Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Map of principal castles in north-east England

In Domesday Book some fifty castles are mentioned by name or implication; and the number was largely increased during the next hundred years. In view, however, of the large number of temporary private strongholds which came into being during the twelfth century, it is difficult to estimate the number of permanent castles until, in the later part of the century, Henry II. regulated and restrained the efforts of private owners to guard their property with fortresses. The castles included in Domesday do not represent the whole number which existed at that period; and of such important castles as Colchester and Exeter, which we know to have been founded before 1086, there is no mention. To estimate the strategic plan which governed the foundation of castles at its full value, we must therefore turn for a moment to the later period at which the defence of England by a connected system of these strongholds had been more thoroughly achieved. Here also, it is not altogether easy, in view of the destruction of older castles by Henry II., and the foundation of new ones at a later epoch, to estimate the exact state of the castles of England at the end of the twelfth century.[98] But, taking one special district, we may at least gain an approximate notion of its lines of defence as they existed about the year 1200. This is the north-eastern district of England, containing the main strategic approach to Scotland, and crossed by the rivers which descend eastwards to the sea. This was the scene of the rebellion of the Mowbrays and the invasion of William the Lion in 1174, in consequence of which four important castles at least, those of Kinnard’s Ferry on the lower Trent, Thirsk and Northallerton in the vale of Mowbray, and Kirkby Malzeard, on the highlands above the right bank of the Ure, were demolished.[99] The chief castles of this district will be found to guard the line of the rivers. On the Trent were Nottingham, on the north bank, and the bishop of Lincoln’s castle of Newark,[100] on the south; while the greater part of the lower valley of the river was commanded at some distance by the strongly-placed castles of Belvoir and Lincoln. On the borders of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, Tickhill[101] stood in advance of the Don, while the narrow passage of the Don, five miles west of Doncaster, was guarded by Conisbrough. These castles defended the approach from the high land on the west; the marshy country north and east of Doncaster, towards the Humber, although it often proved a refuge for freebooters, needed no permanent garrison. South of the Calder, opposite Wakefield, stood Sandal. To the east, below the junction of the Calder and the Aire, was Pontefract, in a position of great strength and importance.[102] There was no great castle on the Wharfe, although Harewood guarded the south bank of the river between Otley and Tadcaster, and at Tadcaster itself there was a castle, of which little is known; Cawood castle was simply a manor-house of the archbishops of York.[103] On the Ouse, almost in the centre of the shire, were the two castles of York, at the head of the tideway. Knaresborough was west of York, on the north bank of the Nidd. Each of the dales of the North Riding had its strong castle. In Wensleydale was Middleham, south of the Ure. Richmond, from its cliff at the mouth of Swaledale, commanded a vast tract of country, reaching to the Hambleton hills and the forest of Galtres, north of York. Barnard Castle stood in a strong position on the Durham bank of the Tees. The castles of the eastern part of the North Riding were Skelton and Castleton, both in Cleveland, and belonging to the house of Bruce. Helmsley stood at the entrance of Ryedale; Pickering and Malton were on the Derwent, and Scarborough guarded the coast. South of Scarborough, in the East Riding, the one castle of importance at this date was Skipsea, on the low coast-line of Holderness, between Flamborough and Spurn heads. Returning to the border of Durham, and crossing the Tees, we find Brancepeth and Durham on the Wear. On the south bank of the Tyne was Prudhoe in Northumberland: north of the Tyne was the great fortress of Newcastle. Most of the castles and small strongholds of Northumberland were the growth of a later age. The principal castles at this period were Mitford on the Wansbeck, Warkworth on the Coquet, Alnwick on the Alne, Wark and Norham on the Tweed, and Bamburgh and Holy Island, castles on the seaboard. This list might be extended, but the most important fortresses east of the Pennine chain are included in it, and from it the strategic geography of this important district can be readily recognised. Of the thirty-four castles in this list, ten, including the gateway-tower at Newark, had rectangular tower-keeps, of which nine remain; Conisbrough and Barnard Castle ([87]) had cylindrical tower-keeps. Of the rest, in most cases, as at Sandal ([86]), the mounts remain, and in a few instances, as at Skipsea, there are remains of a shell-keep. The shell-keeps of Lincoln and Pickering are still excellent examples of their type. The masonry at York, Pontefract, and Knaresborough belongs to a later period; and in almost all instances, where masonry remains, it bears trace of substantial later additions.

Sandal Castle; Plan

Barnard Castle; Plan

It will be noticed that castles which guarded passes through hilly districts were generally placed, like Middleham and Richmond, in comparatively open country at the foot of the pass. This was the case with Welsh castles like Brecon and Llandovery, or the tower of Dolbadarn, below the pass of Llanberis. The isolated position at the head of a pass was not easily victualled, nor was it so useful as the situation on more open ground, from which, as at Brecon or Middleham, a larger extent of mountain country could be commanded. Trecastle ([44]), at the top of the pass between Brecon and Llandovery, has already been mentioned as a site which was probably abandoned early: the tract which it commanded is limited compared with that within reach of Brecon, the point towards which all the valleys of the neighbourhood converge.

In places where a castle formed part of the defences of a walled town, it was usually placed upon the line of the wall, so that the wall formed for some distance part of its curtain. This can be well seen at Lincoln, where the castle occupied the south-west angle of the older Roman city. The castle of Ludlow is in the north-west angle of the town, the wall of which joined it on its north face and at its south-west corner. At Carlisle the castle filled up an angle of the town, the town walls meeting its south curtain at either end. In such cases, the castle, while defending the town, was also protected from it by a ditch, across which a passage was furnished by a drawbridge. The castle of Bristol stood upon the isthmus, east of the town, between the streams of the Avon and Frome, and, in this strong position, was joined by the city wall at either extremity of its west side. In 1313, when the citizens were in rebellion, they cut off the castle from the city by building a new wall on that side.[104] In the case of Bristol, the building of the castle made some alterations in the town wall necessary, as time went on, but, from the beginning, the castle occupied its place in the regular enceinte. If, at York, the castles were at first built, as seems to be the case, outside the defences of the town, the circuit was soon extended to include the castle, at any rate, upon the right bank of the river. Although the castle of Southampton is almost entirely gone, the points of junction of its curtains with the west wall of the town are quite clear. Similarly, the position of castles such as Shrewsbury, Leicester, and Nottingham, or close to the enceinte of the town, can be traced, although little is left of the walls. In foreign walled towns like Angers or Laval, the castle formed, as in England, a portion of the outer defences. In later castles like Carnarvon and Conway, the same relation to the plan of the town was preserved. There are exceptions, of which the chief is the Tower of London, within the Roman, but outside the medieval city wall. Chepstow is also outside the town, between which and the castle is a deep ravine: but in this case the town was of a growth subsequent to the foundation of the castle. A distinction must be drawn between castles founded in connection with fortified towns, in which the castle formed part of a general scheme of defence, as at Bristol and Oxford, and castles under the protection of which towns, like Chepstow, grew up, and were subsequently fortified. A good example of this latter class is Newcastle, in which the relations of town and castle are exactly opposite to those at Chepstow. When the castle was founded by the Conqueror, the place, once garrisoned by the Romans, and for a time inhabited by a colony of English monks, was probably an inconsiderable village. The town which grew up on the site took its name from the castle, and was walled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The walls, however, were brought down to the banks of the Tyne at some distance east and west of the castle, which was thus contained entirely within their circuit. At Norwich, a place of no great importance before the Conquest, the castle is also entirely within the line of the old city wall. One of the best examples of the connection between a walled town and a castle is at Launceston, where the borough of Dunheved grew up within a narrow area which was virtually the outer ward of the strong hill-fortress.

The establishment of a castle upon a permanent site was followed, sooner or later, by the building of stone fortifications. This work was often very gradual. We have seen that even a castle so important as that of York retained part of its timber stockade as late as 1324. This, however, was an exceptional case. The walls and towers of medieval castles show, as might be expected, a considerable variety of masonry; but the epoch at which their fortification in stone became general may be said to be the third quarter of the twelfth century. In 1155 Henry II. resumed castles and other royal property into his own hands, and ordered the destruction of the unlicensed castles which had risen during the civil wars of the previous reign.[105] This step was followed unquestionably by much activity in strengthening the defences of the castles which were left.