where were motte and bailey castles built in england
Motte-and-bailey castle In England, William invaded from Normandy in 1066, resulting in three phases of castle building in England, around 80% of which were in the motte-and-bailey pattern.[60] The first of these was the establishment by the new king of royal castles in key strategic locations, including many towns.[61] These urban castles could make use of the existing town's walls and fortification, but typically required the demolition of local houses to make space for them.[62] This could cause extensive damage: records suggest that in Lincoln 166 houses were destroyed, with 113 in Norwich and 27 in Cambridge.[63] The second and third waves of castle building in the late-11th century were led by the major magnates and then the more junior knights on their new estates.[64] Some regional patterns in castle building can be seen â€“ relatively few castles were built in East Anglia compared to the west of England or the Marches, for example; this was probably due to the relatively settled and prosperous nature of the east of England and reflected a shortage of unfree labour for constructing mottes.[65] In Wales, the first wave of the Norman castles were again predominantly made of wood in a mixture of motte-and-bailey and ringwork designs.[66] The Norman invaders spread up the valleys, using this form of castle to occupy their new territories.[67] After the Norman conquest of England and Wales, the building of motte-and-bailey castles in Normandy accelerated as well, resulting in a broad swath of these castles across the Norman territories, around 741 motte-and-bailey castles in England and Wales alone.[68]
Motte-and-bailey castle The motte-and-bailey castle is a particularly northern European phenomenon, most numerous in Normandy and Britain, but also seen in Denmark, Germany, Southern Italy and occasionally beyond.[41] European castles first emerged in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes and local territories became threatened by the Magyars and the Norse.[42] Against this background, various explanations have been put forward to explain the origins and spread of the motte-and-bailey design across northern Europe; there is often a tension among the academic community between explanations that stress military and social reasons for the rise of this design.[43] One suggestion is that these castles were built particularly in order to protect against external attack – the Angevins, it is argued, began to build them to protect against the Viking raids, and the design spread to deal with the attacks along the Slav and Hungarian frontiers.[44] Another argument is that, given the links between this style of castle and the Normans, who were of Viking descent, it was in fact originally a Viking design, transported to Normandy and Angers.[45] The motte-and-bailey castle was certainly effective against assault, although as historian André Debord suggests, the historical and archaeological record of the military operation of motte-and-bailey castles remains relatively limited.[46]
Motte-and-bailey castle The earliest purely documentary evidence for motte-and-bailey castles in Normandy and Angers comes from between 1020 and 1040, but a combination of documentary and archaeological evidence pushes the date for the first motte and bailey castle, at Vincy, back to 979.[3] The castles were built by the more powerful lords of Anjou in the late 10th and 11th centuries, in particular Fulk III and his son, Geoffrey II, who built a great number of them between 987 and 1060.[51] Many of these earliest castles would have appeared quite crude and rustic by later standards, belying the power and prestige of their builders.[52] William the Conqueror, as the Duke of Normandy, is believed to have adopted the motte-and-bailey design from neighbouring Anjou.[53] Duke William went on to prohibit the building of castles without his consent through the Consuetudines et Justicie, with his legal definition of castles centring on the classic motte-and-bailey features of ditching, banking and palisading.[54]
Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is notable for its long association with the English and later British royal family and for its architecture.