Welsh Journals

gtfdtaefltogia: €mhnn%i%. FOURTH SERIES.—VOL. XII, NO. XLV. JANUARY 1881. OF THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AT THE CONQUEST AND UNDER THE CONQUEROR. It has usually been assumed that the rapidity of Wil¬ liam's conquest was due to the absence of strong places in England. There is, however, ground for believing that England, in this respect, was exceedingly well provided,—quite as well provided as Normandy; and that, with the possible exception of a very few re¬ cently constructed strongholds, the works in the two countries were very similar in character. The older sites of the castles of the barons in Normandy are nearly all ascertained, and are for the most part distinguished by a moated mound with an appended court or courts also moated. This simple and very effective form of defence seems to have been in use among the northern nations, invaders both of England and the Continent, and in the ninth and tenth centuries was as common on the banks of the Thames, the Humber, and the Severn, as on those of the Seine and the Orne. It was in the eleventh century, and chiefly during the troubles at¬ tendant upon the accession and minority of Duke William, that the Normans seem to have adopted a new and more permanent description of fortress, and the old fashioned structure of timber began to be re¬ placed by walls and towers in masonry, and especially 4th ser., VOL. XII. 1