Note 719 — Chapter VII · THE CASTLES OF THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND (continued 2)

Many of the larger keeps contain rooms quite spacious enough to have served as banqueting halls, and it is a point of some difficulty whether they were built to be used as such. But as late as the 14th century, Piers Ploughman rebukes the new custom which was growing up of the noble and his family taking their meals in private, and leaving the hall to their retainers. Every castle seems to have had a hall in the bailey.