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Apart from the late Mr G. T. Clark’s Mediæval Military Architecture, published in 1884, the greater portion of which is a series of monographs dealing with individual castles, there has been no attempt, until within the last few years, to apply systematic treatment to this branch of science. Recently, however, more than one book has been published upon the general subject of the castles of England. Mr Alfred Harvey has lately given a lucid account of the growth of the castle, with a valuable essay upon English walled towns; and the present year has seen the appearance of a book in which Mrs Armitage has embodied the result of labours of the utmost importance, extending over many years. In addition to works of a general character, a number of separate monographs, indispensable to students, have been published during the last twenty years, in the transactions of various archæological societies. The contributions of Mr W. H. St John Hope to the study of castle architecture take a foremost place among these, with papers such as those by Mr J. Bilson on Gilling castle and by Mr Harold Sands on Bodiam and the Tower of London; and the late Mr Cadwallader Bates’ unfinished Border Holds of Northumberland contains accounts of Warkworth and Bamburgh, as well as of smaller castles and peles, which must take rank among the classics of the subject.

In the present volume an attempt is made to trace the growth of the general principles of medieval fortification, with special reference to castles, in which, within their limited area, the most complete illustration of those principles is given. In order to give greater clearness to the account of their evolution, a prefatory chapter deals generally with earlier types of fortification in Britain, and the critical period of Saxon and Danish warfare is treated in the second chapter with some detail. This leads us to the early Norman castle of earthwork and timber; and the stone fortifications to which this gave place are introduced by a brief account of the progress of siegecraft and siege-engines. The Norman castle and its keep or great tower are then described. The developments of the later part of the twelfth century and the arrangements of the thirteenth-century castle, with those of the dwelling-house within its enceinte, follow and prepare the way for the castles of the reign of Edward I. which represent the highest effort of military planning. In the last two chapters is related the progress of the transition from the castle to the fortified manor-house, which followed the introduction of fire-arms into warfare and preceded the Renaissance period. It will be seen that the castle is taken as the unit of military architecture throughout; but illustrations are constantly drawn from walled towns, which are, in fact, the castles of communities, and in the eleventh chapter extended allusion is made to the chief features of their plan and defences.

In speaking of the walled town, however, as the castle of the community, it must not be forgotten that the castle is, in its origin, the stronghold of a single owner. That origin is still to some extent a vexed question; for the well-known theory of Mr G. T. Clark, that the castle of Norman times was identical with the burh of the Saxon Chronicle, was accepted as a dogma by the antiquaries of twenty-five to fifty years ago, and a theory thus established, however precipitately, is not easily shaken. The patient and thorough work of Mrs Armitage, which deserves the admiration of every scholar, has done much to disturb the foundations on which Mr Clark built his hypothesis; and Mr Neilson, Dr Round, Mr St John Hope, and others, have contributed their share to the discovery of the real character of the evidence, and the formulation of a sounder theory. The present writer has devoted much time to the study of the original authorities for Saxon and Norman military history, and it is his conviction that the weight of documentary evidence is entirely upon the side of the views upheld with so much ability and originality by these recent investigators. At the same time, the earthworks of early castles still present several difficult problems; and the discredit into which Mr Clark’s theory has fallen is a warning against the too confident acceptation of the conclusions of a more critical age, and against the danger of forcing exceptions into the service of the rule.

In the earlier part of this book, some allusion is made to methods of Roman warfare; and the main points of two of the sieges conducted by Cæsar and his lieutenants are summarily described. It need hardly be said, in view of what follows, that the methods of military architecture in the middle ages have, for the most part, their exact prototypes in Roman and Byzantine history. The student of the siege-campaigns of Philip Augustus will be constantly reminded, for example, of the relation by Ammianus of the exploits of Julian the Apostate. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the importance, first, of the contact of the Northmen who overran England and France with the traditional expedients of Roman siegecraft, as they existed in the eastern empire, and secondly, of the influence of the Crusades upon the development of medieval fortification. The conditions of our military architecture in the middle ages were naturally governed by the methods of attack employed by a besieging force. As these had been brought to a high state of perfection in the east, an advance upon which was hardly possible, the history of English fortification, from the Norman conquest to the general adoption of fire-arms in warfare, is that of a progress towards a system of defence in which western Europe lagged far behind the older centres of civilisation.

It is to be noted that, although the architecture of the castle and the fortifications of towns naturally took its share in the formal progress of Gothic art, the laws under which it was evolved bear no resemblance to the principles of construction, in obedience to which the medieval cathedral assumed its characteristic form. Ribbed vaults, Gothic mouldings, and traceried windows afford a clue to the dates of the various parts of a medieval castle, as they do to those of a church; but they are merely incidental to a type of construction to which the solid and impregnable wall is all-important. The cases are rare in which the builders of castles paid much attention to elaborate detail in the minor parts of their building: their decorative work is used with the economy and simplicity appropriate to the massive construction which their fortresses demanded.

A vast amount of work still remains to be done in the exploration of our military buildings and the reconstruction of their history; and, until that is accomplished, no thoroughly satisfactory general hand-book can be written. Nevertheless, it is hoped that there is room for books which may serve as general indicators to what has been done, up to the present time, in this direction. The bibliography which will be found preceding the text of this volume includes a selected list of monographs or articles upon individual castles, many of which have appeared in the transactions of various archaeological societies. These vary considerably in value; but, taken as a whole, they serve to enlarge our knowledge of the history and architecture of the buildings with which they are concerned.

The author desires to express his thanks, first to his wife, without whose constant help in the preparation of the book and in the provision of drawings and plans to illustrate its pages, it could hardly have been written. Mr Francis Bond, the editor of this series, has aided the author with unfailing kindness, by reading through the proofs, making suggestions as to the general form of the book, and arranging for its adequate illustration. To the following, who have kindly allowed the use of photographs, special thanks should be returned: Mrs Jessie Lloyd, the Revs. J. Bailey and G. W. Saunders, and Messrs Harold Baker, F. Bond, J. P. Gibson, F.S.A., G. J. Gillham, G. Hepworth, P. M. Johnston, F.S.A., R. Keene, W. Maitland, E. A. and G. R. Reeve, F. R. Taylor, and G. H. Widdows. The editors of the Archaeological Journal have sanctioned the use of various plans from the annual programmes of the Archaeological Institute. Mr A. Hadrian Allcroft and Messrs Macmillan have given consent to the reproduction of three illustrations from Mr Allcroft’s Earthwork of England. Permission to found the plan of Chepstow castle on one in the official Guide to that building was kindly given by his Grace the Duke of Beaufort, through Mr Noel H. P. Somerset. MM. Camille Enlart and Auguste Picard have permitted the insertion of a plan of Château-Gaillard, founded on that in M. Enlart’s Manuel. Mr R. Blair, F.S.A., has authorised a similar use of illustrations founded on those of Dr Bruce’s Roman Wall. Thanks are also due to the editor of the Yorkshire Archæological Journal for the plan of Sandal castle, and to Mr W. G. Watkins, jun., for his plan of Lincoln castle. Special acknowledgments are due to Mr Godfrey L. Clark for his liberality in putting at the disposal of the writer valuable plans and drawings from his father’s work. The author much regrets that questions of space and cost have prevented him from taking advantage of more than a limited number of the generous offers of illustration which reached him during the preparation of the book for the press.