[204] Manuel d’Archæologie Française, p. 457.
[205] This want will be supplied, as regards England, by the completion of the Victoria County Histories, and as regards France, by the Societé Préhistorique, which is now undertaking a catalogue of all the earthworks of France. The late M. Mortillet, in an article in the Revue Mensuelle de l’École d’Anthropologie, viii., 1895, published two lists, one of actual mottes in France, the other of place-names in which the word motte is incorporated. Unfortunately the first list is extremely defective, and the second, as it only relates to the name, is not a safe guide to the proportional numbers of the thing. All that the lists prove is that mottes are to be found in all parts of France, and that place-names into which the word motte enters seem to be more abundant in Central France than anywhere else. It is possible that a careful examination of local chroniclers may lead to the discovery of some earlier motte-builder than Thibault-le-Tricheur. We should probably know more about Thibault’s castles were it not that the Pays Chartrain, as Palgrave says, is almost destitute of chroniclers.
[206] Cited at length by De Caumont, Bulletin Monumental, ix., 246. Von Hochfelden considered that the origin of feudal fortresses in Germany hardly goes back to the 10th century; only great dukes and counts then thought of fortifying their manors; those of the small nobility date at earliest from the end of the 12th century.
[207] Die Befestigungen der Vorzeit, p. 28.
[208] Entwickelung des Kriegswesens, iii., 370.
[209] Antiquitates Italicæ, ii., 504. He says they are many times mentioned both in charters and chronicles in Italy.
[210] We hear of Robert Guiscard building a wooden castle on a hill at Rocca di St Martino in 1047. Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, i., 43. Several place-names in Italy and Sicily are compounded with motta, as the Motta Sant’Anastasia in Sicily. See Amari, ibid., p. 220.
[211] Especially Montfort and Blanchegarde. But there is a wide field for further research both in Palestine and Sicily.
[212] “Bei den Sclaven haben die Chateaux-à-motte keinen Eingang gefunden, weil ihnen das Lehnswesen fremd geblieben ist.” iii., 338.
[213] Professor Montelius informed the writer that they are quite unknown in Norway or Sweden; and Dr Christison obtained an assurance to the same effect from Herr Hildebrand.