Norman Conquest - Castles Flashcards
Where were new Norman Castles built?
• Robert of Mortain was give huge amounts of land and built castles in Western England
• Knights were given land and expected to control these territoires. Built castles in countryside, and used for military purposes and to settle/manage land
• Norman gatehouse in Exeter with large wooden doors facing into the city, shows the gatehouse was status symbol.
• Sussex was divided between three barons, who each built a castle to protect the roads between London and Normandy.
• William built a castle immediately after capturing London
• At Hastings the Normans used the remains of an Iron Age fort to build a castle
• 1980s, archaeologists found that most castles were at the centre of the lords estate and used for administration
• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - wrote about castles built near the Welsh border with mottes, wooden towers on top and a wooden palisade around - worried about Welsh rebellions
• Pevensey - when William landed in 1066, immediately built a castle using the remains of a Roman fort. Strengthened remaining walls and built an Earth bank and palisade on one corner
Hen Domen - Military Fortress
• excavation shows there was a large tower, would have given a view over the roads and river crossing. Double ramparts and deep ditched.
• few valuables - this means that it was probably occupied by soliders
What were Norman castles used for? (Military fortress)
• castle was strengthened in York after rebellions in 1068 - motte was over 60 metres wide - suggests it was used as a means of controlling and threatening rebels.
• William relied on knights and barons to establish control - after the conquest, continued to build castles to control territory
• castle building were vital to success, helped William secure south east England and capture London
• castles were also built to protect roads so William could move his army across England. Royal castles at Lincoln, Cambridge and Huntingdon were vital in securing the kingdom
• William Fitzosbern was given job of controlling welsh border. By 1071 , he has built castles at Chepstow, Berkeley, Clifford and Wigmore
• Between 1068 and 1071, there were serious threats to William’s rule, with uprisings in south west , the north, and east anglia. Used castles to crush revolts, and secure area after wards
What were Norman castles used for? (Status symbol)
• 1068-1071 William built castles to show power because they were unpopular amongst Saxons. When William left for Normandy in 1067, FitzOsbern built them across the south of England
• Lords often altered the landscape to make it more impressive - eg building monasteries, diverting roads or creating deer parks
• smaller than Saxon defences , only design to house a small number of soldiers - taller and dominated the landscape (for status symbol)
• after 1071 nearly all castles were in rural areas, which were not well defended or in a good place for military defence. For example, William de Warenne’s Castle Acre in Norfolk was a two-stories house built in the centre of ring work
• only 35 castles had been built in places were rebellions occurred by 1071
Marc Morris
• argued that early Norman castles were heavily defended sites containing garrisons of Norman cavalry which could have inflicted great damage on the English populations
• ‘first and foremost, military instillations’
Features of a Norman Castle
• Rampart - Earth banks which would be several meters high
• palisade - tall wooden fence on top of the ramparts
• moat - deep channel outside the rampart which sometimes contains water
• Bailey - enclosure inside the ramparts, usually smaller than the enclosure in the Saxon Buhr-Geats
• gatehouse - a fortified entrance to the Bailey
• motte - a mound inside the Bailey, which was several metered higher
• tower - centre of the castle, built on top of the motte
What was new/different about Norman castles?
• castles were common in France, but the first mottes in England were built by Normans. Castles were built in France 200 years before they were introduced to England .
• smaller than Saxon defences, designed to house a small number of soliders. Taller and dominated landscape, suggests that idea of castles for status symbol was introduced
• built ringworks (earthwork defences) instead of mottes. Built on sites with existing fortresses - more efficient
• before conquest, Saxons had burh-geats (defended enclosures) and royal burhs (fortified towns)
• important features and showed the status of thegns living there - Normans introduced a more oppressive and military purpose
