1 Plan in Allcroft, Earthwork of England, 1908, p. 647. The same feature is well seen in the fine camp of Bury Ditches (6) in Shropshire, between Clun and Bishops Castle.
2 The defences of Old Sarum are now in process of excavation, and the plan of the medieval castle, in the centre of the early camp, has been recovered. See Proceedings Soc. Antiquaries, 2nd series, vol. xxiii., pp. 190-200 and 501-18.
3 It is well seen at Bury ditches (6), where the diagonal entrance is also a feature of the south-west side of the camp, and on the west side of Caer Caradoc, between Clun and Knighton.
4 The effect of similar conditions on the construction of early Norman castles will be noticed in a later chapter.
5 Plan in Allcroft, op. cit., p. 686; the camp is described fully pp. 682-97.
6 See Bruce, Hand-Book to the Roman Wall, 5th ed., 1907 (ed. R. Blair), pp. 19-21.
7 The list from the Notitia Dignitatum is given, ibid., pp. 11, 12.
8 The bank is, strictly speaking, the agger, the vallum being the rampart on the top of the bank.
9 The large villas of Romano-British landowners, as at Bignor (Sussex), Chedworth (Gloucestershire), Horkstow (Lincolnshire), were within easy reach of the military roads, but were not directly upon them.
10 The topography of Roman Lincoln is described by Dr E. M. Sympson, Lincoln (Ancient Cities), 1906, chapter I.
11 See Archæologia, vol. liii., pp. 539-73.
12 See below as to the blocking of the main gateways at Cilurnum after the building of the great wall. The small single gateways at Cilurnum are on the south side of the wall. At Amboglanna both gateways were south of the wall.
13 Borcovicus is described by Bruce, u.s., pp. 140-60.
14 Plan in Besnier, Autun Pittoresque, 1888. The north-west and north-east gateways of the Roman city remain, but the centre of the city was shifted in the middle ages.
15 Plan in Allcroft, u.s., p. 322. As Burgh Castle had the sea on its west side, it possibly had no west wall. Another tower, on the east side of the north gateway, has fallen away from the wall.
16 At Pevensey the foundation of the wall is of chalk and flint, covered in one part by an upper layer of concrete, composed of flints bedded in mortar. Below the foundation is a layer of puddled clay, in which oak stakes were fixed vertically at intervals. See L. F. Salzmann, F.S.A., Excavations at Pevensey, 1906-7, in Sussex Archæol. Collections, vol. li.
17 Cilurnum is described by Bruce, u.s., pp. 86-119, with plan. See also the description and plan in An Account of the Roman Antiquities Preserved in the Museum at Chesters, 1903, pp. 87-120.
18 This was not invariable. At Cilurnum the main street was from east to west, and this was also the case at Corstopitum (Corbridge-on-Tyne).
19 In this case, the first cohort of the Tungri.
20 The tenth cohort of the legion had its quarters here: hence the name.
21 Or the east and west gateways, as already noted, at Cilurnum. The forum occupied the centre of Cilurnum, the praetorium forming a block of buildings east of the centre. The first wing or squadron of the Astures was stationed at Cilurnum.
22 Prof. Haverfield holds the view that this southern extension is post-Roman. See Archæol. Journal, lxvi. 350.
23 The same thing happened at Lincoln, where the eastern wall of the city followed a line now covered by the eastern transept of the cathedral.
24 Wat’s dyke, of which remains can be traced south of Wrexham and near Oswestry, was to the east of Offa’s dyke.
25 A.-S. Chron., anno 547.
26 Bede, Hist. Ecc., iii. 16.
27 It may be noted that not all names in “borough” and “bury” are derived from burh and byrig. Some are merely derived from beorh or beorg = a hill (dative beorge).
28 See Oman, Art of War, p. 120.
29 In Germany the word burg is also applied to the citadel of a town or to a castle. In England and France more careful discrimination was made between the two types of stronghold.
30 References to burhs wrought by Edward and his sister Æthelflæd will be found in A.-S. Chron. under the dates mentioned in the text. There is some variety of opinion with regard to the exact accuracy of these dates.
31 A.-S. Chron., sub anno.
32 A.-S. Chron., sub anno. The true date seems to be 837 or 838.
33 The chief authority for the early invasions of the Northmen in France is the Annales Bertinenses, of which the portion from 836 to 861 is attributed to Prudentius, bishop of Troyes.
34 Timbrian is the ordinary Anglo-Saxon word for “to build,” but it indicates the prevalent material used for building.
35 This is the main contention of the theory so attractively enunciated by the late G. T. Clark, and endorsed by the authority of Professor Freeman.
36 Nottingham castle is, in fact, considerably to the west of the probable site of the Saxon burh, which was more or less identical with the “English borough” of the middle ages, the western part of Nottingham being known as the “French borough.”
37 The Danes were again at Tempsford in 1010, and, if the earthwork is of pre-Conquest date, it is more likely to have been thrown up during the earlier than during the later visit.
38 The story (A.S. Chron., sub an. 755) of the murder of Cynewulf and its consequences, mentions the burh or burg of Merton with its gate: the house in which the king was murdered within the burh is called bur (i.e., bower, private chamber).
39 Dr J. H. Round, Feudal England, 1909, p. 324, points to the phrase hoc castellum refirmaverat in the Domesday notice of Ewias, as indicative of the existence of the castle before the Conquest, and gives other reasons for the identification.
40 Domesday, i., f. 23; “Castrum Harundel Tempore Regis Edwardi reddebat de quodam molino xl solidos,” etc. “Castrum Harundel,” however, applies to the town, not the castle; and it does not follow that the name was given to the town before the Conquest.
41 Ord. Vit., Hist. Eccl., iii. 14; “id castellum situm est in acutissima rupe mari contigua.” The phrase may be used generally to describe a site which, in Ordericus’ own day, had become famous for its castle.
42 Ord. Vit., Hist. Eccl. iv. 4.
43 The Tower of London was outside the east wall of the medieval city. Baynard’s castle was at the point where the west wall approached the Thames.
44 Ord. Vit., op. cit., iv. 4; “pinnas ac turres ... in munimentis addebant vel restaurabant ... Portæ offirmatæ erant, densæque turbæ in propugnaculis et per totum muri ambitum prostabant.”
45 The foundation of these castles is noted by Ord. Vit., iv. 4, 5.
46 The word “bailey” (ballium) literally means a palisaded enclosure. The synonym “ward,” applied to the various enclosed divisions of a medieval castle, means a guarded enclosure. The term “base-court” (basse-cour) is also applied to the bailey.
47 It should be noted that at York there were not two distinct burhs or fortified towns, such as are found in the earlier cases. The river passed through and bisected the burh, which was surrounded by an earthen bank, save at the point where the Foss formed the boundary of the city.
48 Domesday, i. 248 b.
49 An example of this is the fine earthwork at Lilbourne, in Northamptonshire. There are many other instances, and the lesser bailey at Clun partakes of this character.
50 There are cases, of course, which give rise to perplexity. Thus at Earls Barton, in Northamptonshire, the famous pre-Conquest church tower stands on a site which appears to be within the original limit of the ditch of the adjacent castle mount. It is doubtful, however, whether the mount was ever ditched on this side; and the church does not encroach upon the mount.
51 Cæsar, De Bell. Gall., vii. 73; “huic [vallo] loricam pinnasque adiecit, grandibus cervis eminentibus ad commissuras pluteorum atque aggeris, qui ascensum hostium tardarent.” See p. 60 below.
52 See Enlart, ii. 494.
53 Domfront, however, on its rocky site, may, like Richmond, have been surrounded by a stone wall from the first.
54 L. Blanchetière, Le Donjon ou Château féodal de Domfront (Orne), 1893, pp. 29, 30.
56 Ord. Vit., iii. 5.
57 The essential portions of these texts are quoted by Enlart, ii. 497-9.
58 The “lesser donjon” at Falaise, which contained the great chamber, is a rectangular projection of two stories from the great donjon.
59 Mrs Armitage in Eng. Hist. Review, xix. 443-7.
60 Ord. Vit., viii. 12; “fossis et densis sepibus.”
61 Ibid., viii. 24; “Hic machinas construxit, contra munimentum hostile super rotulas egit, ingentia saxa in oppidum et oppidanos projecit, bellatores assultus dare docuit, quibus vallum et sepes circumcingentes diruit, et culmina domorum super inhabitantes dejecit.”
62 Ord. Vit., viii. 13; “Callidi enim obsessores in fabrili fornace, quæ in promptu structa fuerat, ferrum missilium callefaciebant, subitoque super tectum principalis aulæ in munimentis jaciebant, et sic ferrum candens sagittarum atque pilorum in arida veterum lanugine imbricum totis nisibus figebant.”
63 See J. H Round, Castles of the Conquest (Archæologia, lviii. 333).
64 Adulterinus = spurious, counterfeit.
65 Cæsar, Bell. Gall., vii. 68 seq. Alesia, near the modern village of Alise-la-Reine, is in the Côte d’Or department, some 36 miles N.W. of Dijon.
66 Cæsar, De Bell. Civ., ii. 1 seq.
67 A detailed account of this siege is given by Oman, Art of War, pp. 140-7.
68 Enlart, ii. 413, 414.
69 Ord. Vit., vii. 10.
70 Ibid. “Rex itaque quoddam municipium in valle Beugici construxit ibique magnam militum copiam ad arcendum hostem constituit.”
71 Ibid., viii. 2.
72 Ibid., viii. 23; Roger of Wendover.
73 Thus Henry I., in his wars with Louis VI., conducted one blockade by building two castles, which the enemy called derisively Malassis and Gête-aux-Lièvres (Ord. Vit., xii. 1). So also (ibid., xii. 22) his castle of Mäte-Putain near Rouen. Many other instances might be named.
74 Oman, Art of War, pp. 135, 139: his authority is Guy of Amiens, whose poetical rhetoric, however, may not be altogether accurate in description.
75 Ord. Vit., viii. 24. Cf. viii. 16, where Robert of Normandy, another great Crusader, besieging Courcy-sur-Dives in 1091, caused a great wooden tower or belfry (berfredum) to be built, which was burned by the defenders. Robert of Bellême was also present at this siege.
77 Suger, Gesta Ludovici Grossi (ed. Molinier, pp. 63-66).
78 Pent-houses were sometimes elaborately defended. Thus Joinville describes the large “cats” made by St Louis’ engineers to protect the soldiers who were making a causeway across an arm of the Nile near Mansurah (1249-50). These had towers at either end, with covered guard-houses behind the towers, and were called chats-châteaux.
79 See the account of the sieges of Boves and Château-Gaillard by Guillaume le Breton, Philippis, books ii. and vii. At the siege of Zara in the fourth Crusade, after five days of fruitless stone-throwing, the Crusaders began to undermine a tower which led to the surrender of the city (Villehardouin).
81 Ord. Vit., ix. 15: “Machinam, quam ligneum possumus vocitare castellum.” It was strictly a belfry (see below).
82 Ibid.
83 Cf. the account of the operations at the siege of Marseilles (Cæsar, De Bell. Civ., ii. 11): “Musculus ex turri latericia a nostris telis tormentisque defenditur.”
84 The porte-coulis is literally a sliding door. Its outer bars fitted into grooves in the walls on either side. See pp. 227, 229.
85 Vitruvius, De Architectura, x. 13, § 3, mentions among Roman scaling-machines, an inclined plane, “ascendentem machinam qua ad murum plano pede transitus esse posset.”
86 Guillaume le Breton, Philippis, book vii. This poem is an important source of information for the wars of Philip Augustus, and for the siege of Château-Gaillard in particular.
87 Ord. Vit., ix. 13.
88 Ibid., ix. 11.
89 Ibid., xii. 36.
90 This is the usual distinction. But the use of the names varies. In Vitruvius (op. cit., x. 10, 11) the catapulta or scorpio is a machine for shooting arrows, while the ballista is used for throwing stones. The pointed stakes at the siege of Marseilles (Cæsar, De Bell. Civ., ii. 2) were shot from ballistae. Vitruvius indicates several methods of working the ballista by torsion: “aliae enim vectibus et suculis (levers and winches), nonnullae polyspastis (pulleys), aliae ergatis (windlasses), quaedam etiam tympanorum (wheels) torquentur rationibus.”
91 For the injuries inflicted by stone-throwing machines, see Villehardouin’s mention of the wounding of Guillaume de Champlitte at Constantinople, and of Pierre de Bracieux at Adrianople.
92 Oman, op. cit., 139, quotes Anna Comnena to this effect.
93 Stone-throwing engines and ballistae alike were employed by the Saracens at Mansurah (1250), for hurling Greek fire at the towers constructed by St Louis to protect his causeway-makers (Joinville).
94 Thus, in the first siege of Constantinople by the Crusaders (1203), Villehardouin emphasises the number of siege-machines used by the besiegers upon shipboard and on land, but gives no account of their use by the defenders. They were employed, however, by the defence, as we have seen at Marseilles; see also Chapter I. above, for possible traces of their use in the stations of the Roman wall. A special platform might in some cases be constructed for them and wheeled to the back of the rampart-walk.
95 Such crenellations are indicated even in the timber defences at Alesia and Trebonius’ second rampart at Marseilles. They are familiar features of oriental fortification, e.g., of the great wall of China or the walls and gates of Delhi.
96 This roof was sometimes gabled, the timbers, as in the donjon at Coucy, following and resting on the slope of the coping of the parapet.
97 Sometimes, as at Constantinople in 1204 (Villehardouin), towers were heightened by the addition of one or more stages of wood. Cf. the heightening of the unfinished tête-du-pont at Paris in 885-6.
98 Clark, i. 68-120, gives an elaborate list of castles in England and Wales at this date. A large number, however, of those which he mentions, had been already destroyed; and many were of later foundation.
99 Accounts of this rebellion are given by Benedict of Peterborough and Roger of Hoveden.
100 Nottingham was a foundation of the Conqueror: Newark was not founded until after 1123.
101 Ord. Vit., xi. 2, mentions the capture of the castle of Blyth (Blida castrum) by Henry I. from Robert de Bellême. By this Tickhill is probably meant. It is four miles from Blyth, where was a Benedictine priory founded by Roger de Busli, the first Norman lord of Tickhill, and granted by him to the priory of Ste-Trinité-du-Mont at Rouen. Ordericus, who, as a monk of a Norman abbey, was familiar with the name of Blyth priory, may have supposed the castle of Roger de Busli to have been at Blyth.
102 See Rymer, Fœdera (Rec. Com., 1816), vol. i. pt. i. p. 429: “castrum de Pontefracto, quod est quasi clavis in comitatu Eborum.”
103 The remains are chiefly of the second quarter of the fifteenth century; but it was a residence of the archbishops as early as the twelfth century.
104 A. Harvey, Bristol (Ancient Cities), pp. 35, 116.
105 Rob. de Monte, quoted by Stubbs, Select Charters, 8th ed., 1905, p. 128: “Rex Henricus coepit revocare in jus proprium urbes, castella, villas, quae ad coronam regni pertinebant, castella noviter facta destruendo.”
106 The curtain (Lat. cortina, Fr. courtine) is a general name for the wall enclosing a courtyard, and is thus applied to the wall round the castle enclosure.
107 Martène, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, iv. 47, quoted by Enlart, ii. 418. From alatorium is derived the word allure, often employed as a technical term for a rampart-walk.
108 Ord. Vit., v. 19: “Lapideam munitionem, qua prudens Ansoldus domum suam cinxerat, cum ipsa domo dejecit.” In this case the wall seems to have been built, not round an open courtyard, but round a house or tower. The French term for a fortified wall, forming the outer defence of a single building, is chemise. Thus, in a mount-and-bailey castle, the palisade round the tower on the mount was, strictly speaking, a chemise, while that round the bailey was a curtain.
109 Ord. Vit., vii. 10.
110 Ibid., viii. 23.
111 Ibid., viii. 5. Robert, son of Giroie, “castellum Sancti Cerenici ... muris et vallis speculisque munivit.”
112 “Herring-bone” masonry consists of courses of rubble bedded diagonally in mortar, alternating with horizontal courses of thin stones, the whole arrangement resembling the disposition of the bones in the back of a fish. The horizontal courses are frequently omitted, and their place is taken by thick layers of mortar.
113 See Yorks. Archæol. Journal, xx. 132, where the evidence quoted points to the conclusion “that the doorway was not erected later than about 1075.” Harvey, Castles and Walled Towns, p. 85, assumes that the doorway was cut through the south wall of the tower at a later date: the evidence of the masonry is decisively against this idea.
114 The architectural history of Ludlow castle has been thoroughly examined by Mr W. H. St John Hope in an invaluable paper in Archæologia, lxi. 258-328.
115 The original design probably included an upper chamber of moderate height. There was, however, a considerable interval between the completion of the gateway and the building of the upper stage.
116 The large outer bailey at Ludlow was an addition to the original castle, late in the twelfth century, and is contemporary with the blocking of the gatehouse entrance. Originally the castle consisted merely of the present inner ward. The outer bailey or base-court gave enlarged accommodation for the garrison, and contained stables, barns, and other offices for which there was no room in the inner ward.
117 The explanation of this passage through the wall was long a mystery. Clark, ii. 278, recognised that it led from an outer to an inner “room,” but was puzzled by the bar-holes which showed that the doors had been carefully defended.
118 Mr Hope thinks that it was originally intended to cover the gateway with a semicircular barrel-vault. The lower stage of the keep at Richmond has a ribbed vault with central column. This, however, with the vice, now blocked, in the south-west corner, was inserted many years after the building of the great tower on the site of the gatehouse.
119 The string-courses of the upper stages of the tower, and the windows of the southern chamber, which was of the full height of the two upper stories, and probably formed the chapel of the castle, have further enrichment; but the detail is nowhere elaborate. See T. M. Blagg, F.S.A., A Guide to Newark, &c., 2nd ed., pp. 19-22.
120 Harvey, op. cit., p. 98, says that Newark castle “has now no trace of a keep, and possibly never possessed one.” The gatehouse, however, may fairly be considered as belonging to the category of tower-keeps, and has one characteristic of that type of building—viz., the cross-wall which divides the upper stages, and is borne by an archway in the centre of the gateway passage.
121 The churches of Upton, near Gainsborough, Burghwallis, near Doncaster, and Lois Weedon in Northamptonshire, are examples of this type. “Herring-bone” work occurs at Brixworth, in a portion of the tower to which a pre-Conquest date cannot safely be attributed. At Marton, near Gainsborough, it occurs in a tower of “Saxon” type, which was probably not built until after the Conquest. It is found twice at York, but the date of the so-called Saxon work in the crypt of the minster is very doubtful; while the tower of St Mary Bishophill Junior, although Saxon in type, is more likely to be Norman in date. Examples of “herring-bone” work in the churches of Normandy are found, e.g., at Périers and in the apse at Cérisy-la-Forêt (Calvados).