Note 15 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

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