The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.

by Ella Sophia Armitage

One thing we look for in vain at Exeter, and that is a citadel. There is no keep, and there is no record that there ever was one, though a chapel, hall, and other houses are mentioned in ancient accounts. Mr Clark says that probably the Normans regarded the whole court as a shell keep. It certainly was, in effect, a motte; but it was altogether exceptional among Norman castles of importance if it had no bailey. And in fact a bailey is mentioned in the Pipe Roll of 1 Richard I., where there is an entry for the cost of making a gaol in the bailey of the castle.[445] Now Norden, who published a plan of Exeter in 1619, says that the prison which formerly existed at the bottom of Castle Lane (on the south or city front of the present castle) was “built upon Castle grounde,” and he states that the buildings and gardens which have been made on this ground are intrusions on the king’s rights.[446] The remarkably full account of the siege of Exeter in the Gesta Stephani speaks of an outer promurale which was taken by Stephen, as well as the inner bridge leading from the town to the castle, before the attack on the castle itself. Unfortunately the word promurale has the same uncertainty about it that attaches to so many mediæval terms, and the description given of it would apply either to the banks of a bailey, or to the heriçon on the counterscarp of the ditch of the motte. We must, therefore, leave it to the reader’s judgment whether the evidence given above is sufficient to establish the former existence of a bailey at Exeter, and to place Exeter among the castles of the motte-and-bailey type.

The description of the castle given by the writer of the Gesta has many points of interest.[447] He describes the castle as standing on a very high mound (editissimo aggere) hedged in by an insurmountable wall, which was defended by “Cæsarian” towers built with the very hardest mortar. This must refer to Roman towers which may have existed on the Roman part of the wall. Whether there was a stone wall on the other two sides, facing the city, may be doubted, as the expenditure entered to Henry II. in the Pipe Rolls suggests that he was the first to put stone walls on the banks, and the two ancient towers which still exist appear to be of his time.[448] The chronicler goes on to say that after Stephen had taken the promurale and broken down the bridge, there were several days and nights of fighting before he could win the castle, which was eventually forced to surrender by the drying-up of the wells. The mining operations which he describes were no doubt undertaken with the view of shaking down the Roman wall at the angle where it joins the artificial bank of Baldwin de Molis. Possibly the chamber in the rock with the mysterious passages leading from it, which is still to be seen in the garden of Miss Owthwaite, at the point where the ditch ends, is the work of Stephen’s miners.[449] The description of his soldiers scrambling up the agger on their hands and knees (quadrupede incessu) will be well understood by those who have seen the castle bank as it still rises from that ditch.

The present ward of Exeter Castle, which is rudely square in plan, covers an area of 2 acres, which is as large as the whole area of many of the smaller Norman castles. The castle was allowed to fall into decay as early as 1549,[450] and since then it has been devastated by the building of a Sessions House and a gaol. No plan has been preserved of the former buildings in this court, though the site of the chapel is known.

There is no statement in Domesday Book as to the value of Exeter.

Eye, Suffolk ([Fig. 17]).—This castle was built by William Malet, one of the companions of the Conqueror, who is described as having been half Norman and half English.[451] Eye, as its name implies, seems to have been an island in a marsh in Norman times, and therefore a naturally defensible situation. The references in the Pipe Rolls to the palicium and the bretasches of Eye Castle show that the outer defences of the castle at any rate were of wood in the days of Henry II.[452] That there were works in masonry at some subsequent period is shown by a solitary vestige of a wing wall of flints which runs up the motte. A modern tower now occupies the summit. The bailey of the castle, the outline of which can still be traced, though the area is covered with buildings and gardens, was oval in shape, and covered 2 acres.

The value of the manor of Eye had gone up since the Conquest from £15 to £21. This must have been due to the castle and to the market which Robert Malet or his son William established close to the castle; for the stock on the manor and the number of ploughs had actually decreased.[453] A proof that there is no deliberate register of castles in Domesday Book is furnished by the very careful inventory of the manor of Eye, where there is no mention of a castle, though it is noticed that there are now a park and a market; and it is only in the account of the lands of the bishop of Thetford, in mentioning the injury which William Malet’s market at Eye had done to the bishop’s market at Hoxne, that the castle of Eye is named.

Gloucester.—“There were sixteen houses where the castle sits, but now they are gone, and fourteen have been destroyed in the burgus of the city,” says Domesday Book.[454] Gloucester was undoubtedly a Roman chester, and Roman pavements have been found there.[455] The description in the Survey would lead us to think that the castle was outside the ancient walls,[456] though Speed’s map places it on the line of the wall of his time, which may have been a mediæval extension. The castle of Gloucester is now entirely destroyed, but there is sufficient evidence to show that it was of the usual Norman type. There was a motte, which was standing in 1819, and which was then called the Barbican Hill;[457] it appears to have been utilised as part of the works of the barbican. This motte must originally have supported a wooden keep, and Henry I. must have been the builder of the stone keep which Leland saw “in the middle of the area;”[458] for in 1100 Henry gave lands to Gloucester Abbey “in exchange for the site where now the keep of Gloucester stands.”[459] The bailey had previously been enlarged by William Rufus.[460] Possibly the framea turris or framework tower spoken of in Henry II.’s reign may refer to the wooden keep which had been left standing on the motte.[461] The walls of Gloucester Castle were frequently repaired by Henry II.,[462] but the word murus by no means implies always a stone wall, and it is certain that the castle was at that time surrounded by a wooden stockade, as a writ of a much later period (1225) says that the stockade which is around our castle of Gloucester has been blown down and broken by the wind, and must be repaired.[463] Wooden bretasches on the walls are spoken of in the Pipe Rolls of 1193, and even as late as 1222.[464]

The value of the city of Gloucester had apparently risen at the time of the Survey, though the entry being largely in kind, T. R. E., it is not easy to calculate.