[Illustration: Castle of Rennes: from Bayeux Tapestry]
The mount, at any rate, was the essential feature of this type of fortress. The Bayeux tapestry gives us pictures of some of these mounts, the fidelity of which is demonstrated by the remains which we possess of such castles, and by some pieces of documentary evidence (38). Two points are noticeable: (1) The mounts portrayed are all either in Normandy and Brittany, or, like the _castellum_ at “Hestengaceaster,” are the work of Norman hands. (2) The fortifications shown in connection with these mounts are of timber, not stone. The accuracy of the tapestry is not absolutely photographic, but the workers knew well the type of structure which they wanted to represent. Their work, in fact, whether the castle represented be Dol or Dinan or Bayeux or Hastings, gives us a repeated picture of the recognised type of castle mount. And the two points just noted lead us to the conclusions, (1) that the castle was foreign to England and Englishmen, and (2) that the time-honoured notion that the Englishman raised the earthworks,[50] and the Norman built stone castles upon them is open to objection, the fact being that the stone castle was an exception in Normandy itself. The picture of the Breton castle of Dinan (46) shows, as in a section, a large pudding-shaped mount surrounded by a ditch, with a low bank of earth on the side towards the bailey. On the top of the mount is a tower, clearly of timber. Round the edge of the mount, encircling the tower, is a stockade formed of uprights with stout hurdles between—a work to which Cæsar’s description of his breastworks at Alesia might well be applied.[51] Access to the mount is gained by a steep ladder, probably formed of planks with projecting pieces of wood nailed to them for foot-holds, which spans the ditch, and has its foot within the bailey. The mount itself—and this may be proved by many surviving examples—is too steep to be scaled with any ease; and the ladder, although affording the defenders an excellent communication with the bailey, is hardly to be climbed with impunity by the opposing force. The ladder ends in a wooden platform at the edge of the mount, which serves as a _propugnaculum_ for the garrison, in front of the stockade. In the picture of the construction of the castle at Hastings, a timber tower and stockade are in course of erection. The pioneers are busy digging earth from the fosse for their nearly completed mount, and compacting the surface with blows from the flat of their spades (38).