The Archaeology of Medieval Germany by Fehring Günter P

Author:Fehring, Günter P.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-60510-2
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

b) Mottes

The fortification type, motte, using the French word (an earthen mound), or more fully château à motte, is frequently called Turmhügel in Germany following C. Schuchhardt’s example and also Hausberg in Austria. The motte, often joined by a single- or double-walled bailey (Latin suburbium, French basse court, German Vorburg) at ground level, consisted of the stump of a conical or pyramidal earthen mound topped with a tower or a house. There is a characteristic consistency between mottes in their nearly identical form compared, for example, with the Carolingian sites in Hessen cut out of hill promontories or compared with the tower-forts erected on cone-shaped hills in southern Germany from the eleventh century onwards. Mottes for the most part lie not in the mountains but frequently in plains and valleys that had long been settled (Hinz 1981).

Ordinary mottes between 5 and 10m high are distinguished from large mottes over 10m and from small mottes under 5m. The motte may lie inside the bailey (undivided), one or more baileys may abut the motte (bipartite or multiple enclosures), and in rare cases the motte even lies separate from the courtyard. Although the motte was protected by one or more ramparts and ditches, the last ditch spanned by a wooden bridge, the main defences were situated on the platform of the mound. Excavations, depictions on the eleventh century Bayeux tapestry, as well as written sources reveal that the edge of the platform at the top of the mound was encircled by a palisade, occasionally with a wall-walk and the central area often carried a tower-like main building; an impressive example of this is the excavated motte of Abiger in Surrey, dated around 1100 (fig. 38). Occasionally one also finds small ancillary buildings on the motte. The central buildings were constructed in wood in the early period. Not infrequently they were replaced by stone towers in the twelfth or thirteenth century. According to documentary sources cellars and store rooms were found on the ground floor, above which was the stately chamber of the lord of the castle, on the second floor were rooms for the children, servants, and the watch-guards, and above this one presumes was a fighting platform.

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