mentioned in mediæval documents as the beumont or beau mont. It was surrounded by its own ditch.1 The bailey, if Speed's map is correct, was triangular in shape. With its ditches and banks the castle covered 6 acres, according to the commissioners who reported on it in Elizabeth's reign; but the inner area cannot have been more than 45 acres. We may infer from the sums spent on this castle by Henry II., that he was the first to give it walls and towers of stone; the Pipe Rolls show entries to the amount of 1150l. during the course of his reign; the work of the walls is frequently specified, and stone is mentioned.

Domesday Book does not inform us whether the value of Winchester had risen or fallen since the Conquest.

2

WINDSOR (Fig. 38). - Here we have another of the interesting cases in which the geld due from the tenant of a manor is lessened on account of a castle having occupied a portion of the land. The Survey tells us that the castle of Windsor sits in half a hide belonging to the manor of Clewer, which had become William's property as part of the spoils of Harold. It was now held of the king by a Norman tenant-in-chief, but whereas it was formerly rated as five hides it was now (that is, probably, since the castle was built) rated as four and a half hides. Of course we are not to suppose

that the castle occupied the whole half hide, which might be some 60 acres; but it extinguished the liability of that portion. At Windsor, however, we have no occasion to press this argument as a proof that the castle was new, since it is well established that the palace of the Saxon kings was at least 2 miles from the present castle and town, in the village long known as Old Windsor, which fell into decay as the town of Windsor sprang up under the Norman castle. The manor of Windsor was given by Edward the Confessor to the convent of Westminster, but recovered by the Conqueror. But as the Survey shows us, he did not build his castle in the manor of Windsor, but in that of Clewer. He built it for a hunting-seat, and it may have been for the purpose of recovering forest rights that he resumed possession of Old Windsor; but he placed his castle in the situation which he thought best for defence. For even a hunting-seat in Norman times was virtually a castle, as many other instances show.

It is needless to state that there is no masonry at Windsor of the time of the Conqueror, or even of the time of his son Henry I., in spite of the statement of Stowe that Henry "new builded the castle of Windsor." This statement may perhaps be founded on a passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which says that Henry held his court for the first time in the New Windsor in

4

1110.

Perhaps the Chronicle here refers to the borough of New Windsor, as an entry in the Pipe Roll of Henry I. seems to show that he was the first to enclose the burgus of Windsor.1 For it is probable that the first stone castle at Windsor was built by Henry II., who spent £1670 on it in the course of his reign. One of his first acts after his accession was an exchange of land at Windsor, which seems to have been for the purpose of a vineyard, and was possibly the origin of the second bailey. At present the position of the motte is central to the rest of the castle, but this is so unusual that it suggests the idea that the upper ward is the oldest, and that the motte stood on its outer edge. Henry II. surrounded the castle with a wall, at a cost of about 1281.3 The other entries in the Pipe Rolls probably refer to the first stone shell on the motte, and there is little doubt that the present Round Tower, though its height has been raised in modern times, and its masonry re-dressed and re-pointed so as to destroy all appearance of antiquity, is in the main of Henry II.'s building. The frequent payments for stone show the nature of Henry's work.

Although so much masonry was put up in Henry II.'s reign, the greater part of what is now visible is not older than the time of Henry III. The lower bailey seems to have been enlarged in his reign, as the castle