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CHAPTER XXII
(A)
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE
In the third volume the course of church building was traced up to the
twelfth century, and it was shown that Romanesque architecture is found in all
parts of Western Europe. There are of course local peculiarities, but the
family likeness is marked in places so far apart as Milan, the Rhine district,
Durham, and Santiago de Compostella. In some
countries, notably Catalonia and the south of France, the architecture may be
described as static. The builders of the twelfth century, and even of the
thirteenth, were content to repeat the forms, of structure and ornament, which
they had inherited. Plain cylindrical vaults, massive walls and columns, round
arches, small windows, were the rule; there was no restless striving after new
ideas. In North Italy, however, and in Normandy and England, Romanesque
architecture was dynamic. Even as early as the eleventh century it displayed
the new spirit which was to culminate in
the Gothic architecture of the thirteenth. Many forces were at work to produce
that great result, which cannot be wholly understood by isolating any one of
them. The most obvious is structural invention. Architecture is a line art,
but it can do nothing if it does not obey the laws of engineering. Building on
them, it achieves stability, but it need not therefore sacrifice beauty and
grace. In all great periods of art, and certainly not least in the Gothic, the
structural cannot be separated from the ornamental; the two form an indivisible
whole.
Dealing, then, first with the
development of structure, we find the vital principles which transformed
Romanesque into Gothic at work in North Italy as early as 1040. The abbey of Sannazzaro Sesia was begun in
that year, and Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan followed soon
after. Durham was in building before the end of the century. These instances
are given, as they are among the first where ribbed vaulting, in any vital
manner, is found. The plain groined vault, produced by two intersecting
cylindrical vaults, had been used in Roman times and before, and was common enough
in the eleventh century. The ribbed form may appear to be merely a development,
but it is almost a new principle. The extensive wooden centring required for
an unribbed vault constituted a grave difficulty,
especially in a country like Lombardy, where wood was scarce, “Ribs” are
skeleton arches, built first and filled in between afterwards. The system
requires much less centring than the other, especially when, as in Lomburdy and France, the vaulting cells are generally
domical. Concentration of pressure was made a much easier matter by ribbed
vaulting, and concentration is the vital principle, as regards the development
of structure, which transformed Romanesque into Gothic.
The second principle in the
transforming process many would put first: the use of the pointed arch. Much
ingenuity has been wasted in accounting for its invention, and scores of
theories have been put forward. We are, however, not concerned here with its
origin, for it was used, even in ancient Egypt, many centuries before our
period. The Saracens knew it well, and it is found in static Romanesque
architecture in the south of France in the eleventh century. Early in the
twelfth, vaulting had reached the stage where little progress could be made
without it, and thus, as in so many other cases, common sense led to the
change. The pointed arch, whether in vaulting or elsewhere, has less outward
thrust than the round, and is therefore easier to deal with.
The mention of outward thrust
naturally leads to the third transforming principle: the use of the flying
buttress. The Middle Ages inherited from the fourth century an aisled hall as
its chief church plan. For centuries this was covered by a wooden roof, but
gradually the difficulties of throwing a stone vault over a wide space were
overcome. Even then, however, there was no solution of the problem of
supporting a high vault. For dignity and for light it was desired to have a
clerestory with a row of windows high above the aisle roofs. Such windows could
not be safely inserted as long as cylindrical vaults
with continuous pressure were used. But, even when groined vaults had led to
concentration, there was no obvious way of meeting
the outward thrust. As regards the aisles, it was simple enough to build
buttresses against the outer walls, but the clerestory cannot be thus dealt
with without blocking up the aisles below. How then is the abutment to be
provided? One of the earliest attempts we see in the choir of Durham, where the
original vault was finished in 1104. Complete round arches are built under the
roof of the triforium to catch the thrust of the vault and to convey it to the
outer wall. In the nave, where the vault was built between 1128 and 1133, the
more logical half-arch is used in the same position, as it had been at Norwich
as early as 1096, though in that case the vault itself was not built. These
concealed half-arches were too low to meet the thrust of the high vault
properly, and it was only a step to bring them up higher and expose them over
the aisle roofs. The earliest examples naturally enough are not very
scientific, and it was some time before the importance of a heavy pinnacle was
realised, to verticalise the outward thrust and
convey it to the ground within the foot of the buttress.
By the end of the twelfth century the
three transforming factors in the structure-ribbed vaulting, the pointed arch,
the flying buttress had full sway in the best buildings. The resulting
concentration began to show in all the parts. As early as 1040 at Jumieges there had been shafts from base to roof, even
though there was no central vault. Such shafts became
organic features binding the whole structure together, and going far to prove the saying that a Gothic church is designed from the vault
downward and not from the base upward. The complete logic of the Gothic system
was more and more perceived, especially in the Île de France, during the
thirteenth century, so that finally a great church appears to rest on pillars
and buttresses only, and walls become a mere screen from the weather. Even the
walls themselves are largely done away by the huge windows which fill up the
whole space between the vaulting pyramids. A comparison between St Sernin at Toulouse or St John’s chapel in the Tower of
London on the one hand, and Amiens or St Denis on the other, will show the
extraordinary contrast between the Romanesque of the eleventh century and the
Gothic of the thirteenth.
The change from massiveness and gloom
to delicacy and light is most prominent in the system of building, but it applies
to everything else in the church. If the walls become thin the ornamental
carving also becomes delicate. Deeply recessed heavy doorways, embellished with axecut surface designs, give way to lighter forms
with undercut mouldings. The ornament, here and elsewhere, is full of life and
grace. Round-headed slits give place to long lancets, and then, by gradual
process, to large traceried windows of endless variety. It is true that the
laws of engineering had to be obeyed, but the artist was not enslaved by them.
He frankly accepted his limitations, but worked within
them in such a way that a harmonious whole was produced. Science and art were
combined to perfection in the thirteenth century.
The church plan had almost been
determined in the Romanesque period. Starting from the basilican form of the fourth century, it had arrived, at the end of the eleventh, at the
characteristic monastic development of St Sernin at
Toulouse or Norwich. The secular churches followed suit with nave and aisles,
transepts, often with aisles, apsidal presbytery, with or without an ambulatory
and projecting chapels. A central tower is normal, but there is usually at
least one other. The early Gothic builders made no revolutionary change, but developed what they received. The round apse
became the polygonal chevet or the square end. Extra aisles and chapels were
added, and there may be towers to the transepts as well as to the west front
and the crossing. Through all the changes, however, even when the final, result
is an oblong, the Romanesque plan can generally be discovered.
So far we
have been tracing the main current of the Gothic stream. Taking its rise in
Lombardy, it spread all over Western Europe and reached its full breadth in the
Île of France. In that district, favoured in so many ways and not least by fine
building stone, there were erected between 1150 and 1250 a series of churches
which have never been surpassed. No two are alike, and the logic of all is not
equally complete, but at Paris, Amiens, Chartres, Rheims, Laon, Soissons,
Noyon, and many another,we find the same engineering cleverness and the same beautiful clothing. At
Beauvais the skill, in its soaring ambition, overtopped itself and disaster
followed. It has been called a failure, but it is surely then a splendid
failure.
The period with which this volume is
mainly concerned is far the most important in the history of Gothic
architecture, the late twelfth century and the thirteenth. Nearly all the great
churches of France were created at that time. The fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries saw many additions and alterations but few complete wholes. The
church of St Ouen at Rouen is almost the only
building of the first class. Early in the sixteenth century there was a great
revival of church building, which before long departed entirely from Gothic
precedents. “Flamboyant” detail became richer and richer till the process was
stopped by the Renaissance.
Emphasis has been laid on the Île de
France, as we have there, in unique degree, the combination of logical
completeness and beauty of carving. In other provinces, however, there is no
lack of great building, often with strongly marked local peculiarity. To
mention only one example, the cathedral church of Albi, in a district where
good stone is rare, has the appearance of a great brick fortress. It is Gothic, but could not be mistaken for the Gothic of the
neighbourhood of Paris.
England owes as much as France to the
great principles which transformed Romanesque to Gothic, but, north of the
Channel, they were not carried out with such complete consistency. English
vaulting became far more elaborate than French, though there was not always a
structural reason for its developments. The fan vaults, at the end of the
Middle Ages, are marvels of scientific skill, and combine the continuity of
surface shown in cylindrical vaults with the concentration of pressure which is
the main contribution of groining. English churches run to length, and French
to height. English transepts are more marked and are sometimes doubled, as at
Salisbury. In that noble secular church, built on a new site in the thirteenth
century, many of the chief beauties and peculiarities of English work are
illustrated. Its great spire, finished a century later, gathers the whole
building together and gives an external effect which contemporary Amiens, with
its lofty interior, cannot rival. Salisbury, Lincoln, Worcester, Lichfield,
Ely, and most other great churches in the same country, have illustrations of
“Early English” architecture, with its purity, its grace, and its vigorous
life. Sculpture is much less common and less noble than in France, but Wells is
a standing monument to the art of the thirteenth century as well as Amiens and
Chartres.
The fourteenth century is far more
important, comparatively, in England than in France. As a complete scheme
Exeter is the typical example, though incorporating earlier work. The nave of
York and the choir of Carlisle are splendid rivals, especially in their huge
traceried windows. The lantern of Ely modified the characteristic church plan
more obviously than any other erection of the Middle Ages. The curving of
natural leaves was a prominent feature late in the thirteenth century and early
in the fourteenth. The best examples are the earliest, as in the nave of York
and the chapter-house of Southwell.
The fifteenth century, like the
fourteenth, is a more important period in England than in France. Even before
the Black Death in 1348, a new style had been coming in at Gloucester which has
generally been called “Perpendicular.” It was taken up elsewhere and came to
fruition in the reign of Henry VI. The title refers mainly to the window
tracery, which consists largely of vertical and horizontal lines, very
different from the flowing tracery which preceded it and the contemporary “flamboyant'”
in France. Foliage became conventional again, of a wreath-like character,
especially in Devonshire. Mouldings were thinner, and, in ornament, effect was
sought by reproducing structural forms in miniature. Two of the finest features
are the towers, especially in Somersetshire, and the open timber roofs. A
fifteenth-century spire is rare, whereas the combined tower and spire was
normal in the thirteenth century in France and England. The most striking type
of roof is the hammer-beam, common in. East Anglian churches, but shewing its noblest and earliest example in a
secular building, Westminster Hall. No great cathedral or monastic church was
wholly built in the fifteenth century, but independent works were carried out
at Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Winchester, York. The special glory of the
period is the parish churches. No other country can rival these from 1200 to
1500, but the fifteenth century is the most prolific period, especially in
Devonshire and East Norfolk, where almost every church was rebuilt at this
time.
Gothic architecture is obviously an
importation into Scotland, and not a native art. There are, however, some
important monuments, notably Glasgow cathedral, dating mainly from the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. French influence is strong, as might be
expected, and the Perpendicular style never took root. The richest of the later
buildings, Roslyn chapel, is an exotic and has affinities with Spain and
Portugal.
The most interesting churches in
Ireland are of earlier date than we are concerned with in this volume, and are in some respects unique. In the Middle Ages
English influence was paramount within the Pale, as is illustrated in Christ
Church and St Patrick’s at Dublin. The best Gothic work is generally found in
the conventual houses, particularly those of the various orders of friars.
We have travelled far from Italy,
where the Gothic movement first got its inspiration in the organic vaulting of
Lombardy. The early promise, however, was not fulfilled, for the extensive remains
of classical antiquity always brought back the builders to traditional forms.
The round arch was quite common all through the thirteenth century, and it can
almost be said that the fourteenth is the only Gothic period not dominated by
Romanesque on the one hand or the Renaissance on the other. For delicacy and
charm few buildings north of the Alps can rival the tower of Giotto at Florence.
This delicacy is a marked feature of many a doorway, window, capital, and base,
revealed to us so often by the enthusiasm and insight of Ruskin. Colour
schemes add greatly to the beauty, as at Siena, especially when exquisite
marbles are used. Brick, too, is a common material. When, however, we turn to
the structural principles which govern the whole style, we find the Italian
builders very deficient in comprehension. It is true that they built high
groined vaults in huge square and oblong compartments, but they provided no
proper abutments for them. The flying buttress is almost unknown and there is
no efficient substitute for it. The consequence is that many Italian vaults
would have fallen down if iron rods had not been added
to hold the buildings together. These rods are a great disfigurement inside the
churches and also ixi the
porches, whose arches usually rest on pillars without buttresses. So normal did
they become that they are often added in places where they are not necessary.
The churches have far fewer bays than in northern work. Great churches like San Petronio at Bologna and the Frari at Venice do not really impress by their size, owing to the fewness of the
parts. Ornamental screens of stone in front of a church are found in all
countries with little relation to what is behind them, but the system was
carried farthest in Italy. The west front at Orvieto, for example, and the
north front at Cremona are architectural shams, giving little indication of the
churches behind them. Milan cathedral is the largest medieval church except
Seville. It is built throughout of white marble, and the elaboration of detail is
excessive. The external proportions are somewhat squat, and the addition of
classical detail gives a hybrid effect. The interior is impressive, but it
suffers from the sham piercing of the vault and from the non-structural
character of the capitals. During the fifteenth century the Renaissance became
more and more pronounced, but Gothic forms lingered on, as in the Certosa at Pavia.
In Sicily there is remarkable early
Gothic work at Monreale, Messina, and Palermo. Cefalu cathedral has been claimed as the cradle of the
style. It was begun in 1132, and shews the pointed
arch in the windows and in the ribbed vaulting over the choir and the north
transept.
The coast towns of Dalmatia have
Gothic as well as Romanesque churches. The most remarkable is the cathedral of Sebenico, dating from 1430, and Italian Gothic in its
earlier parts.
The island of Cyprus, as we might
suppose from its medieval history, shows western influence in its buildings.
There are important Gothic churches of French character at Nicosia and
Famagusta.
Church architecture took a different
course in Spain than it did in any other country. For centuries there was the
disturbing factor of the Moorish occupation, but Saracenic forms are admitted
so sparingly into churches that it would appear to have been almost a point of
conscience not to use the style of the hated invader. Toledo was recovered as
early as 1085, and a mosque became the Capilia del
Cristo de la Luz. A twelfthcentury synagogue, in
Moorish style, was taken from the Jews in 1405 and became the church of Santa
Maria la Blanca. There are other Saracenic features in the churches, notably
in the triforium of the cathedral and in the tower of Santo Tome. There are
reminiscences of the Moorish style even in the north, as at San Isidoro at Leon, but it remains true that in most cases
ecclesiastical architecture is unaffected by it.
The Romanesque architecture of Spain
is of great interest and importance. One of the finest monuments of the style
is the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, which has even been claimed to be
earlier than St Sernin at Toulouse. The Romanesque style went on far longer than in the north.
For example, the cathedral of Lerida, built between 1203 and 1278, would be
thought in France or England to be a century earlier.
The Gothic movement, however, so
overwhelming in the north, conquered Spain as well as Italy. Its spread was no
doubt hastened by the Cistercians, whose abbots met once a year in general
chapter at Citeaux and would, bring back to outlying places knowledge of the
pointed arch and other new forms. The great cathedrals of the thirteenth
century are closely copied from those of France. Toledo corresponds with
Bourges; and Burgos, as far as its thirteenth-century work is concerned, is
very French. Leon is most remarkable of all. For concentration of vaultpressure, scientific abutment, extent of window
space, height in proportion to width, it is the rival of Amiens and Beauvais.
It can scarcely be claimed, however,
that this Franco-Spanish style was a complete success. In particular, the huge
windows, so characteristic of the complete Gothic of the Île de France, are
quite unsuited to the Spanish climate. The three
great cathedrals, therefore, were scarcely finished when a new movement of
quite a different character took its rise in Catalonia, where regionalism has
always been a powerful force. The cathedral of Barcelona was begun in 1298.
Santa Maria del Mar followed in 1328 and Santa Maria del Pino in 1329. The
last-named is aisleless, but even where aisles are built, as in the other two
cases, they have not the external prominence we find in the north. This is due to the fact that small chapels are built all along the
north and south sides, and that the buttresses are largely internal, dividing
one chapel from another. Flying buttresses are not necessary, for the
clerestory is low, with small windows, and the aisles are high. In one respect
the cathedral of Gerona is still more remarkable. It was Romanesque at first,
and in the first half of the fourteenth century an aisled choir, of normal
French character, was built. When it was desired to rebuild the nave early in
the fifteenth century, aisles were actually discarded and a great vaulted hall was built seventy-three feet in width, the greatest
span of any Gothic church. The abutment
of the vault is perfectly managed by internal buttresses forming divisions
between the chapels. The remarkable plan corresponds with that of Albi, Perpignan, and other churches in the south of
France, but it is most marked in this Catalonian style.
It will therefore be seen that Spain
is an exception to the medieval rule that, in most countries, there was one
great national style, followed
inevitably
and unconsciously by the builders. Late in the thirteenth century we have three
styles, quite apart from the Moorish work in the south: Romanesque surviving,
almost pure French Gothic, and the new Spanish Gothic, especially in Catalonia.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the close copying of French churches ceased, though of course French
influence was still felt. Important works were carried out at Burgos,
Saragossa, Segovia, Toledo. In the south no great Christian churches could be
built during the Moorish domination. The cathedral of Seville, begun in 1401,
is of enormous size. It is almost a parallelogram, with five aisles and side
chapels as well. Each aisle, in height and width, is the same as the nave of
Westminster Abbey. Cloisters are more numerous in Spain than anywhere else.
They are sometimes added to a church evidently with the main object of
protecting it from the sun.
The ritual arrangements of Spanish
churches are very different from those elsewhere. The most prominent is the
position of the choir, nearly always in the nave, and often connected with the
presbytery by a long railed corridor. Choir stalls, “retables” over the altars, screens, and other medieval
fittings have been far less disturbed than in most countries. Extreme richness,
not to say florid exuberance, is their main characteristic, which is even more
pronounced in the tombs, such as those in the Constable’s chapel at Burgos and
in the Charterhouse of Miraflores.
In Portugal we find of course the
influence of France and Spain, but also of England, which is most marked in the
great church and monastery of Batalha. Belem has a
late and richly adorned monastic church with an elaborate cloister. At the end
of the Gothic period a purely national style springs up called Manoelino, which has affinities with Moorish and Indian
originals.
The Golden Age of architecture in
Germany was the Romanesque period, which lasted till the middle of the
thirteenth century. Mayence, Spires, Treves, and
Worms are the best examples, and the church of the Apostles at Cologne. The
Gothic of Germany is copied from France and was a reluctant importation of the
thirteenth century. It is lacking in poetry and charm, but is often of great technical excellence. The most famous monument is the
cathedral of Cologne, but only the choir and part of the west front are
medieval: the rest was completed in recent times, between 1842 and 1880.
Freiburg has the earliest fine Gothic tower in Germany, completed in 1288: it
has the characteristic open-work spire, which was copied at Burgos. Ulm has the
loftiest tower and spire in existence, 529 feet high. The “hall church” is a
prominent German feature, as illustrated at St Elizabeth’s at Marburg. The most
important church in Austria is St Stephen’s at Vienna, with a lofty spire and a great steep roof which covers nave and aisles in one
span. The French Gothic style was imported into Bohemia. The fine cathedral of
St Vitus at Prague was designed by Matthew of Arras in the latter part of the
fourteenth century. St Barbara’s at Kuttenberg is more
national, with ornate but rather unscientific flying buttresses.
The ecclesiastical architecture of the
Netherlands is of less interest than the civic. The finest church is at
Tournai, whose Romanesque transepts influenced the form of Noy on and Soissons;
the choir is fully-developed Gothic. The cathedrals of Brussels and Antwerp
are notable, and the latter is unique in having no less than seven aisles. The
church of St Jacques at Liege is one of the finest examples of Flamboyant Gothic
to be found anywhere. The great churches of Bruges, St Sauveur and Notre Dame, are of brick. The same material was commonly used along the
Baltic and in Holland, where the churches are of less interest than those of
Belgium. They are often barn-like structures, and most of their medieval
fittings have been destroyed.
In Scandinavia, Gothic architecture is
an exotic, even more than in Germany. The most important church in Sweden is
the cathedral of Upsala, designed by a Frenchman at the end of the thirteenth
century. The cathedral of Trondheim in Norway dates
from the eleventh century onwards; there is much work of the thirteenth and
early fourteenth, with excellent details. The most remarkable church in Denmark
is at Kallundborg, with no less than five towers and
spires. Gotland is of greater interest, owing to its position on a prosperous
trade route in early medieval times. Most of the churches are Romanesque, but
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a curious type of Gothic was used.
Several of the naves are divided into two equal parts by pointed arcades.
There is of course no special
connexion between Gothic architecture and the Goths or with Gotland, and we do
not know that the people originally came from the island. The adjective was
used as a term of reproach at a time when medieval architecture was regarded as
barbarian. It may have this suitability that the new style might never have
arisen if the Roman Empire had gone on its way untroubled by northern invasions.
The term is a difficult one to define, but is
generally held to include most of the buildings in Western Europe during the
century mainly dealt with in this volume, and the succeeding centuries till the
Renaissance. A narrower definition would confine it to those churches where the
vital principles of the style are fully carried out, and therefore mainly to
the tie de France. However the term is regarded, the
most prominent feature of Gothic architecture is the frequent use of the arch
rather than the lintel, and especially of the pointed arch.
The connexion of architecture with
history is a close one, but one must admit that it is not always obvious. In
the period under review we may well suppose that the
activity of the thirteenth century in France was partly due to the piety and enthusiasm of St Louis, that the decay of production in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the result of the English wars and the
economic distress which accompanied them. Similar remarks may be made about
England, though we are surprised that the Black Death gave so little
pause to the building activity of Edward Ill’s reign, and that the Wars of the
Roses synchronised with the erection of so many fine parish churches. The truth
is, as indicated at the beginning of this chapter, that the forces which go to
produce great architecture are many in number, and the pressure of external events is only one of them. The main fact in medieval church architecture is the need
that was felt for fine buildings, combined with the power, partly inherited and partly developed, to carry them out. The need
was there from the fourth century onwards, but the power was often lacking. At a particular epoch,
the twelfth century, the principles of arcuated construction, so long groped
after, became understood. One experiment after another was made, and, in an
incredibly short space of time, the heavy and gloomy Romanesque was transformed
into the light and graceful Gothic.
Without the power, then, the need
alone would not have produced fine architecture; but it is surely equally true that, without the need, the achievement would
have been lacking. Gothic architecture, in its many forms, was a national
style, applied even to the humblest barn; but its greatest glories are found
in its houses of religion. Religious fervour was a chief reason for it, especially
in the earlier part of its period. Hayino, abbot of
St Pierre-sur-Dives, tells us that, when Chartres was built in the middle of
the twelfth century, men and women of noble birth were bound by straps to carts
and dragged the stones and wood in silence, broken only by confession and
prayer. The Cult of Carts may have been short-lived, but the
spirit behind it came out in many forms. Much of the best work of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries was due to the monks, whether working with
their own hands or not. Even the Cistercians, whose rule did not
allow high towers or painted glass or rich ornament, produced a virile style
and spread the knowledge, of it all over Western Europe. In the thirteenth
century, the influence of the layman was more pronounced, but religion and
expert knowledge may go together. The sketch book of Wilars de Honecort has come down to us from this period. The
drawings are mixed quite naturally with a request to all who labour to pray for his soul
and to hold him in remembrance. The form of the church all through the Middle
Ages, and much of its decoration, are dictated by the use to which it was put, and could not have been produced outside the Christian
faith.
We cannot contemplate the achievements
of Gothic architecture without a feeling of awe. They were the work of men of
like passions with ourselves, whose motives were as
mixed as ours, but the combination of great qualities had never been found
before and may never be found again. Gothic architecture cannot be revived, but
its spirit need never die.
It will remain an inspiration to all who think seriously of art and of
religion.
(B)
MILITARY ARCHITECTURE
The history of medieval fortification
in Europe is that, of the general appropriation of methods which, brought to a
high state of efficiency under the Roman Empire, had survived without
interruption in the Byzantine east. With the invasion of the west of Europe by
the barbarians, these methods had fallen into disuse. Here and there, during
the Merovingian and Carolingian epochs, a bishop or lay lord repaired the
walls of a city to resist attack from some foe on the frontiers. Where Roman
walls remained, they could be utilised as barriers against such enemies as the
Saracens on the borders of Spain and on the Mediterranean seaboard; behind them
an un warlike population could find refuge when driven
from their farms and fields. During this period, however, scientific methods of
defence were in abeyance, and consequently progress in military architecture
was at a standstill. It was not until the invasions of the Northmen that signs
of forward movement began to appear. In their penetration of Europe, the
Northmen came into contac t with the traditional
usages of Roman warfare and adopted for their own use engines of war which, to
be adequately resisted, needed a corresponding strength of defence. If their
actual plan of attack, as at the siege of Paris in 885-6, was somewhat
deficient in science, they used the ballista and battering-ram with
formidable effect; and the inevitable result of an offensive conducted with
such energy was to stimulate the employment of means by which it might be
successfully repelled.
The walled city, the defended
habitation of the community, necessarily takes a prominent place in medieval
warfare. The typical fortress of the Middle Ages, however, in which the most
characteristic features of defence were initiated and brought to perfection,
was the private fortress, the castle of an individual lord. The castle was the
direct offspring of feudalism; it was the obvious
symbol of the dominion of the feudal lord, the stronghold from which he
exercised his authority and within which he entrenched himself against his
superiors or rivals. This significance of the word castellum was
gradually acquired, and the use of that word in documents of the Carolingian
period is somewhat ambiguous. In 864 the capitulary of Pistes,
in ordering the destruction of certain fortresses raised without royal licence,
mentions castella et firmitates et haias. Probably walls and wooden stockades raised round
private dwelling-houses were included in these categories; but the phrase may
equally well refer to similar defences constructed by land-owners round the villages in which they dwelt. No actual example of a private fortress
can be found until a few years later; and though it may definitely
be said that such strongholds took their origin in Neustria and
Austrasia as a natural result of the decline of the Empire of Charlemagne and
the growth of feudal lawlessness, they were not common until the tenth century
was well advanced. The general prevalence of the castle was a consequence of
the recognition of the feudal principle.
This fact is illustrated by the late
appearance of the castle in England. The early English burh, which comes
into great prominence during the wars of Alfred and Edward the Elder, was
intended for communal defence. It was a garrisoned centre of population,surrounded by timber
fortifications with an outer ditch. If it had stone walls, these, as at London
in the time of Alfred, survived from the Roman period and were repaired to meet
Danish attacks. The Danes, on their side, when they had gained a permanent
footing in England, made the burh the centre of their operations. Their
first fortresses, during the period of invasion, were those temporary camps by
the side of rivers to which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the name geweorc—large enclosures of earthwork within
which they docked their ships and sheltered their army. These, as their
conquests proceeded, were naturally abandoned for the conquered towns, like the
five burhs of the Danelaw. On neither side is there a hint of any
private fortress. The burb handed on its name to the borough of later
times; and if, in Germany, the name burg acquired a less distinctive
sense and was applied, as time went on, to the private castle as well as to the
town, the burgs by which the Saxon Emperors defended their eastern
frontier were, like the English burhs, the
fortified settlements of communities. Until a few years before the Norman
Conquest, it is doubtful whether there was such a thing as a castle in England.
Meanwhile the Northmen had established their principality in Normandy, and,
towards the close of the tenth century, had organised it on feudal lines. As a consequence, the castle, already familiar in the
feudalised districts of inland France, made its way into Normandy. During the
minority of the Conqueror, his subjects took the opportunity of turning
dwelling-houses into fortresses. William himself was able to keep his vassals
in check, and to turn castle-building into a powerful weapon of his own
sovereignty. The view, however, that the castles of his realm were the
monarch’s property, held in trust for him by their tenants, could be maintained
in practice only under a strong rider; and the castle itself, in its origin, is
a sign of the anarchy which it was the hardest task of a feudal monarch to
suppress. The first English castles seem to have been raised, entirely on their
own account, by Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor, to overawe their
English neighbours. We know with certainty of two only; and it is clear at any
rate that the systematic castle-building by which William I consolidated his
gains in England and repressed rebellion was a novelty in a country which, if
economically ripe for feudalism, now found itself for the first time bound to
feudalism as a political system. Domesday supplies more than one instance of
the supersession of the English burh by the
Norman castle. At York and Lincoln sections of the cities were laid waste to
make room for castles. At Tutbury we read of the burgum circa castellum, the burh of earlier
times lying round about the new castle, which was built less to protect it than
to keep it in subjection. The two castles which the Conqueror founded on either
side of the Ouse at York still remain; it is a false analogy which hastily
compares them to the double burhs with which,
at Hertford, Bedford, and other places, Edward the Elder protected the
crossings of rivers, for these burhs were towns, while the castles at
York were royal fortresses thrown up within the town, and were quite distinct in character.
The burh and the early castle
have this so far in common, that their defences, save in exceptional cases,
were of timber and earthwork; and it may also be
conceded that in all probability the earliest castles were, like burhs, simply stockaded enclosures, but surrounding a single house instead of a
collection of dwelling-houses. The castle, however, by the time of the
Conquest, had assumed a stereotyped form of which the Bayeux tapestry provides
several examples, all taken from Normandy and Brittany except the castle built
by William on his landing at Hastings. The dwelling-house, a wooden structure
in the form of a tower, stood upon an artificial mount of earth, composed of
the material dug from the ditch surrounding its base. A second ditch, starting
from and returning to the first, enclosed a platform, roughly oval in shape, which formed the bailey or courtyard of the
castle in front of the mount. Wooden stockades encircled the upper edge of the
mount and the inner bank of earth cast up from the ditch round the bailey. The
entrance to the castle was at the end of the bailey opposite the mount, while
access from the bailey to the tower was provided by a steeply inclined bridge
of timber with ladderlike footholds, crossing the intermediate ditch. The
mount was known as mota or motte, from
the sods which composed it; the ballium or
bailey probably received its name from the upright stakes which formed the
principal feature of its surrounding fence, though the precise derivation of
the word is obscure. This type of fortress is now usually known as the
motte-and-bailey castle. Its outstanding characteristic was the dwellinghouse on the mount, which sometimes, as the
description of the house built early in the twelfth century for the lord of Ardres shews us, was large and roomy. The numerous mounts
which remain, though generally high and steep, vary much in size; the adjacent baileys, which contained stables and other offices,
together with some accommodation for the garrison, are sometimes very diminutive.
But in all, large or small, the mount, crowned by its wooden tower, was the
symbol of the lord’s feudal dominion. By transference of the thing signified to
the object itself, it became the dominio, corrupted into dunw; and thus the French donjon and English dungeon took their origin, as names for the stone
tower that superseded the earthen mount.
The strategic value of the Conqueror’s
system of castles is shown by the permanent survival of the principal castles
which he founded. In these the motte-and-bailey plan, generally speaking, formed the nucleus of the stone
fortresses which, as time went on, took the place of timber defences. In some
of his greater castles, as at Windsor, a plan was followed in which the mount
stood at a re-entrant angle between an outer and an inner bailey. This type was
adopted by the builders of Alnwick, the greatest castle in the north of
England. On the other hand, Warkworth, the other
great Northumbrian stronghold which eventually came into the possession of the Percies, is a large motte-and-bailey castle of the normal
plan, which was gradually converted into a fortress of stone. But, while the
motte and bailey can be frequently traced as the origin of permanent castles,
there are numerous examples of earthwork castles which have no history and can
be referred to no special date. Some of these may be early castles which were
abandoned for more convenient sites; but probably
many of them are fortresses hastily raised in a period of feudal rebellion
without the sovereign's licence, and destroyed upon the restoration
of order. It is difficult to credit the traditional estimates of the number of
adulterine castles fortified during the reign of Stephen; but it is certain
that these unauthorised strongholds were thickly spread over tlie country, and that their earthworks, where they were of
any size or strength, must have left some traces behind them.
<
While the ordinary castle of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries was a structure of earthwork and timber, stone
was also employed where necessary, as in castles built on rocky sites and
promontories, where defences of earthwork were impracticable. But a defensive
wall of stone offered less resistance to the battering-ram than a stout fence
of timber with planks set horizontally between the uprights. The strength of
the wooden wall had been proved in Roman warfare, and, so long as its main
object was to present an inert barrier to an enemy, it served its purpose well.
Its chief danger, the risk of fire, could be minimised by stretching wet hides
over its outer surface. Nevertheless, the stone donjon appears at an early date
as an alternative for the earthen mount and its wooden tower. The remains of
the tower at Langeais in Touraine, which present
several points of contrast to the ordinary donjon of the twelfth century, are
generally agreed to belong to the castle begun by Fulk the Black in 994. In
three at any rate of the English castles founded by William the Conqueror, at
London, Colchester, and Pevensey, towers of stone took the place of the motte.
No artificial mound could have borne such masses of masonry, and it was very
seldom in later days that a motte was used as a foundation for a stone tower.
Outer defences of earthwork were combined with these early towers; and wdiere, as at Richmond in Yorkshire, the castle was
surrounded from the first with a stone wall, the dwelling-house within was
simply a hall built against one side of the bailey. The donjons of the stone castles
of Richmond, Ludlow, and Bamburgh are later additions to the plan; and at
Richmond and Ludlow they were formed by the transformation and heightening of
early gatehouses.
Stone walls, again, rose in certain
instances upon earthen banks shortly after the foundation of castles; and, as
the ordinary motte-and-bailey castle became the seat of its lord’s authority,
its wooden defences were gradually removed to make way for defences of stone
round the bailey and the upper edge of the mount. The building of a stone
gatehouse to protect the entrance was probably the point at which such
alterations started. In large enceintes the change went forward slowly:
portions of the city wall of York were still of timber in the early part of the
fourteenth century. While the stone wall, with its parapet-walk and occasional
towers, provided a line of active defence which was to become all-important,
the dwelling-house still for a time remained the essential point to be
considered by the engineer. The primary idea of a castle was that of a strong
house; and the stone wall at first was merely the outer line of fortification
which protected the great tower or, to use its modern name, the keep. In many
instances, as at Windsor, the mount was simply fortified by a ring-wall,
forming what has been called a shell-keep. Sometimes, as at Guildford, a square
tower was built upon the summit. As a rule, however, the building of a stone
tower meant the abandonment of the mottefor a more
secure foundation; and, though here and there the motto was partially utilised
or even included within the new work, the tower, as at Newcastle-on-Tyne, rose
on a new site. At Rochester and Middleham old motte-and-bailey fortresses were
deserted for new castles, each dominated by its great tower. In France and Normandy the stone tower made progress during the first half
of the twelfth century. Advance in England was slower; and, after the
Conqueror’s towers, already mentioned, the only authentic example of a
rectangular stone keep until the reign of Henry II is the huge tower built at
Rochester by Archbishop William of Corbeil. Henry II, however, as part of his
measures for restoring order, inaugurated an epoch of castlebuilding of which the characteristic feature is the great tower or donjon. Two varieties
are found, one in which there is a single room on each floor, and the other in
which the tower is divided from top to bottom by a cross-wall, the top of which
formed a gutter between the gabled roofs of the two compartments. The second
type is sometimes oblong in plan and sacrifices height to the large area which
it covers. Both types, however, have the same characteristic arrangements. They
are usually entered by a doorway on the first or second floor, approached by a
flight of stairs which is enclosed in a forebuilding or barbican set against a side of the tower. This steep and narrow passage,
crossed on its way by one or more doors and protected at its head by a guard-room, was the only means of access from without. The
room, entered from it at right-angles, was the great hall or main apartment.
Winding stairs in one or more of the corner-turrets led to the lower and upper
floors and to the battlements, which rose above and hid the roof and were provided
with a parapet-walk. The vaulted basement was the store-room of
the building; while additional accommodation was furnished by chambers, large and small,
contrived in the thickness of the walls. The tower had its chapel, which was
generally situated in the forebuilding: it also had its well, in the basement
or with a long shaft from a well-chamber on one of the upper floors. At
Rochester the well-pipe is in the crosswall, with an
opening on each floor. No two towers are exactly alike, and their planning
shews remarkable variety and ingenuity. As dwellinghouses,
even the most spacious must have been dark and uncomfortable: for
considerations of safety, the lower stages were lighted with narrow loops,
widely splayed on the inner side; and, though light could be introduced more
freely higher up, the thickness of the stonework and the employment of the
walls for chambers and passages left the main rooms in twilight. The keep is
often represented as intended only for a last resource in time of siege, and it
is possible that in some castles a hall in the courtyard was normally used as a
more convenient residence. But the general appearance of the dwelling-house in
the bailey belongs to a later date; and while there arc one or two instances in which the tower seems to have served purely
military purposes, the domestic aspect of such towers as those of Falaise, Hedingham, Castle Rising, and Bamburgh is obvious. They are not only the culminating points of fortresses, but they
are residences whose impregnable strength is the safety of their tenants.
With its massive walls and dangerous
entrance, the rectangular donjon could defy attack with success. It was
designed to resist the stones cast from the great catapults which were the most
formidable siege-engines of the day; its wider openings were beyond the roach
of arrows and javelins. Against an enemy at close quarters, using the ram or
attempting to undermine the masonry with bores and picks, the faces of the
tower could be protected by wooden galleries or hoardings fixed outside the
battlements, with holes in the floor through which missiles could be used. On
the other hand, the sharp angles offered the foe a sector in which he could
work with security at points where the masonry was most vulnerable. As a
precaution against this the north-west turret of the great tower at Newcastle,
standing at a point which was liable to attack, was built as a polygon with
blunt angles between 1172 and 1177. In 1215 one of the square angle-turrets at
Rochester succumbed to stone-throwing machines, and was rebuilt on a curved plan. These devices reduced the dangerous sector to a
minimum and substituted a surface whose radiating joints withstood the impact
of the ram and neutralised the labours of sappers and miners.
Growing familiarity with the
fortifications of the East, acquired during the crusades, aided such
improvements. Before the end of tfee twelfth century,
the cylindrical donjon began to supersede the older form. The finest examples
are to be found in France, and, until its recent destruction, the early
thirteenth-century castle of Coney, in which the enormous
donjon, with its own ditch and curtain-wall, took its place as the principal feature of a
perfectly-planned enceinte, was the most imposing feudal monument in
Europe. In England the circular donjon was never more than a passing phase, but
it formed a prominent feature in the thirteenth-century
castles of Wales. The round keep at Conisborough in
Yorkshire, standing at the highest
corner of the bailey, with immensely thick walls and a steeply battering base,
is an ingenious attempt to combine a curved surface with a system of flanking
formed by a series of projecting buttress turrets, left solid through most of
their height. Here, however, some flanking has also been given to the wall of
the bailey, which has been reinforced at intervals by smaller circular turrets
added to its face. Hitherto, towers breaking the line of the curtain-wall had been built, but without any definite idea of systematic flanking. The outer
wall, defended by its ditch, had been left to take its chance; the filling-up of
the ditch was necessary before a breach could be made or the gatehouse
stormed, and the defenders
concentrated their efforts on the ultimate resistance of the great tower. When
once means were taken to provide the outer wall with a ring of projecting
towers, from which a raking arrow-fire could be directed upon the besiegers,
the donjon was no longer a necessity. Although in Richard I’s great castle, Chateau-Gaillard, the round donjon, strengthened by a
spur-shaped projection upon its inner face, is still a prominent feature of the
defences, the most remarkable point in the plan is the wall, consisting of a
series of curved projections, which divides the innermost from the middle ward.
Here the division of the bailey into a succession of wards, and the care which
is taken to strengthen the outer walls and approaches, mark the arrival of the
new period, in which the curtain-wall and its towers
begin to bear the whole burden of defence.
The donjon never became wholly
obsolete. In France its survival was more persistent than in England, and in
England, especially in the region exposed to Scottish raids, it is found in and
after the thirteenth century. The
fourteenth-century tower between the two wards at Knarcsborough and
the principal tower of which records remain at Pontefract are cases
n point. Soon after the building of Dunstanburgh, another castle of the house of Lancaster, in
1313, the gatehouse was blocked up and converted into a donjon; and to this
there is a parallel in South Wales at Llanstephan. That most common feature of late military
architecture
in the north, the peel-tower,
reproduces the disposition of a rectangular keep on a small scale. At the same
time the donjon loses its primary character as the fortified residence which is
the raison d'être of the castle.
At Coucy and
Pontefract the splendid domestic buildings of the castles were sheltered within
strongly defended walls. The mansion within the castle,
as at Windsor and Ludlow, is the growth of a period in which
the actual fortification of the house
has been succeeded by the fortification of the wall which encircles it.
The later medieval castle, in its most
scientific development, was therefore an enclosure, usually divided by
cross-walls into two or more wards, and surrounded by a wall with towers at
regular intervals, so planned as to command the whole outer face of the wall
between them. The house with its offices, following the normal domestic plan
with the hall as its centre, was in the inner ward: the outer ward contained
various additional offices, stables, and quarters for the garrison. A path, approached
by stairs set against the inner face at intervals, ran along the top of the
wall, protected upon its outer side by a parapet and battlements. The
battlements or merlons, sometimes pierced by loops covered with hinged
shutters, sheltered the archers, who also could shoot through the embrasures
between them. The merlons, at first double the width of the embrasures, became
of equal width with them at a later date. While the
system of fitting hoardings to the parapets in time of siege continued through
the thirteenth century, the flanking afforded by the towers diminished the risk
which such precautions were intended to meet. But, as a substitute, the
parapets were often corbelled out in front of the wall, and holes were left
between the corbels through which stones might be thrown or arrows shot down
upon the assailants. These machicolations are prominent in castles and town-walls of the later fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. The parapet-walk was carried through the upper floors of the towers;
but strong doorways guarded their entrances, so that, in a well-defended
castle, the wall could be isolated into sections, and, if one part was scaled
by ladders or entered from the movable wooden towers which were used for
scaling purposes, the rest could be cut off.
In later castles the gatehouse assumed
an importance equal to that of the donjon at an earlier date. The gatehouse, to
begin with, had been a simple tower with an upper storey above the arched
entrance. Now the archway was flanked by projecting towers, semi-circular or
polygonal, with guard-rooms on their lower floors. The
vaulted roof of the gateway passage was pierced with holes or slots through
which intruders could be annoyed by missiles as effective as, and more
economical than, the molten lead of popular fiction. The outer doorway, reached
by a drawbridge across the ditch or moat, was shielded by an iron portcullis,
worked by a windlass from the first floor. In addition, the approach to the
drawbridge was strengthened by a barbican or forebuilding, with its own outer
ditch and drawbridge, forming a narrow passage in which the defence had a great
advantage over the attacking force. The barbicans at Alnwick and Warwick, the
noble gatehouses at Pembroke and Lancaster, bear witness to the care with which
the main approach to the castle was guarded.
France led the way in scientific
fortification, and from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century her engineers
applied great variety of skill to the art of defence. England can shew no
castle as colossal as Coucy; the walls of York or
even those of so regularly and carefully fortified a town as Conway cannot
compare in scientific interest with those of Aigues-Mortes,
Carcassonne, and Avignon. England, however, produced at the end of the
thirteenth century examples of castle-planning which are second to none in
interest. The prototypes of the concentric lines of defence, by means of which
the outer ward of the castle entirely surrounded the
inner, were to be found in Byzantine fortification, as in the triple enceinte of Constantinople, and in the strongholds built by the Crusaders in the Latin
kingdom of Jerusalem. The concentric castle of the Knights of St John in the
Lebanon area, the Krak des Chevaliers, is one of the
most complete achievements of medieval military skill. In such a fortress we
see a quadrilateral castle with flanking towers encircled by a second and
lower wall, so as to enable the defenders of both
lines to work together simultaneously and those on the inner wall, from their
superior height, to command the field outside the castle and shoot over their
comrades' heads. So advantageous was the system that it was applied
to alterations of already existing castles. Thus the
Tower of London was converted into a regular concentric castle, in which the
Conqueror’s great tower and the later domestic buildings were withdrawn from
active defence within a double line of wall. The outer ward was a narrow
passage between the two walls, broken into sections by transverse walls and
gateways. The approach to the gatehouse, across a bridge with a barbican at either
end, presented an initial difficulty to the enemy, who further was exposed to a
triple line of fire from the archers on both walls and from those on the
ground-level of the outer ward, for whom arrow-slits were provided in the wall
beneath the parapet. The same plan was used for new castles founded in Wales.
Caerphilly, on a low and marshy site, was begun in the reign of Henry III and
is the most elaborately defended of all, with outworks of immense strength
protecting the moat round the main building. Less complicated in design, and
conceived with a masterly simplicity, were Edward I’s castles at Rhuddlan and Harlech; while at Beaumaris, the latest of his
Welsh castles, general simplicity of plan was combined with fertility in
devices for rendering a castle on a low and flat site practically impregnable.
At Carnarvon and Conway there is only one line of fortification with flanking
towers, and the two wards are divided by a cross-wall internally; but the
cluster of round towers and the barbican which defends the entrance at Conway,
and the great galleried wall at Carnarvon with its two gatehouses and the
polygonal tower at its western angle, are unequalled in Britain for strength
and grandeur of effect. The capacity of such fortresses for defence was a convincing
answer to contemporary methods of attack; while,
instead of the inert front which earlier castles had presented to besiegers,
the Edwardian castle, with its looped and parapeted walls and its carefully
shielded gatehouses, confronted its assailants with every means for an active
defence which might be converted into a formidable offensive.
The combination of the castle with the
walled town can be seen to perfection at Conway, where the town is virtually an
outer ward to the castle, surrounded by a wall flanked at regular intervals by towers which are rounded to the field and left open at
the neck on the inner side. This union of town-wall and citadel may be studied
on a more imposing scale and with more variety of scientific features at
Carcassonne and other foreign towns; and few English towns retain anything like
a complete circuit of walls. Where, however, the walls have almost entirely
disappeared, their course can often be traced by the survival of the pomerium or lane at their back, which separated them from the houses, or by broad
streets which mark the line of the outer ditch and still form a noticeable
division between the town and its suburban extensions. Town gatehouses have
frequently been preserved, in spite of modern traffic.
Of fortified bridges across rivers, of which several fine examples, such as the
bridge at Prague and the Pont Valentre at Cahors,
remain on the continent, there are few relics in England; the small gatehouses
of the bridges at Monmouth and Warkworth are
insignificant exceptions. In Gascony and Guyenne Edward I’s engineers laid out
fortified towns with a gridiron arrangement of streets round a central market-place, of which the standard example is Montpazier (Dordogne). This plan can also be traced in the
grass-grown enclosure of Winchelsea. These, however, are only occasional
examples of the combination of a street-plan with the outer fortifications of a town ; and the town within the walls was usually an
intricate labyrinth of streets and lanes.
Fortification attained its highest
point in the concentric plan of the castle. During the fourteenth century
refinements of castle-planning are frequent. The magnificent castle of
Saint-André at Villeneuve, on the right bank of the Rhone opposite Avignon,
and, on a smaller scale, the castle of Caerlaverock by the Solway, shew
triangular plans at the apex of which is set an imposing gatehouse. As late as
1379 the castle of Bodiam in Sussex was built upon a
plan derived from that of Villandraut (Garonne). But,
while foreign invasions and internal disturbances still maintained the old
importance of the castle in the rest of Europe, and while Italian princes still
dwelt within feudal castles and even municipalities constructed castles for
their own defence as part of their fortifications, the castle entered upon no
further period of development. In the contest for supremacy between the methods
of attack and those of defence, the first had always pushed the second closely.
Castle-builders had succeeded in forcing an enemy to a respectful distance.
Against adequately flanked walls and machicolated battlements the cumbrous operations of the battering-ram and the scaling-tower
were of little avail, and miners were at the mercy of a watchful garrison. The
moat filled with water dammed up from a neighbouring stream was a more
difficult obstacle than the dry ditch which had been the habitual outer defence
of earlier castles, and gave
strength to positions which in themselves had little natural advantage. At the
same time, the opportunity of the besieger lay in the improvement of his
engines for hurling missiles. The more formidable these became, the less
possibility there was of counteracting them. It is true that the machines which
propelled great stones by the release of the cords that held back an upright
stock with a hollow chamber, or of a counterpoise which, let free, set a sling
in motion, and the arbalasts, cross-bows on a large
scale which discharged javelins, were clumsy, and that the damage which they
inflicted upon stonework was less than their menace to life and to perishable
buildings inside the walls. Their use in defence, however, was necessarily
limited. The shock of the discharge made their employment upon towers and
ramparts dangerous, unless solid platforms which could resist vibration were
made for them; from the ground-level behind the walls, even where there was
sufficient room to allow for their trajectory, their aim could be only
haphazard. It is probable that the invention of gunpowder and the use of cannon
worked no very sudden change. The earliest cannon were awkward engines of no
great strength. Nevertheless, their capacity for improvement must have been
obvious from the first. The force which they brought into play had
possibilities far beyond those of the older machines of warfare; and the
decline in medieval fortification begins with their arrival in the fourteenth
century.
From this period onwards there are two
distinct tendencies in castlebuilding. On the one
hand, in districts constantly harassed by war,
like the Scottish border, the castle reverts from the walled and flanked enclosure
to the state of a fortified house, protected on its most vulnerable side by a
walled courtyard. Quadrangular houses with projecting towers at the corners,
like Bolton, Lumley, and other northern castles, were built by great noblemen;
the ordinary land-owner raised his peel-tower on a
less imposing scale, trusting to the thickness of its walls and the immunity of
its vaulted ground-storey from fire. On the other hand, in more peaceful
districts the castle abandoned its military character. Defensive features were
retained, but for ornament rather than use, just as the feudalism of which the
castle had been the symbol had lost its reality. Even in some of the castles of
the north, such as the tower of Belsay and the tower-house built upon the mount
at Wark worth in the fifteenth century, domestic comfort is at least as
prominent an object as safety. In the south of England, Hurstmonceaux,
with its mimicry of defence, marks the transition from the military stronghold,
like Bodiam, to the English manor-house of the next
century. The castle of Tattershall in Lincolnshire,
provided with elaborate inner and outer moats and dominated by a lofty brick
tower with machicolated battlements, is a palace with
the semblance of a fortress. Its builder, the treasurer Cromwell, also began
the manor-house of Wingfield in Derbyshire, which similarly preserves some of
the features of a castle, while laying more stress upon its true purpose as a
mansion. In warfare such houses played little or no part. The wars of the Roses
were fought in open field, not against castle walls. Elsewhere the same
transition is noticeable. Blois and Amboise, gradually transformed into
palaces, may be contrasted with the feudal fortresses of Chinon and Loches. Heidelberg, under the Electors palatine of the sixteenth century, lost
all likeness to the hill-fortresses of the feudal lords in Germany. The castle
had seen its day as a factor in the evolution of military science, and the
future of fortification lay in a return, under new conditions and through
gradual processes, to the system of defence by earthwork from which the castle
had grown to maturity.
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