History
During the time of Edward the Confessor and the early years of the Norman Conquest, the Norman barons in England built earth and timber castles where they could be safe from the local Saxons. These castles consisted of a roughly circular ditch with a bank of earth piled up just inside. on top of the bank was a wooden palisade with a wall-walk from which soldiers could look out for attacks. The area inside the castle is known as the bailey and had enough room for a large wooden hall where the Baron lived and for smaller huts for his attendants. There may also have been space for livestock as well. These simple forts were not that difficult to attack, especially when fire was used to burn the wooden palisade. As an extra measure of defence, the castle builders started constructing keeps. Keeps were wooden buildings, sometimes a tower, a hall or even the main gatehouse, but they were the stongest part of the castle. During the early part of the Norman invasion, the designers of these early castles decided at some point to build place the keep of the castle on top of a mound. They either used an existing mound or to build their own which they then constructed the keep. The mound is now known as a motte and was usually placed to one side of the bailey rather than in the middle. A ditch was dug around the bottom of the motte so that access to the keep was restricted via means of a bridge. More...
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