Chapter 24

122The donjon of Falaise belongs to the early part of the twelfth century, and is therefore a late example of “herring-bone” work. The “herring-bone” work in the keep at Guildford is probably still later, and that in the curtain wall at Lincoln, raised on the top of earthen banks, can hardly be attributed to a very early date.

123It has also been noted in the tower of Marton church, near Gainsborough.

124The lodge which now occupies its site was built in 1815, while the present main entrance to the castle, south-west of the mount, was made in 1810, and is quite outside the originalenceinte.

125See note122on p. 100.

126A curtain is said to be flanked when its line is broken at intervals by projections, so near one another that the whole face of the piece of curtain between them can be covered by the fire of the defenders stationed in them.

127Much of the curtain of Lancaster castle is of fairly early date. For the supposed Roman origin of the castle and its probable history, see note354on p. 327 below.

128These additions have given rise to the common theory that this hall is a work of late twelfth century date.

129Other examples of early stone halls will be mentioned in a later chapter.

130This is very noticeable in Shropshire, where a large number of parish churches, to which rectors were presented and instituted in the ordinary way, are described as free chapels in the registers of the bishops of Lichfield and Hereford during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

131See Pat. Rolls, 18 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 28; 3 Hen. IV., pt. 1, m. 6.

132Pat. 2 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 4. The walls of this chapel, dedicated to St Peter, remain. In the fifteenth century it was enlarged as far as the west curtain by a western annexe, and in the sixteenth century it was divided into two floors, the upper floor being the court-house, and the lower floor the record-room of the court of the Marches.

133Pat. 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 24.

134The wordkeepis a comparatively modern term, unknown to medieval castle-builders, to whom this part of the castle was thedonjonordungeon, or thegreat tower.

135Other important shell keeps of the normal type are at Arundel, Cardiff (114), Carisbrooke (111), Farnham, Lewes, Pickering, Totnes, and Tonbridge—the last one of the most considerable and finest examples.

136Clifford’s tower at York is sometimes quoted as a shell keep. It was actually a tower with a forebuilding.

137See Enlart, ii. 500, 676: Anthyme Saint-Paul,Histoire Monumentale, p. 168, gives the date 993, with an expression of doubt. Fulk the Black was count of Anjou 987-1039.

138Enlart, ii. 685, says “début du xiiᵉ siècle.”

139Ord. Vit., xii. 14.

140Ibid., viii. 19.

141Ibid., x. 18.

142Ibid., xi. 20:adulterina castellais the phrase used.

143Enlart, ii. 710. Blanchetière,op. cit., 83, mentions Henry’s operations in 1123, but believes in an earlier date for the donjon.

144Rad. de Diceto,Abbrev. Chron., sub anno.

145Pipe Roll Soc., vol. i., pp. 13, 14; iv. 23.

146Ibid., i. 27.

147Ibid., i. 29, 30, 31; ii. 14; iv. 36; v. 50; vi. 57, 58; vii. 11, 12; xii. 79; xiii. 31.

148Ibid., ii. 12; v. 49.

149Ibid., iv. 35.

150Ibid., iv. 39.

151Ibid., iv. 40.

152Ibid., viii. 89; ix. 59, etc.

153Ibid., xiii. 107, 108; xv. 132; xvi. 32.

154E.g.,ibid., xiii. 140.

155Ibid., xvi. 32; xviii. 110.

156Ibid., xviii. 110.

157Ibid., xiii. 161.

158Ibid., v. 35.

159Ibid., xix. 53.

160Charles Dawson,Hastings Castle, ii. 524.

161Pipe Roll Soc., ix. 17; xi. 18; xii. 15; xiii. 95; xv. 2; xvi. 2.

162Ibid., xviii. 16; xix. 68.

163Ibid., xix. 167; xxi. 77; see also xvi. 92.

164Pipe Roll Soc., xvi. 118, 119.

165Ibid., xvi. 141.

166Ibid., xvi. 137.

167Ibid., xix. 81.

168Ibid., xviii. 7; xix. 173.

169Ibid., xviii. 66; xix. 110; xxii. 183. Malcolm, king of Scots, yielded Bamburgh, Carlisle, and Newcastle to Henry II. in 1157; and the towers at all three places were begun within a few years of this event. That at Bamburgh is mentioned in 1164.

170Ibid., xix. 2.

171See evidence brought by Mrs Armitage,Eng. Hist. Rev., xix. 443-7.

172Ord. Vit., iv. 1. He calls these strongholdsfirmamenta quaedam.

173A.S. Chron., sub anno.

174Such cross-walls, found in the larger towers, were not merely useful as partitions between the rooms. They enabled the builders to lay their floors more conveniently, as timber of sufficient scantling for so large an undivided space was obtainable with difficulty. In case of the great tower being taken by storm, the cross-wall on each floor formed a barrier to the besiegers, shutting off the tower as it did into two halves. This is well seen, for example, at Porchester.

175At Norham and Kenilworth the towers are at an angle of the inner ward where the two wards are adjacent. At Porchester it is at an outer angle of the inner ward, so that two of its sides are on the outer curtain of the castle.

176At Hedingham and Rochester there are mural galleries above the level of the second floor, the height of which therefore corresponds to that of two external stories. Both towers are exceptionally lofty, Rochester being 113, Hedingham 100 feet high.

177We know from the Pipe Roll for 1173-4 that work was being done at Guildford in that year (Pipe Roll Soc., xxi. 3).

178This points to two separate dates for the structure. The earlier masonry has been attributed to Bishop Flambard, who founded the castle in 1121; the later to Bishop Pudsey, who made additions to the castle about 1157. If this is so, the history of the tower is parallel to that of Porchester—a low stone tower, possibly of the reign of Henry I., heightened in the reign of Henry II.

179Porchester, in spite of its great size, is a tower which was apparently built for exclusively military purposes. The floors are feebly lighted, and there is no fireplace in the building.

180Both these castles belong to the class of cliff strongholds which were walled from their earliest foundation.

181Further alterations were made in the fifteenth century, when a new stair was inserted in the north-east angle, and the outer stair against the west wall was removed.

182For the reason, see note174on pp. 121, 122.

183Legends about the cruelties practised on prisoners, often connected with these basement chambers, need not be believed too readily. Specially constructed prison chambers in castles usually belong to a period later than the twelfth century. On the origin of the word “dungeon” see ChapterIII.

184See the description of the tower at Ardres in ChapterIII. Such upper floors were probably divided into rooms by wooden partitions.

185It was thus impossible to reach the roof from the first floor without passing through the second-floor chamber—a precaution which was adopted also in the cylindrical tower at Conisbrough.

186Here the basement was probably used as a prison. The upper part of the original stair still remains.

187There are indications, however, of a second chapel in the keep itself, occupying the south-east angle of the third floor.

188The recently excavated chapel of the great tower of Old Sarum was a vaulted building occupying the south-eastern part of the basement of the tower itself. It was entered directly from the bailey, and had no direct communication with the first floor of the tower.

189Such as the so-called oratories in the fore-buildings of Dover and Newcastle.

190At Old Sarum, the room in the basement, west of the chapel, was probably the kitchen.

191Cf.the employment of one of the angle towers at the later castle of Langley in Northumberland as a garde-robe tower. Some of the late medieval pele-towers of the north of England,e.g., Chipchase and Corbridge, provide excellent examples of mural garde-robes with corbelled-out seats.

192Roger of Wendover, ann. 1215.

193See the description of the fortifications of Antioch in Oman,Art of War, pp. 527-9; plan facing p. 283.

194Ibid., 526-7.

195Enlart, ii. 504.

196Ibid., ii. 508: it is attributed to Amaury, count of Evreux (1105-37): the masonry (ibid., 461) is of coursed rubble with bonding-courses of ashlar.

197See note161, p. 119. The keep of Orford is described at some length by Harvey,Castles and Walled Towns, pp. 106-111.

198Enlart, ii. 505.

199Possibly there was a trap-door in the centre of each floor: see below. All the floors are gone above the entrance stage.

200An embrasure is the splay or inner opening of a window. The word is also applied to the openings between themerlonsor solid pieces of a crenellated parapet.

201See pp.217,230,233.

202It may also be noted that the practice of placing windows immediately above one another would be naturally avoided, as tending to weaken the masonry of the whole wall at these points. This is well seen in the irregular position of the numerous loops which light the vice of the donjon at Coucy.

203Enlart, ii. 735, gives the date of the donjon (Tour Guinette) at Etampes as about 1140.

204Enlart, ii. 674, gives the date of completion at Issoudun as 1202.

205Ormâchecoulis.Coulis= a groove. The first part of the word is probably derived frommâcher= to break or crush, and implies the purpose effected by missiles sent through those openings.

206Drawing in Enlart, ii. 504. Here there are two rectangular towers, with rounded angle-turrets, connected by a lofty intermediate building.

207The same cause undoubtedly led, at an earlier date, to the covering of Syrian churches with roofs of stone.

208Château-Gaillard was on the French side of the Seine, in territory purchased by Richard I. from the archbishop of Rouen.

209E. Lefèvre-Pontalis,Le Château de Coucy, pp. 48, 49, shows that the donjon forms part of the latest work undertaken by Enguerrand III., lord of Coucy, the founder of the present castle, who died in 1242: it was evidently completed about 1240.

210The town walls appear to be rather earlier than the castle (ibid., 34).

211On the third floor, these niches are divided into two stages and connected by an upper gallery which pierces the abutments of the vault, and surrounds the whole apartment. The method of vaulting this gallery behind the abutments, so as to give additional resistance to the masonry of the tower, is described by Lefèvre-Pontalis,op. cit.94: see planibid., p. 93.

212In the angle-towers at Coucy, however, the stairs take the form of vices, and do not curve with the wall, although ceasing at each floor.

213The gabled coping of the parapet formed the central support for the sloping roof of the outer gallery and of the correspondingcoursièreon the inner side.

214It stands on a promontory between two creeks at the head of the inlet known as the Pembroke river.

215The domestic buildings may be in part earlier, but were largely reconstructed in the thirteenth century.

216The tower is sometimes described as being of five stages: the dome, however, was merely a vault, and did not form a separate stage.

217An account of Flint castle is given by Harvey,Castles and Walled Towns, p. 123seq.Speed’s map of Flintshire, madec.1604, shows that the tower was joined to the adjacent curtain by a wall, the rampart-walk of which probably gave access to the entrance on the first floor of the tower.

218In 1277 the castle of Flint was a timber structure, so that the present work cannot be earlier than the end of the thirteenth century. The masonry is composed of large blocks of yellow sandstone, decayed where they are exposed to the tide. There was an outer bailey, the platform of which alone remains, with a ditch between it and the castle proper.

219These holes do not, however, surround the tower, so that the passage may have been only partially roofed.

220The keep of Launceston was probably built about the close of the twelfth century: that at Flint later, as already noted.

221Reproduced inMemorials of Old Yorkshire, 1909, opposite p. 256.

222I.e., retaining walls used to face (revêtir) a sloping surface.

223A bartizan is a small turret or lookout corbelled out at an angle of a tower or on the surface of a wall. The word is connected with “brattice” (bretèche); and such turrets, like the machicolated parapet, are the stone counterpart of the bratticing and hoarding of timber applied to fortresses at an earlier date.

224Ventress’s model of the castle, made in 1852, shows the great hall near the north-east corner of the outer ward, its west end being nearly opposite the main entrance of the castle. The outer ward nearly surrounded the small inner ward, which contained the keep.

225At Richmond the hall and its adjacent buildings were unusually complete for their date, and the tower-keep was not planned as a dwelling-house. None of our tower-keeps, Porchester excepted, are so purely military in character.

226The origin of this term is doubtful; some think it to be a corruption of “barbican”—a work covering the entrance to the house or castle proper. Large outer baileys, as at Ludlow (96) and Coucy, correspond to the “barmkins” of the north of England.

227At Arundel, Cardiff, and Warwick, mount-and-bailey castles which are still inhabited, the present great halls stand on sites which were doubtless occupied by the original halls built by the founders. All three were largely rebuilt at a later date, and have been further restored in modern times. Warwick was one of the Conqueror’s earliest castles; Arundel was founded before 1086, Cardiff about 1093. A large portion of theenceinteat Cardiff follows the line of the curtain of the Roman station (seeArchæologia, lvii. pp. 335-52).

228At Boothby Pagnell there is a cylindrical chimney-shaft very similar to that of the hall at Christchurch.

229The usual arrangement even in small cottages:cf.Chaucer,Cant. Tales, B. 4022 (the house of the dairy-woman in the Nonne Preestes Tale), “Ful sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle.”

230The word “solar” or “soller” (solarium= a terrace exposed to the sun) was used indiscriminately of any room, gallery, or loft above the ground-level of a building:e.g., the loft or gallery above a chancel-screen was commonly known as a “solar,” and the same word should be applied to the chamber, inaccurately called a “parvise,” on the first floor of a church porch. The word, however, is sometimes applied to a well-lighted parlour facing south, without respect to the floor on which it stands,e.g., the abbot’s solar at Haughmond (Archæol. Journal, lxvi. 307) and at Jervaulx (Yorks. Archæol. Journal, xxi. 337).

231Ord. Vit., iv. 19: “Super solarium ... tesseris ludere ceperunt.” The word “solarium” may be used, of course, in this passage with reference merely to the site of the house—i.e., it may mean “the first floor above the ground.” In this case William and Henry may have been playing dice in the hall itself, which, as at Christchurch, may have occupied the whole “solarium.” Robert was evidently outside the house.

232Bates,Border Holds of Northumberlandattributes the walling, etc., of Warkworth castle “on its present general lines” to Robert, son of Roger (1169-1214), who obtained in 1199, for 300 marks, a confirmation of the grant of the castle and manor from John.

233So called in Clarkson’s survey, made in 1567. One explanation of the name is that the tower was similar to one in Carrickfergus castle, on Belfast Lough. Clarkson describes its polygonal form as “round of divers squares.”

234This entrance has been blocked, and the modern entrance has been cut through a window-opening, in the adjoining bay to the west.

235The aisle-walls are low and the whole building is covered by a single high-pitched roof, so that there is no clerestory.

236The same feature occurs at the west end of the great hall at Auckland, where the daïs was placed: there are regular responds at the east end, but the eastern bay was made somewhat wider than the rest, to give room for the screens.

237Bishop Bek (1284-1311) probably heightened the aisle-walls and inserted traceried windows. Cosin (1660-72) rebuilt the greater part of the outer walls, renewed Bek’s windows, and added the present clerestory and roof: the splendid screen, which divides the chapel from the ante-chapel, was also part of his work.

238The work of this late period is attributed to Bishop Tunstall (1530-59). Cosin at a later date made additions to the chapel.

239At the fortified manor-house of Drayton, some fourteen miles south-east of Rockingham, the great hall is a fabric of the later half of the thirteenth century, although the date has been obscured by later alterations. The vaulted cellar at the east end of the hall (c.1270) is almost intact; but the great chamber above was rebuilt about the end of the seventeenth century.

240As at Penshurst. The hearth-stone remains at Stokesay. At Haddon the great fireplace in the west wall was inserted several years after the hall was built.

241At Harlech the kitchen was at right angles to the hall, against the south curtain.

242The words “horn-work,” “demilune,” or “ravelin,” were applied in later fortification to flanked outworks which presented a salient angle to the field,i.e., on the side of attack. To such defences in the middle ages the general name of “barbican” seems to have been given.

243The mining operations, so successful at Château-Gaillard, were not without their own danger to the miners. In the siege of Coucy by the count of Saint-Pol in 1411, the traditional method was used to undermine one of the towers of the base-court. A party of the besiegers descended to admire the preparations. The wooden stays, however, were not strong enough to support the weight of the tower, which fell unexpectedly, and buried the men in the mine. Their remains have never come to light.

244These are additions to the wall, probably made soon after the building of the great cylindrical tower. The wall seems to be of the earlier part of the twelfth century, and may have enclosed the bailey from the first. No traces of a mount remain.

245The position of Appleby town and castle, within a great sweep of the Eden, is somewhat similar.

246Apartments, known as the Constable’s lodging, were on the first floor of the gatehouse: the portcullis probably descended through the thickness of the south wall of this floor, which was not pierced for a window.

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