[194] Dunio is subsequently explained by Lambert as motte: “Motam altissimam sive dunionem eminentem in munitionis signum firmavit.” Lamberti Ardensis, p. 613. It is the same word as the Saxon dun, a hill (preserved in our South Downs), and has no connection with the Irish and Gaelic dun, which is cognate with the German zaun, a hedge, A.-S. tun, and means a hedged or fortified place. The form dange appears in Northern France, and this seems to be the origin of the word domgio or dangio which we find in the chroniclers, the modern form of which is donjon. If we accept this etymology, we must believe that the word dunio or domgio was originally applied to the hill, and not to the tower on the hill, to which it was afterwards transferred. It is against this view that Ordericus, writing some fifty years before Lambert, uses the form dangio in the sense of a tower. Professor Skeat and the New English Dictionary derive the word donjon or dungeon from Low Lat. domnionem, acc. of domnio, thus connecting it with dominus, as the seignorial residence.
[195] Ducange conjectured that the motte-castle took its origin in Flanders, but it was probably the passage cited above from Lambert which led him to this conclusion. See art. “Mota” in Ducange’s Glossarium.
[196] Steenstrup, Normannerne, i., 297.
[197] Ibid., i., 301.
[198] England and Normandy, ii., 535.
[199] “Muros et propugnacula civitatum refecit et augmentavit.” Dudo, p. 85 (Duchesne’s edition).
[200] “Henricus rex circa turrem Rothomagi, quam ædificavit primus Richardus dux Normannorum in palatium sibi, murum altum et latum cum propugnaculis ædificat.” Robert of Toringy, R.S., p. 106.
[201] Ordericus, ii., 15, 17, 46 (edition Prévost).
[202] William of Jumièges, anno 1035. Mr Freeman remarks that the language of William would lead us to suppose that the practice of castle-building was new.
[203] There are some facts which render it probable that the earliest castles built in Normandy were without mottes, and were simple enclosures like those we have described already. Thus the castle of the great family of Montgomeri is an enclosure of this simple kind. Domfront, built by William Talvas in Duke Robert’s time, has no motte. On the other hand, Ivry, built by the Countess Albereda in Duke Richard I.’s days, “on the top of a hill overlooking the town” (William of Jumièges), may possibly have been a motte; and there is a motte at Norrei, which we have just mentioned as an early Norman castle.