in this next set of videos i'd like to start looking at norman castles now castles are something that are synonymous with the advent or the coming of the norman people to england in 1066. and in this little first video i'd like to look at were the early norman castles a new innovation so were they anything new well that's difficult to know the key thing that you need to understand and if you think back about the units we've just done we started out looking at anglo-saxon rule then we looked at the norman invasion then we looked at rebellions and then we looked to consolidating power and the thing that ties all of these four units together are castles because castles crop up in all of these units throughout this period of time and if we're going to look at the idea of whether castles were a new renovation we need to look at castles under the anglo-saxons because there were some and then we need to start looking at castles during the rest of the period so these next few videos i'm going to look at the following things in this video i'm going to look at castles as a new innovation next video i'm going to look at how castle building changed over the norman period and then finally in the third video i'm going to try and wrap all that up and look at what the purpose of building castles was first of all let's start with the most important thing that you need to understand which is some castle lingo because the gnomons brought with them a very specific type of castle and that type of castle was a mott and bailey castle which you can see here the mott is the mound which sits at the back of these the keep was then built on top of the mound often square in this period of time this is where the lord would have lived the palisade then would have gone around the bailey which is the bit underneath the flat bit underneath the mot and the palisade was a wooden fence the bailey was this section here where you probably would have kept your men your horses and your goods often there was a drawbridge on a gate at the front of the bailey sometimes but not always there was a moat that then surrounded the bayley and the mott and then finally there was often a bridge that connected the mott and the bailey now these are the key features of a martin bailey castle but what you need to realize is that actually each castle in england is unique sometimes there was just a mod sometimes there was just a bailey sometimes there was bits of both but these words you will need if you are ever going to understand norman castles now if we're going to look at the idea of whether castles were a new innovation in norman england we need to look at fortified areas or fortified towns before and we need to look at norman castles after the best place to really start really is in the anglo-saxon period now the anglo-saxons didn't have castles as you'd imagine them today but they did have something called birgates now birds as we've already looked are anglo-saxon towns some of those anglo-saxon towns were fortified so you can see that in this picture here around this town they would have had a built up wall possibly with many towers around it now this is a reconstruction so in this picture you can see some of those similar features to a modern bailey castle there's a hall there's a ditch there's a gatehouse there's even a wooden palisade here a fence that goes around it but really importantly these were not called castles the word castle is french and was brought to england with the normans these things were built as status symbols not as defense like some castles were and we know they exist because archaeologists have done digs at some anglo-saxon sites and have found some remains that show that they were fortifying their towns in this way so fortified areas were not new we also know thanks to the anglo-saxon chronicle that actually some castles of modern bailey type were actually being built in england before the normans and often these were just mots or just mounds and there are and we know because archaeological archaeologists have found some of these even today with huge amounts of earth built with a palisade surrounding it so not a bailey but just a mot with a fence going round it and we know thanks to the anglo-saxon chronicle that there were definitely some of these built by normans or norman friends of edward the confessor who came over to england in the 1050s and in the anglo-saxon chronicle they actually used the word castles which is a foreign word so were castles and new innovation no there were some in england beforehand the normans themselves were incredibly famous for building castles and normandy was surrounded by many of them and there were famous castles in lots of the famous norman towns this one here you can see being built in the by a tapestry is a place in normandy called dino and we know that the french built castles like this partly because they're ended by a tapestry but also secondly because often some of these castles are still there to this day these castles had wooden defenses on the tops of mounds so again looked like those modern bailey castles that get built across england under the norman reign they were built for defence and warfare now as soon as the normans arrive in england they do actually start building castles one of the first examples of the castle they built was at pevensey where they land in 1066 and at pevensey they do not build a modern bailey castle they build this castle here now this is a reconstruction of the one at pevensie but as you can see it was actually just a bailey with a palisade around it and mini towers this castle was most definitely built as a defense for the norman army they needed somewhere to protect their army that had just landed in england as they prepared for the battle of hastings and just after and there was a castle built with pevensey and there was a castle built at hastings and we know that because it's in the bayer tapestry the normans also very very quickly built other castles around the country one of the most famous examples is the tower of london and the white tower which is this middle bit here in the tower of london this square building here its foundations were started by william the conqueror this stone example here is comes from a little bit later but we know that william started to build a large stone tower here at the tower of london and the tower here is very very thick and it had a moat as well with water in it and we know that william did that because that castle is still there today and you can go and see it this castle and again was built as a fortification to intimidate the english and defend the norman army so just from these examples here you can see that actually where norman castle's a new innovation ish but not always so in summary what i've covered in this video castles weren't really that new the anglo-saxons and the normans before innovate invasion were using things that looked a lot like castles in england fortified areas the normans definitely did change castle building in england though and that is key when we start looking in those future videos but the thing that you need to remember is that each castle is unique and each one was built for very different reasons sometimes they were built as status symbols sometimes they were built for defense and we know different things about each of those castles because of the evidence we have sometimes we know that from archaeology sometimes we know that from chronicles or other primary sources sometimes we know it because of the remains that are left there today