Fortress-Policy in Capetian Tradition and Angevin Practice Aspects of the Conquest of Normandy by Philip II

Summary

The Director of these conferences in 1959 first established that the treatment of non-royal fortresses in Britain in the period 1154 to 1216 was sufficiently systematic and purposeful to constitute a ‘castle-policy', in Professor Allen Brown's words, 'consciously directed to the augmentation of royal power, chiefly at the expense of the baronage'.’ Taken together with the programme of royal castle-building under Henry 11, Richard and John (already in 1955 analysed and fimancially quantified) this ‘Angevin castle-policy', by a calculated campaign of seizure, confiscation, escheat and demolition, changed the ratio of royal to recorded baronial castles markedly in favour of the Crown. By the close of 1214, before the Civil War broke out, ninety-three were physically or lawfully in royal possession compared with forty-nine in 1154; in effect, ‘nothing less than a drastic alteration in the balance of power'. Although various documentary estimates of the number of seignorial castles in the later twelfth century have been shown by D. J. Cathcart King's recently published ground-survey to have been too low by a factor of about three, the siegeworthiness of the great majority of unrecorded sites was arguably so slight that Professor Brown's conclusion, on its own terms of reference, is not greatly affected. Whether the ratio in 1214 was two to one, or in fact ten to one, all numerical assessments are vitiated by problems of reconciling modern structural and military criteria with the original usage of castrum and fortericia and by such extraneous factors as manpower, stocking and political will; and it may be that an official presence might be better established by a dense network of administrative bases (even sub-fortified manors) than by a handful of major strongholds, strategically significant perhaps but sparsely scattered, their phases of active service brief and occasional, military value somewhat equivocal, and their construction, guard and repair decidedly bur densome. Territorial power obviously correlated with castle-building; but exactly how, be it psychologically or in contemplation of war, or as the celebration and guarantee of a fait accompli of local dominance, clearly varied in time and place. In addition, there is value in thinking of a fortress-policy, comprehending all kinds of fortifications and especially the walled-towns.

Acknowledging this dimension of Angevin statecraft at once directs attention to seeing how public policy originally in France, and that of the Capetians subsequently, may have intervened in the world of seignorial fortresses.