Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)

by George Thomas Clark

But whatever may have been the character of the defences in use in England before the arrival of the Normans, it is certain that from that period they underwent a considerable and probably a rapid change, though scarcely so rapid as has been supposed. The Normans, who had so long, in common with the English (probably by reason of their common ancestry), employed the moated and palisaded mound, proceeded to carry out in England the important improvements they had already commenced in Normandy. William’s chief object, having conquered, was to secure his conquest; and his first care, on obtaining possession of each division of the kingdom or each capital city or town, was to regard it from a military point of view, and to order the construction of such strong places as might be necessary for the holding of it. How completely, in so doing, he trod in the footsteps of those who had gone before, is shown by what he found and what he did towards the covering of London and the maintaining of his communication with the sea. Thus he found and reinforced castles at Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Hastings, and Dover. On his road he found and strengthened Canterbury, Tonbridge, Rochester, and Ryegate. In London he founded the Tower, an entirely new work; but for the defence of the basin of the Thames he trusted to the ancient sites of Guildford and Farnham, possibly Reading, and certainly Wallingford and Berkhampstede. And so all over the kingdom, such strongholds as were central, in good military positions, or of unusual strength, or were placed in the ancient demesne lands of the Crown, were taken possession of or reconstructed for the sovereign; but every baron or great tenant in chief was permitted,—and, indeed, at first expected, and was no doubt sufficiently ready,—to construct castles for the security of the lands allotted to him, which in the vast majority of instances meant to remodel the defences of his English predecessors. This was under the pressure of circumstances; for William seems always to have been awake to the danger of uniting extensive hereditary jurisdictions, and even from the first to have contemplated governing the counties through the intervention of vice-comites, or sheriffs, who were appointed and could be displaced at pleasure. But this policy was at first, in certain districts, necessarily postponed; though even then William made it to be understood that the chief castles of the realm, by whomsoever built, were royal castles; and their actual acquisition was always an important part of the policy of both him and his successors so long as castles were of consequence. Thus Windsor, Cambridge, Exeter, Corfe, Wareham, Winchester, Porchester, Southampton, Carisbrooke, Canterbury, Dover, Lincoln, Rockingham, Nottingham, Stafford, Guildford, Warwick, Marlborough, and York were royal castles from the commencement. Wallingford, Gloucester, Bristol, Oxford, Tutbury, Worcester, though built by subjects, were not the less claimed and officered by the Crown. Even Durham, though held by the bishops, and Leicester, Lincoln, and Huntingdon, by the lords of those earldoms, were from time to time in the hands of the Crown, whose rights over them were of a far more direct character than those it claimed to exercise over the lands and other feudal possessions of the same lords.

Arundel, Shrewsbury, Montgomery, Bridgenorth, and some less important fortresses, fell to the Crown on the overthrow of the house of Talvas; and with this event a number of castles on the Welsh border, built by tenants of Earl Roger, became fiefs in capite, dependent directly upon the Crown. Besides these, there are on record in England about forty or fifty castles built by local barons, which, when it suited the Crown, were taken in hand and repaired and garrisoned at its charge.

Of nearly all the castles on record, as existing in the reigns of the Conqueror and his sons, the sites are well known; and of very many, fragments of the masonry remain. What is very remarkable is, that of this masonry there is but little which can be referred to the reign of either the Conqueror or William Rufus,—that is, to the eleventh century. Of that period are certainly London and Malling, Guildford, Bramber, Carlisle, the gate-house of Exeter, the lower story of Chepstow, the keeps of Chester, Goderich, Walden, Wolvesey, Colchester, and Newcastle, though this last looks later than its recorded date. Newcastle was probably on the site of an earlier castle; at least, the entry in the Hundred Rolls (ii., 119),—“Juratores dicunt quod Vicecomes ... fecit quandam inquisitionem ... super motam castri predictæ villæ,”—looks like it. There is some reason to regard the keep at Malling as the earliest Norman military building now extant in England, and as the work of Gundulf, the architect of the Tower keep. The North or Gundulf’s tower at Rochester Cathedral is by the same great builder, and possibly was intended as a military building: if so, it may rank with Malling. Probably there is more of this early masonry; but not much. Dover, Rochester, Porchester, and Hedingham, among our finest examples, are certainly later. Part of Durham Castle is, no doubt, of the age of the Conqueror; but the shell keep has been rebuilt, and it is doubtful whether the original work was of the age of the early Norman chapel and hall attached to it. Speaking generally, those castles in England which belong to what is called the Norman period are too late to be the work of the Conqueror or his personal followers, and too early to allow of any preceding work in Norman masonry (usually sound and solid), having been constructed and swept away. What is the solution of this difficulty? Of what character and material were the great majority of the castles which William ordered to be constructed? Of what character were those mentioned in “Domesday”?

That William ordered many castles to be constructed is certain; and among the orders left with Bishop Odo and William Fitz Osborn, when acting as joint regents of the kingdom, was one specially charging them to see to the building of castles; and no doubt these orders were obeyed. But it has been hastily assumed that the castles constructed were of masonry. The keeps of Dover and Rochester, for example (if such were erected under the Conqueror), were certainly not those now standing, which belong to the reign of Henry II.; and so of Norwich, and probably of Nottingham, now destroyed. And yet the masonry of William’s reign was of a very durable character, as is seen in the Tower of London, and in not a few still standing churches. Also it is stated that William “custodes in castellis strenuos viros collocavit, ex Gallis traductos, quorum fidei pariter ac virtuti credebat.” This looks very much as though the castellans were at first, at any rate, put in charge of existing castles; which must mean that in most cases some temporary arrangement was made, and the existing works strengthened until it was convenient to replace them by others more in accordance with the new ideas of strength and security.

William and his barons evidently employed two classes of castles,—one always in masonry, and one very often in timber. Where a castle was built in a new position, as in London, or where there was no mound, natural or artificial they employed masonry and chose as a rule for the keep the rectangular form,—a type said to have been introduced from Maine, and seen at Arques, at Caen, and at Falaise; but where the site was old, and there was a mound, as at Lincoln, Huntingdon, Rockingham, Wallingford, or York, they seem to have been content to repair the existing works, usually of timber only, and to have postponed the replacing them with a regular shell till a more convenient season, which in many cases did not occur for a century.

Nor was the postponement very serious, for the native fortresses, if well manned, were strong, at least for a limited time. The attacks of the Danes upon Towcester, Bedford, and Wigmore are on record; and yet these, of all of which the earthworks remain, were not burhs of the first class, and certainly would not contain a hundred men,—or, even if the base-court were occupied, more than thrice that number,—and the Danish army could scarcely be less than ten times as numerous. The fact is, however, that such a mound as Arundel or Tonbridge, palisaded, could be held for a short time by three or four score of resolute men against a sharp attack from any number, armed as men were armed in the tenth and eleventh centuries. No doubt, towers of masonry were more secure, because less dependent upon the vigilance of the garrison, less obnoxious to fire, and less liable to be taken by surprise. But the Normans were stout soldiers, well disciplined, and could from the first expect no quarter from the insurgent English.

Among the castles ordered by William to be built, one of the most important was York. The order was given in the summer of 1068; and it is known that the new castle was to be upon the old English site, which contained a moated mound of the first class, commanding and protected on one side by the Roman city, and on the others by the swamps and waters of the Ouse and Foss. William’s castle was to be garrisoned by three leaders and five hundred knights, which implied a considerable following. Its area, therefore, must have been spacious, and no doubt included with the mound its ample base-court as seen at the present day. In 1069, the castle was attacked by the citizens in revolt, and was even then capable of being held, and was held, till William came to its assistance. He then ordered a second castle to be constructed upon the Bayle Hill, the mound still to be seen on the opposite or right bank of the river; and this was completed in eight days, before he left the city. A few months later, before September, 1069, the citizens, aided by the Danes, again attacked and burned the castles, which in 1069–70 were again renewed. Now, York was the metropolis of the most disaffected half of the kingdom. There, if anywhere, a castle of stone would be desirable, and stone could readily have been brought by water; and yet York Castle was constructed and made capable of being defended in a few months, and its subsidiary fortress in eight days; and both soon after were taken and burned, and at once ordered to be reconstructed. It is clear, from the time occupied by the whole sequence of events, that these castles were not of masonry. Moreover, the masonry of the present York keep contains nothing that can be attributed to the eleventh century; but much that is far too early to have replaced a really substantial keep or curtain of Norman date had such been built. Upon the great and artificial mound of Bayle Hill, the site of the second castle, there is neither trace nor tradition of any masonry at all.

The building of a Norman castle required both time and money. The architects, overlookers, and probably the masons, had to be imported from Normandy, and in many cases the stone for the exterior; and as most of the existing square keeps, and very nearly all the shell keeps, are of the twelfth century, it seems probable that the Conqueror was to some extent content with such defences as he found in England; strengthened, no doubt, very materially by the superior skill and resources of his engineers. This is quite consistent with the fact that the art of castle-building did, from the building of the White Tower, undergo a great and somewhat rapid change. It is true of William, both in Normandy and in England, as Matthew Paris observes, “ad castra quoque construenda, rex antecessores suos omnes superabat”; and he, no doubt, as we are told by William of Jumieges, “tutissima castella per opportuna loca stabilavit.” Lanfranc, writing to Roger, Earl of Hereford, before his rebellion, assuring him of William’s confidence, adds, “et mandat ut quantum possumus curam habeamus de castellis suis, ne, quod Deus avertat, inimicis suis tradantur”; and in the subsequent rebellion, it was when Ralph Guader found the men of castles against him, that he left his wife and children to make terms from Norwich Castle, while he himself fled. Lanfranc’s despatch informs William, “Castrum Noruuich redditum est, et Britones qui in eo erant et terras in Anglia terra habebant, concessis eis vita et membris.” Besides the Bishop and Earl Warrene, the castle contained three hundred “loricati,” with cross-bowmen and many artificers of military machines. Also the same prelate charges Bishop Walcher, of Durham, “Castrum itaque vestrum, et hominibus, et armis, et alimentis vigilanti cura muniri facite.”

Castles, no doubt, there were at William’s command, many and strong. All that is here contended for is, that whatever he may have desired, William was able to construct but few castles such as London or Durham; and that the greater number of those that remain and exhibit the Norman style of architecture belong, some to the close of the eleventh, and a greater number to the twelfth century. But if William did not actually build so many castles as is supposed, he and his followers certainly restored and occupied an immense number, upon which those who came immediately after him built structures, the ruins of which we now see.

There is much to be learned from the consideration of the positions of these fortresses. William’s first care, on obtaining possession of each district, was to order the preparation of such strong places as might be necessary for the holding of it. But it is evident that he was influenced also by another consideration: he desired to be regarded as the legitimate heir of the Confessor, rather than as the conqueror of the kingdom; and so far as was consistent with his own security, he strove to administer the ancient laws, and to leave the ancient tenures and private estates, and even English owners, undisturbed. This indeed, owing to the strong national discontent, shown by repeated insurrections and by a general current of ill-will of which these were the indications, he speedily found to be out of the question. But even while driving out the native magnates, he was careful to associate the new men, as far as possible, with the past, in the hope (well founded) that before long the “successores et antecessores,” as they are called in “Domesday,” would be looked upon as part of a continued line,—Earl Roger, for example, as the representative of Edwin of Shrewsbury, Hugh Lupus of Morcar, and William Fitz Osbern of Ralph the Earl of Hereford under the Confessor.