Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

FOOTNOTES:

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.

55 See note above, p. 45.

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.

76 See below, p. 99.

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).

80 Abbo: see the account of the siege of Paris above.

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, Foedera (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).

122 The donjon of Falaise belongs to the early part of the twelfth century, and is therefore a late example of “herring-bone” work. The “herring-bone” work in the keep at Guildford is probably still later, and that in the curtain wall at Lincoln, raised on the top of earthen banks, can hardly be attributed to a very early date.

123 It has also been noted in the tower of Marton church, near Gainsborough.

124 The lodge which now occupies its site was built in 1815, while the present main entrance to the castle, south-west of the mount, was made in 1810, and is quite outside the original enceinte.

125 See note 122 on p. 100.

126 A curtain is said to be flanked when its line is broken at intervals by projections, so near one another that the whole face of the piece of curtain between them can be covered by the fire of the defenders stationed in them.

127 Much of the curtain of Lancaster castle is of fairly early date. For the supposed Roman origin of the castle and its probable history, see note 354 on p. 327 below.

128 These additions have given rise to the common theory that this hall is a work of late twelfth century date.

129 Other examples of early stone halls will be mentioned in a later chapter.

130 This is very noticeable in Shropshire, where a large number of parish churches, to which rectors were presented and instituted in the ordinary way, are described as free chapels in the registers of the bishops of Lichfield and Hereford during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

131 See Pat. Rolls, 18 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 28; 3 Hen. IV., pt. 1, m. 6.

132 Pat. 2 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 4. The walls of this chapel, dedicated to St Peter, remain. In the fifteenth century it was enlarged as far as the west curtain by a western annexe, and in the sixteenth century it was divided into two floors, the upper floor being the court-house, and the lower floor the record-room of the court of the Marches.

133 Pat. 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 24.

134 The word keep is a comparatively modern term, unknown to medieval castle-builders, to whom this part of the castle was the donjon or dungeon, or the great tower.

135 Other important shell keeps of the normal type are at Arundel, Cardiff (114), Carisbrooke (111), Farnham, Lewes, Pickering, Totnes, and Tonbridge—the last one of the most considerable and finest examples.

136 Clifford’s tower at York is sometimes quoted as a shell keep. It was actually a tower with a forebuilding.

137 See Enlart, ii. 500, 676: Anthyme Saint-Paul, Histoire Monumentale, p. 168, gives the date 993, with an expression of doubt. Fulk the Black was count of Anjou 987-1039.

138 Enlart, ii. 685, says “dÉbut du xii? siÈcle.”

139 Ord. Vit., xii. 14.

140 Ibid., viii. 19.

141 Ibid., x. 18.

142 Ibid., xi. 20: adulterina castella is the phrase used.

143 Enlart, ii. 710. BlanchetiÈre, op. cit., 83, mentions Henry’s operations in 1123, but believes in an earlier date for the donjon.

144 Rad. de Diceto, Abbrev. Chron., sub anno.

145 Pipe Roll Soc., vol. i., pp. 13, 14; iv. 23.

146 Ibid., i. 27.

147 Ibid., i. 29, 30, 31; ii. 14; iv. 36; v. 50; vi. 57, 58; vii. 11, 12; xii. 79; xiii. 31.

148 Ibid., ii. 12; v. 49.

149 Ibid., iv. 35.

150 Ibid., iv. 39.

151 Ibid., iv. 40.

152 Ibid., viii. 89; ix. 59, etc.

153 Ibid., xiii. 107, 108; xv. 132; xvi. 32.

154 E.g., ibid., xiii. 140.

155 Ibid., xvi. 32; xviii. 110.

156 Ibid., xviii. 110.

157 Ibid., xiii. 161.

158 Ibid., v. 35.

159 Ibid., xix. 53.

160 Charles Dawson, Hastings Castle, ii. 524.

161 Pipe Roll Soc., ix. 17; xi. 18; xii. 15; xiii. 95; xv. 2; xvi. 2.

162 Ibid., xviii. 16; xix. 68.

163 Ibid., xix. 167; xxi. 77; see also xvi. 92.

164 Pipe Roll Soc., xvi. 118, 119.

165 Ibid., xvi. 141.

166 Ibid., xvi. 137.

167 Ibid., xix. 81.

168 Ibid., xviii. 7; xix. 173.

169 Ibid., xviii. 66; xix. 110; xxii. 183. Malcolm, king of Scots, yielded Bamburgh, Carlisle, and Newcastle to Henry II. in 1157; and the towers at all three places were begun within a few years of this event. That at Bamburgh is mentioned in 1164.

170 Ibid., xix. 2.

171 See evidence brought by Mrs Armitage, Eng. Hist. Rev., xix. 443-7.

172 Ord. Vit., iv. 1. He calls these strongholds firmamenta quaedam.

173 A.S. Chron., sub anno.

174 Such cross-walls, found in the larger towers, were not merely useful as partitions between the rooms. They enabled the builders to lay their floors more conveniently, as timber of sufficient scantling for so large an undivided space was obtainable with difficulty. In case of the great tower being taken by storm, the cross-wall on each floor formed a barrier to the besiegers, shutting off the tower as it did into two halves. This is well seen, for example, at Porchester.

175 At Norham and Kenilworth the towers are at an angle of the inner ward where the two wards are adjacent. At Porchester it is at an outer angle of the inner ward, so that two of its sides are on the outer curtain of the castle.

176 At Hedingham and Rochester there are mural galleries above the level of the second floor, the height of which therefore corresponds to that of two external stories. Both towers are exceptionally lofty, Rochester being 113, Hedingham 100 feet high.

177 We know from the Pipe Roll for 1173-4 that work was being done at Guildford in that year (Pipe Roll Soc., xxi. 3).

178 This points to two separate dates for the structure. The earlier masonry has been attributed to Bishop Flambard, who founded the castle in 1121; the later to Bishop Pudsey, who made additions to the castle about 1157. If this is so, the history of the tower is parallel to that of Porchester—a low stone tower, possibly of the reign of Henry I., heightened in the reign of Henry II.

179 Porchester, in spite of its great size, is a tower which was apparently built for exclusively military purposes. The floors are feebly lighted, and there is no fireplace in the building.

180 Both these castles belong to the class of cliff strongholds which were walled from their earliest foundation.

181 Further alterations were made in the fifteenth century, when a new stair was inserted in the north-east angle, and the outer stair against the west wall was removed.

182 For the reason, see note 174 on pp. 121, 122.

183 Legends about the cruelties practised on prisoners, often connected with these basement chambers, need not be believed too readily. Specially constructed prison chambers in castles usually belong to a period later than the twelfth century. On the origin of the word “dungeon” see Chapter III.

184 See the description of the tower at Ardres in Chapter III. Such upper floors were probably divided into rooms by wooden partitions.

185 It was thus impossible to reach the roof from the first floor without passing through the second-floor chamber—a precaution which was adopted also in the cylindrical tower at Conisbrough.

186 Here the basement was probably used as a prison. The upper part of the original stair still remains.

187 There are indications, however, of a second chapel in the keep itself, occupying the south-east angle of the third floor.

188 The recently excavated chapel of the great tower of Old Sarum was a vaulted building occupying the south-eastern part of the basement of the tower itself. It was entered directly from the bailey, and had no direct communication with the first floor of the tower.

189 Such as the so-called oratories in the fore-buildings of Dover and Newcastle.

190 At Old Sarum, the room in the basement, west of the chapel, was probably the kitchen.

191 Cf. the employment of one of the angle towers at the later castle of Langley in Northumberland as a garde-robe tower. Some of the late medieval pele-towers of the north of England, e.g., Chipchase and Corbridge, provide excellent examples of mural garde-robes with corbelled-out seats.

192 Roger of Wendover, ann. 1215.

193 See the description of the fortifications of Antioch in Oman, Art of War, pp. 527-9; plan facing p. 283.

194 Ibid., 526-7.

195 Enlart, ii. 504.

196 Ibid., ii. 508: it is attributed to Amaury, count of Evreux (1105-37): the masonry (ibid., 461) is of coursed rubble with bonding-courses of ashlar.

197 See note 161, p. 119. The keep of Orford is described at some length by Harvey, Castles and Walled Towns, pp. 106-111.

198 Enlart, ii. 505.

199 Possibly there was a trap-door in the centre of each floor: see below. All the floors are gone above the entrance stage.

200 An embrasure is the splay or inner opening of a window. The word is also applied to the openings between the merlons or solid pieces of a crenellated parapet.

201 See pp. 217, 230, 233.

202 It may also be noted that the practice of placing windows immediately above one another would be naturally avoided, as tending to weaken the masonry of the whole wall at these points. This is well seen in the irregular position of the numerous loops which light the vice of the donjon at Coucy.

203 Enlart, ii. 735, gives the date of the donjon (Tour Guinette) at Etampes as about 1140.

204 Enlart, ii. 674, gives the date of completion at Issoudun as 1202.

205 Or mÂchecoulis. Coulis = a groove. The first part of the word is probably derived from mÂcher = to break or crush, and implies the purpose effected by missiles sent through those openings.

206 Drawing in Enlart, ii. 504. Here there are two rectangular towers, with rounded angle-turrets, connected by a lofty intermediate building.

207 The same cause undoubtedly led, at an earlier date, to the covering of Syrian churches with roofs of stone.

208 ChÂteau-Gaillard was on the French side of the Seine, in territory purchased by Richard I. from the archbishop of Rouen.

209 E. LefÈvre-Pontalis, Le ChÂteau de Coucy, pp. 48, 49, shows that the donjon forms part of the latest work undertaken by Enguerrand III., lord of Coucy, the founder of the present castle, who died in 1242: it was evidently completed about 1240.

210 The town walls appear to be rather earlier than the castle (ibid., 34).

211 On the third floor, these niches are divided into two stages and connected by an upper gallery which pierces the abutments of the vault, and surrounds the whole apartment. The method of vaulting this gallery behind the abutments, so as to give additional resistance to the masonry of the tower, is described by LefÈvre-Pontalis, op. cit. 94: see plan ibid., p. 93.

212 In the angle-towers at Coucy, however, the stairs take the form of vices, and do not curve with the wall, although ceasing at each floor.

213 The gabled coping of the parapet formed the central support for the sloping roof of the outer gallery and of the corresponding coursiÈre on the inner side.

214 It stands on a promontory between two creeks at the head of the inlet known as the Pembroke river.

215 The domestic buildings may be in part earlier, but were largely reconstructed in the thirteenth century.

216 The tower is sometimes described as being of five stages: the dome, however, was merely a vault, and did not form a separate stage.

217 An account of Flint castle is given by Harvey, Castles and Walled Towns, p. 123 seq. Speed’s map of Flintshire, made c. 1604, shows that the tower was joined to the adjacent curtain by a wall, the rampart-walk of which probably gave access to the entrance on the first floor of the tower.

218 In 1277 the castle of Flint was a timber structure, so that the present work cannot be earlier than the end of the thirteenth century. The masonry is composed of large blocks of yellow sandstone, decayed where they are exposed to the tide. There was an outer bailey, the platform of which alone remains, with a ditch between it and the castle proper.

219 These holes do not, however, surround the tower, so that the passage may have been only partially roofed.

220 The keep of Launceston was probably built about the close of the twelfth century: that at Flint later, as already noted.

221 Reproduced in Memorials of Old Yorkshire, 1909, opposite p. 256.

222 I.e., retaining walls used to face (revÊtir) a sloping surface.

223 A bartizan is a small turret or lookout corbelled out at an angle of a tower or on the surface of a wall. The word is connected with “brattice” (bretÈche); and such turrets, like the machicolated parapet, are the stone counterpart of the bratticing and hoarding of timber applied to fortresses at an earlier date.

224 Ventress’s model of the castle, made in 1852, shows the great hall near the north-east corner of the outer ward, its west end being nearly opposite the main entrance of the castle. The outer ward nearly surrounded the small inner ward, which contained the keep.

225 At Richmond the hall and its adjacent buildings were unusually complete for their date, and the tower-keep was not planned as a dwelling-house. None of our tower-keeps, Porchester excepted, are so purely military in character.

226 The origin of this term is doubtful; some think it to be a corruption of “barbican”—a work covering the entrance to the house or castle proper. Large outer baileys, as at Ludlow (96) and Coucy, correspond to the “barmkins” of the north of England.

227 At Arundel, Cardiff, and Warwick, mount-and-bailey castles which are still inhabited, the present great halls stand on sites which were doubtless occupied by the original halls built by the founders. All three were largely rebuilt at a later date, and have been further restored in modern times. Warwick was one of the Conqueror’s earliest castles; Arundel was founded before 1086, Cardiff about 1093. A large portion of the enceinte at Cardiff follows the line of the curtain of the Roman station (see ArchÆologia, lvii. pp. 335-52).

228 At Boothby Pagnell there is a cylindrical chimney-shaft very similar to that of the hall at Christchurch.

229 The usual arrangement even in small cottages: cf. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, B. 4022 (the house of the dairy-woman in the Nonne Preestes Tale), “Ful sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle.”

230 The word “solar” or “soller” (solarium = a terrace exposed to the sun) was used indiscriminately of any room, gallery, or loft above the ground-level of a building: e.g., the loft or gallery above a chancel-screen was commonly known as a “solar,” and the same word should be applied to the chamber, inaccurately called a “parvise,” on the first floor of a church porch. The word, however, is sometimes applied to a well-lighted parlour facing south, without respect to the floor on which it stands, e.g., the abbot’s solar at Haughmond (ArchÆol. Journal, lxvi. 307) and at Jervaulx (Yorks. ArchÆol. Journal, xxi. 337).

231 Ord. Vit., iv. 19: “Super solarium ... tesseris ludere ceperunt.” The word “solarium” may be used, of course, in this passage with reference merely to the site of the house—i.e., it may mean “the first floor above the ground.” In this case William and Henry may have been playing dice in the hall itself, which, as at Christchurch, may have occupied the whole “solarium.” Robert was evidently outside the house.

232 Bates, Border Holds of Northumberland attributes the walling, etc., of Warkworth castle “on its present general lines” to Robert, son of Roger (1169-1214), who obtained in 1199, for 300 marks, a confirmation of the grant of the castle and manor from John.

233 So called in Clarkson’s survey, made in 1567. One explanation of the name is that the tower was similar to one in Carrickfergus castle, on Belfast Lough. Clarkson describes its polygonal form as “round of divers squares.”

234 This entrance has been blocked, and the modern entrance has been cut through a window-opening, in the adjoining bay to the west.

235 The aisle-walls are low and the whole building is covered by a single high-pitched roof, so that there is no clerestory.

236 The same feature occurs at the west end of the great hall at Auckland, where the daÏs was placed: there are regular responds at the east end, but the eastern bay was made somewhat wider than the rest, to give room for the screens.

237 Bishop Bek (1284-1311) probably heightened the aisle-walls and inserted traceried windows. Cosin (1660-72) rebuilt the greater part of the outer walls, renewed Bek’s windows, and added the present clerestory and roof: the splendid screen, which divides the chapel from the ante-chapel, was also part of his work.

238 The work of this late period is attributed to Bishop Tunstall (1530-59). Cosin at a later date made additions to the chapel.

239 At the fortified manor-house of Drayton, some fourteen miles south-east of Rockingham, the great hall is a fabric of the later half of the thirteenth century, although the date has been obscured by later alterations. The vaulted cellar at the east end of the hall (c. 1270) is almost intact; but the great chamber above was rebuilt about the end of the seventeenth century.

240 As at Penshurst. The hearth-stone remains at Stokesay. At Haddon the great fireplace in the west wall was inserted several years after the hall was built.

241 At Harlech the kitchen was at right angles to the hall, against the south curtain.

242 The words “horn-work,” “demilune,” or “ravelin,” were applied in later fortification to flanked outworks which presented a salient angle to the field, i.e., on the side of attack. To such defences in the middle ages the general name of “barbican” seems to have been given.

243 The mining operations, so successful at ChÂteau-Gaillard, were not without their own danger to the miners. In the siege of Coucy by the count of Saint-Pol in 1411, the traditional method was used to undermine one of the towers of the base-court. A party of the besiegers descended to admire the preparations. The wooden stays, however, were not strong enough to support the weight of the tower, which fell unexpectedly, and buried the men in the mine. Their remains have never come to light.

244 These are additions to the wall, probably made soon after the building of the great cylindrical tower. The wall seems to be of the earlier part of the twelfth century, and may have enclosed the bailey from the first. No traces of a mount remain.

245 The position of Appleby town and castle, within a great sweep of the Eden, is somewhat similar.

246 Apartments, known as the Constable’s lodging, were on the first floor of the gatehouse: the portcullis probably descended through the thickness of the south wall of this floor, which was not pierced for a window.

247 The common idea that molten lead was poured through these holes on the besiegers is a mere legend. This valuable material would hardly have been employed for this purpose. Powdered quick-lime, however, may have been used, with even more deadly effect.

248 This applies, of course, to almost all vaulted towers which are cylindrical in plan, and not to gatehouse towers alone: e.g., the towers of the inner ward of Coucy. But, even where there is no vaulting, the interior plan of cylindrical towers is sometimes polygonal—e.g., in the western angle-towers at Harlech, on all floors as well as in the basement. In the eastern angle-towers of the same castle, the interior of the basements is cylindrical. Clark, ii. 73, describes these angle-towers inaccurately.

249 The entrances to such guard-rooms, where great thickness was given to the outer wall, took the form of narrow elbow-shaped lobbies, which would be a source of difficulty and deception to an attacking force.

250 The Black gate was built in 1247: the entrance was protected by an outer barbican in 1358.

251 Holes in the masonry for the beam to which the pulley was fixed may be seen, e.g., in the gateways at Conway and Rhuddlan.

252 At Sandal (86) there was a barbican guarding the entrance to a shell-keep.

253 Conisbrough is virtually a castle of one ward set on an isolated hill, not unlike Restormel in Cornwall.

254 The entrance may be compared to the more perfect plan of the barbican and platform at Conway (254).

255 The wall of enceinte at Scarborough is probably in great part the wall which defended the castle from its foundation.

256 They appear to have been a feature of the keep at Pontefract; cf. also Micklegate, Monk, and Bootham bars at York, which have bartizans at the outer angles. At Lincoln the wall of the upper floor of the gatehouse, between the bartizans, presents an obtuse angle to the field.

257 The main gatehouse (Belle-Chaise) was built under abbot Tustin (1236-64); the chÂtelet was added under Pierre Le Roy in 1393.

258 The fortifications of Coucy were built in the thirteenth century: the round tower in front of the Porte de Laon was superseded in 1551 by a bastion of pentagonal form. The southern gate of Coucy (Porte de Soissons) was made in a re-entering angle of the town wall: the southern gate at Conway (Porth-y-Felin) shows the same disposition. The walls of Tenby were originally built early in the reign of Edward III.: letters patent, granting murage for seven years to the men of Tenby for the construction of their walls, were issued 6th March 1327-28 (Pat. 2 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 22).

259 Plan in Oman, Art of War, opposite p. 530.

260 The northern rampart-walk at Coucy was widened by the building of an arcade of thirteen pointed arches against the inner face of the wall, connecting a series of internal buttresses. Part of the western wall of the town of Southampton was widened, some time later than the actual building of the wall, by the addition of eighteen arches upon the outer face (293). The soffits of the arches were pierced by long machicolations—a necessary precaution in so exceptional an arrangement.

261 In the battlement of the donjon of Coucy, each piece of solid wall between the arched embrasures is pierced by an arrow-loop (177).

262 Viollet-le-Duc, La CitÉ de Carcassonne, p. 27, has a drawing of a similar device with an upper and lower shutter (245): the upper shutter is propped open by iron guards: while the lower is hung in iron hooks fixed in the face of the wall.

263 Cf. sections of church parapets in Bond, Gothic Architecture in England, pp. 385-8.

264 At Kenilworth the Water tower, on the south curtain of the base-court, has a fireplace in the basement.

265 Garde-robes built upon arches across re-entering angles of a wall occur on each side of a large buttress in the west wall of Southampton. A similar feature occurs at the junction of the north curtain of Porchester castle with one of the Roman towers. In both cases the addition was probably made in the fourteenth century.

266 These towers appear to be of the fourteenth century, and are therefore much later in date than the towers of the inner curtain.

267 At Flint, Rhuddlan, and several other castles, the angle-towers were three-quarter circles, the face towards the bailey being a flat wall, on which, at Rhuddlan as at Harlech, the rampart-walk was corbelled out.

268 These walls, pierced by seven gates and flanked by thirty-nine rectangular towers, were begun under Pope Clement VI. in 1345, and finished c. 1380. The rampart is reached by stairs set against the inner face of the walls. The walls of Aigues-Mortes, built 1272-5, and of Carcassonne, begun earlier and completed later than Aigues-Mortes, belong to an earlier period of fortification, corresponding to that of our Edwardian castles. Of other well-known French examples, the walls of Mont-Saint-Michel are of various dates from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century: those of Domfront are partly of the thirteenth, those of FougÈres (250) of the fifteenth century, and those of Saint-Malo chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The thirteenth-century enceinte of Coucy has already been referred to. A list of the numerous remains of town walls in France will be found in Enlart, ii. 623 seq., under the name of each department.

269 Clark, i. 460, 312, 314.

270 The cross-wall at Carnarvon is gone.

271 The polygonal towers which flank the great gatehouse at Denbigh had the same characteristic of obtuse angles, as can be still seen where the masonry has not been stripped from the rubble core.

272 The threshold of the gateway was from 35 to 40 feet above the bottom of the ditch.

273 The eastern gateway was defended in the same way.

274 Le Krak (Kala’at-el-Hosn) was rebuilt in 1202, and held by the Franks till 1271 (Enlart, ii. 536). It was a frontier fortress of the county of Tripoli in Syria, commanding the mountain country to the east, and must be distinguished from the great castle of Kerak in Moab, near the Dead sea, built about 1140, and surrendered in 1188, “the eastern bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem” (Oman, Art of War, 541). The entrance to the castle of Kerak has been described above, pp. 240, 241.

275 One feature of the defences of Berkhampstead is the series of earthen bastions, applied to the outer bank on the north side of the castle, probably at a date long after the foundation of the stronghold.

276 The breadth of the “lists” or intermediate defence of the town-walls at Carcassonne varies. On the steep western and south-western sides they are very narrow, and in one place are covered by the rectangular Bishop’s tower. The ground-floor of this was a gateway, which could be used to shut off one part of the lists from each other. Of the castle and its defences more will be said later.

277 At Newcastle the plan was nearly concentric; but the curtains of the outer and inner ward met at one point, and the outer ward was a large space, containing the domestic buildings, while the inner was nearly filled by the keep. The concentric scheme was therefore almost accidental, and no simultaneous use of both lines of defence was possible.

278 Cf. the outer ditch constructed to cover the barbican at Alnwick, where there was possibly a further outwork next the town.

279 All these gatehouses, like the gatehouse at Rockingham and others of the same period, have a central passage, flanked by round towers towards the field. Traitors’ gate, however, has an entrance of great breadth, wide enough to admit a boat from the river; and the interior is an oblong pool, without flanking guard-rooms. The round towers cap the outer angles, but are of relatively small importance in the plan. The interior pool is actually part of the ditch between the outer ward and the Thames, and the gateway is “a barbican ... placed astride upon the ditch” (Clark, ii. 242).

280 These angle-towers appear to belong in great part to the end of the twelfth century: the Beauchamp tower is generally attributed to the reign of Edward III.

281 These and the adjacent curtain are largely of the twelfth century: the Bloody tower was added in the fourteenth century.

282 Thus protecting the quay outside Traitors’ gate. Cf. the spur-wall at Beaumaris.

283 The thirteenth-century work in the great hall (103) of Chepstow castle is unusually elaborate for military work of the period: nowhere in English castles have we such splendour and beauty of detail as that of which there remain many indications at Coucy.

284 It was begun about 1267 by Gilbert de Clare, eighth earl of Gloucester and seventh earl of Hertford (d. 1295).

285 The inner ward at Kenilworth lay at all points within an outer line of defence. The outer ward, narrow on the south and west, was very broad on the east and north, and its western half was cut up into sections by cross-walls: it was also crossed by a ditch in front of the inner ward. The lake did not surround the castle, and on the north its outer defence was a very deep dry ditch.

286 The partisans of the Despensers held Caerphilly against Queen Isabel in 1326: its defenders were granted a general pardon, from which Hugh, son of Hugh le Despenser the younger, was excepted, 15th February 1326-7 (Pat. 1 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 29). One of the defenders, John Cole, received a special pardon on 20th February (ibid., m. 32). There is no record of a definite siege.

287 The earthwork or redoubt on the north-west side of the castle is probably of this period: no definite details of the destruction of the castle are preserved.

288 The inner buildings at Rhuddlan have entirely disappeared: traces of one or two fireplaces are left in the curtain.

289 At Rhuddlan a passage, protected by an outer wall ending in a square tower, descended the river-bank to the water-gate.

290 Clark (i. 217) places the date of foundation about 1295.

291 The outer drum towers are large and imposing, though low: the inner angles are capped by smaller towers, which bear much the same relation to the gatehouses as the outer round towers to Traitors’ gate in the Tower of London.

292 Of these towers, that on the west has an outer salient or spur, on the sides of which two bartizans are corbelled out: these are united into one, so that the outer face of the upper stage of the tower is rounded into a semicircle. The eastern tower is smaller, with a solid base: the western part of the upper portion is corbelled off in the angle between the tower and a rectangular southern projection. The upper stages of the towers completely command the approach, while the projection just mentioned would conceal a small body of defenders posted between the gateway and the spur-wall (236).

293 This was not founded by the Crown, like the great castles of North Wales, but, like Caerphilly, was a private foundation. It passed by marriage, early in the fourteenth century, into the possession of the house of Lancaster. Some of the most important English castles—e.g., Kenilworth, Knaresborough, Lancaster, Lincoln, Pontefract, and Pickering—came at various times into the possession of this royal house, and, at the accession of Henry IV., became castles of the Crown as seized of the duchy of Lancaster.

294 The stair to the rampart-walk, built against the curtain, was, however, normal in the defences of towns (241).

295 It may be compared with the division of the outer face of the polygonal tower at Stokesay into two smaller half-octagons (306).

296 Viollet-le-Duc’s drawing (La CitÉ de Carcassonne, p.75) shows a rampart-walk on each of the enclosing walls of this passage. He also shows the passage crossed by a series of looped barriers, so placed that each formed a separate line of defence, guarded by a few soldiers, and compelled an enemy to pursue a zigzag course through the passage. Much allusion has been already made to oblique and elbow-shaped contrivances for impeding an enemy’s progress: the antiquity of these is evident from the entrances to earthworks like Maiden Castle (see Chapter I.).

297 Description and plan in BlanchetiÈre, Le Donjon ... de Domfront, pp. 59-63. The date there given is actually earlier than the probable epoch of construction.

298 The progress of fire-arms in English warfare was slow. See the various articles by R. Coltman Clephan, F.S.A., in ArchÆol. Journal, lxvi., lxvii., and lxviii. The earliest picture of a cannon is in a MS. at Christ Church, Oxford, written in 1326 (lxviii. 49), while the earliest mention of a hand-gun in England appears to be in 1338 (lxvi. 153-4). The long-bow continued to be the popular weapon of the individual English soldier until long after this date.

299 The ramparts of Saint-Paul-du-Var (Alpes Maritimes) are said to belong to the epoch of the wars between Francis I. and Charles V. To the same period belong the fortifications of Lucca, Verona, and Antwerp. The present walls of Berwick were begun somewhat later, in 1558, enclosing a space considerably smaller than the original enceinte of the town, as fortified by Edward I.

300 Holes with embrasures for cannon were in many cases pierced in the walls of fortresses during the fifteenth century, or were formed, as in the eastern tower at Warkworth, by blocking the ordinary cross-loops through most of their height.

301 This is very clearly seen in the fortified towns of Italy, or in the towns founded by Edward I. and by the kings of France in the southern districts of France.

302 Pomerium = the space pone muros, i.e., at the back of the walls. The word was at first applied to the sacred boundary of Rome and other towns, which limited the auspicia of the city.

303 The re-erection of the rectangular wall-turrets at Newcastle, which are of very slight projection from the wall, appears to date from 1386: a writ of aid was granted to the mayor and bailiffs on 29th November in that year for the repair of the walls and bridge of the town (Pat. 10 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 8).

304 I.e., the lower gate. The north-western gateway is the upper gate, Porth Uchaf.

305 Every monastery was, of course, surrounded by a wall; but it was only in certain cases and after a certain period that such walls were crenellated.

306 Pat. 4 Edw. I., m. 12.

307 Ibid., 13 Edw. I., m. 22.

308 Ibid.

309 Ibid., m. 15.

310 Ibid., 14 Edw. I., m. 24.

311 Ibid., m. 19 (sched.).

312 Ibid., 24 Edw. I., m. 8.

313 Ibid., 27 Edw. I., m. 29.

314 Ibid., 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 25. The abbot and convent of St Mary’s, York, had licence to crenellate their wall, except on the side towards the city, 12th July 1318 (Ibid., 12 Edw. II., pt. I, m. 31).

315 September 1315 (Pat. 9 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 18), and 24th February 1315-6 (Ibid., pt. 2, m. 31).

316 Ibid., 12 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 7. No licence for crenellation had previously been given. The licences, here and elsewhere, explain that homicide and other crimes in the close by night made walling desirable. The gates were to be closed from twilight to sunrise.

317 Burghersh also had licence to crenellate his manor-houses of Stow Park and Nettleham in Lincolnshire and Liddington in Rutland, 16th November 1336 (Pat. 10 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 18). A comprehensive licence was granted, 20th July 1377 (Ibid., 1 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 26) to Ralph Erghum, bishop of Salisbury, to wall and crenellate the city of Salisbury and his manor-houses at Salisbury, Bishop’s Woodford, Potterne, Bishops Cannings, and Ramsbury in Wilts, Sherborne in Dorset, Chardstock in Devon, Sonning in Berks, and his house in Fleet Street.

318 There were four of these double gatehouses in the enceinte. The fifth gatehouse, Pottergate, was single.

319 Bishop Wyvill had a grant, 1st March 1331-2, of the stones of the cathedral of Old Sarum and the old residential houses, for the repair of the cathedral and enclosure of the precinct (Pat. 5 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 27).

320 Licence to crenellate Whalley, “the church and close,” was granted 10th July 1348 (Pat. 22 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 20).

321 Pat. 6 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22: a further licence to crenellate the abbey precinct bears date 1389, 6th May (Pat. 12 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 13).

322 Pat. 3 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 10.

323 The beautiful rectangular gatehouse of Battle abbey is earlier than Thornton. Licence to crenellate was granted 9th June 1339 (Pat. 12 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 28).

324 One of these towers remains: the other, with the adjacent curtain, is gone.

325 Pat. 19 Edw. I., m. 2.

326 Ibid., 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 19.

327 Pat. 3 Edw. II., m. 18.

328 28th August 1315 (Pat. 9 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 25).

329 See a commission to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, to survey and repair defects in Dover castle, 22nd May 1425 (Pat. 3 Hen. VI., pt. 2, m. 17).

330 It will be remembered that the gatehouse of the quasi-concentric castle of Kidwelly, only a few miles distant from Llanstephan, is also situated upon the outer line of defence.

331 Bishop Bek enfeoffed Henry Percy of the manor and town, 19th November 1309 (Pat. 3 Edw. II., m. 23).

332 It has been already pointed out that this older house may have simply taken the form of a series of buildings against the encircling wall of a large shell-keep.

333 John, Lord Neville, obtained licence from Bishop Hatfield of Durham to crenellate Raby in 1378 (O. S. Scott, Raby, its Castle and its Lords, 1906, P-47).

334 At Middleham, where the plan of the fore-building is rather exceptional, there was a passage through the eastern part of the ground-floor of the forebuilding: this, however, was not the only way from the northern to the southern half of the castle. The first floor of the tower at Knaresborough, which formed a great guard-room, is in a very ruinous state; but there are clear indications of the main entrance near the north-east angle, and the inner entrance in the south wall, at right angles to the outer, still remains. There is also a vice in the south wall, by which the inner ward could be reached when the gates were closed. This tower, of course, never contained the domestic buildings of the castle; but the kitchen was in the basement, to which there were three doors of entry from the inner ward. The approach to each gateway from outside seems to have been a rising causeway built on arches.

335 The tower of Belsay measures 51½ by 47½ feet. The tower of Knaresborough, which is of the same period, measures 62 by 54 feet; while that of Gilling measures 79½ by 72½ feet.

336 This is said to have been the medieval vicarage of the church, which was appropriated to the cathedral priory of Carlisle. A pele-tower forms part of the rectories of Elsdon and Rothbury and of the vicarage of Embleton, Northumberland.

337 The term “pele-yard” is applied to the base-court of the castle of Prudhoe in Pat. 1 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 1; where there is a licence to Gilbert de Umfraville, earl of Angus, to apply a rent to the augmentation of a chaplain’s stipend in the “chantry of St Mary in le Peleyerde of Prodhowe.”

338 Enlart (ii. 623-753) quotes 242 examples of French churches which show remains of fortification. Most of the midland and southern departments of France contain a few; but the thickest clusters occur near the northern frontier (15 in the Aisne, 10 in the Ardennes department), and on the coast of Languedoc and Roussillon, where inroads of pirates were common (PyrÉnÉes-Orientales 22; HÉrault, 12). Among the larger fortified churches were the cathedrals of Agde, BÉziers, LodÈve, and Saint-Pons (HÉrault), Elne (PyrÉnÉes-Orientales), Pamiers (AriÈge), Viviers (ArdÈche), and Saint-Claude (Jura), and the abbey churches of Saint-Denis (Seine), Saint-Victor at Marseilles (Bouches-du-RhÔne), La Chaise-Dieu (Haute-Loire), Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), and Tournus (SaÔne-et-Loire). The example of Ewenny was followed in one or two churches of the same district, such as Newton Nottage, and in the peninsula of Gower.

339 At Llanfihangel-cwm-Du, near Crickhowell, there was a fireplace upon the first floor of the tower until recently: the vent for the smoke remains in one of the corner turrets of the tower.

340 The constant pressure of Scottish invasion upon the northern border is illustrated by the persistence of military architecture in the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland. Thus, as late as 1399, William Strickland undertook the building of Penrith castle “for fortifying that town and the whole adjacent country” (Pat. 22 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 16; cf. pt. 3, m. 37).

341 Bishop Burnell was building this house in 1284. He left the king at Conway on 25th July, to look after the progress of the works (Pat. 12 Edw. I., m. 7).

342 4th July (Pat. 3 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 43). A contract is still preserved, of 14th September 1378.

343 26th April (Pat. 5 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 21).

344 The builder of Raby, John, Lord Neville (d. 1388), was also responsible for the fortification of Sheriff Hutton.

345 This date is given in the 43rd Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, p. 71. The licence, as the castle was within the palatinate, was granted by Bishop Skirlaw.

346 The licence to Thomas de Heton to “make a castle or fortalice” of Chillingham bears date 27th January 1343-4 (Pat. 18 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 46). Some of the masonry in the angle-towers is, however, of a much earlier date than this.

347 The mount remains at the west end of the enclosure, but the shell-keep on its summit has been removed.

348 The gatehouse and barbican in the east curtain, as well as the older portion of the dwelling-house, were the work of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1369): CÆsar’s tower and Guy’s tower were the work of his son Thomas, who died in 1401.

349 This-is the usual date given for the tower, which is entered from the first floor of the great donjon, and from the lower floor of the “lesser donjon” attached to one side of the keep. E. LefÈvre-Pontalis, Le ChÂteau de Coucy, p. 82, departs from the usual date to assign the tower to Philip Augustus, two centuries earlier. The details certainly appear to be of a period much earlier than the fifteenth century.

350 The turrets attached to some of the towers at Conway and Harlech are at the side, not in the centre. Such raised turrets were useful as look-out posts, and a watcher posted upon them could inform the defenders on the rampart-walk below of movements which they might not be able to follow for themselves.

351 Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22.

352 Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 24.

353 An interesting gatehouse, belonging to the later years of Edward I., is that of Denbigh, which was probably built by Henry de Lacy, the last earl of Lincoln (d. 1310). Here a noble archway, flanked by two octagonal towers, gives access through a passage to an octagonal central hall, beyond which is a smaller octagonal guard-room. The inner gateway to the enclosure is set in a side of the octagon, obliquely to the outer entrance. The plan is apparently unique. The upper portion of the gatehouse is badly ruined, and the walls have been much stripped; but there is a statue, probably of the founder, left above the entrance archway, which is set in a niche and panel treated with a considerable amount of ornamental detail.

354 The barrel-vault of a basement chamber in one of the curtain-towers retains the marks of the wattled centering on which it was built. This is persistently asserted to be a mark of Roman origin. As a matter of fact, no part of the present castle can be proved to be earlier than the beginning of the twelfth century, when Roger of Poitou may have moved the head of his honour here from Penwortham, south of the Ribble. The castle, however, lies partly within, and partly outside the limits of a Roman military station.

355 This is the date proposed by Bates, Border Holds: C. H. Hartshorne (ArchÆol. Inst., Newcastle, vol. ii.) proposed a later date, c. 1435-40. Mr Bates’ date is more likely than the other: for neither is there any direct evidence.

356 New works were begun at Porchester in 1386, when Robert Bardolf, the constable, was appointed to impress masons, carpenters, etc., and to take materials at the king’s expense (Pat. 8 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 23). This probably applies to the building of the barbican, but the hall may also have been remodelled at this period. There are considerable remains of twelfth-century work in the substructure of the hall, as already noted.

357 The stone gatehouse of the Norman castle appears to be incorporated in the fourteenth-century work, the outer archway, which was covered by a barbican, being merely a facing added to earlier work. The inner walls of the gatehouse were also lengthened, as part of the fourteenth-century enlargement.

358 John of Gaunt was duke of Lancaster 1362-99. The gatehouse of Lancaster castle, known as John of Gaunt’s gateway, was not built until after his death. See p. 327.

359 This hall was probably built late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century.

360 Charles also seems to have rebuilt the chapel on the south side of the enclosure.

361 See the drawing by Androuet du Cerceau and plans in W. H. Ward, French ChÂteaux and Gardens in the XVIth Century, Plates III., IV., and p. 11.

362 See p. 285 above.

363 The three principal features of the strong tower at Stokesay are (1) its isolation from the range of buildings adjoining it, its only entrances being from the outside, in the basement and on the first floor; (2) the division of its face towards the field into two small half-octagons; (3) the stairs carried from floor to floor in the thickness of the wall. The stair from the basement to the first and second floors crosses the entrance-lobby on the first floor; but, in order to reach the roof, the second-floor chamber has to be passed through, and a new stair entered in the embrasure of a window. This was planned partly, as at Richmond and Conisbrough, to give the defenders complete control of the stair, and partly to keep the stair within the wall of the tower which was least open to attack, and could therefore be lightened most safely.

364 This was done towards the end of the twelfth century. The licence stated that the wall was to be without crenellations (sine kernello).

365 The hall may be a little earlier than the fourteenth century: the windows seem to indicate the period 1290-1310. The great chimney and the heavy battlement were added when the porch to the hall was built.

366 Such a position for a medieval stronghold was not unusual. Thus Richmond castle is commanded by much higher hills on the north and south-west. In medieval warfare, however, before fire-arms had received any full development, an enemy would have gained little advantage by occupying a commanding position at some distance from the place attacked. In 1644, the Parliamentary force which besieged Wingfield attempted to breach the walls from Pentrich common, on slightly higher ground to the south-east. This was found impossible, and the cannon had to be moved to a wood on the west side of the manor before any damage was done.

367 The additions at this end were possibly the work of John Talbot, second earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1460), to whom Cromwell sold the manor shortly before his death. The earl certainly did some building at Wingfield: see the short, but carefully compiled Guide to Wingfield Manor, by W. H. Edmunds, p. 11.

368 This can clearly be seen from the small open courtyard on the north-west side of the great chamber block. The kitchen block is there seen to have been built up against the west wall of the great chamber and its lower stage, without any bonding.

369 At Conway, Porchester, etc., however, the large hall was probably intended for the use of the garrison. The great hall at Wingfield was essentially the hall of a dwelling-house, in which the inner court is kept quite separate from the base-court, where possibly a common hall was provided for the men-at-arms who might be lodged there.

370 This tower, like that at Stokesay, can be entered only by an outer door. This is at the foot of a turret containing a broad vice. The doorway had no portcullis, but was commanded by a slit in the wall from the stair, which ascends on the left of the entrance lobby.

371 The gateways of the outer and inner courtyards each had double doors. There was no provision for portcullises. Each gateway has a small postern entrance on one side of the main archway. This would be used after the great doors had been closed for the night.

372 These have recently been removed, to the great detriment of this noble tower.

373 The high tower at Wingfield is not machicolated, and affords a curious contrast in this respect to Tattershall.

374 The late thirteenth-century hall at Little Wenham, near Hadleigh, is an early example of a brick house in this district.

375 Other Lincolnshire examples of brick-work are the gatehouse of Thornton abbey (1382), already described, and the early sixteenth-century manor-house on the Trent above Gainsborough, known as Torksey castle.

376 The ditch at Hurstmonceaux is now dry. That at Compton Wyniates has been partly filled up. The moat of Kentwell, an Elizabethan house, is still perfect.

377 The upper stories of these towers only are semicircular. The two lower stages are half octagons. The towers have circular upper turrets like those at Warwick.

378 The castle of Amberley was built about 1379 by Bishop Rede of Chichester, and is therefore nearly contemporary with Bodiam. It is rectangular in shape, with lofty curtains, and has a gatehouse flanked by round towers.

379 Lett. and Pap. Hen. VIII., vol. IV., nos. 2,655, 2,656.

380 Lett. and Pap. Hen. VIII., vol. IV., no. 1,089.

381 Calendared ibid., vol. III., no. 1,186.

382 Pat. 19 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 25.

Clyx.com