The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.

by Ella Sophia Armitage

The greatest architectural change witnessed at the end of the 12th century was the victory of the round keep over the square. Round towers were built by the Romans as mural towers, but the universal type of mediæval keep appears to have been the square or oblong, until towards the end of the 12th century.[1188] The polygonal keep was probably a transitional form; we have seen that Henry II.’s polygonal keep at Orford was begun as early as 1165. Many experiments seem to have been made at the end of the 12th century, such as the addition of a stone prow to the weakest side of a keep, to enable it better to resist showers of missiles. Richard I.’s keep at Chateau Gaillard is a round keep with a solid prow of this kind. Five-sided keeps are said to be not uncommon on the left bank of the Rhine and in Nassau; this type was simply the addition of a prow to a square keep. The only English instance known to the writer is that of Mitford, Northumberland, but this is merely a five-sided keep, the prow is not solid, as at Chateau Gaillard. The castle of Étampes, whose plan is a quatrefoil, is assigned by French archæologists to this period of experiment.[1189] But the round keep was eventually the type preferred. Philip II. thought it necessary to add a round keep to the castle of Gisors, after he had taken it from John, and he adopted the round keep for all his new castles, of which the Louvre was one.[1190]

Along with the round keep, ground entrances became common.[1191] Viollet le Duc states that when the French soldiers broke into the inner ward at Chateau Gaillard the defenders had no time to escape into the keep by the narrow stair which led to the first floor, and consequently this proud tower was surrendered without a blow; and that this event so impressed on Philip’s mind the danger of difficult entrances that he abandoned the old fashion. This may be true, but it is a pure guess of Le Duc’s, as there is nothing whatever to justify it in William the Breton’s circumstantial narrative. It is, however, certain that Philip adopted the ground entrance to all his keeps. In England we find ground entrances to many round keeps of the 13th century, as at Pembroke; but the older fashion was sometimes retained; Conisburgh, one of the finest keeps in England, has its entrance on the first floor.[1192]

After the introduction of the trébuchet, we might expect that the walls of keeps would be made very much thicker, and such seems to have been the case in France,[1193] but we do not find that it was the rule in England.[1194] The lower storeys were now generally instead of occasionally vaulted. In the course of the 13th century it became common to vault all the storeys. But in spite of the military advantages of the round keep, in its avoidance of angles favourable to the battering-ram, and its deflection of missiles, the square keep continued to be built in various parts of both France and England till quite late in the Middle Ages.[1195] On the Scottish border, square towers of the ancient type, with quite Norman decorations, were built as late as the 15th century.[1196] The advantage of the square tower was that it was more roomy inside, and was therefore preferred when the tower was intended for habitation.

We come now to the greatest of all the changes introduced in the 13th century: the keepless castle, in which the keep is done away with altogether, and the castle consists of a square or oblong court surrounded by a strong wall with massive towers at the angles, and in large castles, in the curtain also.[1197] Usually this inner quadrangle is encircled with an outer quadrangle of walls and towers, so that this type of castle is frequently called the concentric. But the castles of the keepless kind are not invariably concentric; those built by Edward I. at Conway, Carnarvon, and Flint are not so.[1198] Instead of a dark and comfortless keep, the royal or noble owner is provided in this type of castle with a palatial house. In England this house is frequently attached to the gateway, forming what we may call a gatehouse palace; good examples may be seen at Beaumaris, Harlech, and Tonbridge.[1199] The gateway itself is always defended by a pair of massive towers.

Edward I. is generally credited with the introduction of this type of castle into England, but until the Pipe Rolls of Henry III.’s reign have been carefully examined, we cannot be certain that it was not introduced earlier. It was certainly known in Germany fifty years before Edward’s accession to the throne, and in France as early as 1231.[1200]

It is always supposed that this type of castle was introduced by the Crusaders from Syria. But when did it make its first appearance in Syria? This is a point which, we venture to think, has not been yet sufficiently investigated. We do not believe that it can have existed in Syria at the time of the third crusade, otherwise Richard I., who is universally acknowledged to have been a first-class military architect, would have brought the idea home with him.[1201] Yet his favourite castle of Chateau Gaillard, built in accordance with the latest military science, is in the main a castle of the keep-and-bailey type, and has even a reminiscence of the motte, in the scarped rock on which the keep and inner ward are placed.

The new type of keepless castle never entirely displaced the old keep-and-bailey type. We have already seen that keeps of the old sort continued to be built till the end of the Middle Ages. Hawarden Castle has a good example of a 14th-century round keep; Warkworth a most remarkable specimen of the 15th, the plan being a square tower with polygonal turrets set on each face.[1202] In France and Germany also the old type appears to have persisted.[1203]

We have already trespassed beyond the limits of our subject; but as we offer this chapter more as a programme of work than as a categorical outline, we trust it may not be without use to the student who may feel disposed to take up this much-neglected subject.