Professor Brown declares that there is nothing about the Lincolnshire towers themselves to indicate a defensive character, though they are situated in a region which was exposed to Danish visitations. These eleventh century towers, however, he says, represent a style which was evolved at a somewhat earlier time, when the Danes were actually hostile. At most, he will admit only “a certain general likelihood” that these particular towers were used for defence[283], but he notes the general opinion that the occurrence of such towers in districts like Lincolnshire is “hardly fortuitous[284].” The palmary fact remains, that the Lincolnshire towers were, relatively to the exposed and unprotected tract of marshland on which they were built, real fortresses. There are no natural defences in the vicinity of the churches, and ordinary dwellings must have been of an insubstantial kind. Moreover, unless the idea of earlier buildings on the present sites be unreservedly abandoned, there still remains the great probability of continuity of general pattern. Long after the land ceased to be harried by pirates, the countryfolk would anticipate, and provide against, future onslaughts. It is no bar to this argument to oppose the fact that, as we later folk now know, those attacks were not made. We shall, indeed, find that defensive towers continued to be popular for several centuries after the Norman Conquest. We may say then, that the Lincolnshire type of Saxon tower was semi-defensive, though the existing specimens are of post-Danish age. Further than that we are not warranted in forming theories.