There is a class of mounds due probably to the same people with those above described, but very seldom moated, and not usually accompanied by base courts and enclosures. These are the moot-hills, used for civil purposes, as the holding of courts-leet, of which the mound at Barton, in Northamptonshire, is a fine example. They are not uncommon. There is one near Kenilworth, close to Stoneleigh Church, one at Hawick, one called the Mote Hill, in Hamilton Park; there is also one on the right bank of the Neckar, below Heidelberg. Sometimes they are called toot-hills; hence Tothill Fields, though the mound is gone. In claiming for these moated mounds a northern and in Britain an English origin it would be too much to assert that in no other class of works is the mound employed, or by no other people than the Northmen; but it may be safely laid down that in no other class of early fortification does the mound occur as the leading and typical feature. In Roman and Norman, and possibly in purely British works, the mound may be occasionally seen, like the cavalier in the works of Vauban, as at Kenilworth, or as an outwork, as at Caerphilly, or it may be employed to cover or divide an entrance; but such mounds are of irregular shape, mere detached and elevated parts of the general bank, and not likely to be confounded with the moated mound described above. APPENDIX. Vita Sti Johannis Epis: Morinorum. Ob: 1130. [_Acta Sanctorum_, Januarii 27.] Contigit ut in villa, cui Morchem vocabulum est, hospitii mansionem haberet [Johannes]. Erat autem secus atrium ecclesiae munitio quaedam quam castrum vel municipium dicere possumus valde excelsa, juxta morem terrae illius, a domino villae ipsius multis retro annis extructa. Mos namque est ditioribus quibuscunque regionis hujus hominibus et nobilioribus, eo quod maxime inimicitiis vacare soleant exercendis et caedibus, ut ab hostibus eo modo maneant tutiores, et potentia majore vel vincant pares, vel premant inferiores, terrae aggerem quantae praevalent celsitudinis congerere eique fossam quam late patentem, multamque profunditatis altitudinem habentem circumfodere, et supremam ejusdem aggeris crepidinem vallo ex lignis tabulatis firmissime confacto undique vice muri circummunire, turribusque, secundum quod possibile fuerit, per gyrum dispositis, intra vallum, domum vel, quae omnia despiciat, arcem in medio aedificare, ita videlicet ut porta introitus ipsius villae non nisi per pontem valeat adiri, qui ab exteriori labro fossae primum exoriens est in processu paulatim elevatus, columnisque binis et binis, vel etiam trinis altrinsecus per congrua spatia suffixis innixus, eo ascendendi moderamine per transversum fossae consurgit, ut supremam aggeris superficiem coaequando oram extremi marginis ejus, et in ea parte limen prima fronte contingat.