Note 203 — Chapter V · THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE CASTLES

There are some facts which render it probable that the earliest castles built in Normandy were without mottes, and were simple enclosures like those we have described already. Thus the castle of the great family of Montgomeri is an enclosure of this simple kind. Domfront, built by William Talvas in Duke Robert’s time, has no motte. On the other hand, Ivry, built by the Countess Albereda in Duke Richard I.’s days, “on the top of a hill overlooking the town” (William of Jumièges), may possibly have been a motte; and there is a motte at Norrei, which we have just mentioned as an early Norman castle.