ABSTRACT
The origin of the English castle was a question vigorously discussed at the turn of the century, when Clark’s surprising theory that a motte could be equated with one of the burhs built by Alfred the Great. It is certainly true that, in the last quarter of a century, the excavation of mottes has produced some extraordinary results, unforeseen by Ella Armitage or anybody else; but these mainly belong to periods well after 1066. A recent enquiry on the part of the Royal Archaeological Institute into ‘The origins of the castle in England’ led to the publication of so praiseworthy and bulky a set of excavation reports. People know sufficient about the archaeological dating of mottes, ringworks of the castle type, and even homestead moats, to be reasonably sure that no great mass of serious defences of the Saxon period is to be found among any of them.
