[214] “These are small well-defended places, the stronghold of the individual, built for a great man and his followers, and answering to mediæval conditions, to a more or less developed feudal system.” Vor Oldtid, p. 642.
[215] I am informed by a skilled engineer that even in the wet climate of England it would take about ten years for the soil to settle sufficiently to bear a stone building.
[216] Köhler says: “By far the greater part of the castles of the Teutonic knights in Prussia, until the middle of the fourteenth century, were of wood and earth.” Die Entwickelung des Kriegswesen, iii., 376.
[217] Cal. of Patent Rolls, 1232-1247, p. 340. Mandate to provost of Oléron to let Frank De Brene have tools to make a new motte in the isle of Rhé. Later the masters and crews of the king’s galleys are ordered to help in building the motte and the wooden castle. P. 343.
[218] Antiquitates Italicæ, ii., 504. Can Grande’s motte at Padua. Anno 1320. “Dominus Alternerius [podesta of Padua] ... cum maxima quantitate peditum et balistariorum Civitatis Paduæ, iverunt die predicto summo mane per viam Pontis Corvi versus quamdam motam magnam, quam faciebat facere Dominus Canis, cum multis fossis et tajatis ad claudendum Paduanos, ne exirent per illam partem, et volendo ibidem super illam motam ædificare castrum. Tunc prædictus Potestas cum aliis nominatis splanare incœperunt, et difecerunt dictam motam cum tajatis et fossa magna.”
We may remark here that as early as the 17th century the learned Muratori protested against the equation of mota and fossatum, and laughed at Spelman for making this translation of mota in his Glossary. Antiquitates Italicæ, ii., 504.
[219] Cited by Westropp, Journal of R.S.A., Ireland, 1904.
[220] Vicars’ Parliamentary Chronicle, cited by Hunter, South Yorks, ii., 235.
[221] “Camps on the Malvern Hills,” Journ. Anthrop. Inst., x., 319.
[222] M. de Salies has traced in detail the connection between Fulk Nerra’s castles and the Roman roads of Anjou and Touraine.