[130] Florence’s date.

[131] Victoria History of Bedfordshire, i., 282, from which this description is taken.

[132] The Chronicle speaks of Tempsford as a burh, so it must have been a large enclosure.

[133] Mr Clark actually speaks of a subsequent Norman castle at Tempsford (M. M. A., i., 78), but we have been unable to find any confirmation of this. Faint traces of larger works in the fields below were formerly visible. V. C. H. Bedfordshire.

[134] Stephenson’s Asser, p. 27.

[135] There are no remains of earthworks in Thanet or Sheppey, except a place called Cheeseman’s Camp, near Minster in Thanet, which the late Mr Gould regarded as of the “homestead-moat type.” V. C. H. Kent, i., 433. Nor are there any earthworks on Mersey Island mentioned by Mr Gould in his paper on Essex earthworks in the V. C. H.

[136] Stukeley, who saw this earthwork when it was in a much more perfect state, says that it contained 30 acres. See Mr Hope’s paper in Camb. Antiq. Soc., vol. xi.

[137] Blomefield’s Norfolk, ii., pp. 7, 8, 27. His description is very confused.

[138] See Erlingssen’s Ruins of the Saga Time, Viking Club, p. 337.

[139] Richerii, Historiarum Libri Quatuor, edition Guadet, p. 67.

[140] “In modo castri, munientes se per girum avulsæ terræ aggere.” Dudo, 155 (edition Duchesne).

[141] “The castle end of Cambridge was called the Borough within the memory of persons now living.” Atkinson’s Cambridge Described (1897), p. 9.

[142] Steenstrup says that the Northmen built themselves shipyards all round Europe, especially on the islands where they had their winter settlements. Normannerne, i., 354.

[143] A.-S., hyth, a shore, a landing-place.

[144] Victoria County History of Beds., i., 282.

[145] Steenstrup’s Normannerne, vol. iv.; Danelag, p. 40.

[146] A.-S. C., 914-921.

[147] Steenstrup, Danelag, p. 41.

[148] Ibid., pp. 22, 23.

[149] Such quartering must have been confined to the unmarried Danes, but there must have been plenty of unmarried men in the piratical host, even at the period when it became customary to bring wives and children with the army.

[150] Normannerne, i., 282.

[151] Dudo, 76 (Duchesne).

[152] Herr Steenstrup shows that so far from the settlement of the Danes in Normandy being on feudal lines, they only reluctantly accepted the feudal yoke, and not till the next century. Normannerne, i., 305, 310. It is not till the 11th century that feudal castles become general in Normandy.

[153] The Danes in Normandy soon made Rouen a great centre of trade. Normannerne, i., 190.

[154] Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry, i., 92.

[155] See Vinogradoff, English Society in the 11th Century, pp. 5, 11, 478.

[156] See Stubbs, Constitutional History, i., 251; Maitland’s Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 157; Round’s Feudal England, p. 261; Vinogradoff’s English Society in the 11th Century, p. 41.

[157] Professor Maitland wrote: “The definitely feudal idea that military service is the tenant’s return for the gift of land did not exist [before the Norman Conquest], though a state of things had been evolved which for many practical purposes was indistinguishable from the system of knight’s fees.” Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 157. Dr Round holds that “the military service of the Anglo-Norman tenant-in-chief was in no way derived or developed from that of the Anglo-Saxons, but was arbitrarily fixed by the king, from whom he received his fief.” Feudal England, p. 261. Similarly, Professor Vinogradoff states that “the law of military fees is in substance French law brought over to England by the [Norman] conquerors.” English Society in the 11th Century, p. 41.

[158] Giesebrecht, Geschichte der Kaiserzeit, i., 224. The word Burg, which Giesebrecht uses for these strongholds, means a castle in modern German; but its ancient meaning was a town (see Hilprecht’s German Dictionary), and it corresponded exactly to the Anglo-Saxon burh. It was used in this sense at least as late as the end of the 12th century; see, e.g., Lamprecht’s Alexanderlied, passim. It is clear by the context that Giesebrecht employs it in its ancient sense.

[159] Ibid., 222. Henry’s son Otto married a daughter of Edward the Elder. Henry received the nickname of Townfounder (Städtegründer).

[160] “Carolus civitates Transsequanas ab incolis firmari rogavit, Cinomannis scilicet et Turonis, ut præsidio contra Nortmannos populis esse possent.” Annales Bertinianorum, Migne, Pat., 125, 53.

[161] Flodoard, Hist. Ecc. Remensis, iv., viii.

[162] Modern historians generally say that he built the castle of Coucy; but from Flodoard’s account it seems very doubtful whether anything but the town is meant. Annales, iv., xiii. His words are: “Munitionem quoque apud Codiciacum tuto loco constituit atque firmavit.” Munitio properly means a bulwark or wall.

[163] Gesta Episcop. Cameracensium, Pertz, vii., 424.

[164] Chron. Camarense et Atrebatorum, Bouquet, x., 196.

[165] Sismondi, Histoire des Français, ii., 172.

[166] Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, iii., 311.

[167] Enlart, Manuel d’Archæologie Française, ii., 494.

[168] See Dr Haverfield’s articles in the Victoria County Histories, passim. The late J. H. Burton justly wrote: “We have nothing from the Romans answering to the feudal stronghold or castle, no vestige of a place where a great man lived apart with his family and his servants, ruling over dependants and fortifying himself against enemies.” History of Scotland, i., 385.

[169] Annals of Fulda, 394, Pertz, i.

[170] Cap. Regum Francor., ii., 360.

[171] Thus De Caumont unfortunately spoke of the fortress built by Nicetus, Bishop of Treves, in the 6th century, as a château (Abécédaire, ii., 382); but Venantius Fortunatus, in his descriptive poem, tells us that it was a vast enclosure with no less than thirty towers, built by the good pastor for the protection of his flock. It even contained fields and vineyards, and altogether was as different from a private castle as anything can well be. Similarly the castrum of Merliac, spoken of by Enlart (Architecture Militaire, p. 492) as a “veritable château,” is described as containing cultivated lands and sheets of water! (Cited from Gregory of Tours, Hist. Francorum, liii., 13.) De Caumont himself says: “Les grandes exploitations rurales que possédaient les rois de France et les principaux du royaume du V^ième au X^ième siècle ne furent pas des forteresses et ne doivent point être confondues avec les chateaux.” Abécédaire, ii., 62.

[172] See Appendix D.

[173] “Volumus et expresse mandamus, ut quicunque istis temporibus castella et firmitates et haias sine nostro verbo fecerint, Kalendis Augusti omnes tales firmitates disfactas habeant; quia vicini et circummanentes exinde multas depredationes et impedimenta sustinent.” Capitularia Regum Francorum, Boretius, ii., 328.

[174] These instances are as follows:—868, A certain Acfrid shut himself up in a casa firmissima in the villa of Bellus Pauliacus on the Loire, and it was burnt over his head (Annales Bertinianorum, pp. Migne, 125, 1237); 878, The sons of Goisfrid attack the castellum and lands of the son of Odo (ibid., p. 1286); 879, Louis the Germanic besieges some men of Hugh, son of Lothaire, in quodam castello juxta Viridunum: he takes and destroys the castellum (Annals of Fulda, Pertz, i., 393); 906, Gerard and Matfrid fortify themselves in a certain castrum, in a private war (Regino, Pertz, i., 611). Sismondi states that the great nobles wrested from Louis-le-Bégue (877-879) the right of building private castles. So far, we have been unable to find any original authority for this statement.

[175] See Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation, iii., 309. “On voit les villæ s’entourer peu à peu de fossés, de remparts de terre, de quelques apparences de fortifications.”

[176] We hear of monasteries being fortified in this way; in 869 Charles the Bald drew a bank of wood and stone round the monastery of St Denis; “castellum in gyro ipsius monasterii ex ligno et lapide conficere cœpit.” Ann. Bertinian, Migne, pp. 125, 1244. In 889 the Bishop of Nantes made a castrum of his church by enclosing it with a wall, and this wall appears to have had a tower. Chron. Namnetense, p. 45, in Lobineau’s Bretagne, vol. ii. In 924 Archbishop Hervey made a castellum of the monastery of St Remi by enclosing it with a wall. Flodoard, p. 294 (Migne). But the fortification of monasteries was a very different thing from the fortification of private castles.

[177] In 951 Duke Conrad, being angry with certain men of Lorraine, threw down the towers of some of them; these may have been the keeps of private castles. Flodoard, Annales, p. 477.

[178] Presidium is one of those vague words which chroniclers love to use; it means a defence of any kind, and may be a town, a castle, or a garrison. The town in which this turris stood appears by the context to have been Chateau Thierry. Cf. Flodoard, Annales, pp. 924, with 933.

[179] “Castrum muro factum circa eam [ecclesiam].” Chron. Namnetense, p. 45. “Precepit [Alanus] eis terrarium magnum in circuitu Ecclesiæ facere, sicut murus prioris castri steterat, quo facto turrem principalem reficiens, in ea domum suam constitit.” Ibid.

[180] Flodoard, Annales, pp. 931 and 949. This tower was heightened by Charles, the last of the Carlovingians, and furnished with a ditch and bank, in 988.

[181] It is often supposed that these towers were derived from the Pretoria, or general’s quarters in the Roman castra. It is far more probable that they were derived from mural towers. The Pretorium was not originally fortified, and it was placed in the centre of the Roman camp. But one great object of the feudal keep was to have communication with the open country. The keep of Laon was certainly on the line of the walls, as Bishop Ascelin escaped from it down a rope in 989, and got away on a horse which was waiting for him. Palgrave, England and Normandy, ii., 880.

[182] The word motte or mota does not occur in any contemporary chronicle, as far as is known to the writer, before the 12th century; nor is the word dangio to be found in any writer earlier than Ordericus. But the thing certainly existed earlier.

[183] [Fulk and his son Geoffrey] “in occidentali parte montis castellum determinaverunt.... Aggerem quoque in prospectu monasterii cum turre lignea erexerunt.“ Chron. St Florentii, in Lobineau’s Bretagne, ii., 87. Some remains of this motte are still visible. De Salies, Foulques Nerra, p. 263.

[184] “Elegantissimus in rebus bellicis” is the quaint language of the Angevin chronicler, 176.

[185] See De Salies, Histoire de Foulques Nerra, which indirectly throws considerable light on the archæological question.

[186] Salies, Histoire de Foulques Nerra, p. 170. M. Enlart, in his Manuel d’Archæologie Française, ii., 495, has been misled about this castle by the Chronicon Andegavense, which says: “Odo.... Fulconem expugnare speravit, et totis nisibus adorsus est. Annoque presenti (1025) Montis Budelli castellum, quod circiter annos decem retro abhinc contra civitatem Turonicam firmaverat Fulco, obsedit, et turrim ligneam miræ altitudinis super domgionem ipsius castri erexit.” Bouquet, x., 176. M. Enlart takes this to be the first recorded instance of a motte. But the passage is evidently corrupt, as the other accounts of this affair show that Count Odo’s wooden tower was a siege engine, employed to attack Fulk’s castle, and afterwards burnt by the besieged. See the Gesta Ambasiens. Dom., ibid., p. 257, and the Chron. St Florentii. Probably we should read contra domgionem instead of super. The Chronicon Andegavense was written in the reign of Henry II.

[187] When Fulk invaded Bretagne in or about 992, he collected an army “tam de suis quam conductitiis.” Richerius, edition Guadet. The editor remarks that this is perhaps the first example of the use of mercenaries since the time of the Romans (ii., 266). Spannagel, citing Peter Damian, says that mercenaries were already common at the end of the 10th century. Zur Geschichte des Deutschen Heerwesens, pp. 72, 73.

[188] This was always the custom in mediæval castles. See Cohausen, Befestigungen der Vorzeit, p. 282.

[189] “Qui vivens turres altas construxit et ædes, Unam Carnotum, sed apud Dunense reatum.” Chron. St Florentii.

[190] Chron. Namnetense, Lobineau, ii., 47.

[191] Gesta Ambasiensium Dominorum, in Spicilegium, p. 273.

[192] Guide Joanne, p. 234.

[193] The furthest point of the headland on which the castle is placed is a small circular court, with a fosse on all sides but the precipices. From personal visitation.

[194] Dunio is subsequently explained by Lambert as motte: “Motam altissimam sive dunionem eminentem in munitionis signum firmavit.” Lamberti Ardensis, p. 613. It is the same word as the Saxon dun, a hill (preserved in our South Downs), and has no connection with the Irish and Gaelic dun, which is cognate with the German zaun, a hedge, A.-S. tun, and means a hedged or fortified place. The form dange appears in Northern France, and this seems to be the origin of the word domgio or dangio which we find in the chroniclers, the modern form of which is donjon. If we accept this etymology, we must believe that the word dunio or domgio was originally applied to the hill, and not to the tower on the hill, to which it was afterwards transferred. It is against this view that Ordericus, writing some fifty years before Lambert, uses the form dangio in the sense of a tower. Professor Skeat and the New English Dictionary derive the word donjon or dungeon from Low Lat. domnionem, acc. of domnio, thus connecting it with dominus, as the seignorial residence.

[195] Ducange conjectured that the motte-castle took its origin in Flanders, but it was probably the passage cited above from Lambert which led him to this conclusion. See art. “Mota” in Ducange’s Glossarium.

[196] Steenstrup, Normannerne, i., 297.

[197] Ibid., i., 301.

[198] England and Normandy, ii., 535.

[199] “Muros et propugnacula civitatum refecit et augmentavit.” Dudo, p. 85 (Duchesne’s edition).

[200] “Henricus rex circa turrem Rothomagi, quam ædificavit primus Richardus dux Normannorum in palatium sibi, murum altum et latum cum propugnaculis ædificat.” Robert of Toringy, R.S., p. 106.

[201] Ordericus, ii., 15, 17, 46 (edition Prévost).

[202] William of Jumièges, anno 1035. Mr Freeman remarks that the language of William would lead us to suppose that the practice of castle-building was new.

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

[204] Manuel d’Archæologie Française, p. 457.

[205] This want will be supplied, as regards England, by the completion of the Victoria County Histories, and as regards France, by the Societé Préhistorique, which is now undertaking a catalogue of all the earthworks of France. The late M. Mortillet, in an article in the Revue Mensuelle de l’École d’Anthropologie, viii., 1895, published two lists, one of actual mottes in France, the other of place-names in which the word motte is incorporated. Unfortunately the first list is extremely defective, and the second, as it only relates to the name, is not a safe guide to the proportional numbers of the thing. All that the lists prove is that mottes are to be found in all parts of France, and that place-names into which the word motte enters seem to be more abundant in Central France than anywhere else. It is possible that a careful examination of local chroniclers may lead to the discovery of some earlier motte-builder than Thibault-le-Tricheur. We should probably know more about Thibault’s castles were it not that the Pays Chartrain, as Palgrave says, is almost destitute of chroniclers.

[206] Cited at length by De Caumont, Bulletin Monumental, ix., 246. Von Hochfelden considered that the origin of feudal fortresses in Germany hardly goes back to the 10th century; only great dukes and counts then thought of fortifying their manors; those of the small nobility date at earliest from the end of the 12th century.

[207] Die Befestigungen der Vorzeit, p. 28.

[208] Entwickelung des Kriegswesens, iii., 370.

[209] Antiquitates Italicæ, ii., 504. He says they are many times mentioned both in charters and chronicles in Italy.

[210] We hear of Robert Guiscard building a wooden castle on a hill at Rocca di St Martino in 1047. Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, i., 43. Several place-names in Italy and Sicily are compounded with motta, as the Motta Sant’Anastasia in Sicily. See Amari, ibid., p. 220.

[211] Especially Montfort and Blanchegarde. But there is a wide field for further research both in Palestine and Sicily.

[212] “Bei den Sclaven haben die Chateaux-à-motte keinen Eingang gefunden, weil ihnen das Lehnswesen fremd geblieben ist.” iii., 338.

[213] Professor Montelius informed the writer that they are quite unknown in Norway or Sweden; and Dr Christison obtained an assurance to the same effect from Herr Hildebrand.

[214] “These are small well-defended places, the stronghold of the individual, built for a great man and his followers, and answering to mediæval conditions, to a more or less developed feudal system.” Vor Oldtid, p. 642.

[215] I am informed by a skilled engineer that even in the wet climate of England it would take about ten years for the soil to settle sufficiently to bear a stone building.

[216] Köhler says: “By far the greater part of the castles of the Teutonic knights in Prussia, until the middle of the fourteenth century, were of wood and earth.” Die Entwickelung des Kriegswesen, iii., 376.

[217] Cal. of Patent Rolls, 1232-1247, p. 340. Mandate to provost of Oléron to let Frank De Brene have tools to make a new motte in the isle of Rhé. Later the masters and crews of the king’s galleys are ordered to help in building the motte and the wooden castle. P. 343.

[218] Antiquitates Italicæ, ii., 504. Can Grande’s motte at Padua. Anno 1320. “Dominus Alternerius [podesta of Padua] ... cum maxima quantitate peditum et balistariorum Civitatis Paduæ, iverunt die predicto summo mane per viam Pontis Corvi versus quamdam motam magnam, quam faciebat facere Dominus Canis, cum multis fossis et tajatis ad claudendum Paduanos, ne exirent per illam partem, et volendo ibidem super illam motam ædificare castrum. Tunc prædictus Potestas cum aliis nominatis splanare incœperunt, et difecerunt dictam motam cum tajatis et fossa magna.”

We may remark here that as early as the 17th century the learned Muratori protested against the equation of mota and fossatum, and laughed at Spelman for making this translation of mota in his Glossary. Antiquitates Italicæ, ii., 504.

[219] Cited by Westropp, Journal of R.S.A., Ireland, 1904.

[220] Vicars’ Parliamentary Chronicle, cited by Hunter, South Yorks, ii., 235.

[221] “Camps on the Malvern Hills,” Journ. Anthrop. Inst., x., 319.

[222] M. de Salies has traced in detail the connection between Fulk Nerra’s castles and the Roman roads of Anjou and Touraine.

[223] See some excellent remarks on this subject in Mr W. St John Hope’s paper on “English Fortresses” in Arch. Journ., lx., 72-90.

[224] Only a very small number of mottes have as yet been excavated. Wells were found at Almondbury, Berkeley, Berkhampstead, Carisbrook, Conisborough, Kenilworth, Northallerton, Norwich, Pontefract, Oxford, Tunbridge, Worcester, and York. At Caus, there is a well in the ditch between the motte and the bailey. Frequently there is a second well in the bailey.

[225] The writer at one time thought that the ruins at the east end of the castle of Pontefract concealed a second motte, but wishes now to recant this opinion. Eng. Hist. Review, xix., 419.

[226] Thus Henry I. erected a siege castle to watch Bridgenorth (probably Pampudding Hill), and then went off to besiege another castle. Mr Orpen kindly informs me that the camp from which Philip Augustus besieged Château Gaillard contains a motte. Outside Pickering, Corfe, and Exeter there are earthworks which have probably been siege castles.

[227] Henry II. built a castle and very fine borough (burgum pergrande) at Beauvoir in Maine. Robert of Torigny, R.S., p. 243. Minute regulations concerning the founding of the borough of Overton are given in Close Rolls, Edward I. (1288-1296), p. 285.

[228] See Round, Studies in Domesday, pp. 125, 126.

[229] Neckham, “De Utensilibus,” in Wright’s Volume of Vocabularies, pp. 103, 104. Unfortunately this work of Neckham’s was not written to explain the construction of motte castles, but to furnish his pupils with the Latin names of familiar things; a good deal of it is very obscure now.

[230] See frontispiece.

[231] Acta Sanctorum, 27th January, Bolland, iii., 414. This biography was written only nine months after Bishop John’s death, by an intimate friend, John de Collemedio.

[232] Guisnes is now in Picardy, but in the 12th century it was in Flanders, which was a fief of the Empire.

[233] This description is from the Historia Ardensium of Walter de Clusa, which is interpolated in the work of Lambert, Bouquet, pp. 13, 624.

[234] Yet in some of the later keeps, such as Conisburgh, where we find only one window to a storey, the room must have been undivided.

[235] See Wright, History of Domestic Manners, p. 26.

[236] According to Littré, the original derivation of the word motte is unknown. I have not found any instance of the word mota in chronicles earlier than the 12th century, but the reason appears to be that mota or motte was a folk’s word, and appeared undignified to an ambitious writer. Thus the author of the Gesta Consulum Andegavensium says that Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou, gave to a certain Fulcoius the fortified house which is still called by the vulgar Mota Fulcoii. D’Achery, Spicilegium, p. 257.

[237] See Appendix G.

[238] See Appendix H.

[239] Peel, its Meaning and Derivation, by George Neilson.

[240] See Appendix I. Cohausen has some useful remarks on the use of hedges in fortification. Befestigungen der Vorzeit, pp. 8-13. A quickset hedge had the advantage of resisting fire. The word sepes, which properly means a hedge, is often applied to the palitium.

[241] This list or catalogue raisonné was originally published in the English Historical Review for 1904 (vol. xix.). It is now reproduced with such corrections as were necessary, and with the addition of five more castles, as well as of details about thirty-four castles for which there was not space in the Review. The Welsh castles are omitted from this list, as they will be given in a separate chapter.