These works, thrown up in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, are seldom, if ever, rectangular, nor are they governed to any great extent by the character of the ground. First was cast up a truncated cone of earth, standing at its natural slope, from twelve to even fifty or sixty feet in height. This “mound,” “motte,” or “burh,” the “Mota” of our records, was formed from the contents of a broad and deep circumscribing ditch. This ditch, proper to the mound, is now sometimes wholly or partially filled up, but it seems always to have been present, being in fact the parent of the mound. Berkhampstead is a fine example of such a mound, with the original ditch. At Caerleon, Tickhill, and Lincoln it has been in part filled up; at Cardiff it was wholly so, but has recently been most carefully cleared out, and its original depth and breadth are seen to have been very formidable. Though usually artificial, these mounds are not always so. Durham, Launceston, Montacute, Dunster, Restormel, Nant cribba, are natural hills; Windsor, Tickhill, Lewes, Norwich, Ely, and the Devizes, are partly so; at Sherborne and Hedingham the mound is a natural platform, scarped by art; at Tutbury, Pontefract and Bramber, where the natural platform was also large, it has been scarped, and a mound thrown up upon it.
Connected with the mound is usually a base court or enclosure, sometimes circular, more commonly oval or horseshoe-shaped, but if of the age of the mound always more or less rounded. This enclosure had also its bank and ditch on its outward faces, its rear resting on the ditch of the mound, and the area was often further strengthened by a bank along the crest of the scarp of the ditch. Now and then, as at Old Sarum, there is an additional but slighter bank placed outside the outer ditch, that is, upon the crest of the counterscarp. This was evidently intended to carry a palisade, and to fulfil the conditions of the covered-way along the crest of one of Vauban’s counterscarps. Where the enclosure is circular, the mound is either central, as at Pickering, or Mileham, or at Old Sarum, where it is possibly an addition to an older work, such as Badbury, or it stands on one side, as at Tutbury. Where the area is oblong or oval, the mound may be placed near one end, as at Bramber. At Windsor and Arundel it is on one side of an oblong enclosure, producing a sort of hourglass constriction, and where this is the case a part of its ditch coincides with the ditch of the place. Where the court is only part of a circle it rests upon a part of the ditch of the mound. At Sarum there are two ditches concentrically arranged. At Berkhampstead the mound is outside the court. On the whole, as at Tickhill, Castle Acre, and Lincoln, it is most usual to see the mound on the edge of the court, so that it forms a part of the general “enceinte” of the place. Where the base court is of moderate area, as at Builth and Kilpeck, its platform is often slightly elevated by the addition of a part of the contents of the ditch, which is rarely the case in British camps. At Wigmore and Builth, where the mound stands on the edge of a natural steep, the ditch is there discontinued. The base court is usually two or three times the area of the mound, and sometimes, as at Wallingford or Warwick, much more. No doubt the reason for placing the mound on one side rather than in the centre of the court was to allow of the concentration of the lodgings, stables, &c., on one spot, and to make the mound form a part of the exterior defences of the place.
The mound and base court, though the principal parts, were not always the whole work. Often there was on the outside of the court and applied to it, as at Brinklow and Rockingham, a second enclosure, also with its bank and ditch, frequently of larger area than the main court, though not so strongly defended. It was intended to shelter the flocks and herds of the tenants in case of an attack. At Norham, the castle ditch was used for this purpose as late as the reign of Henry VIII. There are several cases in which the mound is placed within a rectangular enclosure, which has given rise to a notion that the whole was Roman. Tamworth is such a case, and there, fortunately, the mound is known historically to have been the work of Æthelflaed, as is that of Leicester, similarly placed. From this and from the evidence of the earthworks themselves a like conclusion may be drawn as to the superadded mounds at Wareham, Wallingford, and Cardiff. At Helmsley, as at Castle Acre, Brougham, and Brough, the earthworks stand upon part of a Roman camp, and at Kilpeck and Moat Lane, near Llanidloes, part of the area may possibly be British.
East Anglia contains some fine examples of these moated mounds, combined with rectangular encampments. Castle Acre is an excellent example, as are, in a less degree, Mileham and Buckenham.
When the English lord took up his abode within a Roman camp or station, he often turned the Roman works, whether of earth or masonry, to account, and threw up his bank in one corner, altering the contiguous banks and ditches to suit his new arrangements. Thus at Pevensey, Leicester, Cambridge, Lincoln, Southampton, Winchester, Chichester, Caerleon, Chester, English mounds and base courts are placed within Roman enclosures which either are or were walled. At Auldchester, near Bicester, the Roman Alauna, is a mound of later date than the camp. At Plessy, Tamworth, Wallingford, Wareham, Cardiff, are found mounds decidedly of later date than the enclosing works. There are also cases where the mound is placed within an earthwork with something of a tendency to the rectangular, though scarcely to be pronounced either Roman or Romano-British. Such are Clare, Hereford, Eaton-Socon, where the mound is very small indeed; and Lilbourne. Tempsford is very peculiar: it is a small rectangular enclosure close to the Ouse, and in one corner, upon the bank, is a small mound.
The group of works, of which the mound was the principal feature, constituted a Burh. The burh was always fortified, and each inhabitant of the surrounding township was bound to aid in the repair of the works, almost always of timber, a material which the Saxons, like other German nations, appear usually to have preferred for building purposes to stone, though some of their towns were walled, as Colchester and Exeter, and Domesday records the custom of repairing the walls of Oxford, Cambridge, and Chester.
In these English, as before them in the British works, the ditches were sometimes used to contain and protect the approaches. This is well seen at Clun and Kilpeck. At Tutbury the main approach enters between two exterior platforms, and skirts the outer edge of the ditch, until it reaches the inner entrance. The object was to place the approach under the eyes and command of the garrison.
As there are still some archæologists whose experience entitles their opinions to respect, who attribute these moated mounds to the Britons, it will be necessary to point out that the attribution of them to the English, though materially strengthened by the evidence of the works themselves, does not wholly, or even mainly, rest upon it. While the British camps are either præhistoric or unnoticed even in the earliest histories, and the age of the Roman works is only deducible from their plan and style, and from the known and limited period of the Roman stay in Britain, English works are continually mentioned in the chronicles, and the names of their founders and date of the construction of many of them are on record. Thus Taunton was founded by Ine a little before 721–2, when Queen Æthelburh destroyed it. The original earthworks still remaining are considerable, and formed part of the defences of a fortress erected long afterwards. In the ninth century, as the Danish incursions became more frequent, works of defence became more general, and are largely mentioned directly, or by implication, in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. In 868–9, the Danish army was at Nottingham, a strong natural position, in which it was besieged by the West-Saxons. In 870, the Danes were a whole year at York and wintered at Thetford, where large earthworks remain. In 875 they were at Cambridge, and in 876 at Wareham, a West-Saxon fortress, whence they attacked Exeter, and at all these places are earthworks. In 878, we read that Ælfred “wrought” a fortress at Æthelney, and in 885 the Danes laid siege to Rochester and “wrought” another fortress about their position, no doubt the great mound that still remains outside the castle and the Roman area. In 893, the Danes ascended four miles along the Limen or “Lymne” river in Kent, and there stormed a work, “geweorc,” which was but half constructed. In the same year Hæsten entered the Thames and “wrought” him a work at Milton, and other Danes landed at Appledore, at the mouth of the Limen. In 894 Ælfred fought with the Danes at Farnham, where the episcopal keep still stands upon a burh. Hæsten or Hastings had already constructed a burh at Benfleet, which was stormed by Ælfred, who in the same year blocked him up at Buttington, on the Severn. In 896, the Danes threw up a work on the Lea, twenty miles from London, whereupon Ælfred threw up another work on each bank of that river lower down, and diverted the waters through a number of shallow courses, thus effectually shutting in the Danish ships. The Danes, in consequence, marched inland, and crossed the country to Quatbridge, on the Severn, and there “wrought a work” and passed the winter. Some of these works remain, and are good examples of moated mounds.
In the tenth century the number of English fortresses was prodigiously increased, chiefly by the energy of Æthelflaed. Ælfred died in 901, and was succeeded by Eadward, his son, who attacked, in the fortress of Badbury, his cousin Æthelwald, who held Christchurch and Wimborne. In 907, Chester, the Roman walls of which had long lain in ruin, was strengthened, probably by the earthworks still to be seen in its south-western corner, though the mound has been almost entirely removed. In 910, Æthelflaed, sister to Eadward and Lady of the Mercians, comes upon the scene as the greatest founder of fortresses in that century. In that year she built a burh at Bramsbury, and in 913 one at Scergeat or Sarrat, and at Bridgenorth (Oldbury). In 913, about the 14th of April, Eadward built the north burh at Hertford, between the rivers Memera or Maran, the Benefica or Bean, and the Lygea or Lea, upon which long after stood the shell keep of the Norman castle; and after May and before midsummer he encamped at Maldon while Witham burh was being built. Then also the second burh of Hertford, south of the Lea, was built. In the same year, 913, Æthelflaed and her Mercians built the burh of Tamworth in the early summer, and in August that of Stafford; and in the next year, 914, also in the summer, that of Eddesbury, and towards the end of autumn, that of Warwick, on which are still traces of a later keep.
In 915, Æthelflaed constructed a burh at Chirbury, probably in the field still known as the King’s Orchard, and at Wardbury, and before mid-winter that of Runcorn, where was afterwards a Norman castle. In that year the Danes ascended the Bristol Channel and entered Irchenfield, west of Hereford, remarkable, amongst many others, for its burhs of Kilpeck and Ewias-Harold, whence they were driven back by the men of Hereford and Gloucester, and of the surrounding burhs. In 916, Æthelflaed stormed the mound of Brecknock, and took thence the Welsh king’s wife and thirty-four persons. Late in the year Eadward was some weeks at Buckingham, and there constructed two burhs, one on each bank of the river, on one of which afterwards stood Earl Giffard’s keep. In 917, Æthelflaed took Derby, the gates of which town are mentioned, and in 918 the burh of Leicester, soon after which she died in her palace in Tamworth. In 919, Eadward went to Bedford, took its burh, the site of Lord Beauchamp’s keep, and there remained for four weeks, during which time he threw up a second burh on the opposite or south bank of the river Ouse. In 920 he constructed the burh at Maldon, and in 921, in April, that at Towcester, which in the autumn he girdled with a wall of stone. In the following May he directed the burh at Wigmore to be built, and in August the whole Danish army spent a day before Towcester, but failed to take it by storm. In that year the Danes abandoned their work at Huntingdon and wrought one at Tempsford, and thence moved to Bedford, whence they were repulsed. They also attacked the burh at Wigmore for a day, but without success. This was a busy year. In it the English stormed Tempsford burh, and beset Colchester burh, and slew there all but one man who escaped over the wall. Maldon burh also was attacked by the Danish army, but without success. In November, Eadward repaired the burhs at Huntingdon and Colchester and raised that at Cledemutha. In 922, the same great English leader, between May and midsummer, “wrought” a burh at Stamford on the south bank of the Welland, opposite to that already existing. He reduced the burh at Nottingham, repaired it, and garrisoned it with Englishmen and Danes. In 923, Eadward erected a burh at Thelwall, and in 924 one at Bakewell, and a second at Nottingham, opposite to the existing one, the Trent flowing between them. In 943, Olaf the Dane took Tamworth by storm. In 952, mention is made of the fastness of Jedburgh, and of the town of Thetford. In 993, Bamborough was stormed.