Mound castrale

A mound castrale is a fortification built out of ground and wood. It is generally composed of an important ground raising brought back and packed, of circular form, the mound, at the top of which is high a central tower, having function of keep, a well is sometimes dug inside.

A first wood enclosure surrounds the top of the mound (high court). One second vaster enclosure, reinforced ditches, (low court), of variable form (circular, ovoid, etc) is created around the mound itself. This unit constitutes sometimes an ultimate refuge for the surrounding populations, and is often at the origin of strong castles or strengthened villages. No mound castrale arrived to us in his original state, wood constructions disappeared and the mound itself was sometimes shaven voluntarily. The Toponymy, however, guard of many traces of the existence of disappeared mounds, names of cities or villages, Lamotte-Beuvron, Lamothe-Cassel, places known as the Mound , Mottier etc

The term of feudal mound was used before in Castellologie, and the term of castle to mound is also sometimes used.

Diffusion area

The diffusion area of the mound relates to primarily them territories of the North-West of Europe (Ireland after colonization Norman, Brittany, England, Normandy, Country of the Loire, Ile-de-France, Picardy, southernmost and septentrional Netherlands). As one advances towards the south, it rarefies. It is however not absent in southernmost France (Tuc in Gascogne) and in the North-West of the Iberian peninsula, and was introduced in southernmost Italy and Sicily by the Norman conquerors into second half of XIe century. There exist establishments completely comparable with the Japan where the social structures are also founded, from of our era, on social relations known as feudal.

Historical origin

The speech more running the fact of going back to, period which would see the dissolution of the public authority to the profit of small local lords continuing by the construction of castles. This wave of constructions to mound would thus see the domination of the aristocratic group being affirmed on the men whom one gathers in the farmyard: it is encellullement the , corollary of the incastellamento in central Italy. Even if, from a point of view historiographic, this paradigm of the “feudal change” (c.à D. brutal evolution of the structures of the company towards a feudal organization in the neighborhoods of the year Millet) is largely called in question, the emergence of the mounds at that time poses problem more and more. Recent archaeological work indeed showed that the mounds very often occupy the site of a Aula (palate) seigneuriale former which they recover. Certain excavations of mounds also showed that the appearance of ground liftings carrying an aristocratic habitat could precede (by ex: with Boves, Picardy) or, on the contrary, being quite posterior at the year millet and to date from the end from.

Mound, according to work of Jean-François Marshal, specialist in question, was used not as support, always artificial, at least partly, with rise in tower in guet, contrary to that one generally thinks (it is a nonsense to believe that an artificial fresh ground hillock can support a tower of several stages without risk of depression), but constitutes one “emmottement” or sloping of the foundations of a genuine tower of defense which is even at the origin of the Donjon. The purpose of this technique was to preserve them attack with the ram, sap, and to move away the travelling beffroys or towers. This “ground fruit” preceded that by stone intended to reinforce the base of a stone construction and to be useful in addition to buttress. On the Tapisserie of Bayeux one can see besides the soldiers of Guillaume in the train d'" emmotter" a tower in the course of rise and whose spare parts were brought by boat. The excavations of Gifted-the-Fountain by Michel de Bouärd, another archeologist who worked much on the question, also revealed the reinforcement of a Carolingian house by emmottement of its walls whose openings were blocked beforehand and who were elevated in order to transform it into true keep. We thus hold there, according to J. - F. Marshal, the origin of this keep which was to experience an extraordinary development thereafter and perdurer during three centuries… it still was even useful during the One hundred Year old Guerre!

The keep-with-mound is a true chief of work of military architecture, very effective, difficult to take and requiring only one minimum of defenders. The slopes of the mound were to be, always according to this author, planted thorny shrubs which played the part of “barbed iron wire”, as already the Gallic ones did it, according to César, to defend their camps or even their dwellings. From where its success through all Europe which roughcasts these first strong castles including/understanding “shirt already”, notched walls, underground and well in the " cavea" being used moreover as armory and provisions (and even “refrigerator”), footbridges preceding the Drawbridge, and Farmyard trenched and palisaded…

An aspect symbolic system of the mound

As well as the tower (keep) or, at the time modern, the pigeon one, the mound is truly the symbol of the feudal capacity held by the lords. Crushing the majority of the mounds, in the west of France in particular, does not present any efficient military value and, by their situation in edge of the parochial limits, testify to the will of the lords to create another pole of being able, distinct from the ecclesiastical capacity symbolized by the church and its bell-tower.

Thereafter, certain feudal mounds will be re-used for stone constructions replacing timber constructions and will become the center of a feudal castle, a perfect example being the castle of Gisors (the Eure).

See too

Random links: