Fig. 5.—Plan of Towcester about 1830.
Huntingdon.—The borough of Huntingdon was probably first built by the Danes, as it was only repaired by Edward. In Leland’s time there were still some remains of the walls “in places.” Huntingdon is one of theburgiof Domesday.
Colchester.—This of course was a Roman site, and Edward needed only to restore the walls, as theChronicleindicates. Colchester was placed so as to defend the river Colne, just as Maldon defended the estuary of the Blackwater. As the repair of Colchester and the successful defence of Wigingamere were followed the same year by the submission of East Anglia, it seems not unlikely that Edward’s various forces may have made a simultaneous advance, along the coast, and along the Roman road by the Fen country; but this of course is the merest conjecture, as theChroniclegives us no details of this very important event.
Cledemuthan.—This place is only mentioned in the Abingdon MS. of theChronicle, but the year 921 is the date given for its building. This date should probably be transposed to 918, the year in which, according to Florence, Edward subjugated East Anglia. It is well known how confused the chronology of the various versions of theAnglo-Saxon Chronicleis during the reign of Edward the Elder.[105]Cley, in Norfolk, would be etymologically deducible from Clede (thedbeing frequently dropped, especially in Scandinavian districts), and themuthanpoints to some river estuary. Cley is one of the few havens on the north coast of Norfolk, and its importance in former times was much greater than now, as is shown not only by the spaciousness of its Early English church, but by the fact that the port has jurisdiction for 30 miles along the coast.[106]It would be highly probable that Edward completed the subjugation of East Anglia by planting a borough at some important point. But as the real date of the fortification of Cledemuthan is uncertain, we must be content to leave this matter in abeyance.[107]
Stamfordis another case where theboroughis clearly said to have been on the side which is opposite to the one where the Norman castle stands. Edward’s borough was on the south side, the motte and other remains of the Norman castle are on the north of the Welland. It is remarkable that the part of Stamford on the south side of the Welland is still a distinct liberty; it is mentioned in Domesday as the sixth ward of the borough. The line of the earthworks can still be traced in parts. The borough on the north side of the Welland was probably first walled in by the Danes, as it was one of the Five Boroughs—Stamford, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, and Derby—which appear to have formed an independent or semi-independent state in middle England.[108]Stamford is a borough in Domesday.
Nottingham.—The first mention of a fortress in connection with Nottingham seems to suggest that it owed its origin to the Danes. In 868 the Danish host which had taken possession of York in the previous year “went into Mercia to Nottingham, and there took up their winter quarters. And Burgræd king of Merciaand his Witan begged of Ethelred, king of the West Saxons, and of Alfred his brother, that they would help them, that they might fight against the army. And then they went with the West Saxon force into Mercia as far as Nottingham, and there encountered the army which was in the fortress (geweorc), and besieged them there; but there was no great battle fought, and the Mercians made peace with the army.”[109]Nottingham became another of the Danish Five Boroughs. The Danish host on this occasion came from York, no doubt in ships down the Ouse and up the Trent. The site would exactly suit them, as it occupied a very strong position on St Mary’s Hill, a height equal to that on which the castle stands, defended on the south front by precipitous cliffs, below which ran the river Leen, and only a very short distance from the junction of the Leen with the Trent, the great waterway of middle England.[110]Portions of the ancient ditch were uncovered in 1890, and its outline appears to have been roughly rectangular, like the Danish camp at Shoebury. The ditch was about 20 feet wide. The area enclosed was about 39 acres.
This borough was captured by Edward the Elder in 919, when after the death of his sister Ethelfleda he advanced into Danish Mercia, taking up the work which she had left unfinished.[111]TheChronicletells us that he repaired the borough (burh), and garrisoned it with both English and Danes. Two years later, he evidently felt the necessity of fortifying the Trent itself, for he built another borough on the south side ofthe river, and connected the two boroughs by a bridge, which must have included a causeway or a wooden stage across the marshes of the Leen. It is not surprising that the frequent floods of the Trent have carried away all trace of this second borough.[112]The important position of Nottingham was maintained in subsequent times, and it was still a borough at Domesday.
Thelwall.—According to Camden, Thelwall explains by its name the kind of work which was set up here, a wall composed of the trunks of trees. This was another attempt to defend the course of the Mersey, which was once tidal as far as Thelwall. No remains of any fortifications can now be seen at Thelwall, which was not one of the boroughs which took root. But the Mersey has changed its course very much at this point, even before the making of the Ship Canal effected a more complete alteration.[113]
Manchester.—Theburhrepaired by Edward the Elder was no doubt the Roman castrum, which was built on the triangle of land between the Irwell and the Medlock. Large portions of the walls were still remaining in Stukeley’s time, about 1700, and some fragments have recently been unearthed by the Manchester Classical Association. It was one of the smaller kind of Roman stations, its area being only 5 acres. Manchester is not mentioned as a borough in Domesday, but the old Saxon town was long known as Aldportton, which literally means “the town of theold city.” This is its title in mediæval deeds, and it is still preserved inAlportStreet, a street near the remains of thecastrum.[114]The later borough of Manchester, which existed at least as early as the 13th century, appears to have grown up round the Norman castle, about a mile from the Roman castrum.[115]
Bakewell.—The vagueness of the indication in theChronicle, “nigh to Bakewell,” leaves us in some doubt where we are to look for thisburh, which Florence calls anurbs. Just outside the village of Bakewell there are the remains of a motte and bailey castle (a small motte and bailey of 2 acres), which are always assumed to be theburhof Edward. But the enclosure is far too small for a borough, and Edward’s burh would certainly have enclosed the church; for though the present church contains no Saxon architecture, the ancient cross in the graveyard shows that it stands on a Saxon site. It is more reasonable to suppose that Edward’s borough, if it was at Bakewell, has disappeared as completely as those of Runcorn, Buckingham, and Thelwall, and that the motte and bailey belong to one of the many Norman castles whose names never appear in history. There is no conclusive evidence for the existence of a Norman castle at Bakewell, but the names Castle Field, Warden Field, and Court Yard are at least suggestive.[116]Bakewell was the seat of jurisdiction for the High Peak Hundred in mediæval times.[117]
We must now inquire into the nature of the fortifications built by the Danes in England, which are frequently mentioned in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle. It has often been asserted, and with great confidence, that the Danes were the authors of the moated mounds of class(e); those in Ireland are invariably spoken of by Lewis in hisTopographical Dictionaryas “Danish Raths.” This fancy seems to have gone somewhat out of fashion since Mr Clark’sburhtheory occupied the field, though Mr Clark’s view is often so loosely expressed as to lead one to think that he supposed all the Northern nations to be makers of mottes; in fact, he frequently includes the Anglo-Saxons under the general title of “Northmen”![118]We must therefore endeavour to find out what the Danish fortifications actually were.
TheAnglo-Saxon Chroniclementions twenty-four places where the Danes either threw up fortifications (between 787 and 924) or took up quarters either for the winter, or for such a period of time that we may infer that there was some fortification to protect them. The word used for the fortification is generallygeweorc,a work, orfæsten(in two places only), which has also the general vague meaning of afastness. There are ten places where these works or fastnesses are mentioned in theChronicle:—
1.Nottingham.—We have already seen that the Danish host took up their winter quarters here in 868, and that there is the highest probability that the borough which Edward the Elder restored was first built by them. We have also seen that it was a camp of roughly rectangular form, and enclosed a very large area, necessary for great numbers.[119]
2.Rochester.—This city was besieged by the Danes in 885, and they fortified a camp outside. As the artificial mound called Boley Hill is outside the city, most topographers have jumped to the conclusion that this was the Danish camp. But the character of the Danish fortification is clearly indicated in theChronicle: “they made a work around themselves,” that is, it was an enclosure.[120]They could hardly have escaped by ship, as they did, if their camp had been above the bridge, which is known to have existed in Saxon times. But Boley Hill is above the bridge.
3.Milton, in Kent (Middeltune).—Hæsten the Dane landed at the mouth of the Thames with 80 ships, and wrought ageweorchere in 893. Two places in the neighbourhood of Milton have been suggested as the site of it, a square earthwork at Bayford Court, near Sittingbourne, and a very small square enclosure called Castle Rough. Neither of these are large enough to have been of any use to a force which came in 80ships.[121]Steenstrup has calculated that the average number of men in a Viking ship must have been from 40 to 50; Hæsten therefore must have had at least 3200 men with him. It is therefore probable that the camp at Milton has been swept away.
4.Appledore.—A still larger Danish force, which had been harrying the Carlovingian empire, came in 250 ships, with their horses, in 893, and towed their ships “up the river” (which is now extinct) from Lymne to Appledore, where they wrought a work. There are no earthworks at Appledore now, but at Kenardington, 2 miles off, there are remains of “a roughly defined rectangular work, situated on the north and east of the church, on the slope of the hill towards the marsh, a very likely place for an entrenchment thrown up to defend a fleet of light-draught ships hauled up on the beach.”[122]The enclosure was very large, one side which remains being 600 feet long.[123]
5.Benfleet.—Here Hæsten wrought a work in 894; here he was defeated by Alfred’s forces, and some of his ships burnt. Mr Spurrell states that there are still some irregular elevations by the stream and about the church, which he believes to be remains of the Danish camp.[124]“As the fleet of ships lay in the Beamfleet,it is obvious that the camp must have partaken of the character of a fortifiedhithe, with the wall landward and the shore open to the river and the ships.” He also learned on the spot that when the railway bridge across the Fleet was being made, the remains of several ancient ships, charred by fire, and surrounded by numerous human skeletons, were found in the mud.[125]Benfleet must have been a very large camp, as not only was the joint army of Danes housed in it, that from Milton and that from Appledore, but they had with them their wives and children and cattle.
6.Shoebury(Fig. 6).—After the storming of the camp at Benfleet by the Saxon forces, the joint armies of the Danes built anothergeweorcat Shoebury in Essex. We should therefore expect a large camp here, and Mr Spurrell has shown that the area was formerly about a third of a square mile. About half the camp had been washed away by the sea when Mr Spurrell surveyed it in 1879, but enough was left to give a good idea of the whole. It was a roughly square rampart, with a ditch about 40 feet wide, the ditch having a kind of berm on the inner side. The bank also had a slight platform inside, about 3 feet above the general level.[126]As Hæsten had lost his ships at Benfleet, there would be no fortified hithe connected with it, and if there had been, the sea would have swept it away. The camp was abandoned almost as soon as it was made, and the Danish army started on that remarkable march across England which theSaxon Chroniclerelates. They were overtaken and besieged by Alfred’s forces, in afastnessat
7.Buttington, on the Severn.—It has sometimesbeen contended that this was the Buttington near Chepstow; but as the line of march of the army was “along the Thames till they reached the Severn, then up along the Severn,”[127]it is more probable that it was Buttington in Montgomery, west of Shrewsbury.[128]Here there are remains of a strong bank with a broad deep ditch, which was evidently part of a rectangular earthwork, as it runs at right angles to Offa’s Dyke, which forms one side of it. It now encloses both the churchyard and vicarage. Whether the Danes constructed this earthwork, or found it there, we are not told.
8. There appear to be no remains of thegeweorcon the river Lea, 20 miles above London, made by the Danes in 896. But 20 miles above London, on the Lea, would land us at Amwell, near Ware. In Brayley’sHertfordshireit is stated that at Amwell, “on the hill above the church are traces of a very extensive fortification, the rampart of which is very distinguishable on the side overlooking the vale through which the river Lea flows.”[129]
Shoebury, Essex.
Shoebury, Essex.
Shoebury, Essex.
Fig. 6.
9.Bridgenorth, or Quatbridge.—The Winchester MS. of theChroniclesays the Danes wrought ageweorcat Quatbridge, in 896, and passed the winter there. There is no such place as Quatbridge now, only Quatford; and seeing there were so few bridges in those days, we are disposed to accept the statement of the Worcester MS., which must have been the bestinformed about events in the west, that Bridgenorth was the site of their work, especially as the high rock at Bridgenorth offers a natural fortification. The only circumstance that is in favour of Quatford is that it is mentioned as aburgusin Domesday, which shows that it possessed fortifications of the civic kind; and we shall see later on, that such fortifications were often the work of the Danes. But this burgus may more probably have been the work of Roger de Montgomeri, who planted a castle there in the 11th century.
10.Tempsford.—Here the Danes wrought a work in 918.[130]There is a small oblong enclosure at Tempsford, still in fair preservation, called Gannock Castle, which is generally supposed to be this Danish work. The ramparts are about 11 or 12 feet above the bottom of the moat, which is about 20 feet wide. There is a small circular mound, about 5 feet high, on top of the rampart, which appears to be so placed as to defend the entrance. This mound is “edged all round by the root of a small bank, which may have been the base of a stockaded tower.”[131]This curious little enclosure is different altogether from any of the Danish works just enumerated, and it is difficult to see what purpose it could have served. The area enclosed is only half an acre, which would certainly not have accommodated the large army “from Huntingdon and from the East Angles,” which built the advanced post at Tempsford as a base for the forcible recovery of the districts which they had lost.[132]Such a small enclosure as this might possibly have been a citadel, but ourknowledge of Danish camps does not tell us of any with citadels, and it is hardly likely that the democratic constitution of these pirate bands would have allowed of a citadel for the chief. It is far more probable that this work belongs to a later time, and that the Danish camp has been swept away by the river.[133]
11.Reading.—There is no “work” mentioned by theAnglo-Saxon Chronicleat this place, which the Danes made their headquarters in 871, but we add it to the list because Asser not only mentions it, but describes the nature of the fortification. It was avallumdrawn between the rivers Thames and Kennet, so as to enclose a peninsula.[134]It had several entrances, as the Danes “rushed out from all the gates” on the Anglo-Saxon attack. Such a fort belongs to the simplest and easiest kind of defence, used at all times by a general who is in a hurry, and it has therefore no significance in determining the general type of Danish works.
Besides these eleven places whereworksare mentioned, there are thirteen places where the Danes are said to have taken up their winter quarters, and where we may be certain that they were protected by some kind of fortifications. These are Thanet, Sheppey, Thetford, York, London, Torkesey, Repton, Cambridge, Exeter, Chippenham, Cirencester, Fulham, and Mersey Island. Four places out of this list—York, London, Exeter, and Cirencester—were Romancastra, whose walls were still available for defence. Three—Thanet, Sheppey, and Mersey—were islands, and thus naturally defended, being much more insular than they arenow.[135]Three—Thetford, Torkesey, and Cambridge—appear as burgi in Domesday, showing that they were fortified towns. It is highly probable that the Danes threw up the first fortifications of these boroughs. There are no remains of town banks at Torkesey; at Cambridge the outline of the town bank can be traced in places;[136]and at Thetford there was formerly an earthwork on the Suffolk side of the river, which appears to have formed three sides of a square, abutting on the river, and enclosing the most ancient part of the town.[137]Chippenham and Repton were ancient seats of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and may have had fortifications, but nothing remains now. Chippenham is a borough by prescription, therefore of ancient date. At Fulham, on the Thames, there is a quadrangular moat and bank round the Bishop of London’s palace, which is sometimes supposed to be the camp made by the Danes in 879; but it may equally well be mediæval. There was formerly a harbour at Fulham.[138]
It must be confessed that this list of Danish fortresses furnishes us with a very slender basis for generalisation as to the nature of Danish fortifications, judging from the actual remains. All we can say is that in six cases out of twenty-four (not including Tempsford or Fulham) the work appears to have been rectangular. In the case of Shoebury, about which we have the bestevidence, the imitation of Roman models seems to be clear. If we turn from remaining facts toà priorilikelihoods, we call to mind that the Danes were a much-travelled people, had been in Gaul as well as in England, and had had opportunities of observing Roman fortifications, as well as much practice both in the assault and defence of fortified places. It may not be without significance that it is not until after the return of “the army” from France that we hear of their building camps at all, except in the case of Reading.
As far as our information goes, their camps were without citadels. What evidence we have from the other side of the channel supports the same conclusion. Richer gives us an account of the storming of a fortress of the Northmen at Eu, by King Raoul, in 925, from which it is clear that as soon as the king’s soldiers had got over the vallum, they were masters of the place; there was no citadel to attack.[139]Dudo speaks of the Vikings “fortifying themselves, after the manner of acastrum, by heaped up earth-banks drawn round themselves,” and it is clear from the rest of his description that the camp had no citadel.[140]
In no case do we find anything to justify the theory that mottes were an accompaniment of Danish camps. In five cases out of the twenty-four there are or were mottes at the places mentioned, but in all cases they belonged to Norman castles. The magnificent motte called the Castle Hill at Thetford was on the opposite side of the river to the borough, which we have seen reason to think was the site of the Danish winter quarters. Torkesey in Leland’s time had by the riverside “a Hille of Yerth cast up,” which he judged to be the donjon of some old castle, probably rightly, though we have been unable as yet to find any mention of a Norman castle at Torkesey; a brick castle of much more recent date is still standing near the river, and probably the motte to which Leland alludes was destroyed when this was built. The motte at Cambridge is placed inside the original bounds of the borough, and was part of the Norman castle.[141]We have already dealt with the Boley Hill at Rochester, and shall have more to say about it hereafter. The rock motte at Nottingham was probably not cut off by a ditch from the rest of the headland until the Norman castle was built.
Willington, Beds.
Willington, Beds.
Willington, Beds.
Fig. 7.
It seems highly probable that besides providing accommodation in their camps for very large numbers of people, the Danes sometimes fortified the hithes where they drew up their ships on shore, or even constructed fortified harbours.[142]We have already quoted Mr Spurrell’s remark on the hithe[143]at Benfleet (p. 51), and there is at least one place in England which seems to prove the existence of fortified harbours. This is Willington, on the river Ouse, in Bedfordshire, which has been carefully described by Mr A. R. Goddard.[144]This “camp” consists of two wards, and a wide outer enclosure (Fig. 7). “But one of the most interesting features is the presence of two harbours, contained within the defences and communicating with theriver.” Mr Goddard points out that the dimensions of the smaller one are almost the same as those of the “nausts” (ship-sheds or small docks) of the Vikings in Iceland. He also cites from theJomsvikinga Sagathe description of a harbour made by the Viking Palnatoki at Jomsborg. “There he had a large and strong seaburgmade. He also had a harbour made within theburgin which 300 long ships could lie at the same time, all being locked within the burg.” The harbours at Willington are large enough to accommodate between twenty-five and thirty-five ships of the Danish type. Unfortunately there is no historical proof that the Willington works were Danish, though their construction makes it very likely. Nor have any works of a similar character been as yet observed in England, as far as we are aware.
But if archæology and topography give a somewhat scanty answer to our question about the nature of Danish fortifications, there are other fields of research, opened up of late years, from which we can glean important facts, bearing directly on the subject which we are treating. Herr Steenstrup’s exhaustive inquiry into the Danish settlement in England has shown that the way in which the Danes maintained their hold on the northern and eastern shires was by planting fortified towns on which the soldiers and peasants dwelling around were dependent.[145]TheAnglo-Saxon Chroniclegives us a glimpse of these arrangements when it speaks of the Danes who owed obedience to Bedford, Derby, Leicester, Northampton, and Cambridge.[146]It also tells us of the Five Boroughs, which, as we have already said, appear to have been a confederationof boroughs forming an independent Danish state between the Danish kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumbria.
The same system was followed by the Danes who colonised Ireland. “The colony had a centre in a fortified town, or it consisted almost exclusively of dwellers in one. But round this town was a district, in which the Irish inhabitants had to pay taxes to the lords of the town.”[147]The Irish chronicle calledThe Wars of the Gaedhil and the Gaillsays, further, that Norse soldiers were quartered in the country round these towns in the houses of the native Irish, and it even says that there was hardly a house without a Norseman.[148]Herr Steenstrup does not go so far as to assert that this system of quartering obtained in England also; but he shows that it is probable, and we may add that such a system would help to explain the speedy absorption of the Danes into the Anglo-Saxon population, which took place in the Danelaw districts.[149]
The large numbers of the Danish forces, and the fact that in the second period of their invasions they brought their wives and children with them, would render camps of large area necessary. These numbers alone make it ridiculous to attribute to the Danes the small motte castles of class (e), whose average area is not more than 3 acres.
Finally, the Danish host was not a feudal host. Steenstrup asserts that the principle of the composition of the host was the voluntary association of equallypowerful leaders, of whom one was chosen as head, and was implicitedly obeyed, but had only a temporary authority.[150]We should not, therefore, expect to find the Danish camps provided with the citadels by which the feudal baron defended his personal safety. When Rollo and his host were coming up the Seine, the Frankish king Raoul sent messengers to ask them who they were, and what was the name of their chief. “Danes,” was the reply, “and we have no chief, for we are all equal.”[151]That such an answer would be given by men who were following a leader so distinguished as Rollo shows the spirit of independence which pervaded the Danish hosts, and how little a separate fortification for the chief would comport with their methods of warfare.[152]
We may conclude, then, with every appearance of certainty that the Danish camps were enclosures of large area which very much resembled the larger Romancastra, and that, like these, they frequently grew into towns. Placed as they generally were on good havens, or on navigable rivers, they were most suitable places for trade; and it turned out that the Danes, who were a people of great natural aptitudes, had a special aptitude for commerce.[153]Dr Cunningham remarks that they were the leading merchants of the country, and he attributes to them a large share in the development of town life in England.[154]The organisation of their armies was purely military, but at the same timedemocratic; and when it was applied to a settled life in the new country, the organisation of the town was the form which it took. The Lagmen of Lincoln, Stamford, Cambridge, Chester, and York are a peculiarly Scandinavian institution, which we find still existing at the time of the Domesday Survey.[155]
Thus we see that the fortifications of the Danes, like those of the Anglo-Saxons, were the fortifications of the community. And we shall see in the next chapter that this was the general type of the fortifications which were being raised in Western Europe in the 9th century.
We have now seen that history furnishes no instance of the existence of private castles among the Anglo-Saxons or the Danes (previous to the arrival of Edward the Confessor’s Norman friends), and we have endeavoured to show that this negative evidence is of great significance. If, assuming that we are right in accepting it as conclusive, we ask why the Anglo-Saxons did not build private castles, the answer is ready to hand in the researches of the late Dr Stubbs, the late Professor Maitland, Dr J. H. Round, and Professor Vinogradoff, which have thrown so much fresh light on the constitutional history of England. These writers have made it clear that whatever tendencies towards feudalism there were in England before the Conquest, the system of military tenure, which is the backbone of feudalism, was introduced into England by William the Conqueror.[156]“Feudalism, in both tenure and government was, so far as it existed in England, brought full-grown from France,” says Dr Stubbs; and this statement is not merely supported, but strengthened, by the work of thelater writers named.[157]The institutions of the Anglo-Saxons, when they settled in England, were tribal; and though these institutions were in a state of decay in the 11th century, they were not completely superseded by feudal institutions till after the Norman Conquest.
We should naturally expect, then, that the fortifications erected by the Anglo-Saxons would be those adapted to their originally tribal state, that is, in the words which we have so often used already, they would be those of the community and not of the individual. And as far as we can discover the character of these fortifications, we find that this was actually the case. As we have seen, we find one of the earliest kings, Ida, building for the defence of himself and his followers what Bede calls a city; and we find Alfred and his children also building and repairing cities, at the time of the Danish invasions.
The same kind of thing was going on at about the same time in Germany and in France. Henry the Fowler (919-936), that great restorer of the Austrasian kingdom, planted on the frontiers which were exposed to the attacks of the Danes and Huns a number of walled strongholds, not only for the purpose of resisting invasion, but to afford a place of refuge to all the inhabitants of the country. He ordained that every ninth man of the peasants in the district must buildfor himself and his nine companions a dwelling in the “Burg,” and provide barns and storehouses, and that the third part of all crops must be delivered and housed in these towns.[158]In this way, says the historian Giesebrecht, he sought to accustom the Saxons, who had hitherto dwelt in isolated farms, or open villages, to life in towns. He ordered that all assemblies of the people should be held in towns. Giesebrecht also remarks that it is not improbable that Henry the Fowler had the example of Edward the Elder of England before his eyes when he established these rows of frontier towns.[159]
The same causes led, on Neustrian soil, to the fortification of a number of cities, the walls of which had fallen into decay during the period of peace before the invasions of the Danes. Thus Charles the Bald commanded Le Mans and Tours to be fortified “as a defencefor the peopleagainst the Northmen.”[160]The bishops were particularly active in thus defending the people of their dioceses. Archbishop Fulk rebuilt the walls of Rheims, between 884 and 900;[161]his successor, Hervey, fortified the town of Coucy[162](about 900); the Bishop ofCambray built new walls to his city in 887-911;[163]and Bishop Erluin fortified Peronne in 1001, “as a defence against marauders, and a refuge for the husbandmen of the country.”[164]But permission had probably to be asked in all these cases, as it certainly had in the last. The Carlovingian sovereigns represented a well-ordered state, modelled on the pattern of the Roman Empire; they were jealous of any attempts at self-defence which did not proceed from the State, and thus as long as they had the power they strove to put down all associations or buildings of a military character which did not emanate from their imperial authority.
The history of the 9th and 10th centuries is the history of the gradual break-up of the Carlovingian Empire, and the rise of feudalism on its ruins. In 877, the year of his death, Charles the Bald signed a decree making the counts of the provinces, who until then had been imperial officers, hereditary. He thus, as Sismondi says, annihilated the remains of royal authority in the provinces.[165]The removable officers now became local sovereigns. Gradually, as the Carlovingian Empire fell to pieces, the artificial organisation of the feudal system arose to take its place. By the end of the 10th century the victory of feudalism was complete; and the victory of feudalism was the victory of the private castle.
“The very word castle,” says Guizot, “brings with it the idea of feudal society; we see it rising before us. It was feudalism that built these castles which once covered our soil, and whose ruins are still scattered upon it. They were the declaration of its triumph. Nothing like them had existed on Gallo-Roman soil. Before theGermanic invasion, the great landed proprietors dwelt either in the cities, or in beautiful houses agreeably situated near the cities.”[166]These Gallo-Roman villas had no fortifications;[167]nor were the Roman villas in England fortified.[168]It was the business of the State to defend the community; this was the theory so long sustained by imperial Rome, and which broke down so completely under the later Carlovingians.
In the time of Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire, even the royal palaces do not appear to have been fortified. They were always spoken of aspalatia, never ascastella. The Danes, when they took possession of the palace of Nimeguen in 880, fortified it with ditches and banks.[169]Charles the Bald appears to have been the first to fortify the palace of Compiègne.[170]
Although there can be no doubt that private castles had become extremely common on the mainland of Western Europe before the end of the 10th century, it is more difficult than is generally supposed to trace their first appearance. Historians, even those of great repute, have been somewhat careless in translating the wordscastrumorcastellumascastleorchâteau, and taking them in the sense of the feudal or private castle.[171]Wehave already pointed out that these words in our Anglo-Saxon charters mean a town or village.[172]The fact is that from Roman times until toward the end of the 9th century the wordscastrumandcastellumare used indifferently for a fortified city or town, or a temporary camp. The expressioncivitates et castellais not uncommon, and might lead one to think that a distinction was drawn between large and small towns, or forts. But it is far more likely that it is a mere pleonasm, a bit of that redundancy which was always dear to the mediæval scribe who was trying to write well. For as the instances cited in theAppendixwill prove, we constantly find the wordscastrumandcastellumused for the same town, sometimes even in the same paragraph. Later, from the last quarter of the 9th century to the middle of the 12th century, these same words are used indifferently for a town or a castle, and it is impossible to tell, except by the context, whether a town or a castle is meant; and often even the context throws no light upon it.
This makes it extremely difficult to say with any exactness when the private castle first arose. We seem indeed to have a fixed date in the Capitulary of Pistes, issued by Charles the Bald in 864,[173]in which hestraightly ordered that all who had made castles, forts, or hedge-works without his permission should forthwith be compelled to destroy them, because through them the whole neighbourhood suffered depredation and annoyance. This edict shows, we might argue, that private castles were sufficiently numerous by the year 864 to have become a public nuisance, calling for special legislation. But the chronicles of the second half of the 9th century do not reveal any extensive prevalence of private castles. Indeed, after studying all the most important chronicles of Neustria and Austrasia during this period, the present writer has only been able to find four instances of fortifications which have any claim at all to be considered private castles; and even this claim is doubtful.[174]
When we come to the chroniclers of the middle of the 10th century we find a marked difference. It is true that the wordscastrum,castellum,municipium,oppidum,munitio, are still used quite indifferently by Flodoard and other writers for one and the same thing, and that in a great many cases they obviously mean a fortified town. But there are other cases where they evidently mean a castle. And if we compare these writers with the earlier ones in the same way as we have already compared the pre-Conquest portion of theAnglo-Saxon Chroniclewith the chroniclers of the 11th and12th centuries, we find the same contrast between them. In the pages of Flodoard or Ademar the action constantly turns on the building, besieging, and burning of castles, which by whatever name they are called, have every appearance of being private castles. In fact before we get to the end of the century, the private castle is as much the leading feature of the drama as it is in the 11th or 12th centuries.
Why, then, had the chroniclers no fresh word for a thing which was in its essential nature so novel? The obvious and only answer is that the private castle in its earlier stages was nothing more than an embankment with a wooden stockade thrown round somevillaor farm belonging to a private owner, and was therefore indistinguishable in appearance, though radically different in idea, from the fortifications which had hitherto been thrown up for the protection of the community.[175]How easily we may be mistaken in the meaning of the wordcastellum, if we interpret it according to modern ideas, may be seen by comparing the account of the bridge built by Charlemagne over the Elbe, in theAnnales Laurissenses, with Eginhards narrative of the same affair. The former states that Charlemagne built acastellumof wood and earth at each end of the bridge, while the latter tells us that it was avallumto protect a garrison which he placed there. This, however, was a work of public utility, and not a private castle. But scanty as the evidence is, it all leads us to infer that the first private castles were fortifications of this simple nature.[176]Mazières-on-the-Meuse, which was besiegedfor four weeks by Archbishop Hervey, took its name from themaceriasor banks which Count Erlebald had constructed around it. It is impossible to say whether this enclosure should be called a castle or a town, but in idea it was certainly a castle, since it was an enclosure formed for private, not for public interests.
Whether these first private castles were provided with towers we have no evidence either to prove or to disprove. No instance occurs from which we can conclude that they possessed any kind of citadel, before the middle of the 10th century.[177]But before the century is far advanced, we hear of towers in connection with the great towns, which, whether they were originally mural towers or not, are evidently private strongholds, and may justly be called keeps. The earliest instance known to the writer is in 924, when the tower of thepresidiumwhere Herbert Count of Vermandois had imprisoned Charles the Simple was burnt accidentally.[178]This tower must have been restored, as nine years later it withstood a six weeks’ siege from King Raoul. A possibly earlier instance is that of Nantes, where Bishop Fulcher had made a castle in 889; for when this castle was restored by Count Alan Barbetorte (937-943), we aretold that herestoredthe principal tower and made it into his own house.[179]Count Herbert built a keep in Laon before 931; and this appears to have been a different tower to the one attached to the royal house which Louis d’Outremer had built at the gate of the city.[180]We hear also of towers at Amiens (950), Coucy (958), Chalons (963), and Rheims (988). All these towers, it will be observed, are connected with towns.[181]The first stone keep in the country for whose date we have positive evidence, is that of Langeais, built by Fulk Nerra, Count of Anjou, about the year 994; its ruins still exist.
But we are concerned more particularly here with the origin of the motte-and-bailey castle. The exact place or time of its first appearance is still a matter of conjecture. Certainly there is not a word in the chronicles which is descriptive of this kind of castle before the beginning of the 11th century.[182]The first historical mention of a castle which is clearly of the motte-and-bailey kind is in the Chronicle of St Florentle Vieil, where, at a date which the modern biographer of Fulk Nerra fixes at 1010, we learn that this same Count of Anjou built a castle on the western side of the hill Mont-Glonne, at St Florent le Vieil, on the Loire, and threw up anaggeron which he built a wooden tower.[183]In this case the wordaggerevidently means a motte. But Fulk began to reign in 987; he was a great builder of castles, and was famed for his skill in military affairs.[184]One of his first castles, built between 991 and 994, was at Montbazon, not far from Tours. About 500 metres from the later castle of Montbazon is a motte and outworks, which De Salies not unreasonably supposes to be the original castle of Fulk.[185]Montrichard, Chateaufort, Chérament, Montboyau, and Baugé are all castles built by Fulk, and all have or had mottes. Montboyau is the clearest case of all, as it was demolished by Fulk a few years after he built it, and has never been restored, so that the immense motte and outworks which are still to be seen remain very much in their original state, except that a modern tower has been placed on the motte, which is now called Bellevue.[186]
It was a tempting theory at one time to the writer to see in Fulk Nerra the inventor of the motte type of castle, for independently of his fame in military architecture, he is the first mediæval chieftain who is known to have employed mercenary troops.[187]Now as we have already suggested inChapter I., the plan of the motte-and-bailey castle strongly suggests that there may be a connection between its adoption and the use of mercenaries. For the plan of this kind of castle seems to hint that the owner does not only mistrust his enemies, he also does not completely trust his garrison. The keep in which he and his family live is placed on the top of the motte, which is ditched round so as to separate it from the bailey; the provisions on which all are dependent are stored in the cellar of the keep, so that they are under his own hand; and the keys of the outer ward are brought to him every night, and placed under his pillow.[188]
But unfortunately for this theory, there is some evidence of the raising of mottes at an earlier period in the 10th century than the accession of Fulk Nerra. Thibault-le-Tricheur, who was Count of Blois and Chartres from 932 to 962, was also a great builder, and it is recorded of him that he built the keeps of Chartres,Chateaudun,[189]Blois, and Chinon,[190]and the castle of Saumur; these must have been finished before 962. Now there was anciently a motte at Blois, for in the 12th century, Fulk V. of Anjou burnt the whole fortress, “except the house on the motte.”[191]There was also a motte at Saumur;[192]and the plan of the castle of Chinon is not inconsistent with the existence of a former motte.[193]These instances seem to put back the existence of the motte castle to the middle of the 10th century.
We know of no earlier claim than this, unless we were to accept the statement of Lambert of Ardres that Sigfrid the Dane, who occupied the county of Guisnes about the year 928, fortified the town, and enclosed his ownduniowith a double ditch.[194]If this were true, we have a clear instance of a motte built in the first half of the 10th century. But Lambert’s work was written at the end of the 12th century, with the object of glorifyingthe counts of Guisnes, and its editor regards the early part of it as fabulous. That Sigfrid fortified thetownof Guisnes we can easily believe, as we know the Danes commonly did the like (seeChapter IV.); but that he built himself a personal castle is unlikely.[195]
It is the more unlikely, because the Danes in Normandy do not appear to have built personal castles until the feudal system was introduced there by Richard Sans Peur. The settlement in Normandy was not on feudal lines. “Rollo divided out the lands among his powerful comrades, and there is scarcely any doubt that they received these lands as inheritable property, without any other pledge than to help Rollo in the defence of the country.”[196]“The Norman constitution at Rollo’s death can be described thus, that the duke ruled the country as an independent prince in relation to the Franks; but for its internal government he had a council at his side, whose individual members felt themselves almost as powerful as the duke himself.”[197]Sir Francis Palgrave asserts that feudalism was introduced into Normandy by the Duke Richard Sans Peur, the grandson of Rollo, towards the middle of the 10th century. He “enforced a most extensive conversion of allodial lands into feudal tenure,” and exacted from his baronage the same feudal submission which he himself had rendered to Hugh Capet.[198]
It is quite in accordance with this that in the narrative of Dudo, who is our only authority for the history of Normandy in the 10th century, there is no mention of a private castle anywhere. We are toldthat Rollo restored the walls and towers of thecitiesof Normandy,[199]and it is clear from the context that thecastraof Rouen, Fécamp, and Evreux, which are mentioned, are fortified cities, not castles. Even the ducal residence at Rouen is spoken of as apalatiumor anaula, not as a castle; and it does not appear to have possessed a keep until (as we are told by a later writer) the same Duke Richard who introduced the feudal system into Normandy built one for his own residence.[200]It is possible that when the feudal oath was exacted from the more important barons, permission was given to them to build castles for themselves; thus we hear from Ordericus of the castle of Aquila, built in the days of Duke Richard; the castle of the lords of Grantmesnil at Norrei; the castle of Belesme; all of which appear to have been private castles.[201]But there seems to have been no general building of castles until the time of William the Conqueror’s minority, when his rebellious subjects raised castles against him on all sides. “Plura per loca aggeres erexerunt, et tutissimas sibi munitiones construxerunt.”[202]It is generally, and doubtless correctly, supposed thataggeresin this passage means mottes, and taking this statement along with the great number of mottes which are still to be found in Normandy, it has been further assumed (and the present writer was disposed to share the idea) that this was the time of the first invention of mottes. But the factswhich have been now adduced, tracing back the first known mottes to the time of Thibault-le-Tricheur, and the county of Blois, show that the Norman claim to the invention of this mode of fortification must be given up. If the Normans were late in adopting feudalism, they were probably equally late in adopting private castles, and the fortifications of William I.’s time were most likely copied from castles outside the Norman frontier.[203]
It might be thought that the general expectation of the end of the world in the year 1000, which prevailed towards the end of the 10th century, had something to do with the spread of these wooden castles, as it might have seemed scarcely worth while to build costly structures of stone. But it is not necessary to resort to this hypothesis, because there is quite sufficient evidence to show that long before this forecast of doom was accepted, wood was a very common, if not the commonest, material used in fortification. The reader has only to open his Cæsar to see how familiar wooden towers and wooden palisades were to the Romans; and he has only to study carefully the chronicles of the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries to see how all-prevalent this mode of fortification continued to be. The general adoption of the feudal system must have brought about a demand for cheap castles, which was excellently met by the motte with its wooden keep and its stockaded bailey. M. Enlart has pointed out thatwooden defences have one important advantage over stone ones, their greater cohesion, which enabled them to resist the blows of the battering-ram better than rubble masonry.[204]Their great disadvantage was their liability to fire; but this was obviated, as in the time of the Romans, by spreading wet hides over the outsides. Stone castles were still built, where money and means were available, as we see from Fulk Nerra’s keep at Langeais; but the devastations of the Northmen had decimated the population of Gaul; labour must have been dear, and skilled masons hard to find. In these social and economic reasons we have sufficient cause for the rapid spread of wooden castles in France.
The sum of the evidence which we have been reviewing is this: the earliest mottes which we know of wereprobablybuilt by Thibault-le-Tricheur about the middle of the 10th century. But in the present state of our knowledge we must leave the question of the time and place of their first origin open. The only thing about which we can be certain is that they were the product of feudalism, and cannot have arisen till it had taken root; that is to say, not earlier than the 10th century.