We may now examine the evidence which, in default of actual remains, survives with regard to the timber constructions of these castles and their use. The tower on the mount first demands our attention. Apart from the pictures of the Bayeux tapestry, certain early twelfth century chronicles of northern France have preserved for us accounts of the main features of this structure and its _enceinte_.[57] Jean de Colmieu describes the castle of Merchem, close by the church, as _munitio quedam quam castrum vel municipium dicere possumus_. “It is the custom,” he says, “with the rich men and nobles of this district, because they spend their time in enmity and slaughter, and in order that they may thereby be safer from their enemies, and by their superior power either conquer their equals or oppress their inferiors, to heap up a mount of earth as high as they can, and to dig round it a ditch of some breadth and great depth, and, instead of a wall, to fortify the topmost edge of the mount round about with a rampart (_vallo_) very strongly compacted of planks of timber, and having towers, as far as possible, arranged along its circuit. Within the rampart they build in the midst a house or a citadel (_arx_) commanding the whole site. The gate of entry to the place”—the word used is _villa_, implying a place of habitation rather than a stronghold—“can be approached only by a bridge, which, rising at first from the outer lip of the ditch, is gradually raised higher. Supported by uprights in pairs, or in sets of three, which are fixed beneath it at convenient intervals, it rises by a graduated slope across the breadth of the ditch, so that it reaches the mount on a level with its summit and at its outer edge, and touches the threshold of the enclosure.” It will be noticed that the moated mount described here had no bailey. It was also obviously not merely a fortified stronghold, a place of refuge in time of war, but a definite residence of the local lord. The turrets round the timber rampart of the mount are mentioned as occasional, not invariable features of the design. The habitation within the rampart may be a strong tower or a mere house. The sense of the passage shows clearly that there was a doorway in the rampart, by which the house was approached from the bridge. Finally, the description is not applicable merely to a single castle, but is a generic description of strongholds in a particular neighbourhood.