On what, then, rests the assertion that the keep was the work of the Conqueror's uncle? Strange as it may seem, it rests solely on the so-called _Chronique de Normandie_, an anonymous production, not of the eleventh, but of the fourteenth century! "Si fist faire une tour moult forte audessus du chastel d'Arques," runs the passage, which is quoted by Mr. Clark (i. 194), from Deville (pp. 311, 312), who, however, apologized for appealing to that authority. This "Chronique" is admitted to have been based on the poetical histories of Wace and Benoit de St. More, themselves written several generations later than the alleged erection of this keep. Of the former, Mr. Freeman holds that, except where repeating contemporary authorities, "his statements need to be very carefully weighed" (_N. C._, ii. 162); and of the latter, that he is "of much smaller historical authority" (_ibid._). To this I may add that, in my opinion, Wace, writing as he did in the reign of Henry II., at the close of the great tower-building epoch, spoke loosely of towers, when mentioning castles, as if they had been equally common in the reign of the Conqueror. A careful inspection of his poem will be found to verify this statement. "La tur d'Arques" was standing when he wrote: consequently he talks of "La tur d'Arques" when describing the Conqueror's blockade of the castle in 1053. There is no contemporary authority for its existence at that date.[1004] And now let us pass from documentary evidence to that of the structure itself. We may call Mr. Clark himself to witness that the presumption is against so early a date as 1039-1043. He tells us, of the rectangular keep in general, that— "not above half a dozen examples can be shown with certainty to have been constructed in Normandy before the latter part of the eleventh century, and but very few, if any, before the English conquest" (i. 35). Therefore, on Mr. Clark's own showing, we ought to ask for conclusive evidence before admitting that any rectangular keep is as old as 1039-1043. But what was the impression produced on him by an inspection of the structure itself? This is a most significant fact. While rejecting, apparently on what he believed to be documentary evidence, the theory that the keep (_turris_) was the work of Henry I., he confessed that the features of the building "no doubt favour this view" (i. 194, _ut supra_).