[148] Chron. Petrib. 1088. “Ðe bisceop Odo, þe þas cyng of awocan, ferde into Cent to his earldome and fordyde hit swyðe, and þæs cynges land and þæs arcebisceopes mid ealle aweston, and brohte eall þæt gód into his castele on Hrofeceastre.” This follows at once on the accounts of Roger the Bigod and Hugh of Grantmesnil. So William of Malmesbury, who here brings in the story of Lanfranc’s share in Odo’s imprisonment in 1082, in order to account for Odo’s special hatred towards the Archbishop.
[149] See N. C. vol. i. pp. 267, 296. On the early history of Rochester generally, see Mr. Hartshorne’s paper in the Archæological Journal, September, 1863.
[150] This is brought out by Orderic, 667 B; “Oppidum igitur Rovecestræ sollicita elegerunt provisione, quoniam, si rex eos non obsedisset in urbe, in medio positi laxis habenis Lundoniam et Cantuariam devastarent, et per mare, quod proximum est, insulasque vicinas, pro auxiliis conducendis nuntios cito dirigerent.” The islands must be Sheppey and Thanet.
[151] See the siege of Rochester in 1215 and his defence by William of Albini in Roger of Wendover, iii. 333.
[152] For the siege of 1264 see W. Rishanger, Chron. p. 25 (Camd. Soc.). On Simon’s military engines he remarks that the Earl “exemplum relinquens Anglicis qualiter circa castrorum assultationes agendum sit, qui penitus hujusmodi diebus illis fuerant ignari.” A forerunner of Kanarês, he had a fire-ship in the river; he also used mines, as the Conqueror had done at Exeter.
[153] Mr. Hartshorne showed distinctly that the present tower of Rochester was not built by Gundulf, but by William of Corbeuil. See the passages which he quotes from Gervase, X Scriptt. 1664, and the continuator of Florence, 1126. But we have seen (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 366) that Gundulf did build a stone castle at Rochester for William Rufus (“castrum Hrofense lapidum”), and we should most naturally look for it on the site of the later one. On the other hand, there is a tower, seemingly of Gundulf’s building and of a military rather than an ecclesiastical look, which is now almost swallowed up between the transepts of the cathedral. But it would be strange if a tower built for the King stood in the middle of the monastic precinct.
[154] The odd position of the cloister at Rochester suggests the notion that Gundulf’s church occupied only the site of the present eastern limb, and that the later Norman nave was an enlargement rather than a rebuilding.
[155] Domesday, 2 b. “Episcopus de Rouecestre pro excambio terræ in qua castellum sedet, tantum de hac terra tenet quod xvii.s. et iv.d. valet.” This is said of land at Aylesford; but the castle spoken of must surely be that of Rochester. The Domesday phrase “sedet” seems beautifully to describe either the massive square donjon or the shell-keep on the mound; yet it may be doubted whether Rochester had either in the Conqueror’s day.
[156] This ditch is said to have been traced right across the middle of the cathedral, with the twelfth-century nave to the west of it. I can say nothing either way from my own observation; but such an extension of the church to the west would exactly answer to the extension of the churches of Le Mans and Lincoln to the east. In both those cases the Roman wall had to give way.
[157] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 367.