Chapter XI: Norman Builders

The Normans were soldiers and rulers and great builders too. With the white stone, which they found in their own land, they built magnificent cathedrals, abbeys and churches, for they were cunning craftsmen and dreamers.

The Cathedral was vast and grand, with its stately pillars and roof so lofty that it was lost in dim shadows. The master mason, who planned it, took great joy in building and often travelled far to see the works of other men. There are pictures of him with his cap on his head, the sign that he was a master, and his compass in his hand.

All the years of his life, the ironmaster laboured to cast a beautiful peal of bells. One old man died of joy on the day that his bells were first rung, for they were almost perfect.

The Normans, who came to England, did not forget their art. They built Ely Cathedral in the midst of the Fens, and Durham, overlooking the river. "You might see churches rise in every village and monasteries in the towns and cities, built after a style unknown before," says William of Malmesbury.

At first, they built of the rough stone found in the quarries worked by the Romans in other days. Woods were cut down to give fuel for the lime-kilns, and machines were devised for lifting blocks of stone, roads and even waterways were made for this great traffic.

So much work was there for the masons that there were not skilled craftsmen enough in the land to do all that was needed. As the years went by and the people gave to the Church of their riches, more new buildings were made and yet more decoration was used. Organs were built and stained glass of lovely hues was put in the windows, orange and blue and red, colours so rich they seemed almost to have caught and held the sunlight.

A monk, who was also an artist, wrote "Man's eye knoweth not whereon to gaze; if he look up at the vaults, they are as mantles embroidered with spring flowers; if he regard the walls, there is a manner of paradise; if he consider the light streaming through the windows, he marvelleth at the priceless beauty of the glass and at the variety of this most precious work."

So full of riches were these buildings that S. Bernard, and other preachers too, called to the monks to remember their vows of poverty and to return to humbler dwellings like those they had once built where they might worship God.

Round the Saxon earthworks, the Normans built strong walls that they might hold them against foreign foe or angry neighbour. By the rivers and on high rocks, they made great keeps or towers, first of timber, later of stone, where they could withdraw if pressed by foes. The stone walls were often 13 feet thick and round about there was a deep moat. The doorway was of stout oak barred with iron. Over this, they would drop the portcullis, a single grate of iron, worked from a chamber above by cords and chains round a windlass. Across the moat, they flung a drawbridge, which could be raised at pleasure. There were only a few rooms in the keep, storerooms below and chambers in the two stories above, for the Norman lord only sought shelter there in times of siege. In such a tower, he was safe enough if he had plenty of food and a well, secure from the enemy.

Sometimes the Normans built strong walls and another moat round about the keep, and towers where they kept watch by night and day, looking towards the four quarters of heaven lest an enemy should surprise them.

Much later, when the lord brought his family and soldiers to live in the castle, they made it still larger. Storerooms and stables were built round the courtyard and above these were the chambers of the lord and his followers. Here was a fine larder and a kitchen where the ox and wild boar were roasted whole and the mead was brewed and brown bread baked.

There was a great hall where everyone dined and where the servants slept at night. The floor was strewn with rushes, for there were no carpets until the days of Queen Eleanor, and then they were hung on the damp cold walls or put on the tables. Down the centre of the room ran a long table, sometimes fixed to the floor, sometimes on trestles, with wooden benches on either side, covered with osier matting. Under the table, the dogs gathered to gnaw the bones that were flung to them. For the meat was carried round on a spit and each man helped himself with a knife from his girdle.

So strong were these castles that, though the enemy used a ram, it was almost impossible to make a breach in the walls. If they brought scaling ladders, it was difficult to climb when the moat ran below and the archers shot from the ramparts. If they mined beneath the rock, the defenders could make a counter-mine. The besiegers could bring catapults to hurl heavy stones upon the walls, and siege towers to shoot their arrows high. These attacks were usually in vain, for the garrison of a castle only surrendered when there was famine.

These were days of great strife and turmoil, and strong was the King in whose reign it was said that "a man might travel through his realm with his bosom full of gold, unhurt."