Chapter VII · THE CASTLES OF THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND (continued 2)

The masonry now existing at the castle is probably none of it older than the reign of Henry II. at the earliest, and most of it is certainly much later.[469] The Pipe Rolls show that Henry II. spent £235 on the castle of Hastings between the years 1160 and 1181, and it is indicated that some of this money was for stone, and some was for a keep (turrim).[470] There is no tower large enough for a keep at Hastings now, nor have any stone foundations been found on the motte, and Mr Harold Sands, who has paid particular attention to this castle, concludes that Henry II.’s keep has been carried away by the sea, which has probably torn away at least 2 acres from the area of the castle.[471] The beautiful fragment of the Chapel of St Mary is probably of Henry II.’s reign; the walls and towers on the east side of the castle appear to be of the 13th century. The ditch does not run round the motte, but is cut through the peninsular rock on which the castle stands, the motte and its ward being thus isolated. The form of this bailey is now triangular, but it may have been square originally. Beyond the ditch is another bailey, defended by earthen banks and by a second ditch cut through the peninsula.[472] No exact estimate can be given of the original area of the castle, as so much of the cliff has been carried away by the sea.

Hastings itself had been a fortified town before the Norman Conquest, and is one of those mentioned in the Burghal Hidage. The name Hæstingaceaster, given to it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1050), is a proof that the Saxons used the name chester for constructions of their own, as no Roman remains have been found at Hastings. But the Norman castle is outside the town, on a cliff which overlooks it. As in the case of the other ports of Sussex, the castle was committed to an important noble, in this case the Count of Eu.

The manor of Bexley, in which Hastings Castle stood, had been laid waste at the Conquest; at the date of the Survey it was again rising in value, though it had not reached the figure of King Edward’s days.[473]

Hereford.—There can be little doubt that the castle of Hereford was built by the Norman Ralph, Earl of Hereford, Edward the Confessor’s nephew, about the year 1048.[474] It was burnt by the Welsh in 1055, after which Harold fortified the town with a dyke and ditch; but as Mr Freeman remarks, it is not said that he restored the castle.[475] The motte of Earl Ralph is now completely levelled, but it is mentioned several times in documents of the 12th century,[476] and is described in a survey of 1652, from which it appears that it had a stone keep tower, as well as a stone breastwork enclosing a small ward.[477] It stood outside the N.W. corner of the bailey, surrounded by its own ditch; the site is still called Castle Hill. If the castle was not restored before the Norman Conquest it was certainly restored afterwards, as in 1067 we find the “men of the castle” fighting with Edric Child and the Welsh. The castle appears to have had stone walls by the time of Henry II., as the mention of a kiln for their repair proves.[478] But these walls had wooden towers.[479] The timber ordered in 1213 “ad hordiandum castellum nostrum de Hereford”[480] refers to the wooden alures or machicolations which were placed on the tops of walls for the purpose of defending the bases.

Though Hereford was a private castle in the Confessor’s reign, it was claimed for the crown by Archbishop Hubert, the Justiciary, in 1197, and continued to be a royal castle throughout the 13th century.[481]

The bailey of Hereford Castle still exists, with its fine banks; it is kite-shaped and encloses 5½ acres. The castle stood within the city walls, in the south-east angle.

The value of Hereford appears to have greatly increased at the date of the Survey.[482]

Huntingdon (Fig. 18).—“There were twenty houses on the site of the castle, which are now gone.”[483] Ordericus tells us that the castle of Huntingdon was built by William on his return from his second visit to York in 1068.[484] Huntingdon had been a walled town in Anglo-Saxon times, and was very likely first fortified by the Danes, but was repaired by Edward the Elder. As in the case of so many other towns, the houses outside the walls had to pay geld along with those of the city, and it was some of the former which were displaced by the new Norman castle. Huntingdon was part of the patrimony of Earl Waltheof, and came to the Norman, Simon de Senlis, through his marriage with Waltheof’s daughter and heiress. The line of Senlis ended in another heiress, who married David, afterwards the famous king of Scotland; David thus became Earl of Huntingdon. In the insurrection of the younger Henry in 1174, William the Lion, grandson of David, took sides with the young king, and consequently his castle was besieged and taken by the forces of Henry II.,[485] and the king ordered it to be destroyed. The Pipe Rolls show that this order was carried out, as they contain a bill for “hooks for pulling down the stockade of Huntingdon Castle,” and “for the work of the new castle at Huntingdon, and for hiring carpenters, and crooks, and axes.”[486] We learn from these entries that the original castle of the Conquest had just been replaced by a new one, very likely a new fortification of the old mounds by William, in anticipation of the insurrection. We also learn that the new castle was a wooden one; for a castle which has to be pulled down by carpenters with hooks and axes is certainly not of stone. It does not appear that the castle was ever restored, though “the chapel of the castle” is spoken of as late as the reign of Henry III.[487]

The motte of Huntingdon still exists, and has not the slightest sign of masonry. The bailey is roughly square, with the usual rounded corners; the motte was inside this enclosure, but had its own ditch. The whole area was 2½ acres, but another bailey was subsequently added.

The value of Huntingdon appears to have been stationary at the time of the Survey, the loss of the twenty houses causing a diminution of revenue which must have been made up from the new feudal dues of the castle.

Launceston, or Dunheved,[488] Cornwall (Fig. 19).—There, says Domesday Book, is the castle of the Earl of Mortain.[489] In another place it tells us that the earl gave two manors to the bishop of Exeter “for the exchange of the castle of Cornwall,” another name for Dunheved Castle. We have already had occasion to note that the “exchange of the castle,” in Domesday language, is an abbreviation for the exchange of the site of the castle. The fact that the land was obtained from the church is a proof that the castle was new, for it was not the custom of Saxon prelates thus to fortify themselves. The motte of Launceston is a knoll of natural rock, which has been scarped and heightened by art. This motte now carries a circular keep, which cannot be earlier than the 13th century.[490] There is no early Norman work whatever about the masonry of the castle, and the remarkably elaborate fortifications on the motte belong to a much later period.[491] The motte rises in one corner of a roughly rectangular bailey, which covers 3 acres. It stands outside the town walls, which still exist, and join those of the castle, as at Totnes. Launceston was only a small manor of ten ploughs in the time of the Confessor. In spite of the building of the castle, the value of the manor had greatly gone down in William’s time.[492] The ten ploughs had been reduced to five.

Launceston, Cornwall.

Lewes, Sussex.

Fig. 19.

Lewes, Sussex (Fig. 19).—The castle of Lewes is not mentioned in its proper place in Sussex by Domesday Book, and this is another proof that the Survey contains no inventory of castles; for that the castle was existing at that date is rendered certain by the numerous allusions in the Norfolk portion to “the exchange of the castle of Lewes.”[493] It is clear that at some period, possibly during the revolt of Robert Curthose in 1079, William I. gave large estates in Norfolk to his trusty servant, William de Warenne, in exchange for the important castle of Lewes, which he may have preferred to keep in his own hands at that critical period. This bargain cannot have held long, at least as regards the castle, which continued to belong to the Warenne family for many generations. We cannot even guess now how the matter was settled, but the lands in Norfolk certainly remained in the hands of the Warennes.

Lewes is one of the very few castles in England which have two mottes.[494] They were placed at each end of an oval bailey, each surrounded by its own ditch, and each projecting about three-fourths beyond the line of the bailey. On the northern motte only the foundations of a wall round the top remain; on the other, part of the wall which enclosed a small ward, and two mural towers. These towers have signs of the early Perpendicular period, and are very likely of the reign of Edward III., when the castle passed into the hands of the Fitz Alans. The bailey, which enclosed an area of about 3 acres, is now covered with houses and gardens, but parts of the curtain wall on the S.E. and E. stand on banks, bearing witness to the original wooden fortifications. The great interest of this bailey is its ancient Norman gateway. The entrance was regarded by mediæval architects as the weakest part of the fortress, and we frequently find that it was the first part to receive stone defences.[495] It is not surprising that at such an important place as Lewes, which was then a port leading to Normandy, and at the castle of so powerful a noble, we should find an early case of stone architecture supplementing the wooden defences. But the two artificial mottes have no masonry that can be called early Norman.

Lewes is one of the boroughs mentioned in the Burghal Hidage, and was a burgus at the time of the Survey.[496] The value of the town had increased by £1, 18s. from what it had been in King Edward’s time.

Lincoln.

Fig. 20.

Lincoln (Fig. 20).—Domesday Book tells us that 166 houses were destroyed to furnish the site of the castle.[497] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that William built a castle here on his return from his first visit to York in 1068, and Ordericus makes the same statement.[498] Lincoln, like Exeter, was a Roman castrum, and the Norman castle in both cases was placed in one corner of the castrum; but the old Roman wall of Lincoln, which stands on the natural ground, was not considered to be a sufficient defence on the two exterior sides, probably on account of its ruinous condition. It was therefore buried in a very high and steep bank, which was carried all round the new castle.[499] This circumstance seems to point to the haste with which the castle was built, Lincoln being then for the first time subdued. The fact that it was inside the probably closely packed Roman walls explains why so many houses were destroyed for the castle.[500] Lincoln, like Lewes, has two mottes: both are of about the same height, but the one in the middle of the southern line of defence is the larger and more important; it was originally surrounded with its own ditch. It is now crowned with a polygonal shell wall, which may have been built by the mother of Ralph Gernon, Earl of Chester, in the reign of Henry I.[501] The tower on the other motte, at the south-east corner, has been largely rebuilt in the 14th century and added to in modern times, but its lower storey still retains work of Norman character. There is good reason to suppose that this bailey was first walled with stone in Richard I.’s reign, as there is an entry in the Pipe Rolls of 1193-1194 “for the cost of fortifying the bailey, £82, 16s. 4d.”[502] The present wall contains a good deal of herring-bone work, and this circumstance led Mr Clark, who was looking for something which he could put down to William I.’s time, to believe that the walls were of that date. But the herring-bone work is all in patches, as though for repairs, and herring-bone work was used for repairs at all epochs of mediæval building. The two gateways (that is the Norman portions of them) are probably of about the same date as the castle wall. The whole area is 5¾ acres.

The total revenue which the city of Lincoln paid to the king and the earl had gone up from 30l. T. R. E. to 100l. T. R. W. For the sake of those who imagine that Saxon halls had anything to do with mottes, it is worth noting that the hall which was the residence of the chief landholder in Lincoln before the Conquest was still in existence after the building of the castle, but evidently had no connection with it.[503]

Monmouth.

Montacute, Somerset.

Morpeth, Northumberland.

Fig. 21.

Monmouth (Fig. 21).—Domesday Book says that the king has four ploughs in demesne in the castle of Monmouth.[504] Dr Round regards this as one of the cases where castellum is to be interpreted as a town and not as a castle. However this may be, the existence of a Norman castle at Monmouth is rendered certain by a passage in the Book of Llandaff, in which it is said that this castle was built by William FitzOsbern, and a short history of it is given, which brings it up to the days of William Fitz Baderun.[505] Speed speaks of this castle as “standing mounted round in compasse, and within her walls another mount, whereon a Towre of great height and strength is built.”[506] This sounds like the description of a motte and bailey; but the motte cannot be traced now. It is possible that it may have been swept away to build the present barracks; the whole castle is now on a flat-topped hill. The area is 1¾ acres.[507]

The value of the manor before the Conquest is not given.

Montacute, Somerset (Fig. 21).—This is another instance of a site for a castle obtained by exchange from the church. Count Robert of Mortain gave the manor of Candel to the priory of Athelney in exchange for the manor of Bishopstowe, “and there is his castle, which is called Montagud.”[508] The English name for the village at the foot of the hill was Ludgarsburh, which does not point to any fortification on the hill itself, the spot where the wonder-working crucifix of Waltham was found in Saxon times. Robert of Mortain’s son William gave the castle of Montacute, with its chapel, orchard, and other appurtenances, to a priory of Cluniac monks which he founded close to it. The gift may have had something compulsory in it, for William of Mortain was banished by Henry I. in 1104 as a partisan of Robert Curthose. Thus, as Leland says, “the notable castle partly fell to ruin, and partly was taken down to make the priory, so that many years since no building of it remained; only a chapel was set upon the very top of the dungeon, and that yet standeth there.”[509] There is still a high oval motte, having a ditch between its base and the bailey; the latter is semilunar in shape. The hill has been much terraced on the eastern side, but this may have been the work of the monks, for purposes of cultivation.[510] There is no masonry except a quite modern tower. According to Mr Clark, the motte is of natural rock. The French name of the castle was of course imported from Normandy, and we generally find that an English castle with a Norman-French name of this kind has a motte.[511]

Bishopstowe, in which the castle was placed, was not a large manor in Saxon times. Its value T. R. E. is not given in the Survey, but we are told that it is worth 6l. to the earl, and 3l. 3s. to the knights who hold under him.

Morpeth, Northumberland (Fig. 21).—There is only one mention known to us of Morpeth Castle in the 11th century, and that is in the poem of Geoffrey Gaimar.[512] He says that William Rufus, when marching to Bamborough, to repress the rebellion of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, “took the strong castle of Morpeth, which was seated on a little mount,” and belonged to William de Morlei. Thus there can be no doubt that the Ha’ Hill, about 100 yards to the N. of the present castle, was the motte of the first castle of Morpeth, though the remains of the motte, which are mentioned by Hodgson, have been destroyed.[513] A natural ridge has been used to form a castle by cutting off its higher end to form a motte, and making a court on the lower part of the ridge. The great steepness of the slopes rendered ordinary ditches unnecessary, nor are there any traces now of banks or foundations. In the court some Norman capitals and carved stones were found in 1830. This early castle was admirably placed for commanding the river and the bridge.[514] The present castle of Morpeth was built in 1342-1349.[515]

Newcastle, Northumberland.—The first castle here was built by Robert, son of William I., on his return from his expedition to Scotland in 1080.[516] It was of the usual motte-and-bailey kind, the motte standing in a small bailey which was rectilinear and roughly oblong.[517] This motte was in existence when Brand wrote his History of Newcastle, but was removed in 1811. The castle was placed outside the Roman station at Monkchester, and commanded a Roman bridge over the Tyne, “and to the north-east overlooked a ravine that under the name of The Side formed for centuries a main artery of communication between England and Scotland.”[518] Henry II., when he built the fine keep of this castle, did not place it on the motte, but in the outer and larger ward, which was roughly triangular. The outer curtain appears to have stood on the banks of the former earthen castle, as the Parliamentary Survey of 1649 speaks of the castle as “bounded with strong works of stone and mud.”[519] The area of the whole castle was 3 acres and 1 rood.

Norham.

Nottingham.

Fig. 22.

Norham, Northumberland (Fig. 22).—The first castle here was built by Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, in the reign of William Rufus. It was built to defend Northumberland against the incursions of the Scots, and we are expressly told that no castle had existed there previously.[520] This first castle, which we may certainly assume to have been of earth and wood, was destroyed by the Scots in 1138, and there does not seem to have been any stone castle until the time of Bishop Puiset or Pudsey, who built the present keep by command of King Henry II.[521] Mr Clark tried hard to find some work of Flambard’s in this tower, but found it difficult, and was driven back on the rather lame assumption that “the lapse of forty [really fifty at least] years had not materially changed the style of architecture then in use.”[522] In fact, the Norman parts of this keep show no work so early as the 11th century, but are advanced in style, for not only was the basement vaulted, but the first floor also. The simple explanation is that Flambard threw up the large square motte on which the keep now stands, and provided it with the usual wooden defences. It also had a strong tower, but almost certainly a wooden one; hence it was easily destroyed by the Scots when once taken.[523] The motte was probably lowered to some extent when the stone keep was built. It stands on a high bank overlooking the Tweed, and is separated from its bailey by a deep ditch. The bailey may be described as a segment of a circle; its area is about 2 acres.

Norwich (Fig. 23).—We find from Domesday Book that no less than 113 houses were destroyed for the site of this castle, a certain proof that the castle was new.[524] It is highly probable that it was outside the primitive defences of the town, at any rate in part. Norwich was built, partly on a peninsula formed by a double bend of the river Wensum, partly in a district lying south-west of this peninsula, and defended by a ridge of rising ground running in a north-easterly direction. The castle was placed on the edge of this ridge, and all the oldest part of the town, including the most ancient churches, lies to the east of it.[525] In the conjectural map of Norwich in 1100, given in Woodward’s History of Norwich Castle,[526] the street called Burg Street divides the Old Burg on the east from the New Burg on the west; this street runs along a ridge which traverses the neck of the peninsula from south-west to north-east, and on the northern end of this ridge the castle stands.[527] There can be little doubt that this street marks the line of the burh or enclosing bank by which the primitive town of Norwich was defended.[528] A clear proof of this lies in the fact that the castle of Norwich was anciently not in the jurisdiction of the city, but in that of the county; the citizens had no authority over the houses lying beyond the castle ditches until it was expressly granted to them by Edward III.[529] The mediæval walls of Norwich, vastly extending the borders of the city, were not built till Henry III.’s reign.[530]

Norwich. (From Harrod’s “Gleanings among the Castles and Convents of Norfolk,” p. 133.)

Fig. 23.

The motte of Norwich Castle, according to recent investigations, is entirely artificial;[531] it was originally square, and had “a prodigious large and deep ditch around it.”[532] The fancy of the antiquary Wilkins that the motte was the centre of two concentric outworks[533] was completely disproved by Mr Harrod, who showed that the original castle was a motte with one of the ordinary half-moon baileys attached. Another ward, called the Castle Meadow, was probably added at a later date. The magnificent keep which now stands on the motte is undoubtedly a work of the 12th century.[534] The castle which Emma, wife of Earl Ralf Guader, defended against the Conqueror after the celebrated bride-ale of Norwich was almost certainly a wooden structure. As late as the year 1172 the bailey was still defended by a wooden stockade and wooden bretasches;[535] and even in 1225 the stockade had not been replaced by a stone wall.[536]

Norwich was a royal castle, and consequently always in the hands of the sheriff; it was never the property of the Bigods.[537] As the fable that extensive lands belonging to the monastery of Ely were held on the tenure of castle guard at Norwich before the Conquest is repeated by all the local historians,[538] it is worth while to note that the charters of Henry I. setting the convent free from this service, make no allusion to any such ancient date for it,[539] and that the tenure of castle guard is completely unknown to the Anglo-Saxon laws. The area of the inner bailey is 3¼ acres, and that of the outer, 4½ acres. The value of Norwich had greatly risen since the Conquest.[540]

Nottingham (Fig. 22).—This important castle is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that William I. built the castle at Nottingham in 1067, on his way to repress the first insurrection in Yorkshire. Ordericus, repeating this statement, adds that he committed it to the keeping of William Peverel.[541] The castle was placed on a lofty headland at some distance from the Danish borough, and between the two arose the Norman borough which is mentioned in Domesday Book as the novus burgus. The two upper wards of the present castle probably represent William’s plan. The upper ward forms a natural motte of rock, as it is 15 feet higher than the bailey attached to it, and has been separated from it by a ditch cut across the rocky headland, which can still be traced below the modern house which now stands on the motte. Such a site was not only treated as a motte, but was actually called by that name, as we read of the mota of Nottingham Castle in the Pipe Rolls of both John’s and Richard I.’s reigns.

Mr Clark published a bird’s-eye view of Nottingham Castle in his Mediæval Military Architecture, about which he only stated that it was taken from the Illustrated London News. It does not agree with the plan made by Simpson in 1617,[542] and is therefore not quite trustworthy; the position of the keep, for example, is quite different. The keep, which Hutchison in his Memoirs speaks of as “the strong tower called the Old Tower on the top of the rock,” seems clearly Norman, from the buttresses. It was placed (according to Simpson’s plan), on the north side of the small ward which formed the top of the motte, and was enclosed in a yet older shell wall which has now disappeared. The height of this motte is indicated in the bird’s-eye view by the ascending wall which leads up it from the bailey. It had its own ditch, as appears by several mentions in the accounts of “the drawbridge of the keep,” and “the bridge leading up to the dongeon.”[543] It is highly probable that this keep was built by King John, as in a Mise Roll of 1212 there is a payment entered “towards making the tower which the king commanded to be built on the motte of Nottingham.”[544] But the first masonry in the castle was probably the work of Henry II., who spent £1737, 9s. 5d. on the castle and houses, the gaol, the king’s chamber, the hall, and in raising the walls and enclosing the bailey.[545] The castle has been so devastated by the 17th century spoiler, that the work of Henry and John has been almost entirely swept away, but the one round tower which still remains as part of the defences of the inner bailey, looks as though it might be of the time of Henry II. This bailey is semicircular; the whole original castle covers only 1⅔ acres. A very much larger bailey was added afterwards, probably in John’s reign.[546] Probably this later bailey was at first enclosed with a bank and stockade, and this stockade may be the palitium of which there are notices in the records of Henry III. and Edward I.[547] The main gateway of this bailey, which still remains, is probably of Edward I. or Edward II.’s reign.[548]

The castle of Nottingham was the most important one in the Midlands, and William of Newburgh speaks of it as “so well defended by nature and art that it appears impregnable.”[549] The value of the town had risen from £18 to £30 at the time of the Survey.[550]

Okehampton, Devon.

Penwortham, Lancs.

Pevensey, Sussex.

Fig. 24.

Okehampton, Devon (Fig. 24).—Baldwin de Molis, Sheriff of Devon, held the manor of Okehampton at the time of the Survey, and had a castle there.[551] On a hill in the valley of the Okement River stand the remains of a castle of the motte-and-bailey pattern. On the motte, which is high and steep, are the ruins of a keep of late character, probably of the 14th century.[552] The oval bailey covers ½ an acre, and the whole castle is surrounded with a very deep ditch (filled up now on the east side) which is in part a natural ravine. The usual ditch between the motte and the bailey is absent here. This castle appears to have continued always in private hands, and therefore there is little to be learned about it from the public records. The value of Okehampton manor had increased since the Conquest from £8 to £10. As there is no burgus mentioned T. R. E., but four burgenses and a market T. R. W., Baldwin the Sheriff must have built a borough as well as a castle. Otherwise it was a small manor of thirty ploughs.

Oswestry, Shropshire.—Mr Eyton’s identification of the Domesday castle of Louvre, in the manor of Meresberie, Shropshire, with Oswestry, seems to be decisive.[553] The name is simply L’Œuvre, the Work, a name very frequently given to castles in the early Norman period. Domesday Book says that Rainald de Bailleul built a castle at this place.[554] He had married the widow of Warin, Sheriff of Shropshire, who died in 1085. The castle afterwards passed into the hands of the Fitz Alans, great lords-marcher on the Welsh border. As the Welsh annals give the credit of building the castle to Madoc ap Meredith, into whose hands it fell during the reign of Stephen, it is not impossible that some of the masonry still existing on the motte, which consists of large cobbles bedded in very thick mortar, may be his work, and probably the first stonework in the castle. A sketch made in the 18th century, however, which is the only drawing preserved of the castle, seems to show architecture of the Perpendicular period.[555] But probably the keep alone was of masonry in the 12th century, as in 1166, when the castle was in royal custody, the repair of the stockade is referred to in the Pipe Rolls.[556] No plan has been preserved of Oswestry Castle, so that it is impossible to recover the shape or area of the bailey, which is now built over. The manor of Meresberie had been unoccupied (wasta) in the days of King Edward, but it yielded 40s. at the date of the Survey. Eyton gives reasons for thinking that the town of Oswestry was founded by the Normans.

Oxford. (From “Oxonia Illustrata,” David Loggan, 1675.)

Fig. 25.

Oxford (Fig. 25).—This castle was built in 1071 by Robert d’Oilgi (or d’Oilly), a Norman who received large estates in Oxfordshire.[557] Oxford was a burgus in Saxon times, and is one of those mentioned in the Burghal Hidage. Domesday tells us that the king has twenty mural mansions there, which had belonged to Algar, Earl of Mercia, and that they were called mural mansions because their owners had to repair the city wall at the king’s behest, a regulation probably as old as the days of Alfred. The Norman castle was placed outside the town walls, but near the river, from which its trenches were fed.[558] It was without doubt a motte-and-bailey castle; the motte still remains, and the accompanying bird’s-eye view by David Loggan, 1675, shows that the later stone walls of the bailey stood on the earthen banks of D’Oilly’s castle. The site is now occupied by a gaol. On the line of the walls rises the ancient tower of St George’s Church, which so much resembles an early Norman keep that we might think it was intended for one, if the Osney chronicler had not expressly told us that the church was founded two years after the castle.[559] It is evident that the design was to make the church tower work as a mural tower, a combination of piety and worldly wisdom quite in accord with what the chronicler tells us of the character of Roger d’Oilly.

Henry II. spent some £260 on this castle between the years 1165 and 1173, the houses in the keep, and the well being specially mentioned. We may presume that he built with stone the decagonal [shell?] keep on the motte, whose foundations were discovered at the end of the 18th century.[560] There is still in the heart of the motte a well in a very remarkable well chamber, the masonry of which may be of his time. The area of the bailey appears to have been 3 acres.

The value of the city of Oxford had trebled at the time of the Domesday Survey.[561]

In the treaty between Stephen and Henry in 1153 the whole castle of Oxford is spoken of as the “Mota” of Oxford.[562]

Peak Castle, Derbyshire.—The Survey simply calls this castle the Castle of William Peverel, but tells us that two Saxons had formerly held the land.[563] There is no motte here, but the strong position, defended on two sides by frightful precipices, rendered very little fortification necessary. It is possible that the wall on the N. and W. sides of the area may be, in part at least, the work of William Peverel; the W. wall contains a great deal of herring-bone work, and the tower at the N.W. angle does not flank at all, while the other one in the N. wall only projects a few feet; the poor remains of the gatehouse also appear to be Norman. It would probably be easier to build a wall than to raise an earthbank in this stony country; nevertheless, behind the modern wall which runs up from the gatehouse to the keep, something like an earthbank may be observed on the edge of the precipice, which ought to be examined before any conclusions are determined as to the first fortifications of this castle. The keep, which is of different stone to the other towers and the walls, stands on the highest ground in the area, apparently on the natural rock, which crops up in the basement. It is undoubtedly the work of Henry II., as the accounts for it remain in the Pipe Rolls, and the slight indications of style which it displays, such as the nook-shafts at the angles, correspond to the Transition Norman period.[564] The shape of the bailey is a quadrant; its area scarcely exceeds 1 acre.

The value of the manor had risen since the Conquest, and William Peverel had doubled the number of ploughs in the demesne. The castle only remained in the hands of the Peverels for two generations, and was then forfeited to the crown. The manor was only a small one; and the site of the castle was probably chosen for its natural advantages and for the facility of hunting in the Peak Forest.

Penwortham, Lancashire (Fig. 24).—“King Edward held Peneverdant. There are two carucates of land there, and they used to pay ten pence. Now there is a castle there, and there are two ploughs in the demesne, and six burghers, and three radmen, and eight villeins, and four cowherds. Amongst them all they have four ploughs. There is half a fishery there. There is wood and hawk’s eyries, as in King Edward’s time. It is worth £3.”[565] The very great rise in value in this manor shows that some great change had taken place since the Norman Conquest. This change was the building of a castle. The modo of Domesday always expresses a contrast with King Edward’s time, and clearly tells us here that Penwortham Castle was new.[566] It lay in the extensive lands between the Ribble and the Mersey, which were part of the Conqueror’s enfeoffment of Roger the Poitevin, third son of Earl Roger de Montgomeri.[567] Since Penwortham is mentioned as demesne, and no under-tenant is spoken of, we may perhaps assume that this castle, which was the head of a barony, was built by Roger himself. He did not hold it long, as he forfeited all his estates in 1102. At a later period, though we have not been able to trace when, the manor of Penwortham passed into the hands of the monks of Evesham, to whom the church had already been granted, at the end of the Conqueror’s reign.[568] Probably it is because the castle thus passed into the hands of the church that it never developed into a stone castle, like Clitheroe. The seat of the barony was transferred elsewhere, and probably the timbers of the castle were used in the monastic buildings of Penwortham Priory.

The excavations which were made here in 1856 proved conclusively that there were no stone foundations on the Castle Hill at Penwortham.[569] These excavations revealed the singular fact that the Norman had thrown up his motte on the site of a British or Romano-British hut, without even being aware of it, since the ruins of the hut were buried 5 feet deep and covered by a grass-grown surface, on which the Norman had laid a rude pavement of boulders before piling his motte.[570] Among the objects found in the excavations was a Norman prick spur, a conclusive proof of the Norman origin of the motte.[571] No remains appear to have been found of the Norman wooden keep; but this would be accounted for by the theory suggested above.

Penwortham is a double motte, the artificial hill rising on the back of a natural hill, which has been isolated from its continuing ridge by an artificial ditch cut through it. The double hill rises out of a bailey court which is rudely square, but whose shape is determined by the ground, which forms a headland running out into the Ribble. The whole area cannot certainly be ascertained. There was a ferry at this point in Norman times.[572] The castle defends the mouth of the Ribble and overlooks the town of Preston.

Penwortham was certainly not the caput of a large soke in Saxon times, as it was only a berewick of Blackburn, in which hundred it lay. It was the Norman who first made it the seat of a barony.

Peterborough.—The chronicler, Hugh Candidus, tells us that Abbot Thorold, the Norman abbot whom William I. appointed to the ancient minster of Peterborough, built a castle close to the church, “which in these days is called Mount Torold.”[573] This mount is still existing, but it has lost its ancient name, and is now called Tout Hill. It stands in the Deanery garden, and has probably been largely ransacked for garden soil, as it has a decayed and shapeless look. Still, it is a venerable relic of Norman aggression, well authenticated.

Pevensey, Sussex (Fig. 24).—The Roman castrum of Pevensey (still so striking in its remains) was an inhabited town at the date of the Norman Conquest, and was an important port.[574] After taking possession of the castrum, William I. drew a strong bank across its eastern end, and placed a castle in the area thus isolated. This first castle was probably entirely of wood, as there was a wooden palicium on the bank as late as the reign of Henry II.[575] But if a wooden keep was built at first, it was very soon superseded by one of stone.[576] The remains of this keep have recently been excavated by Mr Harold Sands and Mr Montgomerie, and show it to have been a most remarkable building[577] (see Chapter XII., p. 355)—in all probability one of the few 11th century keeps in England. We may perhaps attribute this distinction to the fact that no less a man than the Conqueror’s half-brother, the Count of Mortain, was made the guardian of this important port.

Pevensey is mentioned as a port in the Close Rolls of Henry III.’s reign, and was one of the important waterways to the Continent.[578] As has been already noted, the establishment of the castle was followed by the usual rise in the value of the burgus.[579] The area of the castle covers 1 acre.

Pontefract, Yorkshire (Fig. 26).—This castle is not spoken of in Domesday by its French name, but there can be no doubt that it is “the Castle of Ilbert” which is twice mentioned and several times alluded to in the Clamores, or disputed claims, which are enrolled at the end of the list of lands in Yorkshire belonging to the tenants-in-chief.[580] The existence of Ilbert’s castle at Pontefract in the 11th century is made certain by a charter (only an early copy of which is now extant) in the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster, in which William Rufus at his accession regrants to Ilbert de Lacy “the custom of the castelry of his castle, as he had it in the Conqueror’s days and in those of the bishop of Bayeux.”[581] As Mr Holmes remarks, this carries us back to four years before the compilation of Domesday Book, since Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom William had left as regent during his absence in Normandy, was arrested and imprisoned in 1082.[582]

Pontefract is called Kirkby in some of the earlier charters, and this was evidently the English (or rather the Danish) name of the place. It lay within the manor of Tateshall, which is supposed to be the same as Tanshelf, a name still preserved in the neighbourhood of, but not exactly at, Pontefract.[583] Tanshelf claims to be the Taddenescylf mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where King Edgar received the submission of the Yorkshire Danes in 947. There is no proof that the hill at Kirkby was fortified before the Conquest. It was a steep headland rising out of the plain of the Aire, and needing only to be scarped by art and to have a ditch cut across its neck to be almost impregnable. It lay scarcely a mile east of the Roman road from Doncaster to Castleford and the north.

Pontefract, Yorks.

Preston Capes, Northants.

Quatford, Salop.

Fig. 26.

It is no part of our task to trace the fortunes of this famous castle, which was considered in the Middle Ages to be the key of Yorkshire.[584] In spite of the labels affixed to the walls we venture to assert with confidence that none of the masonry now visible belongs to the days of Ilbert. The structural history of the castle was probably this: Ilbert de Lacy, one of the greatest of the Norman tenants-in-chief in Yorkshire,[585] built in this naturally defensive situation a castle of earth and wood, like other Norman castles. Whether he found the place already defended by earthen banks we do not attempt to decide, but analogy makes it fairly certain that the motte was his work, and was crowned by a wooden tower. This motte, which was at least partially scarped out of the soft sandstone rock, is now disguised by the remarkable keep which has been built up around it, consisting at present of two enormous round towers and the ruins of a third. As a fourth side is vacant, it may reasonably be conjectured that there was a fourth roundel.[586] If the plan was a quatrefoil it resembled that of the keep of York, which is now ascertained to belong to the reign of Henry III.; and the very little detail that is left supports the view that Pontefract keep was copied from the royal experiment at York, though it differed from it in that it actually revetted the motte itself. There is no ditch now round the motte, but we venture to think that its inner ditch is indicated by the position of the postern in Piper’s Tower, which seems to mark its outlet. It appears to have been partly filled up during the great siege of Pontefract in 1648.[587] The platform which is attached to the motte on the side facing the bailey is probably an addition of the same date, intended for artillery; its retaining wall shows signs of hasty construction. A well chamber and a passage leading both to it and to a postern opening towards the outer ditch appear to have been made in the rocky base of the motte in the 13th century.

The area of the inner and probably original bailey of this castle, including the motte, is 2⅓ acres. The Main Guard, and another bailey covering the approach on the S. side, were probably later additions, bringing up the castle area to 7 acres. The shape of the first bailey is an irregular oval, determined by the hill on which it stands.

The value of the manor of Tateshall had fallen at the time of the Survey from £20 to £15, an unusual circumstance in the case of a manor which had become the seat of an important castle; but the number of ploughs had decreased by half, and we may infer that Tateshall had not recovered from the great devastation of Yorkshire in 1068.[588]

Preston Capes, Northants (Fig. 26).—That a castle of the 11th century stood here is only proved by a casual mention in the Historia Fundationis of the Cluniac priory of Daventry, which tells us that this priory was first founded by Hugh de Leycestre, Seneschal of Matilda de Senlis, close to his own castle of Preston Capes, about 1090. Want of water and the proximity of the castle proving inconvenient, the priory was removed to Daventry.[589] The work lies about 3 miles from the Watling Street. The castle stands on a spur of high land projecting northwards towards a feeder of the river Nesse, about 3 miles W. of the Watling Street. The works consist of a motte, having a flat top 80 to 90 feet in diameter, and remains of a slight breastwork. This motte is placed on the edge of the plateau, and the ground falls steeply round its northern half. About 16 feet down this slope, a ditch with an outer bank has been dug, embracing half the mound. Lower down, near the foot of the slope, is another and longer ditch and rampart. It is probable that the bailey occupied the flatter ground S.E. of the motte, but the site is occupied by a farm, and no traces are visible.[590]

The value of the manor of Preston Capes had risen from 6s. to 40s. at the time of the Survey. It was held by Nigel of the Count of Mellent.[591]

Quatford, Shropshire (Fig. 26).—There can hardly be any doubt that the nova domus at Quatford mentioned in the Survey was the new castle built by Roger de Montgomeri, Earl of Shrewsbury. We have already suggested that the burgus which also existed there may have been his work, and not that of the Danes.[592] The manor belonged to the church before the Conquest.[593] The oval motte, which still remains, is described as placed on a bold rocky promontory jutting into the Severn; it is not quite 30 feet high, and about 60 feet by 120 in diameter on top, and has a small bean-shaped bailey of 1 acre. It is near the church, which has Norman remains.[594] Robert Belesme, son of Earl Roger, removed the castle to Bridgenorth, and so the Quatford castle is heard of no more.[595] The manor of Quatford was paying nothing at the date of the Survey.

Rayleigh, Essex (Fig. 27).—“In this manor Sweyn has made his castle.”[596] Sweyn was the son of Robert Fitz-Wymarc, a half English, half Norman favourite of Edward the Confessor. Robert was Sheriff of Essex under Edward and William, and Sweyn appears to have succeeded his father in this office.[597] Sweyn built his castle on land which had not belonged to his father, so Rayleigh cannot be the “Robert’s Castle” of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, to which some of the Norman adventurers fled on the triumph of Earl Godwin.[598] There is a fine motte at Rayleigh, and a semicircular bailey attached; the ditch round the whole is still well marked. There is not a vestige of masonry on the surface, but some excavations made in 1910 revealed stone foundations. The inner bailey covers ¾ of an acre. The value of the manor had risen since the Conquest, but it was only a small one, with no villages in its soke.

Richard’s Castle, Herefordshire (Fig. 27).—There can be little doubt that this is the castle referred to in Domesday Book under the name of Avreton, as it is not far from Overton, on the northern border of Hereford.[599] Richard’s Castle is almost certainly the castle of Richard, son of Scrob, one of the Normans to whom Edward the Confessor had granted large estates, and who probably fortified himself on this site. At the time of the Survey Richard was dead, and the castle was held by his son Osbern, and it is noted that he pays 10s., but the castle is worth 20s. to him. Its value was the same as in King Edward’s time, a fact worth noting, as it coincides with the assumption that this was a pre-Conquest castle. There is a high and steep motte at Richard’s Castle, and a small half-moon shaped bailey.[600] There are remains of a stone wing wall running down the motte, and on the top there is a straight piece of masonry which must be part of a tower keep. The area of the inner bailey is ⅔ of an acre. Avreton was not the centre of a soke, but appears to have lain in the manor of Ludeford.

Rayleigh, Essex.

Richard’s Castle, Hereford.

Fig. 27.

Richmond, Yorks (Fig. 28).—As in the case of Pontefract, this other great Yorkshire castle is not mentioned by name in Domesday Book, nor is there any allusion to it except a casual mention in the Recapitulation that Earl Alan has 199 manors in his castelry, and that besides the castelry he has 43 manors.[601] The castle must have been built at the date of the Survey, which was completed only a year before William I.’s death; for during William’s lifetime Earl Alan, the first holder of the fief, gave the chapel in the castle of Richmond to the abbey of St Mary at York, which he had founded.[602] The name, of course, is French, and it seems impossible now to discover what English manor-name it has displaced.[603] It is certainly a case in which the Norman castle was not placed in the seat of the former Saxon proprietor, but in the site which seemed most defensible to the Norman lord. The lands of Earl Alan in the wapentake of Gilling had belonged to the Saxon Earl Edwin, and thus cannot have fallen to Alan’s share before Edwin’s death in 1071. The Genealogia published by Dodsworth (from an MS. compiled in the reign of Edward III.), says that Earl Alan first built Richmond Castle near his chief manor of Gilling, to defend his people against the attacks of the disinherited English and Danes.[604] The passage has been enlarged by Camden, who says that Alan “thought himself not safe enough in Gilling”; and this has been interpreted to mean that Alan originally built his castle at Gilling, and afterwards removed it to Richmond; but the original words have no such meaning.[605]

Richmond Castle differs from most of the castles mentioned in Domesday in that it has no motte. The ground plan indeed was very like that of a motte-and-bailey castle, in that old maps show a small roundish enclosure at the apex of the large triangular bailey.[606] But a recent examination of the keep by Messrs Hope and Brakespear has confirmed the theory first enunciated by Mr Loftus Brock,[607] that the keep is built over the original gateway of the castle, and that the lower stage of its front wall is the ancient wall of the castle. The small ward indicated in the old maps is therefore most likely a barbican, of later date than the 12th century keep, which is probably rightly attributed by the Genealogia cited above to Earl Conan, who reigned from 1148-1171.[608] Some entries in the Pipe Rolls make it almost certain that it was finished by Henry II., who kept the castle in his own hands for some time after the death of Conan.[609] There are some indications at Richmond that the first castle was of stone and not of earth and wood. The walls do not stand on earthen banks; the Norman curtain can still be traced on two sides of the castle, and on the west side it seems of early construction, containing a great deal of herringbone work, and might possibly be the work of Earl Alan.

Richmond, Yorks.

Rochester, Kent.

Fig. 28.

The whole area of the castle is 2½ acres, including the annexe known as the Cockpit. This was certainly enclosed during the Norman period, as it has a Norman gateway in its wall.

As we do not know the name of the site of Richmond before the Conquest, and as the name of Richmond is not mentioned in Domesday Book, we cannot tell whether the value of the manor had risen or fallen. But no part of Yorkshire was more flourishing at the time of the Survey than this wapentake of Gilling, which belonged to Earl Alan; in no district, except in the immediate neighbourhood of York, are there so many places where the value has risen. Yet the greater part of it was let out to under-tenants.

Rochester, Kent (Fig. 28).—Under the heading of Aylsford, Kent, the Survey tells us that “the bishop of Rochester holds as much of this land as is worth 17s. 4d. in exchange for the land in which the castle sits.”[610] Rochester was a Roman castrum, and portions of its Roman wall have recently been found.[611] The fact that various old charters speak of the castellum of Rochester has led some authorities to believe that there was a castle there in Saxon times, but the context of these charters shows plainly that the words castellum Roffense were equivalent to Castrum Roffense or Hrofesceastre.[612] Otherwise there is not a particle of evidence for the existence of a castle at Rochester in pre-Norman times, and the passage in Domesday quoted above shows that William’s castle was a new erection, built on land obtained by exchange from the church.

Outside the line of the Roman wall, to the south of the city, and west of the south gate, there is a district called Boley or Bullie Hill, which at one time was included in the fortifications of the present castle. It is a continuation of the ridge on which that castle stands, and has been separated from it by a ditch. This ditch once entirely surrounded it, and though it was partly filled up in the 18th century its line can still be traced. The area enclosed by this ditch was about 3 acres; the form appears to have been oblong. In the grounds of Satis House, one of the villas which have been built on this site, there still remains a conical artificial mound, much reduced in size, as it has been converted into a pleasure-ground with winding walks, but the retaining walls of these walks are composed of old materials; and towards the riverside there are still vestiges of an ancient wall.[613] We venture to think that this Boley Hill and its motte formed the original site of the (probably) wooden castle of William the Conqueror. Its nature, position, and size correspond to what we have already observed as characteristic of the first castles of the Conquest. It stands on land which originally belonged to the church of St Andrew, as Domesday Book tells us William’s castle did.[614] The very name may be interpreted in favour of this theory.[615] And that there was no Roman or Saxon fortification on the spot is proved by excavations, which have shown that both a Roman and a Saxon cemetery occupied portions of the area.[616]

It is well known that between the years 1087 and 1089 the celebrated architect, Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, built a new stone castle for William Rufus, “in the best part of the city of Rochester.”[617] This castle, of course, was on the same site as the present one, though the splendid keep was not built till the next reign.[618] But if what we have maintained above be correct the castle of Gundulf was built on a different site from that of the castle of William. Nor are we without evidence in support of this. What remains of the original Norman wall of Gundulf’s castle (and enough remains to show that the circuit was complete in Norman times) does not stand on earthen banks; and this, though not a proof, is a strong suggestion that there was no earthen bank belonging to some previous castle when Gundulf began his building.[619] But further, Mr Livett has shown in his paper on Mediæval Rochester[620] that in order to form a level plateau for the court of the castle the ground had to be artificially made up on the north and east sides, and in these places the wall rests on a foundation of gravel, which has been forcibly rammed to make it solid, and which goes through the artificial soil to the natural chalk below. Now what can this rammed gravel mean but an expedient to avoid the danger of building in stone on freshly heaped soil? Had the artificial platform been in existence ever since the Conquest, it would have been solid enough to build upon without this expense. It is therefore at least probable that Bishop Gundulf’s castle was built on an entirely new site.

It seems also to be clear that the Boley Hill was included as an outwork in Bishop Gundulf’s plan, for the castle ditch is cut through the Roman wall near the south gate of the city.[621] Mr Livett remarks that King John appears to have used the hill as a point of vantage when he attacked the city in 1215, and he thinks this was probably the reason why Henry III.’s engineers enclosed it with a stone wall when they restored the walls of the city.[622] Henry III.’s wall has been traced all round the city, and at the second south gate it turns at right angles, or nearly so, so as to enclose Boley Hill.[623] It is probable, as Mr Livett suggests, that the drawbridge and bretasche, or wooden tower, ordered in 1226 for the southern side of Rochester Castle,[624] were intended to connect the Boley Hill court with the main castle. In 1722 the owner of the castle (which had then fallen into private hands) conveyed to one Philip Brooke, “that part of the castle ditch and ground, as it then lay unenclosed, on Bully Hill, being the whole breadth of the hill and ditch without the walls of the castle, extending from thence to the river Medway.”[625]

The general opinion about the Boley Hill is that it is a Danish earthwork, thrown up by the Danes when they besieged the city in 885. But if our contention in Chapter IV. is just, the Danish fortifications were not mottes, nor anything like them; and (as has already been pointed out) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle indicates the nature of the fortress in this case by its expression, “they made a work around themselves”;[626] that is, it was a circumvallation. Moreover, at Rochester the Danes would have had to pass under the bridge (which is known to have existed both in Roman and Saxon times) in order to get to the Boley Hill; and even if their ships were small enough to do this they would hardly have been so foolish as to leave a bridge in their possible line of retreat. It is therefore far more likely that their fastness was somewhere to the north or east of the city.[627]

It is a noteworthy fact that up till very recently the Boley Hill had a special jurisdiction of its own, under an officer called the Baron of the Bully, appointed by the Recorder of the city. This appears to date from a charter of Edward IV. in 1460, which confirms the former liberties of the citizens of Rochester, and ordains that they should keep two courts’ leet and a court of pie-powder annually on the Bullie Hill. The anonymous historian of Rochester remarks that it was thought that the baron represented the first officer under the governor of the castle before the court leet was instituted, to whose care the security of the Bullie Hill was entrusted.[628] This is probably much nearer the truth than the theory which would assign such thoroughly feudal courts as those of court leet and pie-powder to an imaginary community of Danes residing on the Boley Hill. When we compare the case of the Boley Hill with the somewhat similar cases of Chester and Norwich castles we shall see that what took place in Edward IV.’s reign was probably this: the separate jurisdiction which had once belonged to an abandoned castle site was transferred to the citizens of Rochester, but with the usual conservatism of mediæval legislation, it was not absorbed in the jurisdiction of the city.

The value of Rochester at the time of the Survey had risen from 100s. to 20l.[629] The increase of trade, arising from the security of traffic which was provided by William’s castles on this important route, no doubt accounts in great measure for this remarkable rise in value.

Rockingham, Northants (Fig. 29).—Here, also, the castle was clearly new in William’s reign, as the manor was uninhabited (wasta) until a castle was built there by his orders, in consequence of which the manor produced a small revenue at the time of the Survey.[630] The motte, now in great part destroyed, was a large one, being about 80 feet in diameter at the top; attached to it is a bailey of irregular but rectilateral shape (determined by the ground) covering about 3 acres. There is another large bailey to the S. covering 4 acres, formed by cutting a ditch across the spur of the hill on which the castle stands, which is probably later. The first castle would undoubtedly be of wood, and it is probable that King John was the builder of the “exceeding fair and strong” keep which stood on the motte in Leland’s time,[631] as there is an entry in the Pipe Roll of the thirteenth year of his reign for 126l. 18s. 6d. for the work of the new tower.[632] This keep, if Mr Clark is correct, was polygonal, with a timber stockade surrounding it.

Rockingham was only a small manor of one hide in Saxon times, though its Saxon owner had sac and soke. It stands in a forest district, not near any of the great ancient lines of road, and was probably built for a hunting seat.

The value of the manor had risen at the time of the Survey.[633]

During the Civil War, the motte of Rockingham was fortified in an elaborate manner by the Parliamentarians, part of the defences being two wooden stockades:[634] an interesting instance of the use both of mottes and of wooden fortifications in comparatively modern warfare. Only the north and west sides of this mount now remain.

Rockingham, Northants.

Fig. 29.

Old Sarum, Wilts (Fig. 30).—Sir Richard Colt Hoare printed in his Ancient Wiltshire a document purporting to be an order from Alfred, “King of the English,” to Leofric, “Earl of Wiltunshire,” to maintain the castle of Sarum, and add another ditch to it.[635] The phraseology of the document suggests some doubts of its genuineness, and though there would be nothing improbable in the theory that Alfred reared the outer bank of the fortress, recent excavations have shown that the place was occupied by the Romans, and therefore make it certain that its origin was very much earlier than Alfred’s time. Moreover, the convergence of several Roman roads at this spot suggests the probability of a Roman station,[636] while the form of the enclosure renders an earlier origin likely. Domesday Book does not speak of Salisbury as a burgus, and when the burgus of Old Sarum is mentioned in later documents it appears to refer to a district lying at the foot of the Castle Hill, and formerly enclosed with a wall.[637] Nor is it one of the boroughs of the Burghal Hidage. But that Sarum was an important place in Saxon times is clear from the fact that there was a mint there; and there is evidence of the existence of at least four Saxon churches, as well as a hospital for lepers.[638]

For more exact knowledge as to the history of this ancient fortress we must wait till the excavations now going on are finished, but in the meanwhile it seems probable that the theory adopted by General Pitt-Rivers is correct. He regarded Old Sarum as a British earthwork, with an inner castle and outer barbicans added by the Normans. After building this castle in the midst of it the Normans appear to have considered the outer and larger fortification too valuable to be given up to the public, but retained it under the government of the castellan, and treated it as part of the castle.

There is no mention of the castle of Salisbury in Domesday Book, but the bishop is named as the owner of the manor.[639] The episcopal see of Sherborne was transferred to Sarum in 1076 by Bishop Hermann, in accordance with the policy adopted by William I. that episcopal sees should be removed from villages to towns:[640] a measure which in itself is a testimony to the importance of Salisbury at that time. The first mention of the castle is in the charter of Bishop Osmund, 1091.[641] The bishop was allowed to lay the foundations of his new cathedral within the ancient fortress. As might be expected, friction soon arose between the castellans and the ecclesiastics; the castellans claimed the custody of the gates, and sometimes barred the canons, whose houses seem to have been outside the fortress, from access to the church. These quarrels were ended eventually by the removal of the cathedral to the new town of Salisbury at the foot of the hill.

Old Sarum, Wilts.

Fig. 30.

The position of the motte of Old Sarum is exceptional, as it stands in the centre of the outer fortress. This must be owing to the position of the ancient vallum, encircling the summit of one of those round, gradually sloping hills so common in the chalk ranges, which made it necessary to place the motte in the centre, because it was the highest part of the ground. The present excavations have shown that it is in part artificial. But though the citadel was thus exceptionally placed, the principle that communication with the outside must be maintained was carried out; the motte had its own bailey, reaching to the outer vallum. The remains of three cross banks still exist, two of which must have enclosed the magnum ballium which is spoken of in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. Probably this bailey occupied the south-eastern third of the circle, which included the main gateway and the road to the citadel. In the ditch on the north side of this enclosure, an arched passage, apparently of Norman construction, was found in 1795; it was doubtless a postern or sallyport.[642] The main entrance is defended by a separate mount with its own ditch, which is conjectured to be of later date than the vallum itself. The area of the top of the motte is about 1¾ acres, a larger size than usual, but not larger than that of several other important castles.[643] In Leland’s time there was “much notable ruinous building” still remaining of this fortress, and the excavations have already revealed the lower portions of some splendid walls and gateways, and the basement of a late Norman keep which presents some unusual features.[644] The earthworks, however, bear witness to a former wooden stockade both to the citadel and the outer enclosure. The top of the motte is still surrounded by high earthen banks.

As that great building bishop, Roger of Salisbury (1099-1139), is said to have environed the castle with a new wall,[645] it would seem likely that he was the first to transform the castle from wood to stone. But in Henry II.’s reign, we find an entry in the Pipe Rolls for materials for enclosing the great bailey. An order for the destruction of the castle had been issued by Stephen,[646] but it is doubtful whether it was carried out. The sums spent by Henry II. on the castle do not amount to more than £266, 12s. 5d., but the work recently excavated which appears to be of his date is very extensive indeed.

The mention of a small wooden tower in Richard I.’s reign shows that some parts of the defences were still of wood at that date.[647] Timber and rods for hoarding the castle, that is, for the wooden machicolations placed at the tops of towers and walls, were ordered at the end of John’s reign.[648]

It is not known when the castle was abandoned, but the list of castellans ceases in the reign of Henry VI., when it was granted to the Stourton family.[649] Though the earls of Salisbury were generally the custodians of Sarum Castle, except in the time of Bishop Roger, it was always considered a royal castle, while the manor belonged to the bishop.[650] It is remarked in the Hundred Rolls of Henry III., that no one holds fiefs for ward in this castle, and that nothing belonged to the castle outside the gate.[651]

The value of the manor of Salisbury appears to have risen very greatly since the Conquest.[652]

Shrewsbury (Fig. 31).—The passage in Domesday Book relating to this town has been called by Mr Round one of the most important in the Survey, and it is of special importance for our present purpose. “The English burghers of Shrewsbury say that it is very grievous to them that they have to pay all the geld which they paid in King Edward’s time, although the castle of the earl occupies [the site of] 51 houses, and another 50 are uninhabited.”[653] It is incomprehensible how in the face of such a clear statement as this, that the new castle occupied the site of fifty-one houses, anyone should be found gravely to maintain that the motte at Shrewsbury was an English work; for if the motte stood there before, what was the clearance of houses made for? The only answer could be to enlarge the bailey. But this is exactly what the Norman would not wish to do; he would want only a small area for the small force at his disposal for defence. Shrewsbury was certainly a borough (that is, a fortified town) in Anglo-Saxon times; probably it was one of the towns fortified by Ethelfleda, though it is not mentioned by name in the list of those towns furnished by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.[654] Its ancient walls were certainly only of earth and wood, for a writ of 1231 says that the old stockade and the old bretasche of the old ditch of the town of Shrewsbury are to be granted to the burghers for strengthening the new ditch.[655]

The castle of Shrewsbury was built on the neck of the peninsula on which the town stands, and on the line of the town walls. The oval motte, which still remains, stands, as usual, on the line of the castle banks, and slopes steeply down to the Severn on one side. Its nearness to the river made it liable to damage by floods. Thus we find Henry II. spending 5l. on the repair of the motte,[656] and in Edward I.’s reign the abbot’s mill is accused of having caused damage to the extent of 60 marks to the motte. But the men of the hundred exonerate the mill, and from another passage the blame appears to lie on the fall of a great wooden tower.[657] This can hardly have been other than the wooden keep on the motte, and thus we learn the interesting fact that as late as Edward I.’s reign the castle of Shrewsbury had only a wooden keep. The present tower on the motte is the work of Telford.

Shrewsbury.

Skipsea, Yorks.

Fig. 31.

The bailey of Shrewsbury Castle is roughly semilunar and covers nearly an acre. The walls stand on banks, which shows that the first wall was of timber. The Norman entrance arch seems to render it probable that it was in Henry II.’s reign that stone walls were first substituted for a wooden stockade, and the Pipe Rolls contain several entries of sums spent by Henry on this castle.[658] But the first mention of stone in connection with the castle is in the reign of Henry III.[659] In the reign of Edward I., a jarola or wooden wall, which had been raised above the outer ditch in the time of the Barons’ War, was replaced by a stone wall.[660] This perhaps refers to the second bailey, now destroyed, which lay to the south of the castle. In the time of Charles I. the castle still had a wooden palisade on the counterscarp of the ditch.[661] The two large drum towers on the walls, and the building between them, now converted into a modern house, belong to a much later period than the walls. The area of the present castle, including the motte, is ⅘ of an acre.

The value of the town of Shrewsbury had risen since the Conquest.

Skipsea, Yorks (Fig. 31).—There is no mention of this castle in Domesday Book, but the chronicle of Meaux Abbey tells us that it was built by Drogo de Bevrère in the reign of William I.[662] This chronicle is not indeed contemporary, but its most recent editor regards it as based on some much earlier document. It was the key of the great manor of Holderness, which the Conqueror had given to Drogo, but which Drogo forfeited by murdering his wife, probably on this very site. The situation of Skipsea is remarkable, but the original plan of Kenilworth Castle presented a close parallel to it. The motte, which is 46 feet high, and ⅕ of an acre in space on top, is separated from the bailey by a level space, which was formerly the Mere of Skipsea, mentioned in documents of the 13th century, which reckon the take of eels in this mere as a source of revenue.[663] The motte thus formed an island in the mere, but as an additional defence—perhaps when the mere began to get shallow—it was surrounded by a bank and ditch of its own. No masonry is to be seen on the motte now, except a portion of a wing wall going down it. It is connected with its bailey on the other side of the mere by a causeway which still exists. This bailey is of very unusual size, covering 8¼ acres; its banks still retain the name of the Baile Welts, and one of the entrances is called the Baile Gate. Skipsea Brough, which no doubt represents the former burgus of Skipsea, is outside this enclosure, and has no defences of its own remaining. A mandate of Henry III. in 1221, ordered the complete destruction of this castle,[664] and it was no doubt after this that the earls of Albemarle, who had succeeded to Drogo’s estates, removed their caput baroniæ to Burstwick.[665]

The value of the manor of Cleeton, in which Skipsea lies, had fallen at Domesday.[666]

Stafford (Fig. 32).—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Ethelfleda of Mercia built the burh of Stafford; and consequently we find that both in King Edward and King William’s time Stafford was a burgus, or fortified town. Florence of Worcester, who is considered to have used a superior copy of the Chronicle as the foundation of his work, says that Ethelfleda built an arx on the north bank of the Sowe in 914. Arx, in our earlier chronicles, is often only a bombastic expression for a walled town, as, for example, when Ethelwerd says that Ethelfleda’s body was buried in St Peter’s porch in the arx of Gloucester.[667] But the statement led many later writers, such as Camden, to imagine that Ethelfleda built a tower in the town of Stafford; and these imaginings have created such a tangled skein of mistake that we must bespeak our readers’ patience while we attempt to unravel it.

Domesday Book only mentions Stafford Castle under the manor of Chebsey, a possession of Henry de Ferrers. Its words are: “To this manor belonged the land of Stafford, in which the king commanded a castle to be built, which is now destroyed.”[668] Ordericus also says that the king placed a castle at Stafford, on his return from his third visit to the north, in 1070.[669] Now the language of Domesday appears to us to say very plainly that in the manorial rearrangement which followed the Conquest some land was taken out of the manor of Chebsey, which lies immediately to the south of the borough of Stafford, to furnish a site for a royal castle.[670] It is exactly in this position that we now find a large oblong motte, similar to the other mottes of the Conquest, and having the usual bailey attached to it. It lies about a mile and a half south-west of the town, near the main road leading into Shropshire.

The position was an important one, as the castles of Staffordshire formed a second line of defence against the North Welsh, as well as a check to the great palatinate earls of Shropshire.[671] The motte itself stood on high ground, commanding a view of twenty or thirty miles round, and both Tutbury and Caus castles could be seen from it. Between it and the town lies a stretch of flat ground which has evidently been a swamp formerly, and which explains the distance of the castle from the town; while the fact that it lies to the south of the Sowe shows that it has no connection with Ethelfleda’s work. There is no dispute that this motte was the site of the later baronial castle of Stafford, the castle besieged and taken in the Civil War; the point we have to prove is that it was also the castle of Domesday Book.[672]

Stafford.

Stanton Holgate, Salop.

Tamworth, Staffs.

Tickhill, Yorks.

Fig. 32.

If the first castle of Stafford was of earth and wood, like most of William’s castles, there would be nothing wonderful in its having many destructions and many resurrections. This castle was clearly a royal castle, from the language of Domesday Book. As a royal castle it would be committed to the custody of the sheriff, who appears to have been Robert de Stafford,[673] ancestor of the later barons of Stafford, and brother of Ralph de Todeni, one of the great nobles of the Conquest. Ralph joined the party of Robert Curthose against Henry I. in 1101, and it is conjectured that his brother Robert was involved in the same rebellion, for in that year we find the castle held for the king by William Pantolf, a trusty companion of the Conqueror.[674] It is very unlikely that this second castle of Stafford was on a different site from the one which had been destroyed; and an ingenious conjecture of Mr Mazzinghi’s helps us to identify it with the castle on the motte. In that castle, when it again emerges into light in the reign of Henry II., we find a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas, which Robert de Stafford gives to the abbey of Stone, and the king confirms the gift.[675] The worship of St Nicholas came greatly into fashion after the translation of his remains from Asia Minor to Bari, in Italy, in 1087. William Pantolf visited the shrine at Bari, got possession of some of the relics of St Nicholas, and with great reverence deposited them in his own church of Noron, in Normandy.[676] It is therefore extremely probable that Pantolf founded the chapel of St Nicholas in Stafford Castle during the time that the castle was in his custody.[677] But about the situation of the chapel of St Nicholas there is no doubt, as its history is traceable down to the 16th century. It stood in the bailey of the castle outside the town. This castle was therefore certainly identical with that of Henry II., and most probably with that of Henry I. and William I.

So far, as we have seen, Stafford Castle was a royal castle. It is true that in the reign of Henry II.’s predecessor, Stephen, we find the castle again in the hands of a Robert de Stafford, who speaks of it as “castellum meum.”[678] Apparently the troubles of Stephen’s reign afforded an opportunity to the family of the first Norman sheriff to get the castle again into their hands. But under the stronger rule of Henry II. the crown recovered its rights, and the gift of the chapel in the castle evidently could not be made without the consent of the king. The gaol which Henry II. caused to be made in Stafford was doubtless in this castle.[679] John repaired the castle,[680] and ordered bretasches, or wooden towers, to be made in the forest of Arundel, and sent to Stafford:[681] a statement which gives us an insight into the nature of the castle in John’s reign. But it was the tendency of sheriffdoms to become hereditary, as Dr Stubbs has pointed out,[682] and this seems to have been the case at Stafford. In the reign of Edward I. a local jury decided that Nicholas, Baron of Stafford, held the castle of Stafford from the king in capite, by the service of three and a half knights’ fees;[683] and in 1348, Ralph, Baron of Stafford, obtained a license from Edward III. “to fortify and crenellate his manses of Stafford and Madlee with a wall of stone and lime, and to make castles thereof.”[684] The indenture made with the mason a year previously is still extant, and states that the castle is to be built upon the moële in the manor, whereby the motte is evidently meant.[685] Besides, the deed is dated “at the Chastel of Stafford,” showing that the new castle of stone and lime was on the site of an already existing castle.

We might spin out further evidence of the identity of the site of William’s castle with that of the present one, from the name of the manor of Castel, which grew up around it, displacing the equally suggestive name of Montville, which we find in Domesday Book.[686] Against the existence of another castle in the town we have the absence of any such castle in William Smith’s plan of 1588; the silence of Speed and Leland, who only mention the present castle;[687] and the statement of Plot, who wrote about the end of the 17th century, that “he could not hear any footsteps remaining” of a castle in Stafford.[688] We may therefore safely conclude that it was only due to the fancy of some Elizabethan antiquary that in an old map of that time a spot to the south-west of the town is marked with the inscription, “The old castle, built by Edward the Elder, and in memorie fortified with reel walls.”[689]

The value of Stafford town had risen at the time of the Survey, as the king had 7l. for his share, which would make the whole revenue to king and earl 10l. 10s., as against 9l. before the Conquest. The property of the canons of Stafford had risen from £1 to £3.[690]

The area of the bailey is 1⅗ acres.

Stamford, Lincoln and Northants.—This was one of the boroughs fortified by Edward the Elder, and consequently we find it a royal burgus at the time of the Survey. But Edward’s borough, the Chronicle tells us, was on the south side of the Welland; the northern borough, on the other side, may have been the work of the Danes, as Stamford was one of the towns of the Danish confederacy of the Five Boroughs. The Norman castle and its motte are on the north side, and five mansiones were destroyed for the site.[691] There is at present no appearance of masonry on the motte, which is partly cut away, and what remains of the castle wall is of the 13th century. It is therefore probable that the turris, or keep, which surrendered to Henry II. in 1153, was of wood.[692] Henry gave the castle to Richard Humet, constable of Normandy, in 1155.[693] It was a very exceptional thing that Henry should thus alienate a royal castle, and special circumstances must have moved him to this act. The castle was destroyed in Richard III.’s time, and the materials given to the convent of the Carmelite Friars. It appears to have been within the town walls, with a bailey stretching down to the river; this bailey is quadrangular. An inquisition of 1341 states that “the site of the castle contains 2 acres.”[694]

Stamford had risen enormously in value since the Conquest. “In King Edward’s time it paid 15l.; now, it pays for feorm 50l., and for the whole of the king’s dues it now pays 28l.”[695]

Stanton, Stanton Long, in Shropshire (Fig. 32).—At the time of the Survey, the Norman Helgot was Lord of Corve Dale, and had his castle at Stanton.[696] The castle was afterwards known as Helgot’s Castle, corrupted into Castle Holdgate. The site has been much altered by the building of a farmhouse in the bailey, but the motte still exists, high and steep, with a ditch round about half its circumference; there are some traces of masonry on the top. One side of the bailey ditch is still visible, and a mural tower of Edwardian style has been incorporated with the farmhouse. The exact area cannot now be calculated, but it can hardly have exceeded 2½ acres. The manor of Stanton was an agglomeration of four small manors which had been held by different proprietors in Saxon times, so it was not the centre of a soke. The value of the manor had risen.

Tamworth, Stafford (Fig. 32).—Although Tamworth Castle is not mentioned in Domesday Book, it must have been in existence in the 11th century, as a charter of the Empress Matilda mentions that Robert le Despenser, brother of Urso d’Abetot, had formerly held this castle;[697] now Urso d’Abetot was a contemporary of the Conqueror, and so must his brother have been. Tamworth Castle stands on a motte 50 feet high, and 100 feet in diameter across the top, according to Mr Clark. It is an interesting instance of what is commonly called a shell keep, with a stone tower; one of the instances which suggest that the shell did not belong to a different type of castle to the tower, but was simply a ward wall, which probably at first enclosed a wooden tower. The tower and wall (or chemise) are probably late Norman, but the remarkable wing wall (there is only one, instead of the usual two) which runs down the motte is entirely of herring-bone work, and may be as old as Henry I.’s time.[698] A bailey court, which cannot have been large, lay between the motte and the river Tame, but its outline cannot now be determined, owing to the encroachments of buildings. Tamworth is about a mile from the great Roman road known as Watling Street. We have already referred to the fortification of the burh here by Ethelfleda;[699] probably she only restored walls or banks which had existed before round this ancient capital of Mercia.

The value of the manor of Tamworth is not given in Domesday Book.

Tickhill, Yorks (Fig. 32).—The name Tickhill does not occur in Domesday, but it is covered by that of Dadesley, the manor in which this castle was built: a name which appears to have gone out of use when the hill was thrown up. There can be no doubt that it was the castle of Roger de Busli, one of the most richly endowed of William’s tenants-in-chief, as it is mentioned as such by Ordericus.[700] He calls it the castle of Blythe, a name which it probably received because Blythe was the most important place near, and Dadesley was so insignificant. Florence of Worcester, when describing the same events, calls the castle Tykehill. The remains furnish an excellent specimen of the earthworks of this class. The motte is 75 feet high, and its area on top about 80 feet in diameter; about a third of it is natural, the rest artificial. Only a slight trace remains of the ditch separating it from the oval bailey, which covers 2 acres. The foundations of a decagonal tower, built in the reign of Henry II., are still to be seen on the top.[701] The bailey retains its banks on the scarp, surmounted now by a stone curtain, which, along with the older part of the gatehouse, is possibly of the time of Henry I.[702] The outer ditch is about 30 feet broad, and is still full of water in parts. On the counterscarp a portion of the bank remains. This bank carried a wooden palisade when the castle was besieged by Cromwell.[703] The site is not naturally defensible; it is about three and a half miles from the northern Roman road.

The value of the manor of Dadesley had risen at the time of the Survey.[704] The stone buildings which once stood in the bailey have been transformed into a modern house.

Tonbridge, Kent (Fig. 33).—This notable castle, the first English seat of the powerful family who afterwards took their name from Clare in Suffolk, is first mentioned in 1088, when it was stormed by William Rufus and his English subjects, who had adopted his cause against the supporters of his brother Robert.[705] The castle was one of great importance at several crises in English history; but it began as a wooden keep on a motte, and the stone shell which now crowns this motte cannot be earlier than the 12th century, and judging by its buttresses, is much later. The castle stands outside the town of Tonbridge, separated from it by moats which were fed from the river. The smaller bailey of 1½ acres, probably the original one, is square, with rounded corners. The palatial gatehouse, of the 13th or 14th century, is a marked feature of this castle. There appears to have been only one wing wall down the motte to the bailey, but a second one was not needed, owing to the position of the motte with regard to the river.

The value of the manor of Hadlow, in which Tonbridge lay, was stationary at Domesday.[706] It belonged to the see of Canterbury, and was held by Richard de Bienfaite, ancestor of the House of Clare, as a tenant of the see.

Tonbridge, Kent.

Totnes, Devon.

Fig. 33.

Totnes, Devonshire (Fig. 33).—The castle of Totnes belonged to Judhael, one of King William’s men, who has been already mentioned under Barnstaple. This castle is not noticed in Domesday Book, but its existence in the 11th century is made certain by a charter of Judhael’s giving land below his castle to the Benedictine priory which he had founded at Totnes: a charter certainly of the Conqueror’s reign, as it contains a prayer for the health of King William.[707] The site was an important one; Totnes had been one of the boroughs of the Burghal Hidage; it was at the head of a navigable river, and was the point where the ancient Roman (?) road from Devonshire to Bath and the North began its course.[708] The motte of the castle is very high and precipitous, and has a shell on top, which is perfect up to the battlements, and appears to be rather late Norman. This keep is entered in a very unusual way, by a flight of steps leading up from the bailey, deeply sunk in the upper part into the face of the motte, so as to form a highly defensible passage. Two wing walls run down to the walls of the bailey. There is at present no ditch between the motte and the bailey. The whole area of the work is ¾ acre. It stands in a very defensible situation on a spur of hill overlooking the town, and lies just outside the ancient walls.

The value of the town of Totnes had risen at Domesday.[709]

The Tower of London.—Here, as at Colchester, there is no motte, because the original design was that there should be a stone keep. Ordericus tells us that after the submission of London to William the Conqueror he stayed for a few days in Barking while certain fortifications in the city were being finished, to curb the excitability of the huge and fierce population.[710] What these fortifications were we shall never know, but we may imagine they were earthworks of the usual Norman kind.[711] Certainly the great keep familiarly known as the White Tower was not built in a few days; it does not appear to have been even begun till some eleven years later, when Gundulf, a monk celebrated for his architectural skill, was appointed to the see of Rochester. Gundulf was the architect of the Tower,[712] and it must therefore have been built during his episcopate, which lasted from 1077-1108.[713] In 1097 we read that “many shires which owe works to London were greatly oppressed in making the wall (weall) round the Tower.”[714] This does not necessarily mean a stone wall, but probably it does, as Gundulf’s tower can hardly have been without a bank and palisade to its bailey.

As the Tower in its general plan represents the type of keep which was the model for all succeeding stone keeps up to the end of the 12th century, it seems appropriate here to give some description of its main features. Its resemblance to the keep of Colchester, which also was a work of William I.’s reign, is very striking.[715] Colchester is the larger of the two, but the Tower exceeds in size all other English keeps, measuring 118 × 98 feet at its base.[716] As it has been altered or added to in every century, its details are peculiarly difficult to trace, especially as the ordinary visitor is not allowed to make a thorough examination.[717] Thus much, however, is certain: neither of the two present entrances on the ground floor is original; the first entrance was on the first floor, some 25 feet above the ground, at the S.W. angle of the south side, and has been transformed into a window. There was no entrance to the basement, but it was only reached by the grand staircase, which is enclosed in a round turret at the N.E. angle. There were two other stairs at the N.W. and S.W. angles, but these only began on the first floor. The basement is divided by a cross wall, which is carried up to the third storey. There are at present three storeys above the basement. The basement, which is now vaulted in brick, was not originally vaulted at all, except the south-eastern chamber, under the crypt of the chapel.

The first floor, like the basement, is divided into three rooms, as, in addition to the usual cross wall, the Tower has a branch cross wall to its eastern section, which is carried up to the top. This floor was formerly only lit by loopholes; Clark states that there were two fireplaces in the east wall, but there is some doubt about this. The S.E. room contained the crypt of the chapel, which was vaulted. It is commonly supposed that the rooms on the first floor were occupied by the guards of the keep. In the account which we have quoted from Lambert of Ardres, the first floor is said to be the lord’s habitation, and the upper storey that of the guards; so that there seems to have been no invariable rule.[718] No special room was allotted to the kitchen, as in time of peace at any rate, the lord of the castle and all his retainers took their meals in a great hall in the bailey of the castle.[719] The ceilings of the two larger rooms of this floor are now supported by posts, an arrangement which is probably modern, as the present posts certainly are.[720]