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Title: Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

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

MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND
DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

Frontispiece
ROCHESTER: GREAT TOWER.

MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN
ENGLAND DURING THE
MIDDLE AGES

BY

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

Illustrated by 200 Photographs, Drawings, and Plans

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

Printed at
The Darien Press
Edinburgh

PREFACE
Apart from the late Mr G. T. Clark’s Mediæval Military Architecture,
published in 1884, the greater portion of which is a series of monographs
dealing with individual castles, there has been no attempt, until within the
last few years, to apply systematic treatment to this branch of science.
Recently, however, more than one book has been published upon the
general subject of the castles of England. Mr Alfred Harvey has lately given
a lucid account of the growth of the castle, with a valuable essay upon
English walled towns; and the present year has seen the appearance of a
book in which Mrs Armitage has embodied the result of labours of the
utmost importance, extending over many years. In addition to works of a
general character, a number of separate monographs, indispensable to
students, have been published during the last twenty years, in the
transactions of various archæological societies. The contributions of Mr W.
H. St John Hope to the study of castle architecture take a foremost place
among these, with papers such as those by Mr J. Bilson on Gilling castle
and by Mr Harold Sands on Bodiam and the Tower of London; and the late
Mr Cadwallader Bates’ unfinished Border Holds of Northumberland
contains accounts of Warkworth and Bamburgh, as well as of smaller
castles and peles, which must take rank among the classics of the subject.
In the present volume an attempt is made to trace the growth of the
general principles of medieval fortification, with special reference to
castles, in which, within their limited area, the most complete illustration of
those principles is given. In order to give greater clearness to the account of
their evolution, a prefatory chapter deals generally with earlier types of
fortification in Britain, and the critical period of Saxon and Danish warfare
is treated in the second chapter with some detail. This leads us to the early
Norman castle of earthwork and timber; and the stone fortifications to
which this gave place are introduced by a brief account of the progress of
siegecraft and siege-engines. The Norman castle and its keep or great tower
are then described. The developments of the later part of the twelfth century
and the arrangements of the thirteenth-century castle, with those of the
dwelling-house within its enceinte, follow and prepare the way for the

castles of the reign of Edward I. which represent the highest effort of
military planning. In the last two chapters is related the progress of the
transition from the castle to the fortified manor-house, which followed the
introduction of fire-arms into warfare and preceded the Renaissance period.
It will be seen that the castle is taken as the unit of military architecture
throughout; but illustrations are constantly drawn from walled towns, which
are, in fact, the castles of communities, and in the eleventh chapter extended
allusion is made to the chief features of their plan and defences.
In speaking of the walled town, however, as the castle of the community,
it must not be forgotten that the castle is, in its origin, the stronghold of a
single owner. That origin is still to some extent a vexed question; for the
well-known theory of Mr G. T. Clark, that the castle of Norman times was
identical with the burh of the Saxon Chronicle, was accepted as a dogma by
the antiquaries of twenty-five to fifty years ago, and a theory thus
established, however precipitately, is not easily shaken. The patient and
thorough work of Mrs Armitage, which deserves the admiration of every
scholar, has done much to disturb the foundations on which Mr Clark built
his hypothesis; and Mr Neilson, Dr Round, Mr St John Hope, and others,
have contributed their share to the discovery of the real character of the
evidence, and the formulation of a sounder theory. The present writer has
devoted much time to the study of the original authorities for Saxon and
Norman military history, and it is his conviction that the weight of
documentary evidence is entirely upon the side of the views upheld with so
much ability and originality by these recent investigators. At the same time,
the earthworks of early castles still present several difficult problems; and
the discredit into which Mr Clark’s theory has fallen is a warning against
the too confident acceptation of the conclusions of a more critical age, and
against the danger of forcing exceptions into the service of the rule.
In the earlier part of this book, some allusion is made to methods of
Roman warfare; and the main points of two of the sieges conducted by
Cæsar and his lieutenants are summarily described. It need hardly be said,
in view of what follows, that the methods of military architecture in the
middle ages have, for the most part, their exact prototypes in Roman and
Byzantine history. The student of the siege-campaigns of Philip Augustus
will be constantly reminded, for example, of the relation by Ammianus of
the exploits of Julian the Apostate. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on

the importance, first, of the contact of the Northmen who overran England
and France with the traditional expedients of Roman siegecraft, as they
existed in the eastern empire, and secondly, of the influence of the Crusades
upon the development of medieval fortification. The conditions of our
military architecture in the middle ages were naturally governed by the
methods of attack employed by a besieging force. As these had been
brought to a high state of perfection in the east, an advance upon which was
hardly possible, the history of English fortification, from the Norman
conquest to the general adoption of fire-arms in warfare, is that of a
progress towards a system of defence in which western Europe lagged far
behind the older centres of civilisation.
It is to be noted that, although the architecture of the castle and the
fortifications of towns naturally took its share in the formal progress of
Gothic art, the laws under which it was evolved bear no resemblance to the
principles of construction, in obedience to which the medieval cathedral
assumed its characteristic form. Ribbed vaults, Gothic mouldings, and
traceried windows afford a clue to the dates of the various parts of a
medieval castle, as they do to those of a church; but they are merely
incidental to a type of construction to which the solid and impregnable wall
is all-important. The cases are rare in which the builders of castles paid
much attention to elaborate detail in the minor parts of their building: their
decorative work is used with the economy and simplicity appropriate to the
massive construction which their fortresses demanded.
A vast amount of work still remains to be done in the exploration of our
military buildings and the reconstruction of their history; and, until that is
accomplished, no thoroughly satisfactory general hand-book can be written.
Nevertheless, it is hoped that there is room for books which may serve as
general indicators to what has been done, up to the present time, in this
direction. The bibliography which will be found preceding the text of this
volume includes a selected list of monographs or articles upon individual
castles, many of which have appeared in the transactions of various
archaeological societies. These vary considerably in value; but, taken as a
whole, they serve to enlarge our knowledge of the history and architecture
of the buildings with which they are concerned.
The author desires to express his thanks, first to his wife, without whose
constant help in the preparation of the book and in the provision of

drawings and plans to illustrate its pages, it could hardly have been written.
Mr Francis Bond, the editor of this series, has aided the author with
unfailing kindness, by reading through the proofs, making suggestions as to
the general form of the book, and arranging for its adequate illustration. To
the following, who have kindly allowed the use of photographs, special
thanks should be returned: Mrs Jessie Lloyd, the Revs. J. Bailey and G. W.
Saunders, and Messrs Harold Baker, F. Bond, J. P. Gibson, F.S.A., G. J.
Gillham, G. Hepworth, P. M. Johnston, F.S.A., R. Keene, W. Maitland, E.
A. and G. R. Reeve, F. R. Taylor, and G. H. Widdows. The editors of the
Archaeological Journal have sanctioned the use of various plans from the
annual programmes of the Archaeological Institute. Mr A. Hadrian Allcroft
and Messrs Macmillan have given consent to the reproduction of three
illustrations from Mr Allcroft’s Earthwork of England. Permission to found
the plan of Chepstow castle on one in the official Guide to that building was
kindly given by his Grace the Duke of Beaufort, through Mr Noel H. P.
Somerset. MM. Camille Enlart and Auguste Picard have permitted the
insertion of a plan of Château-Gaillard, founded on that in M. Enlart’s
Manuel. Mr R. Blair, F.S.A., has authorised a similar use of illustrations
founded on those of Dr Bruce’s Roman Wall. Thanks are also due to the
editor of the Yorkshire Archæological Journal for the plan of Sandal castle,
and to Mr W. G. Watkins, jun., for his plan of Lincoln castle. Special
acknowledgments are due to Mr Godfrey L. Clark for his liberality in
putting at the disposal of the writer valuable plans and drawings from his
father’s work. The author much regrets that questions of space and cost
have prevented him from taking advantage of more than a limited number
of the generous offers of illustration which reached him during the
preparation of the book for the press.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface vii
Bibliography xiii
I. Early Earthworks and Roman Stations 1
II. The Saxon and Danish Period 21
III. The English Castle after the Conquest 35
IV. The Progress of Attack and Defence 58
V. The Beginning of the Stone Castle 83
VI. The Keep of the Norman Castle 110
VII. The Period of Transition: Cylindrical Tower-Keeps 160
VIII. The Dwelling-House in the Castle 188
IX. Castles of the Thirteenth Century: The Fortification of
the Curtain 212
X. The Edwardian Castle and the Concentric Plan 252
XI. Military Architecture in the Later Middle Ages:
Fortified Towns and Castles 287
XII. The Age of Transition: The Fortified Dwelling-House 334
Index of Persons and Places 369
Index Rerum 381

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Chief Original Authorities cited.
Abbo, De Bello Parisiaco libri tres (Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, vol. 131
(1853), pp. 722-62).
Amiens, Guy of. Carmen de Hastingae proelio (Chroniques Anglo-Normands).
Rouen, 1836-40.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. C. Plummer. 2 vols. Oxford, 1892-9.
Anna Comnena. Alexias, ed. A. Reifferscheid. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1884.
Annales Bertiniani (Annales Francorum, vulgo Bertiniani dicti), ed. Dom. M.
Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, vols. vi. (1749), 192-
204; vii. (1749), 59-124; viii. (1752), 26-37.
Ardres, Lambert of. Extracts in Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, vols. xi. (1767),
295-307; xiii. (1786), 423-53; xviii. (1822), 583-8.
Bede. Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. C. Plummer. Oxford, 1896.
Breton (le), Guillaume. Philippidos libri xii., ed. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens,
vol. xvii. (1818), 117-287.
Caesar. Commentaries, ed. B. Kübler. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1893-6.
Colmieu, Jean de, canon of St Martin, Ypres. Vita beati Joannis Morinorum episcopi
(Acta Sanctorum, January, vol. iii. 409-17).
Diceto, Ralph de. Historical Works (Ymagines Historiarum and Abbreviationes
Chronicorum), ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (Rolls Series, No. 68).
Domesday Book (Record Commission). 4 vols. Lond., 1816.
Henry VIII., Letters and Papers, ed. Brewer and Gairdner, vol. iv.
Hoveden, Roger of. Chronicle, ed. W. Stubbs. 4 vols. (Rolls Series, No. 51).
Joinville, Jean, seigneur de. Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. N. de Wailly. Paris, 1874
(translation of Chronicle by Sir Frank Marzials, London, 1908).
Monte, Robert de (Robert de Torigny, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel). Cronica
(continuation of Sigebert of Gemblours), ed. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus, vol. clx.,
423-546.
Ordericus Vitalis. Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. A. le Prévost. 5 vols. Paris, 1838-55.
Patent Rolls, Calendars of, 1216-66, 1271-1364, 1377-1485. 47 vols. (in
progress).
Peterborough, Benedict of. Chronicle, ed. W. Stubbs. 2 vols. (Rolls Series, No. 49).
Pipe Rolls. Pipe Roll Society Publications. 27 vols. (in progress). London, 1884, etc.
Rymer, Thomas. Foedera. 20 vols. London, 1704-35.
Stubbs, William, D.D. Select Charters and other Illustrations of English
Constitutional History, 8th edit. Oxford, 1905.
Suger. Gesta Ludovici Grossi, ed. A. Molinier. Paris, 1887.
Vegetius. Epitoma Rei Militaris, ed. C. Lang. Leipzig, 1885.
Vetusta Monumenta, vol. vi. (Bayeux Tapestry). London, 1842.
Villehardouin, Geoffroi de. De la Conqueste de Constantinople par les Barons
François associez aux Venitiens, ed. N. de Wailly. Paris, 1872-4 (trans. Sir Frank
Marzials, London, 1908).
Vitruvius. De Architectura, ed. V. Rose. Leipzig, 1899.

Wendover, Roger of. Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. H. G. Hewlett, 3 vols.
(Rolls Series, No. 84).

2. General.
Allcroft, A. Hadrian. Earthwork of England. London, 1908.
Armitage, Ella S. Anglo-Saxon burhs and early Norman castles (Proc. Soc. Antiq.
Scotland, xxxiv. 260-88).
—— The Early Norman Castles of England (English Historical Review, xix. 209-45
and 417-55).
—— The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles. London, 1912.
Bruce, J. C., LL.D., F.S.A. Hand-book to the Roman Wall, ed. Robert Blair, F.S.A.,
5th edition. London and Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1907.
Christison, David, M.D. Early Fortification in Scotland: Motes, camps, and forts.
Edinburgh and London, 1898.
Clark, G. T., F.S.A. Mediæval Military Architecture in England. 2 vols. London,
1884.
Clephan, R. Coltman, F.S.A. An Outline of the History of Gunpowder and that of the
Hand-Gun, from the epoch of the earliest records to the end of the fifteenth century
(Archaeol. Journal, lxvi. 145-70).
—— The Military Handgun of the sixteenth century (Archaeol. Journal, lxvii. 109-
50).
—— The Ordnance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Archaeol. Journal,
lxviii. 49-138).
Codrington, Thomas. Roman Roads in Britain. London, 1903.
D’Auvergne, Edmund B. The Castles of England. London, 1907.
—— The English Castles, London, 1908.
Dieulafoy, M. Le Château-Gaillard et l’architecture militaire au XIIIᵐᵉ siècle
(Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvi., part. 1). Paris, 1898.
Enlart, Camille. Manuel d’Archéologie française, vol. ii. Paris, 1904.
Harvey, Alfred. The Castles and Walled Towns of England. London, 1911.
Haverfield, Prof. F. J., LL.D., D.Litt., V.P.S.A. The Romanization of Roman Britain.
London, 1905.
—— Roman Britain (Cambridge Medieval History, i. 367-81: see ibid. 666-7 for
bibliography of various articles by the same writer).
Hochfelden, G. H. Krieg von. Geschichte der Militar-Architektur in Deutschland.
Stuttgart, 1859.
Hope, W. H. St John. English fortresses and castles of the tenth and eleventh
centuries (Archaeol. Journal, lx. 72-90).
Mackenzie, Sir J. D. The Castles of England, their Story and Structure. 2 vols.
London, 1897.
Neilson, George. The motes in Norman Scotland (Scottish Review xiv. 209-38).
Oman, Prof. C. W. C., F.S.A. A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages. London,
1898.
Orpen, G. H. Motes and Norman castles in Ireland (Proc. Royal Soc. Antiq. Ireland,
xxxvii. 123-52).
Parker, J. H., and Turner, T. Hudson. Some account of domestic architecture in
England. 3 vols, in 4. Oxford, 1851-9.
Round, J. Horace, LL.D. The Castles of the Conquest. (Archaeologia, lviii. 313-40).

—— Feudal England, Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth Centuries (new
edition). London, 1909.
Saint-Paul, Anthyme. Histoire Monumentale de la France, 6th edition. Paris, 1903.
Turner, T. Hudson; see Parker, J. H.
Van Millingen, A. Byzantine Constantinople. London, 1899.
Viollet-le-Duc, E. Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’Architecture française du XIᵉ au XVIᵉ
Siècle. 10 vols. Paris, 1854, etc.
—— Essai sur l’architecture militaire au moyen âge. Paris, 1854 (translated by M.
Macdermott, Oxford and London, 1860).
—— Histoire d’une forteresse. Paris, n.d.
Ward, W. H. French Châteaux and Gardens in the XVIth Century (drawings
reproduced from Androuet-du-Cerceau). London, 1909.
Westropp, T. J. Irish motes and alleged Norman castles (Proc. Royal Soc. Antiq.
Ireland, xiv. 313-45, and xv. 402-6).

3. Special Monographs, etc.
Acton Burnell. Hartshorne, C. H., F.S.A. (Archaeol. Journal, ii. 325-38).
Alnwick. Clark, Mediæval Mil. Architecture, i. 175-85.
—— Knowles, W. H., F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. The Gatehouse and Barbican of Alnwick
Castle (Archaeologia Æliana, 3rd ser., v. 286-303).
Amberley. Clarkson, G. A. (Sussex Arch. Coll., xvii. 185-339).
Arundel. Clark, i. 195-203.
Auckland. Rev. J. F. Hodgson (Archaeologia Æliana, xix. 89-92).
Aydon. Knowles, W. H. (Archaeologia, lvi. 78-88). See also Bates, Border Holds.
Bamburgh. Bates, Border Holds; Clark, G. T. (Archaeol. Journal, xlvi. 93-113).
Barnard Castle. Clark, i. 204-13.
Beaumaris. Clark, i. 213-17.
Belsay. Bates, Border Holds.
—— Middleton, Sir Arthur E., Bart. An account of Belsay castle (privately printed).
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1910.
Berkeley. Clark, i. 228-39.
Berkhampstead. Clark, i. 223-38.
Berwick-on-Tweed. Norman, F. M. (Commander R.N.): Official Guide to the
Fortifications. Berwick, 1907.
Bodiam. Clark, i. 239-47.
—— Sands, Harold, F.S.A., in Sussex Archaeol. Collections, xlvi. 114-33.
Bothal. Bates, Border Holds.
Bowes. Clark, i. 259-64.
Bridgnorth. Clark, i. 273-81.
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city. London, 1906.
—— (castle). Pritchard, J. E., F.S.A. (Proceedings of Clifton Antiquarian Club, iv. 17-
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Bronllys. Clark, i. 283-6; Archaeologia Cambrensis, 3rd ser., viii. 81-92.
Broughton. Lord Saye and Sele (Berks, Bucks, and Oxon. Archaeol. Journal, new
ser., vii. 23-5).
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Caerphilly. Clark, i. 315-35.
Caldicot. Bellows, J. (Cotteswold Field Club, vi. 263-7).

Caldicot. Cobb, J. R. (Clifton Antiq. Club, iii. 35-40).
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—— Hughes, Prof. T. M‘Kenny, F.S.A. (ibid., ix. 348).
Carcassonne. Viollet-le-Duc, E. La Cité de Carcassonne. Paris, 1858.
Cardiff. Clark, i. 336-50; Ward, J., F.S.A. Cardiff castle, its Roman origin
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Carew. Cobb, J. R. (Archaeologia Cambrensis, 5th ser., iii. 27-41).
Carisbrooke. Beattie, W. (Journal Archaeol. Assoc., xi. 193-205).
—— Stone, P. G., F.S.A. (Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2nd ser., xvi. 409-11).
Carlisle. Clark, i. 350-8
Carnarvon. Clark, i. 309-15.
—— Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journal, vii. 237-65: Archaeologia Cambrensis,
3rd ser., i. 242-6).
Château-Gaillard. Clark, i. 378-85; Dieulafoy, M., see General Bibliography.
Chepstow. Clark, G. T. (Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc., vi. 51-74).
—— Wood, J. G., F.S.A. The Lordship, Castle, and Town of Chepstow. Newport,
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Chipchase. Bates, Border Holds.
—— Knowles, W. H. (Archaeologia Æliana, 3rd ser., i. 32-4).
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Colchester. Clark, i. 418-31.
—— The History and Antiquities of Colchester castle. Colchester, 1882. See also
Archaeol. Journal, lxiv. 188-191.
Conisbrough. Clark, i. 431-53.
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—— Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeologia Cambrensis, new ser., v. 1-12).
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—— Bond, T. History and Description of Corfe Castle. London and Bournemouth,
1883.
—— Clark, i. 461-75.
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—— Compton, C. H. (Journal British Archaeol. Assoc., new ser., ix. 111-16).
Durham. Clark, ii. 32-5, and Archaeol. Journal, xxxix. 1-22.

—— Gee, H., D.D., F.S.A. (Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2nd ser., xx. 17-18, and Trans. Durham
and Northumb. Archaeol. Soc.).
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—— Malden, H. E. (Surrey Archaeol. Soc., xvi. 28-34).
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Hallaton. Dibbin, H. A. (Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2nd ser., vii. 316-21).
Harlech. Chapman, F. G. W. (Journal British Archaeol. Assoc. xxxiv. 159-67).
—— Clark, ii. 72-81.
Hastings. Clark, ii. 82-88.
—— Dawson, C., F.S.A. History of Hastings Castle. 2 vols. London, 1909.
Hawarden. Clark, ii. 88-99.
Helmsley. Clark, ii. 100-8.
Kenilworth. Clark, ii. 130-53.
—— Knowles, E. H. The Castle of Kenilworth. Warwick, 1872.
Kentish Castles. Sands, Harold. Some Kentish Castles (Memorials of Old Kent,
1907).
Kidwelly. Clark, ii. 153-62.
Knaresborough. Clark, ii. 168-76.
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xix. 45-76).
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Langley. Bates, C. J. (Archaeologia Æliana, x. 38-56).
Leeds. Clark, ii. 176-8.
—— James, F. V. (Archaeologia Cantiana, xxv. pp. xlix-liii).
Leicester. Clark, ii. 182-8.
—— Thompson, James. Leicester Castle. Leicester, 1859.
Lewes. Clark (Sussex Archaeol. Collections, xxxiv. 57-70).
Lincoln. Clark, ii. 189-201.
—— Sympson, E. Mansel, M.D. Lincoln, a historical and topographical account of
the city. London, 1906.
Llanstephan. Williams, Sir John (Archaeologia Cambrensis, 6th ser., vii. 108-18).
London, Tower of. Clark, ii. 203-72.
—— Sands, H., F.S.A. (Memorials of Old London, London, 1908, vol. i. 27-65).
Ludlow. Clark, ii. 273-90.
—— Hope, W. H. St John (Archæologia, lxi. 258-328).
Lumley. Dodd, J. (Journal British Archaeol. Assoc., xxii. 45, 46).
Manorbier. Duckett, Sir J. (Archaeologia Cambrensis, 4th ser., xi. 134-145, 286-91,
xiii. 166-73).
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ses abords. Paris, 1877.
—— Massé, H. J. L. J. A short history and description ... of Mont S. Michel. London,
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Newcastle-on-Tyne. Bates, C. J. (Archaeologia Æliana, ix. 120-9).

—— Heslop, R. O., F.S.A. (ibid., xxv. 91-105; Journal of British Archaeol. Assoc.,
new ser., xii. 137-8, 214-5).
—— The Castle of Newcastle, a short descriptive guide. Newcastle, 1906 (4th ed.).
Norham. Bates, C. J. (Archaeologia Æliana, v. 52-5).
—— Clark, ii. 322-35.
—— Jerningham, Sir H. E. H. Norham Castle. Edinburgh, 1883.
Northampton. Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journal, iii. 309-32).
Northumbrian Castles. Bates, Cadwallader J. The Border Holds of Northumberland
(Archaeologia Æliana [Newcastle-on-Tyne], xv. 1-465).
—— Hartshorne, C. H. Feudal and military antiquities of Northumberland and the
Scottish Borders (Memoirs of Brit. Archaeol. Inst., Newcastle, vol. 2, 1858).
Norwich. Hartshorne, A., F.S.A. (Archaeol. Journal, xlvi. 260-8).
—— The Walls of Norwich (report of corporation). Norwich, 1910.
Nottingham. Green, Emanuel, F.S.A. (Archaeol. Journal, lviii. 365-97).
Oakham. Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journal, v. 124-42).
—— Thompson, A. Hamilton, F.S.A. (Rutland Magazine, v. 80-88).
Odiham. Clark, ii. 336-45.
Old Sarum. Clark, ii. 447-458.
—— Hope, W. H. St John, and Hawley, Lt.-Col. W., in Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2nd ser.,
xxiii. 190-200 and 501-17.
Orford. Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeologia, xxix. 60-9).
—— Redstone, V. B. (Trans. Suffolk Archaeol. Inst., x. 205-30).
Oxford. Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journal, viii. 354-65).
—— Hope, W. H. St John (ibid., lxvii. 363-6).
—— Lynam, Charles. The Crypts of the Churches of St Peter in the East, and of St
George within the Castle, Oxford (ibid., lxviii. 203-17).
Peak Castle. Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journ., v. 207-16).
—— Hope, W. H. St John (Derbyshire Archaeol. Soc., xi. 120-6).
—— Kirke, Henry (Derbyshire Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc., xxviii. 134-46).
Pembroke. Clark (Archaeologia Cambrensis, 3rd series, v. 1-13, etc.; vi. 1-11, etc.;
vii. 185-204).
—— Cobb, J. R. (ibid., 4th series, xiv. 196-220, 264-73).
Pevensey. Clark, ii. 359-67.
—— Salzmann, L. F. (Sussex Archaeol. Collections, xlix. 1-30, etc.).
Pickering. Clark, ii. 368-75.
Pontefract. Clark, ii. 375-88.
—— Hartshorne, C. H., Journal British Archaeol. Assoc., xx. 136-55).
Porchester. Clark, ii. 388-400.
Prudhoe. Bates, Border Holds.
Raby. Scott, O. S., Raby, its Castle and its Lords. Barnard Castle, 1908.
Raglan. Beattie, W. (Jour. Archaeol. Assoc., ix. 215-30).
—— Bradney, J. A. (Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc., xx. 76-87).
Richmond. Clark (Yorkshire Archæol. Journal, ix. 33-54).
—— Curwen, J. F., (Cumberland and Westmorland Antiq. and Archaeol. Soc., vi.
326-32).
—— Yorks Archæol. Journal, xx. 132-3.
Rising. Beloe, E. M., F.S.A. (Norfolk Archaeology, xii. 164-89).
—— Clark, i. 364-77.
Rochester. Beattie, W. (Journal Archaeol. Assoc., ix. 215-30).
—— Clark, ii. 405-23.

Rochester. Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journal, xx. 205-23).
—— Payne, G. (Archaeologia Cantiana, xxvii. 177-92).
Rockingham. Bigge, H. J. (Assoc. Archit. Soc. Reports, xi. 109-18).
—— Clark, ii. 423-46.
—— Hartshorne, C. H. (Archaeol. Journal, i. 356-78); and privately printed, Oxford,
1852.
—— Wise, C. Rockingham Castle and the Watsons. London, 1891.
Sandal. Walker, J. W., F.S.A. (Yorks Archæol. Journal, xiii. 154-88).
Scarborough. Clark, ii. 458-67.
—— Stevenson, W. H. (East Riding Antiq. Soc., xiv. 13-17).
Skenfrith. Bagnall-Oakeley, E. (Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc., xx. 93-6).
—— Clark, ii. 467-72.
Southampton (town walls). Clark, ii. 472-81.
—— Hope, W. H. St John (Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2nd series, xvii. 221-4).
Stokesay. De la Touche, G. (Journal British Archaeol. Assoc., xxiv. 238-40).
—— J. G. D. (Archaeologia Cambrensis, xvi. 299-304).
Suffolk Castles. Redstone, V. B. Suffolk Castles (Suffolk Archaeol. Inst., xi. 301-
19).
Sussex Castles. Blaauw, W. H. Royal licences to fortify towns and houses in Sussex
(Sussex Archaeol. Collections, xiii. 104-17).
Swansea. Capper, C. (Archaeologia Cambrensis, 5th series, iii. 302-7).
Tamworth. Clark, ii. 481-8.
Tattershall. Sympson, E. Mansel (Memorials of Old Lincolnshire, 1911, pp. 179-
97).
Tickhill. Clark, ii. 494-9.
Tretower. Clark, ii. 499-503.
Tutbury. Clark, ii. 505-8.
Wark. Bates, Border Holds.
Warkworth. Bates, Border Holds.
Wells (bishop’s palace). Davis, C. E. (Journal British Archaeol. Assoc., xiii. 177-86).
Wingfield. Cox, J. C. (Derbyshire Archaeol. Soc., viii. 65-78).
—— Edmunds, W. H. Guide to Wingfield Manor.
York. Clark, ii. 534-48 (The Defences of York).
—— Cooper, T. P. York, The Story of its Walls and Castles. London, 1904.
—— —— The Castle of York. London, 1912.
Yorkshire Castles. Thompson, A. Hamilton. The Castles of Yorkshire (Memorials of
Old Yorkshire, 1909, pp. 236-64).

MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND
DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

CHAPTER I

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

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

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

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

Bury Ditches
The impregnable character of the enceinte was thus ensured. But further
skill was necessary to defend the entrances of the camp. Of these there was
usually more than one, and these were necessarily formed by cuttings
through the banks. As in the case of Maiden Castle, the path of entry could
be converted into a labyrinth by multiplying the banks and ditches. Every
inch of this circuitous path is guarded by tall ramparts: there are seven or
eight points in its course at which fatal error was possible, and one at any
rate where an attacking army could hardly fail to rush securely upon
destruction. The eastern entrance is so guarded by transverse banks that the
path is almost equally difficult to find. It was seldom, however, that
entrances were so elaborately protected. At Old Sarum the western entrance
is covered by a semicircular outwork, on the flanks of which are the two
inlets to the passage through the outer vallum. On the east side the entrance
is through a narrow passage which runs for some distance between the
parapet of the outer ditch and an outwork, and is at right angles to the actual
passage through the bank. The most common method of defending the
entrance was to make a diagonal path, usually from right to left, through the

banks. Each bank would thus overlap the next: the summits above the path
would be broadened out into platforms, capable of occupation by bodies of
defenders; and the right flank of the enemy, unprotected by shields, would
be exposed to their missiles. The entrance, however, might be substantially
protected by giving an inward curve to the inner bank on each side of the
path; and this is a plan very frequently employed.3 Where outworks were
specially constructed, their form differs considerably: we have seen them
employed in two ways at Old Sarum—as a kind of horn-work thrown out in
front of a passage, and as a spur projecting at right angles in front of an
entrance. In both cases an absolutely straight approach is precluded.
Occasionally, where an approximately direct approach was permitted, it is
guarded on one side by a spur thrown out at right angles to the bank. At
Blackbury castle, an early earthwork in south Devon, the main entrance has
a straight approach guarded on either side by a triangular outwork, which is
formed by a most ingenious arrangement of banks and by prolongations of
the main ditch (7). At the actual entrance the main bank is curved outwards,
with broad platforms at the top. The hollow interiors of the outworks might
serve as guard-houses, or the attacking force could be driven into them from
the gateway of the fort, and penned in a position from which escape was
impossible. Sometimes hollows were made in the bank or in a projecting
outwork near the gateway to serve as guard-houses. On either side of the
main entrance, the bank was often slightly raised. At least one instance is
known in which the main gate was concealed by making a break in another
part of the rampart, and raising the bank on either side. The enemy, making
for this point, would miss the real entrance, and run the risk of losing his
life in a cul-de-sac purposely constructed within the rampart.

Blackbury Castle
(From Mr Hadrian Allcroft’s Earthwork of England by kind permission of
Messrs Macmillan & Co.)
In these fortresses, the defences of which were due to instinctive skill in
the face of constant danger, it is impossible not to recognise how many of
the most scientific features of medieval fortification were anticipated. The
concentric plan of Caerphilly castle (270), with its easy provisions of
egress, and its difficulty of access; the spurs which guard the approaches to
Beaumaris (277) and Conway castles; the barbicans which form so
prominent a defence of Alnwick castle (243), and the gateways of York
have prototypes, of which their engineers were probably unconscious, in the
huge earthworks of prehistoric Britain. Through a long interval, in which
military art pursued a very gradual evolution, the wheel came full circle.

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

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

slighter and nearer the more recent haunts of men, are more liable to
destruction. But the defensive nature of such settlements is unmistakable.
The Roman invaders brought to England new methods of military
construction and the tradition of an architecture of dressed and cemented
stone. Their whole system of warfare was far in advance of that pursued by
the British tribes. They had developed the art of siege to a high pitch. Their
operations in open field were orderly and scientific. Their walled
strongholds were constructed with a view which took into account, not only
the mere strength of the ramparts, but also the capacity of the defenders to
man them. Men, not fortresses, were the main asset of Roman warfare; and
consequently their earthwork was far less imposing than that of the Britons
of the prehistoric age. Their camps and permanent stations were usually
surrounded by a single fosse of no great depth: the rare cases in which
traces remain of more than a single fosse are camps upon the exposed
northern frontier of Roman Britain, where the onrush of the barbarian
enemy was stayed by a series of trenches, either covered with brushwood or
filled with sharp stones or stakes. Camps were hastily constructed of
earthwork; bank, ditch, and parapet playing their part. But where a camp
became a permanent station a stone wall took the place of the earthen bank.
The most important relic of the Roman occupation in Britain, the great
frontier wall from the Tyne to the Solway, was preceded by a vallum of turf,
a temporary defence which was superseded by permanent masonry.
No system of connected operations can be traced between prehistoric
forts. Each of these was probably an isolated stronghold. Roman stations,
on the other hand, were military posts manned by detachments of one army,
and connected by strategic roads. This is seen very clearly in the case of the
great wall already mentioned. The wall can be traced for about 73 miles,
from Wallsend (Segedunum) on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway. It is
built in the usual Roman method, with a core of cemented rubble between
ashlar facings. Its breadth varies between 7 and 9½ feet: the height appears
to have been originally from 16 to 18 feet.6 Its northern face is defended by
a ditch, marked a in the section below; but, as it follows the highest ground
in its course, and runs for some distance along the edge of basaltic cliffs
which dip northward, the ditch at these points becomes unnecessary and is
dispensed with. There were twenty-three stations in its length, each
garrisoned by a cohort of infantry or squadron of cavalry, chosen from the

Roman auxiliary troops of Gauls, Spaniards, Moors, &c.7 These were
connected by a paved military road (c) along the south side of the wall. At
distances of a Roman mile from one another were placed rectangular forts,
now known as mile-castles, built against the wall upon its south side; and
the interval between each of these was strengthened further by turrets,
apparently two in number, which also projected southward, but encroached
slightly upon the thickness of the wall. The south side of the military road
was defended by an earthen vallum, marked d,8 the course of which is not
directly parallel to the wall, but is in places as much as half a mile distant,
keeping to lower ground where the wall prefers the summit of the basalt
ridge. This bank has a ditch (e) on its southern side, divided from it by a
level space or berm: the ditch has a southern parapet (f), and another bank
beyond (g). In certain places the ditch has also a northern parapet; but the
general arrangement of the earthen ramparts is as described. Of the
controversy as to the relative date of the wall and its flanking earthworks
nothing need be said here. Its military purpose is abundantly clear. It
provided not only a strong means of defence against the attacks of the
northern tribes, but a base of operations for offensive warfare. Each of the
stations and mile-castles has a northern gateway in addition to its other
entrances; and two of the Roman roads which met the wall at intervals from
the south passed through it on their way to the Scottish border.

Section of Roman Wall and Vallum.
The object of the great system of Roman roads was purely military.9
Along these broad paved “streets” the troops from the various stations could
be mobilised with great quickness. They kept as a rule to high ground,
choosing a convenient ridge, like that which runs from end to end of
Lincolnshire, and preserving as straight a line as possible. The most
important stations were placed at the crossing of rivers or at the junction of

roads. In the early days of the Roman occupation, the operations of the
army were directed entirely against the native tribes. No system of coast
defence was adopted. The necessity for this came later, when Britain, under
Roman dominion, was attacked by bodies of Saxon pirates. A chain of
fortresses was then constructed along what was known as the Saxon shore,
from Branodunum (Brancaster) in north Norfolk to Portus Adurni in Sussex
or Hampshire. The remains of the walls of Gariannonum (Burgh Castle in
Suffolk), Rutupiae (Richborough in Kent), Anderida (Pevensey in Sussex),
and Portus Magnus (Porchester in Hampshire), are, next to the great wall,
perhaps the most interesting relics of the Roman epoch which we possess.
The forts of the Saxon shore were placed, for the most part, at the mouths of
estuaries, for which the foreign pirates would naturally make.

Cilurnum
In several cases a Roman station was founded on the site of a British
settlement. It was, however, more compact in plan, and occupied only a
portion of the site. The earthworks defending the west side of the settlement
which preceded Camulodunum (Colchester) are two to three miles beyond
the Roman wall of the city, which occupied merely the north-east angle of a
very large and straggling enclosure. The original Roman station at Lincoln
may be taken as a typical example of a walled town of this epoch.10 It was a
rectangular enclosure, with its longer axis from east to west, occupying the
south-west angle of the high ridge above the valley of the Witham. In each

of the four walls was a gateway. The inner arch and the postern, with part of
the side walls, of the northern gateway still remain, and of the southern
gateway there are still substantial fragments; the line of the street which led
from one to the other is still fairly, though not accurately, preserved. The
positions of the east and west gateways are known: the line of the street
from the east gate to the centre of the city was deflected in the middle ages,
but its continuation to the west gate is represented by the course of a street,
much widened in modern times. Close to the meeting of the four streets was
the market-place or forum. This, in the early days of Roman Lincoln, was
the praetorium, or military headquarters of the camp. But the legion
quartered at Lincoln was removed to York, as it seems, in the time of
Vespasian, and the city settled down to a civil and commercial existence.
Round the forum were clustered the chief public buildings of the city, and
the foundations of a large colonnaded building are still to be seen below the
present ground level. At Gloucester, Chichester, and Chester, the course of
the four main streets has been little, if at all, disturbed, and their present
meeting-place nearly represents the centre of the Roman city. The
arrangements of the forum of a Romano-British town have been made out
very clearly by the excavations at Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) in
Hampshire.11 It was a closed rectangle, entered by a gateway and
surrounded by public buildings, in front of which were colonnades; one side
at Silchester was occupied by a great basilica, which served the purposes of
a hall of justice and mercantile exchange.

Borcovicus
The stations on the Roman wall were of a more purely military character
than the towns which have been mentioned. They have the general
characteristic of a rectangular plan, with the angles rounded off, and with a
gateway, flanked by guard-houses, in each of the four sides. In the two
largest stations, however, Amboglanna (Birdoswald) and Cilurnum
(Chesters), there were, in addition to the main gateways, two smaller
gateways in the east and west walls respectively.12 The walls of the stations
are generally 5 feet thick, and are built, like the wall itself, of a core of
cemented rubble, with facings of dressed stone. The main gateways have a
double passage, divided by a longitudinal wall, which is pierced by a
narrow passage in the centre. Their inner and outer openings were spanned
by arches, and closed by gates which were hung on iron pivots fixed in the
jamb of each opening next the wall. At Borcovicus (Housesteads) there was
no dividing wall through the passage between the outer and inner openings
of the gateway; but each of these openings is composed of two arches,
divided by a square pier (15).13 Each gateway had a stone sill, raised above
the level of the stone pavement. The interior passage was flanked by

rectangular guard-houses. The gateways of Borcovicus show interesting
signs of reconstruction, which point to the fact that, not long after its
construction, the station was seized by an enemy. At a subsequent time, its
Roman occupants reduced the width of the gateways by walling up one half
of the double openings. This was done apparently at different times, the east
gateway bearing signs of being treated in this way at an earlier period than
the others. The west gateway was walled up with great ingenuity. Of its
outer entrances, the northern, and of its inner entrances, the southern, were
blocked; so that a foe, choosing this face of the station for attack, had to
press his way through an elbow-shaped, instead of a straight passage.

Borcovicus; West Gateway

Pevensey
The wall of a Roman station, between the gateways, was often flanked by
a series of towers, each projecting from the wall in the form of a semicircle
or rather more than a semicircle. This was the case in some of the large
Gallo-Roman cities, like Autun.14 While the rounded form of these towers
made them difficult to undermine or batter down, their summits served as
standing-ground for the large ballistae or catapults, from which javelins or
stones could be hurled upon the attacking force. Their projection at regular

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

York; Multangular Tower

Borcovicus; Praetorium
In the interior of the station, as at Lincoln, York, and Borcovicus, the
main street, or via principalis, led directly from the north to the south
gate.18 The centre of the station, west of the via principalis, was occupied
by the praetorium, the headquarters of the commander of the legion,
answering to the space where, in a temporary camp, the tents of the general
and his staff were pitched. As we have seen, the place of the praetorium
was taken in commercial towns by the forum. The praetorium at Borcovicus
consisted of two rectangular courts, open to the sky in the centre. The outer
court, with its main entrance facing the eastern street or via praetoria, was
surrounded on three sides by a colonnade. A doorway, immediately opposite
the main entrance, opened into the eastern colonnade of the inner court.
This had no northern or southern colonnades, but had doorways to north
and south: its western side was occupied by a line of five rectangular

chambers, the central one of which was the chapel where the standards,
with the other sacred treasures belonging to the cohort,19 were kept. The
praetorium faced the eastern street of the station, which led to the east gate
or porta praetoria. The gate at the end of the western street was called
porta decumana.20 The remaining buildings of the station consisted of
straight blocks, intersected by lanes: the majority of these buildings would
be used as barracks. It should be noted that, in the planning of a Roman
station or walled town, the praetorium or forum was taken as the central
point: the via principalis, in order to run clear from gate to gate, was thus
on one side of an axis of the rectangle, and the north and south gates21 were
not in the centre of their respective walls.
It is clear that, as time went on and the power of Rome in Britain grew
weaker, the defensive character of the great wall and that of the stations
which it connected were emphasised at the expense of their character as
bases of active warfare. But it must be repeated that Roman stations in
Britain were not planned to form impregnable shelters for communities
mainly pastoral. They were centres for bodies of fighting men, linked to
each other by a splendid system of roads. The Roman station at Dorchester,
the lines of which are so well preserved to-day, was founded, not within the
ramparts of Maiden Castle or Poundbury, but on the lower slopes near the
passage of the Frome. The single rampart and single ditch of a Roman town
were almost invariable. Free egress as well as entrance, provisions for
attack as well as defence, were necessary; and, with these objects in view,
immense earthen defences, such as those of Maiden Castle, would be
cumbersome. Bodies of Roman troops, as at Lincoln or Colchester,
occasionally occupied part of the enceinte of a British settlement; but it is
very rarely that, as in the case of Old Sarum, we find a British hill fort
which also probably served as a Roman station. In this instance, the
occupation of the fort was due, doubtless, to its neighbourhood to the
military road: the road would not have been brought out of its way to
include the fort in its course. Roman stations, although they differed in size,
were small and compact, when contrasted with the large and straggling
areas occupied by the British settlers. Suburbs naturally grew up outside
their walls, and sometimes, although not very often, the walled enclosure
was extended to include a growing outer district. This is supposed by many
antiquaries to have happened at Lincoln, where the original Roman station

occupied the summit of the hill north of the great bend of the Witham,
which here turns from its northerly course due eastward. After the city of
Lincoln had settled down to civil life, practically the whole slope of the hill
south of the first enceinte was included within the city and encircled by a
wall. Part of the east wall of this later enclosure is still visible: the
Stonebow, the medieval south gate of the city, about a hundred yards from
the river and the bridge, appears to be on the site of the later south gateway
of Roman Lincoln.22

CHAPTER II

THE SAXON AND DANISH PERIOD
The Saxon invasions were a rude disturbance to the progress of English
civilisation. The Romanised Britons lay more and more at the mercy of the
invaders, as the soldiery were called away to take part in the last struggles
of the western Empire in Italy. Barbarians from the country north of the
wall, Saxon and Jutish pirates from across the sea, saw in the monuments of
the Roman occupation fair ground for pillage. It is difficult to estimate the
destruction caused by the invaders. But, apart from the havoc wrought by
the Teutonic immigrants and the northern tribes, it is certain that the walled
city of Roman times did not commend itself as a habitation to the new
settlers. The fact that their settlements flank Roman roads, like Ermine
street or the Fosseway, at distances of a mile or so from the main
thoroughfare, proves little in itself; for the villas of the Roman period,
which probably included, like the latifundia of Italy, a considerable
population of labourers on each estate, lay at some distance from the main
roads. The frequent villages—hams, tuns, and worths—were, however, a
new feature; and the life of each village, for which a clearing was made in
the wooded country-side, was pastoral, not military. This fact is of
importance with regard to the scanty traces of defensive fortifications
constructed during the Saxon occupation. Here and there natural
opportunities prompted the Saxon invaders to found settlements on sites of
Roman cities. The geographical position of London or Exeter, at the head of
a broad estuary, made such places natural centres of traffic, of high
importance to trade routes. On the other hand, while some of the larger
provincial capitals preserved their life in part, other urbes and the smaller
oppida, or walled towns, were left desolate. Pons Aelii, near the east end of
the Roman wall, was abandoned until in the tenth century a small
monastery was founded on the site, and the cluster of houses which
gathered round it received the name of Muncanceaster (Monkchester). The
place, however, did not recover its importance or become a permanent
settlement until the Conqueror founded there his New Castle on the Tyne,

which became the nucleus of the city of the middle ages and modern times.
The military stations of the Saxon shore were ruined and abandoned. We
know of the sack of Anderida in 492 a.d.: the walls of the station were left
standing, but the later settlement of Pevensey grew up in the open country
outside the walls. Richborough, Othona at the mouth of the Blackwater,
Burgh Castle, sheltered no new settlements: the new villages or towns,
Sandwich, Bradwell, Burgh, were all at a distance from the Roman walls or
outside their area. Othona (Ythanceaster) was deserted when Cedd made it
a missionary centre in the seventh century; and the little church, which
exists to-day and may have been Cedd’s own church, was built across the
site of the east gate of the station. In Leicester, which became an important
Danish centre, the topography of the Roman station was much disturbed,
and the church of St Nicholas, the nave of which is probably a little earlier
than the Norman conquest, was built within the walls directly in front of the
blocked west gate of the city. Towns like Chester, Gloucester, or Chichester,
which have preserved the line of their Roman streets with little alteration,
are rare; and the continuity of plan does not necessarily prove that there was
a similar continuity in the life of the places. On the contrary, the present
lay-out of either town shows four streets meeting at an open space or Carfax
in the centre of the city: no trace remains above ground of the closed forum,
which at Silchester and Corstopitum formed the centre of the plan and
directed the course of the streets. Silchester, laid waste by Saxon invaders,
has shared the fate of Anderida, Othona, and many other once prosperous
Romano-British towns.
In French history there was no such interruption as the Saxon invasion
caused in our own. The consequence is that the chief provincial capitals of
to-day, the centres of local government and religion, are and always have
been cities of Roman origin, which, although their Latin name has not
always been kept, preserve the names of the Gallic tribes amid which they
were founded. Reims, Paris, Amiens, Beauvais, Bourges, Le Mans, Tours,
Rouen, Sens, Troyes, Chartres, cities which have taken a most prominent
place in French history, and contain the most noble monuments of French
religious architecture, have an unbroken history from Roman times and
even earlier. The cathedrals of Christianised Gaul rose in the centre of the
cities: outside the walls, as time went on, rose abbeys like those of Saint-
Ouen at Rouen, Saint-Taurin at Evreux, La Couture and Le Pré at Le Mans.
The fortresses of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, like the older castle of

Rouen, were founded in a corner of the city, possibly on the site of the
Roman arx or citadel, of which we have substantial remains in the
abandoned Roman station of Jublains (Naeodunum Diablintum). In time the
city grew, extending into suburbs far outside the original walls: a suburb
sprang up round the neighbouring monastery. The circuit of the walls was
extended beyond their old limit. The eastern Roman wall might be broken
down, as at Le Mans, where the cathedral was in a corner of the city, to
make way for the thirteenth-century quire of the principal church:23 the
defences of the city were here transferred to a new outer ring of wall, the
line of which can be seen on the bank of the Sarthe. Within the present
extent of such cities the plan of the Roman station can frequently be traced:
whatever the vicissitudes of the place may have been, no year has passed in
which the chatter of the Vieux-Marché has been silent, or the Grande-Rue
has been untrodden daily by busy footsteps. But in English towns of
corresponding importance the case is different. If the cities were preserved
from pillage, traces of Christianity and civilisation were obliterated. If York
kept its position as an inhabited town, its population must have been small
and poor: the Anglian sovereigns of Northumbria dwelt, not in the old
Roman capital, but at country settlements like Goodmanham. The history of
York begins again with the mission of Paulinus and the foundation of the
first Saxon cathedral there. We also hear of Lincoln in connection with
Paulinus, who consecrated a church there; and this city, like York, was large
and important at the time of the Conquest. But, in both these cases, the
Anglian invasion first, and the Danish invasion later, caused a serious
disturbance to civic and religious life. Although there is evidence that the
Saxon bishops who ruled at Dorchester (Oxon.) in the tenth and eleventh
centuries looked upon Lincoln as the real seat of their authority, it did not
recover its position as an ecclesiastical capital until a Norman bishop raised
his cathedral in the south-eastern corner of the hill city. Even then the
cathedral stood, not with its front to the via principalis, as at Le Mans, nor
with its face to the forum, as at Coutances, but in an enclosure of its own,
apart from the main life of the city. When we think of the great
ecclesiastical centres of England, there are some names which recall the
Roman occupation; but of these Chichester, Exeter, Lincoln, did not
become sees of bishops until the time of the Norman conquest; Chester,
although regarded as one seat of their authority by the medieval bishops of
Lichfield, was never the real capital of their diocese. Bath and Old Sarum

were given episcopal rank by Norman prelates. The true Saxon cathedral
towns were villages of post-Roman origin—Lichfield, Wells, Sherborne,
Durham, Ripon, Elmham, Thetford. The fact is significant; for, upon the
continent of Europe, the ecclesiastical importance of a city was the result of
its prominent position as the civil metropolis of a district. The choice of
these obscure villages for the sees of Saxon prelates is a testimony to the
practical abandonment of Roman cities by the invaders.
As a matter of fact, the Saxons trusted little to walls: their strength, after
they had settled in the country, lay neither in earthwork, nor in stonework,
but in the boundary of wood or marsh that extended round their settlements.
Consequently, during the six centuries and a half between the final
departure of the Roman legions and the Norman conquest, the history of
military construction in England is very obscure. Work in stone, which can
be distinguished as Saxon, is practically confined to churches. Such
fortifications of this long period as can be identified are entirely in
earthwork. In only a few cases we hear of a stone wall of enceinte being
built, or an old Roman town wall being repaired. Further, it may safely be
said that these fortifications, at any rate until the end of the period, whether
their builders were Saxons or Danes, were intended to protect, not private
individuals, but a community. Of the private citadel or castle we hear
nothing until the period immediately before the Conquest, and then it is
heard of only as a foreign importation.
The most formidable earthworks of the Saxon period are the great dykes
known as Wansdyke and Offa’s dyke, with the subsidiary works of the
Bokerley dyke and Wat’s dyke. Offa’s dyke, which ran from the Dee in the
north to the Wye in the south, with a ditch along its western side, and the
parallel line of Wat’s dyke,24 are generally acknowledged to have formed
the boundary line between the Mercian kingdom of Offa (757-96) and the
territory of the conquered Britons. The object and date of Wansdyke and the
Bokerley dyke is not so clear. The Wansdyke ran from the Bristol Channel
near Portishead, across north Somerset and along the downs south and
south-west of Bath, passed through Wiltshire, north of Devizes and south of
Marlborough, and, leaving Wiltshire east of Savernake park, turned
southwards in the direction of Andover. The Bokerley dyke, in its present
state, is only some four miles long, and forms the boundary between Wilts
and Dorset, on the road from Salisbury to Cranborne. In both cases the ditch

is upon the north or north-east side of the bank or dyke, which is clear proof
that the defence was provided against attack from that quarter. The
Wansdyke is obviously a late Roman or post-Roman work, for it encroaches
in places upon the adjacent Roman road. The system on which it is planned
resembles that of the Roman wall, in that its course includes a series of
forts, presumably of earlier date. The conclusion which seems irresistible is
that propounded by the late General Pitt-Rivers, that the Wansdyke was
raised by the Roman Britons, to defend their last refuge in the south-west
against the invading Saxons. If this is really the case, one can only wonder
at the energy of despair which constructed this huge rampart, and at the
uselessness of its builders’ attempt to ward off an invasion from the inland
country alone. Ceawlin’s victory at Dyrham in 577 brought Gloucester,
Cirencester, and Bath into the hands of the Saxons, and cut off the
communication between the Britons of the south-west and those of Wales.
Whatever part the Wansdyke, on the hills north of which the battle was
fought, may have played during the century before the fight at Dyrham, its
history must have closed with Ceawlin’s conquest.
The first work of fortification by the Teutonic invaders, of which we have
any account, is the royal city of Bebbanburh or Bamburgh in
Northumberland, which Ida (547-59), king of Northumbria, called after his
wife Bebba. This, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,25 was first girt by a
hedge, and afterwards—probably long after the days of Ida—by a wall. One
of the most noble of English castles stands upon the basaltic rock of
Bamburgh, and its walls embrace the site of Ida’s capital. But the later
stronghold must not be confounded with the earlier. The burh of Ida, which
Penda sought to burn in 651,26 was not the private castle which William
Rufus afterwards besieged. The name of Bebbanburh is significant. Burh or
burg was a term applied by Saxons to fortified places. Cissbury in Sussex,
Badbury and Poundbury in Dorset, Battlesbury and Scratchbury in Wilts,
Cadbury, Dolebury, and Worlebury in Somerset, are early camps to which
Saxons gave the name of burh. Searobyrig, the later Salisbury, was the
name given by them to the great fortress of Old Sarum. Peterborough and
Bury St Edmunds bear names derived from burh and its dative byrig, and
were towns enclosed by a rampart.27 And, although, by a not very
satisfactory method of argument, the Saxon burh has been taken very
generally as the prototype of the castle, the very cases on which this

argument chiefly rests show that the burh was a fortified town, and not the
fortress of an individual lord. It is true that, at any rate until the time of
Alfred the Great, the word burh implies a fortified house as well as a
fortified collection of dwellings; but the burhs of which we read in
connection with the Danish wars were towns and villages. The term is
equivalent to the Roman oppidum, the French bourg, or the German burg.
The first of the Saxon emperors, Henry the Fowler, made the founding of
burhs a leading part of his policy:28 Merseburg, Brandenburg, Würzburg, all
bear the familiar suffix. And, had not a later age chosen perversely to call
the greatest of our prehistoric camps Maiden Castle, we should have had a
Maidenbury of our own to show, far more ancient than the German
Magdeburg.29
Some uncertainty attaches to the rare remains of fortifications of burhs
“wrought” by Saxons and Danes. It would seem that they cannot have been
very strong. The defences consisted of the usual earthen bank with a
stockade on the top and an outer ditch; but one may safely assume that the
strength of the defence lay mainly in the actual stockade, and that the bank
and ditch never reached formidable proportions. Thelwall, near Warrington,
takes its name from the wooden stockade, the wall of thills or upright
palisades with which Edward the Elder surrounded the village in 923.30
There are exceptional cases in which we hear of a stone wall; but in these
instances the burh was a Roman city or station, and the wall was a Roman
wall. This may be fairly assumed with regard to the wall of Edward the
Elder’s burh at Towcester (921). It was certainly the case at Colchester,
where the Danish defenders were worsted in the same year by the fyrd of
Kent and Essex. When Alfred the Great “repaired Lundenburh” in 886,31 he
undoubtedly made good the weak places in the stone wall which the
Romans had made round their city of London.
The burh, the fortified stronghold of a Saxon community, comes into
prominence as the result of the Danish invasions of the ninth century. The
method of the invaders was in almost every case the same. Seamen before
everything else, they sought in their long ships the estuaries of rivers, and
proceeded to penetrate inland as far as the stream would take them. From a
base of operations, preferably an island in the river, where they could
harbour their boats safely, they rode into the surrounding country, burning
and pillaging. In 835, allied with the Britons of Cornwall, they came up the

Tamar, and fought a battle with Egbert at Hingston down, west of
Tavistock, in which they suffered defeat.32 In 843, they effected their first
permanent settlement in France, on the island of Noirmoutier, south of the
estuary of the Loire: they invaded the banks of the river, sacking Nantes and
killing the bishop, and, after their summer campaign was over, settled down
to build houses for winter quarters on their island.33 Each of the great
French rivers was infested during the next few years by bands of northern
pirates. Northmen in 845 sailed up the Garonne to Toulouse, and up the
Seine to Paris, where destruction was avoided only by buying them off.
Towns which lay near the rivers or sea coast were invariably sacked.
Sometimes the pirates, growing bolder, left their ships and rode for some
distance inland. In 851, starting from Rouen, they pillaged Beauvais. In
855, after burning Angers, they took to the land and sacked Poitiers. In both
cases, however, their return journey was successfully cut off by a French
army. In 856 the Danes of the Seine made their winter quarters at Jeufosse,
on the bend of the river between Vernon and Mantes, and within no great
distance of Paris. Within the next few years, they established themselves in
strong posts at Oissel, above Rouen, and at Melun, above Paris. The greater
part of the last sixteen years of Charles the Bald (d. 877) was occupied in
defending Paris against their annual forays, repairing the bridges they had
destroyed, and so cutting off their return from expeditions up the Marne and
Oise. But, although they were constantly checked, they always returned.
They abandoned the siege of Paris in 885-6, but only after Charles the Fat
had paid them off. The last great invasion of France by the Northmen was
in 911, when, by the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Charles the Simple
ceded the duchy of Normandy to Rollo.
The actual settlement of the Northmen in England began in 851, eight
years after the occupation of Noirmoutier. They wintered in Thanet, and
sailed thence up the Stour and Thames, taking Canterbury and London. As
in France, their landward excursions from their boats were less successful,
and they were seriously beaten by Æthelwulf at Ockley in Surrey. But
failure did not hinder them from returning. As in France, the system of
buying off their attacks was adopted—a ready inducement to repeated
plunder. In 887 they were in the Humber, and dealt a final blow to the
decaying power of Northumbria at York. Next year they invaded Mercia up
the Trent, and established themselves at Nottingham. The years 870 and 871

were remarkable for their land operations. The defeat of the East Anglian
king Edmund in Suffolk laid Mercia and Lindsey open to their ravages, and
so established their power in what was to become the Danelaw; while in
871, within reach of the Danish camp on the Thames at Reading, occurred
the great series of battles in Berkshire and Wiltshire, in which Alfred’s
bravery was proved. The details of Alfred’s defence of Wessex against the
Northmen are well known: the compromise effected at Wedmore in 878
preserved the south of England to Englishmen, but established the Danes
north of a line which may roughly be represented by the course of the
Welland, Soar, upper Trent, and Mersey.
England, however, had to endure a long intestine warfare for years after
the death of Alfred. The strenuous efforts of his children, Edward the Elder
and Æthelflæd, prevented the men of the Danelaw from extending their
power southwards. But the Northmen used persevering tactics, and not
merely the enemy within, but fresh invasions from without, disturbed the
peace of the monarchs of Wessex during the later part of the tenth century.
After the disastrous reign of Ethelred the Redeless came a period of Danish
rule over the whole of England; while the reigns of the last Saxon kings
formed the prelude to the final invasion of the Northmen, the Norman
conquest.
The most interesting feature, from a military point of view, of the contest
between Wessex and the Danelaw, is the systematic defence of the Midland
rivers by burhs during the reign of Edward the Elder, either by himself or
his sister Æthelflæd. Æthelflæd, who fixed her chief residence at Tamworth,
on the edge of Staffordshire and Warwickshire, ruled over Mercia, and
fortified her frontier between 909 and her death in 921. Her brother died in
925: his activity in constructing burhs began about 913. Of the construction
of these fortresses two phrases are used: their builders either “wrought” or
“timbered” them. Both words probably mean the same thing: the town or
village to be fortified was enclosed within the usual wooden stockade.34
The identity of a few of the burhs is uncertain; but the remainder may be
classified as follows: (1) Burhs wrought by Æthelflæd on the river banks of
her frontier: these include Runcorn and possibly Warburton on the Mersey,
Bridgnorth and possibly Shrewsbury on the Severn, Tamworth and Stafford
on tributaries of the Trent, and Warwick on the Avon. (2) Frontier burhs
taken by Æthelflæd from the Danes were Derby and Leicester, both on

tributaries of the Trent. (3) Eddisbury in Cheshire, an early hill fortress, was
the site of one of Æthelflæd’s burhs: here the inference is that the existing
hill fort was palisaded by her orders, and garrisoned as a camp of refuge. Of
Edward’s burhs, Witham and Maldon on the Essex Blackwater, of which
some probable traces remain, belong to class (1), as also does Thelwall, his
fortified post on the Mersey. To class (2) belong Colchester, Huntingdon,
and Tempsford, the first on the Colne, the two latter on the Great Ouse.
None of Edward’s works bear any analogy to class (3), unless his last burh,
Bakewell in Derbyshire, may be taken into account. But (4) Bakewell
represents a push northward along a hostile border, and may be claimed,
with Towcester, as belonging to a fourth class of burh, unconnected with a
navigable river, but providing a constant menace to the enemy. (5)
Towcester may, however, also be classed with Colchester as a Roman burh
with stone walls. A sixth class of burh was riverine, like class (1), but with
this difference, that it was double. There was one burh on one side, the
other on the opposite side of the river. The cases are Hertford on the Lea,
Buckingham and Bedford on the Ouse, Stamford on the Welland, and
Nottingham on the Trent. At Hertford and Buckingham both burhs were the
work of Edward. At Bedford, Stamford, and Nottingham, the northern burh
was in the hands of the enemy, and Edward took it by converting the
southern suburb into a fortified and garrisoned post. His proceedings were
exactly analogous to those of Charles the Bald in 862. He gained control of
the navigable rivers by placing garrisons on both their banks; the natural
places which he chose were the existing towns on the river, and the
garrison, as at Nottingham, was formed out of the inhabitants.
Some of these burhs, as we have seen, were in the occupation of the
Northmen; and at a later date, when the frontier of the west Saxon kingdom
had been pushed back, and English kings were again placed on the
defensive, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford, and Leicester became
known as the five burhs, the centre of Danish power in the Midlands. There
is no reason to suppose that there was any essential difference between the
burhs of Danes and Saxons—that the burh which Æthelflæd took at Derby
was in any way different from her own burh at Tamworth. When the Danes
first landed on a river bank or island and beached their ships, they
constructed what is called in the Chronicle a geweorc, i.e., a thing wrought.
This probably consisted of a slight bank and ditch enclosing the landward
side of their position. Where they raised permanent dwellings within the

enceinte, the burh grew out of the geweorc, just as a Roman station
developed out of a mere camp. However, it is unsafe to push the
phraseology of the Chronicle too far, or to fasten a too technical meaning
upon its words; and the fact remains that the term geweorc may be very
well applied to a wrought burh. The Danish burhs at Huntingdon and
Tempsford, the landmarks of their progress up the Ouse to recover Bedford
in 921, are called indiscriminately burh and geweorc.

Map of Saxon and Danish Burhs
[The line from the Mersey to the Wash roughly indicates the Danish
frontier.]

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

Earthwork at Tempsford.
There is no trace of any arx or citadel within these enclosures. Their
defenders were the citizens. In France, for reasons sufficiently indicated, the
art of fortification was more advanced. Roman traditions survived there
without that abrupt break which the historical continuity of England had
suffered. No fortress of stone and wood, such as that which Charles the
Bald, in 869, built within the enceinte of the abbey of St Denis, is heard of
in Saxon England. The state of society in which, as early as 864, Charles
found it necessary, by the edict of Pistes, to forbid his vassals to raise
private fortresses without royal authority, did not exist in England, and was
only beginning to exist there two centuries later. In both centuries we have
to deal with the same invaders, but with defenders whose state of social
development was quite different. Although the private fortress or castle was
introduced into England by the Normans, and although the type of
earthwork associated with it was developed to its highest extent by
Northmen, not only in Normandy and England, but also in Denmark, it is

nevertheless probable that the earliest development of that form of
earthwork took place on Frankish soil. The Danish geweorc or burh, where
it can be traced with any certainty—and this is in very few cases—supplied
accommodation for the force, and probably a harbour for its vessels, but no
private stronghold belonging to a prominent leader. The earthwork called
Gannock’s castle (32), close to the Ouse near Tempsford, is sometimes
supposed to be the geweorc wrought by the Danes in 921. In plan, it very
closely resembles a rather small mount-and-bailey castle of the usual early
Norman type, and could have accommodated only a very small body of
defenders. But the point in which it differs from the ordinary mount-and-
bailey plan—the smallness of the mount, which is a mere thickening of the
earthen bank, and the absence of a moat round its base—may show that
here the Danes anticipated their Norman successors with a plan with which
some of them may have gained acquaintance during marauding expeditions
in France. This, however, is mere conjecture, and the utility of such a
fortress for the immediate purposes of the Danes may well be questioned.37
Of the private dwellings of the Danish leaders, and how far they may have
approximated to the later type of the castle, we know nothing. St Mary’s
abbey at York is on the site of Galmanho, the residence of the Danish earls
outside the western wall of the Roman city, but nothing of its earthworks
remain. If they were at all considerable, like those of a mount-and-bailey
castle of Norman times, it seems strange that no trace of them should be
left.
The details of the doings of the Danish army, during the reign of Ethelred
the Redeless (979-1016), are recorded at great length in the Chronicle. They
show the old tactics, familiar for two hundred years: the long ships are
brought to the nearest point convenient for a campaign of pillage; there the
“army is a-horsed,” and they ride at their will inland, lighting their “war-
beacons,” the blazing villages of the country-side, as they go. Year after
year records its tale of disaster, until the partition of England in 1016
between Cnut and Edmund Ironside. The whole story of river and land
warfare, of plundering and burning, of the paying of Danegeld as a
temporary sop to the army, is in no way different from the record of the
Danish operations in France during the ninth century. In France the Danish
conquest was quicker, because the invaders had to deal from the beginning
with a worn-out civilisation: the partition of France, owing to the
superiority of the Danes to their opponents, was effected within seventy

years of their first settlement. The power of Normandy, however, was
checked by the rise of the Capetian dynasty in the later part of the tenth
century: the Northmen were kept strictly to their Danelaw, and their
subsequent expansion took place, not in France, but in England. On the
other hand, in England, the Danish invaders of the ninth century had to
contend with the rising power of Wessex and a race younger and more
vigorous than the contemporary Gauls of Neustria. Their inroads were
therefore checked and their conquest was delayed until the house of Wessex
had run its natural course, and Englishmen and Danes had had time to be
practically amalgamated into one nation. The glory of Wessex ceases with
Edmund Ironside, the glory of the Danes with Cnut. Before Cnut died, the
child William already had succeeded to his father’s duchy of Normandy,
and thirty-one years after the death of Cnut, William was king of England,
and, for all practical purposes, the inroads of the Northmen from
Scandinavia were over.

CHAPTER III

THE ENGLISH CASTLE AFTER THE
CONQUEST
A Castle is a private fortress, built by an individual lord as a military
stronghold, and also as an occasional residence. In England at the time of
the Norman conquest, this type of military work was known as castel, a
word which is obviously the same as the Latin castellum. Castrum, munitio,
and municipium are names which are frequently given to it by chroniclers
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its existence was the direct result of
the consolidation of the feudal system. The lord separated his dwelling from
those of his vassals: he defended it against the attacks of other individual
lords who naturally would seek to aggrandise themselves at his expense: he
also needed a stronghold which might be impregnable on occasion against
those vassals themselves, and might be a perpetual reminder to them of
their subject position. The castle rose within or as an addition to the burh,
the independent stronghold of one person within the walled or stockaded
town of the many. Thus, at one and the same time, it protected and
overawed the burh. Or it rose by itself, like the Peak castle in Derbyshire,
on a spot where no burh existed, and so in many cases drew a small
community to seek its protection.
An unlimited number of castles implies an unlimited number of
independent magnates, uncontrolled by a supreme authority, and each ready
to fly at the other’s throat. The feudal lord, however, was the king’s man,
and his castle was therefore theoretically the king’s. We have already
noticed the edict of Pistes (864), which ordered the destruction of all castles
built without royal licence; and, save in periods of total anarchy, legislation
of this type, safeguarding feudal order, was in operation during the middle
ages wherever the feudal system was at the base of the constitution. The
king was de jure, if not de facto, the owner of the castles of his realm.
The castle or private fortress was a feature in French social life and
warfare from at any rate the middle of the ninth century. But in England it

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

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

later times, applied the title of castle indiscriminately to prehistoric camps
and medieval manor-houses, was not yet customary.
The first castles on English soil appear to have been raised by Norman
favourites of Edward the Confessor before the Conquest, and to have
excited alarm among the English population. In 1048 some foreigners or
“Welshmen,” as the English called them, encroached on the territory of
Sweyn Godwinsson in Herefordshire, constructed a castel—the first
mention of such a thing in the Chronicle—and wrought harm to all the
country round. That they were Frenchmen appears from the events of 1052:
one of Godwin’s demands to the king at Gloucester was that “the
Frenchmen of the castle” should be given up, and in the same year “the
Frenchmen of the castle” helped to defend the borders against a Welsh
inroad. The very fact that the Frenchmen’s stronghold was known as “the
castle” proves that it was at any rate an unfamiliar type of fortress. But, if it
was the first, others were soon constructed. When Godwin returned from
his outlawry in 1052, and forced himself back into Edward’s good graces,
the Frenchmen in London left the city. The archbishop of Canterbury,
Robert of Jumièges, made his way to the east coast: some fled westward to
Pentecost’s castle, which is probably identical with the Herefordshire
fortress, others northward to Robert’s castle, which is now identified with
Clavering in Essex. The Herefordshire castle is supposed to have been at
Ewias Harold, some twelve miles south of Hereford, where there is still the
great mount of a Norman stronghold on the north-west side of the village.39

Hastings Castle: from Bayeux Tapestry
These two may not have been the only castles in England before the
Conquest. The reference to Arundel in Domesday Book, for example, seems
to imply an origin almost as early for the castle there.40 Ordericus Vitalis
speaks of Dover as though there were already a castle there, when William
the Conqueror stormed the town after Hastings.41 But Ordericus is our
authority for the important and explicit statement that, in 1068, “the
fortresses, which the Gauls call castella, had been very few in the provinces
of England; and on this account the English, although warlike and daring,
had nevertheless shown themselves too feeble to withstand their
enemies.”42 A statement of this kind at once disposes of the theory that the
burhs of the Danish wars were castles; it could hardly be argued that such
burhs were very few, or that the English had not taken advantage of them.
As a matter of fact, when William came to England, his military policy
consisted in the founding of castles, and many of these in places which had
been and were burhs, where, if the burh and castle were one and the same
thing, the foundation of a castle was quite unnecessary. Arcem condidit,
castellum construxit, munitionem firmavit, are terms used over and over
again to describe the making of these new strongholds. To William, the
strength of a monarch lay in the castles which he controlled; in warfare the
castle formed his natural base of operations. His first work on landing at
Hastings was to throw up a castle (38). Harold, on the other hand, although,
as the Bayeux tapestry shows us, he had seen something of castles and siege
warfare in William’s company, trusted for his defence to the shield-wall of
his men, and the protection of the banks and ditches of an old earthwork in
advance of his position. In 1067, after his coronation, William stayed at
Barking, close to the walls of London, while the city, the Lundenburh
whose walls Alfred had restored, was being overawed by the construction
of certain firmamenta—one of them, no doubt, the White Tower, the other
probably Baynard’s castle, near the present Blackfriars.43 Again, we find
him at Winchester, building a strong fortress within the walls of the city—a
castle within a burh.
William’s operations in 1068 and 1069 were of great military importance.
In 1068 he quelled the resistance of Exeter. The city was still surrounded by
its Roman walls, to which the inhabitants now added new battlements and
towers. They manned the rampart walks and the projections of the wall,44

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

Lincoln; Plan
What do we find to-day at these places where William founded his first
English castles? At Hastings, on the cliff which divides the old town from
the modern watering-place, there are important remains of a later stone
castle within lines of earthwork which are, no doubt, William’s. The mount
remains at the north-east corner of the enclosure: the later curtain wall has
been carried up its side and over it. The present remains of the castle of
Winchester are later than William’s day. At Exeter the gatehouse and much
of the adjacent masonry of the castle are unquestionably of a very early
“Norman” date. In London we have the White tower, probably much
extended from William’s early plan, and not completed till his son’s reign.
But the stone fortresses of London and Exeter were exceptional. When we
come to his northern castles, we find that at Warwick, York, Lincoln,
Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Shrewsbury, the plan of the castle consists of

a bailey or enclosed space,46 with a tall mount on the line of its outer
defences, and on a side or at an angle of the enceinte remote from the main
entrance. At Nottingham the plan of the early castle is not so easy to make
out. But, in the other cases, although, at various dates during the middle
ages, additions were made in stone, the nucleus of the plan is a collection of
earthworks, which takes this form—a motte or mount with a bailey
attached. At Lincoln there are two mounts. At York there are two castles,
one on either side of the river, but each with its mount. On the mount of the
castle north-east of the river is a later stone keep; the mount of the south-
western castle has never carried stonework, and its bailey is now almost
filled up with modern houses.
The presence of the double castle at York has been a great temptation to
those who would identify the castle with the burh. The fortification of both
banks of the river is, on the face of it, so like the system adopted by Edward
the Elder, that the York castles have been often quoted as burhs of Edward
the Elder’s date, and it has been concluded that similar earthworks must
have existed at Nottingham, Stamford, and so on. This idea is quite
untenable. Had William followed the example of Edward and Æthelflæd, he
would simply have repaired or renewed the defences of the two divisions of
the burh at York.47 But what he had to provide against was the spirit of
rebellion in the burh itself, as well as the possible use of the water-way by
Danish pirates. Which castle he first founded at York we do not know. On
the tongue of land which runs out between the Ouse and Foss, outside the
burh, and between it and the river approach to the city, one castle rose. The
other, a fortress known in later times as the Old Baile, was possibly from
the beginning partly within the ramparts of the southern burh. Later, at any
rate, the city wall was built across the foot of the outer side of its mount,
and enclosed the bailey on two sides. Elsewhere, the distinction between
William’s castles and the burhs within which they rose is very noticeable.
At Lincoln the castle filled up an angle of the Roman city. At Cambridge,
the mount rises on the highest point of a large enclosure—the original burh
—surrounded by earthworks of early date. Further, if any documentary
proof is needed of anything so self-evident as the distinct nature of the
castle and the burh, Domesday is clear upon the point. Apart from the
evidence which it gives us with respect to the borough or burh, it speaks in
one place of the burgum circa castellum—the burh about the castle. The

case in point is the castle of Tutbury in Staffordshire, a fine example of the
mount-and-bailey stronghold.48 One important feature here is that the
castle, very large in area, and with a ditch of great depth on two sides, was
apparently raised on the site of an early hill-fort or burh, and that the actual
burh about the castle, the modern village of Tutbury, has grown up under its
protection on the slope towards the Dove.

Berkhampstead
The castle, then, was a Norman importation into England. It was a
stronghold with a definite plan, so that the word castel had no vague
meaning to English ears. It is found in many cases in close proximity to a
burh, or fortified dwelling of a community; but it was a royal stronghold, in
charge of an individual, and its intention was at once to protect and to keep
the burh in subjection. Or, again, it may occupy, as at Tutbury or
Conisbrough, the whole site of an early burh; but in such cases the character

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

Clun; Plan
Although the plan followed fixed and familiar lines, there were no fixed
dimensions to the castle. The mount was intended to bear the strong tower
or donjon: within the bailey were the ordinary lodgings of the garrison, and
such domestic buildings as might be needed. The bailey, which inclined, on
the whole, to be oval in form, was surrounded by a low earthen bank,
outside which was a dry ditch of more or less depth, with a parapet or
counterscarp on the further side. The mount was surrounded by its own
ditch, which was joined at two points by the main ditch on the side next the
bailey. The entrance to the castle was at the end of the bailey, opposite the
mount. These dispositions might vary: the mount might be within the
enclosure, even, as at Pickering, in its centre, and the position of the
entrance might be different, if the site required it. There might be more than
one bailey, and these might be set side by side, divided by an intermediate
ditch, as on the fairly level site at Clun (43), or end on end, as on the ridge

at Montgomery, or a small bailey might project as a kind of outwork
common to mount and bailey alike.49 The usual arrangement, however, was
as described. The mount might be of any height, of enormous proportions,
as at Thetford, or of more modest size, as at Brecon or Trecastle. It was
usually entirely artificial; but positions were sometimes chosen in which the
ground afforded natural help. The mount, for example, at Hedingham in
Essex, on the levelled top of which the later square donjon was built,
appears to be partly natural; while the great mount at Mount Bures, not
many miles away, is wholly artificial. The bailey, again, might vary much in
size. It might have a very large area, as at Lincoln and Tutbury, a moderate
area, as at Warkworth (49) or Durham (199); or it might be small and
compact, as at Trecastle (44). There are many cases, as at Clifford’s hill,
near Northampton, where the mount is found by itself: in such instances,
the bailey may have disappeared as the result of local cultivation, and only
the more important part of the earthworks may have been left. But it is also
probable that here and there the fortified mount with the tower on its
summit would be all that was needed, and that the absence of a large
garrison would render a bailey unnecessary. The size of the bailey, in any
case, would depend upon the importance of the position and the size of the
garrison required.

Trecastle; Plan

Castle of Rennes: from Bayeux Tapestry
The mount, at any rate, was the essential feature of this type of fortress.
The Bayeux tapestry gives us pictures of some of these mounts, the fidelity
of which is demonstrated by the remains which we possess of such castles,
and by some pieces of documentary evidence (38). Two points are
noticeable: (1) The mounts portrayed are all either in Normandy and
Brittany, or, like the castellum at “Hestengaceaster,” are the work of
Norman hands. (2) The fortifications shown in connection with these
mounts are of timber, not stone. The accuracy of the tapestry is not
absolutely photographic, but the workers knew well the type of structure
which they wanted to represent. Their work, in fact, whether the castle
represented be Dol or Dinan or Bayeux or Hastings, gives us a repeated
picture of the recognised type of castle mount. And the two points just
noted lead us to the conclusions, (1) that the castle was foreign to England
and Englishmen, and (2) that the time-honoured notion that the Englishman
raised the earthworks,50 and the Norman built stone castles upon them is
open to objection, the fact being that the stone castle was an exception in
Normandy itself. The picture of the Breton castle of Dinan (46) shows, as in
a section, a large pudding-shaped mount surrounded by a ditch, with a low
bank of earth on the side towards the bailey. On the top of the mount is a
tower, clearly of timber. Round the edge of the mount, encircling the tower,
is a stockade formed of uprights with stout hurdles between—a work to
which Cæsar’s description of his breastworks at Alesia might well be

applied.51 Access to the mount is gained by a steep ladder, probably formed
of planks with projecting pieces of wood nailed to them for foot-holds,
which spans the ditch, and has its foot within the bailey. The mount itself—
and this may be proved by many surviving examples—is too steep to be
scaled with any ease; and the ladder, although affording the defenders an
excellent communication with the bailey, is hardly to be climbed with
impunity by the opposing force. The ladder ends in a wooden platform at
the edge of the mount, which serves as a propugnaculum for the garrison, in
front of the stockade. In the picture of the construction of the castle at
Hastings, a timber tower and stockade are in course of erection. The
pioneers are busy digging earth from the fosse for their nearly completed
mount, and compacting the surface with blows from the flat of their spades
(38).

Castle of Dinan: from Bayeux Tapestry
In France the mount was usually known as the motte from the turf of
which it was composed, and the occurrence of the word Lamotte as part of a
place-name is as tell-tale as a name like Mount Bures in England. But a
common name for the motte, employed by medieval writers, was the Latin
dunio or domgio, a debased form of the word dominio. This became in
French donjon, and in English dungeon. The motte at Canterbury is still
known by the corrupted name of the Dane John. The mount, the symbol of
the dominion of the feudal lord, and the centre of his dominium or demesne,

bore his strong tower; and to this tower the name of the mount was
transferred. When the tower on the mount was superseded by the heavy and
lofty rectangular or cylindrical tower of later times, the new tower kept the
old name. By a strange transference of meaning, our English dungeon,
frequently applied to the chief tower of a castle until the seventeenth
century, became connected with the vaults or store-rooms in the basement
of such a tower, and now reminds us less of the dominion of the castle
builders than of the cruelty with which they are supposed to have exercised
that dominion.

Colchester Castle: great tower or keep.
It may safely be assumed that the very large majority of castles of the
eleventh and early twelfth century were constructed on this plan. There
were exceptions, and certainly several English castles have stonework of
the period of the Conquest. London and Colchester (47) had rectangular
donjons from the first. At Richmond (93) the stonework of part of the
curtain and of the lower part of the rectangular tower-keep is
unquestionably of the eleventh century, when the castle was constructed by
Alan of Brittany. In several other places, in the curtain at Tamworth (48)
and in part of the curtain at Lincoln, there is eleventh century stonework.
But more will be said of these cases later. It is enough to say here that, in

most cases, stonework forms a late Norman or Plantagenet addition to early
Norman earthwork. At Newcastle part of the early mount remained, side by
side with the late twelfth century tower-keep, until within the last hundred
years. Warkworth, most instructive of English castles, preserves the base of
its mount and the area of its original bailey: the mount bears a strong tower-
house of the early fifteenth century; on the line of the bank of the bailey is a
stone curtain of about the year 1200; within the area is a series of elaborate
and beautiful buildings of two or three dates (49). Warkworth is the epitome
of the history of the castle, from its Norman origin to its practical
identification, in the later middle ages, with the large manor house; and to
Warkworth we shall return more than once.

Tamworth; Eleventh Century Stonework

Warkworth; Plan
There are exceptional cases in which two mounts occur. At Lincoln (40),
the smaller mount is at the south-east corner of the enclosure, and probably
may have carried the original donjon. The larger mount, of formidable
height and steepness, is west of the centre of the south side. Both mounts, as
is usual, are half within and half without the line of the rampart. The stone
curtain-wall has been brought up their sides, and the larger mount is
crowned by a stone “shell” keep of the late twelfth century. The provision
of this second mount was possibly due to the exposed position of the castle,
which formed the outer defence of the city on the west and south-west, and
needed its greatest strength on that side. At Pontefract and Lewes, again,
there were two mounts, one at each end of the enclosure. At both places, the
later stone keep was built in connection with the western mount, at the end
nearest the town and the slope of the ridge on which it was built. The sites
are rather similar, and, in either case, the eastern mount overlooked the
river-valley defended by the castle. It is not certain that two mounts ever
formed part of an original plan. The natural tendency would be to throw up
the mount at first on the side nearer the valley, where the slope was steeper,
and the labour required in construction would be less. An attack, however,
on the town and castle would come most naturally from the higher ground
to the west, which commanded the castle and its defences. A new mount
would, in process of time, be constructed on this side, and the old mount
would become of secondary importance. At Lewes (50), where the slope of
the hill is abrupt, the western mount rises from a higher level, and
commands a much wider stretch of country than the mount at the north-east

angle of the enclosure. At Lincoln, where an enemy’s force had no
advantage of higher ground, the larger mount simply occupies the most
advantageous position, protecting the most exposed side of the enclosure,
and commanding one of the most extensive views in England. The foot of
one mount is little more than two hundred feet distant from the foot of the
other; while, at Lewes and Pontefract, the length of the whole bailey lay
between the mounts. Thus, while it is possible that, at Lewes and
Pontefract, both mounts may be original, with the idea of strengthening the
enclosure at either end with a donjon, two original mounts at Lincoln would
not have this excuse; and we may infer that, at some date later than the
foundation of Lincoln castle, the Norman lords of the fortress threw up a
new mount at a point from which the slope of the hill and the approaches
from the valley of the Trent could be commanded more thoroughly.

Lewes; Plan

Builth; Plan
The provision of more than one bailey, as at Clun (43), where two small
baileys, separated by ditches, cover the south and west sides of the mount,
was due, partly to the irregular nature of the site, and partly to the need for
the multiplication of defences. Such an arrangement, inconvenient in time
of peace, would be a considerable advantage in case of siege, when each
bailey would provide a separate difficulty to the assailants, and a separate
rallying point to the defenders. At Builth (50), where the whole area of the
castle earthworks is small, and the ditches of mount and bailey are of
considerable strength, the main bailey is a narrow segmental platform
covering the south side of the mount. On the west side of the mount is a
smaller and narrower platform, between which and the main bailey is a
broad ditch, forming a cross-cut or traverse between the ditches of the
mount and bailey. As the enclosure is very nearly circular, with the mount

north-west of the centre, this second platform is somewhat squeezed into
the space, and the ditch between it and the counterscarp which runs
continuously round both mount and bailey is very narrow. In the more usual
instances, where the mount and its ditch form a regular circle, which
intersects with the bailey and its ditch, a secondary platform, as has been
noted, occurs outside the line of both ditches, and is surrounded by a ditch
of its own, communicating with both. This is the case with the very
symmetrical example of a mount-and-bailey castle at Mexborough, at
Lilbourne in Northants, Hallaton in Leicestershire (51), and other cases.
Here the secondary platform is an excrescence on one side of the meeting of
the two circles. Such platforms were mere outworks where additional
defence was necessary; it is possible that on them stone-throwing engines
might be planted by the defenders, as the narrowness of the ditch would at
these points bring the assailants more nearly within range than at any other
point within the enclosure. Such engines would encumber the larger bailey,
which would necessarily be kept as clear as possible for the operations of
the main body of the garrison.

Hallaton; Plan
The mount-and-bailey castle has been derived by some from a Teutonic
origin,52 but it is difficult to trace it with any certainty at an early period
outside France and Normandy. There are many remains of these castles in
Normandy itself. The famous castle of Domfront (Orne), founded originally
by Guillaume Talvas (d. 1030), ancestor of the house of Bellême, possibly
took this form: as at Newcastle, a rectangular tower of stone took the place,
in the twelfth century, of the tower on the mount.53 The writer of a
monograph on the castle of Domfront enumerates five such mounts which
exist or are known to have existed within the local arrondissement.54 Two,
at Sept-Forges and Lucé, remain intact, covered by plantations of trees. At
Sept-Forges the church and castle were side by side, as may still be seen at
Earls Barton in Northamptonshire.55 At Lucé there are traces of a bailey. On
the other hand, at La Baroche, a large mount seems to have borne the whole

castle: one may compare with this the great mount of Restormel in
Cornwall, which is the natural summit of a hill, artificially scarped and
surrounded by a fosse, like a contour fort of early times. It is important to
notice that on these artificial mounts of southern Normandy, there appears
“no ruin, no trace of construction in masonry.” The inference is obvious.
The buildings which they carried were of wood, and have yielded to the
action of fire or the weather. On no other hypothesis can the speed with
which castles were constructed in England after the Conquest, or the ease
with which they were destroyed, be explained. William’s subjects in
Normandy threw up fortifications against him with a speed which positively
forbids us to imagine that they procured masons to work in stone. In 1061,
Robert, son of Giroie, one of the powerful nobles of the Alençonnais, joined
forces with the Angevins against William, and fortified his castles of La-
Roche-sur-Igé and Saint-Cénéri. His cousin, Arnold, son of Robert, driven
from the castle of Échauffour, returned secretly and burned it.56 The
quickness with which the two castles at York were constructed, destroyed,
and repaired, allowed no time for dressing stone.
The points which our evidence leads us to accept may be recapitulated as
follows:—(1) The castle was a foreign importation into England, of the
period of the Norman conquest. (2) It consisted, in its simplest form, of a
moated mount or motte, with a bailey or base-court attached. (3) Its earliest
fortifications were entirely of timber, save in rare instances.
We may now examine the evidence which, in default of actual remains,
survives with regard to the timber constructions of these castles and their
use. The tower on the mount first demands our attention. Apart from the
pictures of the Bayeux tapestry, certain early twelfth century chronicles of
northern France have preserved for us accounts of the main features of this
structure and its enceinte.57 Jean de Colmieu describes the castle of
Merchem, close by the church, as munitio quedam quam castrum vel
municipium dicere possumus. “It is the custom,” he says, “with the rich men
and nobles of this district, because they spend their time in enmity and
slaughter, and in order that they may thereby be safer from their enemies,
and by their superior power either conquer their equals or oppress their
inferiors, to heap up a mount of earth as high as they can, and to dig round
it a ditch of some breadth and great depth, and, instead of a wall, to fortify
the topmost edge of the mount round about with a rampart (vallo) very

strongly compacted of planks of timber, and having towers, as far as
possible, arranged along its circuit. Within the rampart they build in the
midst a house or a citadel (arx) commanding the whole site. The gate of
entry to the place”—the word used is villa, implying a place of habitation
rather than a stronghold—“can be approached only by a bridge, which,
rising at first from the outer lip of the ditch, is gradually raised higher.
Supported by uprights in pairs, or in sets of three, which are fixed beneath it
at convenient intervals, it rises by a graduated slope across the breadth of
the ditch, so that it reaches the mount on a level with its summit and at its
outer edge, and touches the threshold of the enclosure.” It will be noticed
that the moated mount described here had no bailey. It was also obviously
not merely a fortified stronghold, a place of refuge in time of war, but a
definite residence of the local lord. The turrets round the timber rampart of
the mount are mentioned as occasional, not invariable features of the
design. The habitation within the rampart may be a strong tower or a mere
house. The sense of the passage shows clearly that there was a doorway in
the rampart, by which the house was approached from the bridge. Finally,
the description is not applicable merely to a single castle, but is a generic
description of strongholds in a particular neighbourhood.
The domestic, apart from the military, character of the building, is
emphasised in the story which follows the description. John of Warneton,
the sainted bishop of Thérouanne (d. 1130), was entertained here, when he
came to hold a confirmation in Merchem church. After the confirmation
was over, he went back to the castle to change his vestments before
proceeding to bless the churchyard. As he returned across the sloping
bridge, which at its middle point was about 35 feet above the ditch, the
press of the people who crowded to see the holy man was so great, and the
old enemy, says the chronicler, so alive to the opportunity, that the bridge
broke, and the bishop and his admirers, amid a terrible noise of falling
joists, boards, and spars, were thrown to the bottom of the ditch. The castle
was, in fact, the private residence of a man who, if he could indulge in the
peaceful pleasure of entertaining his bishop, could not afford to live in an
unfortified house. Private warfare with his neighbours was the business of
his life, and he had to make himself as comfortable as he could within his
palisade. Jean de Colmieu does not tell us whether the castle stronghold at
Merchem took the shape of a tower or not; but Lambert of Ardres has left a
description of the great wooden tower of three stories which the carpenter

Louis de Bourbourg constructed about 1099 for Arnould, lord of Ardres.
The elaborateness of its design and plan is remarkable, and the motte which
bore it must have been of considerable size. The ground-floor contained
cellars, store-rooms, and granaries. The first floor contained the chief
living-rooms—the common hall, the pantry and buttery, the great chamber
where Arnould and his wife slept, with two other rooms, one the sleeping-
place of the body-servants. Out of the great chamber opened a room or
recess with a fire-place, where the folk of the castle were bled, the servants
warmed themselves, or the children were taken in cold weather to be
warmed. One may assume that the great chamber was at the end of the hall
opposite to the pantry and buttery. The kitchen was probably reached, as in
the larger dwelling-houses of later days, by a passage between these offices:
it was on the same floor as the hall, but occupied a two-storied extension of
the donjon on one side.58 Below the kitchen were the pig-sty, fowl-house,
and other like offices. The third stage of the donjon contained the bed-
chambers of the daughters of the house: the sons also could sleep on this
floor, if they chose, and here slept the guard of the castle, who relieved one
another at intervals in the work of keeping watch. On the eastern side of the
first floor was a projecting building, called the logium or parlour, and above
this on the top floor was the chapel of the house, “made like in carving and
painting to the tabernacle (sic) of Solomon.” Lambert speaks of the
stairways and passages of the donjon, but his description of the projecting
parlour and chapel is not sufficiently explicit, and his admiration may have
magnified the proportions of the building. His description, however, is of
great service when applied to the tower donjon of stone, the arrangements
of which it serves to explain. Here, again, the fortress was clearly designed
as a dwelling house: the supply of rooms, if it is not exaggerated, was quite
remarkable for the age. The motte or donjon—Lambert gives it these
alternative names—rose in the middle of a marsh, which Arnould converted
into a lake or moat by forming sluices: his mill was near the first sluice.
No definite description is left of the defences of the bailey in a castle of
this date. There is no doubt, however, that the scarp, or encircling bank of
earth, was protected, like the summit of the mount, by a hedge or palisade
of the traditional type. Such hedges were the normal defence of any kind of
stronghold: the edict of Pistes ordered the destruction of all unlicensed
castella, firmitates, et haias—castles, strong dwellings, and hedges. In 1225
Henry III. ordered the forester of Galtres to supply the sheriff of Yorkshire

with timber for repairing and making good the breaches of the palisade
(palicii) of York castle. The “houses” and “bridge” of the same castle—that
is, the buildings within the bailey, and the drawbridge by which the bailey
was entered across the ditch, were also of timber. As late as 1324 the
stockade on the mount was still of wood, surrounding the stone donjon of
the thirteenth century.59 This is an interesting example of the survival, until
a late date, of primitive fortification in a strong and important castle. There
is abundant evidence, in fact, that the Norman engineer put his trust, not in
stone, but in his earthen rampart and its palisades. When, about 1090, the
freebooter Ascelin Goël got possession of the castle of Ivry, he enclosed it
“with ditches and thick hedges.”60 In 1093, Philip I. of France and Robert
of Normandy took the part of William of Breteuil, the dispossessed lord of
Ivry, and laid siege to the fortified town and castle of Bréval (Seine-et-
Oise). With the aid of a siege engine, constructed by Robert of Bellême,
they were able to destroy the rampart and encircling hedges.61 Bréval was
in a wooded and remote district, where stone would have been hard to
obtain in any case. The grand necessity, in places which were in danger of
constant attack, was to provide them with adequate defences which could
be constructed in the shortest time possible.
Of the nature of the houses within the bailey, little can be said. They
doubtless included shelters for the garrison of the castle, stables for their
horses, and various sheds or store-houses. The hall, or building, which was
the centre of the domestic life of the castle, was, from the earliest times, the
chief building within the circumference of the bailey. We read of the
destruction of the principalis aula of the castle of Brionne in 1090, by the
red-hot darts which were hurled upon its shingled roof;62 and stone halls, as
at Chepstow and Richmond, were built before the beginning of the twelfth
century. But it is certain, on the other hand, that the donjon was, now and
later, adapted to domestic as well as purely military uses; and it seems
likely that the owner of the castle, in certain cases, was content with his
dwelling upon the mount, until, at a later date, the strengthening of the
whole enclosure with a stone curtain made it possible for him to raise a
more convenient dwelling house within the more ample space of the bailey.
In the larger castles, however, where there was a strong permanent garrison,
a hall was a necessity for their entertainment.

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

CHAPTER IV

THE PROGRESS OF ATTACK AND DEFENCE
The earthwork fortifications, the progress of which we have traced up to the
Norman conquest, were of a very simple kind. It is obvious that, in the
history of military architecture, any improvement in defence is the
consequence of improved methods of attack. The stone-walled town of the
middle ages, the castle or private citadel, with its curtain wall and the
subdivision of its enclosure into more than one bailey, succeeded the
palisaded earthwork as a natural result of the development of the art of
siege. Against an enemy whose artillery was comparatively feeble the
stockaded enclosure was effective enough: slingers and bowmen, working
at close quarters, might do damage to the defenders, but the palisade on the
bank, divided from the besiegers by a formidable ditch, was proof against
missiles launched against it by individuals, and could be carried only by a
determined rush, or if it were not sufficiently protected against fire. Modern
warfare against uncivilised tribes has shown that a stronghold defended by a
thick hedge is a serious problem to a besieging force. If, under modern
conditions, the stockade is a barrier to troops equipped with powerful
firearms, the difficulty which it afforded to the early medieval warrior is
obvious.
The age of firearms, however, which brought the death-blow to medieval
siegecraft, was long in coming; and meanwhile the progress of the science
of attack depended upon the improvement in methods which could be
employed only in close proximity to the besieged stronghold, or within a
very limited range. Engines for hurling stones or javelins increased in size
and strength. Devices were brought into play for scaling or undermining the
defences of the town or castle. The attack was directed against the defences
rather than against the defenders. A casual stone might do injury to the
medieval soldier, or an arrow might pierce between the joints of his harness;
but his armour, which became more heavy and more carefully protected as
the chance of risk from such missiles increased, made loss of life in the

course of a siege a misfortune rather than an inevitable contingency. His
first anxiety, therefore, was to make the defensive works which sheltered
him impregnable. As the enemy multiplied his designs against the palisaded
enclosure, the palisade gave place to the stone wall; as the enemy’s means
for prosecuting his attempts increased in power, the wall increased in height
and strength; and at last, during the transitional epoch in which firearms
gradually superseded the older and more primitive weapons of attack, the
wall presented to the besieger a thoroughly guarded front which rendered
his medieval siege tactics obsolete, and called for new developments in his
craft.
The progress of fortification under these conditions will be the subject of
the remaining chapters of this book, with special reference to the castle, in
the defences of which the military engineers of the middle ages displayed
the epitome of their science. Before we proceed, however, to the growth of
the stone-walled castle, some description is necessary of the improvement
in siege-engines and methods of attack by which its development was
governed. It must be kept in mind that the siegecraft of the middle ages
advanced upon lines that were by no means new. Its engines, its devices for
breaking down or scaling walls and towers, were not new inventions, but
relics of Roman military science. With the decay of the Roman power in
western Europe, these materials of warfare, unknown to the Teutonic
conquerors of Britain, had fallen into disuse. Preserved in the east by the
Byzantine empire, the inheritor of Roman civilisation, they became familiar
to the barbarians who overran Europe in the dark ages; and their revival in
the parts of Europe most remote from the historic centres of Roman
influence was due in no small measure to the adoption of traditional
siegecraft by the invading tribes which had come into conflict with
Byzantine strategy. So far as England is concerned, the first advance in the
art of attack was the direct result of the Norman conquest; while subsequent
improvement in western Europe generally was primarily due to the
knowledge of eastern warfare gained during the Crusades. A slight
retrospect, under these conditions, is desirable, which will give us some
insight into the methods of siegecraft during the period of whose
strongholds and art of fortification we already have seen something.
Many classical texts, from the time of Cæsar to the latest days of the
western Empire, supply us with authority for Roman military methods. No

passage throws fuller light on their siege practice than Cæsar’s description
of his siege of Alesia in Burgundy, the hill fortress occupied by
Vercingetorix.65 The lines which were first drawn round the stronghold by
Cæsar were eleven miles in circuit, and communicated with three camps, on
hills of a height equal to that of the hill of Alesia. Along the lines there were
twenty-three castella, small forts to hold pickets, and temporary examples
of the type of which the “mile-castles” of the Roman wall were permanent
instances. The stubborn resistance of Vercingetorix and the prospect of the
arrival of a relieving army, however, gave Cæsar occasion to elaborate his
lines, the character of which is very minutely described. They consisted of
an earthen bank with a ditch 20 feet broad, 400 feet in front of it on the side
towards the besieged stronghold. The ditch was dug with perpendicular
sides: its distance from the bank was a precaution against sudden attacks of
the enemy, and placed the bank out of the range of casual missiles. The
space between the bank and ditch was not a level “berm,” but was furrowed
by two ditches, 15 feet in breadth and depth, of which the inner was wet,
the water of the neighbouring streams being diverted into it. Behind the
inner ditch rose the earthen agger or bank, to the height of 12 feet. The
vallum, the rampart on the top of the agger, was of a type common in early
warfare and for many centuries later, consisting of a breastwork of
interlaced twigs stiffened by a row of palisades. The hurdles of the
breastwork were finished off with battlement-like projections: at intervals
there were tall uprights with forked tops, which were called cervi or
“stags,” and acted as chevaux-de-frise along the whole rampart. There were
also towers, obviously temporary constructions of timber, at distances of 80
feet from one another. This, however, was not enough. Cæsar aimed at
holding his lines with as few men as possible, so as to allow the rest to do
the necessary foraging at a distance. He therefore proceeded to sow the
approach to the lines with pitfalls. Five ditches, 5 feet deep, were dug out
and filled with upright stakes sharpened to a point and fastened together at
the bottom by continuous cross pieces. In front of these were three rows of
pits, 3 feet deep, arranged in a series of quincunces or saltires: in these were
placed smooth sharpened stakes, so that little more than their points stuck
out of the ground, and the pits were then covered over with twigs and
brushwood. The eight rows formed by these obstructions were each 3 feet
apart. The whole arrangement, producing the effect of a row of fleurs-de-
lys, was called lilium: to the stakes the soldiers gave the name of cippi or

“grave-stones.” On the opposite side of the vallum, where an attack from a
relieving army was expected, a similar arrangement was made. Also, in
front of the lilium, wooden cubes with hooks fastened into them were
hidden in the ground, bearing the appropriate name of stimuli.
Cæsar’s method of besieging Alesia was dictated by the probability that,
with an enemy on both sides, he would have to stand a siege himself. After
a doubtful battle, the Gallic army of relief made a night attack on the lines,
in which they found to their cost the effectiveness of Cæsar’s death-traps.
They brought with them hurdles, with which to help themselves across the
ditches, and scaling ladders and grappling hooks, with the help of which
they might climb or pull down the rampart. Their weapons were slings,
arrows, and stones, to which the Romans replied with extemporised slings
and spears. They suffered two repulses, and then turned their attention to
the weakest of Cæsar’s camps, while Vercingetorix left Alesia to attack the
rampart. His force brought hurdles with long balks of timber to form a
footway across them, mantlets, or coverings under which an attacking party,
sheltered from Roman missiles, could undermine or make a breach in
Cæsar’s earthwork by the use of a bore, and hooks with which to cut down
the rampart on the top of the earthen bank. The attack was long and
determined. The Gallic pioneers filled up Cæsar’s fosses, so far as they
could, with earth, and themselves raised a mound from which his devices of
defence were easily seen. Where his lines were on level ground, they were
too formidable to attack: on the steep slopes of the hills, on the tops of
which his camps were pitched, there was more chance for an enemy. Here
the fiercest fighting took place: the towers of the vallum were assailed with
javelins, the ditch was filled, and an attempt was made to tear down the
palisade and breastwork. Labienus, unable to hold the lines, sent a message
to Cæsar, whose intervention with his cavalry turned the day and brought
about the total defeat of the Gallic army and the surrender of Vercingetorix.
The account of the siege of Marseilles by Gaius Trebonius in b.c. 49
gives us many of the methods employed by the Romans, and by Byzantine
and medieval engineers after them, in the siege of a walled town.66
Marseilles was no mere hill stronghold like Alesia: it was a strongly
fortified seaport town, well equipped for war with engines which hurled
pointed stakes 12 feet long against the besiegers, as they threw up their
earthen bank round the landward side of the city. Trebonius had to make the

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

The bare record of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle throws little light to speak
of upon the strategy or military skill of the Danes. Nor does the lyric form
of the songs which celebrate the fight at Brunanburh and the battle of
Maldon allow of that definiteness of detail which the student requires. More
definite, although not unencumbered by rhetoric, is the account which
Abbo, the monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, gives of the siege of Paris by
the Northmen in 885-6.67 The city of those days was confined to the isle
still known as La Cité, and was united to its suburbs on the mainland by
two bridges, where now are the Pont-au-Change and the Petit-Pont. The
approach to each bridge was guarded, on the mainland, by a tower or tête-
du-pont. The attack of the Normans was directed against the northern tower,
the construction of which had not been finished. It is curious to notice how
they concentrated themselves on single points in the defence, neglecting the
prime necessity of closing all lines of communication to the defenders.
They came up to the tower with their ships, which were seven hundred in
number, not counting sailless boats, battered it with their engines, and
hurled darts at its defenders. The tower was shaken, but its foundations
stood firm: where the walls threatened to give, they were repaired with
planks of timber, and the tower was raised by these wooden additions
during a night to one and a half times its former height. At daybreak the
Northmen again began the attack. The air, says Abbo, was full of arrows
and stones flung from slings and from the ballistae or hurling machines.
During the day the heightened tower showed signs of succumbing to the
enemy’s fire and their mining efforts. Eudes, the brave defender of the
town, poured down a mixture of burning oil, wax, and pitch, which
quenched the enthusiasm of the besiegers, and cost them three hundred
men. On the third day, the Northmen established their land camp on the
northern bank of the river, near the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.
The camp was probably a geweorc such as they wrought by the Thames or
the Ouse, but it was girt, not with an earthen rampart, but with walls of clay
mingled with stone. From this centre they cruelly ravaged the surrounding
country during the remainder of the siege. Having thus established their
base of operations, they returned to the attack of the tower. Their devices
were the common devices of Roman warfare, which naturally would
recommend themselves to the assailants of the dying Roman civilisation.
We hear of the three great battering rams which they prepared, and moved
up against the walls under the shelter of wooden penthouses on wheels, of

the bores brought up to undermine the tower by men moving under wicker
mantlets covered with raw hides, of the mangana or stone-throwing
machines used by the defenders, and of the forked beams let down from the
tower to catch the heads of the battering-rams and render them powerless.
Some of the Northmen worked at filling up the ditches with whatever came
to hand, earth, leaves, straw, meadow grass, cattle, even the bodies of
captives. Still the city held out, and Eudes managed to slip through the
enemy’s lines and reach Charles the Fat with a request for relief. On his
return the Northmen tried to intercept him: he got back safely into Paris,
while a relieving force attacked the enemy and drove them back on their
ships. When Charles the Fat arrived he established his camp on the southern
slopes of Montmartre; but he was content, after a general attack upon the
city had failed, to let the Northmen go, taking with them an indemnity of
seven hundred pounds, and promising to leave the kingdom in March. They,
however, made an attempt to reach the upper Seine in boats, as the larger
vessels could not clear the bridges, and so proceed to pillage Burgundy.
Their purpose was discovered: the defenders of Paris launched arrows at
them from the walls, and a chance dart killed their pilot. For a time their
onward course was checked, but a series of such assaults could not be
sustained by the French. Eudes, elected king, neglected the conflict, and
gave words for deeds. “Their barks,” says Abbo, “were in crowds on all the
rivers of Gaul.” He ends his poem with a call to France to give proof once
more of those forces which she had used in the past to conquer kingdoms
more powerful than herself. “Three vices,” he cries, “are causes of thy ruin:
pride, the shameful love of pleasures, the vain lust of gorgeous apparel.”
The same words might have been said to the English a hundred and twenty-
five years later, when Swegen and Thurkill were gripping London between
their two armies.
A short passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle affords some help to the
question of Danish strategy. London bridge, like the two bridges of Paris,
was an obstacle to the long Danish ships with their sails. In 1016, however,
the Danes managed to drag their ships round the south side of the bridge,
apparently by making a ditch on that side of the river. They then proceeded
to make entrenchments about the city, their headquarters being thus
removed above bridge. There is no reason to doubt that the London which
they thus beset was a stone-walled city, the Roman Londinium which
Alfred had repaired. So was Paris, and so were a large number of the towns

of France, whose walls had been set in repair by their bishops or lay lords.
We read of Saint Didier, bishop of Cahors 630-55, that he “enlarged, built,
and made strong Cahors with abundant labour, and a notable work of
defence, fortifying gates and towers with a girdle of walls compacted of
squared stones.” In the next century the Saracen invaders of southern
France restored the Roman walls of Narbonne, and checked the advance of
Charles Martel into Spain.68 But for the many instances in which the
fortifications of Roman cities in France played a part in the warfare of this
troubled epoch, there are few in England. The burhs of the Danish wars
were, with the exception of London, Towcester, Colchester, and a few more,
not stone-walled cities of Roman foundation, such as those which in France
were the natural prey of the Norman marauders, but villages or small towns
which had grown into existence for the most part since the Saxon conquest,
and owed their strength to walls of timber. In France military art, as regards
both fortification and siege-craft, was altogether on a higher plane. The
break of continuity caused by the extinction of Roman civilisation in
England produced a stage in the development of attack and defence to
which contemporary French history affords no parallel. It is not till a later
period that the finished methods employed by both sides in the siege of
Paris were used in English warfare.
The cases hitherto quoted refer to sieges of towns; and, as we have seen,
the castle or private fortress which plays so prominent a part in medieval
strategy was the result of the growth of the feudal system, and takes its
place in history at a comparatively late period. A fortified town of Roman
origin possessed its arx or citadel: this was, as it were, the keep of the
walled enclosure, to which the defenders could retire if the outer defences
of the town were taken. A castle, however, was a distinct enclosure, which
frequently occupied a portion of the area of a walled town, but had its own
outer lines of defence before the keep could be reached. The Norman
conquerors of England, regarding the castle as the main seat of defence and
object of attack, directed their attention to its fortification; and thus the
defence of the town or village in or near which the castle stood became of
secondary interest. We usually find that, where a castle forms part of the
defences of an English walled town, the castle has been surrounded with a
wall and provided with its necessary defences before a wall has been built
round the town in place of the earlier palisade. In spite, however, of this
change in the nature of the besieged stronghold, the object of attack was

still a fortified enclosure. The methods of siege developed along the old
lines; and the defences applied to the castle were those which, on a more
extended scale, were applicable to the town.
The warfare of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was to a great extent a
succession of sieges of castles, by direct attack or by blockade. In 1083
William the Conqueror, besieging Hubert of Maine in the castle of Ste-
Suzanne, did not venture to attack the wooded precipice on which the castle
stood, but entrenched his army within earthworks in a neighbouring valley.
The blockade lasted three years, and the advantage lay much on the side of
Hubert, so that eventually the Norman army, after a desperate attack had
failed, withdrew.69 The chief feature of the blockade was the construction of
an opposition castle,70 a method employed upon more than one occasion by
William II., who, in 1088, compelled Odo to surrender Rochester castle by
making two castella upon his lines of communication.71 In 1095 William II.
besieged Robert Mowbray in Bamburgh castle. The great rock, with its
girdle of sea and marsh, did not lend itself to direct attack, and William
compelled its surrender by building a “new fortress,” which took the form
of a timber castle, probably of the ordinary mount-and-bailey type, and was
nicknamed Malvoisin, the “ill neighbour.”72 From this particular instance,
the name of malvoisin has been applied generally, without sufficient reason,
to the wooden towers which were sometimes constructed to shelter a
besieging force. As a matter of fact, Malvoisin was merely one of many
nicknames which were given, in individual cases, to such besiegers’
castles,73 and was no more a generic term than is Château-Gaillard.
Until the end of the eleventh century, when the first Crusade taught
western warriors the use of more advanced siege-engines, the methods of
attack upon a castle seem to have been of a very simple description.
Earthworks defended by timber could be gained by a rush and hand-to-hand
fighting; while fire would always be fatal to a wooden stronghold ill
provided against it. The Bayeux tapestry shows us none of those siege-
machines which were employed more and more frequently against stone
castles during the next century; and, although the Conqueror’s army seem to
have employed an elementary form of stone-throwing machine, handled,
like the later cross-bow, by individual soldiers, and other devices more
familiar in later times,74 such machines can hardly have been common. It

was, no doubt, their growing frequency at the beginning of the twelfth
century which made stone walls imperative for the protection of a castle.
We have seen ballistae and other siege-engines of Roman origin used by the
Northmen at the great siege of Paris in 885; but such engines were certainly
not in common use in western Europe before the period of direct contact
with Byzantine civilisation. Ordericus Vitalis mentions the construction of
such machines, a “belfry” on wheels and devices for hurling large stones,
by Robert of Bellême’s engineer at Bréval in 1093, as though they were a
novelty, and says of the engineer himself that his sagacious ingenuity had
been of profit to the Christians at the siege of Jerusalem.75
Suger’s detailed account of the attack made by Louis VI. upon the castle
of Le Puiset in 1111 may be taken as a fair description of the methods
employed by the besiegers and defenders of an ordinary castle of earthwork
and timber. The king brought numerous ballistae to the attack, but we have
no indication as to their precise nature: the main weapons employed were
the bow, sword, and shield. The besieged came out of the castle to meet the
king; but, amid a hail of arrows from both sides, were driven back through
the main gateway, which was possibly, as at Tickhill,76 the only stone
defence of the enclosure. From the rampart of their stronghold, they hurled
down wooden planks and stakes upon the king’s knights. The besiegers,
throwing away their broken shields, made use of the missiles to protect
themselves and force the gateway. Carts laden with dry wood smeared with
fat were brought up to the doors, and a struggle took place, the royalists
trying to set the wood on fire, the defenders trying to put the fire out.
Meanwhile Theobald of Chartres made an attack on the castle from another
quarter, attempting to climb the steep scarp of the bailey. His followers,
however, were too hasty: many fell back into the ditch, while others were
surprised and killed by horsemen of the enemy, who galloped round the
defences of the castle to keep out intruders. The royalists had almost given
up hope, when a priest, bare-headed and holding before him a piece of
wood as an extemporised mantlet, reached the palisade, and began to tear
away the planks which covered the spaces between the uprights. He was
soon joined by others, who cut away the palisade with axes and iron tools.
The royal army poured into the castle, and the defenders, taken between the
entering force and Theobald’s men, retired into the timber tower on the

mount, but surrendered in fear. The king burned the castle, but spared the
donjon.77
The assault upon a stone castle or walled town was conducted by direct
attempts upon the walls themselves, for which movable machines were
necessary, and by throwing stones or inflammable materials into the
besieged enclosure from stationary machines. The chief engine used
directly against the walls was the battering-ram, an enormous pole,
furnished with an iron head. Hung by chains within a wooden framework
placed on wheels, it was brought up to the wall, and driven against it again
and again. The men who worked the ram were protected by a pent-house
with a rounded or gabled top, called the “tortoise” (testudo), which covered
the machine and its framework. The roof of the “tortoise” was made very
solidly, to resist missiles thrown from the ramparts, and the whole was
covered with raw hides or some other incombustible material, as a
precaution against fire thrown by the defenders (69).78

Battering-ram protected by pent-house and mantlets
While the ram delivered its blows upon the face of the wall, sappers and
miners, sheltered by a smaller pent-house, known as the “mouse,” “cat,” or
“sow,” made their attack upon the foundations with the bore (terebra), a
heavy pole with a sharp iron head, which slowly broke up the stonework
and hollowed out a cavity at the foundation of the walls (70). This work
was assisted by sappers, who, advancing to the wall beneath the shelter of
inclined frames of timber or wicker-work, known as mantlets, which they
wheeled in front of them, hacked away the stone-work with picks. When a
sufficient hollow had been made, the miners underpinned the wall with

logs, set fire to them, and retired. This device was constantly used
throughout the middle ages to effect a breach, and was successful at
Château-Gaillard in 1204,79 and on other occasions; but it obviously must
have taken much time, and must often have failed of its purpose.
Before, however, the movable engines could be brought to play upon the
stonework, it was necessary to fill up the ditch in front of the walls. This
work was done by soldiers, who, under the protection of mantlets, flung
into the ditch all the loose material on which they could lay hands. When
the Danes used their battering-rams against the northern tête-du-pont at
Paris, the first thing which they attempted to do was to fill the ditch, using
even the dead bodies of their captives when other material failed.80 At
Jerusalem in 1099, before Raymond of Toulouse could bring up his “timber
castle”81 to the walls, a deep natural hollow had to be filled. The work took
three days and nights: every man who put three stones into the hollow was
promised a penny.82 Philip Augustus in February 1203-4 began his
operations upon Château-Gaillard by filling the ditch between the outer
ward and his lines, while his catapults played upon the masonry from a
distance and protected the workers between them and the wall.83

Bore protected by mantlets
While the battering-ram, the bore, and the mine threatened the stability of
the walls, parties of the besiegers attempted to force an entry into the
stronghold. The simple method of bringing up fuel to the main gateway, and
burning down the door, was frustrated, in process of time, by greater
attention to the defences of the gateway, and the reinforcement of its doors

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

Besiegers scaling walls from movable belfry
The great siege-engines, capable of shooting stones or bolts, which were
often heated red-hot in an oven before delivery, from a considerable
distance, did their work from the background. The men who looked after
them were protected by a palisade, placed in front of the engines; this was
the case with Philip’s engineers at Château-Gaillard. These machines are
often indiscriminately called “stone-throwers” (petrariae, pierrières) or
catapults; and accounts of them differ very considerably. It is clear that, in
Roman and Byzantine warfare, the two main types of engine were the
stone-throwing machine, known later as the mangon or mangonel, and the

machine for shooting javelins, known as ballista.90 The first consisted of an
upright flexible beam between two solid upright posts. Cords were stretched
from post to post and wound round the beam. The beam was then drawn
back with the aid of winches and a stone placed in a hollow in its head; it
was then suddenly let go, so that the twisted cords slackened, and the stone
flew towards its mark, describing a high ellipse in its flight. The force by
which the ballista was worked, depended, not on twisted cords, but on the
tension of the cord which joined the two extremities of a great bow, and was
attached to the movable grooved piece in which the javelin was placed. The
tension released, the javelin was discharged. While the ballista could be
discharged with a definite aim, the aim of the stone-throwing machine could
be only general, and its chief use was to cast stones which, by their elliptic
flight, dropped inside the walls of the besieged place.91

Engine for shooting javelins

Stone-throwing engine
The ballista, which was simply a huge bow, capable of shooting
enormous bolts by the tension of a horizontal cord, was developed upon a
small scale into the cross-bow or arbalast, which could be carried and
managed by one man. The cross-bow was invented, or at any rate re-
invented, in northern Europe towards the end of the eleventh century, it was
employed in the first Crusade, and struck the Byzantines as a novelty.92 The
development of the larger engines seems to have proceeded with a view to
stone-throwing, and combinations of the machines mentioned above may
have been employed for this purpose.93 Viollet-le-Duc, in his elaborate
reconstructions of siege-machines, shows, for example, a mangon with a
central upright post, working on a pivot, in a slot near the top of which is
fixed a javelin. This post is strengthened by two diagonal beams fixed to the
back of the framework, which moves on the same pivot, at the foot of the
machine. Between these the flexible beam which propels the javelin is
fastened by a cord working through a pulley to a winch turned by a man,
and a bundle of cords is tightly twisted round the central post and the beam
(74). He also shows a large stone-throwing engine on a wheeled carriage,
which, in addition to an apparatus of twisted cords held in place by a system
of ratchet wheels, and bound round the movable beam, has a cord stretched

round the back of the beam, and connected with two huge springs forming a
bow. The centre of the bow is a massive upright framework of wood, which
acts as a buffer to the beam, when it is allowed to fly forward and discharge
the stone (74). Minute as these reconstructions are, they seem to improve
upon the data supplied by medieval writers and the pictures in MSS.
Guillaume le Breton, the panegyrist of Philip Augustus, describes the stone-
throwing machine used at the siege of Boves in 1185, as a great sling
worked by several men, which threw immense rocks of great weight. The
beam to which the projectile was attached worked on an axis, and was
dragged backwards to the ground with ropes, and then set free.

Trébuchet or Slinging machine

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

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

Aigues-Mortes

Carcassonne
Château-Gaillard, however, and the castles of its period will be discussed
in detail in the sequel. At present, we are concerned with the direct methods
employed to meet the attack of siege-engines and attempts at escalade.
Against the great catapults the besieged were practically powerless. The use
of such machines upon the walls themselves was as dangerous to the
stability of the masonry as their use by the enemy, and hastened the chance
of a breach: they could not be employed from the interior of the enclosure,
without endangering the defenders on the rampart.94 The summit of the

rectangular keep of the twelfth century was never constructed as a platform
for artillery: here, again, engineers probably feared the effect of the constant
vibration upon a flat wooden roof, and were content to conceal their ridged
roofs within high ramparts. The main arm of defence which could be
employed by the defenders was the cross-bow. Their superior position upon
the ramparts enabled them to throw down stones and burning material upon
the assailants engaged at the foot of the wall, and the wheeled belfries
formed a direct target for their arrows. The ram could also be paralysed by
letting down grappling-irons or beams with forked heads, which gripped
and disabled it; or sacks of wool or earth could be lowered to meet its
strokes. The assailants, however, worked under their defences of pent-
houses and mantlets, the solid tops and sloping surfaces of which were
specially devised against the shock of stones and arrows; while, as we have
seen, their coverings were so protected that it was difficult for them to catch
fire.

Parapet defended by hoarding, showing elevation, section through hourd
and coursière, and method of construction

Laval
The first improvements in defence, designed to meet an improved attack,
consisted in the protection of the ramparts. Behind the outer parapet of the
wall was the rampart-walk, a level path along the top of the wall, which was
sometimes protected by a parapet in the rear. From an early date in stone
fortification, it was customary to break the upper portion of the parapet at
intervals by openings called crenellations, through which it was possible for
an archer to command a limited part of the field at right angles to the wall.95

The crenellations, however, were narrow compared with the unbroken
parapets between them, and, even in advanced examples of fortification like
the ramparts of Aigues-Mortes (77) and Carcassonne (78), these unbroken
pieces are still very broad, although they are pierced by arrow-slits. Even
allowing for an arrow-slit between each crenellation, the foot of the wall
could not be commanded from behind the parapet. In time of siege, then, it
became customary to supply the walls with projecting wooden galleries,
known as hoardings or brattices (hourds, bretèches), which could be entered
through the crenellations. The joists of the flooring passed through holes at
the foot of the parapet, and were often common to the outer gallery and an
inner gallery (coursière) covering the rampart-walk. Both galleries had a
common roof.96 In the floor of the outer gallery, between the joists, were
holes, through which missiles could be directed upon the besiegers at the
foot of the wall; while slits in the outer face were still available for straight
firing. The defenders of the ramparts were thus able to work under shelter,
with some command both of the field and the foot of the wall. The
defensive advantages of this scheme are obvious; but the galleries were also
liable, although the usual precautions for their covering were taken, to
destruction by fire, whether from arrows tipped with burning tow, or the
more formidable red-hot stones flung by catapults. In any case, the catapults
were a serious menace to their solidity.

Coucy; parapet of donjon
The donjon and the towers of the enceinte were also bratticed at the
rampart-level.97 Indications of this practice are common in military
architecture abroad. The cylindrical donjon of Laval (80), a work of the
twelfth century, is covered with hoarding which is supposed to be
contemporary with the tower. The stone corbels which carried the hoarding
of the great thirteenth-century tower of Coucy remain; and a row of plain
arches pierced in the tall parapet show how the gallery was entered from the
roof (81). The somewhat earlier round tower at Rouen was restored by
Viollet-le-Duc on the lines of Coucy, with a conical roof and hoarding. The

inner wall at Carcassonne and the curtain of Loches, among other examples,
keep the holes in which the joists of the hoarding were fixed; and the walls
of Nuremberg are still covered with inner galleries or coursières. The
practice of supplementing stone walls with timber defences lasted till a late
period; but, even before the end of the twelfth century, corbelled-out
parapets with machicolations appeared in isolated instances. In subsequent
chapters we shall see how military masons and engineers applied their
architectural skill to meet the problems which siege-engines of greater
strength and tactics more finished than those of the past forced upon them.
We have now to deal with earlier efforts, which we have to some degree
anticipated.

CHAPTER V

THE BEGINNING OF THE STONE CASTLE

Map of principal castles in north-east England
In Domesday Book some fifty castles are mentioned by name or
implication; and the number was largely increased during the next hundred

years. In view, however, of the large number of temporary private
strongholds which came into being during the twelfth century, it is difficult
to estimate the number of permanent castles until, in the later part of the
century, Henry II. regulated and restrained the efforts of private owners to
guard their property with fortresses. The castles included in Domesday do
not represent the whole number which existed at that period; and of such
important castles as Colchester and Exeter, which we know to have been
founded before 1086, there is no mention. To estimate the strategic plan
which governed the foundation of castles at its full value, we must therefore
turn for a moment to the later period at which the defence of England by a
connected system of these strongholds had been more thoroughly achieved.
Here also, it is not altogether easy, in view of the destruction of older
castles by Henry II., and the foundation of new ones at a later epoch, to
estimate the exact state of the castles of England at the end of the twelfth
century.98 But, taking one special district, we may at least gain an
approximate notion of its lines of defence as they existed about the year
1200. This is the north-eastern district of England, containing the main
strategic approach to Scotland, and crossed by the rivers which descend
eastwards to the sea. This was the scene of the rebellion of the Mowbrays
and the invasion of William the Lion in 1174, in consequence of which four
important castles at least, those of Kinnard’s Ferry on the lower Trent,
Thirsk and Northallerton in the vale of Mowbray, and Kirkby Malzeard, on
the highlands above the right bank of the Ure, were demolished.99 The chief
castles of this district will be found to guard the line of the rivers. On the
Trent were Nottingham, on the north bank, and the bishop of Lincoln’s
castle of Newark,100 on the south; while the greater part of the lower valley
of the river was commanded at some distance by the strongly-placed castles
of Belvoir and Lincoln. On the borders of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire,
Tickhill101 stood in advance of the Don, while the narrow passage of the
Don, five miles west of Doncaster, was guarded by Conisbrough. These
castles defended the approach from the high land on the west; the marshy
country north and east of Doncaster, towards the Humber, although it often
proved a refuge for freebooters, needed no permanent garrison. South of the
Calder, opposite Wakefield, stood Sandal. To the east, below the junction of
the Calder and the Aire, was Pontefract, in a position of great strength and
importance.102 There was no great castle on the Wharfe, although

Harewood guarded the south bank of the river between Otley and Tadcaster,
and at Tadcaster itself there was a castle, of which little is known; Cawood
castle was simply a manor-house of the archbishops of York.103 On the
Ouse, almost in the centre of the shire, were the two castles of York, at the
head of the tideway. Knaresborough was west of York, on the north bank of
the Nidd. Each of the dales of the North Riding had its strong castle. In
Wensleydale was Middleham, south of the Ure. Richmond, from its cliff at
the mouth of Swaledale, commanded a vast tract of country, reaching to the
Hambleton hills and the forest of Galtres, north of York. Barnard Castle
stood in a strong position on the Durham bank of the Tees. The castles of
the eastern part of the North Riding were Skelton and Castleton, both in
Cleveland, and belonging to the house of Bruce. Helmsley stood at the
entrance of Ryedale; Pickering and Malton were on the Derwent, and
Scarborough guarded the coast. South of Scarborough, in the East Riding,
the one castle of importance at this date was Skipsea, on the low coast-line
of Holderness, between Flamborough and Spurn heads. Returning to the
border of Durham, and crossing the Tees, we find Brancepeth and Durham
on the Wear. On the south bank of the Tyne was Prudhoe in
Northumberland: north of the Tyne was the great fortress of Newcastle.
Most of the castles and small strongholds of Northumberland were the
growth of a later age. The principal castles at this period were Mitford on
the Wansbeck, Warkworth on the Coquet, Alnwick on the Alne, Wark and
Norham on the Tweed, and Bamburgh and Holy Island, castles on the
seaboard. This list might be extended, but the most important fortresses east
of the Pennine chain are included in it, and from it the strategic geography
of this important district can be readily recognised. Of the thirty-four castles
in this list, ten, including the gateway-tower at Newark, had rectangular
tower-keeps, of which nine remain; Conisbrough and Barnard Castle (87)
had cylindrical tower-keeps. Of the rest, in most cases, as at Sandal (86),
the mounts remain, and in a few instances, as at Skipsea, there are remains
of a shell-keep. The shell-keeps of Lincoln and Pickering are still excellent
examples of their type. The masonry at York, Pontefract, and
Knaresborough belongs to a later period; and in almost all instances, where
masonry remains, it bears trace of substantial later additions.

Sandal Castle; Plan

Barnard Castle; Plan
It will be noticed that castles which guarded passes through hilly districts
were generally placed, like Middleham and Richmond, in comparatively
open country at the foot of the pass. This was the case with Welsh castles
like Brecon and Llandovery, or the tower of Dolbadarn, below the pass of
Llanberis. The isolated position at the head of a pass was not easily
victualled, nor was it so useful as the situation on more open ground, from
which, as at Brecon or Middleham, a larger extent of mountain country
could be commanded. Trecastle (44), at the top of the pass between Brecon
and Llandovery, has already been mentioned as a site which was probably
abandoned early: the tract which it commanded is limited compared with
that within reach of Brecon, the point towards which all the valleys of the
neighbourhood converge.
In places where a castle formed part of the defences of a walled town, it
was usually placed upon the line of the wall, so that the wall formed for
some distance part of its curtain. This can be well seen at Lincoln, where
the castle occupied the south-west angle of the older Roman city. The castle
of Ludlow is in the north-west angle of the town, the wall of which joined it
on its north face and at its south-west corner. At Carlisle the castle filled up

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

line of the old city wall. One of the best examples of the connection
between a walled town and a castle is at Launceston, where the borough of
Dunheved grew up within a narrow area which was virtually the outer ward
of the strong hill-fortress.
The establishment of a castle upon a permanent site was followed, sooner
or later, by the building of stone fortifications. This work was often very
gradual. We have seen that even a castle so important as that of York
retained part of its timber stockade as late as 1324. This, however, was an
exceptional case. The walls and towers of medieval castles show, as might
be expected, a considerable variety of masonry; but the epoch at which their
fortification in stone became general may be said to be the third quarter of
the twelfth century. In 1155 Henry II. resumed castles and other royal
property into his own hands, and ordered the destruction of the unlicensed
castles which had risen during the civil wars of the previous reign.105 This
step was followed unquestionably by much activity in strengthening the
defences of the castles which were left.
At the same time, there are many substantial remains of stone buildings
in castles earlier than this era. Stone donjons or keeps were certainly
exceptional in England before the reign of Henry II., although there are a
few important examples of an earlier date. It cannot be disputed, however,
that a certain number of castles were provided with a stone curtain-wall106
and other stone buildings not long after the Conquest. Curtain-walls thus
built would follow the line of the earthen bank surrounding the bailey, and
take the place of the timber stockade. They were at first of the simplest
form. An edict of the council of Lillebonne in 1080 laid down the rule, so
far as the Norman duchy was concerned, for constructing the defences of
private castles; and, although the details refer primarily to the ordinary
timber structure, they also have a bearing on the construction of early
curtains of stone. No ditch was to be deeper than the level from which earth
could be thrown by the digger, without other help, to the soil above. The
stockade was to follow a course of straight lines, and to be without
propugnacula and alatoria—i.e., projecting towers and battlements, and
rampart-walks or galleries.107
The earliest type of curtain-wall would be strictly in accordance with
these rules—a strong wall of stone surrounding the bailey, and climbing the

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

BAMBURGH CASTLE: great tower

BAMBURGH CASTLE

Richmond; great tower
Neither at Ste-Suzanne nor at Bamburgh (91) is there existing stonework
earlier than the twelfth century. Of the castle of Saint-Céneri-le-Gérei
(Orne), which we know to have been fortified with stone walls before the
end of the eleventh century,111 only indistinguishable masses of masonry
remain to-day. On the other hand, there are a certain number of castles on
rocky and isolated sites, the walls of which may be fairly attributed, in
whole or part, to the later half of the eleventh century. The most important
example is Richmond castle in Yorkshire (91), on a high promontory of
rock above the Swale. The shape of the enclosure is triangular. The most

conspicuous feature of the castle is the splendid square tower or donjon,
which was completed between 1170 and 1180, and stands on the north side
of the enceinte, at the head of the approach from the town. The curtain,
however, west of the donjon, contains “herring-bone” masonry,112 and is of
a rough construction which affords the greatest contrast to the regularly
dressed and closely jointed masonry of the great tower. The tower, on three
sides, forms an outward projection from the curtain, of great size and
strength, and is a structure of one period from the ground upwards. But, on
entering the castle, it is at once obvious that the lower part of the south wall
of the tower is formed by part of the earlier curtain. In the middle of this
section of the work is a wide doorway, with a round-headed arch of two
unmoulded orders, which now forms an entrance into the basement of the
tower. The capitals of the jamb-shafts of this archway are of an
unmistakably eleventh century character, with volutes at the upper angles,
and a row of acanthus leaves round the bell. This type of capital is seen in
such buildings as the two abbey churches at Caen, the nave of Christchurch
priory, the west front of Lincoln minster, and other fabrics completed before
1100, and is a sure guide to the date of the work in which it occurs. It would
appear, then, that the masonry of this archway and much of the curtain is
the work of Alan of Brittany, earl of Richmond, who certainly founded the
castle, and died in 1088.113 The castle contains more work of his date, of
which something will be said in the sequel.

Ludlow; Entrance to inner ward
When the great tower of Richmond was built, an entrance was made on
the first floor, from the rampart-walk of the curtain. It is quite clear that, up
to this time, the archway just described had been the main entrance of the
castle, and had probably been covered on the side next the town by a
rectangular building, which formed the lower stage of a gateway-tower or
gatehouse, lower than the present donjon. This is borne out by a comparison
with the keep at Ludlow, where it is quite clear that an eleventh century
gatehouse was converted at a later period into a keep, by walling up the
outer entrance (94). A new entrance to the castle, as at Richmond, was made

in the adjacent curtain, where it could be easily commanded by the tower.
The date of the lowest stage of the donjon is revealed, as at Richmond, by
the details of capitals and shafts, which in this case belong to an arcade in
the east wall of the inner portion (95).114

Ludlow; Wall arcade in basement of great tower

Ludlow; Plan
The site of Ludlow (96), like that of Richmond, is a rocky peninsula,
where a stone curtain, for which material existed on the spot, formed the
obvious means of defence. There was no mount and no keep. Exeter, again,
is an early example of a stone-walled castle upon a rocky site, where a
gateway with a tower above formed the principal entrance. Such sites were
protected naturally by the fall of the ground on the steeper sides; the side on
which approach was possible was covered by a ditch cut in the rock. The
ditch would be crossed by a drawbridge, let down from the inner edge, next
the gateway. The gatehouse itself would be a building of two or more
stages; at Ludlow the upper stage, as completed, was considerably loftier
than the lower.115 At Exeter there were probably three stages. A single upper
stage remains at Tickhill. At Lewes and Porchester there is clear evidence of
an upper chamber. The gatehouse at Porchester, as at Ludlow, was the

entrance to an inner ward, divided by a ditch from the large outer ward,116
which, at Porchester, represented the greater part of the enceinte of the
Roman station, and contained the priory church and buildings. In these
early gatehouses, the lower stage was closed at either end by a heavy
wooden door, and was covered by a flat ceiling of timber. There was no
arrangement for a portcullis. At Ludlow the lower stage appears to have
been divided into an outer porch and inner hall by a cross wall, in which
there must have been a door; but communication between these parts was
also obtained by a narrow barrel-vaulted passage in the thickness of the east
wall, which, opening from the outer division, turned at right angles to itself
in the direction of the length of the wall, and, with another right-angled
turn, opened into the inner hall (95). This passage was guarded by doors,
which opened inwards at either end.117 When the outer doorway of the
gatehouse was blocked, the lower stage was covered in with a pointed
barrel-vault.118

Porchester; Plan
As already indicated, the details of these gatehouses are very simple, and
it is only where an attempt is made at ornament that their date can be fairly
judged. Thus at Porchester, the entrance archway, masked by defensive
work of a more advanced period, consists of an unmoulded ring of
voussoirs, divided from the jambs by plain impost-blocks. The outer bailey
or base-court of the castle, which is still surrounded by the Roman walls
with their semicircular bastions, has two gatehouses. These occupy the sites
of the west and east gates of the Roman enceinte, and the east or water-gate
is in part Roman. The western gatehouse was rebuilt at a date contemporary
with the enclosure of the castle proper within the north-west quarter of the
Roman station, and was much altered at a later period. The archways of the
Norman building remain, and show no attempt at ornament, the inner one
alone having impost-blocks below the arches. The work at Porchester is

usually attributed to the early part of the twelfth century, and the ashlar
facing of the side walls of the inner gateway appears to be of that date. A
similar severity of detail is seen in the parallel case of Lewes, where the
original gatehouse was also covered in the fourteenth century by a barbican
(98). The great gatehouse of three stages, at Newark castle (99), was the
work of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln from 1123 to 1148, whose uncle,
Roger, bishop of Salisbury (1107-39), appears to have built the gatehouse at
Sherborne. The archways of the lower stage at Newark are of great width,
and are as simple in detail as those at Porchester. The outer or northern wall
of the tower is faced with finely-jointed ashlar, and the archway on this side
has a hood-moulding, with billet ornament.119

Lewes; Barbican
The position of the gatehouse in relation to the curtain varies. At
Richmond, Porchester, and Exeter the inner face of the gatehouse was flush

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

Newark; Gatehouse
Stress has been laid on the occurrence of early stone fortifications on
rocky and precipitous sites, where the ordinary earthworks were at once
impracticable and unnecessary. It will be noted, however, that the
gatehouses which have been described are not found wholly in such
positions. Tickhill and Lewes were mount-and-bailey castles with strong
earthworks. Porchester is on level ground, open to Portsmouth harbour on
two sides, and defended by a ditch on the sides towards the land: the site

was already walled, but the rectangular keep appears to stand upon the base
of an earlier mount, which may have been thrown up so as to enclose the
Roman tower at the north-west angle of the station. Newark (157) stands on
a moderate height above the meeting of the Devon and an arm of the Trent,
with a deep ditch on the north and east sides towards the town. There was
no castle here before Alexander began to build in or about 1130; and his
work from the beginning consisted of a rectangular enclosure without a
mount, in which the gatehouse had something of the importance of a keep.
The necessity of defending the entrance of the castle, whatever the nature of
the site might be, led to the construction of stone gatehouses at an early
date; and, at Tickhill or Lewes, the gate-towers were probably constructed
at a time when the mounts and embankments of the bailey were still
defended by timber.
Stone curtains which display “herring-bone” masonry may generally be
assumed to be early in date. It has been customary to look upon “herring-
bone” masonry as indicative of pre-Conquest work, and many buildings
have been described as “Saxon” on the strength of this detail alone. On the
other hand, it never occurs in direct association with details which may be
regarded as definite criteria of pre-Conquest masonry; and the dimensions,
apart from other features, of churches in which it is found in any quantity,
usually afford suspicion of its post-Conquest origin.121 Its use in castles,
which, as has been shown, were a Norman importation into England,
demolishes its claim to be regarded as a distinctive sign of Saxon work; and
its employment in Normandy, especially in the donjon of Falaise, where
almost the whole of the inner face of the walls shows “herring-bone”
coursing, may be set against any theory which would attribute it to English
masons after the Conquest.122 It was used by Roman builders, and much of
it may be seen in the towers of the enceinte at Porchester. Saxon builders,
however, did not copy Roman methods of walling, and the surest criterion
of Saxon work is the thin wall, wholly composed of dressed stone, or of
rag-work without facings. Norman builders, coming from a country where
the continuity of Roman influence was never broken, used the ordinary
Roman method of a compound wall, in which a solid rubble core was faced
with ashlar on one or both sides. It is only natural that in early stone castles,
which were constructed as quickly as possible, the facing should be of a
rough description, of coursed rubble or of “herring-bone” courses laid in

thick beds of mortar. At a subsequent date, when masonry was added to
already fortified sites, the work could be pursued in a more leisurely
manner. The most striking example of “herring-bone” work in an English
castle is in the cross-wall of the great tower at Colchester (101), which is
unquestionably a building of the eleventh century. Here the work was
evidently hurried on, with the object of securing the greatest amount of
strength in the least possible time, and Roman tiles were re-used in large
quantities as bonding courses for the rubble walls, and for the “herring-
bone” coursing of the dividing wall. At Richmond, as has been noted, there
is a certain amount of “herring-bone” work in the curtain. The castle was
founded on an entirely new site by Alan of Brittany: earthworks were out of
the question, and the date of the older masonry of the stone wall is beyond
dispute.

Colchester; Cross-wall
A very remarkable example of “herring-bone” walling is the curtain-wall
at Tamworth (48). The castle was founded by Robert Marmion after the
Conquest on the low ground at the meeting of the Tame and Anker, the
town, the fortified burh of Æthelflæd, being on higher ground to the north.
Marmion’s fortress took the mount-and-bailey form. The bailey was a
triangular platform of earth, raised artificially above the level of the river
bank, with its apex towards the confluence of the streams. The mount was
on its west side, and was divided from it by a ditch. The defences on the
side next the town were of stone. Here the curtain-wall remains in very

perfect condition, crossing the ditch and climbing the mount, with a sloping
rampart-walk along the top. The inner face is composed entirely of
“herring-bone” courses, alternating with one, two, and sometimes three,
layers of thin horizontal stones. This appearance of more than one
horizontal course is very unusual.123 It is obvious that the site, being
commanded by the town, would be materially strengthened by a stone wall
on that side: on the south side, scarping and ditching would have been
sufficient, and there is no trace of stone-work of an early period here. The
original entrance was at the north-eastern angle of the enclosure, and
probably took the form of a stone gatehouse.124 Other instances of “herring-
bone” work in curtain-walls that may be mentioned here are at Corfe,
Hastings, and Lincoln. Corfe was built on an isolated hill, which was
scarped and ditched, something after the manner of a “contour” fort of early
days: the portion of the curtain in which “herring-bone” coursing is found
follows the natural line of the edge of the hill. Hastings is a fortress on a
steep promontory: the mount, on the east side of the enclosure, was
defended by a deep ditch, and covered by a large outer bailey with
formidable earthworks. The curtain, on the east and north sides of the inner
ward, is chiefly of the thirteenth century; but part of the north curtain,
forming the north wall of the castle chapel, is of “herring-bone”
construction. Lincoln, as we have seen, was a large mount-and-bailey
fortress, surrounded by earthworks, which, on the west side, enclosed
portions of the wall of the Roman city. “Herring-bone” masonry is seen
here and there in the west and north curtains, which have been raised on the
top of the earthen banks.125

Chepstow; Hall
The battlemented parapet with which the curtain-wall of a castle is
usually crowned, generally may be assigned, in its present state, to a later
repair and heightening of the curtain. This is the case at Lincoln, where the
parapet and upper part of the wall are of the thirteenth century. It has been
seen that the edict of Lillebonne in 1080 forbade the defence of the curtain
by flanking towers,126 rampart-walks, and other aids to defensive warfare;
and, as a matter of fact, the full development of the fortification of the
enceinte belongs to a later period. At the same time, towers projecting
beyond the line of the curtain are found in some of our early Norman

castles of stone. The line of the early curtain at Richmond is unbroken by
contemporary towers, and closely follows the edge of the rock on which it
is built. But at Ludlow (96) where the inner ward is the original castle,
founded probably by Roger de Lacy after 1085, the curtain is flanked by
four original towers in addition to the gatehouse, which has been described.
The shape of the ward is that of a triangle with convex sides, the base of
which, on the side of the outer ward and the town, faces south and west.
Some thirty feet to the east of the gatehouse, a tower, in the basement of
which an oven was inserted at a later date, capped the south-west angle of
the enclosure, projecting southwards as far as the edge of the ditch. The
west curtain continued in a line with the west wall of this tower for some
sixty feet, until it was broken by a small postern tower. At the apex of the
triangle, projecting to the north-west, was another tower, the remaining
tower being at the north-east angle, with its north wall in a line with the
north curtain. All these towers are, roughly speaking, rectangular in shape,
but the outer angles of the north-east and north-west towers are chamfered.
The original openings were round-headed loops with wide inward splays.
Although the curtain was thus supplied with several projections, more
towers would be needed to flank it perfectly, and large portions of the wall,
particularly on the north and east sides, were left without more protection
than could be given by their own strength. Oxford castle is another instance
of early walling, where the tall rampart tower which commanded the river
and the castle mill still remains.127

Chepstow; Plan

LUDLOW CASTLE: inner bailey
Of the stone buildings which existed within the enclosures of early
Norman castles, the traces which remain are comparatively few, and in most
cases work of an altogether later period has taken their place. The great hall
for the common life of the garrison, such as Robert d’Oily built in Oxford
castle in 1074, would be indispensable. At Ludlow there can be little doubt
that the original hall stood on the site occupied by the present hall, much of
the east wall of which is apparently of the same date as the curtain. The two
lower stages of the oblong keep at Chepstow are the hall (103), with the
cellar below, founded by William, son of Osbern, before 1071. Although the
upper stage was transformed in the thirteenth century by the insertion of
traceried windows in the north wall, and of an arch between the daïs and the
body of the hall, the walls are of eleventh century masonry, and the plain
arcade which went round them is clearly visible on the north and west sides.
In the south wall of the cellar are the loops which lighted it; these have
lintel-heads with arch-shaped hollows cut in the soffits. The hall and cellar
at Richmond, which occupy the south-east angle of the bailey, appear to be
those built by Alan of Brittany before 1088. A few additions took place here

at the end of the twelfth century,128 but the windows in the north wall of the
hall, which are of two lights, with edge-rolls in the jambs, are clearly of
early date. When, for a time, the great stone tower became the fashionable
form of keep, a great hall formed part of its internal arrangements; but this
was the hall of the lord’s private dwelling, and was used by the garrison
only in time of siege. Domestic buildings, including a great hall, may
sometimes have been constructed of timber within the bailey, and at the end
of the twelfth century were probably superseded by permanent buildings of
stone, like the halls at Warkworth or at Oakham. As at Richmond, such halls
would be placed against or close to the curtain, to leave the interior of the
bailey as open as possible. In case of siege, freedom of movement within
the area of the castle was essential, and the bailey formed the natural base
of operations. The hall at Chepstow was on the highest and narrowest part
of the rocky promontory on which the castle stands, at the head of the
bailey; its south wall formed part of the curtain overhanging the great ditch
between the castle and the town (106).129
Norman castle-builders were careful to provide chapels within their
fortresses. In several cases, the chapel within the bailey appears to have
been the first building of stone raised inside the enclosure. The small chapel
at Richmond, in a tower of the east curtain, is almost beyond doubt that
which was granted by Alan of Brittany to St Mary’s abbey at York about
1085. The details are very rude in character: there is a plain wall arcade,
supported on shafts, the capitals of which have rough voluting and no abaci.
The same type of capital is found in the wall arcading of the original
gatehouse at Ludlow (95), and also, though with more finished ornament, in
that of the circular nave of St Mary Magdalene’s chapel (108) within the
same castle. Certain details in the chapel at Ludlow, especially the bands of
chevron ornament round the arches, seem to indicate that the nave is later
than the eleventh century. The arch which divided the nave from a
rectangular chancel ending in a half octagon, is of advanced twelfth century
date; and it is clear that the chancel must have been built or remodelled at a
later date than the building of the nave. The aisled chapel at Durham castle,
which now forms part of the basement of Bishop Pudsey’s building along
the north side of the bailey, has groined vaults, cylindrical columns, and
capitals with voluted crockets and square abaci, which may be safely
ascribed to 1075 or a little later. The capitals may be compared with those

of the original gateway arch at Richmond. The classical spirit which is so
noticeable in them, and is derived directly from the contemporary work of
Normandy, is also apparent in the capitals of the crypt of the castle chapel at
Oxford. Oxford castle was founded in 1071, Durham in 1072. At Hastings,
the first of the Conqueror’s castles, there is, as has been said, much herring-
bone work in the north wall of the chapel nave and in the vice or turret-stair
of the central tower. Such definitely architectural detail as is left, however,
belongs to a rebuilding of the later part of the twelfth century.

Ludlow; St Mary Magdalene’s Chapel

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

CHAPTER VI

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

CARISBROOKE: steps to keep
The keep of Norman and early Plantagenet days was virtually a castle
within a castle. In the mount-and-bailey castle, there was generally only one
entrance to the enclosure. If the besiegers forced this and entered the bailey,
a ditch divided them from the mount, the most formidable part of the
defences. Here the defenders could concentrate themselves for a last
struggle, in which the advantage, unless the siege could be prolonged
indefinitely, was distinctly on their side. Even where the mount was of
inconsiderable height, it commanded the bailey and the ditch at its base. Its
sides were too steep to allow of its being climbed without some artificial

means of foothold. A chance arrow, tipped with burning tow, might reach
the palisade round the summit of the mount, and set it alight in a dry
season; but the defending party had all the advantage of being able to
discharge their missiles downward and into a large portion of the bailey.
Their disadvantage lay in the possibility of a prolonged blockade by a large
force, and in consequent scarcity of ammunition and victuals. The danger of
fire could be minimised by covering the wooden defences with skins newly
flayed or soaked in water; but the work of renewing these in case of a long
siege would be difficult.
The wooden donjon on the mount took the form of a square tower
surrounded, at the edge of the mount, by a palisade, and approached, as has
been described already, by a steep wooden bridge, which crossed the ditch
into the bailey. But it is obvious that the existence of a castle in any given
place as a permanent centre of royal influence must lead to the
abandonment of wooden defences in favour of defences of more lasting
material. The stone curtain first took the place of the palisade in the
defences of the bailey, and was built across the ditch and up the sides of the
mount, ceasing, as can be seen at Berkhampstead (42) or Tamworth, at the
level of the summit. The next step was to replace the palisade of the mount
with a stone wall of circular or polygonal shape. In some instances where
this was done, it is possible that the old wooden tower was left within the
enclosure. Cases in which a new tower of stone was built upon the mount
are rare. Builders would hesitate to charge the surface of the artificial
hillock with the concentrated weight of a large square tower. The encircling
curtain was much better adapted to the plan of the mount, and distributed its
weight more successfully over the edge of the surface. But, with the
building of a stone wall round the summit, the necessity of a tower would
be removed. Just as, in castles like Exeter and Ludlow, there was from the
first a stone wall without a definite keep, the enclosure being virtually a
keep in itself, so, in the more limited area of the mount, the encircling wall
formed the keep, and, in the larger examples, sheltered upon its inner side
buildings, usually of timber, which afforded the necessary cover for the
defenders, while their roofs, abutting on the wall below the summit, left
room for the rampart-walk and the wooden galleries which were fitted to
the curtain in time of siege.

Cardiff; Keep
This was the genesis of the so-called “shell” keep, which converted the
summit of the mount into a strong inner ward, the centre of which was clear
of buildings, and gave more chance of concentration to the defenders than
the narrow passage between the wooden tower and the palisade, into which
the angles of the tower would have projected awkwardly. One of the best
examples of the type which remains is the keep upon the larger of the two
mounts at Lincoln, a polygon of fifteen faces on the outside, twelve on the
inside. The wall has lost its parapet, but retains its rampart-walk; it is 8 feet
thick, and keeps its height of 20 feet perfect round the whole of the

enclosure. The masonry is ashlar of late twelfth century character, and each
of the external angles is capped by a flat pilaster buttress. The marks on the
inner face of the walls indicate that the enclosure was surrounded by timber
buildings, with which two small mural chambers communicated, in the
thickness of the outer curtain where it joins the keep. The doorway of the
keep is in the north-east face of the wall, which is pierced by a segmental-
headed archway, with a semicircular covering arch on the outer face. This
doorway, defended by a wooden door with a draw-bar, was approached by a
stone stair made in the side of the mount. At the present day the ditch at the
foot has been filled up, and the stairs are modern, but originally the ditch
must have been crossed by a drawbridge at the foot of the stair, which,
when drawn up, would have left the mount isolated from the bailey. There
was a small doorway in the south-west face of the keep wall, probably
intended to be a postern, through which an exit could be gained in
emergencies.135

Alnwick; Plan
The shell of masonry upon the mount, however, was by no means the
universal form taken by the keep. Sometimes, as at York, the timber

defences of the mount survived until a comparatively late period, when
their place was taken by a tower of a form in keeping with the principles of
fortification of the day.136 At Alnwick (115) the base of the great mount,
with a considerable portion of its ditch, remains between the two wards of
the castle. The present cluster of towers and connecting buildings upon the
mount, surrounding a somewhat dark and confined courtyard, is in large
part a nineteenth century reconstruction of the fourteenth century house of
the Percys which occupied the site. The outer and inner archways, however,
of the gatehouse through which the keep is entered, are twelfth century
work, and agree very well in date with the large remains of Norman
masonry which can be traced in the curtains of both wards. It is probable
that, about the middle of the twelfth century, Eustace, son of John, who died
in 1157, surrounded the whole of the present enclosure with stone walls,
and, levelling the mount to its present height, built in stone the earliest
domestic buildings of the castle, upon the enlarged site of the earlier
wooden donjon and palisade. The appearance of Eustace’s buildings must
have been very different from that of the mansion of the Percys; and we
may assume that he defended the summit of the levelled mound by a thick
curtain, against which his hall and other domestic apartments were placed.

Beaugency

Falaise
In France and Normandy, the rectangular donjon of stone began to
supersede the wooden tower at an early date. At Langeais (Indre-et-Loire),
Fulk the Black, count of Anjou, built a stone donjon as early as 992.137
Three walls of this structure are left: it was oblong in form and was
composed of a basement and upper floor. The masonry is largely faced with
courses of small cubical stones, following the manner inherited by the
Romanesque builders of France from their Roman predecessors: tiles are
introduced in the arched heads of the windows in the upper stage, which are
not mere loops, but have a considerable outward opening. This keep was
obviously intended to be at once stronghold and dwelling-house. Such a
building was a translation into stone of a wooden construction like the
tower-house on the motte at Ardres. It is built on a promontory above a
small stream, and is defended by a ditch on the landward side. Many of
these stone towers remain in Normandy and the country round the Loire;
and, as a rule, are earlier in date and larger in area than most of the similar
buildings in England. The tower of Beaugency (Loiret) is an oblong on
plan, measuring about 76 feet long by 66 feet broad (116): the present
height is 115 feet. The date indicated by the masonry is about 1100.138 The

fabrics of the towers of Falaise (Calvados) and Domfront (Orne) may be
attributed to Henry I. In or about 1119 he systematically garrisoned his
fortresses at Rouen and other places, of which Falaise was one.139
Domfront, from 1092 onwards, was his favourite castle.140 Its strong
position gave it an exceptional advantage as a base of operations; and in
1101, when Henry ceded his Norman possessions to his brother Robert, he
kept Domfront for himself.141 After the battle of Tinchebray (1106) Henry
was lord of Normandy, and restored order in the duchy by razing the
unlicensed strongholds built under Robert’s weak rule.142 The tower of
Domfront, however, and possibly that of Falaise, were not built until
1123.143 At Domfront the castle is a large enclosure, occupying the highest
point of a long hill which has a gradual eastward slope, but rises in an
abrupt cliff from a narrow valley on the west, and descends steeply on the
north and south. A deep ditch, through which the modern road from Caen to
Angers has been carried, divided the castle from the town. The great tower
lies to the east of the centre of the castle enclosure, so as to command the
ditch and the town beyond. Only the north-west angle, with a portion of the
adjacent walls, remains perfect. The height slightly exceeds 70 feet. The
area of the whole structure is 85 feet by 70, not counting the buttresses and
plinth. At Falaise (117) the great tower occupies nearly the whole of the
summit of the isolated cliff on which it stands, the town occupying the hilly
but lower ground on the north side. The length of the tower is a little less
than that of Domfront, while the breadth is slightly greater. The height is
about the same.
The tower of Domfront, like that of Beaugency, stood within a walled
castle, where the capture of the bailey would have exposed the tower
directly to the besiegers. It was therefore built with an exclusive view to
strength, and its window openings, even upon the second floor above the
basement, were small and narrow, those on the first floor being mere loops.
On the other hand, the tower of Falaise stands high above the curtain-wall
by which the ascent from the town was protected. Its outer face is of ashlar
throughout, and the window openings of the two upper stages, far above the
reach of stones and arrows, are double, divided by shafts with carved
capitals. Both towers were separated into three parts by cross-walls; but the
two upper stages at Falaise are now undivided, and at Domfront, above the
basement, there remain only indications of such a division.

Returning to England, we may safely assert that, with very few
exceptions, our rectangular towers belong to a period which bears, from the
historical point of view, a close likeness to the period of Henry I.’s
fortifications in Normandy. Henry II. pursued the same policy of destroying
unlicensed castles and strengthening royal strongholds; and his building
operations took the form of providing his castles with towers, such as
already were a chief feature of the castles of Normandy and Maine, but
were certainly very exceptional in England. The approximate date of
several of these towers can be obtained from the entries in the Pipe Rolls
for the reign of Henry II.144
Henry II., like the Conqueror, directed his attention to the defence of the
main water-ways of his kingdom. The castles of the coast and of the Welsh
and Scottish frontiers were also chief objects of his care. The Pipe Rolls of
1158-9 and 1160-1 contain accounts of large sums spent on the castle of
Wark-on-Tweed, at the extreme north-west corner of the kingdom.145 In
1158-9 occur charges for the tower of Gloucester,146 at the head of the
Severn estuary; and in the same and following years are many mentions of
the castle and tower of the great littoral stronghold of Scarborough.147
Berkhampstead, commanding the approach to London from the north-west,
was an object of substantial expense in 1159-60 and 1161-2.148 In 1160-1
£215. 18s. 5d. was spent in the fortification of the city of Chester:149 work
was also done at Oswestry,150 and other accounts show that attention was
paid to the victualling of castles on the Welsh border at Clun and Ruthin.151
Accounts, beginning in 1164-5, refer to the strengthening of Shrewsbury
castle.152 Sums were spent on the tower of Bridgnorth, which commanded
the defiles of the Severn between Shrewsbury and Worcester, in 1168-9 and
following years;153 and mentions of Hereford,154 Shrawardine,155 and
Ellesmere,156 testify to the care with which the western frontier of the
kingdom was protected. Of the coast castles, apart from Scarborough,
Dover has a constant place in these accounts. For example, in 1168-9, 40s.
6d. was paid for the hire of ships to bring lime from Gravesend to Dover,
and £34. 5s. 4d. was spent on the work for which this was required.157
Southampton castle was repaired in 1161-2,158 and a well was made there in
1172-3.159 The tower of Hastings was in progress in 1171-2.160 In 1165-6
£256. 4s. 9d. was spent upon the castle of Orford, the great stronghold of

the Suffolk coast, which was an object of large yearly expense down to
1171-2.161 On the line of the upper Thames, continual sums were spent on
the palace-castle of Windsor: the wall of the castle is referred to in 1171-2
and 1172-3.162 Work was done at Oxford and a well made in 1172-3 and
1173-4.163 Hertford castle was maintained to guard the Lea.164 In addition
to Dover, the castles of Rochester,165 Chilham,166 and Canterbury167
protected the main routes to the narrowest part of the Channel. The chief
fortress of the vale of Trent was at Nottingham, where large sums were
spent in 1171-2 and 1172-3.168 Of the inland castles of the north, the tower
of Newcastle cost some £385 between 1171-2 and 1174-5169 This forms a
contrast to the small sum spent on the tower of York—£15. 7s. 3d.—in
1172-3:170 it is clear, from the Pipe Rolls of later reigns, that this was
merely a wooden structure.171
However, there are earlier instances of towers which are of first-class
importance, and these must be briefly described before we dwell upon the
characteristics of the donjons of the second half of the twelfth century. We
have seen that William the Conqueror, immediately after his coronation,
began the construction of certain strongholds in connection with the city of
London.172 His first work was probably to enclose within a palisade the
undefended sides of the bailey, the east side of which was covered by a
portion of the Roman city-wall. Before the end of his reign, the White tower
had been begun as a principal feature of the castle, and was completed in
the reign of William Rufus, who in 1097 built a wall about it.173 This tower
is therefore at least as early in date as most of the early square towers of
Normandy and the adjacent provinces, and is considerably earlier than the
towers of Falaise and Domfront. A tradition attributes the design to the
direction of Gundulf, bishop of Rochester 1077-1108, who is also said to
have been the builder of the donjon-like tower at Malling in Kent, originally
attached to the church of St Leonard, and of the tower, the ruins of which
remain, on the north side of the quire of Rochester cathedral.
The White tower is at present 90 feet in height, and is therefore much
lower than the nearly contemporary tower of Beaugency. Its area, however,
is far greater, covering an oblong of 118 feet from east to west by 107 feet
from north to south. It is four stages in height, and was built of rubble
masonry, ashlar work being confined entirely to the pilaster buttresses and

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

White Tower; Plan of Second Floor

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

with a barrel vault, in the thickness of the wall, which communicates at
either end with the broad gallery above the aisles of St John’s chapel.

Tower of London; St John’s Chapel

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

through a doorway in the cross-wall; but the main entrance was through a
short mural lobby from the western chamber, which led into the west end of
the south aisle. At a late date a vice was made in the thickness of the wall
from this lobby to a doorway in the basement, by which access was
obtained to the chapel from the later domestic buildings adjoining the south
side of the tower.
The well of the tower, a most necessary feature in case of siege, was in
the floor of the western chamber of the basement, near its south-western
angle, and was cased with ashlar. Only three fireplaces remain, all in the
east wall, two on the first, and one on the second floor: the smoke escaped
through holes in the adjacent wall. The use of the rooms on the various
floors is uncertain, and it is possible that they may have been separated by
wooden partitions into smaller rooms. The basement chambers, however,
were obviously store-rooms; and the great western chamber on the third
floor was used by many of our kings as a council-chamber. The first-floor
rooms may have been intended for the use of the garrison, while the larger
room on the second floor was probably the great hall of the tower, and the
smaller room the king’s great chamber. The upper room, next the council-
chamber, may have been for the use of the queen and her household.
Accommodation, suited to the scanty needs of the times, was thus provided
for a large number of persons; and the great size of the chapel alone
indicates that the tower was intended as an occasional residence for the
royal family. The palace hall at Westminster, however, was in building,
when Rufus made his wall round the Tower; and it is clear that the cold and
dark interior of the fortress was planned mainly with a view to defence, and
with little respect for comfort.
The great tower of Colchester castle (47), which is of the same date as
the White tower, covers an even larger area. The internal measurements of
the ground-floor, excluding the projections at the angles, are 152 feet north
and south by 111 feet east and west. This, the greatest of all Norman keeps,
has unfortunately lost its two upper stages, and, with them, the chapel,
which, like that in the White Tower, was built with an apsidal projection
covering the junction of south and east walls. The crypt and sub-vault of the
chapel, however, remain. In this respect, and in the division of the floors
into larger and smaller chambers by a cross-wall running north and south,
the likeness between these two great towers is very marked. The rectangular

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

Dover

Clun
The towers of London and Colchester are exceptional in their date and in
the hugeness of their proportions. Although the towers of the later part of
the twelfth century have many features in common with them—the division
by means of cross-walls, the well-stairs in one or more of the angles, the
pilaster buttresses projecting from the outer walls, and the mural galleries
and chambers—no tower was subsequently attempted upon their scale. The
tower of Rochester (frontispiece), which appears to have been begun
somewhat earlier than 1140, and is therefore intermediate in date between
these two exceptional examples and the later towers, is 113 feet high to the

top of the parapet, and is 70 feet square (exterior measurement) at its base.
The tower of Dover (126), built in the early part of the reign of Henry II.,
measures 98 by 96 feet at the base. The walls, however, have the
exceptional thickness of 24 to 21 feet, so that the internal measurements are
considerably reduced, while the height to the top of the parapet is only 83
feet. The towers of London and Colchester are also exceptional in the
importance given to the chapel in their plans. The great prominence of the
angle turrets at Colchester is an unique feature, while the position of the
main entrance upon the ground floor, although not unique, is very unusual.
The later towers differ from those of London and Colchester in the fact
that they were additions to enclosures already existing, instead of being the
nucleus of a castle founded for the first time. Although they have a general
family likeness, neither their position on the plan, which was necessarily
dictated by the nature of the site, nor the details of their arrangements, are
uniform. Most of the castles in which they occur are divided by a wall, built
across the enclosure from curtain to curtain, into an outer and inner ward or
bailey. The tower, standing at the highest point of the inner ward, was
placed so as to command both these divisions of the castle. If the outer ward
were entered, the besiegers were confronted by a second line of defence, the
wall of the inner ward, in conjunction with which the great tower, with its
superior height, could be used by the defenders. Finally, if the inner ward
were taken, the tower still remained as a formidable refuge for the garrison.

Guildford
Where a new tower keep was added to castles of the usual type, whose
main defences consisted of an earthen mount and banks, it was often raised,
as at Canterbury and Hastings, on a new site, independent of the mount,
which was probably avoided as affording insufficient foundation. Thus, at
Rochester, the old mount of the eleventh century castle, now known as
Boley Hill, remains at some distance from the later enclosure. But there
were cases, and possibly more than are generally recognised, in which the
mount was utilised for a tower. At Christchurch the comparatively small
keep was built entirely upon the artificial mount. The keeps of Norwich and
Hedingham (135), two of the grandest of their class, were built upon
mounts, which, if in great part natural hills, had been scarped and
heightened by art. The mounts at Guildford and Clun (127) are artificial. In
both these last cases the summit of the mount was converted into a shell

keep, surrounded by a wall; but on the eastern side of this enclosure a
tower, of respectable if not large dimensions, was made. The tower at Clun
was built against the east slope of the mount, the basement being entirely
below the level of the summit of the earthwork. This is also partly the case
at Guildford (128), where the tower is placed across the eastern edge of the
mount. The inclusion at Kenilworth of artificial soil within the basement of
the keep has led to the suspicion that the mount of the castle was reduced in
height, and the tower built round the lower portion (132).

Scarborough; Plan
At Guildford and Clun the combination of a shell of masonry with a
tower keep produced the effect of a small inner ward—which is virtually
what a shell keep is—with a tower upon its enceinte. Frequently, as at
Scarborough (129) and Bamburgh the tower keep stood upon the line of the
curtain between the two wards. At Scarborough it actually stands athwart

that line, but its greater projection is towards the inner ward, from which, of
course, it was entered. The towers at Norham (157) and Kenilworth fill up a
corner of the inner ward, but have no noticeable projection beyond the
curtain. This is also the case at Porchester (131), where the north-west
angle, in which the keep stands, is also the north-west angle of the Roman
station.175 Some, however, of the finest of these towers, Rochester, Dover,
and Newcastle, stood wholly detached within the inner ward, although, as at
Rochester, near enough to the curtain to enable the defenders to command
the outer approaches from the upper stages.

Map of Rectangular Keeps

Porchester
From the point of view of dimensions the towers may be divided into two
classes. There are the towers proper, such as Clun, Corfe, Guildford,
Hedingham, Helmsley, Newcastle, Porchester, Richmond, Rochester, and
Scarborough, in which the height is greater than the length or breadth. Such
towers are approximately square; and to them must be added Dover, in
which, however, owing to the immense thickness of the walls, the height is
less than the length or breadth. In one case, Porchester (131), the
measurement from north to south exceeds that from east to west by 13 feet,
and at first was also in excess of the height; but the tower was raised to
nearly twice its height not long after the completion of the original design.
The second class is composed of keeps, of which one or both of the
dimensions of the ground-plan exceed the height, without the exceptional
circumstances which governed the proportions of Dover. Such keeps are

noticeably oblong in shape. At Castle Rising and the tower of Bowes in
Yorkshire the height is less than either the length or breadth. At Kenilworth
(132) the length from east to west exceeds the breadth by nearly 30, and the
height by 7 feet. Middleham, from north to south, measures approximately
100 feet by 80 from east to west: its height is only 55 feet, which, though it
surpasses the 50 feet of Bowes and Castle Rising, is much less than the 80
feet of Kenilworth. Its length and breadth, however, make up an area far
surpassing the 87 by 58 feet of Kenilworth, the 82 by 60 feet of Bowes, and
the 75 by 54 feet of Castle Rising. The foundations of another keep of this
class remain at Duffield in Derbyshire. Bamburgh, 69 by 61 feet, but only
55 feet high, is another member of the class. Another great Northumbrian
keep, Norham, although its height is 90 feet, is oblong in plan; and its
measurement from east to west comes within 4 feet of the height, so that it
stands on the border between the second and the first class.

Kenilworth
The internal divisions of the keeps are not uniformly the same, and do
not always correspond to the height. The usual arrangement in the loftier
keeps, as at Hedingham, Porchester, Rochester, and Scarborough, is a

basement with three upper floors; but at Corfe, which is 80 feet high, as at
Guildford, which is only 63 feet high, there are only two upper floors. At
Dover, 83 feet high, and Newcastle, 75 feet high, the second floor was
surrounded by a mural gallery, high above the floor-level, so that the second
and third floors were combined into one lofty room.176 At Norham,
however, there were four upper floors. Kenilworth, only 10 feet lower, had
a lofty basement with only one floor above it. At Bowes there were two
floors. At Middleham and Castle Rising, there was one main floor; but, by
the subdivision of the rooms on this stage, a second floor was made in
portions of the building. As a rule, the walls grow thinner as they rise: this
was achieved by rebating the inner face at each floor to provide a ledge for
the floor timbers. In exceptional cases, there is an off-set on the exterior of
the tower; and at Rochester the walls are thinned from 12 feet at the base to
10 feet at the top by a slight exterior batter. At Porchester the walls are 11
feet thick at the base: this is reduced to 7 feet at the first floor, and, by an
off-set at the level of the original roof, to 6 feet in the upper stage. The
thickest walls, next to those at Dover, appear to be at Newcastle, where
their thickness at the first floor is 14 feet.
Many of these towers, such as Rochester and Dover, are built of rag-
stone or coursed rubble, with dressings of ashlar. The masonry at Guildford
(128) is extremely rough, and “herring-bone” coursing is extensively used:
the date of the tower, however, to judge by its internal details, is not earlier
than the third quarter of the twelfth century.177 On the other hand, not a few
have their walls cased with ashlar. Hedingham and Porchester are noble
examples from the east and south of England; Bridgnorth and Kenilworth
from the midlands. Of the towers of Yorkshire, Bowes, Richmond, and
Scarborough have ashlar casing; Middleham is of rubble with ashlar
dressings. Ashlar facing is used throughout at Bamburgh, Newcastle, and
Norham: at Norham the ashlar is of two distinct kinds, small cubical stones
being used in one part, and larger stones in another.178 As at Colchester,
Dover, and Kenilworth, the foundations of the larger towers spread
considerably, and rise above ground in a battering plinth, into which the
buttresses at the angles and on the face of the walls die off without
interruption. At Newcastle there is a roll string-course above the plinth, and
at Bamburgh (91) the plinth is moulded with a very imposing effect. Where
the tower is built on an uneven site, as at Middleham or Scarborough, the

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

HEDINGHAM: great tower
As the main object of these towers was defensive, their external
architectural features were generally confined to their excellent masonry. A
moulded plinth, as at Bamburgh, is of very rare occurrence. At Norwich and
Castle Rising a wall is arcaded or recessed: this, however, is quite contrary
to the usual practice. String-courses, where they were used, were generally
confined to the buttresses, as at Kenilworth; although in a few cases, as at
Richmond, they were continued along the wall. The necessary window
openings were few and small. Here, however, a distinction must be made. It
has been remarked already that the donjon of a castle sometimes formed the

residence of its lord as well as a strong tower in time of war. The towers of
London and Colchester were certainly planned upon their liberal scale with
this double end in view; and, destitute of comfort as they seem to us to-day,
the upper floors of the White Tower were at any rate well lighted. Similarly,
at Rochester, there was a large provision of single-light windows in the
floors above the basement. And, as a rule, while the basement was lighted
by a very few narrow loops, set high in the wall, and the first floor, which
was not above the range of missiles, was lighted sparingly by narrow loops
with wide internal splays, the second floor, which formed the main
apartment, had much larger windows. These, as in the Tower of London, or
at Dover, Hedingham, and Scarborough, were sometimes of two lights,
divided by an intervening shaft or piece of wall. At Newcastle, where the
second floor, owing to the thickness of the walls, in which separate
chambers are contrived, is very dark, there is a wide single opening in the
intermediate buttress of the east face, which externally has a moulded arch
and jamb-shafts (139). At Richmond, a tower the single object of which
seems to have been defence, the window openings, with one exception, are
narrow loops with internal splays; and, of all twelfth century towers, this
was probably the darkest and least comfortable (93).179
The main entrance of the tower was usually on the first floor, although
sometimes, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Norwich, it was on the second
floor, and led directly into the main apartment. It was obviously unsafe to
make an entrance in the basement, where the doors could be easily forced
or burned. At the same time, there is, as we have noticed, a basement
entrance at Colchester, where the approach was protected by a strong ditch.
The rocks on which Bamburgh and Scarborough stand made the position
almost impregnable, and in both cases the main doorway of the tower is on
a level with the soil of the ward in which it stands.180 When the outer
opening of the original gateway at Richmond was removed to make way for
the new tower, the inner opening was left, forming a direct communication
between the interior of the castle and the basement: this also was permitted
by the natural strength of the site; but the main entrance to the tower was in
the south-east corner of the first floor, from the rampart-walk. At Ludlow,
both openings of the gateway were walled up (94), and a stair was made to
the first floor against part of the west wall of the tower.181 Even in the tower
on the mount at Guildford, the main entrance was on the first floor (128).

Where the doorway led into the chief apartment of the tower, it received
special architectural treatment. That at Newcastle is a wide opening with a
semicircular arch of three orders and shafts in the jambs: it has been rebuilt,
but probably follows the original design closely. On the other hand, the
first-floor entrance at Kenilworth, which led into the main room, is
exceedingly plain, with a segmental arch, and a semicircular relieving arch
in the wall above.

NEWCASTLE: great tower

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

the base, had vaulted chambers on the first and second floors; the middle
tower enclosed a well, the mouth of which was contained in a chamber
entered from the platform in front of the main doorway of the keep; while
the lower tower formed a large projection at the south-west angle of the
keep, containing upon its first floor a covered landing for the stair, from
which opened to the east a room, probably an oratory, and to the west a
porter’s lodge. Upon the second floor was the chapel of the keep, entered
from the main apartments. A vault in the basement of the lower tower of the
fore-building communicates with the basement of the keep through another
vault, which is common to the keep and fore-building. Similarly, the vault
at the first-floor level of the upper tower communicates with the main first
floor through another common vaulted chamber. The Dover fore-building is
thus an integral portion of the keep.
Of all existing fore-buildings, that at Castle Rising (143) is in the best
state of preservation. Here the main entrance to the keep is on the east face
of the building, near its north end. The stair, which had a timber roof,
ascends by the side of the east wall, straight from the ground. There is a
gateway at its foot, and another gateway at a landing half-way up. The
upper flight of stairs, which was also roofed with timber, passes through a
third gateway into the upper floor of a tower, which, as at Rochester and
Norwich, covers the main doorway of the keep, and is not placed, as at
Dover and Newcastle, beyond the doorway. Each of the doorways of the
fore-building has a rounded arch with an edge-roll, and shafts with cushion
capitals in the jambs. The main doorway of the keep has five orders, the
four outer orders being shafted, and the arch having rich late Norman
mouldings. The chamber at the head of the stair is vaulted in two bays, but
originally had a timber roof. There is a vaulted chamber beneath it.
There is an exceptional arrangement at Porchester (131), where the stair,
instead of being covered by the fore-building, is set outside it, against its
eastern face. From the landing at the head there is a straight passage,
between the first-floor rooms of the fore-building, to the main entrance of
the tower; while, from the same landing, another flight of stairs leads to the
northern rampart-walk of the castle. Another exceptional fore-building is
found at Berkeley (142). Here, however, the exception consists in the fact
that it is a fore-building, not to a tower, but to a shell-keep of peculiar
construction. The mount of the early Norman castle was reduced in height,

and its base, forming a platform some 20 feet above the ground, was
enclosed within a wall, 8 feet thick, which is strengthened by pilaster
buttresses and rises to a height of 60 feet. Against the south-east face of this
wall is a narrow fore-building. The stair, which was covered by a timber
roof, passes through the lower stage of a gateway-tower, and ascends to a
platform, from which, after another gateway has been passed, the interior of
the shell is entered. The room upon the first floor of the gateway-tower is
entered from the platform by a narrow ledge above the stair.

Berkeley

CASTLE RISING: stair of forebuilding

Rochester; internal cross-wall
As the main doorway of a tower-keep was set in the outer face of a thick
wall, a narrow passage had to be traversed before the interior of the tower
was reached. At Castle Rising, the wall is comparatively thin, and the
doorway is recessed deeply, so that the tower is entered directly. In most
cases, the keep was divided internally into two parts by a cross-wall, which
reached from the basement to the summit.182 This wall was often central, as
at Porchester, Rochester, and Scarborough; but in towers which are oblong
in plan, as at Castle Rising and Middleham, it divided the keep into two
unequal rectangles. At Bowes, as also in the Norman keep of Domfront, it
was so far from being central that it cut off only a narrow oblong from the
interior, the large main room on the first floor of Bowes being left nearly
square. In a square keep, the cross-wall was frequently opposite the main
entrance, and parallel with the fore-building. At Hedingham, Lancaster,
Porchester, and Scarborough, it is at right angles to the fore-building, so

that the main entrance is, as in the oblong keep of Castle Rising, in an end,
and not in a side of one of the rooms. The cross-wall at Scarborough was
not continued to the second floor; and, on the first floor, a transverse arch
took its place, throwing the two main rooms into one. A great transverse
arch, perhaps the finest architectural feature in any of our tower-keeps, also
spans the second floor at Hedingham, in place of the cross-wall (147). On
the second floor at Rochester, the cross-wall is represented by two pairs of
rounded arches, divided by a central block of wall containing the well-shaft
(145). But a cross-wall was not an universal feature of a tower-keep.
Neither Clun nor Guildford, towers of moderate size, have one; and, of the
greater keeps, Newcastle, Richmond, and Kenilworth have undivided
interiors. This is remarkable in a keep of the area of Kenilworth: at
Newcastle and Richmond the walls are so solid that the interior space is
comparatively small, while at Newcastle additional room was supplied by
unusually spacious mural chambers. At Castle Rising, in addition to the
main cross-wall, each of the divisions of the keep has a smaller cross-wall
at its extremity, cutting off additional apartments from the main rooms, and
allowing in one place the insertion of an upper floor.
Of the divisions of the tower, whether divided by a cross-wall or not, the
basement was probably used for the storage of arms and provisions. It
sometimes contained the opening of the well of the keep.183 The first floor,
where there was no other, contained the main apartment or hall. In the
loftier type of keep, this was on the second floor, and, as we have just seen,
the substitution of an arch or arcade for the cross-wall sometimes converted
this floor into one large apartment. At Dover and Porchester, as in the
Tower of London, the division into two apartments was maintained, and
there is only a small doorway through the cross-wall. The second room, in
these instances, probably formed the “great chamber” or private apartment
of the lord of the castle when in residence. Where the hall was on the
second floor the first floor was probably set apart for the garrison in time of
siege and for the servants. The provision for private bedrooms was, in those
days of publicity, extremely small; but where, as at Dover and Newcastle,
the thickness of the wall allowed of several large mural chambers, some of
them may have been devoted to this purpose; and in some keeps, as at
Hedingham, an upper floor above the main apartments was provided, which
doubtless served this end.184

HEDINGHAM: doorway of great tower

HEDINGHAM: second floor of great tower
For the purpose of communication between the floors, the example of the
towers of London and Colchester was followed. A well-stair was
constructed in one of the angles from the basement to the summit of the
tower, and had an entrance to each floor through a short passage in the
thickness of the wall, or sometimes in the embrasure of one of the windows.
This single stair was the only means of approach to the basement. At Dover
there are two such stairs; and, in a few instances, there are small outer
doorways to the basement, which may be original, like the postern, high
above the ground at Newcastle, or may have been cut at a later date, like the
entrance to the basement from the fore-building at Kenilworth. The two
stairs at Dover are diagonally opposite to one another. At Rochester a
second stair, also diagonal to the other, begins at the first floor and ascends
to the roof. The main stair at Guildford starts in an angle of the first floor:

the basement was probably entered by a trap-door and ladder, but later,
probably in the thirteenth century, a doorway was cut through the wall into
the basement below the main entrance. At Scarborough, although the main
entrance was at the basement level, it merely opened on a stair leading to
the first floor: the stair to the basement, if there was one, seems to have
been in one of the angles which has been destroyed. In the keeps of
Richmond and Ludlow, owing to the preservation of the older gatehouses in
whole or in part, the arrangements are exceptional. The basement at
Richmond (93) had, as we have seen, its own entrance from the interior of
the castle; but there was also an inserted stair, now blocked, in one of its
angles from the first floor. The main stair of the tower, however, started to
the left of the main entrance on the first floor, and continued upwards
straight through the south wall to the level of the second floor, where it
stopped. The stair from the second floor to the roof started from a point
above the first floor entrance, and also ran through the whole thickness of
the south wall above the lower stair, opening on the rampart at a point
above the entrance to the second floor.185 At Ludlow, as a consequence of
the transformation of the gatehouse, the original straight stair from the
basement to the floor above, in the thickness of the east wall, was blocked
up, and the basement was entered only by a trap-door in the first floor.186
The various floors of the tower-keep were of timber, and vaulted
chambers, even in the basement, were an exception. The basement at
Newcastle has an original vaulted roof, on eight ribs springing from a
central column: the vaulting of the basement at Richmond, also from a
central column, is an insertion. At Norham the basement is divided by the
cross-wall into two parts, one of which has a cross-wall of its own, dividing
it into two chambers, both barrel-vaulted: the other division has four bays of
groined vaulting, divided by plain transverse arches. The basement at
Bamburgh was also vaulted in three chambers, the largest of which had a
central arcade of three arches, from which ribs were struck to the outer wall
and cross-wall. The two chambers of the basement at Middleham were also
vaulted, one from a central arcade of five bays. But these northern examples
are quite exceptional; and, even at Castle Rising, where the architectural
treatment of the various portions of the building is unusually elaborate, and
the larger chamber of the basement is divided by a row of columns, vaulting

was confined to the small subdivisions which support the lesser first-floor
chambers already mentioned.

NEWCASTLE: chapel
Mural chambers, made in the thickness of the wall, were necessarily
vaulted, the usual form employed being the barrel-vault, which sprang from
the wall without any dividing string-course. Otherwise, the only apartment
which had a stone roof was the chapel, frequently found in connection with
the tower-keep. It must be added, however, that the chapel hardly ever
occupies any part of a main floor in the keep, and that at Castle Rising,

where it is in an angle of the first floor, the chancel alone is vaulted, and is
constructed in the thickness of the wall. Chapels on the scale of those of
London and Colchester were never again attempted in a keep. According to
the usual theory, chapels in castles and houses were planned so that no
room used for secular purposes should be above them; and their position in
a keep was usually upon the upper floor of a tower in the fore-building,
communicating with the adjacent floor of the main structure. The altar was
always placed against an east wall, and the distinction between nave and
chancel was usually kept. Thus at Rochester, where all three stages of the
tower of the fore-building are vaulted, the top floor was probably a chapel,
the nave of which was entered directly from the second floor of the keep
through a mural passage, while the chancel communicated through a small
vaulted lobby and a short stair with the main stair of the keep.187 At Dover
the chapel, with ribbed vaulting, and a chancel arch of two orders with
chevron moulding and jamb-shafts, occupies the upper floor of the lower
tower of the fore-building. The walls of chancel and nave are arcaded,
which is a very usual feature in a castle chapel, but does not appear at
Rochester. The entrance from the second floor of the keep at Dover was
through a mural chamber and a passage along the west wall of the chapel,
which led to the chapel doorway on the left hand, and a small vaulted room,
possibly a vestry, on the right. At Porchester, again, the south chamber on
the first floor of the fore-building was the chapel, approached from the
passage which led through the fore-building to the main doorway. The
chapel at Newcastle (152) is in an unusual position, in the basement of the
fore-building, and is entered through a passage from the foot of the main
stair. It also had originally an outer doorway, which communicated directly
with the outer stair of the fore-building near its foot—another unusual
feature. The ribbed vaulting, wall-arcading, and chancel arch, are of
remarkably excellent workmanship, and the “water-leaf” ornament of the
capitals of the wall-arcade bears a close resemblance to that of the capitals
of the contemporary Galilee of Durham. As the fore-building at Newcastle
is against the east wall of the keep, the longer axis of the nave of the chapel
runs north and south, and is at right angles to that of the chancel. The chapel
is thus T-shaped: the altar was placed on one side of the chancel, against the
east wall, and was practically invisible from the nave. It is probable that the
constable of the castle and his family or friends occupied the western part of

the chancel, facing the altar, while the nave was used by the garrison and
servants.188
Roomy chapels, like those at Newcastle and Old Sarum, were not merely
the chapel of the great tower, but of the whole castle. On the other hand, the
ordinary chapel of a tower-keep provided less accommodation, and seems
to have been intended for the lord of the castle or his deputy and their
immediate household. At Guildford the chapel of the keep is a mere oratory,
formed by two mural chambers at right angles to one another, in the south-
west angle of the first floor. The main body of the chapel, covered with a
barrel-vault, is in the west wall; the space for the altar, arranged so that the
priest faced eastwards, is in the south wall, and is covered by a half-barrel-
vault set at right angles to the longer axis. The nave, which is thus quite out
of sight of the altar-chamber, has a wall-arcade of late twelfth-century
character, supplying a valuable clue to the real date of this rudely built and
archaic-looking keep. Although a chapel or oratory in the keep was not
uncommon, it was on the whole a luxury. At Richmond and Ludlow no
provision was made for one; the chapels of the castles, which remain in
both cases, were of earlier date than the conversion of the gatehouse into a
tower. It is not unlikely that the name of chapel may have been given in
later days to rooms in keeps and fore-buildings which were intended for
quite other purposes.189
Although, in time of siege, cooking in the keep itself would sometimes
be necessary, no special part of the tower was set aside as a kitchen. Castle
Rising is an exception, where the room cut off at the north-west angle of the
first floor seems to have served this purpose, and a circular chimney-shaft
was hollowed out in the angle itself.190 Fireplaces are found in most tower-
keeps, though not on all floors. Rochester and Dover were well provided in
this way, while, on the other hand, the tower of Porchester was without any
apparent means of artificial warmth. The fireplaces at Dover in the cross-
wall are of great size; those at Rochester are numerous, but small, and have
arches decorated with the thick and roughly-cut chevron ornament which
also appears in the arcade of the cross-wall on the second floor. The original
fireplaces at Newcastle are in the large mural chambers on the first and
second floors. The main apartment here was probably warmed by a brazier
on the floor; and this may have been a common method, as it was in the

halls of private houses. A vent for the smoke must have been made in the
roof.
Water, in view of the straitened circumstances of a siege, was a necessity
in a keep, and, where there are no remains of a well, it is safe to assume that
one has been filled up. In a mount-keep like Guildford, the well may have
been inside the shell which walls in the front part of the mount. The wells of
the Tower of London and Castle Rising were in the basements. At
Colchester there is a well-chamber in the south wall of the basement, to the
right of the entrance-passage. But in the later keeps the pipe of the well, a
cylinder lined with ashlar, was often carried up through the thickness of a
wall to the upper floors, which thus received their supply of water directly,
without the necessity of a journey to the basement. At Kenilworth it was in
the south wall, close to the south-west angle, with an opening on the
basement and first floor. It is in the east wall at Newcastle, near the north-
east angle: it has only one opening, at the well-head on the second floor,
and is reached by a mural passage from the main apartment. There are two
wells at Dover, one in the middle tower of the fore-building, with an
opening at the level of the second floor, the other in the south wall of the
keep, with its only opening on the second floor, in a mural chamber to the
left of the main entrance. The pipe at Rochester is in the centre of the cross-
wall, and was carried up to the third floor, with an opening in the north
chamber of each stage.
Mural chambers have been noticed incidentally. Some keeps, even of the
largest size, have their walls unpierced, save for window openings: this is
the case with Corfe. Porchester, in spite of its great size, contains only two,
which were used for the common and necessary purpose of garde-robes or
latrines. On the other hand, the exceptionally massive walls of Dover
contain a large number of such chambers, most of which are of considerable
size: the position of the garde-robes here is not easy to determine. At
Newcastle advantage was taken of the thickness of the walls to construct
large chambers in connection with the first and second floors: that in the
south wall of the second floor, known as the “king’s chamber,” has an
original fireplace, and is well lighted. A doorway at its north-west corner
leads into a garde-robe in the west wall. The number of mural chambers at
Newcastle is small compared with that at Dover, but the walls were freely
pierced with passages and galleries. A stair, made through the upper part of

the south and west walls to the ramparts, seems to have been abandoned
during the progress of the work: the notion that it was deliberately intended
to lead a body of the enemy, who might have entered the tower, into a cul-
de-sac, is fanciful, but it certainly might have had this unintentional effect.
At Dover, Hedingham, Newcastle, Norwich, and Rochester, where the hall
or apartments on the second floor were of unusual height, galleries were
made in the walls round the upper part of the stage. The gallery at Dover
was not continued round the north-west angle of the tower, but a passage,
now blocked, was made through the cross-wall from north to south, so that
the east room on this floor was completely surrounded by a gallery. The
gallery at Rochester surrounds the whole tower, communicating with the
vices in the south-west and north-east angles, and opening upon the interior
of the tower in no less than fourteen places, each of which corresponds to a
loop in the outer wall. Where the arcade which, on the second floor, takes
the place of the cross-wall, joins the east and west walls, the floor of the
gallery is raised by a few steps, to provide the adjacent arch with a solid
abutment. The arrangement of the mural galleries at Bamburgh, which,
owing to the modern alterations of the interior of the tower, is rather
obscure, seems to have been very like that at Dover, with a passage through
the cross-wall between two divided rooms upon the second floor. The
gallery at Hedingham, like that at Rochester, is complete, and this floor,
which is still roofed, is admirably lighted (147). In cases where a mural
chamber served as a garde-robe, as at Guildford, Porchester, and the tower
of the Peak, the outer wall, in which the seat was contained, was slightly
thickened and corbelled out at this level, and a vent made below the seat. At
Kenilworth the north-west turret seems to have been used entirely as a
garde-robe, the lower part of the basement forming a pit for the refuse.191
The garde-robes at Castle Rising are contained in a vaulted chamber in the
west wall of the first floor, the vents opening upon the recesses by which
the outer face of the wall is broken up.

NORHAM: great tower

NEWARK CASTLE
The roof of the tower-keep was of timber with an outer covering of lead,
and was some feet below the level of the encircling rampart-walk on the top
of the outer walls. The rampart-walk had a parapet upon its outer face,
which at regular intervals was lowered to form embrasures. The solid
portions of the parapet were of much greater breadth than the embrasures:
the familiar type of battlemented parapet, in which the embrasures are of
equal width with the solid “cops” or merlons between them, belongs to a
later date. From the rampart-walk stairs led into the summits of the angle
turrets, which were some feet above the level of the parapet. The original
arrangement of the roof can be gathered only from the marks left against the
inside of the walls. In towers with a cross-wall, like Rochester, each of the
divisions was covered, as a general rule, by a roof of more or less high
pitch. A central gutter ran along the top of the cross-wall, and side gutters
along each of the lateral walls, which were drained through spout-holes
made in the outer walls, which carried the rampart-walk. At Porchester,
where, as already noted, the tower was heightened, there was originally a
high-pitched central roof, with lean-to roofs against each of the lateral
walls, and gutters above the centre of each of the two interior chambers.
This curious arrangement seems to suggest that the cross-wall itself was
added when the tower was heightened, and that the gutters originally were
supported by timber struts in the second or attic stage of the tower. When
the tower was raised, a flat roof was planned and possibly laid, and, by a
curious and unique device, for which it is hard to find an adequate reason,
the parapets of the east and west walls were slightly gabled. The present
roof, however, is formed in the usual way, with two gables and central and
side gutters. In towers without a cross-wall, like Ludlow, Newcastle, and
Richmond, the covering was a single high-pitched roof. In any case, the
roof was below the level of the rampart-walk, and was not intended to form
a free field for the defence of the tower: the occupation of the roof of the
tower for purposes of defence was not contemplated until a somewhat later
period than that at which the rectangular tower-keep was in general fashion.
At Rochester, and probably in many other instances, the inner side of the
rampart-walk was protected by a rear-wall, lower than the parapet. The
parapet at Rochester was 2 feet broad and 8 feet high: the rear-wall had a
breadth of 3 feet, and the rampart-walk of 4 feet. A foot of wall was left for
the springing of the roofs and for their side-gutters. The roof at Newcastle

was re-laid in 1240; but here and at Dover the insertion of comparatively
modern vaults makes the original arrangement difficult to trace. The present
roof of Richmond is modern, with a skylight to give light and air to the dark
room on the second floor: the height of the outer walls above the roof
suggests that the original roof was of unusually high pitch or rose above an
intermediate attic. The angle turrets formed elevated platforms, approached
from the rampart-walk by stone stairs. Their elevation afforded a greater
command of the proceedings of the enemy at the foot of the tower; and their
solid construction may sometimes have allowed the defenders to employ
them for stone-throwing engines, without interference with the operations
of the soldiers on the somewhat narrow rampart-walk.
It has already been shown that, if the main object of these towers was
defensive, many of them seem to have been planned with a degree of
comfort which indicates that their builders had an eye to their permanent
use as the principal residence within the enclosure of the castle, and that, in
the towers built during the reign of Henry II., a compromise between their
military and domestic character was effected. It is clear, however, that, in
the cases of Richmond and Ludlow, the converted gatehouse-towers were
planned simply as military strongholds. Their position, in both these
instances, was exposed to direct attack, while the early domestic buildings
occupied a more sheltered position on the further side of the inner ward.
The tower-keep can never have formed a convenient residence, even where,
as at Hedingham, it was well lighted, or, as at Dover, was unusually roomy.
New methods of fortification led to its general disuse, and although, in
certain parts of England, the type persisted upon a small scale until the end
of the middle ages, the period during which the fashion of building
rectangular tower-keeps was pursued was comparatively short.

CHAPTER VII

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: CYLINDRICAL
TOWER-KEEPS
The development of the castle during the twelfth century was governed, as
has been explained, by the methods of attack which its defenders had to
meet. The strong fortresses of the reign of Henry II., with their stone
curtains and rectangular keeps, opposed to the enemy a solid front of
passive strength which defied attack. Sufficiently provisioned, a small
garrison was capable of holding out against a long blockade, and tiring the
patience of the assailants, whose artillery could make but little impression
upon the masonry of the castle. At the same time, the stone castle with the
rectangular tower-keep does not represent a final point in the perfection of
fortification. The early Plantagenet castles were, on the contrary, merely a
departure from the ordinary type of castle, composed of earthwork and
timber, in the direction of an organised system of permanent stone castles.
They belonged to a transitional period; for, even while they were being
built, improvements upon their most striking feature, the rectangular keep,
were suggesting themselves. During the last twenty years of the twelfth
century, lessons learned by the Crusaders from the traditional methods of
fortification employed in the Eastern empire exercised a profound influence
upon the military architecture of France and England; and the application of
these lessons during the thirteenth century entirely altered the defensive
scheme of the castle, until the plan of masterpieces of fortification like
Caerphilly and Harlech presented an entire contrast to the plan of defensive
strongholds like Norham and Scarborough.
The first necessity which had governed the development of fortification
was that of enclosing the defended position so as to present an adequate
barrier to attack. The bailey was surrounded with its palisade; while the
palisaded mount, with its wooden tower, commanded—that is, overlooked
—the operations of the defenders within the bailey, and provided a second
line of defence, if the bailey were taken. As siege-engines increased in

strength, stone-work took the place of stockading. The bailey was encircled
by a stone wall with a certain number of towers on its circumference. It was
sometimes divided into an outer and inner ward by a cross-wall, or, as at
Ludlow (96), a large outer bailey was added to it, which formed a courtyard
for barracks and stabling, and a protection in time of war for dwellers on the
outskirts of the castle and for their flocks. A wall superseded the palisade
round the mount, or a strong tower was built, either in connection with the
mount or on a new site, which commanded the whole enclosure. Thus the
passive strength of the castle was ensured. But stone walls and towers,
however strong, were in themselves an insufficient protection, unless the
defenders could keep themselves fully informed of the movements of the
enemy. It was necessary that they should be able to command the field in
which the besiegers worked, and especially the foot of the wall or tower on
which the attack was concentrated. The battering-ram, the scaling-ladder,
and the mine must be kept under constant observation. A first step towards
this was the establishment of projecting towers along the wall at intervals.
These flank the wall—that is, the outer face of the wall between them can
be overlooked and protected by bodies of men posted upon the projection
on either flank. At first, however, the system of flanking was far from
perfect; and therefore the next step was in the direction of improving it, so
that every portion of the outer surface of the enceinte might be covered by
the fire of the defenders. This improvement, which we are about to trace,
was effected gradually, (1) by a change in the form of the flanking defences
themselves; (2) by their multiplication at more frequent intervals. The first
of these changes begins to be noticeable during the later years of the twelfth
century: the second was brought to pass in the first half of the thirteenth
century, and led to further developments in the arrangement of the lines of
defence.
The rectangular form of the keep and of the towers on the curtain was in
two respects a drawback to the defence of the castle. In the first place, the
salient angles of the masonry were liable to destruction by sap and mine.
The parallel jointing of the stonework made the removal of fragments of
stone by the bore or pick at these points a comparatively easy, if still
laborious, task. In the second place, the angles of a tower or curtain, which
were thus points of danger, were precisely the places which the defenders
were least able to command satisfactorily. Each face of a rectangular tower
commands the field immediately in front of it: the range of shot, from the

point of view of each marksman, is in a direction at right angles to the face
of the tower. Strictly speaking, the foot of the whole curtain and its towers
lies within a “dead angle,” as vertical fire from the rampart is impossible;
but the wooden galleries attached to the rampart obviated this difficulty.
But, if the lines of two adjacent faces of the tower are produced, it will be
seen that the space contained by these is out of the defenders’ range, and
within it miners can work securely, while the main attack is directed against
the faces of the rectangle. One obvious concrete illustration of this is seen at
Rochester. When King John, in 1215, besieged the castle, he directed
against it his stone-throwing engines. Finding that progress by this means
was slow, he set his miners to work. A breach was made in the outer curtain,
and the miners continued their operations on the tower, and eventually, after
much difficulty, broke their way through it.192 We can see to-day that the
south-east angle of the tower has been rebuilt, and that the form of the
reconstructed turret is round, and not square. This, no doubt, marks the
place where the breach was made: the repairs are evidently part of the work
taken in hand by Henry III. in 1225.
A further weak point in the defences of the castle was the insufficient
flanking of the curtain. In the eleventh century, as we have seen, flanking
towers were discouraged by feudal over-lords, who rightly recognised the
danger which a strongly fortified castle, in the hands of rebels, might mean
to themselves. As time went on, stone curtains were provided with towers;
but these were not many in number, and, so long as the rectangular form of
tower continued in fashion, long spaces of straight wall were left between
the projections. The risk of providing too many salient angles was probably
recognised by military engineers. From the flanking towers the adjacent
part of the wall could be covered by the artillery of the defence; but, where
a long interval existed between two towers, the wall mid-way was out of
effective range. To protect these unflanked points in time of siege, a body of
defenders would have to be kept on each spot. A twelfth-century castle,
therefore, to be thoroughly defended, needed a large garrison to cover its
numerous weak points. Any attempt to concentrate the defence upon one
threatened spot might lead to the weakening of the defence at other points,
of which the enemy would not be slow to take advantage.
Added to this was an inherent drawback in the normal plan of the castle.
Its wards and keep provided a system of successive lines of defence, which

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

Château-Gaillard; Plan

The experiences of the earliest Crusaders brought the warriors of the west
face to face with methods of defence far superior to those employed in
England and France. The city-wall of Antioch gave them an example of a
perfect system of flanking defences; and, in the triple enceinte of
Constantinople they saw how successive lines of defence could be used in
co-operation. At Antioch the wall was flanked at frequent intervals by fifty
towers. Each of these, rising above the curtain, commanded not only its
space of intermediate wall, but the rampart-walk as well. The rampart-walk,
moreover, passed through the towers, which were protected by strong doors.
To gain the whole line of wall, therefore, it was necessary to occupy the
towers, each of which could be converted into a separate stronghold,
isolating the intermediate rampart-walk. The siege was badly conducted, the
Crusaders limiting themselves to a strong position between the city and the
Orontes, and allowing the defenders to hold their communications on two
sides of the city open for some five months. Posts of observation were
eventually established on the two neglected sides; but the actual capture of
the city was due to the treachery of one of the commanders of the Turkish
garrison, who admitted a body of Franks into one of the towers in his
charge. They made their way into seven more towers, and so gained access
to the city.193 The three walls of Constantinople surrounded the whole city:
each was higher than the one outside it, so that all three could be used
simultaneously by the defenders.194 Against such a system of concentric
defence, the besiegers were manifestly at a disadvantage.
These lessons from the east, stimulating though they were, did not
produce their full practical effect for some generations in the west. Our
engineers had to pass through a long epoch of gradual experiment before
they could arrive at a finished system of flanking or of concentric lines of
defence. The traditional mount-and-bailey plan provided the foundation of
the plan of the stone castle. The traditional importance of the keep as the
ultimate place of refuge dictated the arrangement of ward behind ward,
culminating in the great tower. Meanwhile, the improvement of flanking
defences led more and more to the concentration of engineering skill upon
the curtain, so that the keep gradually took a place of secondary importance.
As an obvious result of further improvement, the keep was dispensed with,
and the whole attention of the engineer was directed to combining the
defences of the castle into a double or triple line of simultaneous resistance

to attack. These steps took time: the transition from one to the other was
effected by no sudden revolution, but by work along old lines, a work of
revision and improvement, until the finished product formed an almost
complete antithesis to the source from which it was derived.
The earliest signs of transition in England are seen in the strengthening of
the masonry by the reduction and elimination of salient angles. It is obvious
that, if a rounded or polygonal form is given to a projecting tower, or if the
angle of a rectangular tower is rounded off, a wider field will be
commanded by the artillery of the defence. The new range will be a large
segment of a circle radiating from the centre of the tower, instead of a
rectangle in front of each face. The sectors at the angles within which an
attacking party can work securely will be thus eliminated, and the chances
of the success of a mine will be less. The masonry also will offer much
greater resistance to the battering or boring engines of the enemy. The joints
are no longer parallel, but radiating, so that it becomes much harder work to
force out stones and effect a breach. The obtuse angles of polygonal towers,
with the joints of the masonry in the alternate faces running in oblique
directions to each other, have a much greater power of resistance than the
right angles of the ordinary twelfth-century tower.
The general use of circular and polygonal forms is first found in
connection with the principal tower of the castle, the keep. The main object
was at first, no doubt, the greater cohesion imparted to the masonry: the
scientific advantages, from the point of view of artillery, probably were not
realised till later. In France the cylindrical donjon appeared at an earlier date
than in England: that at Château-sur-Epte (Eure) is said to have been begun
in 1097.195 The tower of Houdan (Seine-et-Oise) is a cylinder flanked by
four cylindrical turrets: it was built during the reign of Louis VI. (1108-
37),196 and the form shows that the builders looked, not merely to the
strength of the masonry, but to the reduction of the enemy’s chances of
successful attack. The majority, however, of such donjons in France belong
to the second half of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth,
and were contemporary with our rectangular towers. But the engineers of
Henry II., to whom we owe so many of our stone keeps, were certainly
acquainted with the possible benefits of forms other than square. The keep
of Orford in Suffolk was probably built between 1166 and 1172,197 and is
therefore earlier in date than many rectangular keeps.

Conisbrough; Keep
Internally, it is cylindrical; externally, a polygon of twenty-one sides,
with three very large rectangular turrets projecting from it. It has a
basement and two main floors, and is entered by a two-storied fore-
building, which forms a southward continuation of the eastern turret. The
sloping base of the tower is continued round the turrets, and greatly
strengthens their angles; while the turrets themselves are so placed as to
flank the whole tower and fore-building very effectively, and to provide
additional room in the interior. This combination of the rectangular and
polygonal forms is, for its date, an unique departure from the ordinary type
of English tower-keep. But it must be remembered that the shell-keep on
the mount usually took the form of a cylindrical or polygonal wall
strengthened by buttresses; and at Orford, where the tower appears to stand
upon the base of a levelled mount, we may have a conscious adaptation of

this form to the heavier and loftier tower. At Gisors (Eure) the older donjon
was an octagonal tower, built on a mount, and surrounded by a circular
wall. The tower was probably built by Henry II. between 1161 and 1184,198
within the somewhat earlier shell, and took the form which was best suited
to the artificial soil on which it stood. But there are at least two instances of
English rectangular keeps in which a slight departure from the normal form
was made for obvious purposes of additional strength, without reference to
an artificial site. At Newcastle the north-west turret is octagonal, with very
obtuse angles. In the small tower of Mitford, on the Wansbeck above
Morpeth, the north wall is built with an obtuse salient angle, so that the
tower forms an irregular pentagon. The date of this tower cannot be fixed
with certainty, but it probably belongs to the second half, at any rate, of the
twelfth century; and it can hardly be doubted that the object of this peculiar
device was to give the defenders better command of the angles of the tower
which were exposed to attack from the inner ward.

Conisbrough; Keep. Plans
Somewhat later than these is the noble cylindrical keep of Conisbrough
(166), which is attributed to Hamelin Plantagenet, a natural brother of
Henry II., and husband of Isabel, heiress of William, earl of Surrey.
Hamelin died in 1201: the tower was built, as the architectural details show,
during the last quarter of the twelfth century. It is a regular cylinder; and to
its circumference are applied six bold buttresses, which narrow slightly
outwards, and rise above the parapet in turrets. The whole is built of dressed
stone in large rectangular blocks, the fine condition of which, after more
than seven hundred years, is extraordinary. The construction is unusually

solid: the thickness of the wall in the basement exceeds 20 feet. On the first
floor it is just under 15 feet: in the two upper floors it is reduced by internal
off-sets, until, at the rampart level, 75 to 80 feet above the ground, it is 12½
feet. In addition to this the buttresses, which project 9 feet at the basement
level and 8 feet above, are not used, like the turrets at Orford, to contain
additional rooms, but are built solid. The chapel, however, was formed by
constructing a chamber in the eastern buttress upon the third floor.

Conisbrough; Fireplace
The tower of Conisbrough, like that of Orford, was intended for
residential as well as defensive purposes; but light and comfort were
sacrificed to military necessities. The entrance, as usual, was upon the first
floor, but there is no trace of any fore-building, nor is the original means of
approach at all clear. The basement was simply a domed well-chamber and
store-room: the only approach to it from the first floor was an opening in

the centre of the guard-chamber, over which was probably the windlass by
which buckets were lowered into the well.199 The first floor was a guard-
chamber: there were no windows, and the only means of admitting daylight
was through the open door on the far side of the passage through the wall.
On the right-hand side of this passage, a curved stair mounts through the
thickness of the wall to the second floor, which it enters by a landing in the
embrasure200 of a loop on the north side. This floor was the hall of the keep.
There is a large fireplace (168) in the west wall, with a spreading chimney-
breast, and a lintel of joggled stones resting on triple shafts with carved
capitals. In the wall between the fireplace and the entrance is a rectangular
recess, containing a small sink, which was drained through the wall. There
are two windows, the loop close to the entrance, and a double window
opening to the south-east. The embrasures are barrel-vaulted: that of the
double window has a stone bench on all three sides, and stands three steps
above the floor of the hall. This window was not glazed: the upright
between the two rectangular openings has at the back a rounded projection,
through a hole in which the bolt of the shutters passed, and the fastening
was further secured by a wooden draw-bar. On the north-east side of the
hall a winding passage with two turns and a flight of steps leads through the
thickness of the wall to a garde-robe.
To reach the third floor, the hall had to be crossed to a recess in the
direction of the south-west buttress. From this point a curved staircase
mounted through the wall to the embrasure of a loop in the south-east face
of the third floor. The apartment on this floor contained a smaller fireplace,
immediately above that on the second floor, and treated with similar
architectural ornament. The flue of the lower chimney runs up through the
wall behind that of the other: the common chimney-top projects from the
rampart-walk above. There is also upon this floor a trefoil-headed recess
with a sink. There are two windows, the loop in the south-east face, and a
double opening, similar to that below, looking south. This room
corresponded to the “great chamber,” which is found in the larger houses of
the middle ages. On its east side the chapel, an irregular hexagon, vaulted in
two ribbed bays with a transverse arch between, was constructed in the
eastern wall and buttress. The details of its beautiful capitals, like those of
the fireplaces, show elementary foliage of the water-leaf type, such as is
found in the chapel of the tower at Newcastle (152). Chevron is used in the

stilted transverse arch and round the outside of the arch of the loop at the
east end. The quatrefoil openings north and south of the chancel bay, and
the trefoil-headed piscinae in the same walls, are of an advanced
transitional character; and, by comparing these details, a date approximating
to 1185-90 may with some certainty be given to the tower. In the north wall
of the chapel a doorway leads into a small vestry or priest’s chamber,
lighted by a loop. The stairway to the rampart-walk mounts through the
wall above this chamber, and its head is above the western bay of the
chapel. It is entered from a recess in the north-east wall of the second floor,
and from this recess there is also a zigzag passage to a garde-robe, the seat
of which is corbelled out in the angle between the north-east buttress and
the north wall of the tower. The two lower stairways and the two garde-robe
chambers are each lighted by a small loop.
In the roomier arrangement of the keep at Orford, the stair is a vice in the
turret or buttress to which the fore-building is annexed. The chapel is upon
the first floor of the fore-building, and, being on a level of its own, not
corresponding to the levels of the tower, is approached from the stair by a
separate passage. The entrance to the chapel is a doorway on the left of this
passage, which is continued through the south-east wall of the tower to a
priest’s room in the south turret.
The defensive side of the arrangements at Conisbrough must now be
considered. The tower stands close to the north-east corner of a large bailey,
the shape of which follows that of the knoll on which it is built: the north
segment of the tower, with the two adjacent buttresses, continues the line of
the curtain; but five-sixths of the circumference, with four of the buttresses,
are within the enclosure. On the north and east sides the steepness of the hill
made access nearly impracticable, and the natural point of attack was from
the south and south-west. The position of the keep is at the point furthest
removed from attack, and the capture of the inner ward, as will be seen in a
later chapter, was rendered very difficult by a well-guarded approach.201
The tower stood on higher ground than the rest of the ward, and the
entrance, on the south-east side, was sheltered by the east curtain. The south
and south-west faces were fully exposed to an attack from the inner ward,
and it was on this side, therefore, that the defenders needed full command
of the sides and base of the tower. Accordingly, when we mount to the
rampart-walk, and examine the tops of the buttresses, we find that the two

which are upon the north curtain, and were not exposed to attack, contain
cisterns. The two on either side of the main entrance were not necessary for
flanking purposes, as the entrance itself would be defended by some kind of
platform in time of siege. One, therefore, above the chapel, was employed
as a house for carrier-pigeons; while the other contained an oven, in which
stones and arrows could be heated. The remaining two buttresses are raised
platforms which effectively flanked that part of the circumference which
was otherwise insufficiently guarded, and lay open to catapults and mining
operations. The spreading base of the tower and buttresses served further to
keep the battering-ram and bore from direct contact with the main wall of
the tower, and improved the flanking position of the defenders; while
missiles dropped from the summit upon this talus or sloping surface would
rebound upon the enemy with deadly effect.
Above the talus the solidity of the main wall defied the force of catapults.
These engines, however, had increased in strength and range, and it was no
longer safe to give light to the tower in the somewhat lavish method
adopted by the engineers of some of our large keeps. At Conisbrough, as we
have seen, the walls of the first floor, save for the entrance passage, are
absolutely solid. The loops in the upper floors are very few in number, and
the one on the most exposed face is almost concealed by a buttress. The
double window on the second floor is immediately over the main entrance,
on a side which it would be difficult to command with a large siege-engine.
That on the third floor is placed upon an exposed face, but would probably
be out of range.202 The garde-robe vents are on the side where the tower
crosses the line of the curtain.
In time of siege the larger windows would be shuttered and barred. The
defence would be conducted from the top of the tower, while a body of the
garrison would be told off to protect the main entrance. The whole summit
would be utilised. The defence was not confined, as in a rectangular keep,
to the rampart-walk; but there was a rear-wall to the walk, through which
openings probably gave access to a covered round-house above the third
floor. To this room, which, to judge from contemporary instances, had a
conical roof, arms and missiles could be hauled up, through trap-doors in
the floors below, from the guard-room and the store-chamber in the
basement. There was no vaulted roof in the tower above the basement, so
that the flat roof could not be used as a platform for catapults. There is no

indication that hoarding was employed outside the rampart. The tower and
its buttresses were finished off with a battlemented parapet in the usual
way; the buttresses, as has been shown, were so constructed and so near
together that additional wooden defences were practically unnecessary.

Etampes; Donjon. Plan

GOODRICH CASTLE: round tower with spur at base

GOODRICH CASTLE: buttery hatches
In France the treatment of the donjon was pursued with more variation
than in England. To the middle of the twelfth century belongs, for instance,
the donjon of Etampes (Seine-et-Oise), which takes the form of a quatrefoil
(172). The donjon of Provins (Seine-et-Marne) is of much the same date,
the ground-plan forming an octagon flanked by four cylindrical turrets.
Although both these towers have analogies in England, they were
constructed nevertheless by French engineers at a period before even the
rectangular tower had become common with ours.203 They are also only
two out of many diverse experiments. The cylindrical form, however,

commended itself to the builders of the finest French examples. Château-
Gaillard (163) follows closely upon Conisbrough in point of date, having
been begun by Richard I. in 1196. The donjon is not, as at Conisbrough, a
tower to which the line of a somewhat earlier curtain has been adapted, but
is part of a homogeneous scheme of fortification. The site of the castle is
the top of a very steep and almost isolated hill on the right bank of the
Seine: the west slope is a precipice, and the only practicable attack could be
made from the ridge joining the hill to the high ground on the south. The
donjon is set so that its west face projects from the curtain of the inner
ward, upon the very edge of the precipice. The interior forms a regular
cylinder, and the west face is a segment of a circle. On this side the solidity
of the masonry is increased by a tremendous outward slope or batter, the
whole height of the basement and adjacent curtain. Towards the inner ward,
however, the cylinder is strengthened by a covering spur, also battered, so
that, while the interior of the castle was commanded from the rampart, the
tower offered to the besiegers an angle of immense thickness and strength,
immediately opposite the gateway of the inner ward. A possible prototype
in France of this form of defence is the donjon of La-Roche-Guyon (Seine-
et-Oise), higher up the Seine, where the spur covers about a quarter of the
circumference of the tower. Philip Augustus adopted the same device a few
years later in the White tower at Issoudun (Indre).204 It is seen at Goodrich
(174), Chepstow, and elsewhere.

Château-Gaillard
As the upper portion of the tower of Château-Gaillard is gone, its internal
arrangements are difficult to decipher. It was purely a tower of defence; but
the inaccessible nature of the west side allowed of large windows being
made in that face upon the first floor. There was probably a low second
floor, above which was the roof and rampart-walk. The rampart was
defended with the aid of a device, unusual at the time, although very
general at a later period. The sides of the tower within the ward were
furnished with narrow buttress projections above the battering base, which
gradually increased in breadth as they went higher. These divided the face
of the tower into a series of recesses spanned by low arches, on the outer
face of which the parapet was carried. The top of each recess, between the
parapet and the wall, was left open, so that the defenders could use the
holes for raining down missiles upon their opponents. Such holes, formed

by corbelling out a parapet in advance of a wall or tower, are called
machicolations (mâchicoulis),205 and gradually superseded the external
gallery of timber. Holes in stone roofs for the same purpose are found at an
earlier date, as in the fore-building at Scarborough; and, as early as 1160,
they appear in connection with the parapet of a donjon at Niort (Deux-
Sèvres).206 The general tradition is that they were invented by the Crusaders
in Syria, where wood for hoarding was not easily obtained; and this is
probably true.207 They appear in a state of perfection, which testifies to a
long course of previous experiment, at the great Syrian castle of Le Krak
des Chevaliers (176), begun in 1202. But hoarding continued in use in
Europe long after the building of Château-Gaillard, and even the donjon of
Coucy (Aisne), by far the finest of all cylindrical donjons, was garnished
with timber hoarding carried on stone corbels—an interesting example of
the transition from one form of defence to another.

Le Krak des Chevaliers

Coucy
The cylindrical form of donjon was brought to perfection in France under
Philip Augustus (1180-1223). At Gisors, which came into his hands in 1193,
he built a new circular tower on the line of the curtain, which superseded
Henry II.’s octagonal tower on the mount. His fortification of Gisors led
directly to the building of Château-Gaillard by Richard I., to cover the
approach from French territory to Rouen.208 But in 1204 the capture of this
great stronghold delivered Rouen into Philip’s hands; and in 1207 he built
the donjon, now known as the Tour Jeanne d’Arc, at Rouen. Here we meet
with the tower vaulted from basement to roof, with a strongly defended
entrance at the level of the ward in which it stands, of which the most
perfect example is found at Coucy.209 Coucy, the work of a powerful vassal
of the crown of France, represents a degree of scientific fortification to
which none of our cylindrical donjons attains. The castle was constructed,

like Conway at a later period, in connection with the defences of a walled
town.210 It consists of two wards, a large outer ward or base-court and an
inner ward of irregular shape, with four straight sides of unequal length and
round towers at the angles. In the middle of the east side, between the two
wards, is the donjon (177), a cylinder of some 200 feet high—90 feet higher
than the tower of Rochester. It stands isolated from the curtain of the inner
ward, from the line of which about one-third of its circumference projects,
and is surrounded by a ditch, originally paved with stone. To this ditch there
was no external access. On the outer edge of the ditch, joining the east
curtain of the inner ward at two points, was a strong wall or chemise.
Outside this was the ditch dividing the inner ward from the base-court.
Within the inner ward, a low wall took the place of the chemise of the
donjon, and access to the tower was provided by a bridge across the stone-
flagged ditch. The bridge was worked by a windlass, and, when not in use,
remained drawn up on the threshold of the tower.
The donjon of Coucy is built in three stages, and has a large apartment,
originally vaulted, on each floor. There is no basement chamber below the
level of the entrance. In order to facilitate vaulting the various floors, each
chamber was planned with twelve sides, lofty niches being left between the
abutments of the vault.211 Without giving a detailed description, we may
notice the points in which this great structure resembles and improves upon
the tower of Conisbrough. (1) The isolation of the tower, defended by its
own ditch and, towards the field, by its own curtain, makes an entrance on
the ground floor possible. In this respect, the builders of Coucy followed
the example of Philip Augustus at the Louvre and at Rouen. (2) The
defences of the entrance are more elaborate than at Conisbrough, where the
doorway was closed merely by a strong wooden door, reinforced by two
draw-bars, and a straight passage led into the guard-room on the first floor.
At Coucy there was a similar door, but in front of it was an iron portcullis,
worked from the first floor of the tower, and sliding through grooves at the
back of the jambs of the doorway. The portcullis was defended further by a
machicolation or open groove in the floor above. The entrance passage
behind the wooden door was closed by a hinged grille at the entrance to the
guard-room. (3) The stair, as at Conisbrough, was on the right of the
entrance passage, but, instead of following the curve of the wall, was a vice,
which led straight to the roof, communicating with the two upper floors on

the way. The device adopted at Conisbrough, by which the stair ends at
each floor, and, in order to ascend further, the floor has to be crossed, was
adopted in the lesser towers at Coucy,212 but not in the donjon. The
Conisbrough method has the advantage, very desirable in a tower, of
keeping the approach to the roof under direct observation throughout its
entire distance: we find it used in the stairs of the rectangular keep at
Richmond. (4) The tower of Coucy, as already noticed, was defended by a
lofty parapet, pierced with arches, which, in time of siege, gave access to an
outer wooden gallery supported by stone corbels.213 The form of the corbels
is that which became general in later times: each is composed of four
courses of stone projecting one above the other, with their outer ends
rounded. (5) The well at Coucy was in one of the niches between the
abutments of the ground-floor vault. (6) There are garde-robes at Coucy on
the left of the entrance-passage, and in a similar position at the entry to the
first floor. (7) We have seen that at Conisbrough arms were probably
transported from the basement to the roof through a series of trap-doors in
the floors. At Coucy there was a circular opening left for this purpose in the
crown of the vault of each floor. (8) The solidity of the tower of Coucy is
emphasised by the absence of large windows, even more noticeable than at
Conisbrough; and, although the tower contains fireplaces, its purely
defensive character is unmistakable. It provided accommodation for an
enormous garrison, but for residential purposes, it would have been
uncomfortable to the last degree. It contains no trace of a permanent chapel:
when the tower was in use, an altar might have been set up in one of the
niches on the first floor; but the regular chapel was in the inner ward, and
was connected with the domestic buildings.
In the walls of the tower of Coucy can still be seen the holes which
served to attach the scaffolding during construction. The spiral course
which they take shows that the scaffolding, rising with the tower, formed an
inclined plane of a moderate slope, up which the necessary materials could
be wheeled. The advantage of a cylindrical tower from this point of view is
obvious. Another structural feature is the provision of gutters for the
drainage of the roof in the stonework at the back of the vault-ribs of the
second floor. The absence of any effective provision for draining the centre
of the roof at Conisbrough points to the probability that it was sheltered, as
already explained, by a conical roof of its own.

Pembroke
The introduction of the cylindrical donjon in England coincides with a
period at which the keep was already beginning to disappear from the
castle. The principal examples, which may be attributed to the early years of
the thirteenth century, are on the frontier and in the south of Wales. Chief
among them is the fine tower of Pembroke (180), which was probably built
by William Marshal, earl of Pembroke and Striguil, about 1200. The castle
of Pembroke was of great importance, owing to its situation upon an arm of
Milford haven,214 and its command of the passage to Ireland. The keep was
probably the first completed portion of the present castle, the stone-work of
which, as it stands to-day, is very largely of the late twelfth and early
thirteenth century.215 It is a round tower, with a basement and three upper
floors, standing just within, but not touching, the curtain which divided the
inner and higher from the outer ward. The height is 75 feet; the floors were

of wood, but the uppermost stage was vaulted by a dome, which still
remains, rising in the centre of the tower above the rampart-walk. The stair
is a vice in the west wall, from the basement to the summit: the main
entrance was upon the first floor, but there is also a basement entrance,
which seems to have been pierced not long after the building of the tower.
The whole structure batters upwards, and the walls are slightly gathered in
at each stage on the outside, a method the reverse of that pursued at
Conisbrough: the masonry is roughly coursed rubble. On each of the first
and second floors there is, towards the inner ward, a two-light window with
pointed openings, the spandrils between which and the enclosing arch are
pierced with plate tracery. The third floor was lighted by windows pierced
in the dome.216 Commanding, as it does, the whole interior of the castle,
this tower is remarkably grand in situation; and its thick walls offered
considerable resistance to artillery. It shows, however, no advance upon the
defence of Conisbrough. The rampart-walk is narrow, and the dome in the
centre prevented the employment of the roof as a platform.

Pembroke; Plan
The cylindrical donjon in England and Wales was simply an experiment
attempted here and there, as an improvement upon the rectangular tower,
but was never carried to the general perfection which it attained in France.
Its isolation at Coucy, upon the outer face of the inner ward, protected by its
own inner ditch, and covered by a strong curtain of its own, are signs of a
perfection of engineering skill to which our builders did not attain. In one
case, at Flint, we find a round tower which is isolated within its own ditch
at one corner of the castle, but stands outside the main wall, and had no
separate curtain of its own.217 The plan strongly suggests a mount-and-
bailey fortress, the isolated tower occupying the site of the mount, and the
bailey walled in, leaving the moat, which was marshy and was filled with
water at high tide, clear. The construction of this keep is peculiar: it is
composed of an outer and inner circle of masonry, with barrel-vaulted

passages between the two. Its actual date is unknown.218 But, as a rule,
where the keep stands upon the outer line of defence, it is joined by the
curtain of the bailey. Thus at Caldicot, near Chepstow, the castle is simply a
mount-and-bailey enclosure surrounded by a stone curtain of the thirteenth
century. The keep is a round tower at one corner, standing upon the partially
levelled mount; and the curtain crosses the ditch to join it on both sides. At
Conisbrough, where the keep was on the line of the curtain; at Pembroke,
where it stood just within the line, there was no ditch round it: the high
ground on which it was placed seems to have been thought a sufficient
protection.
There are, however, a few round towers which, although they have not
their own curtain in the sense of Coucy, are yet within defences of a
peculiar nature, and therefore stand in a class apart. The most remarkable of
these is Launceston, where the tower stands upon the summit of a lofty
artificial mount of early Norman origin, and is approached by a steep and
well-defended stair, ascending the face of the mount to the main entrance.
Round the outer edge of the mount remain the lower courses of a stone
wall, concentric with the keep. Within this is another and higher circular
wall, which was crowned by a rampart-walk, approached by a stair in the
thickness of the wall, to the left of the entrance. Inside this enclosure is the
tower itself, which now consists of a basement and a ruined upper floor.
The narrow space between the tower and the encircling wall was evidently
roofed over at the height of the first floor of the tower: holes for joists still
remain.219 This double circle of masonry recalls Flint, where, however, the
intermediate passage was vaulted, and the outer circle was probably the
whole height of the tower.220 Flint does not possess the low outer wall
which existed at Launceston. The nearest analogy to Launceston is at
Provins (Seine-et-Marne), where the octagonal keep has its own outer
curtain, and is composed of an outer octagon with cylindrical turrets at the
angles, commanded by an inner octagon rising two stages higher. The upper
stage at Provins is surrounded by a lofty crenellated wall, on which rests a
conical roof.

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

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

Dolbadarn; Interior
One feature of the tower of Bronllys is that, like that of Caldicot, it stands
upon an artificial mount, which occupies the ordinary position of such
earthworks, at the head of the enclosure. The more roomy, but lower, tower
at Hawarden, the upper floor of which is internally an octagon, almost
surrounded by a mural passage, is built upon a lofty mount. At Skenfrith in
Monmouthshire the tower, nearly equal to Bronllys in diameter, but not
higher than Hawarden, stands upon a very low mount, and is placed in an
isolated position, nearly in the centre of a trapezoidal enclosure. Here the
lowness of the mount and the absence of indications of a normal earthwork
plan suggest that it was raised to strengthen the foundations of the tower,
and is not the mount of an earlier castle. The knoll, on the other hand, on
which the round tower of Dolbadarn (183) stands, between the two lakes at
the foot of the pass of Llanberis, is natural. The details of this tower are

very plain, but it was probably built during the thirteenth century. There is
no trace of any castle in connection with this small military outpost, which,
like the not far-distant rectangular keep of Dolwyddelan, on the eastern
slopes of Moel Siabod, bears some analogy to the “pele-towers” of the
north of England, and may have been built by a Welsh chieftain upon an
English model during the reign of Henry III.

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

Berkeley Castle; Plan
Of donjons which were built in England during the reign of Henry III.,
the most interesting, by virtue of their plan, are those of York and
Pontefract. The tower of York (185), raised upon the mount of the northern
of the two castles, was built possibly about 1230, and assumed the
quatrefoil shape which is found in France at Etampes. This keep,
presumably because it is built on a mount, is usually called a “shell”; it was,
however, a regular tower, and the entrance, in the angle between two of the
leaves of the quatrefoil, is guarded by a rectangular fore-building, on the
first floor of which was the chapel. As at Etampes, the quatrefoil plan is
preserved internally, but the angles formed by the meeting of the four
segments are chamfered off: there was no vaulting, as at Etampes, but the
floors were of wood. A quatrefoil plan was also adopted at Pontefract, with
some slight variation, owing to the irregular shape of the rocky mount. This
keep is in a state of complete ruin, although some idea of its former shape
may be gathered from a bird’s-eye view preserved among the records of the
duchy of Lancaster.221 We can see, from what is left, that it was not built
upon the top of the mount; but that, on three sides, the mount was enclosed

by walls of revetment,222 which formed the base of the segments
composing the quatrefoil. This process recalls the walling-in of the mount at
Berkeley, where, however, the lower part of the mount was left, and the
space between the slope and the wall filled in with earth. At Pontefract the
slope of the mount must have been much reduced before the walls of
revetment were added: the sandstone upon which the castle was built is soft,
and would lend itself easily to such an operation.
The bird’s-eye view of Pontefract just mentioned cannot be regarded as
absolutely trustworthy, but it gives us the relative position of the various
towers of the castle. It shows us a curtain flanked by a formidable row of
mural towers; the keep, a complicated erection of several segments, with
bartizans223 projecting from the battlements in the angles formed by the
junction of the segments, is still the dominant feature of the castle; but our
attention is equally claimed by the defences of the curtain and the domestic
buildings which it encloses. And, in pursuing our subject, we must first
trace the growth of domestic buildings within the castle area, and then turn
to that strengthening of the curtain which led eventually to the disuse of the
keep.

CHAPTER VIII

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

Hampshire (123), the dwelling-house next the river and the tower on the
mount appear to be almost contemporary.
Castles which, for reasons already explained, were surrounded from the
beginning with a stone wall, and had at first no regular keep, contain even
better examples of the existence of a separate hall. The eleventh-century
hall at Richmond is almost perfect, although some additions, made nearly a
century later to the upper part of the structure, have led to the mistaken
attribution of a later date to the whole building.225 At Ludlow, mingled with
the fabric of the fourteenth-century hall, are clear indications of the earlier
stone hall, built, as at Richmond, against the curtain on the least accessible
side of the inner ward. The fabric of the great hall at Chepstow, much
enriched and beautified in the thirteenth century, is contemporary with the
foundation of the castle in the eleventh century. Part, at any rate, of the
substructure of the hall at Newark belongs to the castle founded in the
twelfth century by Bishop Alexander, although the whole building on that
side of the enclosure, with the exception of an angle-tower, bears witness to
reconstruction and repair at two later periods. At Porchester, again, the
substructure of the hall contains a considerable amount of early Norman
work, which may be attributed to the time of Henry I.
The situation and plan of the hall remained very much the same
throughout the middle ages. What we find at Richmond, Ludlow, Chepstow,
or Durham, we find also at Manorbier, Caerphilly, Harlech, and Carnarvon,
at Warwick and at Naworth. The domestic buildings were placed against the
curtain on one side or at an end of the inner ward, and preferably where a
precipice or steep slope made the assault of the curtain on that side difficult
or impossible. This position is well illustrated in the fortified thirteenth-
century house of Aydon in Northumberland. Here there was, on the side of
entrance, a large walled outer ward, or, as it was called in the north of
England, a “barmkin.”226 The house was built round two sides of a walled
inner courtyard, the hall and main apartments standing on the brink of a
deep ravine, where they were safe from approach or from the peril of siege-
engines. The curtain was therefore pierced with window-openings of a
fairly large size, which gave the house more light and comfort internally
than would have been possible upon a more exposed face of the site. The
hall at Warkworth (49) was built against a solid curtain upon the steepest
side of the peninsula occupied by the castle, and, although there were no

window-openings in the curtain at the level of the hall, it was pierced by a
postern, through which the kitchen could be supplied, at the end nearest the
tower. Castles on comparatively level sites show the same disposition. At
Cardiff (191), the domestic buildings are on the west side of the enclosure,
built against the curtain, and protected by the river, and bear the same
relation in the plan to the main entrance and the shell-keep on the mount, as
the hall at Warkworth bears to the gateway and the mount with its later
strong house.227

Cardiff Castle; Plan

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

The division of the first floor into a larger and smaller apartment
corresponds to the division of the ordinary dwelling-house into hall or
common-room of the house, and bower or withdrawing-room and sleeping
apartment for the chief members of the family.229 In the developed plan of
the medieval private house, the small vaults below the bower became the
cellar, and, as at Manorbier, a vice was provided by which wine could be
brought directly from it to the high table. The bower or solar230 itself was
known in large houses as the great chamber, and access to it was obtained
through a door near one end of the cross-wall behind the daïs. There was,
however, a variation upon this plan in which the hall and bower are on a
different floor-level, and this appears at a fairly early date. In this case the
hall occupied the whole height of the basement and first floor, and was
entered from the ground-level of the bailey: the cellar, in this case, was on a
level with the floor of the hall, and the solar was reached from the daïs by a
stair. This plan became very common in the later Gothic period; and is well
illustrated in manor-houses like Haddon and Compton Wyniates, and in the
colleges of Cambridge, where the common-room or parlour took the place
of the cellar, and the solar was occupied by the master’s lodging. But it is
also found in castles and fortified houses, as at Berkeley and Stokesay. An
indication of its employment at a date not long after the Norman conquest is
found in the story of the insult offered to Robert of Normandy by William
Rufus and Henry I. They came to visit him, about the year 1078, at the
castle of L’Aigle, where he was staying, either in the constable’s house or
some dwelling near the castle. William and Henry played dice “upon the
solar,” and indulged in horseplay, which took the form of making a
deafening noise, and pouring water on Robert and his followers, who were
below. Robert lost his temper, and rushed into the dining-hall (cenaculum)
to punish his brothers: the quarrel, stopped for the time being by their
father, was the beginning of the long feud which ended for Robert in his
confinement at Cardiff. The mention of the “solar” distinctly implies a room
upon the upper floor, probably at some elevation above the hall.231
This alternative plan supplied more direct communication with the
kitchen than was possible, where the hall was upon an upper floor; and in
connection with it, a kitchen and its accompanying offices are very
frequently found at the lower end, near the entry of the hall. This became, in
manor-houses and in the colleges of Cambridge, the normal position of the

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

ludlow: interior of building west of great hall

At Warkworth (49), probably a little before 1200, a house of considerable
extent, including more than one private apartment and a kitchen, was built
against, and at the same time with the, west curtain.232 Up to this time, the
castle had been an ordinary mount-and-bailey stronghold with timber
defences, and no earlier stonework remains. The new house was much
beautified by additions made in the fifteenth century, but the plan was little
altered. Its central part was the hall, parallel with the curtain which it
joined. The entrance was in the side wall next the bailey, and led, as usual,
into the lower end of the hall, which occupied the full height of the house,

and thus formed the only internal means of communication between the
lord’s and the servants’ quarters. An unusual feature of the hall, which
cannot have been well lighted, was an eastern aisle, over which the sloping
roof was probably continued. At the upper end, behind the daïs, the cellar
was entered directly from the hall: a straight stair next the curtain gave
access to a landing, from which a doorway gave access to the great
chamber. The great chamber communicated with a polygonal angle tower,
called by the curious name of “Cradyfargus,”233 the first floor of which,
next the great chamber, may have been the chamber of the master of the
house, while the upper floor was probably used by the ladies. Nearly at
right angles to the great chamber, against the south curtain, was a chapel, of
which enough remains to show us that the ground-floor, entered from the
bailey, was used by the servants and garrison: while the west end was
divided into two stories, the upper one of which was entered from the
private apartments, and was a gallery for the use of the lord and his family.
It is difficult to speak positively of the arrangements of the kitchen, which
stood against the west curtain at the other end of the hall. It may originally,
like the kitchen at Berkeley, have had no direct communication with the
hall: the passage and offices between, in their present state of ruin, are
fifteenth-century additions or reconstructions. But all the elements of the
larger English house are here. The chief alterations in the fifteenth century
were the building of a porch and gateway-tower in front of the hall
entrance, and the insertion of a lofty turret, with a vice and vaulted vestibule
to the great chamber, to the north-eastern angle of the hall, where it blocks
the last bay of the aisle.
An aisled hall, as at Warkworth, was a very exceptional feature. There
are, however, a few existing examples of a hall with a nave and two aisles,
the most famous of which is the thirteenth-century hall at Winchester. The
midland castles of Leicester and Oakham also had aisled halls: that at
Leicester was divided by arcades of timber, and still exists, although many
of its original features, including the timber columns, have been removed or
obscured. The hall at Oakham has been more fortunate. This castle, upon a
flat site which had no strategic advantages, was really an aula or manor-
house, enclosed by a strong earthen bank, and was probably not surrounded
by a wall until the thirteenth century. Within this enclosure Walkelin de
Ferrers, towards the end of the twelfth century, built an aisled hall of four
bays, the architectural details of which are of unusual beauty, and of great

importance in the history of early Gothic art in England. The building runs
east and west, the original entrance, from the ground-level of the bailey,
being, as usual, in the last bay of a side-wall, in this case the easternmost
bay of the south wall.234 The daïs was at the west end; and two doors,
which probably communicated with the kitchen and buttery, remain in the
east wall. The aisles would doubtless be kept clear of tables, to facilitate the
service from the kitchen.235 At either end of the building, the arcades
spring, not from responds, but from corbels. Semicircular responds would
have interfered with the benches behind the high table, and with the free
passage of the servants between the kitchen and the aisles.236 The columns
are slender cylinders of Clipsham stone: the capitals are tall, and carved
with a great variety of stiff-stalk foliage, with which are mingled bands of
nail-head and dog-tooth. The arches are rounded: dog-tooth is used in the
hood-mouldings, which rest upon figure-corbels. The classical character of
the foliage, and the refined sculpture of the figures and heads in the corbels
throughout the hall, have analogies in one or two other buildings of the
district: they recall very closely the early Gothic work of the Burgundian
province, and its English derivatives at Canterbury and Chichester. Nothing,
however, is known of the masons employed; and the fabric has no
documentary history. In the low side-walls are double window-openings,
each with a sculptured tympanum beneath an enclosing arch: the pier
dividing each of the windows is faced with a shaft, and the jambs are
adorned with elaborate dog-tooth. These windows may be compared with
those of the aisled hall of the episcopal palace at Lincoln, built about a
quarter of a century later, where the arcades at both ends sprang from
corbels. A close parallel to the arrangements of the hall at Oakham is
provided by the contemporary hall, built by Bishop Pudsey at Auckland
castle, near Durham. Here, again, the so-called castle was simply an aula
without the strong earthworks which give Oakham a military character. The
proportions of the Auckland hall are larger, and its architecture more
simple, but with even more advanced Gothic characteristics. At the end of
the thirteenth century, considerable alterations were made in the structure,
and at the Restoration the hall was converted by Bishop Cosin into a
chapel.237 This involved the blocking up of the original entrance, the
position of which exactly corresponded to that of Oakham. A new doorway
was made in the west wall, and the bay which originally was set apart for
the daïs was converted into an ante-chapel. In neither case do any other

contemporary buildings remain: the mansion at Auckland, on the west side
of the old hall, is a building of several periods, of which the earliest existing
portion is not earlier than the reign of Henry VII.

DURHAM CASTLE
HISTORICAL GROUND PLAN
Hugh Pudsey (1153-95), the prelate responsible for the hall at Auckland,
did much to increase the splendour of the episcopal castle at Durham (199).
Durham castle is an excellent example of a mount-and-bailey fortress on a
strong triangular site, with precipitous natural defences on the north and
west. The entrance was on the one accessible side, from the plateau on
which the cathedral and monastery stood. At the apex of the site, on the
right of the entrance, was the mount, with a shell-keep on its summit; while
to the left, along the west side of the bailey, was the original hall. The
eleventh-century chapel was on the north side of the bailey, nearly opposite
the entrance. Pudsey’s chief work was the construction of a long building of
three stories in connection with the north curtain. The eastern part of the
basement was formed by the early chapel; the rest was probably devoted to
store-rooms and cellars. On the first floor was a great hall, entered by a
doorway (201) which may fairly be called the most magnificent example of

late Norman Romanesque art in England. Above this, on the second floor,
approached by a vice in the south-east corner, was another hall, known as
the Constable’s hall, and to-day as the Norman gallery. The walls of this
upper structure were lightened by their construction as a continuous arcade,
the arches forming frames to window-openings, and the piers between them
being faced with detached shafts in couples (203). The internal
arrangements of this building are now much obscured by the partition of the
lower hall into several large rooms; while the south part of the upper hall
has been cut up by smaller partitions. Early in the sixteenth century a new
chapel was built on the east side of the lower hall, and against the south
wall of the basement and first floor was made a stone gallery of two stories.
The outer stair to the lower hall was then taken away; but Bishop Pudsey’s
doorway was left, and light was thrown upon it by a large mullioned
window in the outer wall of the gallery.238

Durham Castle; Doorway
Meanwhile, about the end of the thirteenth century, Bishop Bek, who also
improved upon Pudsey’s work at Auckland, raised against the west curtain,
and upon the substructure of the early hall, the great banqueting-hall, which
is now used as the dining-hall of University college. This hall, again, has
inevitably been much altered, but its actual plan and arrangements are very
fairly maintained to-day, and the long two-light windows with simple
geometrical tracery in the side walls represent, with some restoration of
stone-work, its original lighting. The entrance, up a flight of stairs and
through a porch added by Bishop Cosin, is in the south end of the east wall,

and leads into screens roofed by a gallery, on the south of which are the
kitchen and servants’ offices. A doorway in the east wall led from the daïs
to the bishop’s private rooms; but at this end the older arrangements were
altered by the construction of Tunstall’s gallery in the sixteenth century,
and, later, still, by the addition of Cosin’s splendid Renaissance staircase—
alterations which provided covered access from Bek’s hall to Pudsey’s
building at right angles to it. The buildings just described are some of the
most beautiful and instructive remains of domestic architecture in England,
and have no military characteristics. The strength of the castle, however,
was not forgotten. No English castle, even when Bamburgh and Richmond
are remembered, presents a more formidable defence than the curtain,
pierced by a few spare openings and by the narrow western windows of
Bek’s hall, which revets and crowns the cliff above the Wear; while, in the
fourteenth century, Bishop Hatfield (1345-81) replaced the older keep by a
new and probably more lofty polygonal shell.
At Durham the buildings of Pudsey and Bek alike stand upon basements,
which were used as cellars and store-rooms; and the preference for first-
floor halls in castles was doubtless due to the necessity of providing plenty
of room for magazines, both for provisions and arms, within a confined
space, and keeping the muster-ground in the centre of the bailey as clear as
possible. At Newark (157), where the ground fell away towards the river,
the hall was built on the slope, and was entered from the level of the bailey,
the slope being utilised for the construction of a large vaulted basement,
lighted by loops from the river side, and communicating with the water by a
sloping passage and a gateway opening on a small quay. The use of every
available space for storage is illustrated at Carew castle in Pembrokeshire,
where the whole space beneath the lesser hall and its adjacent buildings is
occupied by cellars, while the basement of the greater hall, on the opposite
side of the courtyard, appears to have been used as stables. At Pembroke a
large natural cavern below the hall and its adjacent buildings was turned to
use as a lower store-house. A vice was constructed in the rock from a
ground-floor chamber north of the hall, and the mouth of the cavern was
closed by a wall, in which was a gateway, opening upon a path from the
water-side.

DURHAM: arcading on south side of Constable’s hall
If Henry II. may be given the chief credit for the construction of
rectangular keeps in castles, Henry III. was almost as active in building
halls. The finest example of his work now remaining is at Winchester. At
the Tower of London, at Scarborough, and at Newcastle, the name alone of
his halls, rectangular buildings with high-pitched roofs, remains. But, in and
after his reign, the hall and the adjacent domestic buildings became a fixed
feature of the plan of the castle. In castles which, up to this time, may have
possessed small and inconvenient halls, or possibly halls built merely of
timber, new and more permanent domestic buildings were constructed.

Thus, at Rockingham castle, the beautiful doorway of the thirteenth-century
hall (205), with deeply undercut mouldings and jamb-shafts with foliated
capitals, still forms the entrance to the house of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the hall of which is probably of the exact dimensions
of its medieval predecessor.239 In castles which are the most perfect
examples of fortification, such as Caerphilly or Conway, the hall forms an
integral part of the plan, filling its natural place in the design; and of these,
Caerphilly was completed about the end of the reign of Henry III. The
enthusiasm of Henry for fine architecture, domestic as well as
ecclesiastical, was imitated by many of his powerful subjects; and it is
actually from this period that we may trace that prominence of the domestic
element in our castles which was eventually cultivated at the expense of
fortification.

Rockingham Castle; Doorway of hall

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

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

Stokesay

Manorbier Castle; Outer stair to Chapel
Manorbier castle contains an interesting example of the enlargement of
domestic buildings, with a solar block at either end of the hall. The castle
stands on rising ground in a deep valley, about half a mile from the sea. The
inner ward or castle proper is surrounded by a curtain, with a gatehouse in
the east wall. The dwelling-house is upon the west side of the ward, at the
end opposite the main entrance, and consists of two distinct portions. The
earlier consists of a first-floor hall and great chamber above cellars. There
was a floor above the great chamber, probably forming a bower for the
ladies of the household, the hall corresponding in height to these two upper
stages. The present entrance to the hall is in the side wall at the end next the
great chamber, and was probably made, with the outer stair against the wall,
in the thirteenth century. The hall itself with its adjacent buildings appears
to be originally of the later part of the twelfth century: the cellars below

have semicircular barrel vaults. In the second half of the thirteenth century a
new block of buildings was made at the opposite or south end of the hall. It
was now probably that the new entrance was made. The position of the daïs
seems to have been reversed, and a window in the south end-wall of the hall
blocked by a fireplace. Behind this wall, and entered by a doorway in its
west end, was the new great chamber, a long, narrow building, with its
principal axis at right angles to that of the hall, and with a floor above. At
each end of the south wall of this apartment is a passage. That at the west
end passes along the line of the curtain to a garde-robe tower which projects
at the south-west angle of the castle: the passage is still roofed with flat
slabs on continuous corbelling, and is well lighted by loops in the curtain.
The other passage, at the south-east corner of the great chamber, forms a
lobby to a large chapel, which was built across the south-west angle of the
ward, so that a small triangular yard was left between it and the curtain.
There is a separate outer stair to the chapel (208), placed, like the stair to
the hall, at right angles to the wall. The whole group of buildings, with its
two outer stairs, is unexcelled for picturesqueness in any castle.
The kitchen at Manorbier was placed, at any rate when the thirteenth-
century alterations were undertaken (probably about 1260), at right angles
to the hall and older great chamber, against the north curtain. Owing to the
confinement of the space within the curtain, and the growing necessity of
private accommodation, the position of the kitchen was not fixed so
regularly in the castle as in the ordinary dwelling-house. At Berkeley (186),
where the hall was built against the east curtain of the inner ward, the
kitchen is a polygonal building, divided from the screens by a buttery, and
occupying a more or less normal place in the plan. At Warkworth (49), as
we have noticed, the kitchen is in its proper place, near the entrance end of
the hall, but may have been at first a separate structure. The original
position of the kitchen at Cardiff (191) seems to have conformed to this
plan. The desirability of placing the kitchen within easy reach of the hall is
obvious. At Kenilworth, where the magnificent hall, built towards the end
of the fourteenth century, occupies the whole north side of the inner ward,
and is on a first floor above a vaulted cellar, the private apartments formed a
wing against the west curtain of the ward, while the kitchen was against the
east curtain, and was within easy reach of the stair to the hall, and the
passage below it which led into the cellar. The kitchen at Ludlow (106) was
a separate building, opposite the entrance to the hall and the western solar

block, and placed against the north outer wall of the small courtyard which
covers the keep. In the two great Edwardian castles of Conway and
Carnarvon, where the halls were large and the space limited, the kitchens
were built against the curtain opposite the hall.241
The chapel was also a variable factor in the plan. It has already been
remarked that, in some early castles, the chapel was a collegiate church,
standing separately within the precincts of the castle, and sometimes, as at
Hastings, filling up, with the houses of the dean and canons or their
deputies, a very considerable part of the enclosure. Indeed, nearly all the
ruins left within the curtain at Hastings are those of the large cruciform
church and the buildings in connection with it. At Ludlow the Norman
chapel was a detached building in the inner ward (106). This was the private
chapel of the lord of the castle, and in the sixteenth century was joined by a
gallery to the block of buildings at the east end of the hall: the nave was
then divided into two floors, so that the first floor formed a private gallery
or solar, while the household used the ground-floor. This method of division
of the west end of the chapel into two floors is very usual: it was employed
twice at Warkworth, both in the chapel attached to the domestic buildings
already described, and in the chapel of the later tower-house on the mount.
It may also be seen in the chapel at Berkeley, and in many manor-houses, as
at Compton Wyniates. At Ludlow we have noticed that there was a second
chapel for the garrison in the outer ward, built in the fourteenth century:
with this the arrangement at the Tower of London may be compared, where
the royal chapel of St John is in the White tower, but the garrison chapel of
St Peter was built on the north side of the inner ward. The chapel at
Kenilworth was against the south wall of the outer ward. There was a
chapel on the south side of the inner ward at Alnwick. As a rule, however,
only one chapel would be provided. The chapels found in tower-keeps have
already been discussed: with the exception of Newcastle and Old Sarum,
they were, as a rule, private chapels or mere oratories.
In later castles, two considerations determined the planning of the chapel.
It was placed so that the altar should be as nearly as possible against the
east wall, and so that there should be direct access from the private
apartments to the gallery at the west end. These conditions are met both in
the earlier and later chapels at Warkworth: they can be traced in the plan of
Bodiam and other late medieval castles. At Berkeley (186) where the solar

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

CHAPTER IX

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

pembroke: inner side of gatehouse

In tracing this gradual disappearance of the keep, it should be kept in
mind that the stone keep, when we first meet with it, is actually a
supplement of more permanent material added to a palisaded enclosure. In
early walled enclosures, like Richmond or Ludlow, the stone defences made
the special provision of a keep unnecessary: the whole castle, protected by
its stone wall, had in itself the strength of a keep. It was only when it
became likely that the stone curtain might show less resistance than its
builders anticipated, that, in both the castles just mentioned, a tower-keep
was provided. In both cases, the tower stood in the forefront of the defence

of the principal ward of the castle. In the first instance it protected the
curtain, while, if all else failed, its use, the primary use of such buildings, as
an ultimate place of retirement for the defenders, could be demonstrated.
During the reign of Henry II., the stone keep, whether a tower or a shell on
the mound, was the dominating feature of the stone-walled castle. At
Conisbrough and Pembroke (181) the great tower still keeps its pride of
place, but the curtains of the ward in which it stands have been built or
reconstructed with a view to effectual flanking; while the two semicircular
towers which guarded the southern curtain of the inner ward at Pembroke
were evidently an addition, after the keep had been built. In castles like
Manorbier, the oldest parts of which are of the later part of the twelfth
century, the builders returned to the original keepless plan of Richmond and
Ludlow. The care, which, in the earlier castles, had been expended upon a
single rallying point in the scheme of defence, was now applied to the
whole outer wall of the castle, so that it began to offer a connected front to
an attack.
During the transition, however, the keep, as we have seen, received its
full share of attention. At Château-Gaillard (163) it was an integral part of
one united design, the outer defences of which remain to be described. The
great tower is at the highest point of the inner or third ward, which forms an
irregular oval. But, before reaching this ward, two outer lines of defence
had to be forced. There was only one possible approach for a besieging
army, along the isthmus on the south-east side of the cliff. On this side the
castle proper was protected by a powerful outwork, which offered a sharp
angle to the isthmus. When Philip Augustus began to use his machines
against the castle in February 1203-4, the round tower at the apex of this
horn-work242 was the main object of his attack. The sloping sides of the
angle were flanked by two smaller round towers, while the entrance, close
to the north angle, was covered on one side by a cylindrical tower, to which
there was probably a corresponding tower in the opposite curtain. The horn-
work was surrounded by an outer ditch. The strength of the curtain seems to
have been little affected by the siege-engines. Breaches, both here and in
the inner ward, were not made until Philip’s miners had weakened the
masonry by boring galleries beneath it. A very deep ditch with
perpendicular sides, cut in the chalk, stretched across the whole ridge, and
divided the outwork from the middle ward, which was capped at the angles
by cylindrical towers, and contained buildings of which the substructures,

and some cellars excavated in the chalk, are left. The curtain of this ward
was continued along the face of the precipice and the north-eastern slope, so
as practically to enclose the inner ward. The two wards, however, were not
concentric, for the inner ward occupied one end of the space enclosed by
the middle ward, from which it was divided by a ditch. The wall of the
inner ward was the most remarkable and original of the defences of the
castle. Its whole outer face, save on the side next the precipice, was formed
of a series of convex curves intersecting with each other, so that no flat
surface was left. The wall is solid, and, looking at its fluted outer surface,
we may well admire Philip’s military skill, which found it a not too
formidable obstacle. A gateway in the east face gave access to the inner
ward from the narrowest portion of the middle ward, and the ditch at this
point was originally crossed by a stone causeway. The projecting spur of the
great tower faced the gateway. The whole formidable design was perfect
from the point of view of flanking, while the plan was a step towards the
concentric arrangement of one ward within another. The prominence of the
keep in the plan was, however, an archaic feature; and the history of the
siege of 1204 shows very clearly that the great tower was practically a
superfluity, and that the last hopes of the defenders were centred in the wall
of the inner ward. When Philip’s miners had endangered its stability, and his
engines were brought to play upon the weakened stonework, their hope was
lost.243
The inventive skill shown in the inner wall of Château-Gaillard was not
displayed again in the same form. But a step in the flanking of the curtain
by round towers is seen in the wall of Conisbrough (217). Here the inner
ward is nearly oval, and the southern half of the curtain, in which is
contained the entrance from the outworks, is strengthened by small solid
towers with battering bases, projecting some two-thirds of a circle from the
wall.244 Such solid projections for flanking purposes are found at
Scarborough and Knaresborough, and could be easily added to an earlier
wall, when necessity required. For the convenience of the defenders,
however, larger towers with rooms on each floor were desirable; and the
actual improvement of the defences of the curtain is seen in the
multiplication of such towers, so as to leave no part of the wall unflanked.
The circular or polygonal form was almost universally adopted for them.

conisbrough: barbican of inner bailey

manorbier castle from south-west

Warkworth (49) is an example of a twelfth-century castle in which an
approach was made to an adequately defended curtain, although with long
distances between the towers. The arrangement, however, is a complete
contrast to the haphazard projection of towers from earlier curtains, as at
Ludlow. The castle stands high on the right bank of the Coquet: the river
bends round it, so that the only level approach is from the plateau on the
west side, and the town climbs the tongue of land between the castle and the
river.245 The mount is at the apex of the castle site, immediately above the
town. On the west side of the enclosure the curtain, which is strong and
thick, is unbroken by any tower: against the inner face are the domestic
buildings. The south wall, which contains the gatehouse, is flanked by two
angle-towers, on the west by the tower known as “Cradyfargus,” and on the
east by a square tower, called the Amble tower. In the east wall, which
commanded the ascent from the town, is a half-octagon tower, in each face
of which is a huge loop for a cross-bow, so that a few archers could
effectually rake the path outside with their fire. Of these towers,

Cradyfargus projects into the castle enclosure with a blunt angle, its walls
on this side being a mere continuation of the curtain. The basement was
entered from the cellar behind the hall, the first floor from the great
chamber above, and the second floor by a stair in the thickness of the wall
from the vestibule or landing, west of the great chamber. The projection of
the eastern tower is entirely outward: its internal face was flat. There was a
basement and two floors: the first floor had an external stair from the ward,
but it does not appear how the second floor was reached, though the jamb of
a door may still be seen. The east tower had a garde-robe near the entrance
of the basement and on the first floor: in Cradyfargus there are only traces
of garde-robe arrangements. Although the space enclosed by the walls was
large, and the flanking by no means perfect, the two most assailable sides of
the fortress were very secure. The gatehouse, a building of about the year
1200 (221), formed an intermediate projection in the south wall between
Cradyfargus and the Amble tower: the gateway is recessed between two
half-octagon turrets. The preference of polygonal forms for the defences of
this castle is rather characteristic of the north of England. There was,
however, a conservative spirit in this district, which is seen in the retention
of the rectangular form for the Amble tower. Even in a fourteenth-century
castle like Dunstanburgh the angle towers are rectangular in form; while the
“pele-tower” of the northern borders, throughout the middle ages, shows no
important variation from the square form.
The importance given to the gatehouse at Warkworth was a sign of the
times. We have seen how, at Lewes and Tickhill, the first thought of the
builders was to provide their earthworks with a stone house of entry.
Norman gatehouses were very simple in construction. The gatehouse at
Warkworth, on the other hand, was anything but simple in its arrangements,
and all the forethought possible was taken for its defence. There are three
stories, the lowest of which is the vaulted hall of entrance to the castle,
flanked, in the ground-floor of the half-octagon towers, by guard-rooms
described in the survey of 1567 as a porter’s lodge and a prison. The
defences of the passage need close attention. The entrance was closed by a
gate which opened outwards, and stood about 4 feet in advance of the
portcullis: the space between was commanded by arrow-loops in the walls
of the guardrooms. The herse of the portcullis seems to have been worked
from the second floor of the gatehouse:246 the upper and broader portion ran
in a groove which ceases at the level of the string-course below the vault of

the passage, while the lower descended to the ground. Beyond the
portcullis, the passage was kept under observation through cross-loops in
the side walls. The vault stopped 5 feet short of the inner gateway, and the
passage was covered by a wooden roof. On each side of the inner gateway
were the entrances to the guard-rooms, which flanked the whole passage.

warkworth: gatehouse

warkworth: tower on mount

The plan of the castle gatehouse at Warkworth was that of the great
majority of medieval gatehouses, whether in castles or in the walls of
fortified towns. The ground-floor of the main block of building, which
generally had two upper floors, contained the hall of entry, and was flanked
by two cylindrical or octagonal towers, the lowest stories of which were
guard-rooms, and were pierced with loops commanding the approach and
the passage. Usually the gateway was placed at the back of an arched
recess, which formed a porch. The position of the gate and portcullis at
Warkworth was rather exceptional. Ordinarily the portcullis descended in
front of the gate, which opened inwards, and was secured, when closed, by
one or more draw-bars. This, however, was impossible, where the gate, as at
Warkworth, opened outwards, so that the usual arrangement had to be
reversed. But, while the actual plan of the gatehouse kept its general
characteristics with little change, the defences of the entrance were
multiplied. Thus the Byward tower, the outer gatehouse of the Tower of
London, had an outer portcullis in front of a wooden door opening inwards,

behind which was a second portcullis, blocking the entrance to the inner
and wider portion of the passage, which had a timber ceiling. In addition to
this, between the outer portcullis and the gate, the vault was crossed by a
rib, pierced with three holes, which allowed the defenders to harass an
attacking party from above, and also could be used for strengthening the
gate in time of siege by a timber framework, the upper ends of which were
fixed in the holes. Such holes, which were not merely machicolations in the
vault, are found elsewhere, as in the gatehouses of Pembroke and Warwick
castles and the west gatehouse of the town of Southampton. In this last case,
a single rectangular gate-tower projected from the inner face of the wall
only, next the town. The gate of the passage through the ground floor was
defended upon its outer face by these holes alone: there were two
portcullises, but both were upon the inner side of the gate. It is possible that
such holes were originally left to fix the centering of the vault when it was
first built: they converge towards one another, and probably were not filled
up afterwards, in view of their defensive use.247
One prominent feature, however, of the defences of a gateway, as time
went on, was the provision of machicolations, in the shape of long
rectangular slits, in the vault of the passage and in the arch in front of the
portcullis. In some cases where they occur in connection with a portcullis,
they may have been used for a heavy wooden frame, which could on
occasion reinforce the iron herse of the portcullis. At Warkworth there is no
original arrangement of this kind: the wall of the first floor above the
gateway projects slightly upon a row of corbels, but this was done merely to
give it additional strength. At a later date, however, the parapet at the top of
the gatehouse was corbelled out, and the spaces between the corbels left
open for machicolations. From the later part of the thirteenth century
onwards, the usual arrangement, as at Chepstow or Tutbury, was to carry
the parapet upon an arch in advance of the main face of the gatehouse, from
one tower to the other, and to leave the space between the parapet and the
main wall open, so that it commanded the field immediately in front of the
portcullis. The effect of recessing the front of the gatehouse within a tall
outer archway is magnificent, from the point of view of design. The design
of gatehouses reaches its highest point in the great gatehouse of Denbigh,
with its octagonal gate-hall, and in the King’s gateway at Carnarvon, where
the enclosing arch, recessing the two lower stages of the gatehouse, bears
the outer wall of the upper floor (253).

Pembroke Castle; Interior of gateway
In some instances, as at Pembroke (224) and Kidwelly (225), where the
gatehouse passage was defended by inner and outer portcullises, there are
as many as three chases or slots in the vault between the outer and inner
entrances. At Pembroke, where the gatehouse has the unusual feature of two
flanking towers (213), of semicircular projection, on the side next the ward,
an arch was thrown out from one tower to the other, some distance in
advance of the inner archway. It is difficult to see how this inner barbican,
as it may be called, was intended to be of use to an already strongly
protected gateway; but the space within it may have been covered by a
wooden platform, accessible from the first floor of the gatehouse, from
which the interior of the castle could be commanded, and an enemy who
had forced an entrance could be seriously annoyed. The vault of the
entrance passage was generally a pointed barrel-vault, strengthened by

transverse ribs at intervals; but the broader space in the centre of the
passage was often ceiled, as in the Byward tower, with timber. The entrance
passages of the inner gatehouses of Harlech (274) and Beaumaris (236)
were roofed with wooden ceilings, supported by transverse ribs of stone set
with only a narrow interval between them.

Kidwelly Castle; Interior of gateway
The ground-floors of the flanking towers of the gatehouse were usually
vaulted. The lodges from which the towers were entered, upon each side of
the inner passage, had stone ceilings when the passage itself was vaulted
through its whole length, or when they formed one room with the ground-
floors of the towers. The ordinary plan, however, was to treat the flanking
tower as an outer guard-room, approached from the inner lodge. If it was
cylindrical in plan, the interior was arranged as a polygon, and vaulted with
ribs springing from shafts in the angles.248 This plan may be seen in the

Byward tower and Middle tower of the Tower of London. In both towers
the inner part of the passage was ceiled with timber, and the adjacent
chambers formed lobbies to the vaulted ground-floors of the towers. In the
Middle tower, however, the left-hand lobby was occupied by a vice leading
to the first floor; and in the same position in the Byward tower is a square
rectangular chamber with a ribbed vault.

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

the rectangular stone gatehouse of the early Norman castle, with its upper
chamber. Improvement is seen in the substitution, for the original entrance,
of a central passage flanked by chambers upon the ground-floor; in the
addition of flanking towers of scientific form; and in the protection of the
timber doors by an iron portcullis.

Newcastle; Black gate
The gatehouse at Newcastle, known as the Black gate (227), which
became the entrance to the castle in the thirteenth century, is an example of
a more elaborately constructed and exceptional type. The ground plan is
simplicity itself, a central passage flanked by towers containing guard-
chambers. The towers, however, are not merely projections from a
rectangular body, but flank the whole gateway with a wide convex curve.
There is a large single vaulted chamber on the ground floor of each, lighted
by loops which enabled the occupants to command the castle ditch. The

architectural details of the gateway are very simple, but there is a short
arcade of trefoiled arches in each of the side walls, and the vaulting of the
guard-rooms presents some ingenious peculiarities. The upper portion of the
gatehouse was much altered in the seventeenth century. The original design,
with its great segmental flanking towers, may have been the prototype of
the even more noble gatehouse of Dunstanburgh, which is a work of nearly
three-quarters of a century later.250

Walled town in state of siege

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

York; Walmgate Bar
The entrance of the castle, under improved conditions of fortification,
was defended by an outwork or barbican. The term “barbican,” which
seems to be of eastern derivation, was used indiscriminately to denote any
outwork by which the principal approach to a castle or a gateway of a town
was covered. The word “barmkin,” which is possibly, as already noted, a
corruption of “barbican,” was applied in the north of England to the outer
yard of a “pele,” or fortified (literally, palisaded) residence. In many castles,
as at Ludlow, Denbigh, or Manorbier, the outer ward was an addition or
supplement to the plan of the castle, guarding the approach to the inner
ward or castle proper, and its curtain was subsidiary to the strongly fortified

curtain of the inner ward. Such outer wards or base-courts resemble the
northern “barmkins,” an exact parallel to which is seen in the base-court of
the fifteenth-century fortified house of Wingfield. Covering outworks were
by no means uncommon, and also served the purpose of a barbican. As at
Château-Gaillard, they might take the form of a walled outer ward, or, as at
Llandovery, they might be horn-shaped earthworks, thrown out at an
exposed point in the defences; in either case, they had their own ditch, an
extension of the main ditch of the castle. But the barbican proper was a
walled extension of a gatehouse to the field, confining the approach to the
limited area of a narrow passage. The most simple instance is the barbican
in front of Walmgate bar at York (229), where a gatehouse, originally of the
twelfth century, was strengthened by the addition, upon the outer side, of
two parallel walls at right angles to the sides of the gateway. Thus, in order
to force the gates, an attacking party would have to traverse a long and
narrow alley between high walls, in which they were exposed to the
missiles of the defenders concentrated upon them from the ramparts of the
gatehouse and the adjacent wall.
The barbican was, in fact, an application to the main entrance of the
castle of the form of defence hitherto applied most scientifically to the fore-
building of the keep.252 Its general employment as an outer defence was the
direct consequence of the removal of interest from the keep to the curtain.
Not merely had the wall itself to offer a stout resistance to attack, so that
every point was simultaneously engaged in active defence; but the main
approaches had to be so arranged as to involve an enemy in perplexity. In
the protection of the main avenues of access to the town or castle, we arrive
at an unconscious reproduction in stone of the methods employed by
prehistoric builders of earthwork. Experience taught the engineers of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the lessons which she had taught the
makers of Maiden Castle, and the adoption of the concentric plan of
fortification followed as a matter of course.

warwick: barbican

The contraction of the main entrance of the castle by a barbican is well
seen at Bamburgh, Conisbrough (217), and Scarborough (129). In the first
two instances, owing to the isolated position of the fortress, and the nature
of the ground outside, the main approach would have to be in any case by a
path made up the steep face of the hill, and immediately below the curtain.
Bamburgh was unusually well aided by nature, and the gateway, flanked by
two slender round towers, is at a level considerably lower than that of the
summit of the rock; in this case, the rising road within the gateway, cut in
the basalt, and commanded by the curtain and the keep within the curtain,

was the barbican of the castle. The hill on which Conisbrough was set is
merely a steep knoll, with a wide outer ditch on its less precipitous side.
The outer ward, on the south-west side of the ditch, was apparently an
earthwork without stone walls.253 A gatehouse was set on the edge of the
ditch, in advance of and at a lower level than the curtain of the inner ward.
Its arrangements, so far as they can be traced, were not greatly superior to
those of early stone gatehouses. Its lateral walls, however, were prolonged
up the edge of the slope to the entrance of the inner ward. The left-hand
wall joined an angle of the curtain half-way up the passage; the wall on the
right hand was continued so as to cover the inner gateway, which was at
right angles to the passage thus formed.254 As at Bamburgh, the approach in
this case is a narrow gangway between high walls, commanded throughout
from the rampart of the inner ward, and, for the second half of the distance,
passing immediately beneath it. A passage of this type, with a right-angled
turn at its far end, might easily become a death-trap for a besieging force.
At Scarborough the castle cliff is almost entirely separated from the town
by a deep ravine, and the approach is along the narrow ridge between this
chasm and the northward face of the rock. The gatehouse, flanked by
rounded towers, forms part of a small and irregularly shaped walled
outwork or barbican placed upon the outer curve of the ravine. From this
tête-du-pont, as it may be called, a straight passage, walled on both sides,
crosses the head of the ravine, passing over a bridge on its way, and
skirting, on the left hand, the sheer edge of the cliff. On the further side, the
space widens into the outer ward, commanded and nearly blocked by the
rectangular keep. The wall on the left is continued along the edge of the
cliff, while that on the right, which, as being more open to attack, is much
the thicker, bears away with the curve of the slope, and joins the south
curtain of the inner ward upon its west face.255

Warwick Castle; Barbican
The examples already given illustrate the precautions which thirteenth-
century engineers took to guard their castles from surprise and storm; and
the arrangements found in the Welsh castles of Edward I.’s reign are even
more remarkable. It will be noticed that in the three castles just mentioned
the main gatehouse is thrown forward to the outer end of the barbican,
which forms a narrow passage uniting the gatehouse to the inner entrance.
In late thirteenth and fourteenth century castles, however, the barbican was,
as we see it at Walmgate bar in York, an addition to the front of a gatehouse.
This method of covering gateways by outer defences is seen at Kenilworth,
where the approach to the outer ward of the castle, across the lake formed
by the damming-up of two rivulets, was broken up into sections by three
lines of defence. First, an outer earthwork, segmental in shape, and
strengthened by round stone bastions, guarded the approach to the first

gatehouse. Beyond this gatehouse, which formed a tête-du-pont like the
Middle tower at London, a long causeway or dam, with a wall on its eastern
face, crossed the lake to the strong gatehouse known as Mortimer’s tower,
which, guarded by two portcullises, stood upon the end of the dam, in
advance of the curtain. But the ordinary barbican, which was characteristic
of the castles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was not a long and
elaborately protected line of outer defences, but a stone building thrown out
in front of a gatehouse, so as to concentrate the attacking force into a small
space, and prevent a combined rush on the principal gateway. The
contracted approach thus made was usually, in the later examples, as at
Warwick (231), Alnwick (243), and Porchester, all barbicans of the
fourteenth century, a straight lane between walls. At Porchester it is set in
front of the twelfth-century gatehouse of the inner ward, which was covered
in the early fourteenth century by a rectangular projection, pierced by
lateral doorways opening upon the scarp of the inner ward outside the
curtain. The barbican proper, somewhat later in date, is composed of two
parallel walls, guarding the drawbridge from the base-court or outer ward.
A loop cut obliquely through the west wall of this passage opened towards
the west gateway of the base-court, so that a surprise of the barbican could
be prevented. In this case, as at Alnwick, the approach to the barbican was a
drawbridge; but at Alnwick, where the drawbridge crossed an outer loop of
the castle ditch, the ditch proper was crossed by a second drawbridge within
the barbican.

Mont-St-Michel; Châtelet
At Lewes, about the end of the thirteenth century, a barbican was added
to the front of a Norman gatehouse which was of much the same character
as the gatehouses at Porchester and Tickhill. The addition here took the
shape of a short passage with a wall on each side, finished at its outer end
by a new and lofty gatehouse, rising from the middle of the outer ditch of
the castle, and approached by a mounting roadway. The shape of the new
gatehouse is an oblong, with its main axis perpendicular to the road, but its
angles were capped by round turrets, corbelled out at a point near the spring
of the entrance archway (98). Such turrets are known as bartizans, and are
common in French military architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. They were not so usual in England, and are seldom found on such
a scale as at Lewes: smaller bartizans, corbelled out at a point nearer the
battlements of the building in which they occur, may be seen in the

gatehouse at Lincoln, and at the angles of the towers of Belsay (313) and
Chipchase in Northumberland.256 The parapet of the barbican gatehouse at
Lewes is brought forward from the wall on a row of corbels so as to allow
room for six formidable machicolations. The work bears some resemblance
to the châtelet which covers the main entrance of the fortified abbey of
Mont-Saint-Michel (235).257 In France an outer gatehouse like that at
Lewes, or an outer enclosure like that at Scarborough, bore the name of
châtelet or bastille. All such defences in advance of a gateway, whatever the
special name they may bear, may be classed under the head of barbicans.

Beaumaris Castle; Gateway

tutbury: gatehouse

york: Micklegate bar

Carcassonne
In the highest examples of military skill in fortification—at Conway
(254) and Beaumaris (236), for instance—the greatest care was taken to
cover the gateways with oblique or right-angled approaches, so that straight
access should be impossible to an enemy. The same method of hampering
the path of an enemy with right angled turns is noticeable in French
examples of fortification, and notably in the gateways of Carcassonne
(239). In England, however, an entrance defended by a barbican in a
straight line with it was generally preferred; and, even in castles like
Caerphilly and Harlech, the strength of the entrances depended upon the
disposition of the concentric wards of the castle, and they were guiltless of
the devices and traps which are one leading feature of Beaumaris. A good
example of an oblique approach to a thirteenth-century castle is at
Pembroke, where the main gateway is covered by an open barbican,

forming a rectangular vestibule, the entrance to which is in a wall nearly at
right angles to the gateway. The west gate of Tenby is covered by an almost
semicircular barbican, the original entrance to which, with a groove for a
portcullis, is on the north side, so that an angle had to be turned before the
gateway was reached. At a much later date other openings were pierced in
the outer wall of the barbican, and the curious arrangement is known to-day
by the misleading name of the “Five Arches.” The east side of the chief
ward of Carew castle was protected by a rectangular outer court, entered
from the field by a small gatehouse. The gatehouse of the inner ward is in
the south half of the east wall, and is flanked by a round angle-tower and a
tower which projects from the middle of the wall. The outer faces of these
two towers were joined by a wall which thus covered the gatehouse, and
was pierced by a doorway, set a little to the north of the main entrance, with
its jambs sloping to the left. This gave access to a walled-in passage, with
an upper floor, leading obliquely to the inner entrance. As this side of the
castle was on level ground and was much exposed, special care was taken
to guard the approaches; there was, however, only one portcullis, at the
inner end of the main gateway; but the wooden doors, four of which had to
be passed before the portcullis was reached, were of great strength, and
each was closed with several very massive draw-bars.

Tenby; West Gate

The town gateway at Tenby may be compared to the Porte de Laon at
Coucy, which was also covered by a semicircular barbican. While, however,
the Tenby barbican was directly attached to the wall, the barbican at Coucy
was separated from the gateway by the town ditch and a bridge, and was
altogether more elaborate. The bridge itself crossed the ditch in two
sections, describing an obtuse angle, at the apex of which was a round
tower. The road passed through the tower, and turned the angle at its inner
gate, from which the second section of the bridge passed straight to the
actual gateway. At Coucy all the resources of fortification were displayed;
while at Tenby the application of the same principle was simple and
unpretending.258 Equally masterly is the oblique entrance to the castle of
Kerak in Syria, beside which the entrances to Pembroke and Carew are of
small account.259 The long rectangular castle of Kerak is divided into two
nearly equal wards by a wall parallel to its major axis. The main gateway is
on the east side of the junction of the cross-wall with the outer curtain; but,
instead of leading directly into the castle, the path turns to the left after
passing through the gateway, and is confined within a long inner barbican,
from the end of which a gatehouse at right angles gives admission to the
interior of the upper ward.
The importance attached, from the thirteenth century onwards, to the
gateway and its approaches, and the prominence of the gatehouse in the
concentric castle of Edward I.’s reign will now be understood. It now
remains to speak of the defences of the exposed face of curtain between the
towers, and of the towers themselves. The progress towards effective
flanking has been traced already, and the towered curtains at Dover (126) or
the Tower of London are examples of scientific flanking achieved by long
experiment. The towers rose above the level of the curtain, and were
entered on the first floor from the rampart-walk, which they commanded.
The walk, in fact, passed through the towers, as it may still be seen passing
through the gatehouses at York. Thus each tower was the key to a section of
wall; and, as the Crusaders found at Antioch, the wall could be taken only
by the capture of several towers, each of which guarded a separate section.

Outer stair to tower and rampart-walk in town wall

Carcassonne

alnwick: barbican

alnwick: gatehouse of keep

Shutter closing opening in wall or parapet
The rampart-walk between the towers occupied, as from the earliest
times, the top of the wall, and was defended by battlements upon the outer,
and sometimes by a low rear-wall on the inner side.260 The chief access to it
was by stairs in the towers, but sometimes, as at Alnwick, there was a stair
from the interior of the castle, built at right angles to the wall (241). In the
shell-keep on the mount at Tamworth, there is a small stair which ascends in
the thickness of the wall. The principal alterations which took place with
regard to the rampart-walk were concerned with the treatment of the
parapet. The division of the parapet into merlons or solid pieces by
embrasures has been explained already, and it has been seen that, in the first
instance, the embrasures are pierced at rather long intervals. The tendency
grows, however, to multiply embrasures and narrow down the merlons
between them, on the theory that the archer, discharging his arrow through

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

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

shaped passages. Each had a door opening inwards, and was lighted by a
separate loop. The chambers were so planned that the seats were placed on
opposite sides of a partition wall, with a common vent.

Pevensey; Vaulting in basement of north tower
The tower at Carew just mentioned is at earliest of late thirteenth-century
date, and has several advanced features. Though its projection from the
curtain is regularly rounded, its inward projection is rectangular, so that its
plan is actually an oblong with a rounded end. It seems to have been
intended to have been used in connection with the gatehouse: its first and
second floors had no direct communication with each other, but both
communicated with the gatehouse, and the ground-floor of the gatehouse
had a large lateral opening in the direction of the first floor of the tower.
The corresponding tower at the north-east angle was used in connection
with the domestic buildings, and had a vaulted chapel (248) upon its first
floor, from the north wall of which open two rooms for the use of the priest,
with a garde-robe in the second. One tower, therefore, was purely defensive,
additional precautions having been taken, no doubt, to guard a postern
which opens from the basement upon the scarp of the ditch; while the other
was merely an annexe to one of the two dwelling-houses within the
enclosure. The use of the eastern and south-western towers at Warkworth
(49) was equally distinct. We have seen that the south-west tower

(Cradyfargus) was used in connection with the domestic buildings: this may
not have been its original purpose, but it was certainly thus employed early
in the fourteenth century. The great feature of the east tower is the huge
loop in each of its five outer faces, designed for a cross-bow 16 feet long:
these loops, splayed throughout and fan-tailed at top and bottom, are the
finest examples of cross-loops left in England, and declare the main
purpose of the tower at once. In later years, when the cross-bow was out of
fashion, the interior of the tower was somewhat altered, and a fireplace
inserted.

Carew; Chapel

Door of main gatehouse
Chepstow Castle

Stair to vaulted chamber in outer bailey
Chepstow Castle
The best examples of curtain-towers, both abroad and in England, form
complete cylinders, like the angle-towers at Coucy, or polygons, like some
of the towers at Carnarvon. But room was spared if the cylinder or polygon
was left incomplete, and its inner face made nearly flush with the curtain.
The two towers on the curtain of the inner ward at Pembroke projected with
semicircular curves into the outer ward, but were flat at the back: the south
tower covered the gateway of the inner ward, which was not in the face of
the wall, but round an angle. The towers of the outer ward, on the other
hand, are mostly complete cylinders: the stairs were vices contained in
rectangular turrets on one side, the outer walls of which are curved to meet
the circumference of the towers (181).266 Marten’s tower at Chepstow, and
the towers of the curtain of the fine early fourteenth-century castle of

Llanstephan, are cases in which the projection of the tower is only external.
The tower which caps the eastern angle at Llanstephan is a half-cylinder,
springing, not directly from the curtain, but from a broad rectangular
projection on its face.267 The variations which might be noticed in the
attachment of towers to the curtain are manifold: but, as time goes on, the
ordinary curtain-tower, where it was not placed at an angle of a ward, stood
flush with the curtain on its inner side (228). Where the tower stood on the
curtain by itself, unattached to other buildings within the castle, there was
usually an entrance to the basement direct from the bailey, on one side of
which a vice in a turret attached to the tower rose to the upper floors and
roof, communicating on the level of the first floor with the curtain. The
doorway opening on the curtain was fitted with a strong door, and, in
Marten’s tower at Chepstow castle, where the tower was of special
importance, standing as it does at the lowest and most vulnerable point of
the site, was provided with a portcullis.

Fougères
There were cases, however, especially in walls of towns, where the
curtain-tower, although projecting outside and above the wall, and covered
with a timber roof, was left open at the gorge or neck, where it was flush
with the curtain, so that it was simply an open tower, with a platform on the
first floor, level with the rampart-walk, and a rampart-walk of its own at the

level of its battlements. Such a tower could be actively employed in time of
war, and had all the advantages of the ordinary closed tower in flanking the
wall and cutting the rampart-walk up into sections. The numerous towers of
the walls of Avignon, between the gatehouses, were arranged thus.268 At
Conway, the semi-cylindrical towers of the town walls, of which there are
twenty, and the similar towers which flank the gatehouses, are open to the
town: one tower only, on the south-west side of the town, where the wall
turns to join the castle, is walled at the gorge. The walls of Chepstow
provide further examples of open towers. At Carnarvon (251), the round
towers on the face of the town walls are open, but the angle-towers were
closed; and that at the north-west angle was entered through the town
chapel, which was built against the curtain at this point. The open tower
was not, as a rule, used in castles: even the small towers which flank the
outer curtain at Beaumaris have a wall continued across the gorge.

Carnarvon; Tower of town wall
Every large castle was provided with a postern or sally-port. This was
generally a small doorway, preferably in the base of a tower, but often in the
curtain, opening on the least frequented side of the castle. In time of siege,
in a castle of the ordinary plan, a postern might easily be a source of
danger; and its employment in the scheme of defence was incompletely
understood at first. But it was useful for the conveyance of provisions to the
castle; and a postern, as at Warkworth, is often found in connection with a

kitchen or store-room. Where a castle stood near a river, a water-gate,
communicating with a private wharf was made. At Pembroke, where the
castle stands between two water-ways, there were two water-gates, one in
the south side of the outer ward, the other, as already mentioned, formed by
walling in the mouth of the cave below the great hall. For the scientific
employment of the postern, however, we have to look to the great castles of
the later part of the thirteenth century, in which the means of defence
described in this chapter were perfectly co-ordinated; and, with the
introduction of a new plan, the last signs of a merely passive strength
vanished from the castle.

CHAPTER X

THE EDWARDIAN CASTLE AND THE
CONCENTRIC PLAN
Castles like Carew, enclosing a rectangular area with round towers at the
angles, were the fruit of the transition in the course of which the fortified
curtain wall took the place of the passive strength of the keep. At Carew the
castle was protected upon its most exposed side by outer defences of stone;
but on all other sides it presented a single line of defence, flanked by the
four formidable angle-towers. A castle thus defended was, like the early
stone castles at Richmond and elsewhere, a keep in itself; but its wall no
longer depended merely upon its passive strength, but was calculated to
resist attacks on which the builders of Richmond and Ludlow had no means
of reckoning.
The castle of the latter half of the thirteenth century, the golden age of
English military architecture, was, then, an enclosure within a strong and
well-flanked curtain wall. The keep, where the site was new, was dispensed
with: where an old plan was altered or enlarged, it took a secondary
position. The castles of this age may be divided into three separate classes.
First, there are castles without keeps, in which the flanked curtain wall
forms the sole line of defence. Secondly, there are old castles, which, by
extension of their site, have adopted a concentric plan of defence. And
thirdly, there are castles newly planned, in which the defences are formed
by two or more concentric curtain walls.

Carnarvon Castle

Conway Castle
I. The grand examples of the first class are the castles of Carnarvon (253)
and Conway (254). Conway was begun in 1285 by the orders of Edward I.
Carnarvon, in which more architectural splendour is shown, was begun in
1283, and was not finished until 1316-22.269 Both castles were built in
connection with walled towns, and occupied an angle of the defences; and
both stand on a point of land where a river meets the sea, so that two faces
of the site were defended by water, while the base was separated from the

town by an artificial ditch. Carnarvon, however, is situated on low ground,
and commands the town only by the height of its curtain and its formidable
towers; while the promontory on which Conway stands is raised high above
the greater part of the town and commands the whole (256).
The plan of both castles is very similar. The enclosure, in both cases an
irregular polygon of an oblong shape, was divided into two wards by a
cross-wall,270 built at a point where the curtain is slightly drawn in on both
sides, and the site is consequently narrowed. At Conway the main entrance
is in the west or end wall of the lower ward, opposite the cross-wall. The
lower ward, thus entered, is a hexagon in shape, flanked by six cylindrical
or drum towers, one at each of the angles, and occupies about two-thirds of
the enclosure. The remaining third is the upper ward, an irregular rectangle
flanked by four drum towers, the two towers to the west being common to
both wards. The whole enclosure is thus flanked by eight towers, four at the
angles, and two on each of the sides.
The two wards at Carnarvon (253) were more nearly equal, the upper
ward, placed, as in Conway, at the end next the confluence of the river and
the sea, occupying about two-fifths of the site. The main entrance to the
lower ward, the King’s gateway, is in the middle of the side wall next the
town, and the wall of division between the wards crossed the enclosure
from a point close to the right of the inner entrance. The curtain of the lower
ward was built in five sections, with a tower at each of the projecting angles
between them. With these towers must be reckoned the two splendid
gatehouses, the King’s gatehouse at the north-west, and Queen Eleanor’s
gatehouse at the east angle of the ward. The curtain of the upper ward was
built in four pieces, and this ward, with its cross-wall, forms an irregular
pentagon, at the apex of which is the famous Eagle tower, at the point
where the town wall joins that of the castle. There are nine towers in all,
counting the two gatehouses, and a turret on each of the north-east and
south-east sections of the curtain. The towers are polygonal in shape, the
straight faces being for the most part very broad, and the angles very
obtuse.271

Conway Castle and Town
Of the two castles, Conway, which stands, as we have seen, on the better
site, was the more economically defended. The leading features of the plan
at Carnarvon are the two large gatehouses and the Eagle tower at the
western angle, which was virtually a strong tower or keep. The King’s
gatehouse formed the main entrance. Queen Eleanor’s gatehouse stands at
the highest point of the castle, and is now inaccessible from outside: when
in use, it must have been approached by a steeply rising bridge across the
ditch.272 There is also a postern, through which provisions were, no doubt,
brought to the kitchen, in the basement of the Well tower, which caps the

angle of the curtain between the King’s gatehouse and Eagle tower. At
Conway, there was no separate strong tower, nor was there a real gatehouse:
the gateway is in a narrow end-wall, and the towers on each side are in
close connection with its machicolated rampart-walk. There is also a second
and smaller gateway in the wall at the opposite end of the castle, opening on
a platform at the edge of the rock, from which a stair led to the water.
Where the curtain was so well defended as in these two castles, a double
entrance was a source of strength rather than weakness. The problem for the
enemy was how to distribute his forces, so as to keep the whole enceinte
under observation. To concentrate an attack upon one gateway was to run
the risk of being outflanked and taken in the rear by a sortie from the other.
Strong as Château-Gaillard and other castles of the transition had been, they
had simply met the prospect of attack with successive lines of defence.
Carnarvon and the castles of the Edwardian period generally were not
entirely a refuge for a besieged garrison: they were shelters which provided
a base of operations for offensive as well as defensive stratagem. The most
imposing feature of the defences of Carnarvon castle is the long irregular
line of the south and south-west wall, fronting the river Seiont (258). Here
the curtain is pierced by three rows of loops, one above another. The lowest
open from a gallery in the thickness of the wall: the middle row from an
upper gallery, which is now open internally, constructed on the top of the
very massive lower wall; while the top row is pierced in the merlons of the
battlements (259). The wall could be guarded simultaneously by three rows
of archers, one above another—not an inviting prospect to a besieging
force. It is obvious that such a castle, large enough to shelter an army, could
also be held by a relatively small body of men, so excellently was the area
of defence concentrated, and so readily could every part of the curtain be
reached from the interior of the fortress.

Carnarvon

carnarvon castle: towers and rampart-walk

carnarvon castle: interior

While the actual defences of the curtain at Conway were more simple
than at Carnarvon, the isolation of the site was greater, and the possibility of
active movement in and out of the stronghold was less. The attack was
bound to be concentrated upon the one main entrance; and consequently,
next to the flanking of the curtain, the chief object was the defence of the
gateway. The end wall, in which the gateway was pierced, is high above the
adjacent town, and the level piece of ground in front was broken short by a
steep edge of cliff, at the foot of which was the ditch. The entrance was
therefore approached by a well-guarded barbican at right angles to the
gateway. This outwork was reached from the town by passing along a rising
causeway with a drawbridge at the end, which gave access to the gateway
of the barbican, standing in advance of the north-west tower. A short rising
path then led through a doorway closed by a wooden door to the platform in
front of the gateway, along the west side of which, above the ditch, was
continued the outer wall of the barbican, flanked by three small round
towers, open at the gorge. The parapet above the gateway was
machicolated, and the large corbels still project from the wall.273 Into a
narrow barbican like this, only a small detachment of an attacking force
could venture; indeed, the position is practically impregnable. The north-

west tower commands every inch of the approach; and the drawbridge, the
portcullis and upper gateway of the barbican, and the oblique entrance to
the gateway of the castle, formed successive and intimidating obstacles. The
main gateway was closed by a portcullis, which was worked from a mural
chamber, between the crown of the arch and the rampart-walk. It may be
noted that, while the oblique entrance at Conway has some likeness to the
ingenious entrances at Beaumaris, the works of Conway have at least two
points in common with Harlech—the corbelling-out of the rampart-walk
against the interior face of the towers (261), and the carrying up of the stairs
of the four eastern towers into turrets above the level of the roof. The lofty
stair-turrets above the roof are also a prominent feature at Carnarvon.

Conway Castle; Rampart-walk
The arrangements of the rampart-walks at Conway and Carnarvon were
of the usual type. At Conway, where the cross-wall between the wards is

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

Conway Castle; Fireplace in hall

Conway Castle; Oratory
II. There are old castles, however, which were adapted to the new form of
fortification with an ingenuity equal to that shown on new sites at Conway
and Carnarvon. In alluding to the lessons learned by the Crusaders in the
east, we have noticed the concentric form of fortification which they saw at
Constantinople. The city was girt by a triple wall, each ring of which was
higher than the one outside it. The advantage of this was obvious: while
three successive lines of defence were provided, the three could also be
used simultaneously, each row of defenders discharging its missiles over the
heads of the next. The Crusaders, the variety and ingenuity of whose castle

plans deserve much admiration, profited by the concentric method of
walling a stronghold; and none of their fortresses is so remarkable as Le
Krak des Chevaliers (176), rebuilt early in the thirteenth century, where the
curtain of the inner ward rises high above the curtain of the outer
enceinte.274 Approximations to the concentric plan were not unknown even
in England at an early date. The earthen defences of Berkhampstead castle
(42) are concentric, although no attempt was made to correlate them by
giving the inner banks command of the outer.275 In the plan of the
cylindrical tower-keep at Launceston, we have a striking application of the
concentric plan to a small area. In France, Château-Gaillard, where the
inner ward is nearly surrounded by the curtain of the middle ward, was an
approach to concentric methods; but the leading idea was still the exclusion
of an enemy by lines of defence arranged upon an elongated plan, with the
donjon as the culminating point. Even at Coucy, where the defensive
provisions are so elaborate, the donjon is the great point of interest, and the
castle is not concentric in plan. In fact, the concentric plan, although long
known in the east, was not adopted as a basis of planning in the west until
the thirteenth century was far advanced. The fortifications of Carcassonne,
where the plan was applied to a town (264), were begun by St Louis, and
finished by Philip III.: begun earlier than Caerphilly, their erection covered
most of the time in which our chief concentric castles were built.276

Carcassonne; Plan
The concentric plan may be described as follows. The site on which the
castle was built was surrounded, as usual, by a ditch. The inner scarp was
crowned, and sometimes partly reveted, by a wall, flanked by towers at the
angles and, in the largest castles, on the intermediate faces. Within this wall,
and divided from it by a narrow space of open ground, rose a second and
much higher wall, also flanked by towers at the angles and on the faces.
This inner wall enclosed the main ward of the castle, the intermediate space
forming the outer ward or “lists.” There was no keep: here, as in the plan of
Conway and Carnarvon, reliance was placed on the curtains. The entrances,
however, were elaborately defended by large gatehouses and by sundry
ingenious devices, as at Beaumaris, for perplexing a foe; and the castle was
sometimes reinforced, as at Caerphilly, by special outer defences both of
earth and stone. An enemy, attacking such a fortress, was exposed first to a

double fire from the two curtains. If he effected an entrance, he had to fight
every step of his way into the inner ward; while, if he was driven, by
determined resistance at the gateway, into the narrow space of the outer
ward, he was not merely in danger from the archers on the inner wall, but
also might find his way blocked by one of the cross-walls which broke up
the space in which he was confined.

Kidwelly Castle; Plan
Such a plan, although it might lack some of the advantages of a plan
worked out on a new site, could be applied to the new defences of an old

castle. Both at Dover and the Tower of London during the reign of Henry
III., additions were made which gave each castle a concentric plan.277 The
effect at Dover was to ring the imposing keep about with a double wall: the
inner circuit, however, is largely of the same date as the keep, and the outer
is spreading and irregular in plan. At London the defences were more
closely planned in harmony, and one feature of the additions is that, when
the buildings are examined close at hand, the White tower, originally the
most important feature of the fortress, becomes comparatively insignificant
in the defensive scheme. The inner and outer curtains, with their towers, are
of more than one date, from the end of the twelfth to the sixteenth century;
but the most important work was done in the reign of Henry III., during
which the concentric plan of the fortress was developed. The best idea of
the fortifications can be obtained from the open space before the west front.
Between the city and the castle lies the formidable ditch, which runs round
three sides of the fortress, the fourth side being guarded by the Thames and
a narrower ditch. Dug by the Conqueror’s workmen, the ditch was widened
and deepened by Richard I.’s chancellor, William Longchamp: it originally
seems to have admitted water at high tide. The entrance to the castle is at
the south-west angle. A gatehouse, called the Middle tower, which was
covered by an outer ditch278 and outwork, stands on the counterscarp of the
great ditch, on this side 120 feet broad, and gives access to a stone bridge.
This crossed the ditch to the Byward tower, a gatehouse at the south-west
angle of the outer curtain. This curtain has been much altered, and its angles
along the north face are capped by bastions which belong to the age when
the cannon had taken the place of the catapult. Along its south face, towards
the narrow ditch, the quay, and river beyond, it is flanked by towers, the
chief of which is St Thomas’ tower, the water-gate of the castle, well known
by its name of Traitors’ gate, and, like the Byward and Middle towers,
originally a work of the thirteenth century.279 From the bridge leading to the
Byward tower, the curtain of the inner ward, flanked by three towers, the
Beauchamp tower in the middle, the Devereux and Bell towers at the
angles,280 can be seen commanding the narrow outer ward. This approach
was apparently defended by three rows of archers, like the south curtain of
Carnarvon. The highest row occupied the rampart-walk and towers of the
inner curtain. Loops were made in the face of the same curtain, below the
rampart-walk, for a second row, on the raised ground-level of the inner
ward; while a third row could be stationed behind loops in the outer curtain.

The outer ward varies in breadth, but the passage to the gateway of the
inner ward, along the south face of the inner curtain, is very narrow, and is
flanked by the Bell tower and Wakefield tower.281 The inner gateway is in
the ground-floor of the Bloody tower, which joins the Wakefield tower; and
is immediately opposite the water-gate in St Thomas’ tower. At intervals the
outer ward was traversed by cross-walls, so that an unhindered circuit of it
was impossible: one of these crosses it on the east side of the Wakefield
tower, and is continued across the ditch to the river bank.282 The well-
flanked approach from the Byward tower, arranged so that the gateway to
the inner ward must be entered by a right-angled turn, may be compared
with the entrances at Conway and Beaumaris, or with the earlier approach
to the main bailey at Conisbrough.

Chepstow; Basement chamber
In some respects, the alterations undertaken at Chepstow (104) towards
the end of the thirteenth century give it a place among concentric castles.
The ridge on which the castle stands, between the town ditch and a sheer
cliff above the Wye, was too narrow for concentric treatment, and the actual
plan shows us four wards on end, each on higher ground than the last. The
first and lowest ward was the Edwardian addition. The second ward formed
the lower part of the bailey of the early castle. The third ward, at a very
narrow point in the ridge, was almost filled by the great hall, which was
virtually the great tower or keep of this castle; and there is only a narrow

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

Caerphilly Castle; Plan
III. The castles, however, of the last twenty years of the thirteenth
century, planned with a system of concentric defences, may be taken, with
Carnarvon and Conway, as reaching the highest pitch of military science
attained in medieval England. The earliest of these, Caerphilly (270), which
was begun before the end of the reign of Henry III., was also the most
elaborate.284 The castle proper was placed in the middle of a lake, formed
by the damming up of two streams; and in this respect the situation was not
unlike that of Kenilworth, which was defended on the south and west by an
artificial lake, and was irregularly concentric in the ultimate development of
its plan.285 The sides of the island were enclosed within strong retaining
walls, which rose to form the curtain of the outer ward. This curtain was
low, and was flanked, not by towers, but by curved projections forming
bastions at the angles. Within this outer defence rose the rectangular inner

ward, the lofty curtain of which was flanked by drum towers at each angle,
and by a very large gatehouse with two drum towers in each of the east and
west sides. The outer ward had also a front and back gatehouse, flanked by
small drum towers, in its east and west curtains: these were directly
commanded by the inner gatehouses, and the entrance was not oblique. The
inner ward was spacious and cheerful. In the centre is the well: the great
hall (272), the excellent stonework of which is sheltered from the weather
by a modern roof, was built against the south curtain, and the chapel was at
right angles to it at its east end. The kitchen was contained in a projecting
tower south of the hall, which blocked the outer ward at this point: beneath
the kitchen was a postern communicating directly with the lake. The place
of the rampart-walk in the curtain next the hall was supplied by a gallery
running in its thickness, and looped to the field. At the east end of the hall
were apartments, through which the rooms in the first floor of the east
gatehouse could be reached.

Caerphilly Castle
This plan, in which the military and domestic elements were so well
combined, is interesting upon its own account. But more interesting still
were the outer defences by which the castle was surrounded. The whole east
face of the castle on the outer edge of the lake was guarded by an outer
wall, which had in the centre, nearly opposite the inner gateways, a large

gatehouse, and was returned at the ends into clusters of towers, the larger of
which, on the south, covered a postern. A wet ditch divided this outer line of
defence from the village of Caerphilly, and in its centre was a pier on which
the two sections of the drawbridge met. North of the gatehouse, the outer
curtain was defended simply by the rampart-walk: on the south side,
however, there was a narrow terrace left in the rear of the curtain, by which
access was obtained to the castle mill and other offices. These two portions
of the curtain were separated from each other by the gatehouse and a
dividing wall, which, in case of the capture of one part of the curtain by
besiegers, gave the defenders a distinct advantage. The inner lake was
crossed from the platform in front of the main gatehouse by a drawbridge,
which probably was worked by a counterpoise from the island side.

Caerphilly Castle; Hall

Harlech Castle

Harlech Castle; Gatehouse

Harlech; Inner side of gatehouse
The lake on the north side of the castle was divided into an inner and
outer moat by a bank of earth which sprang from the platform of the outer
gatehouse, and curved round the north side of the island. This bank ended at
a second and smaller island, the sides of which were reveted by a stone
wall, covering the west face of the stronghold. This horn-work or ravelin
was connected by drawbridges across the outer and inner moats with the
mainland and with the western gatehouses of the castle. It is evident that a
fortress like this, in which every resource of the defenders’ art has been
brought into action, gave a besieger very few opportunities. Every entry
was guarded: if he once effected an entrance, defence after defence had to
be forced, while the resources of the several lines of defence could all be
used against him at once. Moreover, he had to be careful to cut all
communications off from the rear entrance and posterns; and this was a
difficult matter, where the defenders of the castle had so much freedom of
movement and could assail him from so many different points. It is not
surprising to learn that the impregnable fortress of Caerphilly is almost
without a history. Constructed to defend the lower valley of the Rhymney
and to cover the coast castles round Cardiff from an attack from the Welsh

of the valleys which slope southwards from the Brecon Beacons, it endured
no important siege;286 and it was not until the civil war that its military
capacity was really tested—and then only in an age which had outgrown the
methods responsible for its scheme of defence.287
Of Edward I.’s castles in North Wales, Harlech (273) and Rhuddlan, with
lofty inner curtains and cylindrical angle-towers, have much in common
with each other and with Caerphilly. The general plan of Harlech is nearly
identical with that of the island defences of Caerphilly. Its situation on a
lofty rock, however, does not call for elaborate outer defences. The rock
was isolated from the mainland by a dry ditch cut across the east face. A
causeway and a drawbridge led to the gatehouse of the outer ward, which
was flanked by bartizans. The wall of the outer ward, like that at Caerphilly,
is low, and has no towers: three of its angles form bastions, while the other,
at the least accessible point, is simply curved. The unusually lofty curtain of
the inner ward, some 40 feet high, towers above the comparatively slight
outer defences; while the centre of the east side is occupied by the great
gatehouse (274), projecting far back into the inner ward. The entrance is
flanked by two semi-cylindrical towers; and in the rear of the gatehouse are
two round turrets, rising high above the roofs. Rhuddlan, which stands on
the right bank of the Clwyd, had a fairly broad outer ward defended by a
deep and wide ditch on the three faces on which the site is fairly level. The
inner ward had two gatehouses, of equal size and importance, placed
diagonally to each other at the north-east and south-west angles of the
curtain. Each of these was flanked by two large drum towers; while each of
the two remaining angles was capped by a single tower.
There were at Harlech a hall and other domestic buildings against the
curtains; but the gatehouse was also a complete mansion in itself, with its
own small chapel or oratory above the gateway. There was an outer stair to
the bailey from the main hall of the gatehouse. Exactly the same
arrangement occurs at Kidwelly, while the importance of the gatehouse as a
dwelling reaches its climax in the hall of the northern gatehouse at
Beaumaris.288 The dual arrangement of a hall, kitchen, etc., for the garrison,
and a private dwelling-house for the constable or the lord of the castle, has
already been noticed at Conway, whilst its growth has been traced in
connection with the castle of Durham.

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

Beaumaris Castle; Plan
Nowhere, however, can the beauty of the concentric plan be so well
appreciated as at Beaumaris (278), one of Edward I.’s latest Welsh
castles.290 The site is flat and low, on a tongue of land at the northern
entrance to the Menai straits. There is no attempt at any elaborate outer
system of defence, such as we see at Caerphilly. The defences consisted of a
ditch, filled with water at high tide, and an inner and outer curtain, the inner
curtain, as usual, commanding the outer. The inner ward is square: it has a
drum tower at each of the angles, and another in the centre of each of the
east and west sides. The north and south curtains are broken by gatehouses,
also flanked by drum towers.291 The north gatehouse was the largest, and
upon its first floor was an imposing hall. The curtain of the outer ward,
surrounding the inner curtain, was adapted to the projection of the
intermediate drum towers and the gatehouses of the inner ward by the
construction of each face with a salient angle in the centre (277). There are
no traces of any cross-walls barring the passage of the outer ward. The outer
curtain, which, owing to the flat site, is not the mere low bastioned wall of
Caerphilly or Harlech, has a drum tower at each angle. On each of the

north, east, and west curtains, there are three smaller drum towers, the
central one of which caps the salient. The plan is thus of a most
symmetrical and uniform kind. The south curtain of the outer ward,
however, has no intermediate drum towers, and its salient is nearly capped
by the outer gateway. This gateway, however, flanked by rectangular
towers,292 is set obliquely to the wall. Entering the outer ward, immediately
on our right is the small rectangular barbican, pierced with cross-loops,
which covers the inner gateway, so that two right-angled turns must be
made before the inner ward is entered (277).

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

castle. The wall is pierced by a passage, is looped in both faces, and is
flanked by a half-round tower on the west face.
Although, at first sight, the towers of Beaumaris, on its absolutely level
site, look low and unimportant, and present an extraordinary contrast to
those of Harlech, Carnarvon, or Conway, the area of the castle is actually
large, and no other Edwardian castle presents so perfectly scientific a
system of defence. The outer curtain, in addition to the rampart-walk, has
loops pierced at regular intervals in its lower portion; the rampart-walk is
partly carried by continuous corbelling upon the inner face of the wall. The
inner curtain, moreover, is pierced, on the level of the first floor of the
gatehouses and towers, by a continuous vaulted passage, looped to the field.
This extends round the whole ward, and is broken only at the north-west
angle, where it meets the northern gatehouse. Everywhere in the walls of
the castle where a loop could be of use, it was made. Of the points noticed,
both the entrances are unusual, and the design of the postern at the rear
seems to be unique. The spur-wall, though less elaborately treated, is found
covering a main entrance at Kidwelly and elsewhere; and the long passages
in the thickness of the wall are found in portions of the defences at
Caerphilly and Carnarvon. The towers at Beaumaris are entered by straight
stairs from the gorge; and throughout the castle, in the gatehouses, great
hall, and basements of the towers, the method of carrying a wooden roof
upon detached stone ribs prevailed, which is very noticeable also at
Conway and Harlech.
Kidwelly castle293 (267), another late thirteenth-century building, stands
on a steep hill, the east side of which slopes abruptly to the Gwendraeth
Fach river. The castle is on the opposite side of the river to the town of
Kidwelly, and a long base-court, of which part of the gatehouse remains,
descended the slope towards the bridge. At the head of this ascent a
barbican and drawbridge formed the approach to a strong gatehouse,
flanked by two battering towers, and further protected by a spur-wall across
the end of the ditch. The gatehouse is in the extreme south-east angle of the
outer ward, which, describing a wide curve, covers three sides of the nearly
square inner ward, and is separated from the suburb of Kidwelly on this
side the river by the ditch. The site was narrow, as at Chepstow, and the
eastward slope so steep that the outer ward was not completed along this
side, but its curtain was continued by the eastern drum towers and curtain of

the inner ward. Three half-round towers were made in the curving curtain of
the outer ward; at the opposite extremity to the gatehouse, near the north-
east angle, a postern, flanked by small drum towers, gave access to a
northern earthwork, which may be compared with the horn-work at
Caerphilly, but had no retaining wall.
Kidwelly, with its outworks in front and rear, at once recalls Caerphilly.
The irregularly concentric plan, with the inner ward on one side of the
interior of the outer, is very unusual, but provides a link between the
concentric plan and the extension of the early plan of Chepstow. The
provision of both front and rear gateways is a feature of Caerphilly,
Chepstow, Beaumaris, and Conway; and, as at Caerphilly, Rhuddlan, and
Beaumaris, the inner ward also has front and rear entrances. These,
however, at Kidwelly, are mere doorways in the wall. The inner ward was
small, with very large and perfect drum towers at its angles: the domestic
buildings arranged on either side of it left only a narrow passage through
the middle. A tower, of which the two upper stories formed the chapel, was
built out upon the east slope, from the corner of the ward next the south-east
drum tower. The gatehouse, then, which here, as at Harlech and Beaumaris,
contains a large hall and other apartments, and, in addition to a vice to the
upper floors, has an outer stair and landing against its north face, was on the
outer, not the inner, line of defence, and was protected by the ditch, the
barbican, and the base-court beyond. There are remains of buildings,
probably intended for the garrison, in the outer ward. The basement of the
gatehouse, which is below the level of the ward, contains vaulted chambers.
In one of these is a lower vault, which has had a domed roof, and may have
been used for stores or a reservoir: in another there appear to be indications
of the mouth of a well.

Kidwelly Castle; Tower at south-west angle of inner ward
The defensive precautions taken at Kidwelly were not so thorough as in
the other great Welsh castles of the time, and the chief reliance of the
builders was in the strength of their walls and towers. The outer curtain has
the peculiarity, rare in English castles of the date, of possessing a stair built
against it from the level of the ward.294 The inner ward has several curious
features. The stair to the curtain was a straight flight of steps protected by
the west wall of the main entrance from the outer ward. A path along the
back of the rampart of the south curtain led into the south-west drum tower,
from the second floor of which the rampart-walk was gained. The walk,
though much overgrown by ivy and other weeds, still keeps its rear-wall,
and is continued through the towers and round the inner ward. The two
western drum towers are interesting. The upper part of that on the north,
where it faces the ward, is not a simple curve, but is broken into two convex
curves, with a recess between: the reason of this is not apparent.295 The
south-west tower (281), standing at an angle from which it commands the
inner face of the great gatehouse, has the most unusual peculiarity of having
all its stages covered with vaulting: the vaults themselves are shallow
domes, rather rudely constructed. It is probable that the engineers may have

intended to establish a catapult on the tower in time of siege. The situation
of the tower would have been excellently suited for that purpose, but its
unusual strength may be due merely to its position in the line of attack. The
basements of all the towers are vaulted, but that of this particular tower,
instead of being entered from the ward or one of the domestic buildings
directly, is entered by a long and dark passage in the thickness of the south
wall, from the left-hand side of the doorway of the inner ward. The unusual
precautions taken with regard to this tower and its entrances give it a
prominent position in an account of the castle; and, although it is no larger
or loftier than the other angle-towers of the inner ward, it has something of
the special importance of Marten’s tower at Chepstow or the Eagle tower at
Carnarvon.

Carcassonne
Although the Edwardian castle in Wales has many points of interest, and
provides a highly-developed scheme of defence, yet its devices are simple
when compared with the highest achievements of French fortification. The
elaborate care bestowed upon the outer defences of Caerphilly, and the
variety of ingenuity manifested at Beaumaris, are exceptions to this general
statement; while the general plan of Carnarvon is as imposing as that of any
castle in Europe. But such carefully contrived approaches as the barbican of
Conway and the long ascent from the water-gate at Harlech take a second
place when compared with such a work as the outer approach to the castle

of Carcassonne, as restored with approximate faithfulness in the drawings
of Viollet-le-Duc (283). The castle stood within the inner wall of the town,
occupying a rectangular site on the south-west side of this masterpiece of
concentric planning. The entrance from the town was guarded by a
semicircular barbican; but the approach which called for the most watchful
defence was that from the foot of the hill, on the edge of which the city
stands. Where the hill meets the plain, therefore, below the castle, a great
barbican was constructed, within the outer palisade and ditch of which was
a great round tower, not unlike the great tower on the mount at Windsor,
surrounded by a wet ditch. The centre of this châtelet was open to the sky:
the walls were pierced with two rows of loops below the rampart. This
tower guarded the entrance to a walled and carefully protected ascent,
which, after making a right-angled turn, led upwards in a straight
passage,296 commanded by the rampart of the outer curtain of the town.
Where it met the curtain, it turned to the right, along the foot of the wall,
and so reached a gateway into the outer ward or “lists” of the town. But
here the passage, passing through a covered vestibule, turned back on its
own course, and entered an inner barbican, with two upper stages. Not until
this was passed, were the lists entered, and the chief gateway of the castle,
in the inner curtain, reached. As we trace this passage, we recall the ascent
at Harlech and the traps set for an enemy at Beaumaris; but their
combination here is on a scale undreamed of in those fortresses, minutely
calculated though their planning was.

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

provided with a line of defence below the level of the towers and curtain.
The gallery is not on one level throughout, but forms a series of separate
vaulted casemates, connected with one another by short flights of stairs297
(284).
In the second case, at Coucy, we have a case of a closed gallery, without
loops, which was designed as a counter-mine against the efforts of the
sappers of an attacking force. Remains of such galleries exist in more than
one part of the castle, forming a remarkable addition to defences which, by
themselves, were strong enough to discourage attack. Towards the end of
the fourteenth century, the curtain of the donjon, the strongest tower in
Europe, was thickened by the addition of a talus or battering base, which
was pierced by a passage. The main object of this work was to cover in a
spring which had its source in the ditch at the foot of the curtain: the
passage communicated at one end with an earlier and well-guarded passage
leading from the domestic buildings to a postern in the wall which crossed
the west end of the ditch, while, at the other, it communicated by a stair
with the rampart-walk of the curtain and gatehouse of the inner ward. But it
did not merely form a convenient means of access to the spring. It afforded
an opportunity to the defenders of counteracting the miners of the enemy;
while, if the miners pierced their way through the talus, they would be met
by the thick curtain on the other side of the passage. The passage itself, well
protected at both ends, would be commanded by the defence; while the
spring in the middle, to those not acquainted with the geography of the
place, would form a dangerous barrier in the darkness.
To such finished achievements of military art as these, which have been
quoted as specimen examples, our English castles can afford no exact
parallel. In the military, as in the ecclesiastical architecture of France,
principles were worked out with a logical precision and completeness,
which, in its practical effect, provokes our wonder. The effort manifested in
the Edwardian castle is more humble; the achievement more limited. This,
however, is true rather of the scale of the castle and the details of its defence
than of the general idea. The main object, of flanking the curtain effectually
and completely, is as fully realised as in any foreign example; while it may
be safely said that in no country were the advantages of concentric lines of
defence better exhibited than in the Welsh castles, whose main features
have been indicated in this chapter. The walls of Carcassonne may provide

us with the concentric plan on its largest scale; but the Welsh castles show
at least an equal understanding of the value of concentric fortifications. The
difference lies in the fact that the French engineer proceeded to strengthen
his defences by the addition of intricate refinements and subtle devices;
while the Englishman stopped short at this point, and was satisfied when his
aim of providing and combining adequate towers and walls of defence was
achieved.

CHAPTER XI

MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE LATER
MIDDLE AGES: FORTIFIED TOWNS AND
CASTLES
The strengthening of the curtain of the castle was perfected in the
concentric plan, in which also was established, for the time being, the
superiority of defence to attack. But the very fact that the castle had reached
a point at which further development in the existing condition of things was
impossible, was fatal to its continued existence as a stronghold. A castle like
Caerphilly did not put an end to local warfare: it merely warned an enemy
off a forbidden track. Its own safety was secured, because its almost
impregnable defences made any attempt at a siege ridiculous. Other
circumstances, however, combined to render the castle obsolete. The rise of
towns and the growth of a wealthy mercantile class hastened the decline of
feudalism. The feudal baron was no longer the representative of an all-
important class, and his fortress was of minor importance compared with
the walled boroughs which were symbolical of the real strength of the
country. But, in addition to this social transition, there took place a change
in warfare which had a far-reaching influence upon castle and walled town
alike. Fire-arms came into general use in the early part of the fourteenth
century.298 Missiles, for which hitherto the only available machines had
been those involving discharge by torsion, tension, or counterpoise, could
now be delivered by the new method of detonation. This produced an
artillery which could be worked with greater economy of labour, and
discharged the missiles themselves with greater force. Not merely can a ball
of stone or iron be projected with greater impetus than can be given by the
older methods; but the direction which it takes is more nearly horizontal
than that given to it by the mangonel and kindred machines. It is true that, at
first, the power of cannon remained relatively weak; but their gradual
improvement made the old systems of defence useless. Lofty walls, which
could resist the catapults of the past, were easily dismantled by cannon-shot

(288). Harlech, with its lofty curtains and angle-towers, was an ideal
stronghold, as long as explosives were not employed for attack and defence.
But, when cannon are directed against such defences (273), and the surface
of the walls is pounded with shot, the height of the fortifications becomes a
danger; and, in order to plant the cannon of the defence on the walls, those
walls have to be as solid as possible to avoid the constant vibration arising
from the discharge, and as low as possible to increase their stability and to
place the enemy within range. The change is obvious, if we contrast the
lofty and comparatively slender towers of Carcassonne or Aigues-Mortes
with the massive drum towers of the French castles or walled towns of the
fifteenth century, like those of the castle of Alençon (289) or of the town of
Saint-Malo (290). Later still, the flanking of the walls of towns and castles
shows a transition from the round tower to the bastion; and we find massive
projections like the Tour Gabriel at Mont-Saint-Michel (291), which rise
little, if at all, above the level of the adjacent wall. The ultimate outcome of
this transition is the bastion pure and simple, flanking the low and solid
earthen bank with its reveting wall, as at Saint-Paul-du-Var, or, later, at our
own Berwick-on-Tweed.299 A step further brings us to the scientific
fortification of the seventeenth century, to Lille and Arras, and those
magnificent fortresses which the progress of the nineteenth century has
already made of historical, rather than practical, interest.300

Gatehouse, Barbican, and Curtain wall of Town battered by cannon-shot

Alençon

Saint-Malo; Grande porte

Mont-St-Michel; Tour Gabriel
With these modern developments we have no concern in this book; and
in these two concluding chapters we can trace merely the later history, from
a defensive point of view, of that type of fortification whose advance we
have hitherto pursued, and of the gradual amalgamation of the medieval
castle with the medieval dwelling-house. The old distinction between the
castle and the burh still asserted itself. During the greater part of the middle
ages, from the Norman conquest to the fourteenth century, the castle, the
stronghold of the individual lord, was the highest type of fortification, and
the town, as at Berwick in the reign of Edward I., or at Conway or
Carnarvon, was, when walled, little more than an appendage or outer ward
to the castle. With the introduction of fire-arms, the town began once more
to take its place in the van of the defence. Warfare, from the time of the
wars of Edward III. in France, and even earlier, ceased to be an affair of

sieges of castles. Battles were fought more and more in the open field, and
the reduction of the fortified town, not of strongholds of individuals,
became the chief object of campaigns. The castle, relegated to a secondary
place, developed more and more on the lines of the dwelling-house; and,
finally, as the castle disappeared, the town with its citadel became all-
important as the object of attack and the base of operations. In brief, the
steps in the history of fortification after the Conquest are these. The timber
defences of the Saxon burh became of secondary importance to the timber
defences of the Norman castle. These were subordinated to the keep, the
symbol of the dominion of the feudal lord. The keep reached its climax in
the stone tower. At this point the revulsion began. The strengthening of the
stone curtain made the keep obsolete; and, finally, the perfection of the
curtain of the castle once attained, military science applied itself to the
strengthening of the wall of the town, until, aided by social changes and
scientific improvements, the castle itself became altogether unnecessary.

newcastle: town wall

southampton: town wall

The principles of defence of the walled town are those of the castle; and
hitherto we have drawn illustrations from both with little discrimination. In
both cases the same methods of attack are provided against by the use of the
same means. But it must be remembered that the area of the town is larger
than that of the castle, and that while, in the castle, the bailey is the
common muster-ground from which every part of the curtain can be easily
reached, there can be no such open space enclosed by the walls of a large
inhabited town or city. Thus, while the market-place, in or near the centre of
the town, would serve as a general rallying-ground,301 it was necessary also
to keep a clear space at the foot of the inner side of the walls, so that free
communication between every part might be preserved. From the
continuous lane which was thus formed between the wall and the houses of

the town, and was crossed at intervals by the main thoroughfares leading to
the gates, access was gained to the rear of the flanking towers, and to the
stairs by which, from time to time, the rampart-walk was reached. Most
towns which have been walled retain traces of this arrangement. At
Southampton the pomerium,302 as this clear space is called in medieval
documents, survives on the east side of the town in the lane still known as
“Back of the Walls.” At Carnarvon it is nearly entire, except on the west
side of the town. At Newcastle (293) it remains in a very perfect state on the
north-west side of the enclosure, where the walls and their intermediate
turrets are also fairly perfect; and it can be traced in a paved lane on the
west side, where the walls are gone.303 Nearly the whole extent of the inner
city walls of Bristol, of which little remains, can be easily traced by the
survival of the pomerium in a series of curved lanes. The line of the east
wall of Northampton can be recovered in the same way; and although, as at
York, modern encroachments have in many places removed the pomerium,
it usually survived to mark the site of town walls, even long after those
walls had been destroyed.

Conway; Porth Isaf
During the epoch at which fortification reached its highest point, the wall
of a town was systematically flanked by towers, which, as we have seen at
Conway and Avignon, were left open upon the side next the town. Gates
were made in the wall, where main roads approached the place. Thus the
gates of Coucy were three, admitting the roads from Laon, Soissons, and
Chauny. At Conway (256) there were three gates; but of these one
communicated merely with a quay, while another gave access to the castle
mill: the third or north-western gate alone was the direct entrance to the
promontory on which the town and castle were built. At Chepstow, where
the town also formed a cul-de-sac, there was only one main gateway, at the
north-west end of the town. The main gateway of Carnarvon was on the east
side of the town; while, opposite to it, in the west wall, was a smaller
gateway opening, like the Porth Isaf304 (295) at Conway, upon the quay.

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

Monmouth; Gatehouse on Monnow bridge
Where one of the main approaches to a town crossed a river, the defence
of the passage was of course necessary. In the case of the St John’s gate of
Bristol, already mentioned, the course of the narrow river Frome, on which
it opened, was defended by an additional wall on the other side of the
stream; and in this wall, covering St John’s gate, was the strongly fortified
Frome gate. The case of York, where the river nearly bisects the walled
enclosure, is most unusual. In other instances, the town was confined to one
side of the stream, and the approach from the river was protected by a
barbican, which could take the form either of an outer defence to the
gateway itself, or of a tête-du-pont on the opposite side of the stream, or of
a fortified passage across the bridge. Of barbicans in general much has been
said already; and we have seen at York and Tenby something of town
barbicans, while in the Porte de Laon at Coucy, we have had an instance of
a barbican acting as a tête-du-pont on the further side of a town ditch. The
arrangement of the south-western approach to Kenilworth castle is a good
instance of the combination, in castle fortification, of tête-du-pont, fortified

causeway, and gatehouse with barbican. Fortified bridges were not
uncommon in the middle ages, but those which remain are few. The finest
example of all is the fourteenth-century Pont Valentré at Cahors (Lot), a
noble bridge of six lofty pointed arches, divided by piers which are supplied
with the usual triangular spurs or cut-waters. At each end of the bridge is a
massive rectangular gateway tower, battlemented, with pyramidal roofs, and
machicolated galleries below the battlements; while in the middle of the
passage is a third tower, the ground-floor of which was gated and
portcullised. The brick bridge, called the Pont des Consuls, at Montauban
(Tarn-et-Garonne), was somewhat similarly defended. Examples from other
countries are the thirteenth-century covered bridge at Tournai, the bridge of
Alcantarà at Toledo, and the bridge of Prague, which was defended about
the middle of the fourteenth century with a tall rectangular gate-tower at
one end, and a gateway, flanked by towers of unequal size, at the other. In
England two small examples of fortified bridges remain. Upon the bridge at
Monmouth (297) is a gatehouse with a machicolated battlement and a
gateway which was closed by a portcullis: this stood well in advance of the
Bridge gate of the town, which was at a little distance from the stream. At
Warkworth, on the side of the bridge next the town, is a plain rectangular
gatehouse, the arch and ground-floor of which remain intact. The triangular
patch of land, south of the Coquet, on which Warkworth is built, was well
defended on two sides by the river, and on the third side by the castle, and
the gatehouse at the bridge was its only stone fortification.

wells: gatehouse of bishop’s palace

The progress of the art of defence under Edward I. was accompanied by
the enclosure within defensive walls of areas and houses not originally
intended for military purposes. Disputes between the cathedral priory and
the citizens of Norwich led to the enclosure of the monastery within a
fortified precinct:305 the royal licence for the construction of the water-gate
bears date 27th July 1276.306 On 8th May 1285, the dean and chapter of
Lincoln obtained their first licence for the enclosure of their precinct with a
wall 12 feet high;307 and ten days later a similar licence was issued to the

dean and chapter of York.308 On 10th June the dean and chapter of St
Paul’s,309 and on 1st January following the dean and chapter of Exeter,310
had letters patent to the same effect. Bishop Burnell had licence to wall and
crenellate the churchyard and close of Wells, 15th March 1285-6,311 while
he was busy building his strong house at Acton Burnell. Licence to
crenellate the priory of Tynemouth, on its exposed site, was granted 5th
September 1295.312 Bishop Walter Langton had licence to wall the close of
Lichfield, 18th April 1299.313 Licence to the abbot and convent of
Peterborough to crenellate the gate of the abbey and two chambers lying
between the gate and the church was granted 18th July 1309.314 At Lincoln,
where a large portion of the close walls may still be seen, there was some
delay in building. Two licences, confirming the letters patent of 1285, were
granted by Edward II. in one year.315 On 6th December 1318, the licence
was again renewed: the wall might be raised to a greater height than 12 feet,
and might be crenellated and provided with crenellated turrets.316 Further,
on 28th September 1329, Bishop Burghersh received letters patent,
permitting him, in the most liberal terms, to “repair, raise, crenellate, and
turrellate” the walls of the bishop’s palace.317 Thus, in the reign of Edward
III., there were no less than three fortified enclosures within the circuit of
the walls of Lincoln—the castle, the close round the cathedral, and the
bishop’s palace. To-day, as we stand in the open space at the head of the
Steep Hill, to our left is the gatehouse of the castle; while to our right is the
Exchequer gate, the inner gatehouse of the close. This is a lofty oblong
building of three stages, with a large central archway, and a smaller
archway on each side for pedestrians. On the west or outer side the face is
plain, but on the eastern side it is broken by two half-octagon turrets,
containing vices. There was also an outer gatehouse, some yards to the
west.318 The south-eastern gatehouse of the close, known as Pottergate, still
remains, a rectangular building with an upper stage. At Wells, Salisbury,319
and Norwich, the enceinte of the close may still easily be traced; while at
Wells, close by the gatehouse of the close, is the outer gatehouse of the
bishop’s palace. The palace itself retains its wet moat, and is still
approached by its drawbridge and through a formidable inner gatehouse,
which is flanked by two half-octagon towers (300).

Thornton Abbey; Gatehouse

Thornton Abbey; Plan of gatehouse
Of gatehouses of abbeys and priories, many still remain, some of which,
like those at Bridlington, Tewkesbury, and Whalley,320 are of great size, and
were capable of offering defence, if necessary. But by far the most
important of monastic gatehouses is that at Thornton abbey in Lincolnshire,
a magnificent building of brick with stone dressings (302). The licence to
the abbot and convent to “build and crenellate a new house over and beside
their abbey gate” bears date 6th August 1382.321 The gatehouse is an oblong
of three lofty stages with half-octagon turrets at the angles. The single
archway on the ground-floor is approached through a narrow barbican, set
obliquely to the building (331). On each side of the entrance is a bold half-
octagon buttress. The inner face of the entrance is flanked by half-octagon
turrets, in the southern of which is the vice which gives access to the upper
floors. There are no straight side-passages as in the Exchequer gate at
Lincoln, where the porters’ lodges are between the main and lateral
entrances; but at Thornton an archway was built in the south wall of the
central passage, and a diagonal side entrance constructed, with a wide inner

archway. The outer entrance (303) was protected by a portcullis, and the
lodges and turrets on either side had loops to the field. On the first floor of
the gatehouse is a spacious room, which communicates by mural passages
with the first floor of the angle-turrets and with galleries in the adjacent
walls. These are all provided with loops, so that the approach to the
monastery was effectually commanded. This gatehouse is nearly
contemporary with the West gate of the city of Canterbury, which was
begun by Archbishop Sudbury about 1379;322 but the Canterbury gateway
takes the orthodox form of a central passage recessed between two round
towers, which are bold projections from a rectangular plan, and its
architecture cannot compare with the moulded archways, elaborate ribbed
vaulting, and canopied niches of Thornton.323

stokesay: hall

stokesay castle from south-west

Fortified closes, abbeys, and bishop’s palaces bring us back to the castle,
in the history of which is the epitome of the art of defence. The concentric
plan displayed the resources of the defenders in their most scientific form,
but the concentric plan, as we have seen, is not very common, and its
systematic use in English architecture was practically confined to a single
period. The site, as at Kidwelly, did not always allow of the full extension
of the outer ward, so as completely to encircle the inner. As a rule, we find
that the English castle of the fourteenth century consists, like Richmond and
Ludlow in their earliest form, or like Carew or Manorbier, of a single bailey
without a keep. This enclosure is flanked by towers at adequate intervals,
and is entered through an imposing gatehouse between two drum towers.
No English castle of this type can compare with the fourteenth-century
castle of Saint-André at Villeneuve d’Avignon (307), which kept watch
upon the castle of the popes on the opposite bank of the Rhône, or with the
Breton castles of Fougères (250) and Vitré. The castle of Caerlaverock
(364), near Dumfries, not the famous castle besieged by Edward I., but a
castle founded in 1333 on a new site, is a good instance of a simple plan, in

which a single ward is surrounded by a flanked curtain. The castle stands on
low and marshy ground near the Solway firth. An island, surrounded by a
broad wet ditch, which, in the rear of the castle, assumes the proportions of
a small lake, is enclosed by three sections of curtain forming an equilateral
triangle. A drum tower, low and of rather slender proportions, covered each
angle of the base;324 while at the apex was a lofty gatehouse, flanked by
drum towers, and approached by a drawbridge. The interior of the castle is
somewhat confined, and the older domestic buildings were much enlarged
in the sixteenth century by a mansion, somewhat in the style of the French
Renaissance, which was built against the curtain to the left hand of the
entrance. The old hall occupied the base of the triangle, while the kitchen
offices were against the right-hand curtain.

Villeneuve d’Avignon

Licences to crenellate mansions are common in the Patent rolls of the
Edwards and Richard II. In this way, many private dwelling-houses reached
the rank of castles, while still retaining strongly marked features of their
domestic object. The fortified house of Stokesay (306) in Shropshire, which
Lawrence of Ludlow had licence to crenellate, 19th October 1290,325 is a
case in point, where the moated manor-house, with its strong tower, well
deserves the name of castle. At the same time, many of the houses for
which licences of crenellation were granted were never more than manor-
houses to which were added fortifications of a limited kind. This was the
case with Henry Percy’s houses of Spofforth, Leconfield, and Petworth, the
licence for which bears date 14th October 1308.326 Markenfield hall in
Yorkshire, for which a licence was granted 28th February 1309-10,327 is
still one of our most valuable examples of domestic, as distinct from
military, architecture. Such fortifications as these houses had or still have
were not designed to stand a siege, but to ensure privacy and keep off
casual marauders. Even in the sixteenth century, dwelling-houses like
Compton Wyniates in Warwickshire or Tolleshunt Major in Essex were
surrounded by a moat or simply by a wall.
Against these minor fortifications, however, we must put the cases in
which the process of crenellation definitely meant conversion into a castle.
Dunstanburgh, which Thomas of Lancaster had licence to crenellate in
1315,328 is a military stronghold of the most pronounced type. Its exposed
position upon the Northumbrian coast was one reason of its strength: coast
castles needed strong defences, and we find that, during the period of the
wars with France and later, the fortification of castles like Dover was a
constant method of precaution against invasion.329 Dunstanburgh has much
in common with the ordinary strong dwelling-houses of Northumberland.
Its base-court is a very large enclosure, occupying most of the area of the
promontory on which the castle is situated; while the actual castle consists
of a small and gloomy bailey. A wall, flanked at each end by a rectangular
tower, shut off the enclosed space from the mainland. In the wall between
the two towers rose the great gatehouse, which, standing in the front of
attack, gave access to the smaller ward, and contained upon its upper floors
the chief domestic apartments. Strongly defended as this gatehouse was,
with two drum towers of great size flanking the entrance, the immediate
access which it gave to the heart of the castle was evidently a source of

danger. At a later date, the entrance was walled up, and a new gateway
made in the curtain at a point near by. The gatehouse thus was practically
turned into a keep, and the process which had taken place at Richmond
towards the end of the twelfth century was virtually repeated, with this
exception, that the actual fabric of the gatehouse remained, and was not
superseded by a new form of strong tower. Precisely the same thing
happened at Llanstephan in Carmarthenshire. This castle, one of the most
imposing of Welsh strongholds, stands on a steep and almost isolated hill,
where the Towy enters the Bristol Channel. It is divided by a cross-wall into
a large outer ward and an inner ward which occupies the top of the sloping
summit of the hill. The chief buildings were in the outer ward, and the finest
of them was the great gatehouse, situated at the head of the landward slope
of the hill, and concealed from the river by the convex curve of the curtain
and by a large tower at the eastern angle of the enclosure. This gatehouse is
of trapezoidal form: the gateway and its drum towers front the field, but the
building spreads inwards, and has two much smaller round towers at its
inner angles. It was undesirable, however, that the gatehouse, which, from
the military and domestic point of view alike, was the principal building in
the castle, should be the point on which the besiegers could concentrate all
their force. Consequently, the gateway was blocked not long after it was
built, and a new entrance was made beside it in the curtain. The way into
the higher ward at Llanstephan was closed by a small rectangular
gatehouse, built near one end of the dividing curtain.
Thus at Dunstanburgh and Llanstephan, castles in which the system of
defence was not founded upon the concentric plan, but relied upon the
strength of an adequately flanked curtain, gatehouses which are worthy of
Caerphilly and Harlech, and stand upon the outer line of defence,330
reverted to the condition of keeps. The possible use of a keep as an ultimate
refuge never ceased altogether to have weight with castle-builders. The
Percys, after their purchase of Alnwick early in the fourteenth century,331
although there was ample room for a large mansion in one or other of the
wards, built their dwelling as a cluster of walls and towers round a
courtyard on the mount between the two wards. Some part of the
substructure, the gatehouse with its octagonal flanking towers, and the
curious triple-arched recess at the head of the well (310), are the most that
remains to us of the early fourteenth-century mansion; but with these is

incorporated twelfth-century work, which shows that the Percys built their
house upon the lines of an older house upon the mount.332 Thus the
dwelling-house at Alnwick is in reality a keep of unusual form, a large
building with flanking towers built upon a mount which has been
considerably levelled to allow of more room for the house and its internal
courtyard (115).

Alnwick Castle; Well-head

Raby Castle, Durham
Ground Plan.
The strong tower, representing the survival of the keep, is found in
another great northern castle of the fourteenth century, Raby, the castle of
the Nevilles, where in other respects the domestic element is very
prominent (311).333 Raby, like Alnwick, is occupied to-day, but no such
drastic changes as have converted the house on the mount at Alnwick into a
comfortable modern residence were necessary here. There is an outer
gatehouse slightly in advance of the north angle of the castle, which was
surrounded by a moat and is nearly rectangular. The buildings are clustered
round a main courtyard, the entrance to which is a gatehouse with a long
vaulted passage behind it in the west block of buildings. At either end of the
west front are two massive rectangular towers: Clifford’s tower, at the north
end, is almost detached, and covers the north angle immediately opposite

the gateway. The remaining tower, known as Bulmer’s tower, projects on
five sides from the south angle of the building, and is the strong tower or
keep of the castle. The kitchen, in the north block, is also contained within a
strong tower, which does not project, however, from the rest of the
buildings. But it was in the north of England that the keep survived most
persistently. Middleham castle received much alteration at the hands of its
Neville owners in the fourteenth century; but the twelfth-century keep was
retained as the central feature of the enclosure. The rectangular keep of
Knaresborough is entirely of the fourteenth century: it stood between an
outer and inner ward, and its great peculiarity is that the only passage from
one to the other was through the first floor of the keep.334

BELSAY CASTLE
The tradition of the rectangular tower, however, was systematically
preserved in the buildings known as pele-towers. These formed the chief
defensive structures of enclosures called “peles,” a word derived from the
Latin pilum (a stake). The twelfth-century tower of Bowes, a large and
important rectangular tower which guarded the pass over Stainmoor from
the valley of the Eden to that of the Tees, is an early instance of the pele-
tower; and probably a large palisaded enclosure or “barmkin” was attached
to it. In the fourteenth century we find large pele-towers like those at Belsay
(313) or Chipchase, or the great tower-house of East Gilling, the

proportions of which recall the rectangular keeps of a century and a half
earlier. Belsay, with its traceried two-light openings on the first floor, and
large bartizans corbelled out at the angles of its battlements, is the most
handsome building of its kind in the north of England. The ordinary pele-
tower, however, is of a rather later date, and the large majority of
Northumbrian examples are of the fifteenth, and now and then of the
sixteenth century.335 Halton tower, near Aydon castle, and the small tower
in the corner of the churchyard at Corbridge,336 are well-known examples;
while one of the most imposing specimens is the oblong tower of the
manor-house of the archbishops of York at Hexham. The normal elevation
was of three stories. The ground-floor, in which was the doorway, was
vaulted as a protection against fire; it may have been used as a stable, and
certainly was used as a store-room. The door was of wood, but its outer face
was protected by a heavy framework of iron. The first floor, reached by a
mural stair, was the main living-room. The second floor was a sleeping-
room; and the battlements at the top were generally machicolated. Garde-
robes are usually found in these towers; but they can hardly be called
comfortable residences, and had all the disadvantages of the twelfth-century
tower-keep, without its roominess. They are found, not only in
Northumberland, but throughout the northern counties and the south of
Scotland, while, in the hill country of Derbyshire, the pele seems to have
been a favourite form of stronghold. The twelfth-century tower of Peak
castle is one of those examples which allies the pele-tower to the normal
tower-keep; while Haddon hall gradually developed from an enclosure
which was neither more nor less than a pele with a tower at one angle.337
In this connection a word should be said about the fortification of
churches. Ewenny priory church in Glamorgan, with its crenellated central
tower and transept, is our only important example of fortified religious
buildings such as were common in the centre and south of France—the
cathedral of Albi (Tarn), the churches of Royat (Puy-de-Dôme) or Les-
Saintes-Maries-sur-la-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône).338 None of our abbeys is
protected by a donjon, like that of Montmajour, near Arles. There are,
however, a certain number of churches, in districts exposed to constant
warfare, the architecture of which, if not exactly military, was yet possibly
constructed with a view to defence. The massive structure of some twelfth-
century towers, like Melsonby in north Yorkshire, is probably due to the

idea that they could be converted into strongholds, in case of a raid from the
Scottish border. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when Scotland
was dreaded as a constant foe, the habit of giving additional security to the
church towers in this district was common. Some otherwise simple church
towers, as at Bolton-on-Swale and Danby Wiske in north Yorkshire, have
their lowest stage vaulted, probably to minimise the danger of fire. The
doorway to the tower-stair at Bedale was defended by a portcullis, and there
are a fireplace and garde-robe upon the first floor. At Spennithorne, in the
same neighbourhood, the battlements of the tower borrowed an ornament
from military architecture, and are crowned with figures of “defenders.” In
border districts it is not unusual to find the ground-floor of the tower roofed
with a pointed barrel-vault, as at Whickham in county Durham, where the
church stands on a high hill near the confluence of the Tyne and Derwent.
This is a very general custom in South Wales, where the towers are usually
massive and unbuttressed, and stand upon a battering plinth.339 In
Pembrokeshire a more slender type of tower prevails, which usually batters
upwards through its whole height: the ground-floor is vaulted, and in many
cases the whole church, or, at any rate, the nave, is ceiled with a barrel-
vault. It does not follow that the object of this form of construction is
defensive: lack of timber, and the consequent employment of local stone for
rubble vaulting, is partly responsible for it. But in no part of the country are
military and ecclesiastical forms of architecture so closely allied. The
barrel-vaults of Monkton priory church and St Mary’s at Pembroke are
similar to those of the chapel and its substructure which occupy the north-
west corner of the inner ward of Pembroke castle: those of the church at
Manorbier have their counterparts in the vaults of the castle chapel and the
large room on its ground-floor.
If the pele-tower may be regarded as a direct survival of the rectangular
keep in a simplified form, it is probable that the rectangular keep, with its
angle turrets, also had a share in the origin of a type of castle or strong
house, which became common, especially in the north of England, during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.340 The plan of this species of castle is
a rectangle, which, in the largest examples, as at Bolton in Wensleydale, has
an open courtyard in the centre; but its distinguishing feature is the
provision of four towers, each at an angle of the structure. Such keeps as
those of Colchester and Kenilworth, where the turrets are of considerable

size and projection, suggest this plan; and some of the earliest examples,
like Haughton on the north Tyne, the oldest parts of which are of the
thirteenth century, have little to distinguish them from the ordinary
rectangular keep. The angle-towers at Haughton are of no great
prominence; but, in the early fourteenth-century castle of Langley, to the
west of Hexham, they are a striking feature of the building, and one is
entirely devoted to a series of garde-robes, arranged in three stories, with a
common pit in the basement. A building with a somewhat similar plan to
these northern castles is the manor-house or castle which Robert Burnell,
bishop of Bath and Wells, and chancellor of England under Edward I., built
at Acton Burnell, in Shropshire.341 Here, however, the building is of a
thoroughly domestic type, with large two-light window-openings of great
beauty, which at once remove any suspicion as to its military character. The
castle of the Scropes at Bolton and that of the Nevilles at Sheriff Hutton
represent the highest development of this quadrangular plan. The licence to
crenellate Bolton was granted in 1379:342 the licence for Sheriff Hutton
bears date 1382.343 Both castles are large buildings with a central courtyard,
and in both the military ideal was uppermost. Sheriff Hutton is now in a
complete state of ruin, but Bolton is fairly perfect; and from its structure
one important fact may be deduced. While the usual precautions for defence
were carefully preserved, and the outer openings in the walls interfered
little with the general solidity of structure, the domestic buildings round the
courtyard formed part and parcel of the fabric itself. They were not merely
built up against or within the curtain, but the curtain was actually their outer
wall, and not simply their defensive covering. In fact, the manor-house in
these cases was not a separate building within the enclosure of the castle;
but the castle was also the manor-house. The same combination of military
with domestic aims is noticeable in the contemporary castle of Raby (1378),
of which the plan, already described, approximates irregularly to the
type.344 Castles akin to Bolton and Sheriff Hutton are Lumley, the licence
for which was granted in 1392,345 and Chillingham, the angle-towers of
which are of a much earlier date than is usual in castles of this plan.346 At
Chillingham the medieval work is somewhat obscured by alterations made
in the seventeenth century, but the original plan is retained. Survivals of the
quadrangular plan may be traced in some of the great manor-houses of the
early Renaissance period. It is not difficult to detect in the plan of Hardwick

hall (1587), while the ground-plan of Wollaton hall (1580) is probably
derived from a similar source. Smaller houses like Barlborough hall, near
Sheffield, or Wootton lodge, near Ashbourne, have a kinship with it,
although in these cases, and especially in the first, the elevation is more
tower-like than is usual in medieval buildings of the type. It is needless to
say that these Renaissance buildings are without any military character.
The traditional form of the rectangular keep was also responsible, no
doubt, for the great tower-house which formed the principal feature, and is
now the only portion left, of the castle of Tattershall in Lincolnshire. The
discussion of this building belongs more properly to the last chapter of this
book, for its general construction and architectural features are those of an
age in which the military architecture of the middle ages was already little
more than a survival. This age of transition begins in the last quarter of the
fourteenth century; and, as already pointed out, castles like Bolton and
Raby clearly show its influence. During the later half of the fourteenth and
the fifteenth century, outside the north of England, it is rare to find a castle
which actually deserves the name. The large private residence, with a
certain amount of defensive precautions, became increasingly common;
and, where alterations were made to existing castles, they were generally
entirely in the direction of domestic comfort.