Its been a busy week and this is a bit of a different post from my usual one. As some of you are aware I’m taking part in the Unstitched coif project to stitch a 17th century coif. My first official blog on the topic is here: http://blackworkembroidery.org/2023/06/06/getting-started/ for those of you who would like to see my progress to date. Suffice to say I need to speed up. Other participants are blogging as well and its absolutely fascinating to see how one pattern can produce so many different results.
Inevitably I couldn’t help taking a dip into the history of embroidery. Tudors used brass or bronze needles – but steel needles started to be used more widely during the reign of Elizabeth I. They were a Spanish import – not something to be mentioned in the same breath as the Armada perhaps. Clearly they were expensive items. Some needles continued to be made from bone because they could be made at home – which made me think about my recent trip to Cresswell Crags and the Stone Age needle excavated there which I have included at the start of this post. It certainly makes me appreciate the relative cost of needles today and their availability. I would perhaps be taking a different approach to needlework if the instruction began – ‘first make your needle.’
And that just leaves the mottes and baileys. No, nothing to do with embroidery. I’m working my way through the history of Derbyshire having completed most of the first draft. I am now at the end of the reworked Norman section – i.e. the Anarchy between Stephen and Matilda- before handing it over to He Who Is Occasionally Obeyed for proof reading and difficult questions! I’m trying to work out what to include in the text about the Anarchy before moving into the next chapter. The difficulty lies in the fact that adulterine castles from the period often had a limited shelf life, the castle at Bakewell being a case in point. The original castle at Bolsover was a twelfth century creation of the Peveril family, not that a lot remains. (NB there is a lovely 17th century little castle!) Its possible that the castle at Pilsbury dates from the Anarchy but the evidence is inconclusive and I’ve already written about it in the context of the Norman Conquest.
My next castle stop will be a return journey to Peveril, with King Henry II in control, and then its a question of identifying suitable fortified manors for an entry in the medieval section – Codnor Castle has definite appeal being sited on a motte and bailey. Its half way between a castle and a manor and has similarities with Wingfield Manor. Codnor was held by Richard, 2nd Lord Grey and his son John who was a military commander for Edward III. Perhaps a map would help me to decide what to include as I need to have a balance of locations from around the county.
I think I need a new category – covering posts like this…what is the word that means ‘and everything else’?
Peveril Castle in Castleton springs to mind as does Duffield Castle which was razed to the ground thanks to an earl of Derby rebelling against King Henry III once too often. Peveril was one of the earliest post conquest castles to be constructed but what stands to day reflects the improvements of King Henry II after the confiscated it from the Peveril family.
No one could accuse Derbyshire of having an important castle within its boundaries, which raises interesting questions about Derby as a Norman administrative centre although it did apparently have some form of early castle as its remains can be found on Speed’s map of 1610 at Cockpit Hill. It has probably got much to do with the fact that the Normans linked Derbyshire to Nottinghamshire, providing only one sheriff for the two counties. William Peveril was the castellan for Nottingham Castle as well as holding the royal forest in the Peak on the king’s behalf.
There was a fortification at Bolsover as well but today we think of the seventeenth century ‘play’ castle built by William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle rather than a motte and bailey castle designed to dominate the locals and control the area. Sir Charles Cavendish, William’s father, began to change the appearance of the old medieval castle in 1608. The so-called ‘Little Castle’ stands on the footprint of the original building.
And then there’s Codnor but that was built at the beginning of the thirteenth century while the motte at Bakewell, which looks more like a pimple on the hillside, is twelfth century dating from the Anarchy when Stephen and Matilda were taking lumps out of one another and the barony were busy turning to brigandage.
Further reading reveals that there are more Norman fortifications in the county than I first realised:
Pilsbury Castle guarding the Dove Valley.
It is suggested that the fortifications at Pilsbury and Hartington, at Banktop, may have been complimentary structures. All that remains at Hartington is a large mound with a flat top.
Crowdecote is just down the road from Hartington and Pilsbury – there’s not much left and quite why the Normans wanted three forts to guard the crossing of the Dove and its associated trackways is another matter entirely. The manors were all in the hands of Henry de Ferrers who may have built a fortification to ensure he kept his territory. It’s also possible that they were thrown up during the troubles of the Anarchy – in which case Hartington and environs must have been rather dangerous to one’s health on occasion. Crowdecote doesn’t get a mention in Domesday but there were some Saxon pottery finds there.
Camp Green at Hathersage, next to the church, was excavated during the 1970s and revealed itself to be a ringwork enclosure however lack of dating evidence means that it was unclear whether the Normans got to work with their shovels or whether earlier inhabitants of the Peak created a defensive position here. Based on analysis of many other similar sites Hodges argues it was the Normans.
Harthill near Youlgrave may be a Norman construction but it’s also been argued that its Iron Age in origin. Certainly, that’s what I always understood it to be!
Hassop Moss near Glossop has similar dating problems and may well be part of a rather grand hunting lodge dating from a later period.
Hope had a Saxon Royal manor which seems to have been fortified.
There’s another platform for a fortification at Stony Middleton on the optimistically named Castle Hill. Dating it is difficult – it could be British, Roman, or Norman and there were pot shards found there dating the for thirteenth and fourteen centuries. Interestingly the site is near to a lead mine which certainly explains the presence of the fortification.
Tissington has a potential ringwork near its church but the problem is that there was rather a lot of earthwork activity during the English Civil War so its difficult to tell whether the remains are a Civil War redoubt or something olde being repurposed.
It may be the case that the Norman ringworks in the Peak District were built quickly to control some very grumpy farmers whose land had just been ‘harried’ by the Normans in the winter of 1069-1070. It has also been suggested that this was land which was agriculturally viable and needed to be protected. Not that it’s always clear who did the building or when it happened – it certainly demonstrates the importance of dating evidence.
Exciting as all this may be, Derbyshire’s castles are hardly on the same scale as the corresponding structures further north or the castles of the marches of Wales but in its turn it demonstrates that in the aftermath of the conquest matters settled themselves down and it was only during times of civil conflict that people felt the need to sling up a conical mound to perch on. There are, of course, many fortified manors in the region – some of them rather lovely, including Haddon Hall but that’s a slightly different story.
Creighton, O. H. Castles and Landscapes
Hodges, R (1980) ‘Excavations at Camp Green Hathersage (1976-77)’ Journal of the Derbyshire Archeological Society, Vol 100, pp25-34
The rebellion took place in the autumn of 1569 -in all the crisis lasted for three months, possibly prompting William Cecil to say ‘I told you so!’ when the council considered that it was Mary’s presence in England that triggered the uprising.
The North had a reputation for recusancy – or Catholicism. In 1536 as the smaller monastic houses were being shut the Pilgrims of the North rebelled under a banner bearing the five wounds of Christ. The following year Bigod’s Rebellion was similarly associated with a demand for Henry VIII to return to Catholicism, restore the Mass and bring back the monasteries. The Rebellion of 1537 gave Henry the excuse to punish the rebels of the previous year. He sent an army north, imposed martial law and had 100s of rebels hanged virtually on their own doorsteps.
In 1569, the desire to place Mary Queen of Scots on the throne and restore the country to Catholicism wasn’t the only reason for the rebellion. Oh no – not by a long chalk.
The northern earls were somewhat rattled by the administrative interference coming from London. They were not keen on William Cecil. Men like Northumberland and Norfolk also felt frozen out of power by Elizabeth’s choice of advisers.
For reasons best known to themselves a group of powerful men including Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Arundel decided that in order to cancel out the threat posed by Mary that she should marry an English nobleman, convert to Protestantism and then the English could help rule Scotland and everything would be simply wonderful. No one quite plucked up the nerve to tell Elizabeth this cunning plan or that the proposed groom was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (think vain and ambitious and you’ll be in the right ball park).
The plot when it first began was not a Catholic plot! Mary’s half brother James Stewart, Earl of Moray is for the plan to begin with but after he’s had a think about it decided that he doesn’t really want Mary back in Scotland whatever her faith might be, and certainly not with Norfolk at her side. For the English earls loyal to Elizabeth who came up with the idea this was a killer blow – the game, which was never a good one if the truth was told, was over by the start of the autumn. Besides which they still haven’t told Elizabeth about their plan to marry Mary off to one of themselves …and no one wanted that particular job. So they probably all heaved a sigh of relief.
However, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk had also had some thinking time and he rather fancied a crown of some description…and besides which he resented William Cecil who he regarded as having too much power, which he thought ought more rightfully to have belonged to him….so asked the northern earls for support to marry Mary.
Robert Dudley, the queen’s favourite, recognising that things were getting out of hand told Elizabeth in September 1569 that Norfolk intended to marry Mary without the consent of the privy council – which was treason. Norfolk had also left court without royal permission. By October Howard, who really wasn’t rebel material and hadn’t done any serious planning before he asked his northern pals to lend a hand, was back in London and begging for mercy. Elizabeth had him sent to the Tower.
In the north, the Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland, who were both Catholics, were still plotting but not, it appears, actually doing very much. In reality although they had an alternative to Elizabeth in the form of Mary they really weren’t very organised and were a bit vague about their aims. They were hauled up in front of the president of the Council of the North who cleared them of any wrongdoing and sent them on their way.
In London, Elizabeth wasn’t so convinced about the loyalty of the two men, so decided that she wanted a little chat with Northumberland and Westmorland. Not to put too fine a point on it, the earls panicked. Not wanting to end up in the Tower with Norfolk the two terrified men finally…rebelled, raising about 4,600 men from among their tenantry and kinship networks. They marched south. One of their key demands was that Cecil had to go – And the second was that they wanted the Religious Settlement of 1559 overturned so that the Mass could be restored.
On 14 November, 1569, Westmorland and Northumberland captured Durham; restored it to Catholicism, threw out the Protestant hymn books, and celebrated the Mass. They also called on all Catholics to take up arms in the defence of the true faith. Fortunately for Elizabeth most of England’s Catholics ignored the demand. Even though Barnard Castle and the port at Hartlepool fell to the rebels – the whole affair was really rather restricted.
It should be noted that James Pilkington was made Bishop of Durham in 1561 and had imposed Protestantism on his diocese despite the fact that the locals really weren’t that keen on the idea. His attitude helped rubbed the earls up the wrong way and added to the opinion that London was interfering in the way things were done in the north.
In London there was some difficulty raising a force to resist the rebels. Finally the Earl of Sussex (who wasn’t a fan of Robert Dudley) was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the North, put an army together and headed north to restore order. Elizabeth had Mary moved for safe keeping to Coventry and by December it was all over. Mary Queen of Scots and King Philip II of Spain hadn’t backed the rebels and neither had the majority of the kingdom. Recognising that the game was up the earls fled to Scotland.
Elizabeth registered her irritation by having at least 400 rebels executed for treason. The Earl of Westmorland spent the rest of his life in exile and the Earl of Northumberland was executed in 1572 when he was captured and given back to the English.
It was the only armed rebellion of Elizabeth’s reign – discounting the Earl of Essex’s failed uprising at the end of her life. The lack of support at the time is an indicator of her popularity. Her response to the rebels indicated that she was a chip off the old block and not to be trifled with. And laws were passed that made any further Catholic threat punishable as treason. She also appointed Robert Dudley’s brother-in-law Henry Hastings 3rd Earl of Huntingdon as the President of the Council of the North after Sussex (who held the post from 1569 until his death in 1572.) Huntingdon was an active Puritan who spent the next 23 years keeping the north in check.
Raglan in Gwent was, apparently, one of the last medieval castles to be constructed in England and Wales. The site was granted by Strongbow de Clare to his man Walter Bloet. The Bloets continued to hold Raglan until the fourteenth century at which point it was transmitted to the Berkeley family when Elizabeth Bloet ‘ The Lady of Raglan’ inherited her father’s estates. Sir James Berkeley died and Elizabeth married for a second time to Sir William ap Thomas – and he’s responsible for the building as it stands today. And that takes us slap bang into the fifteenth century and the Wars of the Roses.
By 1441 ap Thomas was steward for the Lordship of Abergavenny which is, of course, associated with the Neville family. He was also Richard of York’s steward in Wales – Richard was Lord of Usk by descent from Lady Elizabeth de Burgh making him a descendent of William Marshal and Isabel de Clare. William’s service to Richard let to him being called the ‘Blue Knight of Gwent’. Anyway, that aside after Elizabeth Bloet died William ap Thomas became a tenant to his Berkeley step-son. James Berkeley. In 1432 William purchased Raglan from the Berkeley family which comes as a relief because I was a bit concerned I was going to have to untangle the Berkeley family tree and its various feuds. Just a quick reminder Berkeley Castle is on the opposite side of the River Severn.
When William died in 1445 his son also named William adopted the name Herbert – I think it was because it was chosen because of a Norman ancestor but I’m not totally sure – given that he would have been styled William ap William or Gwilym ap Gwilym. In 1461 William Herbert was with Richard of York’s son Edward at Mortimer’s Cross where he commanded the left flank. In July Edward, now King Edward IV, awarded Herbert a barony and he replaced Jasper Tudor as Earl of Pembroke and gained wardship of Henry Tudor. Essentially William was Jasper’s main Welsh rival during the Wars of the Roses which may be a bit of a simplification but it helps make sense of the politics. The plan was for Henry to marry one of Herbert’s daughters – Maud who eventually married into the Percy family. But having served the Yorkists loyally Herbert fell foul of the Earl of Warwick when he rebelled against King Edward IV in 1469. William and his brother Richard were executed in the aftermath the Battle of Edgecote Moor. William’s eldest son, another William, was married to Mary Woodville a sister of Edward IV’s queen Elizabeth Woodville.
Usk lays on the edge of Norman Gwent and the Welsh kingdom of Caerleon. Orders for the motte and bailey Norman castle to be built there were given by Roger FitzWilliam, the son of William FitzOsbern the first lord of Striguil and the Conqueror’s standard-bearer. Unfortunately Roger got himself tangled up in the 1075 rebellion against King William and lost his estates which were taken back into crown hands until King Henry I gave the lordship away to Walter de Clare who also became the Lord of Striguil, Netherwent or Chepstow depending on what you want to call it.
After Walter’s death the Welsh reclaimed Usk Castle and it was only regained by the de Clare family briefly in 1170. Strongbow gave orders for a stone keep to be built in place of the wooden motte but it availed the Normans little as it was back in Welsh hands by 1174 – Strongbow being occupied in Ireland and Henry II being occupied by his family revolting.
The castle was back in Norman hands by 1185 – as was the priory down in the town which Strongbow had founded on the site of the Roman fortress of Burrium. The Crown held the castle for Strongbow’s daughter Isabel de Clare who was a sole heiress. In 1189 very shortly after Richard I became king William Marshal claimed her as his bride and Usk became part of his responsibility. In about 1212 he upgraded the fortifications with the so-called garrison tower which was round and built on French principles into the curtain wall. He also added some more comfortable domestic buildings including a solar and chamber – which Isabel may well have appreciated when she visited the castle.
After the death of William and all five of his and Isabel’s sons Usk passed into the hands of Richard de Clare the 6th Earl of Gloucester by right of his mother Isabel Marshal (yes a dispensation for the marriage between Isabel and Gilbert de Clare 4th Earl of Hertford was required.). The de Clares continued the building programme in 1289 when the North Tower was added to the castle but the new grand domestic dwellings were not completed before the death of Gilbert de Clare, 8th Earl of Gloucester in 1314 at Bannockburn.
Usk fell to the portion of the 8th earl’s youngest sister Elizabeth de Burgh who was married at the time to Edward II’s favourite Roger Damory. They continued the building work in the castle to make it more comfortable. Unfortunately in 1321 the whole edifice was given to Edward’s favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger whilst Elizabeth and her children were imprisoned at Barking Abbey. Following Despenser’s execution the castle was returned to Elizabeth in 1326. Just to round things off the castle eventually ended up in the hands of the Mortimer family through marriage. Eventually the castle passed from the Mortimers, by female inheritance, into the hands of Richard Duke of York (the one who gave battle in vain at Wakefield) – turning the castle into a royal property thanks to his sons Edward IV and Richard III. In time it passed into the hands of Prince Arthur (Henry VII’s eldest son) and then into the property portfolio of Katherine Parr.
The castle was a ruin by 1587 and being used as a quarry for dressed stone.
A ledge provided by a hinged seat in choir stalls for clerics to lean on during services. Translates from the French meaning of ‘mercy seat’. Ripon has 32 of them which were created at the end of the 15th century. I particularly like the bagpipe playing pig, Jonah emerging from a very sharp toothed whale, the lady (I think) in a wheel barrow and the mermaid.
The castle at Sheriff Hutton, a few miles from York, was not always in the hands of the Neville family. It lay originally in the hands of the Lord of Bulmer who became the Sheriff of York during the reign of King Stephen. The family was also responsible for the building of Brancepth Castle. Sheriff Hutton passed out of the possession of the Bulmer family in 1166 and into the hands of the Neville family when Emma de Bulmer became its sole heiress after the death of her brother William. It is believed – though I will have to check more thoroughly- that the bull element of the Neville family crest is a reference to the Bulmer family.
A generation later Emma’s daughter, Isabella, became heiress in her turn after her brother Henry died without any heirs. She was married to a member of the FitzMaldred family which held Raby. When Isabella’s son inherited his parents property which included Raby castle he changed his name to Neville – becoming the first Neville owner of Raby Castle. Marriage also saw the Neville family acquire Middleham Castle.
The stone castle at Sheriff Hutton was built by John Neville during the fourteenth century and in 1377 he attained a charter to hold a regular market. John’s son Ralph became the first Earl of Westmorland. In 1425 land holdings which had been built up across Yorkshire and Durham by the Nevilles thanks to several centuries of judicious marriages was split. The earldom of Westmorland was inherited by Ralph’s eldest son from his first marriage whilst the Yorkshire properties were retained by his eldest son, Richard, from his second marriage to Joan Beaufort, the youngest of the four Beaufort children born to John of Gaunt and his long term mistress (not to mention third wife) Katherine Swynford.
The Neville Bull
Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury by right of his wife, lost his life at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460. The Yorkshire estates were inherited by his son, Richard Neville, the Kingmaker, once Edward IV ascended to the throne after the Battle of Towton the following year. He retained his Yorkshire castle inheritance until he was killed at the Battle of Barnet fighting against the Yorkists. The properties then passed by right of his younger daughter Anne Neville in the the hands of her husband, Richard Duke of Gloucester whose power base in the north was based on the old Neville affinity. Edward IV had no wish to hold the castles as Crown property. Richard was his loyal lieutenant in the north.
Senior, Janet, Sheriff Hutton and its Lords, (Leeds: Rosalba Press, 2000)
It never does to forget that genealogical tables by their very nature are composed of women as well as men! Take Maud Clifford who was born sometime around 1442. Her parents were Thomas, 8th Baron Clifford and Elizabeth Percy , the daughter of Hotspur and Elizabeth Mortimer. It’s this Clifford who was killed at the First Battle of St Albans in 1455 – and as a consequence of his son’s desire for vengeance the new earl became one of Margaret of Anjou’s foremost supporters, the young Earl of Rutland was killed at the Battle of Wakefield and John Clifford gained the by-name “Black Face Clifford.” You can also see why the Cliffords would have joined in a feud against the Neville family thanks to their Percy mother.
Maud who was one of a large brood was married in the first instance to Sir John Harrington of Hornby – which was mildly unfortunate because the Harringtons supported the House of York. Sir Thomas, John’s father being a retainer of the Earl of Salisbury. Thomas and John were both at Wakefield and slain on the 30th December 1460. Maud’s daughters were just four and five but as co-heiresses they became wards of the Crown. In November 1461 Edward IV gave wardship to Thomas Lord Stanley but their uncle James refused to hand them or Hornby Castle over resulting in yet another regional fifteenth century feud.
Meanwhile Maud married Edmund Sutton in about 1465. He was the eldest son of John Sutton, Baron Dudley who changed sides after the Battle of Northampton from being a loyal supporter of Henry VI to being a loyal supporter of Edward IV. Edmund was at St Albans as a Lancastrian but at Towton as a Yorkist. The could had several children including Thomas, who did not become Baron Sutton of Dudley because Maud was a second wife and Edmund already had an heir. A suitable match was found with Grace Thelkeld who was one of three co-heiresses of Yanwath – and with that Thomas, effectively a younger son and confusing matters by taking the surname Dudley rather than Sutton as many of his kin chose to do, disappeared into the northern gentry when Yanwath Hall became his through right of his wife.
However, it always helps to maintain kinship ties and as it happens Thomas’s sons John and Thomas were able to find themselves a very powerful Tudor patron in the shape of their cousin Robert Dudley, Earl Leicester – which is of course why I have been reading about them. It’s also given me another challenge – to see if I can find my own photo of Yanwath Hall in the many out of sync files that I managed to retrieve.
On the 20th March 1470 the Battle of Nibley Green brought the so-called Berkeley Feud to a head. It was to become the last private battle on English soil.
Edward IV was in the north of England at the time tying up the loose ends of unrest there. The Earl of Warwick, increasingly unhappy with his cousin, had rebelled in 1469 and imprisoned Edward in Warwick Castle. In September Edward was released and in 1470 following the Battle of Losecoat which had been fought on the 12th March the Earl of Warwick had fled England for France along with Edward’s brother, George Duke of Clarence.
Meanwhile Thomas Talbot, Viscount Lisle and William, Lord Berkeley took the opportunity to get on with a spot of feuding. Both men believed that they were entitled to the Berkeley estate as well as title and castle. Margaret, Countess of Shrewsbury born Beauchamp was the granddaughter of Thomas, Lord Berkeley who died in 1417 (this is a long story). She and her sister were his co-heiresses via their mother Elizabeth. However, Berkeley’s estates and title passed to his brother’s son James, though it should be added that this wasn’t without dispute. In fact Thomas had enfeoffed Berkeley Castle and his lands to several trustees prior to his death because the line of inheritance was uncertain.
James died in 1463 and his son William inherited the title and the estates.
It wasn’t a straight forward sort of transfer across the family branches because Margaret was married to the Earl of Warwick – so one of the most powerful families in the land. Margaret had imprisoned James’ wife, Isabel, in 1452 when she attempted to appeal James’ claim to a council of Henry VI. Isabel died whilst still in captivity. Its probably didn’t help matters much.
In 1468 Margaret died and her claim was taken up by her eighteen year old grandson Thomas Talbot.
In 1470 William Berkeley attempted to conclude matters by issuing a personal challenge to Thomas. The pair’s heralds agreed a time and a place. The result was the Battle of Nibley Green. William had a substantial force of men which outnumbered Thomas’s. Thomas Talbot and some one hundred and fifty other men died. it probably didn’t help that Thomas forgot to lower his visor in the heat of the moment.
Thomas’s manor at Wotton was then sacked.
Margaret had occupied Wotton which was part of the Berkeley estate so William Wotton regarded it as his anyway. Lord Berkeley in one of his legal petitions accuses the Countess of unjustly keeping possession of his manors of Wotton, Symondshall, Cowley, and some others; of plotting and corrupting his servants to get possession of Berkeley Castle, and finally of compassing his death by means of a hired assassin.
Margaret denied the charge of intended murder but held fast to her claim to the Castle and manors of Berkeley. She believed that as Thomas Berkeley’s granddaughter by a direct line of inheritance that her various attempts to gain possession were justified and she petitioned to have her rights restored to her. The first petition and reply were referred by the king, (Edward IV) to the Lord Chancellor, to whom the subsequent pleas and counter-pleas were addressed, and in these proceedings, varied by predatory incursions upon each others’ manors and frequent fights between their servants and tenants, five years had passed without any decision being pronounced when Thomas Talbot inherited the feud.
William Berkeley was a Yorkist and Edward IV needed his support so he suffered little punishment being made a viscount in 1481. In 1483 he became the Earl of Nottingham. Berkeley didn’t have any legitimate children so his brother Maurice inherited the estate by which time William had done a Lord Stanley at Bosworth i.e. sat and waited to see what the outcome was going to be before joining the battle. Even worse he’d sent men to Richard III and money to Henry Tudor.
“A Sketch of the History of Berkeley Its Castle, Church, and the Berkeley Family” by James Herbert Cooke, Land Steward to the Right Hon. Lord Fitzhardinge.
Wagner, John A. The Encyclopaedia of the Wars of the Roses
beware – not all castles are as defensive as they look! Bodiam Castle, Kent.
How did you do? It’s probably one of those activities that build over the period of a couple of weeks. It certainly has for me and has been a popular challenge with He Who Is Occasionally Obeyed. No doubt we’ve forgotten a few. If you’ve got more than 50 can I just check that you’re not James St George who built Edward I’s castles?
Anteroom: small outer room – think of it as a waiting room or a connecting room that you have to get through before arriving in a larger room. Ie a large body of men couldn’t rush through an anteroom and attack everyone in the great hall , they’d have to file through.
Bailey: A courtyard defended by the outermost ring of a castle wall is called the outer bailey. Sometimes the bailey is also described as a ward. The outer bailey usually contains ancillary buildings. In very large fortifications that is an outer, middle and inner bailey. The inner bailey is the courtyard nearest to the keep. If a castle is built on a hill the arrangement may be described as an upper and lower bailey – but basically it’s all the same – a way of describing how close a courtyard is to the defensive centre of the castle.
Barbican: A stone building protecting the gateway or entrance of a castle.
Barrel vaulting: ceiling curved like the inside of a barrel.- at its most simple a set of arches side by side. Helps make the walls thicker and stronger. Often reinforced by ribs.
Bastion: Angular projection in the wall – to provide better defensive fire.
Battlements: A parapet with indentations and raised portions (merlons). Battlements are sometimes called crenellations. You would need a licence from the king to crenellate.
Berm: the bit of land between the moat and the curtain wall.
Buttery: Room to store drinks – rather than butter think wine, beer and ale.
Buttress: stone support for a wall.
Cannonier – gun port – demonstrating that castle architecture evolved to reflect the development in weaponry.
Casemate: fortified gun emplacement
Cistern: Tank to store water.
Concentric: Castles built with rings of stone walls one inside the other. Think Edward I.
Crenet: Another name for an embrasure which is the open bit behind an arrow loop where someone can stand and draw their weapon.
Curtain wall: Connecting wall between towers of a castle – or if there are no towers the wall that makes up the main defensive portion of the castle.
Drawbar: The rather large wooden beam used to secure the rather large wooden gates.
Drawbridge: The wooden bridge that clatters down or up so that horses can gallop across the moat into the castle – as evidenced on many a good black and white Hollywood blockbuster.
Drum-Tower: A large circular tower that was usually low and squat.
Fore building: The building infant of the keep – a bit like a pawn in front of the king on the chess board – it’s there for defensive purposes.
Fosse: A ditch surrounding a castle – for those who can’t afford moats or who wish to demonstrate their grasp of Latin.
Garderobe: Castle toilet. The garderobe was often a projection from the wall over the moat or alternatively it was a chute that dropped into the base of a tower which periodically had to be cleared out (lovely.) You would also keep your spare clothes in the garderobe chamber as the smell kept moths at bay….and possibly everything else as well.
Gatehouse: A building protecting the entrance to a castle. Larger castles might have an outer and an inner gatehouse adding to the number of defensive structures to be surmounted by attackers.
Gate passage: passageway beyond the main gate leading through the curtain wall to the outer bailey.
Great Hall: The main room in the building where the castle owner and his family lived. We tend to think of great halls as being part of the keep but there are castles where the great hall is separate to the main defensive structure.
Hoardings – the wooden structures built out from the top of the curtain wall or towers.
Keep: Main stone tower of a castle. It was also known as a donjon.
Lancet: Long, narrow window with pointed head – good for defensive projectiles. Plus who wants a big draughty window with no window panes in the middle of winter? To be fair many solar windows were lined with thin horn window panes or glass or there would have been shutter.
Loop: Narrow opening in castle wall that was used by archers to fire on attacking soldiers.
Machicolations: Projecting stonework on the outside of castle towers or walls, with holes in floor for dropping missiles on people attacking the castle.
Moat: A deep wide trench round a castle, sometimes called a ditch or a fosse.
Motte: A mound of of soil. Some mottes were only about 5 metres (16 feet) high, but some were over 18 metres (60 feet). The Normans built wooden watchtowers on the top of their mottes. Gradually motte and baileys were rebuilt in stone. Many small motte and baileys date from the Anarchy when Stephen and Matilda fought one another for the throne.
Motte and bailey: basic keep sitting on top of a mound. The mound would usually be surrounded by a palisade. Motte and bailey castles were initially built from wood and were later rebuilt in stone – somewhat reducing the fire hazard. The bailey was a bit of flattened earth near the motte.
Mural tower: A tower built into the wall.
Mural passage: A passage or corridor in the wall itself.
Murder-Holes or meutrieres in the roof or ceiling of a castle – usually leading to a gate house or through a passage into a ward.These were used for pouring scalding water, hot oil or other equally unpleasant stuff on attackers who had managed to enter the outer defences of a castle.
Palisade: A strong timber fence built on top of an earth rampart – usually seen in depictions of early motte and bailey castles of the kind build by Norman Conquerors.
Pantry: room near the great hall used to store food.
Parapet: A low wall on the outer side of the main wall.
Portcullis: Grating made of metal and wood. The portcullis was dropped vertically from grooves to block passage through the gate of the castle – to prevent entry or indeed exit through gateways. Castles often had more than one portcullis so that attackers might find themselves trapped beneath the handily placed murderholes.
Postern gate: the back door – for daring escapes and raids.
Rampart: A defensive stone or earth wall surrounding a castle.
Sally port: Another name for the back door for daring escapes and raids.
Screen(s) passage: Passage way for the transport of food and drink from the pantry and buttery by servants for the enjoyment of those in the great hall.
Shell-Keep: A wall surrounding the inner portion of the castle -think of an onion. The curtain wall is the outside skin, the shell-keep is the layer closer to the middle of the onion.
Solar: The upper living room of castle. The solar was usually situated above the hall and was used mainly as a bedroom. It was often the only semi-private accommodation in a castle.
Spiral staircase: does what it says on the tin.
Tower: Towers usually comes as square, polygonal, or round – and let’s not forget the drum tower.
Turret: A small tower. A turret on top of the main tower was often the main observation point in a castle.
Vice: a spiral staircase – cos why have one self explanatory word when you can have another more complicated one as well.
Wall-Walk: A passage along the castle wall. It can also be called an alure if you really want.
