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213-453: (Redirected from Free Grammar School ) [REDACTED] Ashbourne Free Grammar School Free grammar schools were schools which usually operated under the jurisdiction of the church in pre-modern England . Education had long been associated with religious institutions since a cathedral grammar school was established at Canterbury under the authority of St Augustine's church and King Ethelbert at

426-412: A Saxon culture in the south, with local groups establishing regiones , small polities ruled over by powerful families and individuals. By the 7th century, some rulers, including those of Wessex , East Anglia , Essex , and Kent , had begun to term themselves kings, living in villae regales , royal centres, and collecting tribute from the surrounding regiones ; these kingdoms are often referred to as

639-459: A Crusade never actually left, often because the individual lacked sufficient funds to undertake the journey. Raising funds to travel typically involved crusaders selling or mortgaging their lands and possessions, which affected their families and, at times, considerably affected the economy as a whole. England had a diverse geography in the medieval period, from the Fenlands of East Anglia or

852-547: A bid to regain these possessions. John's efforts to raise revenues, combined with his fractious relationships with many of the English barons, led to confrontation in 1215, an attempt to restore peace through the signing of Magna Carta , and finally the outbreak of the First Barons' War . John died having fought the rebel barons and their French backers to a stalemate, and royal power was re-established by barons loyal to

1065-913: A clear identity within English society, and professional groups with a distinct identity, such as lawyers, engaged in open fighting with others in cities such as London. The Jewish community played an important role in England throughout much of the period. The first Jews arrived in England in the aftermath of the Norman invasion, when William the Conqueror brought over wealthy members of the Rouen community in Normandy to settle in London. The Jewish community expanded out across England and provided essential money-lending and banking services that were otherwise banned by

1278-656: A concern. England became dominated by the Godwin family , who had taken advantage of the Danish killings to acquire huge wealth. When Edward died in 1066, Harold Godwinson claimed the throne, defeating his rival Norwegian claimant, Harald Hardrada , at the battle of Stamford Bridge . In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy , took advantage of the English succession crisis to begin the Norman Conquest . With an army of Norman followers and mercenaries, he defeated Harold at

1491-541: A consequence of inheritance arrangements, marriage settlements and church purchases. In the 11th century, the royal position worsened further, as the ealdormen rapidly built up huge new estates, making them collectively much more powerful than the king—this contributed to the political instability of the final Anglo-Saxon years. As time went by, the position of the churls deteriorated, as their rights were slowly eroded and their duties to their lords increased. The kingdom of Wessex, which eventually laid claim to England as

1704-529: A consequence of the centralising of royal authority in the 12th century. Prior to the 1120s there is very little evidence of castles having existed in Scotland, which had remained less politically centralised than in England with the north still ruled by the kings of Norway . David I of Scotland spent time at the court of Henry I in the south, until he became the Earl of Huntingdon , and returned to Scotland with

1917-520: A coup, led by Isabella's son Edward III , in 1330. Like his grandfather, Edward III took steps to restore royal power, but during the 1340s the Black Death arrived in England. The losses from the epidemic, and the recurring plagues that followed it, significantly affected events in England for many years to come. Meanwhile, Edward, under pressure from France in Aquitaine, made a challenge for

2130-509: A final invasion of the remaining native Welsh strongholds in North Wales, intending to establish his rule over the region on a permanent basis. As part of this occupation he instructed his leading nobles to construct eight new castles across the region; Aberystwyth and Builth in mid-Wales and Beaumaris , Conwy , Caernarfon , Flint , Harlech and Rhuddlan Castle in North Wales. Historian R. Allen Brown has described these as "amongst

2343-410: A keep's walls could usually only be raised by a maximum of 12 feet (3.7 metres) a year, the keep at Scarborough was typical in taking ten years to build. Norman stone keeps played both a military and a political role. Most of the keeps were physically extremely robust and, while they were not designed as an intended location for the final defence of a castle, they were often placed near weak points in

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2556-500: A pantheon of gods including Odin , Thor and Ullr , combined with a belief in a final, apocalyptic battle called Ragnarok . The Norse settlers in England were converted relatively quickly, assimilating their beliefs into Christianity in the decades following the occupation of York, which the Archbishop had survived. The process was largely complete by the early 10th century and enabled England's leading Churchmen to negotiate with

2769-470: A result of intermarriage and cohabitation. By the end of the 12th century, and possibly as early as the 1150, contemporary commentators believed the two peoples to be blending, and the loss of the Duchy in 1204 reinforced this trend. The resulting society still prized wider French cultural values, however, and French remained the language of the court, business and international affairs, even if Parisians mocked

2982-470: A scarce workforce. Statute of Labourers 1351 was introduced to limit wages and to prevent the consumption of luxury goods by the lower classes, with prosecutions coming to take up most of the legal system's energy and time. A poll tax was introduced in 1377 that spread the costs of the war in France more widely across the whole population. The tensions spilled over into violence in the summer of 1381 in

3195-619: A shrine or a particular church, either to do penance for a perceived sin, or to seek relief from an illness or other condition. Some pilgrims travelled further, either to more distant sites within Britain or, in a few cases, onto the continent. During the Anglo-Saxon period, many shrines were built on former pagan sites which became popular pilgrimage destinations, while other pilgrims visited prominent monasteries and sites of learning. Senior nobles or kings would travel to Rome , which

3408-407: A significant drain on the country's national labour force. The total financial cost cannot be calculated with certainty, but estimates suggest that Edward's castle building programme cost at least £80,000 – four times the total royal expenditure on castles between 1154 and 1189. The Edwardian castles also made strong symbolic statements about the nature of the new occupation. For example, Caernarvon

3621-404: A single great hall, with privacy for the owner's family provided by using an upper floor for their own living accommodation. By the 14th century nobles were travelling less, bringing much larger households with them when they did travel and entertaining visitors with equally large retinues. Castles such as Goodrich were redesigned in the 1320s to provide greater residential privacy and comfort for

3834-475: A small number of castles built in England during the 1050s, by Norman knights in the service of Edward the Confessor . These include Hereford , Clavering , Richard's Castle and possibly Ewyas Harold Castle and Dover . William , Duke of Normandy , invaded England in 1066 and one of his first actions after landing was to build Hastings Castle to protect his supply routes. Following their victory at

4047-599: A standing law court in Westminster—an early Common Bench —and travelling judges conducting eyres around the country. King John extended the royal role in delivering justice, and the extent of appropriate royal intervention was one of the issues addressed in the Magna Carta of 1215. The emerging legal system reinvigorated the institution of serfdom in the 13th century by drawing an increasingly sharp distinction between freemen and villeins. Many tensions existed within

4260-443: A succession of bishops reduced the role of queens and their households in formal government. Married or widowed noblewomen remained significant cultural and religious patrons and played an important part in political and military events, even if chroniclers were uncertain if this was appropriate behaviour. As in earlier centuries, most women worked in agriculture, but here roles became more clearly gendered, with ploughing and managing

4473-400: A suite of small rooms, might be built within the castle to allow the result to be properly appreciated, or a viewing point constructed outside. At Leeds Castle the redesigned castle of the 1280s was placed within a large water garden, while at Ravensworth at the end of the 14th century an artificial lake was enclosed by a park to produce an aesthetically and symbolically pleasing entrance to

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4686-502: A system called hidage . The Anglo-Saxon kings built up a set of written laws, issued either as statutes or codes, but these laws were never written down in their entirety and were always supplemented by an extensive oral tradition of customary law. In the early part of the period local assemblies called moots were gathered to apply the laws to particular cases; in the 10th century these were replaced by hundred courts , serving local areas, and shire moots dealing with larger regions of

4899-690: A turbulent period in which the rival factions of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda struggled for power. Open battles were relatively rare during the war, with campaigns instead centred on a sequence of raids and sieges as commanders attempted to gain control over the vital castles that controlled the territory in the rival regions. Siege technology during the Anarchy centred on basic stone-throwing machines such as ballistae and mangonels , supported by siege towers and mining , combined with blockade and, occasionally, direct assault. The phase of

5112-563: A type of ringfort , some of which were very heavily defended but which are not usually considered to be castles in the usual sense of the word. The kings of Connacht constructed fortifications from 1124 which they called caistel or caislen , from the Latin and French for castle, and there has been considerable academic debate over how far these resembled European castles. The Norman invasion of Ireland began between 1166 and 1171, under first Richard de Clare and then Henry II of England, with

5325-428: A whole, evolved a centralised royal administration. One part of this was the king's council, the witenagemot , comprising the senior clergy, ealdormen , and some of the more important thegns ; the council met to advise the king on policy and legal issues. The royal household included officials, thegns and a secretariat of clergy which travelled with the king, conducting the affairs of government as it went. Under

5538-474: A wooden hall with a wall enclosing various domestic buildings along with an entrance tower called a burh-geat , which was apparently used for ceremonial purposes. Although rural burhs were relatively secure their role was primarily ceremonial and they too are not normally classed as castles. The presence of castles in Britain and Ireland dates primarily from the Norman invasion of 1066 . There were, however,

5751-431: A wooden rampart; Folkestone Castle is a good example of a Norman ring work, in this case built on top of a hill although most post-invasion castles were usually sited on lower ground. Around 80 per cent of Norman castles in this period followed the motte-and-bailey pattern, but ring works were particularly popular in certain areas, such as south-west England and south Wales. One theory put forward to explain this variation

5964-485: Is that ringworks were easier to build in these shallow-soil areas than the larger mottes. The White Tower in London and the keep of Colchester Castle were the only stone castles to be built in England immediately after the conquest, both with the characteristic square Norman keep . Both these castles were built in the Romanesque style and were intended to impress as well as provide military protection. In Wales

6177-716: The Angevin Empire . Henry reasserted royal authority and rebuilt the royal finances, intervening to claim power in Ireland and promoting the Anglo-Norman colonisation of the country. Henry strengthened England's borders with Wales and Scotland, and used the country's wealth to fund a long-running war with his rivals in France, but arrangements for his succession once again proved problematic. Several revolts broke out, led by Henry's children who were eager to acquire power and lands, sometimes backed by France, Scotland and

6390-479: The Anglo-Saxons , producing epic poems such as Beowulf and sophisticated metalwork . The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century, and a network of monasteries and convents were built across England. In the 8th and 9th centuries, England faced fierce Viking attacks, and the fighting lasted for many decades. Eventually, Wessex was established as the most powerful kingdom and promoted

6603-479: The Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 and rapidly occupied the south of England. William used a network of castles to control the major centres of power, granting extensive lands to his main Norman followers and co-opting or eliminating the former Anglo-Saxon elite. Major revolts followed, which William suppressed before intervening in the north-east of England, establishing Norman control of York and devastating

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6816-471: The Cistercians reached England, creating houses with a more austere interpretation of the monastic rules and building the great abbeys of Rievaulx and Fountains . By 1215, there were over 600 monastic communities in England, but new endowments slowed during the 13th century, creating long-term financial problems for many institutions. The Dominican and Franciscan friars arrived in England during

7029-579: The Domesday Book , produced in 1086. Changes in other areas soon began to be felt. The method of government after the conquest can be described as a feudal system , in that the new nobles held their lands on behalf of the king; in return for promising to provide military support and taking an oath of allegiance, called homage , they were granted lands termed a fief or an honour . Major nobles in turn granted lands to smaller landowners in return for homage and further military support, and eventually

7242-589: The Hundred Years' War . At times England enjoyed huge military success, with the economy buoyed by profits from the international wool and cloth trade, but by 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in France and an ongoing recession. More social unrest broke out, followed by the Wars of the Roses , fought between rival factions of the English nobility. Henry VII 's victory in 1485 conventionally marks

7455-470: The Latin word castellum and is used to refer to the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. The term tends not to be used for buildings earlier than the 11th century, but such defensive structures are known to have existed before the Norman conquest. A lack of archaeological evidence for timber buildings has tended to disguise the extent of castle-building throughout Europe prior to 1066, and many of

7668-552: The Little Ice Age ; by the 14th century spring temperatures had dropped considerably, reaching their coldest in the 1340s and 1350s. This cold end to the Middle Ages significantly affected English agriculture and living conditions. Even at the start of the Middle Ages the English landscape had been shaped by human occupation over many centuries. Much woodland was new, the result of fields being reclaimed by brush after

7881-490: The Medieval Warm Period , a prolonged period of warmer temperatures; in the early 13th century, for example, summers were around 1 °C warmer than today and the climate was slightly drier. These warmer temperatures allowed poorer land to be brought into cultivation and for grapevines to be cultivated relatively far north. The Warm Period was followed by several centuries of much cooler temperatures, termed

8094-664: The Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 1050s, the Normans began to build motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large numbers to control their newly occupied territories in England and the Welsh Marches . During the 12th century the Normans began to build more castles in stone – with characteristic square keep – that played both military and political roles. Royal castles were used to control key towns and

8307-430: The Norman invasion of Ireland in the 1170s, under Henry II , castles were established there too. Castles continued to grow in military sophistication and comfort during the 12th century, leading to a sharp increase in the complexity and length of sieges in England. While in Ireland and Wales castle architecture continued to follow that of England, after the death of Alexander III the trend in Scotland moved away from

8520-651: The Order of the Garter ), grand tournaments and round table events. Society and government in England in the early 14th century were challenged by the Great Famine and the Black Death. The economic and demographic crisis created a sudden surplus of land, undermining the ability of landowners to exert their feudal rights and causing a collapse in incomes from rented lands. Wages soared, as employers competed for

8733-525: The Percies and the Nevilles , encouraged a surge in castle building at the end of the 14th century. Palace-fortresses such as Raby , Bolton and Warkworth Castle took the quadrangular castle styles of the south and combined them with exceptionally large key towers or keeps to form a distinctive northern style. Built by major noble houses these castles were typically even more opulent than those built by

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8946-482: The Second Barons' War , was larger and longer still. Extensive water defences withstood the attack of the future Edward I , despite the prince targeting the weaker parts of the castle walls, employing huge siege towers and attempting a night attack using barges brought from Chester . The costs of the siege exhausted the revenues of ten English counties. Sieges in Scotland were initially smaller in scale, with

9159-553: The Tower of London were used to import, store and distribute royal wines. The English royal castles also became used as gaols – the Assize of Clarendon in 1166 insisted that royal sheriffs establish their own gaols and, in the coming years, county gaols were placed in all the shrieval royal castles. Conditions in these gaols were poor and claims of poor treatment and starvation were common; Northampton Castle appears to have seen some of

9372-432: The battle of Hastings the Normans began three phases of castle building. The first of these was the establishment, by the new king, of a number of royal castles in key strategic locations. This royal castle programme focused on controlling the towns and cities of England and the associated lines of communication, including Cambridge , Huntingdon , Lincoln , Norwich , Nottingham , Wallingford , Warwick and York . Of

9585-467: The burhs or halls of local nobles, and might be constructed so as to imitate aspects of the previous buildings – such as the gatehouse at Rougemont Castle in Exeter , which closely resembled the previous Anglo-Saxon burh tower – this was probably done to demonstrate to the local population that they now answered to their new Norman rulers. The second and third waves of castle building were led by

9798-558: The liturgy , combined with the abuses of wealth within the Church and the role of senior churchmen in government, distracted from that study. A loose movement that included many members of the gentry pursued these ideas after Wycliffe's death in 1384 and attempted to pass a Parliamentary bill in 1395: the movement was rapidly condemned by the authorities and was termed " Lollardy ". The English bishops were charged to control and counter this trend, disrupting Lollard preachers and to enforcing

10011-458: The loss of Normandy . The 14th century in England saw the Great Famine and the Black Death , catastrophic events that killed around half of England's population, throwing the economy into chaos, and undermining the old political order. Social unrest followed, resulting in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, while the changes in the economy resulted in the emergence of a new class of gentry , and

10224-525: The nouveau riche of the south. They marked what historian Anthony Emery has described as a "second peak of castle building in England and Wales", after the Edwardian designs at the end of the 14th century. Early gunpowder weapons were introduced to England from the 1320s onwards and began to appear in Scotland by the 1330s. By the 1340s the English Crown was regularly spending money on them and

10437-537: The pogroms carried out against Jewish communities in the reign of Richard I. After an initially peaceful start to John's reign, the king again began to extort money from the Jewish community and, with the breakdown in order in 1215, the Jews were subject to fresh attacks. Henry III restored some protection and Jewish money-lending began to recover. Despite this, the Jewish community became increasingly impoverished and

10650-580: The usury laws . During the 12th century, the Jewish financial community grew richer still, operating under royal protection and providing the king with a source of ready credit. All major towns had Jewish centres, and even the smaller towns saw visits by travelling Jewish merchants. Towards the end of Henry II's reign, however, the king ceased to borrow from the Jewish community and instead turned to extracting money from them through arbitrary taxation and fines. The Jews became vilified and accusations were made that they conducted ritual child murder , encouraging

10863-483: The widespread civil and religious conflicts across the British Isles during the 1640s and 1650s, castles played a key role in England. Modern defences were quickly built alongside existing medieval fortifications and, in many cases, castles successfully withstood more than one siege. In Ireland the introduction of heavy siege artillery by Oliver Cromwell in 1649 brought a rapid end to the utility of castles in

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11076-465: The 1220s, establishing 150 friaries by the end of the 13th century; these mendicant orders rapidly became popular, particularly in towns, and heavily influenced local preaching. The religious military orders that became popular across Europe from the 12th century onwards acquired possessions in England, including the Templars , Teutons and Hospitallers . The Church had a close relationship with

11289-427: The 12th and 13th centuries, fueling an expansion of the towns, cities, and trade, helped by warmer temperatures across Northern Europe. A new wave of monasteries and friaries was established while ecclesiastical reforms led to tensions between successive kings and archbishops . Despite developments in England's governance and legal system , infighting between the Anglo-Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and

11502-530: The 12th century, but remained an ongoing threat to the remaining native rulers. In response the Welsh princes and lords began to build their own castles, usually in wood. There are indications that this may have begun from 1111 onwards under Prince Cadwgan ap Bleddyn with the first documentary evidence of a native Welsh castle being at Cymmer in 1116. These timber castles, including Tomen y Rhodwydd, Tomen y Faerdre and Gaer Penrhôs , were of equivalent quality to

11715-484: The 1380s possessed a moat, towers and gunports but, rather than being a genuine military fortification, the castle was primarily intended to be admired by visitors and used as a luxurious dwelling – the chivalric architecture implicitly invoking comparisons with Edward I's great castle at Beaumaris . In the north of England improvements in the security of the Scottish border, and the rise of major noble families such as

11928-412: The 13th century and saw some limited use during Edward I's occupation of Scotland in the early 14th century. The remaining English castles became increasingly comfortable. Their interiors were often painted and decorated with tapestries , which would be transported from castle to castle as nobles travelled around the country. There were an increasing number of garderobes built inside castles, while in

12141-549: The 13th century, although the deteriorating Irish economy of the 14th century brought this wave of building to an end. In Scotland Alexander II and Alexander III undertook a number of castle building projects in the modern style, although Alexander III's early death sparked conflict in Scotland and English intervention under Edward I in 1296. In the ensuing wars of Scottish Independence castle building in Scotland altered path, turning away from building larger, more conventional castles with curtain walls. The Scots instead adopted

12354-415: The 15th century only a few were maintained for defensive purposes. A small number of castles in England and Scotland were developed into Renaissance Era palaces that hosted lavish feasts and celebrations amid their elaborate architecture. Such structures were, however, beyond the means of all but royalty and the richest of the late-medieval barons. Although gunpowder weapons were used to defend castles from

12567-410: The 5th and 6th centuries, establishing small farms and settlements, and their language, Old English , swiftly spread as more settlers arrived and those of the previous inhabitants who had not moved west or to Brittany switched from Common Brittonic and British Latin to the migrants' language. New political and social identities emerged, including an Anglian culture in the east of England and

12780-575: The 5th century. The collapse of the Roman system in the late 5th century, however, brought about the end of formal Christian religion in the east of England, and the new Germanic immigrants arrived with their own polytheistic gods, including Woden , Thunor and Tiw , still reflected in various English place names. Despite the resurgence of paganism in England, Christian communities still survived in more western areas such as Gloucestershire and Somerset . The movement towards Christianity began again in

12993-599: The 630s and 640s, and the wave of change carried on through the middle of the 7th century across the kingdoms of Mercia, the South Saxons and the Isle of Wight . The process was largely complete by the end of the 7th century, but left a confusing and disparate array of local practices and religious ceremonies. This new Christianity reflected the existing military culture of the Anglo-Saxons: as kings began to convert in

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13206-420: The 6th and 7th centuries, conversion began to be used as a justification for war against the remaining pagan kingdoms, for example, while Christian saints were imbued with martial properties. The Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries reintroduced paganism to North-East England, leading in turn to another wave of conversion. Indigenous Scandinavian beliefs were very similar to other Germanic groups, with

13419-459: The 6th century, however, these different groups began to coalesce into stratified societies across England, roughly corresponding to the later Angle and Saxon kingdoms recorded by Bede in the 8th century. By the 9th century, the term the Angelcynn was being officially used to refer to a single English people, and promoted for propaganda purposes by chroniclers and kings to inspire resistance to

13632-601: The Anarchy . Matilda's son, Henry , finally agreed to a peace settlement at Winchester and succeeded as king in 1154. Henry II was the first of the Angevin rulers of England, so-called because he was also the Count of Anjou in Northern France. Henry had also acquired the huge duchy of Aquitaine by marriage, and England became a key part of a loose-knit assemblage of lands spread across Western Europe, later termed

13845-412: The Anglo-Norman lords. According to chronicler William of Newburgh royal castles formed the "bones of the kingdom". A number of royal castles were also designated as shrieval castles, forming the administrative hub for a particular county – for example Winchester Castle served as the centre of Hampshire . These castles formed a base for the royal sheriff , responsible for enforcing royal justice in

14058-472: The Anglo-Normans. Other castles, such as Trim and Carrickfergus , were built in stone as the caput centres for major barons. Analysis of these stone castles suggests that building in stone was not simply a military decision; indeed, several of the castles contain serious defensive flaws. Instead the designs, including their focus on large stone keeps, were intended both to increase the prestige of

14271-527: The Black Prince , were heavily involved in campaigning in France and administering the new continental territories. Edward's grandson, the young Richard II , faced political and economic problems, many resulting from the Black Death, including the Peasants' Revolt that broke out across the south of England in 1381. Over the coming decades, Richard and groups of nobles vied for power and control of policy towards France until Henry of Bolingbroke seized

14484-453: The British Isles are safeguarded by legislation. Primarily used as tourist attractions , castles form a key part of the national heritage industry . Historians and archaeologists continue to develop our understanding of British castles, while vigorous academic debates in recent years have questioned the interpretation of physical and documentary material surrounding their original construction and use. The English word " castle " derives from

14697-468: The Conqueror and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts and controlling the population through a network of castles . The new rulers introduced a feudal approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery , but creating a much wider body of unfree labourers called serfs . The position of women in society changed as laws regarding land and lordship shifted. England's population more than doubled during

14910-444: The Conqueror acquired the support of the Church for the invasion of England by promising ecclesiastical reform. William promoted celibacy amongst the clergy and gave ecclesiastical courts more power, but also reduced the Church's direct links to Rome and made it more accountable to the king. Tensions arose between these practices and the reforming movement of Pope Gregory VII , which advocated greater autonomy from royal authority for

15123-610: The Continent. A reformed network of around 40 monastic institutions across the south and east of England, under the protection of the king, helped re-establish royal control over the reconquered Danelaw. The 1066 Norman conquest brought a new set of Norman and French churchmen to power; some adopted and embraced aspects of the former Anglo-Saxon religious system, while others introduced practices from Normandy. Extensive English lands were granted to monasteries in Normandy, allowing them to create daughter priories and monastic cells across

15336-531: The Danelaw, and by the 950s and the reigns of Eadred and Edgar , York was finally permanently retaken from the Vikings. The West Saxon rulers were now kings of the Angelcynn , that is of the whole English folk. With the death of Edgar, however, the royal succession became problematic. Æthelred took power in 978 following the murder of his brother Edward , but England was then invaded by Sweyn Forkbeard ,

15549-664: The Danes at the Battle of Edington , and he exploited the fear of the Viking threat to raise large numbers of men and using a network of defended towns called burhs to defend his territory and mobilise royal resources. Suppressing internal opposition to his rule, Alfred contained the invaders within a region known as the Danelaw . Under his son, Edward the Elder , and his grandson, Æthelstan , Wessex expanded further north into Mercia and

15762-432: The Danish invasions. The Normans and French who arrived after the conquest saw themselves as different from the English. They had close family and economic links to the Duchy of Normandy, spoke Norman French and had their own distinctive culture. For many years, to be English was to be associated with military failure and serfdom. During the 12th century, the divisions between the English and Normans began to dissolve as

15975-412: The Danish kings, a bodyguard of housecarls also accompanied the court. At a regional level, ealdormen played an important part in government, defence and taxation, and the post of sheriff emerged in the 10th century, administering local shires on behalf of an ealdorman. Anglo-Saxon mints were tightly controlled by the kings, providing a high-quality currency, and the whole country was taxed using

16188-455: The English for their poor pronunciation. By the 14th century, however, French was increasingly having to be formally taught, rather than being learnt naturally in the home, although the aristocracy would typically spend many years of their lives in France and remained entirely comfortable working in French. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the English began to consider themselves superior to

16401-423: The English state throughout the Middle Ages. The bishops and major monastic leaders played an important part in national government, having key roles on the king's council. Bishops often oversaw towns and cities, managing local taxation and government . This frequently became untenable with the Viking incursions of the 9th century, and in locations such as Worcester the local bishops came to new accommodations with

16614-541: The European tradition or, uniquely to England, chapters of monks. These institutions were badly affected in the 9th century by Viking raids and predatory annexations by the nobility. By the start of the 10th century, monastic lands, financial resources and the quality of monasteries' religious work had been much diminished. Reforms followed under the kings of Wessex who promoted the Benedictine rule then popular on

16827-431: The French throne. Over the next century, English forces fought many campaigns in a long-running conflict that became known as the Hundred Years' War . Despite the challenges involved in raising the revenues to pay for the war, Edward's military successes brought an influx of plundered wealth to many parts of England and enabled substantial building work by the king. Many members of the English elite, including Edward's son

17040-605: The Heptarchy . In the 7th century, the Kingdom of Mercia rose to prominence under the leadership of King Penda . Mercia invaded neighbouring lands until it loosely controlled around 50 regiones covering much of England. Mercia and the remaining kingdoms, led by their warrior elites, continued to compete for territory throughout the 8th century. Massive earthworks, such as the defensive dyke built by Offa of Mercia , helped to defend key frontiers and towns. In 789, however,

17253-489: The Marches. Square keeps remained common across much of England in contrast to the circular keeps increasingly prevailing in France; in the Marches, however, circular keep designs became more popular. Castles began to take on a more regular, enclosed shape, ideally quadrilateral or at least polygonal in design, especially in the more prosperous south. Flanking towers, initially square and latterly curved, were introduced along

17466-643: The Middle Ages England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period , from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the early modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire , the economy was in tatters and many of the towns abandoned. After several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into kingdoms that competed for power. A rich artistic culture flourished under

17679-437: The Norman fortifications in the area and it can prove difficult to distinguish the builders of some sites from the archaeological evidence alone. At the end of the 12th century the Welsh rulers began to build castles in stone, primarily in the principality of North Wales. Ireland remained ruled by native kings into the 12th century, largely without the use of castles. There was a history of Irish fortifications called ráths ,

17892-564: The Norman invasion, the position of women in society changed. The rights and roles of women became more sharply defined, in part as a result of the development of the feudal system and the expansion of the English legal system; some women benefited from this, while others lost out. The rights of widows were formally laid down in law by the end of the 12th century, clarifying the right of free women to own property, but this did not necessarily prevent women from being forcibly remarried against their wishes. The growth of governmental institutions under

18105-809: The Norman kings to project power across the region, including funding campaigns along the frontiers of Normandy. Norman rule, however, proved unstable; successions to the throne were contested, leading to violent conflicts between the claimants and their noble supporters. William II inherited the throne but faced revolts attempting to replace him with his older brother Robert or his cousin Stephen of Aumale . In 1100, William II died while hunting. Despite Robert's rival claims, his younger brother Henry I immediately seized power. War broke out, ending in Robert's defeat at Tinchebrai and his subsequent life imprisonment. Robert's son Clito remained free, however, and formed

18318-479: The Norman nobility across England and the Marches lacked a grand strategic plan, reflecting local circumstances such as military factors and the layout of existing estates and church lands. Castles were often situated along the old Roman roads that still formed the backbone for travel across the country, both to control the lines of communication and to ensure easy movement between different estates. Many castles were built close to inland river ports and those built on

18531-549: The Second World War. Other castles were used as county gaols , until parliamentary legislation in the 19th closed most of them down. For a period in the early 18th century, castles were shunned in favour of Palladian architecture , until they re-emerged as an important cultural and social feature of England, Wales and Scotland and were frequently "improved" during the 18th and 19th centuries. Such renovations raised concerns over their protection so that today castles across

18744-566: The Tower of London and the 15,366 pound (6,970 kilo) heavy Mons Meg bombard was installed at Edinburgh Castle . Early cannons had only a limited range and were unreliable; in addition early stone cannonballs were relatively ineffective when fired at stone castle walls. As a result, early cannon proved most useful for defence, particularly against infantry assaults or to fire at the crews of enemy trebuchets. Indeed, early cannons could be quite dangerous to their own soldiers; James II of Scotland

18957-423: The Welsh border respectively. In these areas a baron's castles were clustered relatively tightly together, but in most of England the nobles' estates, and therefore their castles, were more widely dispersed. As the Normans pushed on into South Wales they advanced up the valleys building castles as they went and often using the larger castles of the neighbouring earldoms as a base. As a result, castle building by

19170-474: The Welsh princes. After a final confrontation with Henry, his son Richard I succeeded to the throne in 1189. Richard spent his reign focused on protecting his possessions in France and fighting in the Third Crusade ; his brother, John , inherited England in 1199 but lost Normandy and most of Aquitaine after several years of war with France. John fought successive, increasingly expensive, campaigns in

19383-533: The Welsh, Scots and Bretons . The English perceived themselves as civilised, economically prosperous and properly Christian, while the Celtic fringe was considered lazy, barbarous and backward. Following the invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century, similar feelings were expressed about the Irish, with the distinctions clarified and reinforced in 14th-century English legislation. The English also felt strongly about

19596-504: The baronial owners and to provide adequate space for the administrative apparatus of the new territories. Unlike in Wales the indigenous Irish lords do not appear to have constructed their own castles in any significant number during the period. Castle design in Britain continued to change towards the end of the 12th century. After Henry II mottes ceased to be built in most of England, although they continued to be erected in Wales and along

19809-697: The castles built by William the Conqueror two-thirds were built in towns and cities, often those with the former Anglo-Saxon mints . These urban castles could make use of the existing town's walls and fortifications, but typically required the demolition of local houses to make space for them. This could cause extensive damage, and records suggest that in Lincoln 166 houses were destroyed, with 113 in Norwich and 27 in Cambridge. Some of these castles were deliberately built on top of important local buildings, such as

20022-421: The castles were occupied simultaneously. Some were built during the invasions and then abandoned while other new castles were constructed elsewhere, especially along the western borders. Recent estimates suggest that between 500 and 600 castles were occupied at any one time in the post-conquest period. There was a large degree of variation in the size and exact shape of the castles built in England and Wales after

20235-435: The circular design held military advantages, these only really mattered in the 13th century onwards; the origins of 12th-century circular design were the circular design of the mottes; indeed, some designs were less than circular in order to accommodate irregular mottes, such as that at Windsor Castle . English castles during the period were divided into those royal castles owned by the king, and baronial castles controlled by

20448-399: The civil war and involved building a basic castle during a siege, alongside the main target of attack. Typically these would be built in either a ringwork or a motte-and-bailey design between 200 and 300 yards (180 and 270 metres) away from the target, just beyond the range of a bow. Counter-castles could be used to either act as firing platforms for siege weaponry, or as bases for controlling

20661-601: The clergy, condemned the practice of simony and promoted greater influence for the papacy in church matters. Despite the bishops continuing to play a major part in royal government, tensions emerged between the kings of England and key leaders within the English Church. Kings and archbishops clashed over rights of appointment and religious policy, and successive archbishops including Anselm , Theobald of Bec , Thomas Becket and Stephen Langton were variously forced into exile, arrested by royal knights or even killed. By

20874-421: The coast were usually located at the mouths of rivers or in ports, Pevensey and Portchester being rare exceptions. Some groups of castles were located so as to be mutually reinforcing – for example the castles of Littledean Camp , Glasshouse Woods and Howle Hill Camp were intended to act as an integrated defence for the area around Gloucester and Gloucester Castle for Gloucester city itself, while Windsor

21087-641: The collapse of the Roman Empire. Human intervention had established wood pastures , an ancient system for managing woods and animals, and coppicing , a more intensive approach to managing woodlands. Other agricultural lands included arable fields and pastorage, while in some parts of the country, such as the South-West, waste moorland remained testament to earlier over-farming in the Bronze Age . England's environment continued to be shaped throughout

21300-458: The community in their own right. An English cultural identity first emerged from the interaction of the Germanic immigrants of the 5th and 6th centuries and the indigenous Romano-British inhabitants. Although early medieval chroniclers described the immigrants as Angles and Saxons, they came from a much wider area across Northern Europe, and represented a range of different ethnic groups. Over

21513-553: The conflict known as "the Castle War" saw both sides attempting to defeat each other through sieges, such as Stephen's attempts to take Wallingford , the most easterly fortress in Matilda's push towards London, or Geoffrey de Mandeville 's attempts to seize East Anglia by taking Cambridge Castle . Both sides responded to the challenge of the conflict by building many new castles, sometimes as sets of strategic fortifications. In

21726-425: The conquest, with somewhere between ten and fifteen in existence by 1100, and more followed in the 12th century until around 100 had been built by 1216. Typically these were four sided designs with the corners reinforced by pilaster buttresses . Keeps were up to four storeys high, with the entrance on the first storey to prevent the door from being easily broken down. The strength of the design typically came from

21939-523: The construction of larger castles towards the use of smaller tower houses . The tower house style would also be adopted in the north of England and Ireland in later years. In North Wales Edward I built a sequence of militarily powerful castles after the destruction of the last Welsh polities in the 1270s. By the 14th century castles were combining defences with luxurious, sophisticated living arrangements and heavily landscaped gardens and parks. Many royal and baronial castles were left to decline, so that by

22152-467: The crown was unable to intervene in the factional fighting between different nobles and their followers. The resulting Wars of the Roses saw a savage escalation of violence between the noble leaderships of both sides: captured enemies were executed and family lands attainted . By the time that Henry VII took the throne in 1485, England's governmental and social structures had been substantially weakened, with whole noble lines extinguished. Medieval England

22365-399: The curved surfaces could deflect some of the force of the shot. Castles saw an increasing use of arrowslits by the 13th century, especially in England, almost certainly linked to the introduction of crossbows. These arrow slits were combined with firing positions from the tops of the towers, initially protected by wooden hoarding until stone machicolations were introduced in England in

22578-416: The ealdermen), sheriffs and church seniors were all drawn from their ranks. In many areas of society there was continuity, as the Normans adopted many of the Anglo-Saxon governmental institutions, including the tax system, mints and the centralisation of law-making and some judicial matters; initially sheriffs and the hundred courts continued to function as before. The existing tax liabilities were captured in

22791-468: The early 12th-century raised armies against Scottish invaders and built up extensive holdings of castles across the country. New orders began to be introduced into England. As ties to Normandy waned, the French Cluniac order became fashionable and their houses were introduced in England. The Augustinians spread quickly from the beginning of the 12th century onwards, while later in the century

23004-418: The early 13th century, however, the church had largely won its argument for independence, answering almost entirely to Rome. In the 1380s, several challenges emerged to the traditional teachings of the Church, resulting from the teachings of John Wycliffe , a member of Oxford University . Wycliffe argued that scripture was the best guide to understanding God's intentions, and that the superficial nature of

23217-455: The early wooden castles were built on the site of earlier fortifications. Before the arrival of the Normans the Anglo-Saxons had built burhs , fortified structures with their origins in 9th-century Wessex . Most of these, especially in urban areas, were large enough to be best described as fortified townships rather than private dwellings and are therefore not usually classed as castles. Rural burhs were smaller and usually consisted of

23430-414: The economically important forests, while baronial castles were used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates. David I invited Anglo-Norman lords into Scotland in the early 12th century to help him colonise and control areas of his kingdom such as Galloway ; the new lords brought castle technologies with them and wooden castles began to be established over the south of the kingdom. Following

23643-674: The end of the Middle Ages in England and the start of the Early Modern period . At the start of the Middle Ages, England was a part of Britannia , a former province of the Roman Empire . The local economy had once been dominated by imperial Roman spending on a large military establishment, which in turn helped to support a complex network of towns, roads, and villas . At the end of the 4th century, however, Roman forces had been largely withdrawn, and this economy collapsed. Germanic settlers began to arrive in increasing numbers during

23856-443: The end of the 6th century. The religious reforms of Henry VIII and the influence of renaissance philosophy resulted in an increased educational drive and a broadening of curriculum , but perhaps the most significant change of this period was that many new grammar schools were private institutions 'supervised in variable degree by church and state'. From the 16th century, there was much lively debate over curriculum, arguments about

24069-404: The entire country. The road system was adequate for the needs of the period, although it was significantly cheaper to transport goods by water. The major river networks formed key transport routes, while many English towns formed navigable inland ports . For much of the Middle Ages, England's climate differed from that in the 21st century. Between the 9th and 13th centuries England went through

24282-428: The fields defined as men's work, for example, and dairy production becoming dominated by women. The years after the Black Death left many women widows; in the wider economy labour was in short supply and land was suddenly readily available. In rural areas peasant women could enjoy a better standard of living than ever before, but the amount of work being done by women may have increased. Many other women travelled to

24495-477: The finest achievements of medieval military architecture [in England and Wales]". The castles varied in design but were typically characterised by powerful mural towers along the castle walls, with multiple, over-lapping firing points and large and extremely well defended barbicans. The castles were intended to be used by the king when in the region and included extensive high-status accommodation. Edward also established various new English towns, and in several cases

24708-454: The first Scandinavian raids on England began; these Viking attacks grew in number and scale until in 865 the Danish micel here or Great Army , invaded England, captured York and defeated the kingdom of East Anglia. Mercia and Northumbria fell in 875 and 876, and Alfred of Wessex was driven into internal exile in 878. However, in the same year Alfred won a decisive victory against

24921-446: The first recorded such event being the 1230 siege of Rothesay Castle where the besieging Norwegians were able to break down the relatively weak stone walls with axes after only three days. When Edward I invaded Scotland he brought with him the siege capabilities which had evolved south of the border: Edinburgh Castle fell within three days, and Roxburgh , Jedburgh , Dunbar , Stirling , Lanark and Dumbarton castles surrendered to

25134-432: The first wave of the Norman castles were again made of wood, in a mixture of motte-and-bailey and ringwork designs, with the exception of the stone built Chepstow Castle . Chepstow too was heavily influenced by Romanesque design, reusing numerous materials from the nearby Venta Silurum to produce what historian Robert Liddiard has termed "a play upon images from Antiquity". The size of these castles varied depending on

25347-467: The focus for fresh revolts until his death in 1128. Henry's only legitimate son, William , died aboard the White Ship disaster of 1120, sparking a fresh succession crisis: Henry's nephew, Stephen of Blois , claimed the throne in 1135, but this was disputed by the Empress Matilda , Henry's daughter. Civil war broke out across England and Normandy, resulting in a long period of warfare later termed

25560-526: The foreign traders who lived in the special enclaves in London in the Late Middle Ages; the position of the Jews is described below, but Italian and Baltic traders were also regarded as aliens and were frequently the targets of violence during economic downturns. Even within England, different identities abounded, each with their own sense of status and importance. Regional identities could be important – men and women from Yorkshire , for example, had

25773-459: The form of the Peasants' Revolt; a violent retribution followed, with as many as 7,000 alleged rebels executed. A new class of gentry emerged as a result of these changes, renting land from the major nobility to farm out at a profit. The legal system continued to expand during the 14th century, dealing with an ever-wider set of complex problems. By the time that Richard II was deposed in 1399,

25986-483: The fortification. The wider parklands and forests were increasingly managed and the proportion of the smaller fallow deer consumed by castle inhabitants in England increased as a result. During the 13th century the native Welsh princes built a number of stone castles. The size of these varied considerably from smaller fortifications, such as Dinas Emrys in Snowdonia, to more substantial castles like Dinefwr and

26199-486: The geography of the site, the decisions of the builder and the available resources. Analysis of the size of mottes has shown some distinctive regional variation; East Anglia , for example, saw much larger mottes being built than the Midlands or London. While motte-and-bailey and ring-work castles took great effort to build, they required relatively few skilled craftsmen allowing them to be raised using forced labour from

26412-405: The great Anglo-Saxon families, and the links with the Duchy began to weaken. By the late 12th century, mobilising the English barons to fight on the continent was proving difficult, and John's attempts to do so ended in civil war. Civil strife re-emerged under Henry III, with the rebel barons in 1258–59 demanding widespread reforms, and an early version of Parliament was summoned in 1265 to represent

26625-430: The growth of an English identity. Despite repeated crises of succession and a Danish seizure of power at the start of the 11th century, it can also be argued that by the 1060s England was a powerful, centralised state with a strong military and successful economy. The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles and their supporters. William

26838-478: The heart of Kenilworth Castle , like Windsor the work emphasised a unifying, rectangular design and the separation of ground floor service areas from the upper stories and a contrast of austere exteriors with lavish interiors, especially on the 1st floor of the inner bailey buildings. By the end of the 14th century a distinctive English perpendicular style had emerged. In the south of England private castles were being built by newly emerging, wealthy families; like

27051-421: The heavily wooded Weald , through to the upland moors of Yorkshire . Despite this, medieval England broadly formed two zones, roughly divided by the rivers Exe and Tees : the south and east of England had lighter, richer soils, able to support both arable and pastoral agriculture, while the poorer soils and colder climate of the north and west produced a predominantly pastoral economy. Slightly more land

27264-496: The help of a majority of the nobility, exercising power through the exchequer , the common bench and the royal household. This government was better organised and on a larger scale than ever before, and by the 14th century the king's formerly peripatetic chancery had to take up permanent residence in Westminster . Edward used Parliament even more than his predecessors to handle general administration, to legislate and to raise

27477-422: The inside of the shell, producing a small inner courtyard. Restormel Castle is a classic example of this development with a perfectly circular wall and a square entrance tower while the later Launceston Castle , although more ovoid than circular, is another good example of the design and one of the most formidable castles of the period. Round castles were unusually popular throughout Cornwall and Devon. Although

27690-436: The intention of extending royal power across the country and modernising Scotland's military technology, including the introduction of castles. The Scottish king encouraged Norman and French nobles to settle in Scotland, introducing a feudal mode of landholding and the use of castles as a way of controlling the contested lowlands. The quasi-independent polity of Galloway, which had resisted the rule of David and his predecessors,

27903-411: The invasion. One popular form was the motte and bailey , in which earth would be piled up into a mound (called a motte ) to support a wooden tower, and a wider enclosed area built alongside it (called a bailey); Stafford Castle is a typical example of a post-invasion motte castle. Another widespread design was the ring work in which earth would be built up in a circular or oval shape and topped with

28116-550: The king with hunting grounds, raw materials, goods and money. Forests were typically tied to castles, both to assist with the enforcement of the law and to store the goods being extracted from the local economy: Peveril Castle was linked to the Peak Forest and the local lead mining there; St Briavels was tied to the Forest of Dean ; and Knaresborough , Rockingham and Pickering to their eponymous forests respectively. In

28329-465: The king. Subsequent English sieges, such as the attacks on Bothwell and Stirling, again used considerable resources including giant siege engines and extensive teams of miners and masons. A number of royal castles, from the 12th century onwards, formed an essential network of royal storehouses in the 13th century for a wide range of goods including food, drink, weapons, armour and raw materials. Castles such as Southampton , Winchester , Bristol and

28542-451: The kingdom. Many churchmen and thegns were also given permission by the king to hold their own local courts. The legal system depended on a system of oaths in which the value of different individuals swearing on behalf of the plaintiff or defendant varied according to their social status – the word of a companion of the king, for example, was worth twelve times that of a churl . If fines were imposed, their size similarly varied accord to

28755-474: The kingdom. The monasteries were brought firmly into the web of feudal relations, with their holding of land linked to the provision of military support to the crown. The Normans adopted the Anglo-Saxon model of monastic cathedral communities, and within seventy years the majority of English cathedrals were controlled by monks; every English cathedral, however, was rebuilt to some extent by the new rulers. England's bishops remained powerful temporal figures, and in

28968-431: The largest, Castell y Bere . Native Welsh castles typically maximised the defensive benefits of high, mountainous sites, often being built in an irregular shape to fit a rocky peak. Most had deep ditches cut out of the rock to protect the main castle. The Welsh castles were usually built with a relatively short keep, used as living accommodation for princes and nobility, and with distinctive 'apsidal' D-shaped towers along

29181-404: The late 13th century some castles were built within carefully "designed landscapes", sometimes drawing a distinction between an inner core of a herber , a small enclosed garden complete with orchards and small ponds, and an outer region with larger ponds and high status buildings such as "religious buildings, rabbit warrens, mills and settlements", potentially set within a park. A gloriette , or

29394-446: The late 13th century. The crossbow was an important military advance on the older short bow and was the favoured weapon by the time of Richard I; many crossbows and vast numbers of quarrels were needed to supply royal forces, in turn requiring larger scale iron production. In England, crossbows were primarily made at the Tower of London but St Briavels Castle, with the local Forest of Dean available to provide raw materials, became

29607-414: The late 14th century onwards it became clear during the 16th century that, provided artillery could be transported and brought to bear on a besieged castle, gunpowder weapons could also play an important attack role. The defences of coastal castles around the British Isles were improved to deal with this threat, but investment in their upkeep once again declined at the end of the 16th century. Nevertheless, in

29820-602: The late 6th and 7th centuries, helped by the conversion of the Franks in Northern France, who carried considerable influence in England. Pope Gregory I sent a team of missionaries to convert King Æthelberht of Kent and his household, starting the process of converting Kent. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury and started to build new churches across the South-East, reusing existing pagan shrines. Oswald and Oswiu , kings of Northumbria, were converted in

30033-452: The late king's council, but primogeniture rapidly became the norm for succession. The kings further bolstered their status by adopting Christian ceremonies and nomenclature, introducing ecclesiastical coronations during the 8th century and terming themselves "Christ's deputy" by the 11th century. Huge estates were initially built up by the king, bishops, monasteries and thegns , but in the 9th and 10th centuries these were slowly broken up as

30246-478: The local ealdormen , exchanging some authority and revenue for assistance in defence. The early English church was racked with disagreement on doctrine , which was addressed by the Synod of Whitby in 664; some issues were resolved, but arguments between the archbishops of Canterbury and York as to which had primacy across Britain began shortly afterwards and continued throughout most of the medieval period. William

30459-533: The local estates; this, in addition to the speed with which they could be built – a single season, made them particularly attractive immediately after the conquest. The larger earthworks, particularly mottes, required an exponentially greater quantity of manpower than their smaller equivalents and consequently tended to be either royal, or belong to the most powerful barons who could muster the required construction effort. Despite motte-and-bailey and ringworks being common designs amongst Norman castles, each fortification

30672-421: The major magnates, and then by the more junior knights on their new estates. The apportionment of the conquered lands by the king influenced where these castles were built. In a few key locations the king gave his followers compact groups of estates including the six rapes of Sussex and the three earldoms of Chester , Shrewsbury and Hereford ; intended to protect the line of communication with Normandy and

30885-410: The middle of the 13th century Henry III began to redesign his favourite castles, including Winchester and Windsor , building larger halls, grander chapels, installing glass windows and decorating the palaces with painted walls and furniture. This marked the beginning of a trend towards the development of grand castles designed for elaborate, elite living. Life in earlier keeps had been focused around

31098-549: The military situation in France began to unravel. A sequence of bloody civil wars, later termed the Wars of the Roses , finally broke out in 1455, spurred on by an economic crisis and a widespread perception of poor government. Edward IV , leading a faction known as the Yorkists , removed Henry from power in 1461 but by 1469 fighting recommenced as Edward, Henry, and Edward's brother George , backed by leading nobles and powerful French supporters, vied for power. By 1471 Edward

31311-447: The monastic reforms of the 9th century. Anglo-Saxon queens began to hold lands in their own right in the 10th century and their households contributed to the running of the kingdom. Although women could not lead military forces, in the absence of their husbands some noblewomen led the defence of manors and towns. Most Anglo-Saxon women, however, worked on the land as part of the agricultural community, or as brewers or bakers . After

31524-519: The most wealthy lords could afford to redesign castles to produce palace-fortresses. Edward III spent £51,000 on renovating Windsor Castle; this was over one and a half times Edward's typical annual income. In the words of Steven Brindle the result was a "great and apparently architecturally unified palace... uniform in all sorts of ways, as to roof line, window heights, cornice line, floor and ceiling heights", echoing older designs but without any real defensive value. The wealthy John of Gaunt redesigned

31737-775: The national centre for quarrel manufacture. In Scotland, Edinburgh Castle became the centre for the production of bows, crossbows and siege engines for the king. One result of this was that English castle sieges grew in complexity and scale. During the First Barons' War from 1215 to 1217, the prominent sieges of Dover and Windsor Castle showed the ability of more modern designs to withstand attack; King John 's successful siege of Rochester required an elaborate and sophisticated assault, reportedly costing around 60,000 marks, or £40,000. The siege of Bedford Castle in 1224 required Henry III to bring siege engines, engineers, crossbow bolts, equipment and labourers from across all of England. The Siege of Kenilworth Castle in 1266, during

31950-440: The necessary taxes to pay for the wars in France. The royal lands—and incomes from them—had diminished over the years, and increasingly frequent taxation was required to support royal initiatives. Edward held elaborate chivalric events in an effort to unite his supporters around the symbols of knighthood. The ideal of chivalry continued to develop throughout the 14th century, reflected in the growth of knightly orders (including

32163-427: The new castles were designed to be used alongside the fortified town walls as part of an integrated defence. Historian Richard Morris has suggested that "the impression is firmly given of an elite group of men-of-war, long-standing comrades in arms of the king, indulging in an orgy of military architectural expression on an almost unlimited budget". James of Saint George , a famous architect and engineer from Savoy ,

32376-427: The new technology began to be installed in English castles by the 1360s and 1370s, and in Scottish castles by the 1380s. Cannons were made in various sizes, from smaller hand cannons to larger guns firing stone balls of up to 7.6 inches (19 cm). Medium-sized weapons weighing around 20 kg each were more useful for the defence of castles, although Richard II eventually established 600 pound (272 kilo) guns at

32589-419: The next level of society, often holding land in their own right or controlling businesses in the towns. Geburs , peasants who worked land belonging to a thegn , formed a lower class still. The very lowest class were slaves, who could be bought and sold and who held only minimal rights. The balance of power between these different groups changed over time. Early in the period, kings were elected by members of

32802-481: The nobility began to exercise power through a system termed bastard feudalism . Nearly 1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new opportunities in the towns and cities. New technologies were introduced, and England produced some of the great medieval philosophers and natural scientists . English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to the French throne , resulting in

33015-509: The oath-value of the individual. The Anglo-Saxon authorities struggled to deal with the bloodfeuds between families that emerged following violent killings, attempting to use a system of weregild , a payment of blood money, as a way of providing an alternative to long-running vendettas. Within twenty years of the Norman conquest, the former Anglo-Saxon elite were replaced by a new class of Norman nobility, with around 8,000 Normans and French settling in England. The new earls (successors to

33228-514: The occupation of southern and eastern Ireland by a number of Anglo-Norman barons. The rapid Norman success depended on key economic and military advantages, with castles enabling them to control the newly conquered territories. The new lords rapidly built castles to protect their possessions, many of these were motte-and-bailey constructions; in Louth at least 23 of these were built. It remains uncertain how many ringwork castles were built in Ireland by

33441-750: The original intentions of original benefactors and administrative detail. Due to the religious influence of free grammar school benefactors, these disputes or disciplinary concerns were often fought in church courts , and the consequent records offer rich detail of these concerns. References [ edit ] ^ A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England (London, 1915), p.3 ^ Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution , (London, Chatto and Windass, 1976), p. 132 Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_grammar_school&oldid=1233670339 " Category : History of education in England England in

33654-423: The peasantry held land in return for local labour services, creating a web of loyalties and resources enforced in part by new honorial courts. This system had been used in Normandy and concentrated more power in the king and the upper elite than the former Anglo-Saxon system of government. The practice of slavery declined in the years after the conquest, as the Normans considered the practice backward and contrary to

33867-399: The period, as women typically had more limited life-choices, access to employment and trade, and legal rights than men. In Anglo-Saxon society, noblewomen enjoyed considerable rights and status, although the society was still firmly patriarchal. Some exercised power as abbesses, exerting widespread influence across the early English Church, although their wealth and authority diminished with

34080-679: The period, through the building of dykes to drain marshes, tree clearance and the large-scale extraction of peat . Managed parks for hunting game, including deer and boars, were built as status symbols by the nobility from the 12th century onwards, but earlier versions of parks, such as hays , may have originated as early as the 7th century. Castles in Great Britain and Ireland#Norman Invasion Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following

34293-438: The policy of slighting , or deliberately destroying, castles captured in Scotland from the English to prevent their re-use in subsequent invasions – most of the new Scottish castles built by nobles were of the tower house design; the few larger castles built in Scotland were typically royal castles, built on the command of Scottish kings. Some of these changes were driven by developments in military technology. Before 1190 mining

34506-445: The power of the major noble magnates had grown considerably; powerful rulers such as Henry IV would contain them, but during the minority of Henry VI they controlled the country. The magnates depended upon their income from rent and trade to allow them to maintain groups of paid, armed retainers, often sporting controversial livery, and buy support amongst the wider gentry; this system has been dubbed bastard feudalism . Their influence

34719-471: The princes of North Wales led to Edward mobilising a huge army, defeating the native Welsh and undertaking a programme of English colonisation and castle building across the region. Further wars were conducted in Flanders and Aquitaine. Edward also fought campaigns in Scotland , but was unable to achieve strategic victory, and the costs created tensions that nearly led to civil war. Edward II inherited

34932-420: The rebel interests. On becoming king in 1272, Edward I reestablished royal power, overhauling the royal finances and appealing to the broader English elite by using Parliament to authorise the raising of new taxes and to hear petitions concerning abuses of local governance. This political balance collapsed under Edward II and savage civil wars broke out during the 1320s. Edward III restored order once more with

35145-413: The region . Some Norman lords used England as a launching point for attacks into South and North Wales , spreading up the valleys to create new Marcher territories. By the time of William's death in 1087, England formed the largest part of an Anglo-Norman empire, ruled over by a network of nobles with landholdings across England, Normandy, and Wales. England's growing wealth was critical in allowing

35358-411: The region in their own right. Most counter-castles were destroyed after their use but in some cases the earthworks survived, such as the counter-castles called Jew's Mount and Mount Pelham built by Stephen in 1141 outside Oxford Castle . Matilda's son Henry II assumed the throne at the end of the war and immediately announced his intention to eliminate the adulterine castles that had sprung up during

35571-467: The relevant shire; the role of the sheriff became stronger and clearer as the century progressed. A number of royal castles were linked to forests and other key resources. Royal forests in the early medieval period were subject to special royal jurisdiction; forest law was, as historian Robert Huscroft describes it, "harsh and arbitrary, a matter purely for the King's will" and forests were expected to supply

35784-491: The right to occupy and use any castle in the kingdom in response to external threats, in those cases he would staff the occupied castles with his own men; the king also retained the right to authorise the construction of new castles through the issuing of licenses to crenellate . It was possible for bishops to build or control castles, such as the important Devizes Castle linked to the Bishop of Salisbury , although this practice

35997-400: The role of Orford Castle whose expensive, three-cornered design most closely echoes imperial Byzantine palaces and may have been intended by Henry II to be more symbolic than military in nature. Another improvement from the 12th century onwards was the creation of shell keeps , involving replacing the wooden keep on the motte with a circular stone wall. Buildings could be built around

36210-451: The royal chancery, while the familia regis , the military household, emerged to act as a bodyguard and military staff. England's bishops continued to form an important part in local administration, alongside the nobility. Henry I and Henry II both implemented significant legal reforms , extending and widening the scope of centralised, royal law; by the 1180s, the basis for the future English common law had largely been established, with

36423-503: The ruling family, while retaining strong defensive features and a capacity to hold over 130 residents at the castle. The design influenced subsequent conversions at Berkeley and by the time that Bolton Castle was being built, in the 1380s, it was designed to hold up to eight different noble households, each with their own facilities. Royal castles such as Beaumaris , although designed with defence in mind, were designed to hold up to eleven different households at any one time. Kings and

36636-524: The second half of the century. Traditionally this transition was believed to have been driven by the more crude nature of wooden fortifications, the limited life of timber in wooden castles and its vulnerability to fire; recent archaeological studies have however shown that many wooden castles were as robust and as complex as their stone equivalents. Some wooden castles were not converted into stone for many years and instead expanded in wood, such as at Hen Domen . Several early stone keeps had been built after

36849-553: The site. Indeed, by the 12th century reports of posthumous miracles by local saints were becoming increasingly common in England, adding to the attractiveness of pilgrimages to prominent relics. Participation in the Crusades was also seen as a form of pilgrimage, and indeed the same Latin word, peregrinatio , was sometimes applied to both activities. While English participation in the First Crusade between 1095 and 1099

37062-410: The son of a Danish king. Attempts to bribe Sweyn not to attack using danegeld payments failed, and he took the throne in 1013. Swein's son, Cnut , liquidated many of the older English families following his seizure of power in 1016. Æthelred's son, Edward the Confessor , had survived in exile in Normandy and returned to claim the throne in 1042. Edward was childless, and the succession again became

37275-499: The south-west Matilda's supporters built a range of castles to protect the territory, usually motte and bailey designs such as those at Winchcombe , Upper Slaughter , or Bampton . Similarly, Stephen built a new chain of fen-edge castles at Burwell , Lidgate , Rampton , Caxton , and Swavesey – all about six to nine miles (10–15 km) apart – in order to protect his lands around Cambridge. Many of these castles were termed "adulterine" (unauthorised), because no formal permission

37488-485: The south-west, where the Crown oversaw the lead mining industry, castles such as Restormel played an important role running the local stannery courts . Baronial castles were of varying size and sophistication; some were classed as a caput , or the key stronghold of a given lord, and were usually larger and better fortified than the norm and usually held the local baronial honorial courts. The king continued to exercise

37701-443: The surrounding lands and estates was particularly important during this period. Many castles, both royal and baronial, had deer parks or chases attached to them for the purposes of hunting. These usually stretched away from the village or borough associated with the castle, but occasionally a castle was placed in the centre of a park, such as at Sandal . Civil war broke out in England and raged between 1139 and 1153, forming

37914-416: The system of government. Royal landownings and wealth stretched across England, and placed the king in a privileged position above even the most powerful of the noble elite. Successive kings, though, still needed more resources to pay for military campaigns, conduct building programmes or to reward their followers, and this meant exercising their feudal rights to interfere in the land-holdings of nobles. This

38127-462: The teaching of suitable sermons in local churches. By the early 15th century, combating Lollard teachings had become a key political issue, championed by Henry IV and his Lancastrian followers, who used the powers of both the church and state to combat the heresy . Pilgrimages were a popular religious practice throughout the Middle Ages in England, with the tradition dating back to the Roman period. Typically pilgrims would travel short distances to

38340-457: The teachings of the church. The more prosperous peasants, however, lost influence and power as the Normans made holding land more dependent on providing labour services to the local lord. They sank down the economic hierarchy, swelling the numbers of unfree villeins or serfs , forbidden to leave their manor or seek alternative employment. At the centre of power, the kings employed a succession of clergy as chancellors , responsible for running

38553-505: The thickness of the walls: usually made of rag-stone , as in the case of Dover Castle , these walls could be up to 24 feet (7.3 metres) thick. The larger keeps were subdivided by an internal wall while the smaller versions, such as that at Goodrich , had a single, slightly cramped chamber on each floor. Stone keeps required skilled craftsmen to build them; unlike unfree labour or serfs, these men had to be paid and stone keeps were therefore expensive. They were also relatively slow to erect –

38766-428: The throne with the support of parliament in 1399. Ruling as Henry IV, he exercised power through a royal council and parliament, while attempting to enforce political and religious conformity. His son, Henry V , reinvigorated the war with France and came close to achieving strategic success shortly before his death in 1422. Henry VI became king at the age of only nine months and both the English political system and

38979-467: The top of the social structure was the king, who stood above many of the normal processes of Anglo-Saxon life and whose household had special privileges and protection. Beneath the king were thegns , nobles, the more powerful of which maintained their own courts and were termed ealdormen . The relationship between kings and their nobles was bound up with military symbolism and the ritual exchange of weapons and armour. Freemen, called churls , formed

39192-739: The towns and cities, to the point where they outnumbered men in some settlements. There they worked with their husbands, or in a limited number of occupations, including spinning , making clothes, victualling and as servants. Some women became full-time ale brewers, until they were pushed out of business by the male-dominated beer industry in the 15th century. Higher status jobs and apprenticeships, however, remained closed to women. As in earlier times, noblewomen exercised power on their estates in their husbands' absence and again, if necessary, defended them in sieges and skirmishes. Wealthy widows who could successfully claim their rightful share of their late husband's property could live as powerful members of

39405-418: The walls and gatehouses began to grow in size and complexity, with portcullises being introduced for the first time. Castles such as Dover and the Tower of London were expanded in a concentric design in what Cathcart King has labelled the early development of "scientific fortification". The developments spread to Anglo-Norman possessions in Ireland where this English style of castles dominated throughout

39618-445: The walls to provide supporting fire. Many keeps made compromises to purely military utility: Norwich Castle included elaborate blind arcading on the outside of the building, in a Roman style, and appears to had a ceremonial entrance route; The interior of the keep at Hedingham could have hosted impressive ceremonies and events, but contained numerous flaws from a military perspective. Similarly there has been extensive debate over

39831-462: The walls. In comparison to Norman castles the gatehouses were much weaker in design, with almost no use of portcullises or spiral staircases, and the stonework of the outer walls was also generally inferior to Norman built castles. The later native Welsh castles, built in the 1260s, more closely resemble Norman designs; including round towers and, in the case of Criccieth and Dinas Brân , twin-towered gatehouse defences. In 1277 Edward I launched

40044-407: The war with Scotland and faced growing opposition to his rule as a result of his royal favourites and military failures. The Despenser War of 1321–22 was followed by instability and the subsequent overthrow, and possible murder, of Edward in 1327 at the hands of his French wife, Isabella , and a rebel baron, Roger Mortimer . Isabella and Mortimer's regime lasted only a few years before falling to

40257-585: The war, but it is unclear how successful this effort was. Robert of Torigny recorded that 375 were destroyed, without giving the details behind the figure; recent studies of selected regions have suggested that fewer castles were probably destroyed than once thought and that many may simply have been abandoned at the end of the conflict. Certainly many of the new castles were transitory in nature: Archaeologist Oliver Creighton observes that 56 per cent of those castles known to have been built during Stephen's reign have "entirely vanished". Castles in Scotland emerged as

40470-447: The war, while in Scotland the popular tower houses proved unsuitable for defending against civil war artillery – although major castles such as Edinburgh put up strong resistance. At the end of the war many castles were slighted to prevent future use. Military use of castles rapidly decreased over subsequent years, although some were adapted for use by garrisons in Scotland and key border locations for many years to come, including during

40683-681: The warlords. As the Norse in mainland Scandinavia started to convert , many mainland rulers recruited missionaries from England to assist in the process. With the conversion of much of England in the 6th and 7th centuries, there was an explosion of local church building. English monasteries formed the main basis for the church, however, and were often sponsored by local rulers, taking various forms, including mixed communities headed by abbesses , bishop-led communities of monks , and others formed around married priests and their families. Cathedrals were constructed, staffed either with secular canons in

40896-600: The wealthier castles the floors could be tiled and the windows furnished with Sussex Weald glass, allowing the introduction of window seats for reading. Food could be transported to castles across relatively long distances; fish was brought to Okehampton Castle from the sea some 25 miles (40 km) away, for example. Venison remained the most heavily consumed food in most castles, particularly those surrounded by extensive parks or forests such as Barnard Castle , while prime cuts of venison were imported to those castles that lacked hunting grounds, such as Launceston . By

41109-448: The work at Windsor, these castles drew on the architectural themes of earlier martial designs, but were not intended to form a serious defence against attack. These new castles were heavily influenced by French designs, involving a rectangular or semi-rectangular castle with corner towers, gatehouses and moat; the walls effectively enclosing a comfortable courtyard plan not dissimilar to that of an unfortified manor. Bodiam Castle built in

41322-436: The worst abuses. The development of the baronial castles in England were affected by the economic changes during the period. During the 13th and 14th centuries the average incomes of the English barons increased but wealth became concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of individuals, with a greater discrepancy in incomes. At the same time the costs of maintaining and staffing a modern castle were increasing. The result

41535-470: The year before as well. Richard I used them in his sieges during the Third Crusade and appears to have started to alter his castle designs to accommodate the new technology on his return to Europe. The trebuchet seems to have encouraged the shift towards round and polygonal towers and curved walls. In addition to having fewer or no dead zones, and being easier to defend against mining, these castle designs were also much less easy to attack with trebuchets as

41748-430: The young Henry III . England's power structures remained unstable and the outbreak of the Second Barons' War in 1264 resulted in the king's capture by Simon de Montfort . Henry's son, Edward , defeated the rebel factions between 1265 and 1267, restoring his father to power. On becoming king, Edward I rebuilt the status of the monarchy, restoring and extending key castles that had fallen into disrepair. Uprisings by

41961-399: Was a patriarchal society and the lives of women were heavily influenced by contemporary beliefs about gender and authority. However, the position of women varied considerably according to various factors, including their social class ; whether they were unmarried, married, widowed or remarried; and in which part of the country they lived. Significant gender inequalities persisted throughout

42174-503: Was a particular focus for this colonisation. The size of these Scottish castles, primarily wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, varied considerably from larger designs, such as the Bass of Inverurie , to smaller castles like Balmaclellan . As historian Lise Hull has suggested, the creation of castles in Scotland was "less to do with conquest" and more to do with "establishing a governing system". The Norman expansion into Wales slowed in

42387-502: Was a popular destination from the 7th century onwards; sometimes these trips were a form of convenient political exile. Under the Normans, religious institutions with important shrines, such as Glastonbury , Canterbury and Winchester , promoted themselves as pilgrimage destinations, maximising the value of the historic miracles associated with the sites. Accumulating relics became an important task for ambitious institutions, as these were believed to hold curative powers and lent status to

42600-480: Was challenged on occasion. In the 12th century the practice of castle-guards emerged in England and Wales, under which lands were assigned to local lords on condition that the recipient provided a certain number of knights or sergeants for the defence of a named castle. In some cases, such as at Dover , this arrangement became quite sophisticated with particular castle towers being named after particular families owing castle-guard duty. The links between castles and

42813-437: Was contentious and a frequent issue of complaint, as there was a growing belief that land should be held by hereditary right, not through the favour of the king. Property and wealth became increasingly focused in the hands of a subset of the nobility, the great magnates, at the expense of the wider baronage, encouraging the breakdown of some aspects of local feudalism. As time went by, the Norman nobility intermarried with many of

43026-581: Was covered by trees than in the 20th century, and bears , beavers and wolves lived wild in England, bears being hunted to extinction by the 11th century and beavers by the 12th. Of the 10,000 miles of roads that had been built by the Romans, many remained in use and four were of particular strategic importance—the Icknield Way , the Fosse Way , Ermine Street and Watling Street —which criss-crossed

43239-644: Was decorated with carved eagles, equipped with polygonal towers and expensive banded masonry, all designed to imitate the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, then the idealised image of imperial power. The actual site of the castle may also have been important as it was positioned close to the former Roman fort of Segontium . The elaborate gatehouse, with an excessive five sets of doors and six portcullises, also appears to have been designed to impress visitors and to invoke an image of an Arthurian castle, then believed to have been Byzantine in character. In

43452-496: Was exerted both through the House of Lords at Parliament and through the king's council. The gentry and wealthier townsmen exercised increasing influence through the House of Commons , opposing raising taxes to pay for the French wars. By the 1430s and 1440s the English government was in major financial difficulties, leading to the crisis of 1450 and a popular revolt under the leadership of Jack Cade . Law and order deteriorated, and

43665-410: Was finally expelled from England in 1290 by Edward I, being replaced by foreign merchants. Christianity had been the official imperial religion of the Roman Empire, and the first churches were built in England in the second half of the 4th century, overseen by a hierarchy of bishops and priests. Many existing pagan shrines were converted to Christian use and few pagan sites still operated by

43878-432: Was given for their construction. Contemporary chroniclers saw this as a matter of concern; Robert of Torigny suggested that as many as 1,115 such castles had been built during the conflict, although this was probably an exaggeration as elsewhere he suggests an alternative figure of 126. Another feature of the war was the creation of many " counter-castles ". These had been used in English conflicts for several years before

44091-560: Was limited, England played a prominent part in the Second , Third and Fifth Crusades over the next two centuries, with many crusaders leaving for the Levant during the intervening years. The idea of undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was not new in England, however, as the idea of religiously justified warfare went back to Anglo-Saxon times. Many of those who took up the Cross to go on

44304-482: Was one of a ring of castles built around London, each approximately a day's march apart. Some regional patterns in castle building can also be seen – relatively few castles were built in East Anglia compared to the west of England or the Marches; this was probably due to the relatively settled and prosperous nature of the east of England and reflected a shortage of available serfs , or unfree labour . Not all of

44517-406: Was probably responsible for the bulk of the construction work across the region. The castles were extremely costly to build and required labourers, masons, carpenters, diggers, and building resources to be gathered by local sheriffs from across England, mustered at Chester and Bristol, before being sent on to North Wales in the spring, returning home each winter. The number of workers involved placed

44730-438: Was slightly different – some castles were designed with two baileys attached to a single motte, and some ring works were built with additional towers added on; yet other castles were built as ringworks and later converted to motte-and-bailey structures. From the early 12th century onwards the Normans began to build new castles in stone and convert existing timber designs. This was initially a slow process, picking up speed towards

44943-475: Was that although there were around 400 castles in England in 1216, the number of castles continued to diminish over the coming years; even the wealthier barons were inclined to let some castles slide into disuse and to focus their resources on the remaining stock. The castle-guard system faded into abeyance in England, being replaced by financial rents, although it continued in the Welsh Marches well into

45156-659: Was triumphant and most of his rivals were dead. On his death, power passed to his brother Richard of Gloucester , who initially ruled on behalf of the young Edward V before seizing the throne himself as Richard III. The future Henry VII , aided by French and Scottish troops, returned to England and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, bringing an end to the majority of the fighting, although lesser rebellions against his Tudor dynasty would continue for several years afterwards. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were hierarchical societies, each based on ties of allegiance between powerful lords and their immediate followers. At

45369-399: Was used rarely and the siege engines of the time were largely incapable of damaging the thicker castle walls. The introduction of the trebuchet began to change this situation; it was able to throw much heavier balls, with remarkable accuracy, and reconstructed devices have been shown to be able to knock holes in walls. Trebuchets were first recorded in England in 1217, and were probably used

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