At the beginning of the stage where Motte and Bailey castles were built,they consisted of a large mound of earth known as the motte,
and a small wooden fortress known as the keep,
like what is shown below.
The amount of time in which these castles took to build was only 2-3 weeks,for each castle built,
the resources were cheap and quick to build just incase of any unexpected attacks.
Throughout the time (1066-1087) they had much more time to improve the way the castles were built and what resources they made them out of.
This is when the hostility from the Saxons had died down.
These towers were placed at certain places over the country,places where an attack was most likely to take place,such as Dover and Deal,
aswell as the main routeways like Watling street which is why there is a Tower Keep in Rochester,
like shown below.
They began to make them out of stone,so obviously they were alot more stronger than before,
they built Tower Keeps and Shell Keeps,
the tower keeps were alot stronger,but they took alot of time to build aswell as it being more expensive.
So the reason for them building Motte and Bailey castles were to protect the soldiers,and the english found it almost impossible to capture castles.
They used castles as bases aswell.
Rochester was area of strategic importance because it can control the river going through Rochester.
The meanders on the river allowed strategic views.
They had control of the main road to Canterbury,
Watling street,and quite abit of Rochester.
Watling Street is a famous Roman road which crosses the River Medway on it's way from London,Dover and then Canterbury.
We believe that there was a Motte and Bailey castle before the stone because the way that the castle has been built on a hill,
it is evidence since the Motte and Bailey castles were always built on a hill,
They knew that they were more likely to be attacked with a weak attacking point,
And so there would not be such a desperate need to build a stone castle on a steep hill due to it being alot stronger,and more time being spent developing them.
Motte and Bailey castles were vulnerable because although the materials the castles were made out of were good enough to go through a battle,
they were likely to be easily set on fire and the chances of the castle surviving flying rocks were low.
The attackers would have alot of ways to bring the castle down,due to the castle being made out of wood.
In May 1088,the Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent,aswell as many others,decided that they wanted,Robert,William the Conqueror's eldest son to become king,
instead of William Rufus,William the Conqueror's younger son.
Obviously,William Rufus would not have been to happy to hear this.
When William the Conqueror died in 1087 he left Normandy to his eldest son,Robert,and England to his younger son,William.
Odo,Bishop of Bayeux,led a conspiricy to put Robert on the throne,but was besieged in Rochester by the king's army.
While the attack was taking place,it went on for several weeks,the garrison was stuck inside the castle grounds,and disease was spreading around,
killing so many people,they couldn't let this happen anymore.
Also the food supply was getting low,also leading to people dying from starvation.
This just made the garrison feel obliged to make plans,and Odo went exile,
And this may have been as a result to of the incident that Gundulf,Bishop of Rochester,was persuaded to replace the wooden defence walls of Rochester Castle,
with new Curtain walls made out of stone.
There must of been 2 castles which had been built in Rochester,
one of which was a Motte and Bailey castle,and we know this because in the aylesford entry of the Domesday Book,
it mentions 'a castle in rochester' and this statement was written before 1127,and 1127 is when the first stone castles were built.
Shell Keeps were built as stone walls,and they were built around the outline of the wooden keep on top of an old Motte and Bailey,
and this was done for those castles that needed updating,they were also a cheaper and quicker compared to Tower Keeps.
The walls would vary in height from 20-25ft and were from 8-10ft thick.
A Shell Keep is what is shown below.
Every castle had things in common,every castle had a routeway and every castle had a strongpoint where the soldiers could go to keep safe
whilst under attack.Also most castles had a moat or some type of ditch,it would make it a little harder for the enemies to approach the
castle,aswell and them controlling quite abit of the surrounding land around the castle,
And there was always a supply of safe water just incase of a siege.
The Normans improved their Motte and Baileys because they wanted to provide a safer home for all of the soldiers,
also for obvious reasons like the fact they were alot stronger than the Motte and Bailey castles.
Alot more stronger materials were used and were very different to the materials which were used for the Motte and Bailey castles.
The English found it nearly impossible to capture castles,also they used castles as their bases.
My Conclusion is that basically the Nomans built castles to protect the king and his army from attack,
also to intimidate the enemies along with helping themselves with preparation for attacks,
i also believe that the reasons do apply to rochester.
