The survey of 1085 affords the most complete evidence of the extent to which the Normans had possessed themselves of the landed property of the country. The ancient demesnes of the crown consisted of fourteen hundred and twenty-two manors. But the king had confiscated the properties of Godwin, Harold, Algar, Edwin, Morcar, and other great Saxon earls; and his revenues thus became enormous. Ordericus Vitalis states, with a minuteness that seems to imply the possession of official information, that "the king himself received daily one-and-sixty pounds thirty thousand pence and three farthings sterling money from his regular revenues in England alone, independently of presents, fines for offences, and many other matters which constantly enrich a royal treasury." The numbers of manors held by the favorites of the Conqueror would appear incredible, if we did not know that these great nobles were grasping and unscrupulous; indulging the grossest sensuality with a pretence of refinement; limited in their perpetration of injustice only by the extent of their power; and so blinded by their pride as to call their plunder their inheritance. Ten Norman chiefs who held under the crown are enumerated in the survey as possessing two thousand eight hundred and twenty manors. This enormous transfer of property did not take place without the most formidable resistance, but when a period of tranquillity arrived came the era of castle-building. The Saxons had their rude fortresses and intrenched earthworks. But solid walls of stone, for defence and residence, were to become the local seats of regal and baronial domination. _Domesday_ contains notices of forty-nine castles; but only one is mentioned as having existed in the time of Edward the Confessor. Some which the Conqueror is known to have built are not noticed in the survey. Among these is the White Tower of London. The site of Rochester Castle is mentioned. These two buildings are associated by our old antiquaries as being erected by the same architect. Stow says: "I find in a fair register-book of the acts of the bishops of Rochester, set down by Edmund of Hadenham, that William I, surnamed Conqueror, builded the Tower of London, to wit, the great white and square tower there, about the year of Christ 1078, appointing Gundulph, then Bishop of Rochester, to be principal surveyor and overseer of that work, who was for that time lodged in the house of Edmere, a burghess of London." The chapel in the White Tower is a remarkable specimen of early Norman architecture.