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Maine, and were still in the diocese of Le Mans. Whether traditional or recent the line was artificial; at its weakest spot, in the open plain of the upper Avre, Henry II is stated to have strengthened it by elaborate earthworks, 2 and at every point a strong military administration was required for its defence. Where the rivers flow along parallel lines, as in Caux and the Evreçin, it was possible to fall back upon a second system of defences. Thus, after the loss of the valleys of the middle Eure and the lower Avre in 1196, the Normans fell back on the fortresses of the Itun, supported by Conches, Neubourg and Breteuil with its forest; similarly on the right bank of the Seine, the Andelle with Radepont took the place of the Epte, and after the fall of Eu and Aumâle on the Bresle, the eastern frontier was withdrawn to the valley of the Béthune in which the great castle of Arques lay.

Until the reign of Henry I the dukes were mainly dependent upon their vassals for the defence of this extensive frontier. Richard II, in the beginning of the eleventh century, seems to have adopted the practice of Fulk Nerra, for Domfront and Alençon were built with his approval by Ivo, a military engineer (balistarius) from France, and both these strongholds, together with the family fortress at Bellême were within the jurisdiction of Ivo's successors.4 Yet Richard himself built his first

1. The land between Domfront and the Colmont was known as the district of Le Passeis, and was farmed as a bailiwick.

2. For this system of ditches and ponds, see Bonnard, p. 25, and Congrès archéologique (1876), p. 362, and the writers there mentioned. A remark made by Robert of Torigni under the year 1169, seems to be the authority for referring the earthworks to Henry II: "Rex Henricus fecit fossata alta et lata inter Franciam et Normanniam ad praedones arcendos" (ed. Delisle, ii, 13).

3. This river was known as the Dieppe (Deppa) in the twelfth century.

4. Stapleton, I, lxxi.

important castle on the Avre at Tillières, 1 and a change of policy is apparent by the time of the Conqueror, who not only undertook the fortification of the Epte at Gisors, but insisted on his right to control the castles of his barons.2 It was Henry I, however, who after the anarchic administration of Duke Robert, first organised the Norman defences upon a scientific plan. When he was count of the Côtentin he had acquired Domfront, then in Maine, whose inhabitants had revolted against Robert of Bellême (1092); and as duke he built, added and repaired on a large scale. The age of motte and ditch had passed, and a company of strong keeps, high and broad, rose to reinforce the scanty towers of Duke Richard's time. In Rouen he built a great wall round the keep, in Caen he built the keep itself. In Arques, in Gisors, Falaise, Argentan, Exmes, Domfront, Ambrières, Vire, Gavrai, Vernon, Henry built a keep; also at Coutances, Evreux and Alençon. Along the march he built new castles altogether; Drincourt and Lions-la-Forêt in Caux and Bray, Châteauneuf on the Epte, Nonancourt and Verneuil on the Avre, Bonmoulins on the borders of Perche, the new castle on the Colmont in Le Passeis,

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1. Tillières (Tegularia) was in the eleventh century the key to the valley. The honour afterwards came to the family of Crispin. See Bonnard, p. 22; Stapleton, I, cxx, II, xlv; Stenton, William the Conqueror, p. 77.

2. At the request of William, Robert of Bellême built the great castle at Gisors (Ordericus Vitalis, iv, 21). According to Dion it was a tower on a central mound (Bulletin Monumental, xxxiii, 334).

3. Stapleton, I, lxxviii. Juhel of Mayenne finally surrendered the castles of Le Passeis (Gorron, Ambrières, and Neufchâteau-sur-Colmont) in January, 1162. See Robert of Torigni, i, 335.

4. Congrès archéologique, 1876, pp. 368-374; Eng. Hist. Rev., xix,

209-10.

5. Robert of Torigni, i, 164–5.

6. Ibid., 197. It is possible that, in the cases of Evreux and Alençon, the duke built keeps in order to watch the local families, since these places were not in the demesne.

Pontorson over against the Breton frontier near Mont Saint-Michel, and in the interior Vaudreuil, owed their origin, according to Robert of Torigni, to King Henry.1 Most of them still stood firm, their white stone work but little worn, when King Philip came.

Robert of Torigni is also our chief authority on the means taken by his friend Henry II for the preservation and improvement of his grandfather's work. 2 He improved or renewed nearly all his castles, and especially Gisors, on the Norman frontier. He enclosed with a paling his park and dwelling-house at Quevilli, near Rouen. 3 He built a marvellous lazar house near Caen. He renewed the hall and rooms (cameras) in front of the keep at Rouen. And not in Normandy alone, but in England, Aquitaine, Anjou, Maine, Touraine he worked at his castles and houses, either building new ones or restoring the old. Moreover, he built the castle at Osmanville on the river Vire.' The rolls of the exchequer for 1180 and 1184 confirm and enlarge this evidence. We can see the king's men at work on walls and towers, mills and causeways. 5 A thousand oaks were felled for the construction of the palace at Bur;6 the forests of Caux provided palisading for the royal dwellings in the Côtentin. 7 Some operations, great or small, were paid for in 1180 at nearly every castle on the

1. Ibid., 196-7.

2. Henry II does not appear to have built many new castles, at least in Normandy.

3. This afterwards became a lazar house, well endowed. See Stapleton, I, cxlvi; Delisle, Actes de Henri II, no. 486.

4. Robert of Torigni, i, 331-2. Osmanville was farmed separately in 1180. Rot. Scacc., i, 8.

5. At Osmanville, Condé, Argentan, Gorron, Domfront, Vire, Pontorson, and especially at Tenchebrai, Verneuil, Arques. Rot. Scacc., i, 8, 17, 24, 27, 28, 29, 52, 84, 90; also Sainte-Mère-Eglise, Exmes, Moulins, Bonmoulins; pp. 98, 104, 105.

6. Ibid., i, 30.

7. Ibid., 31, 82.

March, and especially in the Norman Vexin and the cluster of castles in or about the forest of Lions. It is also clear from the rolls that local responsibility had been defined: the revenues of Rouen were applied especially to the constructions in Bray and the Vexin, for these were the main defence of the city, but in the rest of Normandy the prepositurae were for the most part self-supporting or depended upon grants made from neighbouring budgets by royal writ. The system was by no means rigid and expenses of considerable magnitude, such as those incurred by the construction of the mills at Gorron,2 were met by liberal subventions drawn from a large area; but small precedent appears in Henry's reign for the special efforts required in the reigns of Richard and John.

I will take as an illustration of this financial system the expenditure on the castles east of the Seine. In 1180 the chief outlay was directed on the castle of Beauvoir (Bellum Videre) in the northern part of the forest of Lions. The castle was important enough to be an independent ministerium and was in the charge of Enguerrand the Porter. Over £450 had been spent on the operations; and of this sum the revenue of Rouen contributed in the year 11791180 £353. 4s. 1d., the farm of Drincourt £50 and the local farm of the ministerium £48. 17s. 11d. A remark that the greater part of this sum had been expended after the corroboration (per visum) of three local witnesses reminds us of a fact upon which the later Norman and English rolls often insist, that for purposes of this kind

1. “In margine etiam ducatus Normanniae fere omnia sua castella, et maxime Gisorz, melioravit vel renovavit"; Robert of Torigni, l.c. 2. Rot. Scacc., I, 9, 14, 28. Moneys from Mortain, Le Teilleul, Dom front.

3. Rot. Scacc., I, 75, and cf. 70, 74. A comparison of these passages proves that the castellan had received more from Rouen than is accounted for on the rolls. The odd sums are either balances of farms not expended, or represent the valuation of the local jury.

moneys were granted according to the estimate of a local jury.1

The works at Lions-la-Forêt and Neufmarché had cost £112. 5s., which had been paid out of the farm. They included the construction of rooms in the keep at Lions, which had been heightened. Repairs at Neufchâteau and Neaufle on the Epte had cost £87. 3s. 9d., of which £40 had come from Rouen. 3 At Gisors the repairs of 1180 were not very great-they included a frieze (echina), repaired ditches, and a rope which cost 40s. for hauling up timber but four years later the valley of the Epte must have been very busy. King Henry had realised that the Norman Vexin would be the first object of his young rival's attack. A great military command which included, besides the bailiwick of the Vexin, custody of all the castles on the lower Epte and of Vaudreuil on the other bank of the Seine, was entrusted to William Earl of Arundel; and among the earl's duties was the direction of repairs. For this purpose he received no less than £4,270, collected from the English and Norman treasuries and from Normandy. This money was expended as followsthe record may serve as an illustration of many similar returns in this and succeeding reigns:

Moneys received ad operationes castrorum de Marchia: £ Angevin

From the treasury at Caen through Herbert

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of Argentan and William of Calviz 8 600

1. The wording of the writ generally runs "per testimonium legalium hominum de visneto."

2. Rot. Scacc., i, 73.

3. Ibid., 70, 72.

4. Ibid., 72; Stapleton, I, cxii.

5. Rot. Scacc., i, 110-111.

6. Ibid., 110, 116, 118, 120 passim, 121.

7. This treasury official had previously farmed the forest of Gouffern (Rot. Scacc i, 17, 18).

8. This financier seems to have been a large money-lender, for accord. ing to the roll of 1195, after his death, the exchequer confiscated his wealth in various parts of Normandy, e.g., ibid., i, 170.

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