DUFFIELD CASTLE. 1 55 



may be safely asserted that, with the exception of a fragment of a 

 wall at Corfe, no military masonry of English work older than the 

 Conquest has yet been discovered. It was only within the century 

 in which they embarked on their conquest, that the Norman nobles 

 began to erect more durable castles, substituting stone, especially 

 in the central work or keep, for the timber and earthwork defences. 

 When William had gained his footing in England, and had speedily 

 overrun so large a portion of the island, his next great care was to 

 make permanent the conquest he had achieved. Accordingly he 

 set about seeing to the defence of each capital city or town, or of 

 each division and district that he had secured, in order that there 

 might be a stronghold to aid in its retention, and to be the nucleus 

 of his forces or of those of his great territorial barons. In the 

 great majority of cases, the sites selected for these castles were 

 naturally the same that, for geographical and other reasons, had 

 been previously chosen for a like purpose by the defeated English 

 or their predecessors. To this rule Duffield was no exception. 

 A great number of the castles were placed on the old demesne 

 lands of the Crown, and the custodians of them were mere officers 

 of the sovereign and removable at will. But others were in private 

 hands, for every baron or great tenant-in- chief was expected by 

 the Conquerer to construct or to repair castles for the security of 

 the lands allotted to them. Henry de Ferrers, the great Mercian 

 landowner under William, selected Duffield, as we have already 

 seen, as the central fortress of his conquered lands. The moral 

 effect on the cowed inhabitants would be considerable, when they 

 saw a gigantic pile being slowly reared upon the knoll that had so 

 long been held for defensive purposes by their own lords. Several 

 of the castles first erected by the Conqueror and his barons were 

 undoubtedly of timber strengthed by earth ramparts, and were 

 merely a slight improvement on the forts they found in such 

 abundance in the conquered land. But in other instances, the 

 newly-acquired art of stone castle building was speedily utilised by 

 the Normans to overawe the island — such were the castles of 

 London, Mailing, Guildford, Carlisle, Bramber, Chester, Goderich, 

 Walden, and Wolvesey. We take it that the great baron of Derby- 



