constructed during the reign of Henry III. In immediate association with this mound, Mr Allcroft has found traces of the old village “ring-fence” ([p. 16] supra), that is, an enclosure consisting of vallum and fosse, the former of which is supposed to have carried a stockade[164]. Professor Seebohm has recorded a mound near the church of Meppershall, in Bedfordshire[165], and another, known as the Toot Hill, at Pirton, in Hertfordshire[166] (cf. [p. 7] supra). He was of opinion that the Pirton knoll was a place of observation, or watching-mound, but more recent inspection has led to its being classed as a Norman motte. This oval hillock covers more than an acre of ground. Its height is 25 feet, but there is a depression in the crown, caused by the removal of earth to fill in the inner part of the moat.
Fig. 18. Toot Hill, Pirton, Hertfordshire; a “moated mound.” View from a point South-West of the church. The moat is seen at the foot of the hill, and it passes away to the right, behind the mound.
Mr D. H. Montgomerie states that the bank and ditch of the bailey-court may be distinctly traced in the churchyard[167] (Figs. [17], [18]). Yet there must always remain the doubt whether an earlier mound was not enlarged and entrenched by the builders of the castle-hill. The nickname, Toot Hill, to be noticed shortly, gives a half-hint of such a reconstruction. The Penwortham and Arkholme mottes have taught us to scrutinize each example closely, and on its own merits. Anywhere we might expect to find the spade telling us of a castle-hill which conceals, within its substance, a British barrow, or a Roman botontine or specula. A botontine, it may be explained, was a small mound which was heaped up by Roman land-surveyors, and in which were usually deposited a few scraps of pottery and a handful of ashes, or fragments of the bones of animals. A specula was an earthwork “watch-tower,” if the expression be permissible. A slightly puzzling mound, situated a short distance from Towcester church, Northampton, revealed coins and pottery which betrayed Roman occupation, yet these alone did not tell when the mound itself was raised[168] (cf. [p. 59] supra). Again, the Castle Hill, at Hallaton, in Leicestershire, an earthwork of the mound-and-court type, yielded traces of British, Roman and Saxon settlements[169]. The Hallaton mound, however, is about a mile distant from the church.
A most interesting castle-mound, though of small size, is that of Earl’s Barton, Northampton. The famous Saxon church of this village abuts on the South side of the motte, which has been peeled away, either to accommodate the tower, or for some other reason[170]. Mr Reginald A. Smith, who quotes an article written by Professor Baldwin Brown, in which a pre-Norman origin of the motte is called in question, points to the undoubted Saxon age of the church tower, and thinks, with Mr G. T. Clark, that the earthen stronghold belongs also to the Saxon period[171]. Swerford, Oxfordshire, again, presents a deviation from the normal churchyard castle-mound. Besides the motte and bailey-court, there is a subsidiary mound, guarding the entrance, together with two detached platforms towards the East. These may indicate different periods of construction.
Coming South of the Thames, we notice the castle-mound on the slope of the hill above Brenchley church, in Kent[172]. The Saxon church of Swanscombe, near Northfleet, which suffered severely from fire a few years ago, has an attendant mound on the hill by which it is overlooked. This earthwork, known as Sweyn’s Camp, has a diameter of 100 feet, and its ground-plan, as shown in the Victoria History of Kent, suggests a somewhat earlier date than that of the ordinary motte-and-bailey group[173]. In the sister county of Surrey, a defensive mound is known to have existed near Ockham church, and some of the outlying banks have escaped entire obliteration[174]. Behind Abinger church, again, there is a hillock, which may be a motte, or perhaps a true barrow of the Bronze Age[175]. Dr J. C. Cox says that it is “obviously an ancient barrow,” but it appears never to have been opened. We might proceed, county by county, and catalogue many further examples, but it would result in wearying the reader. One further instance only shall be given, and it chances to be that of a motte which diverges from the type. The Norman church of Kilpeck, Herefordshire, is built on the bank and ditch of a rectangular enclosure, which lies outside the curvilinear courts of a castle-mound. Possibly we have here a Norman fortification encroaching upon an earlier earthwork, and it should be observed that the church occupies vantage-ground strong by nature[176] ([p. 52] supra). We must now dismiss the castle-mounds, though we shall be unconsciously compelled to revert to them hereafter.
Our second group of church-mounds comprises the “Moot-Hills.” These objects, usually artificial, vary much in size, and are not confined to the neighbourhood of churches. The etymology of the word “moot” (O.E. mōt, M.E. mōt, imōt = meeting, public assembly) at once gives a clue to the uses of these mounds[177]. It was at spots of this kind, as well as at other places having characteristic landmarks, that the early open-air assemblies were wont to meet. Now, in the first place, we notice, as Sir G. L. Gomme has ably shown, that open-air courts have not been confined to one race or to one period[178]. Doubtless they are practically coeval with the formation of the primitive village community. To attempt to fix the precise date is foreign to our purpose, it is enough to know that open-air courts preceded the first preaching of Christianity in Britain. Near some well-known object, then, the men of the hamlet, the inhabitants of the forest, the warriors of the hundred, or the tenants of the manor, met to transact their business[179]. Sir G. L. Gomme has collected a mass of information concerning these meeting-places. We have seen ([p. 34] supra) that monoliths, stone-circles, and ancient burial-places were much favoured as meeting-places. To this list must be added barrows, tumuli, and mounds[180]. There is no reason to impede our quest by stopping to enumerate examples, because the fact is now a commonplace. Besides ancient burial-mounds, “camps” also served for open-air courts. At Downton, in Wiltshire, there is a moot-hill about 70 feet high, rising in six terraces from the river Avon below. Despite any later alterations, it seems probable that the hillock was constructed within an earthwork of earlier date. In a small volume entitled ‘The Moot’ and its Traditions (1906), Mr Elias P. Squarey, the proprietor of the Moot House, Downton, has collected all the available records about this interesting relic.
The old Welsh laws help us to form a picture of a gathering at a moot-hill. During a law suit, the judge sat on the circular mound. Below, on the left hand, sat the plaintiff, the defendant being placed on the right. The lord must sit behind the judge, and have his back to the wind or sun, lest he be incommoded. Mr S. O. Addy notes that, as the court was held in the morning, the lord must have sat towards the East and faced the West, and that, in this respect, the later indoor court was a copy of the outdoor court[181]. A word of reminder may be said concerning the annual ceremonies connected with the Tynwald Hill in the Isle of Man. Here we have an instance of a national assembly meeting on a hill to elect officers and promulgate new laws. No law was fully recognized until it had been proclaimed from this mound. The custom is still (1910) formally observed. Hard by is a small chapel, built on the site of an ancient church, and the present day gathering is heralded by a religious service, the procession to the hill being formed afterwards.
Some of the moot-hills, like that of Pirton ([p. 60] supra), were Norman mottes, though possibly not belonging wholly to the Norman period. It is extremely probable, moreover, that some of the earlier mounds were either actual British barrows, or were tumps raised for the specific use of folk-moots. In other words, the first moot-hills would belong to pagan times, and were therefore used long before the organization of the Norman form of the manorial system, or the establishment of Norman mottes. There is hence a likelihood that, where churches stand near moot-hills, those mounds may, in some cases, be assigned to the pre-Christian period. Nor would it greatly diminish this probability if it were proved that some of these hillocks were entirely natural in their formation. The force of the argument is derived from the fact that secular affairs and heathen ceremonies were connected with the mounds, and that it was thought wise to retain the bond by preaching the new faith from a building erected in the vicinity.