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bailey type was of course only another version of the keep-and-bailey. In this primitive type of castle the all-important thing was the keep or donjon.1 Besides the donjon there was little else but a rampart and ditch. "Until the middle of the 12th century, and in the simpler examples of the epochs which followed, the donjon may be said to constitute in itself the whole castle."2 Piper states that up to the time of the Crusades German castles do not seem to have been furnished with mural towers. Köhler, whose work treats of French and English castles as castles as well as German, says that mural towers did not become general till the second half of the 12th century.* Nevertheless, as it is highly probable that the baileys of castles were defended at first with only wooden ramparts on earthen banks, even when the donjon was of stone, it is not unlikely that mural towers of wood may have existed at an earlier period than these writers suppose. It is, however, in favour of the general absence of mural towers that the word turris, even in 12th-century records, invariably means the keep, as though no other towers existed.5

That the baileys of some of the most important castles in England had only these wooden and earthen defences, even as late as the 13th century, can be amply

1 See Appendix N.

2 Enlart, Manuel d'Archæologie, ii., 516. "Jusqu'au milieu du xijième siècle, et dans les exemples les plus simples des époques qui suivent, le donjon est bien près de constituer à lui seul tout le chateau.”

3 Abriss der Burgenkunde, 50-60.

4 Entwickelung des Kriegswesen, iii., 352 and 428. No continental writers are entirely to be trusted about English castles; they generally get their information from Clark, and it is generally wrong.

This of course explains why the castle of London is always called The Tower; it was originally the only tower in the fortress.

ARRANGEMENTS IN STONE KEEPS

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proved from the Close Rolls. Colchester Castle had only a timber wall on the banks of its bailey as late as 1215, and in 1219 this palicium was blown down and an order issued for its reconstruction.2

The arrangements in the stone donjons were probably the same as those we have already described when writing of the wooden ones." The basement was the storehouse for provisions, the first floor was generally the guardhouse, the second the habitation, of the lord and lady. Where there were three or four storeys, the arrangements varied, and the finest rooms are often found on the third floor. An oratory was probably an invariable feature, though it cannot always be detected in ruined keeps. One of Mr Clark's most pronounced mistakes was his idea that these keeps were merely towers of refuge used only in time of war." History abounds with evidence that they were the permanent residences of the nobles of the 11th and 12th centuries. The cooking, as a rule, was carried on in a separate building, of which there are remains in some places.

Occasionally we find a variant of the keep-and-bailey type, which we may call the gatehouse keep. The most

'The Close Rolls mention palicia or stockades at the castles of Norwich, York, Devizes, Oxford, Sarum, Fotheringay, Hereford, Mountsorel, and Dover.

2 Close Rolls, i., 195a and 389.

3 See Chapter VI., p. 89, and Appendix O.

4 Piper states that the evidence of remains proves that the lower storey was a prison. But these remains probably belong to a later date, when the donjon had been abandoned as a residence, and was becoming the dungeon to which prisoners were committed. The top storey of the keep was often used in early times as a prison for important offenders, such as Conan of Rouen, William, the brother of Duke Richard II., and Ranulf Flambard. 5 See Appendix P.

6 At Conisburgh and Orford castles there are ovens on the roofs, showing that the cooking was carried on there; these are keeps of Henry II.'s time.

remarkable instance of this kind in England is Exeter, which appears never to have had any keep but the primitive gatehouse, undoubtedly the work of Baldwin de Moeles, the first builder of the castle. In Normandy, De Caumont gives several instances of gatehouse keeps. Plessis-Grimoult (which has been visited by the writer) has a fragment of a gatehouse tower, but has also a mural tower on the line of the walls; as the castle was ruined and abandoned in 1047, these remains must be of early date.' The gatehouse keep is probably an economical device for combining a citadel with the defence of the weakest part of the castle.

We must pass on to the keeps of Henry I.

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There is only one in England which authentic history gives to his time, that of Rochester. But the chronicler Robert de Torigny has fortunately given us a list of the keeps and castles built by Henry in Normandy, and though many of these are now destroyed, and others in ruins, a certain number are left, which, taken along with Rochester, may give us an idea of the type of keep built in Henry I.'s time. The keeps attributed by Robert to Henry I. Henry I. are Arques, Gisors, Falaise,

1 De Caumont says these remains are on a motte, a strange statement, as they are only a foot or two above the surrounding level.

2 No stone castles in England are known to have been built by William Rufus; he built Carlisle Castle, but probably only in wood. As we have seen, several Welsh castles were built in his time, but all in earth and timber.

3 Built by Archbishop William of Corbeuil. Gervase of Canterbury, R. S., ii., 382.

4 Robert de Torigny, also called Robert de Monte, was Abbot of Mont St Michael during the lifetime of Henry II., and was a favoured courtier whose means of obtaining information were specially good. French writers are in the habit of discounting his statements, because they do not recognise the almost universal precedence of a wooden castle to the stone building, which when it is recognised, completely alters the perspective of castle dates. See Appendix Q.

KEEPS OF HENRY I

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Argentan, Exmes, Domfront, Ambrières, Vire, Waure, Vernon, Evreux, Alençon, St Jean, and Coutances. How many of these survive we cannot positively say;" we can only speak of those we have seen (Falaise, Domfront, and Gisors), and of Arques, described by M. Deville in his Histoire du Chateau d'Arques, by M. Viollet le Duc in his treatise on Donjons, and by Mr G. T. Clark."

Speaking under correction, as a prolonged study of the keeps in Normandy was impossible to the writer, we should say that there is no very striking difference to be observed between the keeps of Henry I. and those built by his father. The development of the forebuilding seems to be the most important change, if indeed we are justified in assuming that the 11th-century keeps never had it; its remains can be seen at Arques, Falaise, Domfront, and Rochester. At Arques and Falaise the doorway is on the second floor, which is an innovation, a new attempt to solve the difficulty of defending the entrance. The first floor at Arques could

1 The keep of Caen, which was square, was demolished in 1793. De Caumont, Cours d'Antiquités, v., 231. The keep of Alençon is also destroyed. There are fragments of castles at Argentan, Exmes, and St Jean-le-Thomas. The keep of Vernon or Vernonnet is embedded in a factory. Guide Joanne, p. 6.

2 The writer has also visited Vire and Le Mans, but even if the walls of the keep of Vire, of which only two sides remain, were the work of Henry I., the details, such as the corbelled lintel, the window benches, and the loop in the basement for a crossbow, point to a later period. At Le Mans, to the north of the cathedral, is a fragment of an ancient tower, built of the rudest rubble, with small quoins of ashlar; this may be the keep built by William I., which Wace says was of stone and lime (p. 234, Andresen's edition). It is difficult to examine, being built up with cottages. Domfront, like Langeais, is only a fragment, consisting of two walls and some foundations.

3 Dictionnaire de l'Architecture.

4 M. M. A., i., 186.

"In speaking of Falaise, of course we only mean the great square keep, and not the Little Donjon attached to it at a later period, nor the fine round keep added by Talbot in the 15th century.

only be entered by a trap from the second floor; at Falaise there is a stone stair from one to the other. Rochester is entered from the first floor. The basement storeys of Arques, Falaise, and Domfront are quite unlit; at the Tower the basement has had a number of loopholes, and the angular heads of those which remain suggest that they are at least copied from original lights. The main floors in Henry I.'s keeps are always of wood, but this was not because vaulting was then unknown, because the crypt, subcrypt, and chapel of the Tower are vaulted, not to speak of many early churches.1 The four keeps mentioned have all three storeys, thus not exceeding Colchester in height; the Tower has the Tower has now four storeys, but a good authority has remarked that the fourth storey has not improbably been made by dividing the third.

2

No marked advance is observable in the masonry of these keeps. Arques is built of petit appareil; Falaise of small stones in herring-bone work; Domfront of very small stones rudely coursed; Rochester of Kentish rag mixed with flint rubble. Both Falaise and Domfront have plinths of superior masonry, but there is always the possibility that these plinths are later additions. The voussoirs of the arches at Falaise, Domfront, and Rochester are larger than the rag or tile voussoirs which are used at Colchester, the Tower, and Langeais. At Rochester and Arques provision is made for carrying the water-supply from the well in the

1 Small spaces, such as the chapel, passages, and mural chambers, are vaulted in most keeps.

2 Colchester keep has only two storeys now, but Mr Round argues that it must have had three, as a stairway leads upward from the second floor, in the N.W. tower, and some fragments of window cases remain as evidence. Colchester Castle, p. 92.

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