Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

[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.