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still existing, but it has lost its ancient name, and is now called Tout Hill. It stands in the Deanery garden, and has probably been largely ransacked for garden soil, as it has a decayed and shapeless look. Still, it is a venerable relic of Norman aggression, well authenticated.

PEVENSEY, Sussex (Fig. 24).-The Roman castrum of Pevensey (still so striking in its remains) was an inhabited town at the date of the Norman Conquest, and was an important port. After taking possession of the castrum, William I. drew a strong bank across its eastern end, and placed a castle in the area thus isolated. This first castle was probably entirely of wood, as there was a wooden palicium on the bank as late as the reign of Henry II. But if a wooden keep was built at first, it was very soon superseded by one of stone. The remains of this keep have recently been excavated by Mr Harold Sands and Mr Montgomerie, and show it to have been a most remarkable building (see Chapter XII., p. 355)—in all probability one of the few 11th century keeps in England. We may perhaps

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attribute this distinction to the fact that no less a man than the Conqueror's half-brother, the Count of Mortain, was made the guardian of this important port.

1 Domesday Book mentions that the value of the burgus had greatly risen. It was one of the burks mentioned in the Burghal Hidage.

2 Pipe Roll, 1187-1188. William of Jumièges says, "Statim firmissimo vallo castrum condidit, probisque militibus commisit." VII., 34. Wace professes to give the account of an eye-witness, who saw the timber for the castle landed from the ships, and the ditch dug. But Wace was not a contemporary, and as he has made the mistake of making William land at Pevensey instead of Hastings, his evidence is questionable. Roman de Rou, p. 293 (Andresen's edition).

3 The ruins of this keep, until 1908, were buried under so large a mound of earth and rubbish that Mr G. T. Clark mistook it for a motte, and the present writer was equally misled. It ought to be stated, before the date of this keep is finally settled, that the Gesta Stephani speaks of this castle as "editissimo aggere sublatum." P. 106. 4 Ibid.

PEVENSEY-PONTEFRACT

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Pevensey is mentioned as a port in the Close Rolls of Henry III.'s reign, and was one of the important waterways to the Continent.' As has been already noted, the establishment of the castle was followed by the usual rise in the value of the burgus. The area of the castle

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PONTEFRACT, Yorkshire (Fig. 26). This castle is not spoken of in Domesday by its French name, but there can be no doubt that it is "the Castle of Ilbert which is twice mentioned and several times alluded to in the Clamores, or disputed claims, which are enrolled at the end of the list of lands in Yorkshire belonging to the tenants-in-chief. The existence of Ilbert's castle at Pontefract in the 11th century is made certain by a charter (only an early copy of which is now extant) in the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster, in which William Rufus at his accession regrants to Ilbert de Lacy "the custom of the castelry of his castle, as he had it in the Conqueror's days and in those of the bishop of Bayeux." As Mr Holmes remarks, this carries us back to four years before the compilation of Domesday Book, since Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom William had left as regent during his absence in Normandy, was arrested and imprisoned in 1082.5

Pontefract is called Kirkby in some of the earlier charters, and this was evidently the English (or rather the Danish) name of the place. It lay within the manor of Tateshall, which is supposed to be the same as Tanshelf, a name still preserved in the neighbourhood

1 Close Rolls, i., 631a. 3 D. B., i., 373b.

2 D. B., i., 20b.

4 Cited in Holmes' History of Pontefract, p. 62.

6 Another charter, which is a confirmation by the second Ilbert de Lacy of the ecclesiastical gifts of Ilbert I. and Robert his son, states that the Chapel of St Clement in the castle of Pontefract was founded by Ilbert I. in the reign of William II. Mon. Ang., v., 123.

of, but not exactly at, Pontefract.' Tanshelf claims to be the Taddenescylf mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where King Edgar received the submission of the Yorkshire Danes in 947. There is no proof that the hill at Kirkby was fortified before the Conquest. It was a steep headland rising out of the plain of the Aire, and needing only to be scarped by art and to have a ditch cut across its neck to be almost impregnable. It lay scarcely a mile east of the Roman road from Doncaster to Castleford and the north.

It is no part of our task to trace the fortunes of this famous castle, which was considered in the Middle Ages to be the key of Yorkshire. In spite of the labels

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affixed to the walls we venture to assert with confidence that none of the masonry now visible belongs to the days of Ilbert. The structural history of the castle was probably this: Ilbert de Lacy, one of the greatest of the Norman tenants-in-chief in Yorkshire, built in this naturally defensive situation a castle of earth and wood, like other Norman castles. Whether he found the place already defended by earthen banks we do not attempt to decide, but analogy makes it fairly certain that the motte was his work, and was crowned by a wooden tower. This motte, which was at least partially scarped out of the soft sandstone rock, is now disguised by the remarkable keep which has been built up around it, consisting at present of two enormous round towers and the ruins of a third. As a fourth side is vacant, it may

1 It is not necessary to discuss the meaning of the name Pontefract, since for whatever reason it was given, it was clearly bestowed by the Norman settlers.

2 "Castrum de Pontefracto est quasi clavis in comitatu Ebor." Letter of Ralph Neville to Henry III., Fœdera, i., 429, cited by Holmes, Pontefract, 194.

3 The Conqueror had given him more than 200 manors in Yorkshire. Yorks. Arch. Journ., xiv., 17.

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