Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Lewes; Plan

Builth; Plan

The provision of more than one bailey, as at Clun ([43]), where two small baileys, separated by ditches, cover the south and west sides of the mount, was due, partly to the irregular nature of the site, and partly to the need for the multiplication of defences. Such an arrangement, inconvenient in time of peace, would be a considerable advantage in case of siege, when each bailey would provide a separate difficulty to the assailants, and a separate rallying point to the defenders. At Builth ([50]), where the whole area of the castle earthworks is small, and the ditches of mount and bailey are of considerable strength, the main bailey is a narrow segmental platform covering the south side of the mount. On the west side of the mount is a smaller and narrower platform, between which and the main bailey is a broad ditch, forming a cross-cut or traverse between the ditches of the mount and bailey. As the enclosure is very nearly circular, with the mount north-west of the centre, this second platform is somewhat squeezed into the space, and the ditch between it and the counterscarp which runs continuously round both mount and bailey is very narrow. In the more usual instances, where the mount and its ditch form a regular circle, which intersects with the bailey and its ditch, a secondary platform, as has been noted, occurs outside the line of both ditches, and is surrounded by a ditch of its own, communicating with both. This is the case with the very symmetrical example of a mount-and-bailey castle at Mexborough, at Lilbourne in Northants, Hallaton in Leicestershire ([51]), and other cases. Here the secondary platform is an excrescence on one side of the meeting of the two circles. Such platforms were mere outworks where additional defence was necessary; it is possible that on them stone-throwing engines might be planted by the defenders, as the narrowness of the ditch would at these points bring the assailants more nearly within range than at any other point within the enclosure. Such engines would encumber the larger bailey, which would necessarily be kept as clear as possible for the operations of the main body of the garrison.

Hallaton; Plan

The mount-and-bailey castle has been derived by some from a Teutonic origin,[52] but it is difficult to trace it with any certainty at an early period outside France and Normandy. There are many remains of these castles in Normandy itself. The famous castle of Domfront (Orne), founded originally by Guillaume Talvas (d. 1030), ancestor of the house of Bellême, possibly took this form: as at Newcastle, a rectangular tower of stone took the place, in the twelfth century, of the tower on the mount.[53] The writer of a monograph on the castle of Domfront enumerates five such mounts which exist or are known to have existed within the local arrondissement.[54] Two, at Sept-Forges and Lucé, remain intact, covered by plantations of trees. At Sept-Forges the church and castle were side by side, as may still be seen at Earls Barton in Northamptonshire.[55] At Lucé there are traces of a bailey. On the other hand, at La Baroche, a large mount seems to have borne the whole castle: one may compare with this the great mount of Restormel in Cornwall, which is the natural summit of a hill, artificially scarped and surrounded by a fosse, like a contour fort of early times. It is important to notice that on these artificial mounts of southern Normandy, there appears “no ruin, no trace of construction in masonry.” The inference is obvious. The buildings which they carried were of wood, and have yielded to the action of fire or the weather. On no other hypothesis can the speed with which castles were constructed in England after the Conquest, or the ease with which they were destroyed, be explained. William’s subjects in Normandy threw up fortifications against him with a speed which positively forbids us to imagine that they procured masons to work in stone. In 1061, Robert, son of Giroie, one of the powerful nobles of the Alençonnais, joined forces with the Angevins against William, and fortified his castles of La-Roche-sur-Igé and Saint-Cénéri. His cousin, Arnold, son of Robert, driven from the castle of Échauffour, returned secretly and burned it.[56] The quickness with which the two castles at York were constructed, destroyed, and repaired, allowed no time for dressing stone.

The points which our evidence leads us to accept may be recapitulated as follows:—(1) The castle was a foreign importation into England, of the period of the Norman conquest. (2) It consisted, in its simplest form, of a moated mount or motte, with a bailey or base-court attached. (3) Its earliest fortifications were entirely of timber, save in rare instances.

We may now examine the evidence which, in default of actual remains, survives with regard to the timber constructions of these castles and their use. The tower on the mount first demands our attention. Apart from the pictures of the Bayeux tapestry, certain early twelfth century chronicles of northern France have preserved for us accounts of the main features of this structure and its enceinte.[57] Jean de Colmieu describes the castle of Merchem, close by the church, as munitio quedam quam castrum vel municipium dicere possumus. “It is the custom,” he says, “with the rich men and nobles of this district, because they spend their time in enmity and slaughter, and in order that they may thereby be safer from their enemies, and by their superior power either conquer their equals or oppress their inferiors, to heap up a mount of earth as high as they can, and to dig round it a ditch of some breadth and great depth, and, instead of a wall, to fortify the topmost edge of the mount round about with a rampart (vallo) very strongly compacted of planks of timber, and having towers, as far as possible, arranged along its circuit. Within the rampart they build in the midst a house or a citadel (arx) commanding the whole site. The gate of entry to the place”—the word used is villa, implying a place of habitation rather than a stronghold—“can be approached only by a bridge, which, rising at first from the outer lip of the ditch, is gradually raised higher. Supported by uprights in pairs, or in sets of three, which are fixed beneath it at convenient intervals, it rises by a graduated slope across the breadth of the ditch, so that it reaches the mount on a level with its summit and at its outer edge, and touches the threshold of the enclosure.” It will be noticed that the moated mount described here had no bailey. It was also obviously not merely a fortified stronghold, a place of refuge in time of war, but a definite residence of the local lord. The turrets round the timber rampart of the mount are mentioned as occasional, not invariable features of the design. The habitation within the rampart may be a strong tower or a mere house. The sense of the passage shows clearly that there was a doorway in the rampart, by which the house was approached from the bridge. Finally, the description is not applicable merely to a single castle, but is a generic description of strongholds in a particular neighbourhood.