Lancaster Castle in the Middle Ages
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Contrebis 2019 v37 LANCASTER CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Andrew White Abstract In this paper the author traces the history of Lancaster Castle from the post-Roman remains to the early seventeenth century. Before the first castle When the retinue of the first Norman lord arrived in Lancaster the substantial ruins of the Roman fort must have offered a very attractive defensive site, with a partially-surviving enclosure and substantial resources of building stone. The former most probably outweighed the latter, as the earliest Norman building is unlikely to have contained much stone building, beyond utilising ruined Roman walls and perhaps gates. The position was also a naturally good one for controlling the lowest bridging point of the river Lune and it lay on a hilltop with a commanding view and a relatively level surface. Roman forts were so much larger than their Norman successors that they often provided an embarrassment of space, and needed to be reduced by selecting and cutting off a corner or end. Exactly what of Roman date was still standing at this time is unknown, but medieval references suggest the presence of ancient masonry, especially of the so-called ‘Wery Wall’, the wall of the fourth-century fort. Furthermore, the position of the present Priory Church overlying buildings close to the site of the Roman headquarters and the surviving line of the main east-west internal roadway suggest that enough remained to influence later centuries. The first castle Although early documentary evidence is deficient, Lancaster Castle does not stand alone in its area. Within the Lune valley is a series of earthwork castles, apparently of early date, and almost without exception lacking any written history. The density of castles is remarkable and unlike any area except the Welsh Marches. The castles are at Halton, Arkholme, Whittington and Kirkby Lonsdale on the west bank of the Lune, and at Hornby and Melling on the east bank. They look as though they could be the response of a group of new landlords or sub-landlords to an unstable area. It has been suggested that this was briefly some sort of frontier, but no frontier has convincingly been shown to exist (Higham1991; Iles 2003). Only Hornby and Lancaster went on to support a stone castle, and Hornby involved a change of site. Such is the lack of detailed knowledge that these earthwork castles might not date from the Conquest but instead from some 50 or 60 years later, during the ‘Anarchy’ of the reign of Stephen in the mid-twelfth century (Poole 1955, 131–66). The most likely candidate as builder of Lancaster Castle is Count Roger de Poitou, who held these lands from 1092 until 1102 (White 2001, 43, 58). He was also responsible for the founding of Lancaster Priory in 1094 as an alien priory, dependent upon the Abbey of Séez in Normandy. Two such acts often went together among Norman landlords, securing property in this life and establishing an insurance of good deeds against the next. He will undoubtedly have needed a castle as his base. However, it seems most unlikely that Lancaster remained without a castle throughout the two and a half decades after the Conquest and before the time of Roger. Almost certainly the building of some temporary earthwork castle should be expected under some lesser lord, whose name has not survived, as in the case of the other anonymous earthworks in the Lune valley. Just what Roger would have built is less certain. What would the first castle have looked like? There are several possibilities. Norman castles tended to conform to three or four main types. First 10 Contrebis 2019 v37 was the stone ‘donjon’ or ‘keep’ with outer defences of timber or stone. These were rare in the immediate post-Conquest period and confined to sites of the highest status. There is no evidence of this at Lancaster, and it can almost certainly be ruled out. Then there was the earthen ‘motte-and- bailey’ castle, a type first established in England just before the Norman Conquest in three Herefordshire estates owned by Norman favourites of Edward Confessor, and subsequently widely used in the newly-conquered land after 1066. In these, there was a high circular mound, or motte, attached to a larger area surrounded by an earthen bank, perhaps topped by a timber stockade, or bailey, the whole being protected by a deep ditch. Depending on its size and status, the motte might be surmounted by a timber structure providing accommodation, or a watch-tower, capable of being defended separately even if the bailey was overrun. This type often survived to be elaborated with a stone shell-keep or further baileys. The third type was the ringwork, an earthen bank like that of a bailey, surrounding a more or less circular area, and with its outer gate protected by a powerful gatehouse. This had antecedents in the Anglo-Saxon period and in the Celtic West. The fourth type used a variety of means of cutting off part of the defences of a Roman fort or town wall to make a small defensible area, which might involve a motte, or stone defences, or earthworks. Good examples can be seen at Brough, Cumbria (a Roman fort) and at Caerwent, Gwent (a town). The more or less circular form of the medieval Castle could suggest that a ringwork was its original basis, but in the 1790s, when the Crown Court was being built, the builders levelled a ‘high bank of earth’, which lay immediately to the west of the Lungess Tower or Keep. Perhaps this was the last relic of a motte which preceded the stone keep? (LCL, Scrapbook 5, part 1, 16). More likely, the first Norman castle-builders adapted the ruins of the massive Roman walls of the fort which still stood, by constructing a bank across one corner, as the whole fort would have been too large for their purposes, and perhaps creating a motte or a strong gatehouse at the point of entry. The date of the stone Keep, known as the Lungess Tower (Longens Tower in 1531–3) is not recorded (Colvin et al. 1975, 260). It would be the logical next step in the strengthening of an earthwork castle and parallels for its design exist in the mid-to-late twelfth century. In size, though not in elaboration, it belongs at the upper end of the range of such keeps, being some 29m square. The difficulty is in finding an appropriate historical context for its building. After Roger de Poitou's rebellion and fall from grace in 1102, King Henry I granted the lands, which had become the Honour of Lancaster, to Stephen of Blois, his nephew. Stephen later claimed the throne of England, against the Empress Matilda, his cousin. His interests lay elsewhere in the country, however, and during the Anarchy of the mid-twelfth century, when Stephen and Matilda and their supporters vied for the throne, the area north of the Ribble between 1141 and 1153 fell under the control of Henry, son of King David of Scotland, becoming briefly part of the Kingdom of Scotland. It has been proposed that the new stone Keep represented the refortifying of a castle on the southern borders of Scotland (Grant 1985; Champness 1993, 5). Carlisle Castle's keep, believed to have been built by this Henry, is adduced as a parallel to it, although the similarities are not great, beyond those features common to stone keeps. This structure would have been both slow to build and expensive, but there is no record of its cost in any of the surviving records. Champness suggests at least five years and £1000, but these can only be guesses (Champness 1993, 5). The ability to fund the work consistently and to provide building stone and timber in vast quantities over a period of several years suggests both a clear need for defences and a sufficiently settled ownership to plan it. This may rule out Henry of Scotland and indicate English royal policy, although, during the reign of the obvious candidate, Henry II (1154–89), the records seem relatively complete and do not include massive expenditure on Lancaster (Grant 1985). 11 Contrebis 2019 v37 The great stone Keep is one of the most dramatic elements of the Castle, an essay in pure power in twelfth-century terms. Massive in structure and appearance it was intended as a military retreat of last resort, difficult to take by force, undermine or burn, and more usefully, as a new symbol of power and sovereignty over the local populace and any onlooker. Within walls of immense height and thickness (20m and 3m respectively) it had four storeys (later reduced to three by combining the middle two), including a basement, each storey being divided by a wall into two large rooms. Access was at first floor level, by an external flight of stone stairs, as in many other Norman stone keeps, e.g. Castle Hedingham or Castle Rising (Brown 1989, 78–81). The site of these stairs is now hidden by the eighteenth-century Debtors' Wing. Shallow pilaster buttresses punctuate, though hardly support, the corners and are also placed in the middle of each side. Openings in its outer walls are minimal. Several original windows seem to survive (not all the same), with round heads flanked by engaged shafts with crude capitals, four on the east and one on the north elevation, but two of Freebairn’s views, showing the Keep before and after the eighteenth-century developments, are at variance as to what was there. Perhaps those on the east are a reconstruction, although the single window above the door on the north elevation seems to be genuine enough.