ABSTRACT
‘Shell-keeps’ may have shooting-slits, but they themselves are often of a date long after our chosen 1150. The gatehouses and mural towers of this early period are equally without arrowslits, and the merlons of the comparatively few parapets of the date which survive are also unpierced. It was quite natural for antiquaries to look for the reasons for this very substantial change in the methods of defence to the introduction of a more scientific approach from some region of greater martial enlightenment. The massive works over the Seine on the summit are unique, and, being unique, have no part to play in any history of development. The machicolations on the perimeter of the tower, carried on buttresses of inverted-pyramid shape, are not found elsewhere; nor are the extraordinary arrangements of the inner ward, where the curved face of its more approachable sides is made up of a series of round tower-fronts, abutting one against the other.
