.

[377] The upper stories of these towers only are semicircular. The two
lower stages are half octagons. The towers have circular upper turrets
like those at Warwick.

[378] The castle of Amberley was built about 1379 by Bishop Rede of
Chichester, and is therefore nearly contemporary with Bodiam. It is
rectangular in shape, with lofty curtains, and has a gatehouse flanked
by round towers.

[379] _Lett. and Pap. Hen. VIII._, vol. IV., nos. 2,655, 2,656.

[380] _Lett. and Pap. Hen. VIII._, vol. IV., no. 1,089.

[381] Calendared _ibid._, vol. III., no. 1,186.

[382] Pat. 19 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 25.




INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

_N.B.—Illustrations are denoted by numbers followed by the name of the
photographer, draughtsman, or source from which the picture is derived._


  A

  Acton Burnell (Salop), castle, 298, 317, 338

  Adrianople, siege of, 73

  Æthelflaed, lady of the Mercians, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 41, 101

  Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, 28

  Agde (Hérault), cathedral, 315

  Aigues-Mortes (Gard), 77, A. Thompson; 242, 246, 250, 289

  Aire river, 85

  Aisne department, fortified churches in, 315

  Alan of Brittany, earl of Richmond, 47, 94, 101, 104, 107

  Albi (Tarn), fortified cathedral, 315

  Alençon (Orne), castle, 289, A. Thompson

  Alençonnais, the, 52

  Alesia [Alise (Côte-d’Or)], siege of, 46, 59, 60, 61, 79

  Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, 97, 99, 189

  Alfred the Great, king, 26, 28, 64

  Alne river, 86

  Alnwick (Northumberland), castle, 115, G. T. Clark; 243, J. P. Gibson;
      310, A. Thompson; 7, 42, 43, 86, 115, 116, 210, 235, 245, 247,
      265, 309, 310, 327, 328

  Amaury, count of Evreux, 165

  Amberley (Sussex), castle, 360

  Amboglanna (Cumberland), 15

  Amboise (Indre-et-Loire), castle, 338

  Amiens (Somme), 22

  Ancaster (Lincoln), 355

  Anderida (Sussex), 12, 22;
    _see_ Pevensey

  Andover (Hants), 22

  Angers (Maine-et-Loire), 27, 88, 118

  Angevins, war of William I. with, 52

  Anglesey, isle of, 278

  Angus, earl of, _see_ Umfraville

  Anjou, count of, _see_ Fulk

  Anker river, 101

  Antioch (Syria), siege of, 71, 164, 241

  Antwerp, 290

  Ardennes department, fortified churches in, 315

  Ardres (Pas-de-Calais), castle, 54, 55

  Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), 315

  Arnold, son of Robert, 52

  Arras (Pas-de-Calais), 290

  Arundel (Sussex), castle, 37, 115, 190, 360

  Ashbourne (Derby), 318

  Astures, Roman auxiliaries, 19

  Auckland (Durham), castle, 197, 198, 200, 338

  Autun (Sâone-et-Loire), 15

  Avignon (Vaucluse), palace of the popes, 304;
    walls, 246, 250, 295

  Avon river (Bristol), 2, 88;
    (Warwick), 29

  Axholme, isle of, 56

  Aydon (Northumberland), castle or fortified house, 189, 190, 312, 338


  B

  Badbury (Dorset), 25

  Bakewell (Derby), 29

  Bamburgh (Northumberland), castle, 91, J. P. Gibson, W. Maitland;
      25, 62, 66, 86, 90, 120, 132, 133, 134, 137, 150, 155, 202, 230,
      233

  Bardolf, Robert, 335

  Barking (Middlesex), 38

  Barlborough (Derby), hall, 318

  Barnard Castle (Durham), castle, 87, G. T. Clark; 85, 86, 163, 185

  Baroche, la (Orne), 52

  Barwick-in-Elmet (Yorks, W.R.), castle, 56

  Basing house (Hants), 360

  Bath (Somerset), 24, 25

  Bath and Wells, bishop of, _see_ Burnell

  Battle (Sussex), gatehouse of abbey, 304

  Battlesbury (Wilts), 25

  Bayeux (Calvados), castle, 45

  —— bishop of, _see_ Odo

  Beauchamp, house of, 109

  —— Thomas, earl of Warwick (d. 1369), 321

  —— Thomas, earl of Warwick (d. 1401), 321

  Beaugency (Loiret), castle, 116, A. Thompson; 117, 118, 120

  Beaumaris (Anglesey), castle, 277, G. T. Clark; 236, 278, A. Thompson;
      7, 211, 225, 236, 251, 261, 265, 266, 268, 275, 276-9, 280, 282,
      284

  Beauvais (Oise), 22, 27

  Bebbanburh, 25;
    _see_ Bamburgh

  Bedale (Yorks, N. R.), church tower, 316

  Bedburn river, 8

  Bedford, 29, 30, 32;
    castle, 30, 32;
    John, duke of, 330

  Bek, Antony, bishop of Durham, 188, 189, 198, 200, 202, 309

  Bellême, house of, 51;
    Robert of, 55, 67, 85

  Belsay (Northumberland), castle, 313, J. P. Gibson; 236, 312

  Belvoir (Leicester), castle, 85, 360

  Berkeley (Gloucester), castle, 142, 186, A. Thompson; 42, 43, 142,
      186, 193, 194, 209, 210

  Berkhampstead (Herts), castle, 42, A. Thompson; 42, 119, 263

  Berry, John, duke of, 338

  Berry Pomeroy (Devon), castle, 229, 358

  Berwick-on-Tweed, town walls, 290, 291

  Beverley (Yorks, E. R.), 295

  Béziers (Hérault), cathedral, 315

  Bignor (Sussex), Roman villa, 12

  Birdoswald (Cumberland), 15

  Bishop Auckland (Durham), 8;
    and _see_ Auckland

  Bishops Cannings (Wilts), manor-house, 301

  Bishop’s Castle (Salop), 2

  Bishop’s Woodford (Wilts), manor-house, 301

  Black mountains, 184

  Blackbury castle (Devon), 7, A. H. Allcroft; 6

  Blackfriars, _see_ London

  Blackwater river, 22, 29

  Blois (Loir-et-Cher), castle, 337

  Blyth (Notts) castle, 85;
    and _see_ Tickhill;
    priory, 85

  Bodiam (Sussex), castle, 323, E. A. and G. R. Reeve; 326, A. Thompson;
      210, 322, 325, 326, 327, 330, 335, 360

  Bokerley dyke, 24, 25

  Bolton-in-Wensleydale (Yorks, N. R.), castle, 316, 317, 318, 330,
      362, 367

  Bolton-on-Swale (Yorks, N. R.), church tower, 316

  Boothby Pagnell (Lincoln), manor-house, 190, 192

  Borcovicus (Northumberland), 14, A. Thompson; 15, 18, A. Thompson
      (after Bruce); 15, 17, 18, 19

  Bosham (Sussex), 36, A. Thompson (after Bayeux tapestry); 190

  Boston (Lincoln), Hussey tower at, 355

  Bothal (Northumberland), castle, 245, 327

  Bourbourg, Louis de, 54

  Bourges (Cher), 22

  Boves (Somme), siege of, 70, 76

  Bowes (Yorks, N. R.), tower, 131, 132, 133, 142, 145, 312

  Bowness (Cumberland), 10

  Bracieux, Pierre de, 73

  Bradwell-juxta-Mare (Essex), 22

  Brancaster (Norfolk), 12

  Brancepeth (Durham), castle, 86

  Brandenburg (Prussia), 26

  Branodunum (Norfolk), 12

  Brecon beacons, 274

  —— castle, 44, 56, 87, 362, 365, 367

  Breteuil, William of, 55

  Bréval (Seine-et-Oise), 55, 67

  Bridgnorth (Salop), 29;
    castle, 108, 109, 119, 133

  Bridlington (Yorks, E. R.), gatehouse of priory, 301

  Brionne (Eure), castle, 56

  Bristol, castle, 88;
    walls and gateways, 292, 295, 296

  —— channel, 24, 308

  Brittany, mount-and-bailey castles in, 45;
    Alan of, _see_ Alan

  Brixworth (Northants), church, 100

  Bronllys (Brecknock), castle, 183, 184

  Bruce, house of, 85

  Brunanburh, battle of, 63

  Brutus, Marcus, 62

  Buckingham, 29, 30, 32

  —— castle, 30, 32

  —— duke of, _see_ Stafford

  Builth (Brecknock), castle, 50, G. T. Clark; 50, 51

  Burgh Castle (Suffolk), 12, 16, 22

  Burghersh, Henry, bishop of Lincoln, 301

  Burghwallis (Yorks, W. R.), 100

  Burgundy, 59, 64, 198

  Burnell, Robert, bishop of Bath and Wells, 298, 317

  Bury ditches (Salop), 6, A. Thompson; 2, 6

  Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk), 25;
    Moyses hall, 190

  Busli, Roger de, 85


  C

  Cadbury (Somerset), 25

  Caen (Calvados), 118;
    abbey churches, 93

  Caer Caradoc (near Clun, Salop), 6

  Caerlaverock (Dumfries), castle, 364, J. P. Gibson; 304, 307

  Caerphilly (Glamorgan), castle, 270, 271, 272, A. Thompson; 7, 160,
      189, 205, 236, 264, 265, 270-2, 274-5, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280,
      282, 284, 287, 309, 334, 352

  Cahors (Lot), walled town, 65;
    Pont Valentré, 297, 355

  Calder river, 85

  Caldicot (Monmouth), castle, 182, 184

  Calleva Atrebatum (Hants), 14;
    and _see_ Silchester

  Cambridge, castle, 39, 40, 41

  —— colleges, 193

  Camulodunum (Essex), 12;
    and _see_ Colchester

  Canterbury (Kent), 28, 198;
    archbishops of, _see_ Robert of Jumièges, Sudbury

  —— castle, 46, 120, 128

  —— west gate, 296, 304

  Carcassonne (Aude), town and castle, 78, 239, 242, A. Thompson; 264,
      283, Viollet-le-Duc; 79, 82, 236, 242, 246, 250, 264, 284, 286, 289

  Cardiff (Glamorgan), 274;
    castle, 114, A. Thompson; 191, G. T. Clark; 115, 190, 193, 194, 209

  Carew (Pembroke), castle, 248, 336, A. Thompson; 202, 239, 240, 247,
      252, 269, 304, 330, 333, 337, 362

  Carisbrooke (Isle of Wight), castle, 111, R. Keene; 115

  Carlisle (Cumberland), castle, 87, 88, 120, 361, 362, 367

  —— cathedral priory, 312

  Carnarvon, castle, 245, 253, G. T. Clark; 258, A. Thompson; 259,
      F. Bond; 88, 189, 209, 224, 242, 245, 246, 248, 252, 255, 257,
      261, 262, 265, 266, 269, 270, 279, 282, 284, 291

  —— town walls, 251, A. Thompson; 88, 251, 291, 292, 295, 296

  Carrickfergus (Antrim), castle, 194

  Castles camp (Durham), 8

  Castleton (Yorks, N. R.), castle, 85

  Castrum Harundel (Sussex), 37;
    and _see_ Arundel

  Caus castle (Salop), 362

  Cawood (Yorks, W. R.), castle, 85, 338

  Ceawlin, king of West Saxons, 25

  Cedd, St, 22

  Cérisy-la-Forêt (Calvados), abbey church, 100

  Chaise-Dieu, la (Haute-Loire), abbey church, 315

  Champlitte, Guillaume de, 73

  Chardstock (Devon), manor-house, 301

  Charles the Bald, king of Neustria, 27, 29, 32

  —— the Fat, king of Neustria, 27, 64

  —— the Simple, king of Neustria, 28

  —— V., emperor, 290

  —— Martel, 65

  Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), 22

  —— count of, _see_ Theobald

  Château-Gaillard (Eure), 163, A. Thompson, after Enlart; 175, A.
      Thompson; 66, 68, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 163, 172, 175, 176, 215,
      216, 229, 257, 264

  Château-sur-Epte (Eure), 165

  Chauny (Aisne), 295

  Chedworth (Gloucester), Roman villa, 12

  Chepstow (Monmouth), 182; castle, 103, 249, 268, A. Thompson; 104,
      A. Thompson (after _Official Guide_); 56, 88, 104, 107, 175, 185,
      189, 223, 249, 250, 268, 269, 280, 282, 359

  —— town and walls, 88, 251, 295

  Chester, castle, 39

  —— city and walls, 14, 22, 23, 24, 119

  Chesters (Northumberland), 15;
    and _see_ Cilurnum

  Chichester (Sussex), 14, 22, 23, 198;
    bishop of, _see_ Rede

  Chilham (Kent), castle, 120

  Chillingham (Northumberland), castle, 318

  China, great wall of, 79

  Chipchase (Northumberland), castle, 156, 236, 312

  Christchurch (Hants), castle, 123, P. M. Johnston; 128, 189, 192, 193

  —— priory church, 93, 94

  Cilurnum (Northumberland), 13, A. Thompson (after Bruce); 15, 17,
      18, 19

  Cirencester (Gloucester), 25

  Cissbury (Sussex), 2, 25

  Clare (Suffolk), castle, 188

  —— Gilbert de, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, 270

  Clark, G. T., 30

  Clavering (Essex), castle, 37

  Clement VI., pope, 250

  Cleveland (Yorks, N. R.), 85

  Clifford’s hill (Northampton), 84

  Clifton (Bristol), promontory forts, 2, 8

  Clinton, family of, 365

  Clipsham (Rutland), 197

  Clun (Salop), 2, 6

  —— castle, 43, 127, A. Thompson; 43, 50, 119, 128, 129, 131, 145

  Clwyd river, 275

  Cnut, king, 33, 34

  Colchester (Essex), 12, 19, 26, 29, 65;
    castle, 47, 101, A. Thompson; 47, 83, 100, 124, 125, 127, 128, 133,
      134, 137, 146, 150, 154, 188, 317

  Cole, John, 274, 275

  Colne river (Essex), 29

  Compton castle (Devon), 358

  Compton Wyniates (Warwick), manor-house, 193, 210, 308, 359

  Conisbrough (Yorks, W. R.), castle, 166, 167, 168, A. Thompson; 217,
    G. Hepworth; 42, 85, 86, 149, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 178,
      179, 180, 182, 183, 184, 188, 212, 216, 342

  Constantinople, siege of, 73, 77, 78, 81, 164, 262, 263

  Conway (Carnarvon), 317;
    castle, 234, 256, G. T. Clark; 261, 262, 263, A. Thompson; 7, 88,
      177, 205, 209, 210, 229, 233, 236, 242, 252, 255, 257, 258, 261,
      262, 265, 268, 270, 275, 276, 279, 280, 282, 291, 322, 334, 352

  —— town walls, 88, 177, 240, 250, 251, 291, 295, 296

  Coquet river, 86, 219, 298

  Corbridge-on-Tyne (Northumberland), 18;
    _see_ Corstopitum

  —— pele-tower, 156, 312

  Corfe (Dorset), castle, 102, 131, 132, 155

  Corstopitum (Northumberland), 18, 22

  Cosin, John, bishop of Durham, 198, 200

  Coucy (Aisne), castle, 81, 177, A. Thompson; 80, 81, 82, 171, 176,
      177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 189, 216, 225, 241, 242, 248, 264, 269,
      284, 285, 322, 338

  —— town walls, 240, 250, 295, 297

  —— Enguerrand III., seigneur de, 176

  —— VII., 338

  Courcy-sur-Dives (Calvados), 67

  Coutances (Manche), 23

  Coventry and Lichfield, bishop of, _see_ Langton

  Cowdray castle (Sussex), 360

  Cradyfargus tower at Warkworth, 194, 219, 247

  Cranborne (Dorset), 25

  Cromwell, Ralph, Lord, 345, 347, 352

  Cynewulf, king, 36


  D

  Dacre, Lord, of Gillesland, 361

  Dalyngrugge, Sir Edward, 322, 325

  Danby Wiske (Yorks, N. R.), church-tower, 316

  Danelaw, the, 28, 34

  Dead sea (Palestine), 263

  Dee river, 24

  Delhi, 79

  Denbigh, castle, 185, 224, 229, 255, 327, 360

  Denmark, king of, _see_ Swegen

  Derby, 29, 30

  Derwent river (Derby), 345

  —— (Durham and Northumberland), 316

  —— (Yorks), 85

  Despenser, Hugh, 274

  Devizes (Wilts), 24

  Devon river, 99

  Didier, St, bishop of Cahors, 65

  Dinan (Ille-et-Vilaine), castle, 46, A. Thompson, after Bayeux
      tapestry; 45

  D’Oily, Robert, 104

  Dol (Ille-et-Vilaine), castle, 45

  Dolbadarn (Carnarvon), tower, 183, 184, A. Thompson; 87, 185

  Dolebury (Somerset), 8, 25

  Dolwyddelan (Carnarvon), castle, 185

  Domfront (Orne), castle, 284, A. Thompson; 51, 52, 117, 118, 120,
      142, 145, 284, 285

  —— town walls, 250

  Don river, 85

  Doncaster (Yorks, W.R.), 85, 100

  Dorchester (Dorset), 2, 19

  Dove river, 42

  Dover (Kent), 37;
    castle, 126, G. T. Clark; 37, 119, 120, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137,
      138, 141, 146, 149, 150, 154, 155, 159, 241, 265, 308

  Drayton house (Northampton), 205

  Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester, 337

  Duffield (Derby), castle, 132

  Dumfries, 304

  Dunheved (Cornwall), 89

  Dunstanburgh (Northumberland), castle, 219, 308, 309, 327

  Durham, bishops of, _see_ Bek, Cosin, Flambard, Hatfield, Pudsey,
      Skirlaw, Tunstall

  Durham, 24;
    castle, 199, _Archaeol. Journal_; 201, Billings; 203, J. P. Gibson;
      44, 86, 107, 108, 189, 200, 202, 275

  —— cathedral, 153

  —— University college, 200

  Dyrham (Gloucester), battle of, 25


  E

  Earls Barton (Northampton), castle and church, 45, 52, 109

  Easingwold (Yorks, N.R.), 296

  East Anglia, king of, _see_ Edmund

  Échauffour (Orne), castle, 52

  Eddisbury (Chester), 29

  Eden river, 312

  Edgar the Ætheling, 39

  Edmund, king of East Anglia, 28

  —— Ironside, king, 33, 34

  Edward the Confessor, king, 37

  —— the Elder, king, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 41

  —— I., king, 241, 252, 275, 276, 290, 291, 292, 298, 304, 307,
      317, 327

  —— II., king, 185, 301, 307

  —— III., king, 109, 266, 291, 301, 307

  Egbert, king, 27

  Elizabeth, queen, 337, 345, 361

  Ellesmere (Salop), castle, 119

  Elmham (Suffolk), 24

  Elmley (Worcester), castle, 109

  Elne (Pyrénèes-Orientales), cathedral, 315

  Elsdon (Northumberland), fortified rectory, 312

  Embleton (Northumberland), fortified vicarage, 312

  Emperors, _see_ Charles V., Henry the Fowler, Vespasian

  England, kings of, _see_ Cnut, Edward I., Edward II., Edward III.,
      Henry I., Henry II., Henry III., Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VIII.,
      John, Richard I., Richard II., Stephen, William I., William II.

  England, queens of, _see_ Elizabeth, Isabel

  Erghum, Ralph, bishop of Salisbury, 301

  Ermine street, 21

  Erve river, 90

  Etampes (Seine-et-Oise), castle, 172, A. Thompson; 172, 186

  Ethelred the Redeless, king, 28, 33

  Eudes, count of Paris (Hugh Capet), 63, 64

  Eustace, son of John, 116

  Evreux (Eure), abbey of Saint-Taurin, 22;
    count of, _see_ Amaury

  Ewenny (Glamorgan), priory church, 315

  Ewias Harold (Hereford), castle, 37

  Exeter (Devon), 21, 23, 39;
    castle, 39, 40, 83, 95, 96, 98, 113

  —— cathedral close, 298


  F

  Falaise (Calvados), castle, 117, A. Thompson; 54, 100, 117, 118, 120,
      322

  Farnham (Hants), castle, 115

  Ferrers (Walkelin de), 197

  Fiennes, Sir Roger, 358, 359

  Fitzwilliam, Sir William, 300

  Flambard, Ranulf, bishop of Durham, 133

  Flamborough head (Yorks, E.R.), 86

  Flint, castle, 181, 182, 249

  Foss river, 41

  Fosseway, the, 21

  Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine), 250, A. Thompson; 250, 304

  France, Capetian kings of, 34;
    and _see_ Hugh Capet, Louis VI., Louis IX., Philip I., Philip II.,
      Philip III.

  —— Carolingian kings of, 36;
    _see_ Neustria

  —— Valois kings of, _see_ Francis I., Henry II., Louis XII.

  Francis I., king of France, 290, 337, 338

  Freeman, Professor E. A., 30

  Frome river (Bristol), 88, 296;
    (Dorset), 2, 19

  Fulk the Black, count of Anjou, 116


  G

  Gainsborough (Lincoln), 100, 101, 358

  —— old hall, 355, 356, 358

  Galmanho (York), 33

  Galtres forest (Yorks, N.R.), 55, 85

  Gannock’s castle, _see_ Tempsford

  Gariannonum (Suffolk), 12;
    and _see_ Burgh castle

  Garonne river, 27

  Gaunt, John of, _see_ Lancaster, John, duke of,

  Gête-aux-Lièvres, 66

  Gilbert, family of, 358

  Gilling, East (Yorks), castle, 312

  Gisors (Eure), castle, 166, 176

  Gloucester, 14, 22, 25, 37

  —— castle, 119

  —— duke of, Humphrey, 308

  —— earl of, _see_ Clare

  Godwin, earl, 37

  Goël, Ascelin, 55

  Goodmanham (Yorks, E.R.), 23

  Goodrich (Hereford), castle, 174, C. Gethen, G. W. Saunders; 175, 185

  Gower (Glamorgan), fortified churches in, 315

  Gower, Henry, bishop of St David’s, 338, 341

  Goxhill (Lincoln), “priory,” 190

  Gravesend (Kent), 119

  Guildford (Surrey), castle, 128, A. Thompson; 100, 128, 129, 131,
      132, 133, 134, 138, 145, 149, 153, 154, 156, 189

  Gundulf, bishop of Rochester, 120

  Gwendraeth Fach river, 279


  H

  Haddon, Nether (Derby), 342;
    hall, 340, H. Baker; 343, G. J. Gillham; 193, 206, 315, 342, 345

  Hadleigh (Suffolk), rectory, 355

  Hallaton (Leicester), castle, 51, A. Thompson

  Halton (Northumberland), pele-tower, 312

  Hambleton hills (Yorks, N.R.), 85

  Hamelin Plantagenet, 167

  Hardwick hall (Derby), 318

  Harewood (Yorks, W.R.), castle, 85

  Harlech (Merioneth), castle, 273, G. T. Clark; 274, A. Thompson; 160,
      189, 209, 210, 211, 225, 236, 249, 261, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279,
      280, 282, 284, 289, 309, 322, 325

  Harold, king, 36, 38, 190, 192

  Hastings (Sussex), 37;
    castle, 38, A. Thompson (after Bayeux tapestry); 38, 39, 40, 43,
      45, 46, 102, 108, 109, 119, 128, 209, 360

  Hatfield, Thomas, bishop of Durham, 202, 310

  Haughmond abbey (Salop), 192

  Haughton (Northumberland), castle, 317, 338

  Haverfordwest (Pembroke), castle, 341

  Hawarden (Flint), castle, 184

  Hedingham (Essex), castle, 135, 147, F. R. Taylor; 44, 128, 131, 132,
      133, 134, 137, 145, 146, 155, 156, 159

  Helmsley (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 85, 131

  Henry I., king, 66, 71, 85, 117, 118, 133, 189, 193

  —— II., king, 56, 57, 83, 89, 118, 120, 133, 159, 160, 165, 166, 167,
      176, 188, 202, 212

  —— III., king, 55, 162, 185, 188, 202, 205, 265, 270

  —— IV., king, 279, 330, 336

  —— V., king, 327

  —— VIII., king, 337, 361

  —— II., king of France, 337

  —— the Fowler, emperor, 26

  Hérault department, fortified churches in, 315

  Hereford, 37;
    castle, 119;
    earl of, _see_ William, son of Osbern

  Herefordshire, Norman castle in, 37

  Hertford, 29, 30, 32;
    castle, 30, 32, 119;
    earl of, _see_ Clare

  Hestengaceaster (Sussex), 45

  Heton, Thomas de, 318

  Hexham (Northumberland), 317;
    fortified manor-house, 312

  Higham Ferrers (Northampton), castle and church, 109

  Hingston down (Cornwall), battle of, 27

  Holderness (Yorks, E.R.), 86

  Holy Island (Northumberland), castle, 86

  Horkstow (Lincoln), Roman villa, 12

  Horncastle (Lincoln), 355

  Houdan (Seine-et-Oise), donjon, 165

  Housesteads (Northumberland), 15;
    and _see_ Borcovicus

  Hubert, count of Maine, 66, 90

  Hugh Capet, king of France; _see_ Eudes

  Hull (Yorks, E.R.), 296

  Humber estuary, 28, 85

  Huntingdon, 29, 30

  —— castle, 39, 40, 362

  Hurstmonceaux (Sussex), castle, 323, E. A. and G. R. Reeve; 359,
      A. Thompson; 330, 358, 359, 360


  I

  Ida, king of Northumbria, 25

  Ireland, passage from England to, 179

  Isabel, queen of England, 274

  Issoudun (Indre), donjon, 175

  Ivry (Eure), castle, 55


  J

  Jerusalem, kingdom of, 263

  —— siege of, 67, 70

  Jervaulx abbey (Yorks, N.R.), 192

  Jeufosse (Seine-et-Oise), 27

  John, king, 162, 194

  Jublains (Mayenne), 23


  K

  Kala’at-el-Hosn; _see_ Krak des Chevaliers

  Kenilworth (Warwick), castle, 132, 337, A. Thompson; 129, 131, 132,
      133, 134, 138, 146, 149, 154, 156, 209, 210, 233, 234, 247, 270,
      271, 279, 297, 317, 322, 336, 337

  Kentwell hall (Suffolk), 359

  Kerak in Moab, castle, 240, 241, 263

  Kidwelly (Carmarthen), castle, 225, 281, A. Thompson; 267, G. T.
      Clark; 211, 224, 269, 275, 279-82, 304, 309

  Kimbolton (Hunts), castle, 365, 366

  Kinnard’s Ferry (Lincoln), castle, 56, 57, 83

  Kirkby Malzeard (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 56, 57, 83

  Knaresborough (Yorks, W.R.) castle, 85, 86, 216, 279, 310, 312, 327

  Knighton (Radnor), 6

  Krak, le, des Chevaliers, 176, A. Thompson (after G. Rey); 176, 263

  Kyme (Lincoln), tower, 355


  L

  Labienus, Titus, 61

  Lacy, Henry de, earl of Lincoln, 327

  —— Ilbert de, 56

  —— Roger de, 102

  Laigle (Orne), castle, 193

  Lamotte, significance of place-name, 46

  Lamphey (Pembroke), manor-house, 341, A. Thompson; 338, 341, 342

  Lancaster castle, 104, 145, 246, 279, 327, 328, 336, 337

  —— duchy of, castles of, 279, 327, 336

  —— —— records of, 186, 336, 361

  —— John, duke of, 336, 337

  —— Thomas, earl of, 308

  Langeais (Indre-et-Loire), castle, 116

  Langley (Northumberland), castle, 156, 317

  Langton, Walter, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 298

  Languedoc, fortified churches in, 315

  Laon (Aisne), 295

  Launceston (Cornwall), castle, 89, 182, 188, 264, 362

  Laval (Mayenne), castle, 80, A. Thompson; 81, 88

  —— town walls, 88

  Lea river, 29, 120

  Leconfield (Yorks, E.R.), manor-house, 307

  Leeds (Kent), castle, 326

  —— (Yorks, W.R.), 56

  Leicester, 22, 29, 30

  —— castle, 88, 109, 197

  —— earl of, _see_ Dudley

  Le Roy, Pierre, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, 236

  Lewes (Sussex), castle, 50, 98, A. Thompson; 49, 96, 97, 98, 99, 115,
      220, 235, 236, 360

  Lichfield (Stafford), 24;
    bishop of, _see_ Coventry

  —— cathedral close, 298

  Liddington (Rutland), manor-house, 190, 301

  Lilbourne (Northampton), castle, 43, 51

  Lille (Nord), 290

  Lillebonne (Seine-Inférieure), edict of, 89, 90, 102

  Lincoln, 12, 18, 19, 20, 23, 30, 301, 355

  —— bishops of, 85;
    and _see_ Alexander, Burghersh

  —— bishop’s palace, 198, 301, 338, 348, 351

  —— castle, 40, W. G. Watkins; 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50,
      85, 86, 87, 100, 102, 114, 115, 188, 236, 279, 301

  —— cathedral, 23, 94

  —— cathedral close, 298, 301;
    gatehouses, 301, 303

  —— city walls, 20, 296

  —— earl of, _see_ Lacy

  Lindsey, parts of (Lincoln), 28

  Llanberis (Carnarvon), 87, 185

  Llandovery (Carmarthen), castle, 87, 229

  Llanfihangel-cwm-Du (Brecon), church tower, 316

  Llanstephan (Carmarthen), castle, 249, 308, 309

  Llawhaden (Pembroke), castle, 342

  Loches (Indre-et-Loire), castle, 82

  Lodève (Hérault), cathedral, 315

  Loire river, 27

  Lois Weedon (Northampton), church, 100

  London, 21, 26, 27, 28, 37, 38, 64, 65, 295

  —— Baynard’s castle, 38, 39

  —— Blackfriars, 39

  —— Fleet Street, house of bishops of Salisbury, 301

  —— St Paul’s cathedral close, 298

  —— Tower of, 121, 122, A. Thompson; 123, P. M. Johnston;
      38, 39, 40, 47, 88, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 134,
      137, 146, 150, 154, 188, 202, 210, 223, 225, 226, 234, 265, 266,
      268, 277

  Longchamp, William, bishop of Ely, 265

  Louis VI., king of France, 66, 67, 68, 93, 165

  —— IX., king of France, 68, 74, 264

  —— XII, king of France, 337, 338

  Lucca (Tuscany), 290

  Lucé (Orne), castle, 52

  Ludlow (Salop), castle, 94, 95, 96, 108, A. Thompson; 106, R. Keene;
      195, C. Gethen; 87, 95, 96, 97, 98, 102, 103, 104, 107, 109, 110,
      113, 137, 149, 153, 156, 159, 161, 189, 194, 206, 207, 209, 210,
      212, 215, 219, 229, 252, 304, 330, 334, 335

  —— town walls, 87

  Ludlow, Lawrence of, 307

  Lumley (Durham), castle, 318

  Lundenburh, 26


  M

  Magdeburg (Prussian Saxony), 26

  Maiden Castle (Dorset), 2, 3, A. Thompson; 2, 3, 5, 19, 26, 230, 282

  Maine, count of, _see_ Hubert

  Malassis, 66

  Malcolm IV., king of Scots, 120

  Maldon (Essex), 29;
    battle of, 63

  Malet, William, 39

  Mailing, West (Kent), St Leonard’s church, 120

  Malton (Yorks, N. R.), castle, 85

  Manorbier (Pembroke), castle, 208, A. Thompson; 217, C. Gethen; 189,
      192, 207, 208, 209, 211, 215, 229, 304, 316, 334, 335

  Mans, le (Sarthe), 22, 23

  Mansurah (Lower Egypt), 68, 74

  Mantes (Seine-et-Oise), 27

  Markenfield (Yorks, W.R.), manor-house, 307, 308, 338

  Marlborough (Wilts.), 24

  Marmion, Robert, 101

  Marne river, 27

  Marrah (Syria), siege of, 71

  Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhône), abbey church of Saint-Victor, 315

  —— siege of, 61, 62, 70, 73, 78

  Marshal, William, earl of Pembroke and Striguil, 179

  Marton (Lincoln), church, 100, 101

  Massilia, _see_ Marseilles

  Mâte-Putain, 66

  Maule, siege of, 90

  Maxstoke (Warwick), castle, 364, H. Baker; 365, 366, 367

  Medway river, 365

  Méhun-sur-Yèvre (Cher), castle, 338

  Melbourne (Derby), castle, 336

  Melsonby (Yorks, N.R.), church-tower, 315

  Melun (Seine-et-Marne), 27

  Merchem, castle of, 53, 54

  Mercia, kingdom of, 28;
    kings of, _see_ Offa, Penda

  Mercians, lady of the, _see_ Æthelflaed

  Merseburg (Prussian Saxony), 26

  Mersey river, 28, 29

  Merton (Surrey), 36

  Mexborough (Yorks, W. R.), castle, 42, 51

  Middleham (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 85, 87, 132, 133, 134, 142, 150,
      310, 312

  Midhurst (Sussex), 360

  Milford haven, 179

  Mitford (Northumberland), castle, 86, 166, 167

  Moel Siabod (Carnarvon), 185

  Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), abbey, 315

  Monkchester, _see_ Muncanceaster

  Monkton (Pembroke), priory church, 316

  Monmouth, fortified bridge, 297, A. Thompson; 298

  Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne), Pont des Consuls, 297

  Montgomery castle, 43

  Montmajour (Bouches-du-Rhône), fortified abbey, 315

  Montmartre (Seine), 64

  Mont-Saint-Michel (Manche), abbey, 235, A. Thompson; 236;
    abbots of, _see_ Le Roy, Tustin

  —— town walls, 291, A. Thompson; 250, 289

  Morpeth (Northumberland), 166

  Mortham (Yorks, N. R.), manor-house, 338

  Mount Bures (Essex), 44, 46

  Mowbray, Robert, 66, 90

  —— vale of (Yorks, N.R.), 83

  Mowbrays, revolt of the, 56, 83

  Muncanceaster (Northumberland), 21


  N

  Naeodunum Diablintum (Mayenne), 23

  Nantes (Loire-Inférieure), 27

  Narbonne (Aude), 65

  Naworth (Cumberland), castle, 189

  Nettleham (Lincoln), manor-house, 301

  Neufmarché, Bernard de, _see_ Newmarch

  Neustria, kingdom of, 34;
    kings of, _see_ Charles

  Neville, John, Lord, 310, 317

  Newark-on-Trent (Nottingham), castle, 99, A. Thompson; 157, F. Bond;
      85, 86, 97, 98, 99, 189, 202, 360

  Newcastle-on-Tyne (Northumberland), 21, 22

  —— castle, 139, 152, J. P. Gibson; 227, A. Thompson; 22, 47, 48, 51,
      86, 88, 120, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 141, 146, 149, 153,
      154, 155, 156, 166, 169, 188, 202, 210, 227, 265

  —— town walls, 293, W. Maitland; 88, 292

  Newmarch, Bernard of, 56

  Newport (Monmouth), castle, 362

  Newton Nottage (Glamorgan), fortified church, 315

  Nidd river, 85

  Nile river, 68

  Niort (Deux-Sèvres), castle, 175

  Noirmoutier (Vendée), 27, 28

  Norham (Northumberland), castle, 157, J. P. Gibson; 86, 129, 131,
      132, 133, 149, 160, 163

  Normandy, duchy of, 28, 34;
    dukes of, _see_ Robert, Rollo;
    mount-and-bailey castles in, 45, 51, 52

  Northallerton (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 56, 57, 83

  Northampton, 44

  —— town wall, 295

  Northumberland, earls of, 211;
    _see_ Percy

  Northumbria, kingdom of, 28;
    king of, _see_ Ida

  Norwich (Norfolk), castle, 88, 128, 134, 137, 141, 155

  —— cathedral close, 298

  —— town wall, 88, 89, 301

  Nottingham, 28, 29, 30, 32

  —— castle, 30, 32, 39, 41, 85, 88, 120

  Nunney (Somerset), castle, 325

  Nuremberg (Middle Franconia), town walls, 82


  O

  Oakham (Rutland), castle, 107, 197, 198, 362

  Ockley (Surrey), battle of, 28

  Odiham (Hants), castle, 185

  Odo, bishop of Bayeux, 66

  Offa, king of Mercia, 24, 32

  Offa’s dyke, 24

  Oise river, 27

  Oissel (Seine-Inférieure), 27

  Old Sarum (Wilts), camp and castle, 4, A. H. Allcroft; 3, 5, 6, 19,
      24, 25, 153, 154, 210, 301

  Orford (Suffolk), castle, 119, 165, 166, 168, 170

  Orléans, Charles, duke of, 337

  —— Louis, duke of, 338

  Orontes river, 164

  Osbern, _see_ William

  Oswestry (Salop), 24;
    castle, 119

  Othona (Essex), 22

  Otley (Yorks, W.R.), 85

  Ouse river, Great, 29, 30, 33, 63;
    (Yorkshire), 41, 85

  Oxburgh (Norfolk), hall, 355

  Oxford castle, 88, 104, 108, 119, 188

  —— Christ Church, 190

  —— New college, 190


  P

  Pamiers (Ariège), cathedral, 315

  Paris (Seine), 22, 27;
    count of, _see_ Eudes;
    Louvre, donjon of, 178;
    siege of, by Danes, 27, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 81

  Peak castle (Derby), 35, 156, 315

  Pembroke, castle, 180, 224, A. Thompson; 181, _Archaeol. Journal_;
      213, C. Gethen; 179, 180, 182, 202, 212, 215, 223, 224, 225, 236,
      239, 240, 248, 251, 316

  —— St Mary’s church, 316

  Pembroke, earl of, _see_ Marshal, William

  Pembrokeshire, churches of, 316

  Penda, king of Mercia, 25

  Penmaenmawr (Carnarvon), 8

  Penrith (Cumberland), castle, 316

  Penshurst (Kent), manor-house, 206

  Pentecost’s castle (Hereford), 37

  Pentrich (Derby), 345

  Penwortham (Lancaster), castle, 327

  Percy, Sir Henry, 307, 309

  —— Henry, earl of Northumberland, 328, 330

  —— house of, 348

  Périers (Calvados), church, 100

  Perrott, Sir John, 333

  Peterborough (Northants), 25

  —— abbey precinct, 298

  Petworth (Sussex), manor-house, 307

  Pevensey (Sussex), Roman station and castle, 16, 246, A. Thompson;
      12, 16, 22, 247, 360

  Philip I., king of France, 55

  —— II. (Augustus), king of France, 62, 70, 71, 73, 76, 175, 176, 178,
      215, 216, 322

  —— III., king of France, 264

  Pickering (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 43, 85, 86, 115, 279

  Pierrefonds (Oise), castle, 338

  Pistes, edict of, 32, 35, 55

  Pitt-Rivers, General A. H. L. F., 25

  Poitiers (Vienne), 27

  Poitou, Roger of, 327

  Pons Aelii (Northumberland), 21

  Pontaudemer (Eure), 71

  Pontefract (Yorks, W.R.), castle, 49, 56, 85, 86, 185, 186, 187, 236,
      279, 336, 360

  Porchester (Hants), Roman station and castle, 97, 131, A. Thompson;
      12, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 122, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 141, 142,
      145, 146, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156, 189, 235, 247, 335, 352

  Portishead (Somerset), 24

  Portsmouth harbour, 99, 335

  Portus Adurni, 12

  —— Magnus (Hants), 12

  Potterne (Wilts), manor-house, 301

  Poundbury (Dorset), 2, 19, 25

  Prague (Bohemia), bridge, 297, 298

  Provins (Seine-et-Marne), castle, 172, 182

  Prudentius, bishop of Troves, 27

  Prudhoe (Northumberland), castle, 86, 315

  Pudsey, Hugh, bishop of Durham, 56, 107, 133, 198, 200, 202

  Puiset, le (Eure-et-Loir), siege of, 67, 68

  Pyrénées-Orientales department, fortified churches in, 315


  R

  Raby (Durham), castle, 311, _Archaeol. Journal_; 310, 317, 318, 322

  Raglan (Monmouth), castle, 331, G. W. Saunders; 269, 330

  Ramsbury (Wilts), manor-house, 301

  Raymond, count of Toulouse, 70, 71

  Reading (Berks), 28

  Rede, William, bishop of Chichester, 360

  Reims (Marne), 22

  Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), castle, 45, A. Thompson (after Bayeux
      tapestry)

  Restormel (Cornwall), castle, 52, 230, 335

  Rhiangol river, 183

  Rhône river, 304

  Rhuddlan (Flint), castle, 229, 249, 275, 276, 280

  Rhymney river, 274

  Rhys ap Thomas, 330

  Ribble river, 327

  Richard I., king, 172, 176, 265

  —— II., king, 307

  Richborough (Kent), 12, 22

  Richmond (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 93, A. Thompson; 47, 51, 56, 85, 87,
      90, 93, 94, 97, 98, 101, 104, 107, 131, 133, 134, 137, 146, 149,
      153, 159, 163, 178, 189, 202, 212, 215, 252, 304, 308, 342, 345;
    earl of, _see_ Alan

  Ripon (Yorks, W.R.), 24

  Rising (Norfolk), castle, 143, G. H. Widdows; 131, 132, 133, 134,
      141, 142, 143, 146, 150, 154, 156, 188, 194

  Robert, duke of Normandy, 55, 67, 117, 193

  —— of Jumièges, archbishop of Canterbury, 37

  —— son of Giroie, 52, 90

  —— son of Roger, 194

  Robert’s castle, 37

  Roche-Guyon, la (Seine-et-Oise), castle, 172, 175

  Roche-sur-Igé, la (Orne), castle, 52

  Rochester (Kent), Boley hill, 128;
    bishop of, _see_ Gundulf;
    castle, frontispiece, J. Bailey; 145, A. Thompson; 66, 120, 125,
      127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 141, 142, 145, 149, 150,
      154, 155, 156, 159, 162, 163, 177

  —— cathedral, 120

  Rockingham (Northants), castle, 205, 226, A. Thompson; 202, 205, 226,
      227, 266, 360

  Roger, bishop of Salisbury, 98

  —— of Newburgh, earl of Warwick, 109

  Rollo, duke of Normandy, 28

  Rome, 292

  Rothbury (Northumberland), fortified rectory, 312

  Rother river, 325

  Rouen (Seine-Inférieure), 22, 27, 66, 176;
    abbey of Saint-Ouen, 22;
    castle, 23, 82, 117, 176, 178;
    priory of Ste-Trinité-du-Mont, 85

  Roussillon, fortified churches in, 315

  Royat (Puy-de-Dôme), fortified church, 315

  Runcorn (Chester), 29

  Ruthin (Denbigh), castle, 119

  Rutupiae (Kent), 12;
    _see_ Richborough

  Rye (Sussex), 325

  Ryedale (Yorks, N.R.), 85


  S

  Saint-Cénéri-le-Gérei (Orne), castle, 52, 90

  Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (Eure), treaty of, 28

  Saint-Claude (Jura), cathedral, 315

  St David’s (Pembroke), bishop’s palace, 338 341, 342

  —— bishops of, _see_ Gower, Vaughan

  Saint-Denis (Seine), abbey, 32, 315

  Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine), town walls, 290, A. Thompson; 250, 289

  Saint-Paul-du-Var (Alpes-Maritimes), 290

  Saint-Pol, count of, 216

  Saint-Pons (Hérault), cathedral, 315

  Sainte-Suzanne (Mayenne), castle, 66, 90

  Saintes-Maries-sur-la-Mer, les (Bouches-du-Rhône), fortified church,
    315

  Salisbury (Wilts), 25;
    and _see_ Old Sarum

  —— bishop’s palace, 301

  —— bishops of, _see_ Erghum, Roger, Wyvill

  —— cathedral close, 301

  —— city walls, 301

  Sandal (Yorks, W.R.), castle, 86, _Yorks. Archæol. Journal_; 85, 86,
      230

  Sandwich (Kent), 22

  Sarthe river, 23

  Savernake park (Wilts), 24

  Saracens in southern France, 65

  Scarborough (Yorks, N. R.), 296;
    castle, 129, A. Thompson; 85, 119, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137,
      138, 142, 145, 149, 160, 175, 202, 216, 230, 233, 236, 360

  Scots, kings of, _see_ Malcolm IV., William the Lion

  Scratchbury (Wilts), 25

  Searobyrig (Wilts), 25;
    _see_ Old Sarum

  Segedunum (Northumberland), 10

  Seine river, 27, 63, 64, 172, 175

  Sens (Yonne), 22

  Sept-Forges (Orne), castle, 52

  Severn river, 29, 119

  Sheffield (Yorks, W.R.), 318

  Sherborne (Dorset), 24

  —— castle, 98, 301

  Sheriff Hutton (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 317, 362, 367

  Shirburn (Oxford), castle, 325

  Shrawardine (Salop), castle, 119

  Shrewsbury, 29

  —— castle, 39, 40, 88, 109, 119

  —— church of St Julian, 109

  —— earl of, _see_ Talbot

  Shropshire, free chapels in, 109

  Silchester (Hants), 14, 22

  Skelton (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 85

  Skenfrith (Monmouth), castle, 184

  Skipsea (Yorks, E.R.), castle, 85, 86

  Skirlaw, Walter, bishop of Durham, 318

  Sleaford (Lincoln), 355

  Soar river, 28

  Soissons (Aisne), 295

  Solway firth, 10, 304

  Sonning (Berks), manor-house, 301

  Southampton (Hants), castle, 88, 119

  —— town walls, 293, C. Gethen; 88, 223, 241, 247, 292, 296

  Spennithorne (Yorks, N.R.), church-tower, 316

  Spofforth (Yorks, W.R.), manor-house, 307, 358

  Spurn head (Yorks, E.R.), 86

  Stafford, 29

  —— castle, 365, 367

  Stafford, Edward, duke of Buckingham, 362, 365, 366

  —— Anne, duchess, 365, 366

  Stainmoor, 312

  Stamford (Lincoln and Northampton), 29, 30, 32;
    castle, 30, 32

  Stephen, king, 56, 57

  Stokesay (Salop), castle, 207, A. Thompson; 306, R. Keene, C. Gethen;
      193, 206, 281, 307, 342, 352

  Stour river (Kent), 28

  Stow Park (Lincoln), manor-house, 301

  Strickland, William, 316

  Sudbury, Simon, archbishop of Canterbury, 304

  Surrey, earl of, _see_ Warenne

  Swale river, 90

  Swaledale, 85

  Swansea (Glamorgan), castle, 338, 341

  Swegen, king of Denmark, 64

  Sweyn Godwinsson, 37

  Syria, castles and churches in, 176


  T

  Tadcaster (Yorks, W.R.), 295;
    castle, 85

  Talbot, John, earl of Shrewsbury, 347

  Talvas, Guillaume, 51

  Tamar river, 27

  Tame river, 101

  Tamworth (Stafford), 28, 29, 30

  —— castle, 48, A. Thompson; 32, 47, 101, 242

  Tattershall (Lincoln), castle, 356, A. Thompson; 297, _Archaeol.
      Journal_; 318, 352, 355, 356, 357

  Tavistock (Devon), 27

  Tees river, 85, 86, 312

  Tempsford (Beds), _burh_ and earthwork, 32, A. Thompson; 29, 30, 33

  Tenby (Pembroke), town walls, 240, A. Thompson; 239, 240, 297

  Tewkesbury (Gloucestershire), gatehouse of abbey, 301

  Thames river, 28, 63, 64, 119

  Thanet, isle of (Kent), 28

  Thelwall (Chester), 26, 29

  Theobald, count of Chartres, 67, 68

  Thérouanne, bishop of, _see_ Warneton

  Thetford (Norfolk), 24;
    castle, 44

  Thirsk (Yorks, N.R.), castle, 56, 57, 83

  Thornbury (Gloucester), castle, 366, 367

  Thornton (Lincoln), gatehouse of abbey, 302, A. Thompson; 303,
      _Archaeol. Journal_; 331, F. Bond; 303, 304, 358

  Thurkill, 64

  Tickhill (Yorks, W.R.), castle, 67, 85, 96, 98, 99, 220, 235

  Tinchebray (Orne), battle of, 117

  Toledo (New Castile), bridge of Alcantarà, 297

  Tolleshunt Major (Essex), manor-house, 308

  Tonbridge (Kent), castle, 115, 365, 367

  Tor Bay, 358

  Torksey (Lincoln), castle, 358

  Torquay (Devon), 358

  Totnes (Devon), castle, 115

  Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), 27

  —— count of, _see_ Raymond

  Tournai (Hainault), fortified bridge, 297

  Tournus (Saône-et-Loire), abbey church, 315

  Tours (Indre-et-Loire), 22

  Towcester (Northampton), 26, 29, 65

  Tower on the Moor (Lincoln), 355

  Towy river, 308

  Trebonius, Gaius, 61, 62

  Trecastle (Brecknock), castle, 44, A. Thompson; 44, 56, 87

  Trent river, 28, 29, 50, 83, 85, 99, 120, 355, 358, 360

  Tre’r Ceiri (Carnarvon), 8

  Tretower (Brecknock), castle, 183, 184

  Tripoli (Syria), county of, 263

  Troyes (Aube), 22;
    bishop of, _see_ Prudentius

  Tungri, first cohort of, 18

  Tunstall, Cuthbert, bishop of Durham, 200

  Tustin, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, 236

  Tutbury (Stafford), castle, 237, R. Keene; 41, 42, 44, 327, 335,
      336, 359

  Tweed river, 86

  Tyne river, 10, 86, 88, 316

  Tynemouth priory (Northumberland), 298


  U

  Umfraville, Gilbert de, earl of Angus, 315

  Upton (Lincoln), church, 100

  Ure river, 83, 85

  Usk river, 183


  V

  Vaughan, Edward, bishop of St David’s, 342

  Vercingetorix, 59, 60, 61

  Vernon (Eure), 27

  Verona (Venetia), 290

  Vespasian, emperor, 14

  Villandraut (Gironde), castle, 325

  Villeneuve-d’Avignon (Gard), Château-Saint-André, 307, A. Thompson;
      304

  Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine), 49

  Viviers (Ardèche), cathedral, 315


  W

  Wakefield (Yorks, W.R.), 85

  Wallsend (Northumberland), 10

  Wansbeck river, 86, 166

  Wansdyke, the, 24, 25

  Warburton, 29

  Warenne, Isabel de, 167

  —— William de, earl of Surrey, 167

  Wark (Northumberland), castle, 86, 119

  Warkworth (Northumberland), castle, 49, A. Thompson; 221, J. P.
      Gibson; 44, 48, 86, 107, 190, 194, 197, 206, 209, 210, 211, 219,
      220, 223, 247, 248, 251, 290, 328, 329, 330, 356, 357

  —— fortified bridge, 298

  Warneton, John of, bishop of Thérouanne, 53

  Warrington (Lancaster), 26

  Warwick, _burh_, 29, 32

  —— castle, 231, 319, H. Baker; 234, 321, A. Thompson; 32, 39, 40,
      109, 189, 190, 194, 206, 223, 235, 246, 318, 321, 322, 327, 328,
      330, 359

  —— church of St Mary, 109

  —— earls of, _see_ Beauchamp, Roger

  —— town walls, 296

  Wat’s dyke, 24

  Wear river, 86, 202

  Wedmore (Somerset), peace of, 28

  Welland river, 28, 29

  Wells (Somerset), 24

  —— bishop’s palace, 300, Mrs Jessie Lloyd; 301, 338

  —— cathedral close, 298, 301

  Welshmen, 37

  Wenham, Little (Suffolk), hall, 355

  Wensleydale (Yorks, N.R.), 85

  Wessex, kingdom of, 28, 34

  —— kings of, _see_ Æthelwulf, Alfred, Ceawlin, Cynewulf, Edmund,
      Edward the Confessor, Edward the Elder, Egbert, Ethelred, Harold

  Westminster palace, 124

  Weston-super-Mare (Somerset), 8

  Whickham (Durham), church-tower, 316

  Whalley (Lancashire), gatehouse of abbey, 303

  Wharfe river, 85

  William I., king, 22, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 52, 56, 66, 67, 85,
      88, 90, 118, 120, 265

  —— II., king, 25, 62, 66, 90, 120, 124, 193

  William the Lion, king of Scots, 83

  William, son of Osbern, earl of Hereford, 104

  Winchelsea (Sussex), 296, 325

  Winchester (Hants), castle, 39, 40, 197, 202

  Windsor (Berks), castle, 109, 119, 282;

  St George’s chapel, 109

  Wingfield (Derby), manor, 346, W. H. Edmunds’ _Guide_; 348, A.
      Thompson; 349, 353, G. J. Gillham; 229, 269, 336, 345, 347,
      348, 351, 352, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359

  Witham (Essex), 29

  Witham river, 12, 20

  Wiverton (Notts), manor-house, 360

  Wollaton hall (Notts), 318

  Wootton lodge (Derby), 318

  Worcester, 119

  Worlebury (Somerset), 9, A. H. Allcroft; 8, 25

  Worthing (Sussex), 2

  Wressell (Yorks, E.R.), castle, 358

  Wrexham (Denbigh), 24

  Writtle (Essex), manor-house, 366

  Würzburg (Lower Franconia), 26

  Wye river, 24, 268

  Wyvill, Robert, bishop of Salisbury, 301


  Y

  Yanwath (Westmorland), manor-house, 338

  York, 17, A. Thompson; 14, 16, 18, 23, 28, 33, 41;
    archbishops of, 85;
    bars, 229, A. Thompson; 237, W. Maitland; 7, 229, 230, 233, 236,
      241, 245, 295, 296, 297;
    castles, 185, A. Thompson; 32, 39, 40, 41, 42, 52, 55, 85, 86, 88,
      89, 115, 120, 185, 186

  —— cathedral, 100;
    cathedral close, 298

  —— St Mary’s abbey, 33, 107, 298

  —— St Mary Bishophill Junior, 100

  Yorkshire, sheriff of, 55

  Ythanceaster (Essex), 22


  Z

  Zara (Dalmatia), siege of, 70




INDEX RERUM


  A

  Adulterine castles, 56, 57, 89

  _Adulterinus_, 56

  _Agger_, 11, 60

  _Alatorium_, 89

  Allure, 89

  Angle, dead, in fortification, 162

  Angles, reduction of, in fortification, 165

  Arbalast, 73;
    _see_ Cross-bow

  _Arx_, 22, 32, 53, 65;
    _arcem condere_, etc., 38

  Attack, science and methods of, 66-79

  _Aula_, hall or manor-house, 197, 198

  _Aula principalis_, 56;
    _see_ Hall


  B

  Bailey, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 50, 51, 55, 56;
    _see_ Castles, plan of

  _Ballista_, 16, 63, 67, 73, 74

  _Ballium_, 40

  Barbican, 215, 229, 230, 233-6, 239-41

  Barmkin, 189, 229, 312, 347

  Bartizan, 187, 235, 236

  Base-court, 40, 96

  _Basse-cour_, 40

  _Bastille_, 236

  Bastion, 289, 290

  Battering ram, _see_ Ram

  Bayeux tapestry, 36, 38, 45, 46, A. Thompson; 36, 38, 44, 45, 46, 52,
      66, 190, 192

  Belfry, 72, Viollet-le-Duc; 67, 70, 71, 78

  _Berfredum_, 67

  Berm, 5, 11, 60

  Bishop’s palaces, fortified, 301, 338, 341, 342

  Bore, 70, Viollet-le-Duc; 61, 64, 68

  Borough, 30

  _Bourg_, 26

  Bower, 192, 193

  Brattice, 79, 187

  _Bretèche_, 79, 187

  Brick-work in eastern counties, 355, 358

  —— tower of, at siege of Marseilles, 62

  Bridges, fortified, 297, 298;
    London bridge, 64;
    bridges at Paris, 63

  _Burg_, 25, 26

  _Burgus_ or _burgum_, 30, 41

  _Burh_, 25;
    _burhs_ in Saxon England, map of, 31, A. Thompson; 25-27, 28-33,
      35, 38, 41, 42

  Byzantine military science, 59, 61, 67, 73


  C

  _Cabulus_, 76

  Carfax, 22

  _Castel_, 35, 37, 42

  _Castellum_, 35, 55, 60, 66;
    _castellum construere_, etc., 38;
    _castellis, vastata in_, 42

  Castles, dwelling-houses in, 188-211

  —— in England, Norman, earthworks, 26, 30, 32, 33, 35-57;
    mount-and-bailey plan, 42-47, 48-52, 55-56, 110, 113, 160, 161;
    relative date of, 56, 57;
    importance in warfare, 65, 66, 83-7;
    stone fortifications, 47, 89-107

  —— in relation to plan of walled towns, 87-89

  —— plan of, with successive baileys, 162, 163, 164;
    concentric, 7, 164, 264, 264-82, 304;
    mount-and-bailey, _see_ Castles in England, Norman

  —— strategic position in North of England, map illustrating, 84, A.
      Thompson; 83-87

  —— Syrian, _see_ Crusaders

  _Castrum_, 35, 53

  Cat, 68

  Catapult, 73, Viollet-le-Duc; 16, 17, 51, 67, 70, 71, 73-6;
    _see_ _Ballista_, _Mangana_, etc.

  Centering of vault at Lancaster castle, 327

  _Cervi_, 60

  Chamber, great, 54, 205, 206, 207

  Chapels in castles, 107-9, 209-11;
    _see_ also Keep

  _Châtelet_, 236

  _Chats-châteaux_, 68

  _Chemise_, 90, 177

  Churches, fortified, 315, 316

  _Cippi_, 60, 61

  Closes of cathedrals, fortified, 298, 301

  “Contour” forts, 1, 2

  _Cortina_, 89

  Countervallation, wall of, 62

  _Coursière_, 80, 82, 178

  _Courtine_, 89

  Crenellate, licences to, 298, 301, 303, 304, 307, 308, 309

  Crenellations, 79

  Cross-bow, 67, 73, 74, 78

  Crusade, first, 66, 74;
    fourth, 70

  Crusaders, castles of, in Syria, 175, 176, 240, 241, 262, 263

  Crusades, influence of, on military science, 59, 66, 67, 160, 163,
      164, 175, 176, 262, 263


  D

  Danegeld, 33

  Danes, invasions of England and France by, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33,
      34, 39, 63, 64, 65

  Defence, science and progress of, 79-82, 161-5

  Demi-lune, 215

  Domesday Book, evidence with regard to early castles, 30, 37, 41,
      42, 83

  _Domgio_, 46

  Donjon or dungeon, 43, 46, 47, 361, 365

  Drainage of roofs, 156, 179

  Drawbridge, 55

  Dungeon, _see_ Donjon

  _Dunio_, 46


  E

  Earthworks in Britain, early, 1-10, 19;
    defence of entrances, 3, 5-7;
    dry-built walls, 8;
    in Saxon England, 24, 25

  Embrasure, 169


  F

  Fire-arms, introduction of, 58, 59, 287-90

  _Firmamentum_, 38

  _Firmitas_, 55

  Flanking, 102, 161, 162, 164, 216-20

  Fore-building, _see_ Keep

  _Forum_, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23

  France, Gallo-Roman cities in, 22, 23

  —— early castles in, 36

  —— mount-and-bailey castles in, 46, 52, 53, 55

  —— progress of military art in, 65

  —— walled towns in, 64, 65, 250, 290, 292

  Free chapels, 109


  G

  Galleries in walls of castles, 284, 285

  Garde-robes, 247;
    _see_ also Keep, Mural chambers

  Gatehouses of castle, early, 95-9;
    later, 220-9

  Gateways of Roman stations, 14, 15, 19

  _Geweorc_, 30, 33, 63

  Great chamber, _see_ Chamber


  H

  _Haia_, 55

  Hall of castle, 54, 55, 56, 104, 107, 190-3, 195, 197, 198, 200,
      202, 205, 206

  “Herring-bone” masonry, 93, 99-102

  Herse, 70

  Hides, raw, used to protect palisades, 62, 64, 68

  Hoarding, 79, Viollet-le-Duc; 79, 80, 81, 82, 187

  Hooks, grappling, 61, 71

  Horn-work, 215

  _Hourd_; _see_ Hoarding

  Hurdles, use of, in attack, 61


  I

  Italy, fortified towns in, 290, 292


  K

  Keep, gradual disappearance of, 164, 212, 215

  —— cylindrical tower, 165-85;
    internal arrangements, 168-72, 178, 179, 182, 183, 184

  —— octagonal tower, 185

  —— quatrefoil tower, 172, 185-7

  —— rectangular tower, map of towers, 130, A. Thompson;
    in France and Normandy, 116-8;
    in England, 118-59;
    evidence for date, 118-20;
    early Norman towers, 120-5;
    comparative measurements of towers, 125, 127-8, 131-3;
    position in plan, 128-31;
    external treatment, 133, 134, 137;
    entrance and forebuilding, 137-8, 141-2;
    internal arrangement and cross-wall, 142, 145-6;
    basement, 146, 149-50;
    stairs, 146, 149;
    chapels, 150, 153-4;
    kitchens, 154;
    wells, 154;
    mural chambers and galleries, 155-6;
    roof and rampart, 157, 159;
    drawbacks of shape, 161-2

  —— , residential use of, 53-5, 179, 188

  —— shell, 113-6;
    combination with rectangular tower, 129

  —— wooden tower on mount, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52-5, 56, 113, 160

  Kitchen in castles, 54, 193, 194, 209;
    _see also_ Keep


  L

  _Lilium_, 60, 61

  Lists, 264

  Limestone, Yorkshire, 355

  _Logium_, 54


  M

  Machicolations, 82, 175, 223, 246

  _Malvoisin_, 66

  _Mangana_, mangon, mangonel, 64, 73

  Mantlets, 61, 64, 68, 70, 79;
    of rope, 62

  _Merlon_, 169, 242, 245, 246

  Mile-castles on Roman wall, 11, 17, 60

  Mines, use of, in siege, 58, 62, 63, 68, 70, 71

  Monasteries, fortified, 298, 301, 303, 304, 315

  _Motte_, 41, 46, 54

  Mount, 41, 43, 44-47, 48-53, 54

  Mouse, 62, 68

  _Municipium_, 35, 53

  _Munitio_, 35, 53;
    _munitionem firmare_, etc., 38

  _Musculus_, 62


  N

  Norman conquest, castle-building after, 38, 39

  Normans at court of Edward the Confessor, 37


  O

  _Oppidum_, 21


  P

  _Palicium_, 55

  Palisade and stockade, use of, 5, 25, 26, 29, 32, 36, 40, 45, 46,
      52, 53, 55, 58, 59, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 73, 89

  Pantry, 54

  Parapets, 79, 80, 82, 102, 242, 245, 246

  Parvise, 192

  Pele, 229, 312

  Pele-towers, 185, 219, 220, 312, 315, 316

  Pele-yard, 315

  Pent-houses, 62, 64, 79

  _Petraria_, 73

  _Pierrière_, 73

  _Pomerium_, 292, 295

  _Porta decumana_, 19;
    _praetoria_, 19;
    _principalis_, 19

  Portcullis, 70, 96, 227, 229

  _Porte-coulis_, 70

  Postern, 247, 251

  _Praetorium_, 14, 18

  Promontories, early camps on, 1, 2

  _Propugnaculum_, 89


  Q

  _Quincunx_, 60


  R

  Ram, 69, Viollet-le-Duc; 63, 64, 68, 78, 79;
    devices against, 79

  Rampart-walk, 241, Viollet-le-Duc; 79, 80, 89, 102;
    _see_ also Keep

  Ravelin, 215

  Revetment, walls of, 186

  Roman military science, 59-62, 73

  —— occupation of Britain, 10-20

  —— roads in Britain, 11, 12, 25

  —— stations, 10, 12-20

  —— wall in Northumberland and Cumberland, 11, A. Thompson
    (after Bruce);
      10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 25


  S

  Saxon invasions of Britain, 21, 22

  —— shore, fortresses of, 12, 22

  —— towns and villages, 23, 24

  Scaling, 58;
    scaling-ladders, 61, 70, 71

  _Scorpio_, 73

  Shutter in embrasure, 245, Viollet-le-Duc; 242

  Siegecraft, engines used in, 68-77;
    _see_ Catapult


  Sieges—
    of Alesia, 59-61
    of Antioch, 164, 241
    of Château-Gaillard, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 163, 215, 216
    of Constantinople, 164
    of London by Danes, 64, 65
    of Marseilles, 61, 62
    of Paris, 63, 64
    of Le Puiset, 67, 68

  Slingers, 58

  Solar, _solarium_, 192, 193

  Sow, 68

  Spur at base of towers, 175, 185

  Stakes used as missiles, 61

  _Stimuli_, 61

  Stockade, _see_ Palisade


  T

  _Terebra_, 68

  _Testudo_, 62, 68

  _Tête-du-pont_, 63, 234, 326

  Teutonic origin of mount-and-bailey castle, conjectural, 51

  _Timbrian_, 29

  Tortoise, 68;
    _see_ _Testudo_

  Tower at siege of Marseilles, 62

  Tower, great, _see_ Keep

  Towers on ramparts, 60, 61, 161, 162, 164;
    in early Norman castles, 102-4;
    _see_ Flanking

  —— on walls of Roman stations, 15-17

  —— strong, survivals of keep, 269, 281, 282

  Towns; Saxon settlements, 23, 24

  —— walled, 228, 288, Viollet-le-Duc;
    early, 64, 65;
    in relation to castles, 87-89

  _Trebuchet_, 75, 76, Viollet-le-Duc; 76

  Turrets on Roman wall, 11


  U

  _Urbs_, 21


  V

  _Vallum_, 2, 5, 11, 53, 60, 61

  _Via praetoria_, 18;
    _principalis_, 18, 19, 23

  _Villa_, 53

  Villas in Roman Britain, 12, 21

  _Vinea_, 62


  W

  Ward, 40

  Wells in castles, 119, 124, 125, 141, 145, 146, 154, 155, 179


  _Printed at_ THE DARIEN PRESS, _Edinburgh_




GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND


An Analysis of the Origin and Development of English Church
Architecture from the Norman Conquest to the Dissolution of the
Monasteries

BY FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

With 1254 Illustrations, comprising 785 Photographs, Sketches, and
Measured Drawings, and 469 Plans, Sections, Diagrams, and Moldings.
Imperial 8vo, 800 pp., handsomely bound in art canvas, gilt. Price 31s.
6d. net

Published by B. T. BATSFORD, 94 High Holborn, London


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_The Times._—“Mr Bond has given us a truly monumental work on English
Gothic Architecture in his profusely illustrated and very fully indexed
volume of some 800 pages.... As a mine of erudition, of detailed
analysis and information, and of criticism on English Mediæval Church
Architecture the book is worthy of all praise. For students it must
be of lasting value; for authentic reference it will be long before
it is likely to be in any way seriously superseded; while the lavish
illustrations, many of them unpublished photographs, must be of
permanent interest to all.”

_The Athenæum._—“This is, in every sense of the word, a great book. It
at once steps to the front as authoritative.”

_The Building News._—“A remarkable book.... Perfectly orderly, and most
complete and thorough, this great book leaves nothing to be desired.”

_The Reliquary._—“The more expert a man is as a Church Architect or as
an intelligent ecclesiologist, the more grateful will he be to Mr Bond
for the production of a noble volume like that now under notice.”

_The Spectator._—“The whole book is extraordinarily full,
extraordinarily minute, and enriched by a wealth of illustrations, and
must stand for many years to come as _the_ book of reference on the
subject of Ecclesiastical Gothic in England for all architects and
archaeologists.”

_The Westminster Gazette._—“Mr Bond gives us an immense quantity of
material—the result of the most painstaking and laborious research;
he has illustrated every chapter, not only with photographs, but with
the most admirable diagrams of mouldings and details; he has scarcely
missed a church of any importance in his search for examples. In all
these respects he places the architect and the architectural student
under an immense obligation.”

_The Pall Mall Gazette._—“Archæologist, scholar, and geologist, he
is something more than a mere enthusiast, for to the ardour of his
argument he brings deep technical mastery, much wide research, and
scientific knowledge.... The book is one of the most absorbing that we
have read for a long time in any field.”

_Bulletin Monumental._—“Le grand travail sur l’architecture gothique
anglaise.”




SCREENS AND GALLERIES IN ENGLISH CHURCHES


BY FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

A handsome volume, containing 204 pp., with 152 Illustrations,
reproduced from Photographs and Measured Drawings. Octavo, strongly
bound in cloth. Price 6s. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_Builder._—“When we look at the detailed photographs we realise the
richness of the field which Mr Bond has traversed, and congratulate
him on the choice of his subject. His method is one of singular
thoroughness from the ecclesiological standpoint.”

_Journal of the Architectural Association._—“As a record of the screens
remaining in our churches it cannot be valued too highly. No book till
now has brought such a number together, or traced their development in
so full and interesting a manner.... A most delightful book.”

_Builders’ Journal._—“The author may be congratulated on the production
of a book which, in text as well as in illustrations, is of striking
and inexhaustible interest; it is the kind of book to which one returns
again and again, in the assurance of renewed and increased pleasure at
each reperusal.”

_Tablet._—“The numerous excellent illustrations are of the greatest
interest, and form a veritable surprise as to the beauty and variety of
the treatment which our forefathers lavished upon the rood screen.”

_British Weekly._—“The book abounds with admirable illustrations of
these beautiful works of art, so perfect even in the minute details
that any one interested in the art of woodcarving could reproduce the
designs with ease from the excellent photographs which occur on almost
every page. There is also a series of ‘measured drawings’ of great
beauty and interest.”

_New York Nation._—“It is not easy to praise too highly the simple and
effective presentation of the subject and the interest of the book to
all persons who care for ecclesiology or for decorative art.”

_Bibliophile._—“This excellent book is a sign of the times; of the
reawakened interest in the beautiful and historic.... A model of
scholarly compression. Of the finely produced illustrations it is
difficult to speak in too high terms of praise.”

_Daily Graphic._—“Mr Bond has produced a work on our ecclesiastical
screens and galleries which, like his larger work on the ‘Gothic
Architecture of England,’ is in the first degree masterly. His
knowledge of his subject, exact and comprehensive, is compressed into a
minimum amount of space, and illustrated by a series of photographs and
measured drawings which render the work of permanent value.”

_Bulletin Monumental._—“Après avoir analysé, aussi exactement que
possible, l’intéressant étude de M. Bond, nous devons le féliciter de
nous avoir donné ce complément si utile à son grand ouvrage.”




FONTS & FONT COVERS


BY FRANCIS BOND. M.A., F.G.S.

A handsome volume containing 364 pages, with 426 Illustrations
reproduced from Photographs and Measured Drawings. Octavo, strongly
bound in cloth. Price 12s. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_Guardian._—“Mr Bond is so well known by his monumental work on ‘Gothic
Architecture in England,’ and by his beautiful book on ‘Screens and
Galleries,’ that his name alone is a sufficient guarantee for this new
volume on ‘Fonts and Font Covers,’ the most complete and thorough that
has yet appeared.”

_Church Times._—“The finest collection of illustrations of fonts and
font covers yet attempted.... A real delight to the ecclesiologist.”

_Commonwealth._—“A sumptuous monograph on a very interesting subject;
complete and thorough.”

_Church Quarterly Review._—“It is most delightful, not only to indulge
in a serious perusal of this volume, but to turn over its pages again
and again, always sure to find within half a minute some beautiful
illustration or some illuminating remark.”

_Irish Builder._—“This book on ‘Fonts and Font Covers’ is a most
valuable contribution to mediæval study, put together in masterly
fashion, with deep knowledge and love of the subject.”

_Westminster Gazette._—“Every one interested in church architecture
and sculpture will feel almost as much surprise as delight in Mr
Bond’s attractive volume on ‘Fonts and Font Covers.’ The wealth of
illustrations and variety of interest are truly astonishing.”

_Journal of the Society of Architects._—“The book is a monument of
painstaking labour and monumental research; its classification is
most admirable. The whole subject is treated in a masterly way with
perfect sequence and a thorough appreciation of the many sources of
development; the illustrations, too, are thoroughly representative.
To many the book will come as a revelation. We all recognise that
the fonts are essential, and in many cases beautiful and interesting
features in our ancient churches, but few can have anticipated the
extraordinary wealth of detail which they exhibit when the photographs
of all the best of them are collected together in a single volume.”

_Outlook._—“Mr Francis Bond’s book carefully included in one’s luggage
enables one, with no specialist’s knowledge postulated, to pursue to a
most profitable end one of the most interesting, almost, we could say,
romantic, branches of ecclesiastical architecture.... This book, owing
to its scholarship and thoroughness in letterpress and illustrations,
will doubtless be classic; in all its methods it strikes us as
admirable. The bibliography and the indexes are beyond praise.”




VISITORS’ GUIDE TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY


BY FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

93 pages of text, abridged from the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters
of the author’s larger work on “Westminster Abbey,” consisting chiefly
of description of the Tombs, Monuments, and Cloisters, with 15 Plans
and Drawings and 32 Photographic Illustrations. Price 1s. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_Guardian._—“There is probably no better brief handbook. Mr Bond’s
qualifications for the task are beyond question. By the use of varied
type, ingenious arrangement, and excellent tone-blocks and plans, the
book attains a high standard of lucidity as well as of accuracy.”

_Building News._—“This little work is characterised by its terseness,
directness, and practical treatment. A carefully compiled and scholarly
guide-book.”

_Architect._—“This book will excellently and admirably fulfil its
purpose.... A splendid itinerary, in which almost every inch of the way
is made to speak of its historical connections.”

_Birmingham Daily Post._—“Concise, informative, reliable, and admirably
illustrated.”

_Western Morning News._—“By his key plan and very clear directions as
to where to find the numerous side chapels, historic monuments, and
other objects of interest, Mr Bond makes it possible for a visitor to
find his way round the building at his leisure. It refreshes one’s
knowledge of English history, and is supplemented by thirty-two
excellent plates, which by themselves are worth the shilling charged
for it.”

_Scotsman._—“A more complete and dependable guide to the National
Pantheon could not be desired.”

_Architectural Review._—“This is an excellent little text-book. Mr Bond
is to be congratulated in having introduced into it an interesting
element of history. The notes in small print should make the visit
to the Abbey both more profitable and more interesting. The key plan
and the numerous small plans are extremely clear and easily read. The
information given is concise and to the point, and a word of special
praise must be given to the plates at the end; the subjects of these
are well chosen and are illustrated by very good photographs.”

_Antiquary._—“This little book, strongly bound in linen boards, gives
concisely and clearly all the information the ordinary visitor is
likely to require. Cheap, well arranged, well printed, abundantly
illustrated and well indexed, this handy book, which is light and
‘pocketable,’ is the best possible companion for which a visitor to our
noble Abbey can wish; it is an ideal guide.”




WESTMINSTER ABBEY


BY FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

A handsome volume, containing 348 pages, with 270 Photographs, Plans,
Sections, Sketches, and Measured Drawings. Octavo, strongly bound in
cloth. Price 10s. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_Oxford Magazine._—“All who love the Abbey will be grateful for the
skill and affection bestowed on this admirable work.”

_Birmingham Post._—“With the history of the Abbey the author
interweaves the life of the Benedictines, peopling the building with
its occupants in the centuries when England was a Catholic country,
and does it with such skill than one can almost imagine oneself at the
services.”

_Englishman._—“The writer handles his subject with consummate skill,
and his reward will lie in the unmeasured praise of his many readers.”

_Guardian._—“A book which brings fresh enthusiasm, and will impart a
new impetus to the study of the Abbey and its history.”

_Scotsman._—“At once instructive and delightful, it more than justifies
its existence by its historical and architectural learning.”

_Liverpool Daily Courier._—“We found the earlier parts of the book most
fascinating, and have read them over and over again.”

_Architectural Association Journal._—“Bright and interesting; evincing
the author’s invariable enthusiasm and characteristic industry.”

_Western Morning News._—“To say that the book is interesting is to say
little; it is a monument of patient and loving industry and extreme
thoroughness, an inexhaustible mine of delight to the reader, general
or technical.”

_Outlook._—“The author discusses the architecture with a minuteness
that might terrify the inexpert if it were not for the sustained ease
and interest of his style; great is the fascination of the expert hand
when its touch is light.”

_Saturday Review._—“Mr Bond leaves us more than ever proud of what is
left to us of the stately Benedictine house of God, which is to the
entire English-speaking world a common bond and home.”

_Antiquary._—“It has a wealth of capital illustrations, is preceded by
a bibliography, and is supplied with good indexes to both illustrations
and text.”

_Journal des Savants._—“Certains clichés, comme ceux des voûtes, des
tombeaux et de quelques détails de sculpture sont de véritables tours
de force. Le choix des illustrations est très heureux, comme d’ailleurs
dans les autres ouvrages de M. Bond.”




Wood Carvings in English Churches


I. MISERICORDS

BY FRANCIS BOND. M.A., F.G.S.

A Handsome Volume, containing 257 pages, with 241 Illustrations Octavo,
strongly bound in cloth. Price 7s. 6d. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_Morning Post._—“The subject is one of the first importance to mediæval
popular history, and we welcome this very admirable and thorough
monograph with special gratitude.”

_Athenæum._—“Mr Bond has put his rare industry in all that pertains to
ecclesiology to excellent service in his latest book on Misericords.”

_Antiquary._—“An authoritative and, at the same time, delightful and
instructive volume. Really the first attempt to deal comprehensively
with the great variety of carvings on misericords.”

_New York Herald._—“One of the quaintest, most fascinating, and at the
same time most learned volumes that a reader would happen upon in a
lifetime.”

_Church Times._—“An indispensable guide to the subject. The
illustrations are worthy of all praise.”

_Architectural Association Journal._—“The blocks, taken from
photographs, are of an excellence really amazing, when the difficulties
such subjects present to the camera are considered. A most delightful
book.”

_Yorkshire Post._—“Another of the valuable series of monographs on
Church Art in England, and the most entertaining of all.”

_Architects’ and Builders’ Journal._—“An exceedingly interesting
volume both in illustrations and subject-matter, and full of curious
information.”

_Glasgow Herald._—“Mr Bond’s scholarly and most interesting book brings
us very near to popular life in the Middle Ages.”

_Liverpool Courier._—“Another of the admirably written and illustrated
art handbooks for which the author is famous.”

_Birmingham Post._—“This well illustrated volume is not only a valuable
technical monograph, but also an important contribution to the history
of social life and thought in the Middle Ages. Mr Bond’s treatment
of the subject is exceptionally charming and successful. The general
excellence of the book is great.”

_Outlook._—“Many there must be to whom Mr Bond’s new book will be
welcome. Into all the details of this varied and most puzzling subject
he goes with thoroughness and a pleasant humour. The bibliography and
indexes, as usual in Mr Bond’s work, are admirable.”




STALLS AND TABERNACLE WORK IN ENGLISH CHURCHES


BY FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

Illustrated by 123 Photographs and Drawings. Price 6s. net

LONDON; HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press


SOME PRESS NOTICES

_Birmingham Post._—“Valuable for lucid description and enlightened
criticism of architectural and technical details combined with
suggestive treatment of historical facts. A certain charm of manner
contributes to the interest.”

_La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité._—“Une illustration copieuse
établie avec des soins tout documentaires; des index; une table par
ordre chronologique, une autre par noms de lieux, viennent faciliter
les recherches et permettre au lecteur de tirer bénéfice des vastes
resources d’une érudition informée et sure.”

_Revue de l’Art Chrétien._—“M. Bond est le premier qui ait traité ce
sujet; il l’a fait avec une grande compétence, et son intéressant
ouvrage nous fait regretter que chez nous pareil travail ne tente un de
nos érudits.”

_The Builder._—“The illustrations are admirable, and we cordially
recommend our readers to undertake their examination with the help of
so accomplished and genial a cicerone as Mr Bond.”

_The Antiquary._—“The volume abounds with fine illustrations, which
even more than the text make us realise the extraordinary beauty and
variety of the craftsmanship.”

_The Architect._—“A most delightful and valuable account of the
marvellous fertility of design, the exquisite craftsmanship, and the
pious generosity of mediæval England.”

_Cambridge Review._—“The fourth of a series of handbooks of which it is
difficult to speak too highly.”

_Building News._—“A monument of industry and erudition.”

_The Cabinet Maker._—“Every lover of woodwork should possess this
series, which contains beautiful illustrations and most interesting
descriptions of the noble heritage of magnificent work handed down to
us by the mediæval Church.”




_IN THE PRESS._


ENGLISH MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

By A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A., F.S.A.

Author of “THE GROUND PLAN OF THE ENGLISH PARISH CHURCH”; “THE
HISTORICAL GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH PARISH CHURCH”; &c.

Copiously illustrated with Plans, Drawings, and Photographs. Octavo,
strongly bound in cloth. Price 7s. 6d. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE


CHURCH BELLS IN ENGLAND

By H. B. WALTERS, Esq., M.A., F.S.A.

Joint-Author of “BELLS OF ESSEX” and “BELLS OF WARWICKSHIRE.”

Copiously illustrated with Photographs of Bells, Bell Stamps, Founders’
Marks, &c.

Octavo, strongly bound in cloth. Price 7s. 6d. net

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE


CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND WALES

By FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

A Short History of their Architecture; being a remodelled,
re-illustrated, and enlarged edition of “English Cathedrals
Illustrated.” Containing over 270 Illustrations from photographs and a
complete set of plans specially drawn to a uniform scale. Octavo, cloth
gilt. Price 7s. 6d. net

LONDON: B. T. BATSFORD


INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH CHURCH ARCHITECTURE FOR GENERAL READERS

By FRANCIS BOND, M.A., F.G.S.

This book has been specially prepared for those who have not had an
architectural training and desire an account of English Ecclesiastical
Architecture not overlaid with archæological and technical detail. It
will be a quarto volume of large size and handsome type, illustrated
with many hundred Plans, Drawings, and large size Photographs, and will
probably be published at a Guinea.

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE




Transcriber’s Notes:—


  Numbers in parentheses eg., (106) refer to the illustration page
  numbers.

  In the Bibliography:—
  Viollet-de-Duc corrected to read Viollet-le-Duc

  In the Index:—

  Aigues-Mortes (Gard), 7, A. Thompson;
  Corrected thus:—
  Aigues-Mortes (Gard), 77, A. Thompson;


  Tattershall (Lincoln), castle, 296, A. Thompson;
  Corrected thus:—
  Tattershall (Lincoln), castle, 356, A. Thompson;

  mount-and-bailey plan, 42-47, 48-52, 55-56, 112, 113, 160, 161;
  Corrected thus:—
  mount-and-bailey plan, 42-47, 48-52, 55-56, 110, 113, 160, 161;

  Hall of castle, 54, 55, 56, 104, 107, 190-3, 196, 197, 198, 200,
  Corrected thus:—
  Hall of castle, 54, 55, 56, 104, 107, 190-3, 195, 197, 198, 200,

  Keep, gradual disappearance of, 164, 214, 215
  Corrected thus:—
  Keep, gradual disappearance of, 164, 212, 215

  Footnotes:—

  [135] Other important shell keeps of the normal type are at Arundel,
  Cardiff (114), Carisbrooke (171), Farnham, Lewes, Pickering, Totnes,
  Corrected thus:—
  [135] Other important shell keeps of the normal type are at Arundel,
  Cardiff (114), Carisbrooke (111), Farnham, Lewes, Pickering, Totnes,







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