FEUDALISATION OF WALES 299 architecture of this magnificent castle is all of the Edwardian style, and as the castle was burnt down by Rhys ap Meredith in 1287, it is probable that only wooden structures stood on this site until after that date. The castle is in a fine situation overlooking the Bay of Swansea. [H. W.] We have now completed our list of the Norman castles built in Wales which are known to history. It must not be supposed, however, that we imagine this to be a complete list of all the Norman castles which were ever erected in Wales. The fact that several in our catalogue are only once mentioned in the records makes it probable that there were many others which have never been mentioned at all. In this way we may account for the many mottes which remain in Wales about which history is entirely silent. As there was scarcely a corner in Wales into which the Normans did not penetrate at some time or other, it is not surprising if we find them in districts which are generally reckoned to be entirely Welsh. But there is another way of accounting for them; some of them may have been built by the Welsh themselves, in imitation of the Normans. As the feudal system and feudal ideas penetrated more and more into Wales, and the Welsh princes themselves became feudal homagers of the kings of England, it was natural that the feudal castle should also become a Welsh institution, especially as it was soon found to be a great addition to the chieftain's personal strength. The following castles are stated in the Brut to have been built by the Welsh.1 1113. *CYMMER, in Merioneth. - Built by Uchtred ap 1 The dates given are those of the Brut, and probably two years too early. Edwin, whose name, as we have already remarked, suggests an English descent. Near Cymmer Abbey the motte or tomen remains. *CYNFAEL, in Merioneth, near Towyn.-Built by Cadwalader, son of Griffith ap Cynan, on whose behalf Henry II. undertook his first expedition into Wales, and who was at that time a protégé of the AngloNormans. Clark gives a plan of this motte-castle in Arch. Camb., 4th ser., vi., 66. 1148. *YALE, in Denbigh = Llanarmon. - Said to have been built by Owen Gwynedd, but here, as we have said, an earlier Norman foundation seems probable (see p. 272). 1148. LLANRHYSTYD, in Cardigan. Also built by Cadwalader, who was then establishing himself in Cardigan. Probably the motte and bailey called Penrhos, or Castell Rhos, to the east of Llanrhystyd village. [H. W.] 1155. ABERDOVEY. - Built by Rhys ap Griffith to defend Cardigan against Owen, Prince of Gwynedd. It must therefore have been on the Cardigan shore of the Dovey, and not at the present town of Aberdovey, which is on the Merioneth shore. And in fact, on the Cardigan shore of the estuary, about two miles west of Glandovey Castle, there is a tumulus called Domenlas (the green tump), which was very likely the site of this castle of Rhys.1 1155. CAEREINION. - Built by Madoc of Powys, who was then a homager of Henry II. Remains of a motte near the church; the churchyard itself appears to be the former bailey. About a mile off is a British camp called Pen y Voel, which may have been the seat of the son of Cunedda, who is said to have settled here. [H. W.] 1 Meyrick's History of Cardigan, p. 146. MOTTES IN WALES 301 *WALWERN, or Tafolwern, near Llanbrynmair, in Montgomery, may have been a Welsh castle. It is first mentioned in 1163, when Howel ap Jeuav took it from Owen Gwynedd, who may have been its builder. The motte is marked in the O.M. on a narrow peninsula at the junction of two streams. 1169. *ABEREINON, in Cardigan.-Built by Rhys ap Griffith, Henry II.'s Justiciar of South Wales. "A circular moated tumulus, now called Cil y Craig."1 (It is marked on the 25-inch O.Μ.) 1177. *RHAIDR Gwy. ---Also built by Rhys ap Griffith, no doubt as a menace to Powys, as this castle was afterwards sorely contested. It is a motte-and-bailey castle, the motte being known as Tower Mount.2 3 All these castles are of the motte-and-bailey type, and prove the adoption by the Welsh of Norman customs. It will be noticed that in the first instances they were built by men who were specially under Norman influences. But probably the fashion was soon more widely followed, although these are the only recorded cases. The contribution made by the castles of Wales to the general theory of the origin of mottes in these islands is very important. Leaving out the seven castles attributed to the Welsh, we find that out of seventy-one castles built by the Normans, fifty-three, or very nearly three-fourths, still have mottes; while in the remaining eighteen, either the sites have been so altered as to destroy the original plan, or there is a probability that a motte has formerly existed. 1 Meyrick's History of Cardigan, p. 146. 2 Lewis's Topographical Dictionary. 3 We do not include the castles which the Welsh rebuilt. Thus in 1194 we are told that Rhys built the castle of Kidwelly, which he certainly only rebuilt. CHAPTER X MOTTE-CASTLES IN SCOTLAND THE Scottish historians of the 19th century have amply recognised the Anglo-Norman occupation of Scotland, which took place in the 11th and 12th centuries, ever since its extent and importance were demonstrated by Chalmers in his Caledonia. Occupation is not too strong a word to use, although it was an occupation about which history is strangely silent, and which seems to have provoked little resistance except in the Keltic parts of the country. But it meant the transformation of Scotland from a tribal Keltic kingdom into an organised feudal state, and in the accomplishment of this transformation the greater part of the best lands in Scotland passed into the hands of English refugees or Norman and Flemish adventurers. The movement began in the days of Malcolm Canmore, when his English queen, the sainted Margaret, undoubtedly favoured the reception of English refugees of noble birth, some of whom were her own relations.1 Very soon, the English refugees were followed by Norman refugees, who had either fallen under the displeasure of the king of England, like the Mont 1 Malcolm Canmore himself had passed nearly fourteen years in England. Fordun, iv., 45. FEUDALISATION OF SCOTLAND 303 gomeries, or were the cadets of some Norman family, wishful to carve out fresh fortunes for themselves, like the Fitz Alans, the ancestors of the Stuarts. The immigration continued during the reign of the sons of Margaret, but seems to have reached its culminating point under David I. (1124-1153). David, as Burton remarks, had lived for sixteen years as an affluent Anglo-Norman noble, before his accession to the Scottish crown, being Earl of Huntingdon in right of his wife, the daughter of Simon de Senlis, and granddaughter, through her mother, of Earl Waltheof. David's tastes and sympathies were Norman, but it was not taste alone which impelled him to build up in Scotland a monarchy of the Anglo-Norman feudal type. He had a distinct policy to accomplish; he wished to do for Scotland what Edward I. sought to do for the whole island, to unite its various nationalities under one government, and he saw that men of the Anglo-Norman type would be the best instruments of this policy. It mattered little to him from what nation he chose his followers, if they were men who accepted his ideas. Norman, English, Flemish, or Norse adventurers were all received at his court, and endowed with lands in Scotland, if they were men suitable for working the system which he knew to be the only one available for the accomplishment of his policy. And that system was the feudal system. He saw that feudalism meant a higher state of civilisation than the tribalism of Keltic Scotland, and that only by the complete organisation of feudalism could he carry out the unification of Scotland, and the 1 Burton remarks: "To the Lowland Scot, as well as to the Saxon, the Norman was what a clever man, highly educated and trained in the great world of politics, is to the same man who has spent his days in a village." History of Scotland, i., 353. |