We next meet with the town of Dinan. The inscription reads, HIC MILITES WILLELMI DUCIS PUGNANT CONTRA DINANTES--Here the soldiers of William attack Dinan. The place is undergoing all the calamities of a siege. Some of William’s party are assailing it, but their onset is met by the exertions of the garrison. Others apply flames to the structure. We learn from the Tapestry that the castle was obliged to yield, and we see that the act of surrender is conducted in a very formal manner (_Plate VI_). An inhabitant of the town, probably Conan himself, (_ET CUNAN CLAVES PORREXIT_--And Conan reached out the keys) is seen handing out the keys upon a lance, and they are received in a similar way by one of the chiefs of the attacking party. Both spears are adorned with a pennon or banner.[52] As we have no account of this siege in the chronicles, we can only gather its history from the stitches before us. Most likely William was satisfied with the formal submission of Conan, and quietly withdrew his forces. We do not in the Tapestry observe any of the invading troops entering the town.
Before proceeding further, we may notice some of the prominent
features of the castles which have been presented to our view. All of them are built upon elevated mounds. This was certainly one of the characteristics of an early Norman fortress. Further, we see that they were surrounded by a fosse, the section of which, in the Tapestry, is very boldly marked. In the case of Dinan, we have a barricade on the outside of this entrenchment. Besides these outworks, the castles consist of an outer fortification, or bailey, and of an interior building, or keep. The colouring of these structures may be purely fanciful, but I am disposed to think that the vertical stripes which we see upon some of them represent timber. The remains of some castles in Cornwall incontestably prove that, occasionally at least, the outside of the walls was braced with timber.[53] The walls of Guildford Castle are pierced with holes, which we are told were made for the scaffolding, and in order to hasten the drying of the mortar were left unfilled, and have since remained so. Is it not more likely that these cavities were formerly occupied by bolts for fastening an outside timber-casing to the walls?