English medieval archaeology and history have remained reticent towards overtly theoretical approaches, leaving few examples to follow (Burke 1992; Johnson 1997: 23-4; Hatcher and Bailey 2001). By contrast, continental medieval historians have developed a series of models under the aegis o f the Annales School, based upon the notion o f time operating at three different scales (Braudel 1949). The history of the short term deals with the political context, events and individual agency. This level of history has been emphasised by \2Xqt Annales historians (Duby 1973, Le Roy Laudrie and Bray 1978), who have embraced a more sympathetic approach to the individual, the small-scale and event-based narrative. The history o f the medium term reflects the history o f societies and cultures, which covers social, economic, agrarian, demographic, regional and social history as well as world-views or mentalities. The history of the long term illuminates the history o f the environment, civilisations and peoples, and is referred to as the 'longue durée' (Braudel and Matthews 1980).
Underpinning the Annale's approach adopted here is the notion of ‘Problem History’ (Bintliff 1991: 1-3; Burke 1986: 439-51; 1990; 1991: 233-48; Joyce 1991:204-9; 1995: 73-91) that seeks to identify the interplay o f these different time scales o f the past. It should be possible, by following this theoretical framework, to analyse the claims of different approaches to castles
and test their validity at each level of time. Moreover, the Annales approach is broad enough to have historically encompassed several different theoretical positions and shifts in emphasis since its inception. It is thus a flexible and adaptive rather than a fixed and rigid theoretical model. The Annales model satisfies the theoretical criteria outlined above, namely it is a generalizing model, an appropriate theoretical model and can deal with the multi-disciplinary nature of the evidence. It also meets the requirement for the evidence to be verifiable and provides a division o f time into long, medium and short term, which allows us to examine each of the other theoretical criteria in its appropriate temporal context.
2.1 L I: Environmental and strategic considerations
The long-term evidence of the environment contextualises castles within a physical, regional and local framework defined by its topography, geology, hydrology and macro-flora. These criteria will play an important role in the analysis of the sample of six surveyed castles sites in this thesis. Furthermore, linked to a castle’s environment is its relationship to communications and its control o f significant areas, features or strategic points.
2.1 L2: Structural, societal and cultural considerations
The medium-term chronological evidence of the county o f Suffolk in the 11^ and 12* centuries can be sub-divided into structural, cultural and social data. 1. Structural evidence includes the distribution of castles across the different ‘pays’ or environmental niches that are evidenced in the county, the amount o f Domesday woodland at pig for each vill where a castle gets built and their settlement morphology. 2. Cultural evidence includes the technology available to the agent for castle building, the dynastic strategies castle-building families adopted and the mentalitiés current in 11* and 12*- century Suffolk. 3. Societal evidence is based largely on Domesday and other historical data to examine local populations, social demographics and density of
population as well as the Domesday area of arable land and the tax area o f the Domesday vill.
2,11,3: Agency and functional considerations
The short-term evidence o f individual castles includes identifying the agent of its construction and his status by detailed prosopography, the political context of its creation, the choice of site and design as well as the castle’s original function. Answering such questions will inform our understanding o f the role of agency and the functional aspects of Anglo-Norman castles.
This approach clearly links the different levels o f evidence with specific issues surrounding the castles and emphasises their interdependent nature, whilst offering an explanation of different
facets o f the central question of my thesis. It further presupposes an interdisciplinary approach, both as a means of illuminating different aspects of the evidence and as a means of constraining theoretical claims.
For example, the Annales approach can be used to test the explanations of castles outlined earlier, as follows;
a. The social control model draws on evidence from short-term history and only touches on the medium-term historical criteria with the notion of conquest to explain castles on a nation-wide basis.
b. The processual social evolutionary model is more sophisticated, being based on medium-term evidence such as social and cultural explanations dealing with structural change, status and patronage. It interprets castles in terms o f new notions of lordship and defines them as social, economic, legal and political centres. Explanations for castles are almost exclusively supported by medium-term structural evidence, with only the slightest attempt at analysis o f regional variations.
c. The symbolic-structuralist model of castles uses short-term evidence by its implication of notions of design and agency. It draws on medium-term evidence in examining the attitude of the non-noble population, the perception of lordship being promoted, the attitudes of the castle- building class towards lordship and the ‘landscape of lordship’. However, it is weak regarding the effect o f long-term evidence and its influence on castle-building.
d. The post-modemist/post-processual model is focussed on short and medium-term evidence, but almost completely ignores the long-term evidence available when interpreting the
phenomena o f castles. As a result, the approach is almost exclusively focussed upon later castle sites because of the better sources of short and medium-term evidence for them.
e. The geological model is strong on long-term evidence for castles but weak in dealing with medium-term evidence and virtually ignores the short-term evidence for castles.
Although all these different approaches offer interesting insights into the study of castles, they only produce partial explanation of them, do not draw from all the different levels of historical time simultaneously and they don’t draw from them in a balanced way. In short, the evidence is selective, to the point of excluding a priori other possible explanations, whereas this thesis will
address all three levels o f time in order to demonstrate how long, medium and short-term factors might offer a more holistic, contextualised and localised account for each castle.
2.12: Methodology
A sample of six castle sites in Suffolk were chosen, biased in favour of the smaller sub-baronial sites. These castles are more numerous but have received less study than the larger royal and baronial sites. The choice and number o f surveyed sites was constrained by issues of access, ground cover, time and cost.
2,12,1: Short-term événement and agency evidence
This was collected in the following manner:
a. By means o f a desktop survey o f the existing literature, including primary, secondary and cartographic sources on each castle site, in order to identify land holdings of the castle recorded in the Domesday survey in 1086.
b. By a desktop survey o f all existing archaeological data from the English Heritage National Sites and Monuments Record (NSMR), the Suffolk Archaeology Unit Sites and Monuments Record (SAUSMR) and local museum service on each castle site.
c. A general field reconnaissance of each castle site and its immediate environment in order to identify a castle’s relationship to its landscape.
d. A detailed topographical survey of each castle using a TC 307 Leica Total Station in
conjunction with Liscad software in order to identify evidence of the topography of the castle’s earthworks and construction.
e. A prosopographic and bibliographic review of the castle-building dynasties to identify the individual agents o f castle constructions and thereby the political context of castle building.
2,12,2: Medium-term societal: social^ technological, cultural and mentalitiés evidence This was collected through three desktop surveys of:
a. The relevant literature, primary, secondary and cartographical evidence, of the county of Suffolk in the 11* and 12*** centuries, in order to establish a societal and cultural context. This relied on comparative data from the Little Domesday Book, which gave a social breakdown in
1086 and which was compared with similar lists of social data created by Bury Abbey. It enabled the establishment of the larger land-holding patterns o f the castle-building dynasties in a regional context. It also identified the different maritime landscapes and ‘pays’ found in Suffolk at this time. Finally, it examined how the largest lordship, the monastic Liberty of St Edmund, used the social institution o f the knights of St Edmund to control castle-building agents by engaging them in a feudal relationship with the abbey.
b. The relevant archaeological data from the National and County Council Sites and Monuments Record and local museum service for 11*- and 12‘*'-century Suffolk, in order to establish an archaeological context of what other material culture was established contemporaneous with castle-building.
c. The current literature from both published and primary sources to identify the society, culture and technology o f 11*- and 12*- century Suffolk. As well as identify an important institution in Suffolk: the Abbey o f St Edmund and the mentalitiés the cult of St Edmund created and
developed by the Abbey during this period. Identification of the charter witnesses indicated structured political ties between different or subordinate dynasties within Suffolk in the 11*- and 12* centuries. Although such evidence was partial, it helped to establish patterns of dynastic feudal relationships within the county. Finally, to identify the technology that related to castle- building and cast le-warfare during this period.
2.12,3: Long-term environmental or longue durée evidence This was collected by desk top surveys of:
a. The topography, geology, hydrology and woodland resources of Suffolk, in order to establish an environmental context.
b. The historical geography o f Suffolk and the communications links within it, with the rest of England and with the continent, in order to identify the region’s pattern of communications.
This allowed an examination of how castle sites relate to road, river and coastal communications.
This methodology met the theoretical model’s requirements of providing for all three levels of historical time. It placed each site in its total context via a multiplicity of criteria, thus
constraining and informing the interpretations that can be placed on the evidence. This allowed the interpretation o f each facet of the castle under study to be interpreted in the light of current environmental, archaeological and historical knowledge. Finally it allows us to answer the
central question, which is: What were the catalysts and constraints operating upon castle building in 11*- and 12* -century Suffolk?