Talk:Norwich Castle

Domesday Book references

I originally posted this on the discussion page last April. Does anyone monitoring this page have any thoughts?

Referring to the Penguin Classics edition of the Alecto translation I see on folio 116V:Norfolk (which contains part of Norwich Hundred):

... And on the land of which Harold had the soke there are 15 burgesses and 17 empty messuages which are in the occupation of the castle. And in the borough [there are] 190 empty messuages in this [quarter] which was in the soke of the king and earl, and 81 in the occupation of the castle. ...

The phrase "in the occupation" is interesting. The 98 messuages clearly still exist at the date of compilation, for the scribe uses the present tense and is recording that which can potentially be taxed. I wondered at first if this meant that the property had been seized as lodging or barracks, but I have been advised that it may mean that the messuages had been enclosed by the curtain wall of the castle.

I've often seen this quoted as "98 Saxon homes were torn down to make way for the castle", as for instance cited in the main article. This seems to be dramatic license rather than fact from my reading of Doomesday. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Sadly I don't think the Norwich article has regular contributors who might have chimed in there. The source I used when adding this information is Harfield's article: "A Hand-list of Castles Recorded in the Domesday Book". I based the addition on the secondary source's interpretation of the Domesday Book. Harfield says "Typically the number of houses destroyed to make way for the castle is recorded. The numbers vary considerably from four houses at Warwick to ninety-eight at Norwich." Later "In the long introduction to the Norfolk survey there are two references to houses laid waste in NORWICH because of the castle. The first states that seventeen houses were on the castle site, and secondly it is recorded that eighty-one houses lay within the boundaries of the castle grounds, suggesting that a total of ninety-eight houses had been laid waste by the construction of the castle out of a total of 297 houses recorded as destructae or vastae (DBii,ii6b)"

Creighton in Castles and Landscapes gives a more conservative measure (page 140 if you can see it on Google books), giving a figure 17 which were destroyed (the description of the table is "The destruction of urban property by Norman Castle mentioned in the Domesday Book"). In Castles in Context, Liddiard doesn't give a number, but does follow the suggestion that urban castles caused destruction, saying that "The familiar narrative of castle plantation in towns at this time is one of destruction and the domination of the urban population." From the older school of castle studies, R. Allen Brown in Allen Brown's English Castles (page 32) says the "Domesday Book frequently refers to the number of houses or tenements destroyed in towns and cities to make way for castles which thus self-evidently are new (166 at Lincoln, 113 at Norwich)". There is a footnote after Allen Brown's figure, but as I'm looking online because I can't find my paper copy just at the moment I don't know whether he explains how he arrived at that figures or just gives a reference to the relevant parts of the Domesday Book.

If John Goodall covers the effect of urban castles in his latest work English Castles (2011), I have yet to come across it, but having searched the index and the relevant pages he doesn't seem to mention how many buildings (if any) were cleared at Norwich. I prefer Harfield as a source as they at least give a reason, whereas Creighton and Allen Brown don't seem to have bothered (possibly because it wasn't a key point to their argument, unlike Harfield where the details were the point of the article). Perhaps the way to go is to present the range of estimates? Nev1 (talk) 13:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nev, you won't surprised to know I was led here due to the Rochester Castle article where I posted a similar query. My question doesn't really relate to the number, I'll accept 17+81=98 without a murmur, the problem is reconciling "there are ... which are in the occupation of the castle. ... and 81 in the occupation of the castle". Both the tense used and the phrase "in the occupation of" seem to imply they existed at this point. If Harfield is quoting Doomesday as recording them destructae or vastae then either he or the Alecto translator must be wrong. The Alecto edition is claimed to be accurate, but any translation can allow in errors, indeed is virtually only a secondary source. It is notable that Doomesday was surveyed a year or so before Rochester Castle was rebuilt in stone, so it would have referred to the first earth and timber castle. I could well imagine the builders of the palisade simply enclosing existing buildings and evicting the inhabitants, particularly if Tom McNeill's suggestion that these early castles were built to contain a large number of troops in hostile territory is accurate. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the use of the present tense is tricky, and I'm not sure how we can handle it as we're bound by what the secondary sources say. As Harfield is giving the Latin, I would imagine they're using the original and can probably be relied upon for that some buildings were destructae or vastae. Harfield seems to be using a definition of vastae that I can't find. destructae is at least fairly straightforward.

Venturing beyond what the sources explicitly state, I'd say that if the buildings were still standing at the time of the Survey (as the tense would seem to suggest) they were at some point cleared away. The article currently uses the phrase "98 Saxon homes were torn down to make way for the castle", which does imply the homes were removed before the castle was built, but I find it easy to believe as you suggest that a timber palisade may have been quickly thrown up marking the extent of the castle. If the purpose was to create a defensive position then surely creating a perimeter would have taken precedent over clearing the houses on the site.

Given the range of numbers (from 17 to 113) it's clear there are issues of interpretation, and that may include destructae and vastae, but generally the secondary sources seem to accept that buildings on the site of the castle were destroyed as a result of the castle's construction (although perhaps not by the time of the Survey). Maybe we need to be more vague.

Building a castle in a pre-existing settlement could require demolishing properties on the intended site. In the case of Norwich, the most recorded of the 11 urban castles in the Survey, 98 Saxon homes were torn down to make way for the castle.

could be changed to

Building a castle in a pre-existing settlement could require demolishing properties on the site. At Norwich, estimates vary that between 17 and 113 houses occupied the site of the castle.

Nev1 (talk) 14:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

That looks fine to me. I did think the phrase "98 Saxon homes were torn down to make way for the castle" rather too emotive, I prefer your phrasing. Cassell's Compact Latin-English english-Latin Dictionary has vastus -a -um "Empty, waste desolate" from vasto -are. Also destructae is pulled down or demolished as a building term rather than the violence implied by modern English usage. Perhaps the phrase should therefore be "pulled down and emptied", which interpretation supports my earlier guess. We need a Latin scholar! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Accommodation for homeless people

The Normans were invaders who colonised England. Their castles serve as reminders of their tyranny. Let homeless people live in the castle or else use it to tell the story of Norman tyranny in england.Alanalan001 (talk) 13:22, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

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Rhino raid

I heard that robbers were going to steal black rhino horns in January, 2012, though, they were caught. The head was too heavy for the robbers, so they sawed off the horns and dropped the rhino's head, leaving it behind, and they were arrested. IceKevtheElephant (talk) 17:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

proof:

https%www.nationalgeographic<article IceKevtheElephant (talk) 17:52, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Theh just tried leaving with head intact according to BBC news report. The museum then fitted fake horns to the head as described in local newspaper report GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:00, 2 May 2023 (UTC)