Geoffrey de Mandeville: A study of the AnarchyRound, John Horace
History
Geoffrey de Mandeville: A study of the Anarchy
Round, John Horace
Great Britain -- History -- Stephen, 1135-1154; Mandeville, Geoffrey de, earl of Essex, -1144
"Mès voist au rei Henri, si face sa clamur
Que jo tieng Carduil, _le chastel e la tur_."
"Li reis out ubblié par itant sa dolur
Quant avait Appelbi, _le chastel e la tur_."[956]
Having thus established the use of the phrase, let us now pass to its
origin.
I would urge that it possesses the peculiar value of a genuine
transition form. It preserves for us, as such, the essential fact that
there went to the making of the mediæval "castle" two distinct factors,
two factors which coalesced so early that the original distinction
between them was already being rapidly forgotten, and is only to be
detected in the faint echoes of this "transition form."
The two factors to which I refer were the Roman _castrum_ or _castellum_
and the mediæval "motte" or "tour." The former survived in the
_fortified enclosure_; the latter, in the _central keep_. The Latin word
_castellum_ (corresponding with the Welsh _caer_) continued to be
regularly used as descriptive of a fortified enclosure, whether
surrounded by walls or earthworks.[957] It is singular how much
confusion has resulted from the overlooking of this simple fact and the
retrospective application of the denotation of the later "castle." Thus
Theodore, in the seventh century, styles the Bishop of Rochester,
"Episcopus _Castelli_ Cantuariorum, _quod dicitur Hrofesceaster_"
(_Bæda_, iv. 5); and Mr. Clark gives several instances, from the eighth
and ninth centuries, in which Rochester is alternatively styled a
"civitas" and a "castellum."[958] So again, in the ninth century, where
the chroniclers, in 876 A.D., describe how "bestæl se here into Werham,"
etc., Asser and Florence paraphrase the statement by saying that the
host "_castellum quod dicitur Werham_ intravit." Now, it is obvious that
there could be no "castle" at Wareham in 876, and that even if there had
been, an "army" could not have entered it. But when we bear in mind the
true meaning of "castellum," at once all is clear. As Professor Freeman
observes, "Wareham is a fortified town."[959] Its famous and ancient
defences are thus described by Mr. Clark:—
"In figure the town is nearly square, the west face about 600 yards,
the north face 650 yards.... The outline of this rectangular figure is
an earthwork, within which the town was built."[960]
Such then was the nature of the "castellum," within which the host took
shelter.[961] Passing now to a different instance, we find the Greek
κώμη ("a village") represented by "castellum" in the Latin Gospels
(Matt. xxi. 2), and this actually Englished as "castel" in the English
Gospels of 1000 A.D.[962] Here again, confusion has resulted from a
misunderstanding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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