Topography of Dumfries. 175 



mains. W'ithin three miles we have these four structures. 

 They held the river on either side, and protected the fords, 

 those on the north Ijeing- at Stakeford and Martinton. 



Jean de Cohiiieu, writing' in ii,^o, gives us a description 

 of the mote of Merchcm, near f^ixmude in Fhinders, when 

 relating an incident in the life of John of Warneton, Bishop 

 of Terouenne. " It is the custom," he says, " with the rich 

 men and nobles of this district, because they spend their time 

 in enmity and slaughter, and in order that they may thereby 

 be safer from their enemies, and by their superior power 

 either conquer their equals or oppress their inferiors, to heap 

 up a mound of earth as high as they can, and to dig round 

 it a ditch of some breadth and great depth, and, instead of 

 a wall to fortify the topmost edge of the mount round about 

 with a rampart (vallo) very strongly, compacted of planks of 

 timber, and having turrets as far as possible arranged along 

 its circuit. W'ithin the rampart they build in the midst a 

 house or keep commanding the whole site. The gate of 

 entry can be approached only by a bridge, which, rising at 

 first from the outer lip of the ditch, is gradually raised higher. 

 Supported by uprights in pairs, or in sets of three, which are 

 fixed beneath it at convenient intervals, it rises by a gradu- 

 ated slope across the breadth of the ditch, so that it reaches 

 the mount on a level with its summit, and at its outer edge, 

 and touches the threshold of the enclosure.''^ 



Several of these structures are depicted on the Ba\eux 

 Tapestry, and, to a certain degree, our four motes would 

 conform to Colmieu's description. 



The Conquest of Galloway. 



.Against what foe did the Norman-Scots raise these 

 strongholds? Dr George Neilson, in answer to that ques- 

 tion, has marshalled and brilliantly presented to us a mass 

 of contributory evidence and reasonable conjecture,^'' by 

 which he shows that it was for the subjugation of Galloway. 

 Outpost of the Celt, Dumfries has changed hands and 

 become the outpost of the Norman. Malcolm I\'. made 

 three expeditions against Galloway, and " it may well be 

 that the original Castle of Dumfries was one of Malcolm's 



