castles

castles. Many man-made structures are called ‘castles’; they are very diverse in character and date, ranging from the Iron Age fortification of Maiden castle (Dorset), to Dover castle, to Eastnor castle (Herefordshire) built as a stately home for the 1st Earl Somers in 1812. Of these only Dover is truly a castle, but the others tell us something about the way castles generally are regarded. Castles are fortifications, some of considerable size and complexity. But unlike Maiden castle, which housed and protected a whole people, they were built by a medieval lord for his own protection. Eastnor was built at a time when medievalism was fashionable, and castles were seen as the suitable residences of the aristocracy, symbols of their hereditary status and right to rule. True castles were also residences; the greatest were palaces of considerable size and luxuriousness. They were also status symbols and centres of government. The donjon or keep of a castle seems to have become a symbol of lordship, which may explain why Ralph, Lord Cromwell, built a tower keep as the centre of his castle at Tattershall in 1434, when towers as parts of the fortification had been superseded. Royal castles, especially those planted by William the Conqueror in the shire towns of England after the Conquest, became centres of royal government. They were county gaols, places where royal courts sat, and where documents, treasure, and weapons were securely held. Baronial castles were the headquarters of estates, where local government and business of the estate was transacted. Finally, all castles were privately owned. Whether the castle was built by the king to control or to protect the kingdom or by one of his barons to subdue his estate, it remained the property of the builder. Royal castles were not built for national defence, did not and still do not belong to the state. The king might require the owner of a castle to maintain it in readiness against an enemy of the kingdom, but the castle remained private property. If a castle was thought relevant to the defence of the realm it could be appropriated for the period of the emergency by the king, but was always returned to its owner. The castle of Norham on the Tweed was the centre of the bishop of Durham's estates in Norhamshire. It was built originally at the king's request and later taken several times into the king's hands during the protracted wars against the Scots.

Castles developed first in France, in Anjou, in the 10th cent. The first castles in England were built in Edward the Confessor's reign by his nephew Ralph and his Norman followers, and were strongly resented by the English, as foreign imports. Lordly residences in late Saxon England appear to have been enclosed with a palisade and a ditch, as excavations at Sulgrave (Northants) and Goltho (Lincs.) have shown, but the defences were slight. Castles were an introduction into England and a direct consequence of the Norman invasion of 1066.

Orderic Vitalis, a Norman historian writing in the 12th cent. about the Norman Conquest, said that the English fought bravely but lost to William because they lacked castles. William secured his first landing in England with a wooden castle, which he brought with him in ready-made sections from Normandy. On entering London, after the battle of Hastings, one of William's first acts was to order the creation of a castle to control the city: the Tower of London. His various campaigns to secure the country or to suppress rebellion are notable for castle-building at centres up and down the line of his march.

The castles built immediately after the Conquest, whether by the king or his followers, were generally rapidly constructed of earth and timber, using locally impressed Saxon labour. In form, they were either a fortified enclosure surrounded by a ditch (known as a ringwork) or a motte and bailey, that is an earth mound topped with a fortification and surrounded by a ditch connected to a further lower fortified enclosure. These castles vary considerably in size. This suggests that their owners had differing resources and also that their roles were different. Large castles like Windsor, Dover, or Richmond seem to have been conceived from the first as residences as well as fortresses. The White Tower built by William I to subdue London incorporated two large suites of rooms plus a grand chapel and extensive storage space within the defensive keep. Excavations of the motte at Abinger (Surrey) have shown that the top of the motte had a raised fighting platform or perhaps a look-out tower surrounded by a palisade. All the accommodation, if there was any, must have been in the bailey and suggests that the smaller castles were principally fortresses.

This distinction is important, for it helps to explain the development of castles after the Conquest. During the Conquest all Norman barons, great or small, seem to have built castles; however, the wooden fortresses of the first generation were not very durable and their owners were soon forced to decide whether they should be replaced in stone. Further, the castle's importance in warfare meant that its design was constantly being refined so that to maintain its military efficiency meant a constant outlay. Many smaller landowners seem to have ceased to be castle owners, preferring instead a fortified manor house, which provided security and domestic comfort within their means. Castles became the prerogative of the wealthy baronage and the crown. Thus the castles which are notable monuments today are those which were rebuilt and updated in the 12th cent. and later, with both defensive systems and residential arrangements brought to considerable sophistication. Amongst the most developed examples in Britain are the castles built for Edward I in north Wales, for example, Conwy, Caernarfon, and Harlech. These played a crucial role in the subjugation of the principality, and also provided palatial accommodation for the king and his officers.

Such castles were extremely expensive to build, and castles constructed in the later Middle Ages, such as Bodiam, were consequently smaller, although they retained considerable sophistication. Despite the introduction of gunpowder in that period, castles retained their importance. Late examples, such as Raglan (Monmouthshire), were designed to include cannon as part of their defences. Castles were again important in the English Civil War, when large numbers were refortified and held for the king. Several, including Corfe, suffered major sieges. In recognition of the part that castles had played in the war, the majority of surviving buildings were deliberately slighted by the victorious parliamentarians.

Lynda Rollason

Bibliography

Brown, R. A. , English Castles (2nd edn. 1976);
McNeill, T. , Castles (1992);
Pounds, N. J. G. , The Medieval Castle in England and Wales: A Social and Political History (Cambridge, 1990);
Thompson, M. W. , The Decline of the Castle (Cambridge, 1987).