Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/122

lOG Mediceval Military Arc kite ctttix in England. gumery quod sine dilatione motas suas bonis bretaschiis firmari faciant ad securitatem et defensionem suam et parcium illarum. Teste Rege apud Weston xxx die maii, 9 H iii, 1225." (Close Roll.) The Brut y Tysogion says that the castles of Llandwnyl, Trevuvenv, and Cynfig were begun in 1092 to be built stronger than before ; for before that time castles were of wood, and before long the French- men had built their castles over the whole country. Although it is evident that the moated mound was an English and not a Welsh fortification, yet many of these mounds are found in situations where no English household could have lived, and others, like Tafolwern and Talybont, are known to have been Welsh residences, so that it would seem that the Welsh, finding this form of fortification both simple and strong, easily thrown up, and when burned easy to repair, had recourse to it in imitation of their foes. Almost all the castles in Shropshire on the border were held of Earl Roger, or some Lord Marcher by the tenure of castle guard, and many of the lesser castles had lands attached to them held by the same honourable service. The usual condition was attendance upon the lord in time of war, armed, for a period of forty days, or an engagement to defend and sometimes to repair a particular part of the lord's castle. Lord Coke indeed speaks of tenure by castle guard as always attached to some specific part of a castle. The manor of Hodnet was held by the service of seneschal, and in war by attendance in the outer bailey of Shrewsbury Castle. The inquest on William de Boilers in 1299 shows that he held a tenement in Mariton by the tenure of providing one soldier in war time at the Mote of Poole with a bow and arrow and a bolt for a night and a day. Mr. Eyton takes the Mote of Pool to be Powis Castle, but may it not more probably be the mote which is seen, or was recently to be seen, near the Welshpool railway station } In an old map in 16 10 this mound is lettered, " Domine Castell," and a mill near it the Domen (Tomen, Tumulus, Tump) Mill. The Southern, commonly called the Western March, from its extension in that direction, included the counties of Radnor, Hereford, and Monmouth, the eastern part of Breck- nock, much of Caermarthen and Cardigan, Pembroke and the whole of Glamorgan ; that is to say, the country from the Teme to the Bristol Channel, and the whole seaboard of South Wales from Chepstow to Aberystwith, all which terri- tory was thickly set with castles, the footprints of the Norman, and before him to some extent of the Englishman. Included in South Wales, but in a military point of view