Before leaving Rochester, I would point out that, unlike the rest of Gundulf's work, this castrum can be closely dated. The conjunction of Lanfranc and William Rufus, in the story of its building, limits it to September, 1087-March, 1089, while Odo's rebellion would probably postpone its construction till his surrender. It is most unfortunate, therefore, that Mr. Clark should write, "This transaction between the bishop and the king occurred about 1076,"[992] when neither Gundulf was bishop nor William king.
To the case of Newcastle and its keep, I invite special attention, because we have here the tacit admission of Mr. Clark himself that he has antedated, incredible though it may seem, by more than ninety years the erection of this famous keep. To prove this, it is only necessary to print his own conclusions side by side:—
| (1080.) | (1172-74.) |
|---|---|
| "Of this masonry there is but little which can be referred to the reign of the Conqueror or William Rufus,—that is, to the eleventh century. Of that period are certainly (sic) ... the keeps of Chester, ... and Newcastle, though this last looks later than its recorded (sic) date.... Carlisle ... received from Rufus a castle and a keep, now standing; and Newcastle, similarly provided in 1080, also retains its keep.... The castle of Newcastle ... was built by Robert Curthose in 1080, and is a very perfect example of a rectangular Norman keep. Newcastle, built in 1080, has very many chambers" (Mediæval Military Architecture, 1884, i. 40, 49, 94, 128). | "Newcastle is an excellent example
of a rectangular Norman
keep. "Its condition is perfect, its date known (sic), and being late (1172-74) in its style, it is more ornate than is usual in its details, and is furnished with all the peculiarities of a late (sic) Norman work. "The present castle is an excellent example of the later (sic) form of the rectangular Norman keep.... Newcastle has its fellow in the keep of Dover, known to have been the work of Henry the Second" (Archæological Journal, 1884). |
The origin, of course, of the astounding error by which "the great master of military architecture" misdated this keep by nearly a century,[993] and took an essentially late work for one of the earliest in existence, was the same fatal delusion that castrum or castellum meant precisely what it did not mean, namely, a tower. "Castellum novum super flumen Tyne condidit" is the expression applied to Robert's work in 1080, and the absence of a "tower" explains the fact that Fantosme makes no mention of a "tur" when describing "Le Noef Chasteau sur Tyne," the existing keep not being available at the time of which he wrote.
We now come to our last case, that of the Château d'Arques.
"Arques," writes Mr. Clark, "is one of the earliest examples of a Norman castle."[994] It is, Mr. Freeman holds, "a fortress which is undoubtedly one of the earliest and most important in the history of Norman military architecture."[995] No apology, therefore, is needed for discussing the date of this celebrated structure, so long a subject of interest and of study both to English and to French archæologists.
As at Colchester and in other places, the very wildest theories have been generally advanced, and archæologists have only gradually sobered down till they have virtually agreed upon a date for this keep which is actually, I venture to think, less than a century wrong.
In his noble monograph upon the fortress, the basis of all subsequent accounts,[996] M. Deville enumerates, with contemptuous amusement (pp. 49, 268-272), the rival theories that it was built (1) by the Romans; (2) by "Clotaire I." in 553—the date 1553 on one of the additions for the structure having actually been so read; (3) by "Charles Martel" in 745, 747, or 749 (on the strength of another reading of the same date, confirmed by a carving of his coat-of-arms)—these being the dates given by Houard and Toussaint-Duplessis. At the time when Deville himself wrote the study of castles was still in its infancy, and of the two sources of evidence now open to us, the internal (that of the structure itself) and the external (that of chronicles and records), the latter alone was ripe for use. Now, at Arques, precisely as at our own Rochester, the written evidence has hitherto appeared conflicting to archæologists, but only because the language employed has never yet been rightly understood. On the one hand we read in William of Jumièges, an excellent authority in the matter, that "Hic Willelmus [the Conqueror's uncle] castrum Archarum in cacumine ipsius montis condidit;" and in the Chronicle of Fontenelle, that this same William "Arcas castrum in pago Tellau primus statuit;" also, in William of Poitiers, that "id munimentum ... ipse primus fundavit:" on the other, we read in Robert du Mont, a first-rate and contemporary authority, who may indeed be termed a specialist on the subject, that "Anno MCXXIII. castellum quod vocatur Archas turre et mœnibus mirabiliter firmavit [Rex Henricus]."[997]
M. de Caumont, that industrious pioneer, whose work appeared four years before that of M. Deville, boldly followed Robert du Mont, and confidently assigned the existing keep to 1123.[998] Guided, however, by M. Le Prévost (1824), he held that the original structure was raised by the Conqueror's uncle, and that Henry I. merely "fit reconstruire en entier le donjon et une partie des murs d'enceinte." M. Deville, on the contrary, in his eager zeal for the honour and glory of the castle, stoutly maintained that, keep and all, it was clearly Count William's work. He admitted that his Norman brother-antiquaries assigned it to Henry I., but urged that they had overlooked the evidence of the structure, and its resemblance to English keeps assigned (but, as we now know, wrongly) to the eleventh century, or earlier;[999] and that they had misunderstood the passage in Robert du Mont, which must have referred to mere alterations. In order thus to explain it away, he contends (and this contention Mr. Clark strangely accepts) that Robert says the same—which he does not—of "Gisors, Falaise, and other castles known"—which they are not[1000]—"to be of earlier date" (M. M. A., i. 194). Lastly, he appeals, though with an apology for doing so ("s'il nous était permis d'invoquer à l'appui de notre opinion"), to the far later "Chronique de Normandie" for actual evidence, elsewhere wanting, that the keep itself (turris) was built by William of Arques,[1001] that is, in 1039-1043.[1002]