Lesson video

Hello, welcome to History here at Oak National Academy.

My name's Mr. Newton, and I'll be your teacher today, guiding you right through to the end of the lesson.

Right, let's get started.

Over the next few lessons, we will be thinking about our big inquiry question, how did Anglo-Saxons resist Norman rule? This is the question we will use to investigate the events that followed William's victory at Hastings.

After William's victory, he set about securing control of England.

Many Anglo-Saxons resisted Norman rule.

William used violence and hurried the southeast to induce the submission of the Earls.

He also rewarded his loyal followers who had helped him at Hastings.

He gave English land to Normans who occupied the different regions of England and built castles with the aim of stopping uprisings or invasions.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to describe Norman motte-and-bailey castles and explain the reasons for their construction in England.

Before we begin, there are a few key words we need to understand.

A motte-and-bailey castle is a fortress in which there is a motte, a small hill, surrounded by a Bailey, a courtyard inside an outer wall.

A burh was a fortified Anglo-Saxon town.

To oppress is to govern people in an unfair and cruel way and prevent them from having opportunities and freedom.

A keep is the strong main tower of a castle, which acted as a watchtower and a final point of defence.

A palisade is a strong fence made out of solid wooden poles that is used to protect people or a place from being attacked.

Today's lesson is split into two parts.

In the first parts, we'll look at why Norman's built castles in England before delving a bit deeper into those key features of the castles.

Okay, but let's start with why did the Normans build castles in England? Alfred is a local Anglo-Saxon farmer.

He and his son, Osworth, make the journey in their horse and cart to the local fortress.

Alfred is not too fond on visiting the Normans' soldiers who are based there.

His son was too young to remember, but it was only a few years earlier that Alfred and his village were forced to dig the ditch, which surrounds the castle.

Little did they know that this ditch would be filled with water, providing a further layer of defence for the Norman Lord and his troops who were occupying their land.

They were unwittingly building a castle, the height of military technology from Europe.

You can't blame them for their naivety.

Hardly anybody in England had seen a castle before.

Alfred's heart began to beat a little faster as their cart approached the solid timber palisade.

Osworth was completely oblivious.

He was quite used to seeing the castle.

He'd grown up with it.

That's all he ever knew.

However, it was very different for his father.

You might wonder why Alfred is returning to the oppressive Norman fortress, which now overlooks his village.

He has little choice.

He wants to sell his goods to the troops inside.

He prays that they don't return to the days when the troops would rather plunder their farms than pay an Anglo-Saxon like him.

Nowadays, the castle's drawbridge is always open to him.

Alfred, Osworth, and their horse trot inside the castle.

Once inside, they're into the bailey.

Osworth grimaces as he smells the horse manure from the stables, which dominate the court yard.

Alfred stares up at the wooden tower on top of the hill.

The story goes that Lord Montgomery sometimes lives there.

That would make sense.

It is the safest place in the castle.

Outside the castle walls, there are rumours of a rebellion brewing, and Alfred wonders how his fellow Anglo-Saxons could ever get past the castle's outer defences, let alone take the hill.

He can only imagine what's beyond this second layer of defence.

Alfred wonders, is there another drawbridge to access the hill? Alfred had heard that Norman's referred to the hill as the motte.

Alfred imagined what the view might be like from the top of the wooden tower, a watchtower that could see for miles.

He wondered if he would ever see Norman archers reappear in the small windows of the wooden tower.

Would the Anglo-Saxon resistance witness the arrows rain down on the bailey and all around them were they to ever penetrate the outer defences? For now, all Alfred could do is pray that one day, his fellow Anglo-Saxons would rise up against their Norman overlords, but there is no doubt that with these fortresses planted across England, Alfred's hopes seemed futile.

From the moment the Normans landed in England, they began building fortresses.

They were the latest military technology.

The French word for this special fortress was castle.

Have a look at the image on the left.

It's a detail from the Bayeux tapestry, showing the Norman Invaders building a motte-and-bailey castle at their base in Hastings.

You can see that they're using spades to dig up the earth.

Early castles were built at Pevensey, Hastings, Dover, London, and Winchester.

It is estimated that within 20 years, the Normans had built 500 castles across the country.

Have a look at the map on the left.

It shows the location of important castles built during William's reign.

Why do you think William chose these places? Can you see any pattern to their location? Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

So we can see quite a lot around the south coast of England.

As you will remember, this is the place at which William invades England.

We can also see lots of castles on the border with Wales, especially around the Marcher earldoms, so William builds castles in key locations, whether it's on the border with Wales, which was a hostile area, or whether it's along the south coast, where William can secure the lines between England and Normandy.

Castles were a relatively new innovation in Europe, and were almost unknown in Anglo-Saxon England.

Western Europe was divided amongst powerful local rulers and warlords, and had grown used to instability and a need for castles.

Have a look at the detail from the Bayeux tapestry.

It shows Williams soldiers attacking a motte-and-bailey castle in France.

In the 11th century, England had benefited from relative stability.

It had a long established monarchy and had formed a United Kingdom.

In England, whole towns had been fortified against Viking raids with walls.

These were known as the burhs, but these burhs were designed to protect local people, not to impose control over a district.

By the time of the Norman invasion, there had only been a few castles built in the Welsh Marches in the 1050s by Edward the Confessor's Norman friends.

Castles gave the Normans a big strategic advantage in England against any sort of Anglo-Saxon resistance, and William was quick to take advantage of this.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is fill in the missing word.

Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done if you knew that this was how the correct sentence should read.

Castles were almost unknown to Anglo-Saxon England, who had relied on fortified towns known as burhs.

Okay, let's continue.

William's Castle building project dominated the physical landscape of England, and served as a permanent reminder to the English of a foreign occupier in their land.

Have a look at the photo on your left.

It's a modern aerial photo of Old Sarum, an Iron Age hill fort where William built a castle set within a huge enclosure and surrounded by earthen ramparts.

William built castles in key locations to control strategic or rebellious areas.

If we have a look at the image on the left, it's a photo of Pickering Castle in north Yorkshire.

Yorkshire became quite a rebellious area for William.

In the photo, you can see the large hill in the centre.

That's where a tower would've been built.

You can also see the ditches that were dug surrounding the hill to make it difficult to attack, and we can see stone walls, which were added later.

Along with their military function, castles also had a psychological impact on the people of England.

They became the ultimate symbol of the Norman conquest, designed to overlook towns and terrify and dominate their population.

Have a look at the illustration on the left.

It's a Norman castle overlooking an English village.

How would you feel if a foreign invader had built structures like this, watching your every move? Even when the Normans weren't making raids into towns and villages, the population would've felt the pressure of having these imposing buildings watching over them.

In towns, English houses were knocked down to make way for new castles, with the local population being forced to build them.

And we can see in the detail from the Bayeux tapestry, it shows Normans fighting with English locals, forcing them to build a castle no doubt.

So obviously these castles didn't just have a psychological impact.

They had a physical impact on the landscape and on the people who were kicked out of their houses or forced to build the castles, which would then watch over them.

The castles acted as centres of Norman power.

So what do we mean by that? Well, soldiers could ride out from the castle to deal with any signs of unrest, and then retreat back to the safety of the castle if necessary.

Furthermore, they were safe places to house Norman nobles, or lords, enabling them to control and oppress the local area.

And we can see from the modern photo of Totnes Castle on the left.

Even today, we can see that this Norman castle looks quite imposing as its overlooks a village in Devon.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

How did castles impact the local population under Norman rule? A, they provided improved accommodation, B, they were centres of leisure and entertainment, C, they terrified and dominated.

Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew it was C.

These castles terrified and dominated the local population.

Okay, true or false? Norman castles only served a military function.

Is that true or false? Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew that it was false.

But why do you think that's false? I want you to justify your answer.

Is it because, A, Norman castle served as bases for Norman nobles, or B, Norman castles served as marketplaces? Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew it was A, Norman castles served as bases for Norman nobles.

Okay, great.

Let's move on to task A.

What I want you to do here is, working with a partner, explain why the Norman's built castles in England.

So you can have this as a discussion or you can jot down your ideas on a piece of paper, and you're basically summarising the lesson so far.

Explain as many reasons as you can for why the Norman's built castles in England.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done for having a go at that task.

Hopefully that raised some interesting discussion and thoughts.

So let's have a look at some of the answers you may have come up with.

So firstly, castles gave the Norman's military advantage in England, offering superior defence for their troops as England relied mostly on burhs.

So you may have had something around the military advantage or the military function that castles have.

Okay, secondly, castles were built in key locations to control strategic or rebellious areas.

Okay, so castles weren't just planted anywhere.

It was carefully thought out where they should go.

Thirdly, castles had a psychological impact on the people of England.

They were designed to overlook towns and terrify and dominate their population.

Yes, and it's easy to just think of castles in their military capabilities, but they also did have a psychological impact.

And the last one was that castles were safe places to house Norman lords, enabling them to control and depress the local area.

Okay, great.

We've reached the halfway point of the lesson.

We understand some of the reasons why William is building these castles in England, but let's now zoom in and have a closer look at the key features of castles.

The most common type of castle that the Normans built was the motte-and-bailey castle.

So the first prominent feature of a motte-and-bailey castle is the motte, which is a tall mound of earth.

The Mott could have come from an existing hill, and the Normans would just build around that existing hill, or the mottes had to be dug out by hand, and on the top of the motte was a wooden tower or a keep.

This acted as a watchtower and gave superior attacking capability for archers, and it's also offered a final point of defence.

This is the last place that the soldiers could retreat to if the other defences failed.

Down on ground level is the bailey, and that protected accommodation for the soldiers and their horses.

This courtyard housed the stables and the barracks, and if we look closely in the bottom right hand corner of the image, we can see a gatehouse and then a drawbridge, and these could act as a single entry point.

The drawbridge over the ditch could then be pulled up in the event of attack.

And at the bottom of the image, we've got a ditch or a moat.

So a ditch would surround both the motte and the bailey.

It could hold water as well to provide further protection from attack.

And then the castle's protected by a strong fence, a palisade made of solid timber, and it's encircled the whole castle.

So motte-and-bailey castles were relatively quick to build, about four to nine months, and there were variations in design.

If you have a look at the illustration on the left, we can see it's a slightly different motte-and-bailey style castle with extra layers of ditches and palisades.

Sometimes the motte was built by digging and using the dug up soil as an artificial hill.

Sometimes an existing hill or ditch was used to quickly achieve the higher and lower levels.

Sometimes Anglo-Saxon burhs or old Roman forts were rebuilt with Norman designs.

Sometimes castles were built with a bailey and no motte, depending solely on a defensive wooden fence to keep enemies out.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What design were Norman castles based on? A, bailey-and-stone, B, motte-and-bailey, C, palisade-and-keep.

Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew it was B, motte-and-bailey castles.

Over time, many of these castles were rebuilt in stone to make them stronger, but during the Norman period, castles were mostly timber structures.

If you have a look at the illustration on the left, this imagines how Pickering Castle may have looked during the Norman period.

And then the illustration on the right imagines Pickering Castle when it was later rebuilt in stone.

And here we can see a photo of the Tower of London.

The tower was originally built by William and is the earliest stone keep in England.

There is important difference to note between Anglo-Saxon burhs and Norman castles.

Burhs were large public enclosures which protected the tower.

Although primarily a defensive structure, they also operated as marketplaces for the people.

However, castles were small private enclosures, which protected a Norman noble and his soldiers.

Burhs protected the people.

Castles were used to control and oppress them.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What was the estimated construction time for a motte-and-bailey castle? A one to three weeks, B, four to nine months, C, 10 to 13 years.

Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew it was four to nine months.

What distinguished Anglo-Saxon burhs from Norman castles? A, burhs were larger and protected towns, B, castles were primarily used for trade, C, burhs were mainly religious sites.

Pause the video, have a think, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew that burhs were larger and protected towns.

Okay, let's move on to task B.

What I want you to do here is label this motte-and-bailey castle.

So let's see if you can remember all those key features of the motte-and-bailey castle.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay, great, welcome back.

Let's check those answers.

So the most prominent feature was the motte or the mound.

And then on top of the mottes, we had the wooden tower, or a keep, that last place of defence, a useful watchtower and a place where archers could rain down arrows on any attackers.

Then at ground level, we had the bailey or the courtyard, which protected soldiers, the barracks and stables, et cetera.

Then we had the gatehouse, and in front of the gatehouse we had a draw bridge, and this acted as a single entry point into the castle.

Now, at the bottom there, we had the ditch, which was dug around the castle, which could hold water and act as a moat, offering another layer of defence.

And then finally, we had the palisade fence, which is a very strong fence made of solid timber, solid wooden poles, which encircled the whole castle.

Okay, let's move on to the second part of task B.

What I want you to do here is describe two features of a motte-and-bailey castle.

You must provide detailed information to support each feature, using phrases like, for example, or this means, or this is when will help you to structure your answer to include this additional information.

Okay, so identify your two features of the motte-and-bailey castle and make sure you provide that extra piece of information.

And you can use the phrases, for example, this means, or this is when to help you word your answers.

Pause the video, have a go at task, and come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

So there's many ways you could have answered this, and you may have identified different features to me, but let's have a look what I have here.

One feature of a motte-and-bailey castle was that it protected Norman soldiers.

Okay, so I've identified a feature.

I now need to offer a piece of supporting information and to help me do that, I've used the phrase for example.

For example, the castle was surrounded by a palisade of solid timber and the keep of a final point of defence.

Okay, let's move on to the next one.

Another feature of a motte-and-bailey castle was that it functioned very differently to an Anglo-Saxon burh.

For example, burhs protected the people, but castles were used to control and depress them.

And you can see my supporting piece of information explains the difference between a Norman castle and an Anglo-Saxon burh.

Okay, excellent, let's summarise today's lesson, motte-and-bailey castles.

Castles gave the Normans military advantage in England, offering superior defences for their troops.

They also had a psychological impact, designed to overlook towns and terrify and dominate their population.

Castles were safe places to house Norman lords, enabling them to control and oppress the local area.

Most Norman Castles were variations of the motte-and-bailey design, a keep situated on a mound accompanied by a courtyard surrounded by a palisade.

A key difference between Norman castles and Anglo-Saxon burhs was that burhs protected the people but castles were used to control and depress them.

Well done on a brilliant lesson.

Thank you for joining me as we learned about how William uses the innovations of castles to stamp his control over England.

I will see you next time when we continue our inquiry.

See you in the next lesson.