Chapter 25

247The common idea that molten lead was poured through these holes on the besiegers is a mere legend. This valuable material would hardly have been employed for this purpose. Powdered quick-lime, however, may have been used, with even more deadly effect.

248This applies, of course, to almost all vaulted towers which are cylindrical in plan, and not to gatehouse towers alone:e.g., the towers of the inner ward of Coucy. But, even where there is no vaulting, the interior plan of cylindrical towers is sometimes polygonal—e.g., in the western angle-towers at Harlech, on all floors as well as in the basement. In the eastern angle-towers of the same castle, the interior of the basements is cylindrical. Clark, ii. 73, describes these angle-towers inaccurately.

249The entrances to such guard-rooms, where great thickness was given to the outer wall, took the form of narrow elbow-shaped lobbies, which would be a source of difficulty and deception to an attacking force.

250The Black gate was built in 1247: the entrance was protected by an outer barbican in 1358.

251Holes in the masonry for the beam to which the pulley was fixed may be seen,e.g., in the gateways at Conway and Rhuddlan.

252At Sandal (86) there was a barbican guarding the entrance to a shell-keep.

253Conisbrough is virtually a castle of one ward set on an isolated hill, not unlike Restormel in Cornwall.

254The entrance may be compared to the more perfect plan of the barbican and platform at Conway (254).

255The wall ofenceinteat Scarborough is probably in great part the wall which defended the castle from its foundation.

256They appear to have been a feature of the keep at Pontefract;cf.also Micklegate, Monk, and Bootham bars at York, which have bartizans at the outer angles. At Lincoln the wall of the upper floor of the gatehouse, between the bartizans, presents an obtuse angle to the field.

257The main gatehouse (Belle-Chaise) was built under abbot Tustin (1236-64); thechâteletwas added under Pierre Le Roy in 1393.

258The fortifications of Coucy were built in the thirteenth century: the round tower in front of the Porte de Laon was superseded in 1551 by a bastion of pentagonal form. The southern gate of Coucy (Porte de Soissons) was made in a re-entering angle of the town wall: the southern gate at Conway (Porth-y-Felin) shows the same disposition. The walls of Tenby were originally built early in the reign of Edward III.: letters patent, granting murage for seven years to the men of Tenby for the construction of their walls, were issued 6th March 1327-28 (Pat. 2 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 22).

259Plan in Oman,Art of War, opposite p. 530.

260The northern rampart-walk at Coucy was widened by the building of an arcade of thirteen pointed arches against the inner face of the wall, connecting a series of internal buttresses. Part of the western wall of the town of Southampton was widened, some time later than the actual building of the wall, by the addition of eighteen arches upon the outer face (293). The soffits of the arches were pierced by long machicolations—a necessary precaution in so exceptional an arrangement.

261In the battlement of the donjon of Coucy, each piece of solid wall between the arched embrasures is pierced by an arrow-loop (177).

262Viollet-le-Duc,La Cité de Carcassonne, p. 27, has a drawing of a similar device with an upper and lower shutter (245): the upper shutter is propped open by iron guards: while the lower is hung in iron hooks fixed in the face of the wall.

263Cf.sections of church parapets in Bond,Gothic Architecture in England, pp. 385-8.

264At Kenilworth the Water tower, on the south curtain of the base-court, has a fireplace in the basement.

265Garde-robes built upon arches across re-entering angles of a wall occur on each side of a large buttress in the west wall of Southampton. A similar feature occurs at the junction of the north curtain of Porchester castle with one of the Roman towers. In both cases the addition was probably made in the fourteenth century.

266These towers appear to be of the fourteenth century, and are therefore much later in date than the towers of the inner curtain.

267At Flint, Rhuddlan, and several other castles, the angle-towers were three-quarter circles, the face towards the bailey being a flat wall, on which, at Rhuddlan as at Harlech, the rampart-walk was corbelled out.

268These walls, pierced by seven gates and flanked by thirty-nine rectangular towers, were begun under Pope Clement VI. in 1345, and finishedc.1380. The rampart is reached by stairs set against the inner face of the walls. The walls of Aigues-Mortes, built 1272-5, and of Carcassonne, begun earlier and completed later than Aigues-Mortes, belong to an earlier period of fortification, corresponding to that of our Edwardian castles. Of other well-known French examples, the walls of Mont-Saint-Michel are of various dates from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century: those of Domfront are partly of the thirteenth, those of Fougères (250) of the fifteenth century, and those of Saint-Malo chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The thirteenth-centuryenceinteof Coucy has already been referred to. A list of the numerous remains of town walls in France will be found in Enlart, ii. 623seq., under the name of each department.

269Clark, i. 460, 312, 314.

270The cross-wall at Carnarvon is gone.

271The polygonal towers which flank the great gatehouse at Denbigh had the same characteristic of obtuse angles, as can be still seen where the masonry has not been stripped from the rubble core.

272The threshold of the gateway was from 35 to 40 feet above the bottom of the ditch.

273The eastern gateway was defended in the same way.

274Le Krak (Kala’at-el-Hosn) was rebuilt in 1202, and held by the Franks till 1271 (Enlart, ii. 536). It was a frontier fortress of the county of Tripoli in Syria, commanding the mountain country to the east, and must be distinguished from the great castle of Kerak in Moab, near the Dead sea, built about 1140, and surrendered in 1188, “the eastern bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem” (Oman,Art of War, 541). The entrance to the castle of Kerak has been described above, pp. 240, 241.

275One feature of the defences of Berkhampstead is the series of earthen bastions, applied to the outer bank on the north side of the castle, probably at a date long after the foundation of the stronghold.

276The breadth of the “lists” or intermediate defence of the town-walls at Carcassonne varies. On the steep western and south-western sides they are very narrow, and in one place are covered by the rectangular Bishop’s tower. The ground-floor of this was a gateway, which could be used to shut off one part of the lists from each other. Of the castle and its defences more will be said later.

277At Newcastle the plan was nearly concentric; but the curtains of the outer and inner ward met at one point, and the outer ward was a large space, containing the domestic buildings, while the inner was nearly filled by the keep. The concentric scheme was therefore almost accidental, and no simultaneous use of both lines of defence was possible.

278Cf.the outer ditch constructed to cover the barbican at Alnwick, where there was possibly a further outwork next the town.

279All these gatehouses, like the gatehouse at Rockingham and others of the same period, have a central passage, flanked by round towers towards the field. Traitors’ gate, however, has an entrance of great breadth, wide enough to admit a boat from the river; and the interior is an oblong pool, without flanking guard-rooms. The round towers cap the outer angles, but are of relatively small importance in the plan. The interior pool is actually part of the ditch between the outer ward and the Thames, and the gateway is “a barbican ... placed astride upon the ditch” (Clark, ii. 242).

280These angle-towers appear to belong in great part to the end of the twelfth century: the Beauchamp tower is generally attributed to the reign of Edward III.

281These and the adjacent curtain are largely of the twelfth century: the Bloody tower was added in the fourteenth century.

282Thus protecting the quay outside Traitors’ gate.Cf.the spur-wall at Beaumaris.

283The thirteenth-century work in the great hall (103) of Chepstow castle is unusually elaborate for military work of the period: nowhere in English castles have we such splendour and beauty of detail as that of which there remain many indications at Coucy.

284It was begun about 1267 by Gilbert de Clare, eighth earl of Gloucester and seventh earl of Hertford (d. 1295).

285The inner ward at Kenilworth lay at all points within an outer line of defence. The outer ward, narrow on the south and west, was very broad on the east and north, and its western half was cut up into sections by cross-walls: it was also crossed by a ditch in front of the inner ward. The lake did not surround the castle, and on the north its outer defence was a very deep dry ditch.

286The partisans of the Despensers held Caerphilly against Queen Isabel in 1326: its defenders were granted a general pardon, from which Hugh, son of Hugh le Despenser the younger, was excepted, 15th February 1326-7 (Pat. 1 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 29). One of the defenders, John Cole, received a special pardon on 20th February (ibid., m. 32). There is no record of a definite siege.

287The earthwork or redoubt on the north-west side of the castle is probably of this period: no definite details of the destruction of the castle are preserved.

288The inner buildings at Rhuddlan have entirely disappeared: traces of one or two fireplaces are left in the curtain.

289At Rhuddlan a passage, protected by an outer wall ending in a square tower, descended the river-bank to the water-gate.

290Clark (i. 217) places the date of foundation about 1295.

291The outer drum towers are large and imposing, though low: the inner angles are capped by smaller towers, which bear much the same relation to the gatehouses as the outer round towers to Traitors’ gate in the Tower of London.

292Of these towers, that on the west has an outer salient or spur, on the sides of which two bartizans are corbelled out: these are united into one, so that the outer face of the upper stage of the tower is rounded into a semicircle. The eastern tower is smaller, with a solid base: the western part of the upper portion is corbelled off in the angle between the tower and a rectangular southern projection. The upper stages of the towers completely command the approach, while the projection just mentioned would conceal a small body of defenders posted between the gateway and the spur-wall (236).

293This was not founded by the Crown, like the great castles of North Wales, but, like Caerphilly, was a private foundation. It passed by marriage, early in the fourteenth century, into the possession of the house of Lancaster. Some of the most important English castles—e.g., Kenilworth, Knaresborough, Lancaster, Lincoln, Pontefract, and Pickering—came at various times into the possession of this royal house, and, at the accession of Henry IV., became castles of the Crown as seized of the duchy of Lancaster.

294The stair to the rampart-walk, built against the curtain, was, however, normal in the defences of towns (241).

295It may be compared with the division of the outer face of the polygonal tower at Stokesay into two smaller half-octagons (306).

296Viollet-le-Duc’s drawing (La Cité de Carcassonne, p.75) shows a rampart-walk on each of the enclosing walls of this passage. He also shows the passage crossed by a series of looped barriers, so placed that each formed a separate line of defence, guarded by a few soldiers, and compelled an enemy to pursue a zigzag course through the passage. Much allusion has been already made to oblique and elbow-shaped contrivances for impeding an enemy’s progress: the antiquity of these is evident from the entrances to earthworks like Maiden Castle (see ChapterI.).

297Description and plan in Blanchetière,Le Donjon ... de Domfront, pp. 59-63. The date there given is actually earlier than the probable epoch of construction.

298The progress of fire-arms in English warfare was slow. See the various articles by R. Coltman Clephan, F.S.A., inArchæol. Journal, lxvi., lxvii., and lxviii. The earliest picture of a cannon is in a MS. at Christ Church, Oxford, written in 1326 (lxviii. 49), while the earliest mention of a hand-gun in England appears to be in 1338 (lxvi. 153-4). The long-bow continued to be the popular weapon of the individual English soldier until long after this date.

299The ramparts of Saint-Paul-du-Var (Alpes Maritimes) are said to belong to the epoch of the wars between Francis I. and Charles V. To the same period belong the fortifications of Lucca, Verona, and Antwerp. The present walls of Berwick were begun somewhat later, in 1558, enclosing a space considerably smaller than the originalenceinteof the town, as fortified by Edward I.

300Holes with embrasures for cannon were in many cases pierced in the walls of fortresses during the fifteenth century, or were formed, as in the eastern tower at Warkworth, by blocking the ordinary cross-loops through most of their height.

301This is very clearly seen in the fortified towns of Italy, or in the towns founded by Edward I. and by the kings of France in the southern districts of France.

302Pomerium= the spacepone muros,i.e., at the back of the walls. The word was at first applied to the sacred boundary of Rome and other towns, which limited theauspiciaof the city.

303The re-erection of the rectangular wall-turrets at Newcastle, which are of very slight projection from the wall, appears to date from 1386: a writ of aid was granted to the mayor and bailiffs on 29th November in that year for the repair of the walls and bridge of the town (Pat. 10 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 8).

304I.e., the lower gate. The north-western gateway is the upper gate, Porth Uchaf.

305Every monastery was, of course, surrounded by a wall; but it was only in certain cases and after a certain period that such walls were crenellated.

306Pat. 4 Edw. I., m. 12.

307Ibid., 13 Edw. I., m. 22.

308Ibid.

309Ibid., m. 15.

310Ibid., 14 Edw. I., m. 24.

311Ibid., m. 19 (sched.).

312Ibid., 24 Edw. I., m. 8.

313Ibid., 27 Edw. I., m. 29.

314Ibid., 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 25. The abbot and convent of St Mary’s, York, had licence to crenellate their wall, except on the side towards the city, 12th July 1318 (Ibid., 12 Edw. II., pt. I, m. 31).

315September 1315 (Pat. 9 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 18), and 24th February 1315-6 (Ibid., pt. 2, m. 31).

316Ibid., 12 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 7. No licence for crenellation had previously been given. The licences, here and elsewhere, explain that homicide and other crimes in the close by night made walling desirable. The gates were to be closed from twilight to sunrise.

317Burghersh also had licence to crenellate his manor-houses of Stow Park and Nettleham in Lincolnshire and Liddington in Rutland, 16th November 1336 (Pat. 10 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 18). A comprehensive licence was granted, 20th July 1377 (Ibid., 1 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 26) to Ralph Erghum, bishop of Salisbury, to wall and crenellate the city of Salisbury and his manor-houses at Salisbury, Bishop’s Woodford, Potterne, Bishops Cannings, and Ramsbury in Wilts, Sherborne in Dorset, Chardstock in Devon, Sonning in Berks, and his house in Fleet Street.

318There were four of these double gatehouses in theenceinte. The fifth gatehouse, Pottergate, was single.

319Bishop Wyvill had a grant, 1st March 1331-2, of the stones of the cathedral of Old Sarum and the old residential houses, for the repair of the cathedral and enclosure of the precinct (Pat. 5 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 27).

320Licence to crenellate Whalley, “the church and close,” was granted 10th July 1348 (Pat. 22 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 20).

321Pat. 6 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22: a further licence to crenellate the abbey precinct bears date 1389, 6th May (Pat. 12 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 13).

322Pat. 3 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 10.

323The beautiful rectangular gatehouse of Battle abbey is earlier than Thornton. Licence to crenellate was granted 9th June 1339 (Pat. 12 Edw. III., pt. 2, m. 28).

324One of these towers remains: the other, with the adjacent curtain, is gone.

325Pat. 19 Edw. I., m. 2.

326Ibid., 2 Edw. II., pt. 2, m. 19.

327Pat. 3 Edw. II., m. 18.

32828th August 1315 (Pat. 9 Edw. II., pt. 1, m. 25).

329See a commission to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, to survey and repair defects in Dover castle, 22nd May 1425 (Pat. 3 Hen. VI., pt. 2, m. 17).

330It will be remembered that the gatehouse of the quasi-concentric castle of Kidwelly, only a few miles distant from Llanstephan, is also situated upon the outer line of defence.

331Bishop Bek enfeoffed Henry Percy of the manor and town, 19th November 1309 (Pat. 3 Edw. II., m. 23).

332It has been already pointed out that this older house may have simply taken the form of a series of buildings against the encircling wall of a large shell-keep.

333John, Lord Neville, obtained licence from Bishop Hatfield of Durham to crenellate Raby in 1378 (O. S. Scott,Raby, its Castle and its Lords, 1906, P-47).

334At Middleham, where the plan of the fore-building is rather exceptional, there was a passage through the eastern part of the ground-floor of the forebuilding: this, however, was not the only way from the northern to the southern half of the castle. The first floor of the tower at Knaresborough, which formed a great guard-room, is in a very ruinous state; but there are clear indications of the main entrance near the north-east angle, and the inner entrance in the south wall, at right angles to the outer, still remains. There is also a vice in the south wall, by which the inner ward could be reached when the gates were closed. This tower, of course, never contained the domestic buildings of the castle; but the kitchen was in the basement, to which there were three doors of entry from the inner ward. The approach to each gateway from outside seems to have been a rising causeway built on arches.

335The tower of Belsay measures 51½ by 47½ feet. The tower of Knaresborough, which is of the same period, measures 62 by 54 feet; while that of Gilling measures 79½ by 72½ feet.

336This is said to have been the medieval vicarage of the church, which was appropriated to the cathedral priory of Carlisle. A pele-tower forms part of the rectories of Elsdon and Rothbury and of the vicarage of Embleton, Northumberland.

337The term “pele-yard” is applied to the base-court of the castle of Prudhoe in Pat. 1 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 1; where there is a licence to Gilbert de Umfraville, earl of Angus, to apply a rent to the augmentation of a chaplain’s stipend in the “chantry of St Mary in le Peleyerde of Prodhowe.”

338Enlart (ii. 623-753) quotes 242 examples of French churches which show remains of fortification. Most of the midland and southern departments of France contain a few; but the thickest clusters occur near the northern frontier (15 in the Aisne, 10 in the Ardennes department), and on the coast of Languedoc and Roussillon, where inroads of pirates were common (Pyrénées-Orientales 22; Hérault, 12). Among the larger fortified churches were the cathedrals of Agde, Béziers, Lodève, and Saint-Pons (Hérault), Elne (Pyrénées-Orientales), Pamiers (Ariège), Viviers (Ardèche), and Saint-Claude (Jura), and the abbey churches of Saint-Denis (Seine), Saint-Victor at Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhône), La Chaise-Dieu (Haute-Loire), Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), and Tournus (Saône-et-Loire). The example of Ewenny was followed in one or two churches of the same district, such as Newton Nottage, and in the peninsula of Gower.

339At Llanfihangel-cwm-Du, near Crickhowell, there was a fireplace upon the first floor of the tower until recently: the vent for the smoke remains in one of the corner turrets of the tower.

340The constant pressure of Scottish invasion upon the northern border is illustrated by the persistence of military architecture in the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland. Thus, as late as 1399, William Strickland undertook the building of Penrith castle “for fortifying that town and the whole adjacent country” (Pat. 22 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 16;cf.pt. 3, m. 37).

341Bishop Burnell was building this house in 1284. He left the king at Conway on 25th July, to look after the progress of the works (Pat. 12 Edw. I., m. 7).

3424th July (Pat. 3 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 43). A contract is still preserved, of 14th September 1378.

34326th April (Pat. 5 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 21).

344The builder of Raby, John, Lord Neville (d. 1388), was also responsible for the fortification of Sheriff Hutton.

345This date is given in the 43rd Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, p. 71. The licence, as the castle was within the palatinate, was granted by Bishop Skirlaw.

346The licence to Thomas de Heton to “make a castle or fortalice” of Chillingham bears date 27th January 1343-4 (Pat. 18 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 46). Some of the masonry in the angle-towers is, however, of a much earlier date than this.

347The mount remains at the west end of the enclosure, but the shell-keep on its summit has been removed.

348The gatehouse and barbican in the east curtain, as well as the older portion of the dwelling-house, were the work of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1369): Cæsar’s tower and Guy’s tower were the work of his son Thomas, who died in 1401.

349This-is the usual date given for the tower, which is entered from the first floor of the great donjon, and from the lower floor of the “lesser donjon” attached to one side of the keep. E. Lefèvre-Pontalis,Le Château de Coucy, p. 82, departs from the usual date to assign the tower to Philip Augustus, two centuries earlier. The details certainly appear to be of a period much earlier than the fifteenth century.

350The turrets attached to some of the towers at Conway and Harlech are at the side, not in the centre. Such raised turrets were useful as look-out posts, and a watcher posted upon them could inform the defenders on the rampart-walk below of movements which they might not be able to follow for themselves.

351Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22.

352Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 24.

353An interesting gatehouse, belonging to the later years of Edward I., is that of Denbigh, which was probably built by Henry de Lacy, the last earl of Lincoln (d. 1310). Here a noble archway, flanked by two octagonal towers, gives access through a passage to an octagonal central hall, beyond which is a smaller octagonal guard-room. The inner gateway to the enclosure is set in a side of the octagon, obliquely to the outer entrance. The plan is apparently unique. The upper portion of the gatehouse is badly ruined, and the walls have been much stripped; but there is a statue, probably of the founder, left above the entrance archway, which is set in a niche and panel treated with a considerable amount of ornamental detail.

354The barrel-vault of a basement chamber in one of the curtain-towers retains the marks of the wattled centering on which it was built. This is persistently asserted to be a mark of Roman origin. As a matter of fact, no part of the present castle can be proved to be earlier than the beginning of the twelfth century, when Roger of Poitou may have moved the head of his honour here from Penwortham, south of the Ribble. The castle, however, lies partly within, and partly outside the limits of a Roman military station.

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